I’ve belonged to a small online meditation group for the last two years taught by Donald Rothberg, a psychologist and major teacher on socially engaged Buddhism. He comes from a long line of nonviolent activists and really merits a separate blog post. Donald was very close friends with Joanna Macy, an environmental activist and Buddhist scholar who died last month at age 96. Joanna led the development of a collective grief ritual, for world events, the Truth Mandala.
At our request, Donald led the ritual with our online group of seven people, to deal with the current democracy crisis in the U.S. There are four phases of the ritual. During the first phase, people talk about gratitude. The second phase is opening to the pain of the world. The third is seeing in a different way, and the fourth phase is to “go forth into the world”. We completed the first three phases. Participation was optional at all times.
Most experience meditation practitioners have a gratitude practice. We all shared during this phase, such as for our health, personal safety, music, and the beauty of nature. Then we opened ourselves to the pain of the world expressing feelings of sorrow, fear, anger, and confusion, the four segments of the Truth Mandala. People spoke when they felt like they had something to share, after which, the group said, “We hear you.” It’s simple but it was also very deep. Since what people say in our group is private, I will only share my own feelings. I expressed sadness and anger at the cruel actions of the government and people in support of it as well as the apparent enjoyment in it, as if it were a game. I shared my sadness that so many were disconnected from activism because it is too painful to act or because anxiety and anger have led them to hopelessness.
Although the second phase was painful, by the third phase, when there were some people able to share a different kind of seeing. For example, I expressed fear and confusion about the outcome of our democracy but clarity about my immediate next steps as an activist. I also shared that I view myself as having resources to draw on for activism given my age, race, economic security, and emotional resilience. Others appeared to be in deep despair and chose not to speak. I could see a lot of pain in their eyes and body language. I have spent a couple of years with these people and they have wisdom and fortitude.
I saw their distress and I felt it. I wondered if I should not have shared about my sadness that more people were not engaged in activism. I know how people are, especially emotionally sensitive people. They often don’t think they are doing enough even when they are doing a lot. I didn’t want to make anyone distressed with my statements. Then I thought, “Well, this is the truth mandala. This is true for me and is not targeted toward anyone in the group.”
Most of us in this country are going through collective grief, which has intensified with the second Trump administration. Many are familiar with the late Swiss American psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’ work on death and dying, in particular, the stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. An important thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that this stage model was never meant to be a strict progress toward a final end point of acceptance.
I realized that what was making me most distressed was that although my meditation group was in shared grief, we were not all experiencing it in the same way at that moment. We typically share about our perspectives on an individual experience, not on a world event.
I am often distressed by other activist’s distress, the distress that results along the lines of “we’re doomed” or beliefs that there is only one answer to the problems we are facing. People can be so sure that they have the right answer and everyone else is wrong. My right answer is that there is not just one, even when we share guiding principles of non-violence, building an inclusive, “We, the People”, democracy, and respecting the Earth and living things.
A teaching I am taking out of the Truth Mandala is to recognize that some of the disconnect I often feel with others who also want a better world, is a difference in the way we are grieving, in that moment. I can respect that. I can also respect that grief changes.
My friends, however you are grieving, I am working to honor and validate it.
I don’t know a lot right now. The world is on a precipice, most notably, the ongoing administrative coup in the U.S. “Administrative” makes it sound like we are being taken over by binders and checklists. Instead, we’ve had flagrant law breaking by Donald Trump, who told us he was going to be horrible not to mention being horrible in his first term, ending it with a violent coup attempt. Somehow, enough people voted for him, anyway.
One of my psychologist friends who is originally from Ukraine, immigrated to the U.S. as a child, when the then U.S.S.R. allowed some Jews to leave the country. My friend told me that to protect their safety, her parents could not tell her that they were leaving the country until the day they left. She remarked to me that living in the U.S.S.R. was different than the U.S. because there was no sense that laws, police, or other institutions offered any stability or protection.
The U.S. has always offered more safety to some people than others. However, with a strong democracy, there were mechanisms in place to evolve toward a more just and inclusive multi-cultural society. The Trump administration has been attacking our democracy at alarming speed. Federal government workers are being fired en masse, departments are being dismantled, money is being sucked out of our government, and our personal data is being mined by young tech super fans of Elon Musk. Incompetent and malevolent people are being put in charge of cabinet positions. They are the worst people for the job that you could possibly imagine. The President is putting tariffs on foreign products including China and he insists that the lack of ships in major port cities like LA and Seattle is “good” because “it will save us money.” Talk of invading Greenland and making Canada our 51st state are discussed on a daily basis. ICE agents are kidnapping people off of the streets and out of their homes claiming that they are in this country illegally. Even if they were, this would be against the law and our Constitution. All of it is illegal. Everything that I love about the U.S. and humanity, in general, are under attack.
