Meditation in Japanese

Again, this is an older post, from mid June, that I didn't get around to posting until now.

This week, I visited Koyasan- this incredibly beautiful tableland in the center of Japan. It’s amazing. Just getting there is crazy. You’re on this railroad that travels, literally, on the tree tops. I’m not exaggerating. We really were at the level of the tree tops. It was weird. I was wondering how they built it. We were up so high and we were on a train, like, someone built these tracks, way up here. And there was a train, an electric train, with people on it, traveling, through the tree tops. I suppose it must have just been built really tall a long time ago and the trees have grown up around it but that doesn’t matter. The end result is that you are traveling through the tops of trees on a train. And that’s just getting there.
Once you get there, it’s like temple town. Apparently, some monk asked for a place to set up and develop the practice of Shingon Buddhism and I think some emperor said “Here, take this land, that should work for you.” And I think it did because the kind of practice they do is actually out in the forest and I think it’s related to nature because the third level of their meditation is picturing the moon and themselves as no longer separate from each other. Either way, the town is filled with temples and they’re all beautiful and they’re all out in nature.
I was fortunate enough to stay at Eko In, this really cool temple run by young monks. Also, I got the best room in the house (the monk even told me so). My room was in the trees, facing the meditation hall. All I could see was trees and I got to sleep with my window open and no one could look in to my room and I had it all to myself and oh- it was absolute heaven. Oh! And don’t even get me started on the food, that was served in our room, and so good!









Anyway, if you ever go to Japan, go to Koyasan, ask to stay at Eko In, and ask for room 5 (ask two weeks in advance to make sure you can stay there).

Now, the reason I actually chose to stay at Eko In in particular was because the Lonely Planet guide had said that they were one of two temples that offered meditation instruction. I thought it would be cool to meditate with the monks there and I assumed it would be meditation like we do at the zen center: first thing in the morning, silent, bow to your cushion, listen for a bell, etc.
It wasn’t. It was at 4:30 in the afternoon. The day that I was there, they actually had a guy who spoke English so we got meditation instruction, and this is how it went (at least, this is how I remember it)

In our practice, Ajikan meditation, we focus on the Sanskrit letter “A” (and he pointed to the Sanskrit letter that was on a sort of small scroll-like thing in the center of the room, and he said Ah). The letter “A” is the first sound that humans utter (mama, papa) and without it, there would be no speech.
He talked a little more about the significance of the letter “A”, about the meaning of the other symbols on the scroll, and three levels of Ajikan and how they help you to reach enlightenment. Then he explained that we would only be doing the first level today. He asked us to sit seiza and to bow to the Buddha image.  
Then he gave the simplest instruction in meditation I have ever seen (now that I think about it, it was kind of like the fukanzazengi):

First, sit down, without your cushion (and he sat, with his legs spread wide).

Next, you bend your left leg, like this (and he took his left leg and bent it so that his foot was touching his inner right thigh).

Then you take your right leg and you place it on your left thigh, like this (and he bent his right leg and lifted up his foot and put it on his thigh).

Now, I have to stop here for a moment.
I’ve never wanted to sit lotus anything- no desire, no need, nothing. Both my teacher at the zen center and my yoga teacher have attempted to help me sit half lotus and, when faced with what my legs do when I attempt it, have backed off of that notion. But when this guy said what he said, I just did it. I actually put my leg in half lotus position. It hurt my ankle a little bit and my right knee was about two inches off the ground but I did it. It was so simple, who wouldn’t?

Next he said that your knees and buttocks must be grounded to the floor and so you use the cushion to help you (and we all grabbed our cushions and put them underneath us and that helped).
Then he showed us how to do the cosmic mudra.
Then he said that our back should not be stiff, like this- and he sat up all rigid and tall. Instead he explained that we must tilt our pelvis out, forward, that it must be stiff but that our belly, should hang down, relax. He reminded us again that our pelvis should be stiff and straight but then we should relax our shoulders and chest. Then he told us to place our head on our spine.
He told us our eyes should not be open or closed. If they are open, they are distracted by the world around us. If they are closed, they are distracted by the things inside us. So, we keep them halfway between the two (and he demonstrated lids half closed).

Then he told us how to breathe:
The first three breaths, you breathe in through your nose as slow and long as you can, then out through your mouth as slow and long as you can. Do this for the first three breaths. After that, you should breathe regular, but you should count: in…out 1, in…out 2, and keep going until you get to 10. When you get to 10, go back to 1. You should not go past ten. We like to count and think we are good or bad but that is not good for meditation so we stop at ten, and go back to 1.

Then he explained about thoughts:
If you think thoughts, you should not say “I am bad for thinking thoughts” or “Don’t think thoughts.” Instead, think of that thought as a leaf on a tree and try to see the whole tree. If we only see the leaf, we get stuck but if we picture a whole forest, we can let go.

Then he got up and said, “I’ll be back later,” and left.
It was hard not to laugh at that comment. I wanted to say “You’ve got some zen in you after all… later indeed, guess we’ll just stop when we stop…”
But I didn’t, I actually started counting. I’ve never counted before, it never worked for me, but that day, I tried it, and it worked- it kept me focused on my breath. Of course, I totally kept count of how many sets of ten I did, 3, and I did lose track a couple of times but mostly, I just counted my breath, in and out, and sat there- half lotus- who knew this was all it would take?

After about 30 minutes a bell sounded, somewhere in temple town, and then some very cheezy music that sounded like the music they play when they show a tranquil jungle in cartoons started playing but the guy didn’t show up. I wondered if these sounds were just random or if they were an intended distraction or if the guy was running late- but then I went back to counting.
Then I heard footsteps and he apparently walked back in the room. He then had us sway our bodies from side to side about 5 times, then from front to back. Then he had us do this cool thing with our hands. He told us to lift our hands up toward our face, palms facing our face. Then he had us trace them down the front of our body, but not touching, then over our legs and finally to the floor- pushing away anything that had come up. We did this two more times. It was kind of a nice way to end our meditation, like we were cleansing ourselves.
Then he explained that enlightenment can take a long time but that meditation can help you to control your emotions, maybe not get so angry or upset. He said that you can do it three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes- however long you want- just take a breath and it may help.
Then we sat seiza again, bowed to the Buddha again, and class was over. 

Wanting a child

This post was written while I was in Japan- about halfway through my trip - I just didn't get around to publishing it until now.

You see kids a lot in Japan- and for some reason, they all look really happy. You also see moms, with their kids in Japan- a ton of them wearing those ergo baby backpacks. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t speak the language here so all I see is physical affection between moms and kids or all I see is pleasant interaction because I don’t understand a word they’re saying to each other. But I am seeing a lot of moms with kids and what I see is love, affection, happiness, joy. It’s like these little running-around-bundles-of-life followed by these nurturing, supporting, grownups. And those little bundles of life seem to actually make the moms smile and laugh; like the moms seem kind of resigned, but in a good way, to just supporting those kids to be little bundles of life: exploring water and birds and steps and the physical realities of life with a sense of wonder, discovery, and pure joy.

Last night, I was thinking about how I knew that I would never want to raise a child as a single parent, that I knew how difficult it was to raise a child on your own. But that difficulty, that sense of being overwhelmed or trapped by caring for children, wasn’t matching what I was seeing in Japan. I started to realize that my association with parenting was based on stories I had about parenting, about what children are to their parents.

My mom died when I was young, and my father never remarried. At the time, people were often surprised by this: single parents were uncommon in the seventies, especially a single father. My brother and I often laugh about the fact that everyone seemed surprised that my dad hadn’t shipped us off to boarding school. And, to be honest, the only stories we read when we were growing up that actually matched our experience- a mother dying, a father “left” with the children- were those Grimm fairy tales. And in those tales, the story was that the children were a burden to the father, that he had no choice but to marry an evil stepmother, and that the kids were a constant source of strife between the two, with the stepmother trying to either kill or lose the children in the forest somewhere. My father never said we were a burden to him but society, fairy tales, and the looks on the faces of others when I told them that my father was raising me on his own lead me to believe that I was darn lucky not to be sent away and that I’d better earn my keep if I wanted to stay around.

I hadn't noticed this before, how much this story affected my perception of raising a child. But what I also noticed was that that association, was changing. As I saw all these moms running around, loving their children, I started to see that parents can love their children, that they can enjoy raising them, that it can be a pleasure to support another person to just be, just grow, just discover this world and who they are in it.

I also noticed how the kids seemed to make their parents laugh and smile. I saw that kids can be a source of happiness for their parents, that their wonder and silliness and cluelessness about the world can sometimes bring this same sense of joy and wonder to their parents. The moms just seemed to like running around behind their kids, waiting while they touched water or chased ducks- like it was okay for kids to be just doing what they are doing and that the moms were okay supporting them- that the kids weren't keeping the moms from getting things done.

Who knows, maybe all these moms were totally thinking about their shopping lists or the friends they were meeting or the troubles they were having with their husbands- I didn't see any of that. All I saw was love and joy.
And that made me want to be a mom again. It made me see that parents can enjoy parenting, that I can have a child and it won't be a burden to me, it can bring me joy and life and I'm sure it can bring me suffering too but that it isn't only about this thing- being put on you- because someone died.
I think that really is what I felt like. I think I really did think I was a burden to my dad. He never said this and I know that if I asked him he would say that I was never a burden to him, that raising me was what he did, he was my father and for all the stuff that came with it, he did it, we did it together.
He might even say that I brought him joy- though that would be atypical of him, not because I didn't bring him joy but because he doesn't say things like that- I don't know that he's ever uttered the phrase "brings me joy." But he actually has said that he takes credit for raising me (since I was the youngest so he still played a big role in raising me after my mom died) and that it is a good credit- that he thinks that I am the combination of the best of him and my mom.
So maybe my six year old self made him laugh a few times or that when my needs came up and interrupted the things he needed to do as a single parent of three children, maybe it was okay, maybe he was okay with it.

And now I am in Japan

This is an older post- written about two weeks after I arrived in Japan. I'm including it because I think that this experience- of being completely lost and having absolutely no reference, no familiarity, no labels or associations to cling to or be part of- helped me to just see myself for exactly what I was doing, not within a continuum of identity, labels, or success/ failure as a person.

I arrived in Nara, this morning, after a 45 minute train ride which I took backwards because, well, everyone else was facing that way so I figured they knew what they were doing… I had planned to arrive in Nara early so that I could spend the day sightseeing (there is a famous huge Buddha statue here and some beautiful temples) because I knew that I needed to leave Nara early the next day in order to get to Koyasan (my next destination). But then, it started raining, and raining, and raining and still, it is raining. So I am in Nara early, with nothing to do but watch the rain (because it is monsoon season so rain is, well, rainy).
When I got here, I knew that it would be a little tricky to find the Ryokan because they are usually in residential areas. (Ryokans are, basically, Japanese homes turned into places to stay.  The closest equivalent in the US would be a bed and breakfast but they’re not so Vermonty- quaint). However, I also knew that I was supposed to take the number 1 bus and I knew the name of the stop I was getting off at. So, I walked over to the number 1 bus stop, saw a sign that showed a circular route around Nara that actually had my bus stop on it, and waited.
The first bus that showed up was a number 57 and a bunch of people got on it, including two English speakers. I figured this was the one and confirmed with the driver by showing him my piece of paper with the name of the bus stop written on it. He seemed confused at first, then pointed across the road. At the same time, the English speakers seemed to be confirming that, in fact, this was the right bus because it stopped at Nara Park. I wasn’t actually going to Nara Park but I figured it was part of the loop so I stayed on the bus.
From the map the ryokan had sent me, I knew that the stop was about three stops away from the train station. After the third stop, it became pretty clear to me that we were not going to stop at my stop and I was not on the right bus. But I figured it was a loop so if I stayed on long enough, it would bring me back to the train station and I could try again.
I was wrong. It kept going until it got to a tourist attraction and then it ended. We all had to get off. Fortunately, there was a family there from Hong Kong who also needed to get to the station and together we figured out that bus number 70 would get us there- we just had to wait.
Low and behold, the 70 showed up and we got on it. About three intersections later, I saw in front of us, at the other train station stop, bus number 1. I considered asking my bus driver if I could get off and get on the number 1 in front of us but with my absence of any Japanese, I realized it would be impossible to explain that so I just stayed on.
“At least I know that there is a number 1 bus,” I thought to myself.
We finally stopped on a random corner and the driver announced that it was the train station. I was incredulous but got off anyway and then, once I turned around, saw that in fact we were just across the street from the train station. So, I made my way back to the train station, determined to just stand there, and wait until bus 1 pulled up, and then get on it. I saw bus 2, and that was encouraging so then I started looking at the bus signs, to see if they said where to stand for each bus. Each spot actually had a list of buses that stopped at it but none of them said 1. I finally found a chart that showed all the stops and all the bus numbers and discovered that bus 1 stopped at number 11. I searched the station for #11 and found everything up to 9 and 10…
Finally, I approached a man in a hat and uniform and said I was looking for bus 11, then I said, NO, bus 1, and put up my finger, 1. He smiled and pointed across the street. There, on the corner, were the final two bus stands: 11 and 12. I happily walked across the street (like I should have from the beginning when the first bus driver directed me over there) and waited with the other passengers. Once the bus arrived, I showed the driver my little note pad and he confirmed that he was going there. I watched as the monitor showed, in English, what the next stop was. Mine finally showed up, I pushed the button, and the bus driver stopped for me.
The bus stop was simply a post, on the side of the road, with the name of the bus stop written on it. It wasn’t a major intersection, there weren’t any shops, there was no apparent reason to stop there other than the fact that it was a stop on this bus line.
The directions had said, “Get off the bus, turn left at the lights, and walk about 150 meters to the ryokan.” So I did just that: I walked to the light and turned left. In front of me was a narrow street, lined with buildings all marked with signs in Japanese.

I couldn’t tell one building from another- which was someone’s home, which was a restaurant, which was an office… I was lured by the white and green sign that was lit up but then I realized it had a P on it so I decided it was actually just a parking lot. As I got closer I realized that, in fact, it was. Then I hoped it was a parking lot for the ryokan, but it wasn’t. There wasn’t any apparent ryokan in sight. Also, it was still raining, like, pouring raining, and I was soaked from when we had to get off the bus and wait for the other one and in walking and, just, in general.  But there was nothing I could do: I was on a tiny residential street at the complete mercy of signs that I could not read.

“Now, I am in Japan,” I thought. “Everyone around me speaks Japanese, everything around me is written in Japanese, all of the buildings are Japanese.”
So I kept walking, with no choice other than to wait until the ryokan appeared; though I honestly wasn’t sure I would recognize it when it showed itself. Unless there was something English about it, I could easily walk past it and have no idea that I was doing that. I considered the meters to feet conversion and wondered when I would know that I had gone too far. I just kept walking until, finally, I saw a white sign similar to the sign that had been outside the ryokan I had stayed at in Masumoto. It had Japanese characters on it but below it, it also had the kanji: Sei Kan So.

 
I breathed a sigh of relief and looked around the sign to try to figure out which building was the ryokan. The really nice one with the pretty pagoda had a chain across the driveway with a nice car in it so I figured that wasn’t it. Then I saw another one with a sign that said Sei Kan So information and I knew that was it.
I walked up, put my bag down, and was greeted by the owners: “Check in time is three, we can take luggage.” (it was 12:30).
“Okay,” I said. “Is there a place I can sit? It is very wet.”
They seemed a little disappointed by this but then got busy doing things: getting a plastic bag to put under my luggage so that I could set it down, pulling out their hanging rack so that I could hang my jacket on it. They invited me to hang my jacket, put my luggage down, and told me that the room was not ready, then gestured toward the lobby.
I thanked them and thought I was supposed to check in and so approached the office area but they gestured toward the lobby again. So I said, “Okay, check in at 3,” and they smiled and went back in to their office.
I sat down on the couch in the lobby to a view of a beautiful Japanese garden and continuous rain. So, I went back to my bag, grabbed my laptop and now I am wet and typing and, well, probably won’t end up seeing that big ol’ Buddha statue after all. Oh well, at least I am finally in Japan.

One must be wise, but not puffed up

I have to say that this is my all-time absolute favorite translation: puffed up. It’s within this important text (Loving Kindness Meditation) of how you should be and the text itself has all these lofty goals about loving everyone and conducting yourself in a manner that, like, befits moral perfection and in all this grandiosity is the phrase: puffed up. It cracks me up- that there wasn’t any other word for it than puffed up. It makes me happy that within all these lofty goals there is the very concrete, simple phrase: puffed up.

Anyway, this phrase came up for me as I was struggling to see myself. See, I was noticing that what was coming up for me in zazen was basically me, waving my hand in the air saying, See me! See me! I was wanting people to read my blog and comment on it. I was fantasizing about people at the zen center talking about me at dinner. I was imagining people talking about me, when I wasn’t there, but in a good way. I wanted to be the talk of the town. And I figured that all of this was coming from me, not actually seeing myself.
So then I actually started trying to see myself. It was hard at first, because I was afraid of what I was seeing. I saw that I came to the zen center a lot and that scared me. I saw that I meditated each day and that made me uncomfortable.
When I talked with my therapist about this- about how afraid I was of both these things- she pointed out that my fears might be coming from the associations that I had with these things and also my tendency to think that if I did these things, that I would be a certain person or a certain way. And so she suggested that when I looked at myself, when I saw what I was doing, that I see myself just in that moment: Right now I am meditating, that’s all. It doesn’t mean I’m a meditator or that I’ll do this forever but right now, I am meditating.
And that helped a lot. I actually started seeing myself: right now, I am skipping my recess to talk with two little girls about their friendship and how it has changed over the course of the year. Right now, I am calling my sister, way past my bedtime, because things are happening and she needs someone to talk to. And it helped- I actually started seeing the things about myself that people had been telling me all along: I am a good teacher, I am a good friend, I listen.
But then I got kind of worried. I was noticing that all I was seeing was the good things about myself. It seemed like a bad idea, like I was starting to get puffed up. But at the same time, I knew that these were the very things that I needed to see about myself if I really was going to accept myself- because they were truths about me-whether or not I had been taught to not see good things about myself (which I think I have- I think that may be where my reluctance in accepting good things about myself comes from, I don’t really know.)

And then, this funny thing happened. I was listening to Paul’s dharma talks on-line when he was doing the practice period at Tassajara. I listened to a bunch of them, in sequence one week, and the same thing kept coming up for me. In each talk there would come a point, or a few times, when Paul would say something, and immediately after it, he would say “And now I’ve confused you.” Or, he would preface something he was about to say with, “Now, this probably won’t make sense but…” And every single time that he said either of these things, the teaching that he gave resonated with me perfectly. I fully understood this thing that he was saying was confusing.
And when I noticed this, I started to have this notion of myself as having this superior understanding of the dharma. I had this idea that because I had come to practice with no intent of studying it, of never reading any books or intentionally practicing Buddhism in itself, because my practice had only been applied practice- not that 'removed study of Buddhism that everyone else was doing'- that my understanding of it was deeper, and that’s why I totally understood what Paul was talking about. And, to be honest, I felt like Paul and I were companions in our understanding of the dharma- how’s that for puffed up?
 And that’s what I said to myself, “Dude- you’re totally going off on yourself. You think you’ve got this great wisdom and that all those people in the audience at Tassajara don’t. You think you’re all that- get over yourself.”
But I didn’t know what to do because what I was getting puffed up about, had actually happened. Paul said those things, he said they were confusing, and they totally made sense to me. How could I deny that? It was really was what I was doing- it really was what was happening.
And then another voice popped into my head and said. “What if that dharma talk had been about the paramitas, or about Buddhist history, or about some sutra- you would have been totally lost. You would have listened, but it would have gone over your head. Those things just don’t interest you- it’s not how you came to practice.”
And when I heard those words- it’s not how you came to practice- I started to see that that’s all that this was. This was how I came to practice. I came to practice in a way that when Paul said those things, they resonated with me. My connection to them doesn’t come from a superior knowledge, it just comes from the way that I understand Buddhism. My understanding is no better than any other understanding- it’s just how I understand things. Reading texts, studying sutras, studying Buddhism one way or another- they’re all different, not better or worse, just ways of doing it.
And then I saw that I could accept this about myself as just this is myself, this just is who I am, this just is how I got here. It’s me- not good me or bad me just how I am at this point right now.
And it continues to help me. In the same way that not having judgment or evaluation allows us to see the things about ourselves that we don’t like, seeing our behaviors or attitudes or activities as just- is, not good or bad, allows us, well, allows me, to see all of myself, even the things that I think are "good."

The One

I used to think that I knew who was best for me. I thought I knew what kind of guy I liked, who would be healthy for me in a relationship, who would be a good match in terms of a life-long partner. Honestly, what I thought, was that I needed a guy who was outgoing and friendly, who was attentive to me, openly affectionate, easy with praise, who adored me but in a genuine way. Perfect guy, right?

But lately, I have been seeing, that maybe that isn’t true. What I have been seeing is that even though in my head “that guy” is a good match for me, I have no idea what it would be like to actually be with that guy. And in the mean time, there are these other guys, who are not that guy, and I won’t see them. I’ve pretended to see them. I’ve hung out with them or gone on dates with them and I have done this, “considered” them, with the genuine intent to “be open to whatever happens” to “let the universe present itself” to me. But in all honesty, what I’ve done on these “dates” is just confirmed that they are not “that guy.” I haven’t actually considered that this guy might actually be good for me.
In both these cases, I haven’t been open to what the person was offering, or being. I haven’t just shown up and noticed myself around this person, felt how I feel with them, without discrimination of whether or not they are right for me, without evaluation of whether or not they are “the one.” Instead, I have either been disappointed that they didn’t meet my image of them (when I go on the date with the guy who seems like the perfect match) or I just end the night thinking “Yep, I was right, he’s not the one for me.”
But if I am honest with myself, if I am going to trust myself to “find” someone who actually is compatible with me, I need to feel how I feel with them- just notice how we are together. I think that’s what makes for your life partner- not what you think of them but how you are together. But I think you have to be willing to spend time with anyone and that in that time, you have to actually see that person- just as they are, not as they fit or don’t fit into what you think you need in a person. Because really, I don’t think we know what kind of person we should be with, I think we just feel it when they come along.

Real love

The next day, I had a long bus ride, followed by a long train ride, and an interesting thing happened: my fantasies became more realistic.
Yep, I have fantasies. I make up stories about myself and other people only, they're real people, people that I know. But usually, when those people are in my fantasies, they're way better than in real life, and so am I, and so is our relationship. (Actually, our relationship is usually a little strange. I often meet a guy, we fall madly in love, I accidentally get pregnant, he initially wants to stay with me and then something awful happens in our relationship and we end up splitting up and I raise the kid alone. My friends have pointed out that this sounds more like a nightmare than a dream but for some reason, it's my fantasy).
So, I'm on the bus, making up a fantasy and this time, I'm at the movies with a guy. It's our first date, he's picked the movie, and it's some artsy film that ends up having several scenes involving violence. When we get to the violent parts, I cover my eyes and wait for it to be over.
In my normal fantasy, the guy would put his hand on my leg to comfort me and sweetly whisper to me 'the bad part's over' with an affection in his voice.
But in this fantasy, he turns to me and says, "If I had known you were going to cover your eyes in the violent parts, I wouldn't have invited you to the movie."
To which I respond, "If I had known it was a violent movie, I would have asked that we see a different one."
To which he simply grumbled, and turned back to the movie.
As we walked out of the movie, we discussed what had happened- he pointing out the ridiculousness of me covering my eyes- it's just a movie after all -and me asking him why it was a problem for him for me to cover my eyes. This made him think, and then he said, "I felt bad that you had to cover your eyes. I didn't know it would affect you that much."
To which I said, "It didn't affect me- my eyes were covered, that's why I do it." And then I added, "I know you didn't take me to a violent movie on purpose. I know you like artsy movies and that's why I came to this one- to kind of see your kind of movie. I wasn't expecting it to be violent either."
And then we went on with our night.

In that same fantasy, when I tell him that I am pregnant, and ask him what he thinks, he says, "Well this is a huge inconvenience. The plans I had are impossible now. I can't possibly do them- this changes everything."
I am devastated by this but explain to him that it doesn't have to be that way, he doesn't have to take care of this child, that I am just fine taking care of this child on my own and he can move on and get back to what he was doing before he met me.
This infuriates him. "How could you suggest that I don't want this child? How could you suggest that I would leave or that I wouldn't want to be part of its or your life? All I said was that it was an inconvenience and that it changes everything, because it does. I never I said I wanted to leave, I never said I didn't want this child."
And then I'm speechless and we have a really long awkward silence and several awkward weeks as we navigate this confusing part of our relationship.

Later, in that same fantasy (it was a long train ride) we are intimate...in a clothing free way. In this encounter, I remark upon the solid form of his butt and explain that I too am capable of having such a butt, but that currently, it is in a less than solid form.
He responds to this by saying "Your butt is fine," and walks into the bathroom.
I freak out, because I know my butt isn't fine.
"Why are you saying that?" I ask him.
"Because your butt is fine," he calls from the bathroom.
But this really freaks me out because I know that my butt isn't fine.
I don't ask him again, because I know he's going to have the same answer, but I immediately picture him, drifting away from me. His response, that my butt is fine, signals to me a removal from our relationship, an apathy, a carelessness of response, an unwillingness to tell me the truth because of the consequences of it.
I go to bed instead, with my back to his side of the bed, and curl up into the fetal position, isolating myself from his impending separation from me; fearing that he has lost interest and is ready to move on to someone else.
He climbs in to bed, notices my back turned and asks what is wrong.
"I just don't understand why you're lying to me," I say. "I don't want you to lie to me," I explain.
He heaves a frustrated sigh. "I'm not lying to you," he says through clenched teeth. "Your butt is fine. It's not the butt of a twenty- five year old, it's the butt of a forty- two year old. I don't expect it to be anything different than that. That's why I said it was fine, because it is."
And then he turns his back to me.

And it was at that point in the fantasy that I realized that I actually did want a real relationship. That what I liked most about this fantasy was that it was real- that we were honest with each other and that I was myself. I discovered that honesty was more appealing to me than easy praise. I saw that I could be myself, my quirky and maybe less than beautiful parts of myself, had a place in relationship too and that I wanted these to be accepted too and that they could. I saw how much openness and willing to stay in conflict made me trust this person's love for me- made me believe what he said, made me want to bring my whole self to our relationship.

The fantasy went on. We continued to have a life together in which our differences frequently caused conflict and in which we discussed our disappointments in how things were working out. But we also talked openly about what we could do about it, making changes as we could, accepting things that we couldn't, and working our way through it. It wasn't always pleasant but I learned a lot about myself: that I had a lot to offer to a relationship, as who I am. I also saw that I want someone who sees all of me, who knows that I'm not perfect but who helps me to see who I am, by being honest with me about who we are together.

Love's illusions

After my hike to the hut, I found myself on the valley floor with an entire day in front of me. Though it made sense to go back to my hotel room after such an emotionally moving experience and physically strenuous hike, I really didn't feel like going home yet.  So, instead of turning left and returning to my hotel, I turned right, and followed the trail that lead to a series of ponds.
As I was walking along the trail, a strange compulsion emerged in me: a compulsion to sing. The song that was welling up inside of me was Both Sides Now- a song that I remembered from my childhood. I distinctly remember listening to it in the corner of my room on my little record player.
I was surprised by this compulsion to sing. It wasn't a sing-out-loud-joyful compulsion, it wasn't an expression of happiness or self, it was a physical compulsion to move this song from my abdomen, up my esophagus and throat, and then out my mouth in to the world.
And so, I opened my mouth and started to sing the song the way I remembered it:
Moons and Junes and ferris wheels
the dizzy dancing way you feel
when every fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way

But when I did this, each time I sang "Moons and Junes..." I choked up: my throat constricted, my voice wavered, I felt like I was going to cry, but then I didn't.
I didn't understand this- why would my body want me to sing, but then not let me? It didn't make sense, so I tried a couple more times. I tried to sing, but each time the song got to my throat, it would falter and waver and when it came out of my mouth, it was weak and broken.
So then I decided that it was the out loud part of things that was tripping me up- that it was hearing the sound of my own voice that was causing me to choke up. I wondered if it was the sound of my own voice, the sound of a grown woman singing this song from my childhood that was difficult for me.
See, my mom must have sung to me when I was little. I have only a few memories of her and I've often struggled to determine which ones are actual memories of the event and which are ones that people have told me about. But one of the few memories that I know that I have, is of singing the lyrics from Somewhere Over the Rainbow: "If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow why oh why can't I?" with my mom, in my room, with that same record player. I know it's true because no one else was there, so they couldn't have told me about it.
So when I heard my voice singing, I wondered if I was mourning the loss of my mom- that in hearing my voice singing instead of hers, that I was feeling the transition of myself into her position, that I was a grown woman and she was no longer in that position of mothering me, of singing to me, that I played that role now.
So then I tried singing again, to experience this loss, this movement forward, this acceptance of myself as a grown woman, whose mother was dead.
But the same thing happened- I could move the song up my abdomen but I couldn't actually sing it, I could only slightly chokingly falteringly utter the words somewhat melodically.

So then I decided that apparently, it was too much for me right now, that I was overwhelmed by this and just didn't have the tools to experience it, so I let it go.
But then I remembered when something like this had happened before- when I felt too overwhelmed by my feelings about my mom to experience them and had let them go only to long for them later, to wish that I had experienced them when they had come up.
So I tried again.
This time what I noticed, was the lyrics. What I noticed was that I seemed to be able to sing the 'moons and junes and ferris wheels' part of the song, but that when I got to the next part, it was almost impossible.
(The lyrics that I was singing turn out to be a mixup of different parts of the song- some from the first section, some from the last, but this is what I struggled to sing):

I've looked at love that way

But now they only block the sun
they rain and snow on everyone
so many things I could have done
but clouds got in my way

I've looked at love from both sides now
from up and down
and still somehow

it's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

And it was that last lyric, I realized, that was tripping me up: It's love's illusions I recall, I really don't know love at all.
I suddenly pictured my mom, in our house, with the three of us away at school. At the same time, I recalled the diary entries of hers that I had read; ones that she written when she was in her twenties, and dating. I recalled her entries about her disappointment in the men after the dates, about her ideals of what she wanted in a boyfriend/ partner and her desire to hold out for those- to keep searching until she found them.
For some reason I started crying, and then I spoke to my mom, "I'm sorry it didn't turn out for you. I'm sorry you didn't get what you wanted. I'm sorry you didn't get the true love and affection and attention you deserved."
And then I made a promise to my mom: "I promise to hold out for true love- the love that I deserve- to be seen and appreciated and loved for who I am."

And then I thought about my friends who are in relationships, who are married. I realized that their relationships aren't perfect- they aren't the idealized relationships that we imagine when we are little or even when we are in our twenties. They aren't always harmonious, it's not one person totally loving the other person and everyone getting along all the time. It's struggle and difficulty and people being themselves but it's also people listening to each other, learning from each other, adjusting as they learn about each other but also needing to be themselves- it's intimacy, it's sticking around to make things work, even when it's difficult.
And I realized that that was a real relationship. That at one point in our lives, we all have our illusions of love shattered- we see that it isn't what we thought, but that what we experience is a truer love, a love between two people trying to see each other, to understand each other, to make their lives work, together.

And then I was able to sing. I sang the lyrics again: It's love's illusions I recall, I really don't know love, at all.
And I saw that I was only seeing love's illusions- that I was only seeing my fantasy of a relationship, what I wanted in a relationship, not an actual relationship. If I wanted to experience real love, I needed to step out in to relationship- to falter, to make mistakes, to share myself, to allow someone to stick around even when I was 'undesirable.' And I saw that I could do this- I could look beyond love's illusions and experience real love between myself and another person.