I don’t know how this will play out. How long will it take for “We, the People”, to reclaim this democracy. Will it take months, years, or decades? What I do know is that a lot of regular U.S. citizens are rising to the ideal of “We, the People”. The resistance is stronger this time and thank goodness, has been non-violent so far. We are using a wider variety of resistance strategies, not just marches. We are calling our representatives, boycotting companies, and there are unions who have begun general work strikes. In terms of company boycotts, Tesla has been internationally boycotted and it is working! I also see our historically allied countries banding together and standing up. I am cheering them on.
I have been spending the last several years identifying my democracy priorities as well as identifying the resources I have that are best suited to them. A huge asset that I have in terms of civil resistance is my anonymity, level of education, age, race, and relative financial security. I am not a high profile person. I am smart and can learn about the best people and institutions to follow for effective leadership in resistance. Although I work, I am an empty nester and I have more time and less family responsibility than I had in the past.
Finally, I know that in all of this ongoing and impending disaster, there is something beautiful to see or experience every day.
The global rise of fascism continues its assault on the U.S. and Donald Trump is the President-Elect. The fire hose of misinformation is real. Racism is real. Sexism is real. All of the isms and phobias are real. Identification with the aggressor is real. Male White Christian Nationalism and oligarchy are well nourished in this country. They benefit no one, not even billionaires. The U.S. is a powerful country and our choices, as a country, have global implications. Up is down and down is up.
My heartbreak is real as is my disillusionment and anger. But other things are real, too.
The grassroots efforts in the last 8 years have been outstanding, especially leading up to this election. Millions and millions of people voted for democracy and a path forward. Despite the losses, there is still a path forward. I knew that it was going to be long, but it is longer.
Love is powerful and always right. No one can take that away. No one can take away our action.
Today may seem hopeless. That is a natural reaction but we don’t know the future, we never do. Do what you need to take care of yourself and honor your grief. Our work is cut out for us and I know that action, persistence, and more patience than we think we have, but really do have, is needed.
At times like this, I look to my mother, who is 90 years old and has lived through just about everything. I also look to the resilience and organization of oppressed people in our nation, for example, African Americans, who have worked so hard over centuries despite unbelievable hardship and multi-generational trauma.
We can do this. We can love each other and treat each other kindly. We can put one foot in front of the other and make good decisions every day.
Tomorrow is an extremely important election in these “unprecedented times”. It seems that since 2016, the U.S. has been living in an unprecedented era and since the U.S. is so powerful, we have pulled the rest of the world along with us.
I am tired of the brand of “unprecedented times” that we have endured. The country has been threatened by greed, hatred, and delusion. If Trump is elected again, all of the gains of the last 4 years, not to mention the U.S. progress of the last 100+ years, will go backwards. In contrast, we have a great democratic candidate, one that is emphasizing freedom, inclusion, and working for the People. VP Harris will build on the gains of the Biden administration, which have frankly, been unappreciated. Her campaign is supported by so many people, including prominent Republicans. If Kamala Harris wins, we will live in a different kind of “unprecedented times”. She will be the first female President and the first President with Southeast Asian heritage.
I’ve sent out my 1000 get-out-the-vote letters, made months of contributions, voted, and spread the word as have many democrat volunteers. The grass roots efforts have been strong. Let’s do this.
My 40th High School Reunion is this year. Somehow, I was asked to be on the reunion committee 10 years ago for the 30th reunion. I agreed to be the administrator for our reunion Facebook group. One of the things I did besides helping people reminisce was to acknowledge birthdays. People liked it, a lot of us had fun at the 30th reunion, and I kept celebrating birthdays. I was surprised at how appreciated it was by people, these small acts of kindness. Consequently, I have kept posting about my classmates’ birthdays for the last 10 years.
I was contacted by one of the heads of the reunion committee to ask if I would continue my role as reunion promoter for our 40th reunion. Given my health risks, the fact that I have no one who can cover for me at work if I get sick, and the fact that I work with kids who are also at high risk for severe or long Covid, I avoid crowded indoor gatherings. And knowing that there are Trump supporters who are likely to attend the reunion, I don’t want to get harassed for wearing a mask.
I told the reunion committee member that I was happy to help, regardless, but that my attendance was going to depend on the venue, basically, whether it was indoors or outdoors. Her response was, “You have to come! You’re our girl! You deserve to be there!”
I had breast cancer in 2012 and two heart attacks in the space of 8 days caused by Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection (SCAD) in 2017. I didn’t expect these diseases at the ages I was, 46 and 51 years, respectively. Treatment, recovery, and facing my mortality was painful and scary. I try to live my life with the awareness that time is precious.
What I don’t think about is whether I deserved the illnesses or whether doing ten years of birthday greetings on FB somehow protects me from disease exposure because I deserve to be there.
I stopped believing in divine intervention decades ago. People get sick and die, people who don’t deserve it. Babies, children, families, refugees, living in all kinds of harrowing internal and external environments of famine, disease, violence, and war.
Everyone gets sick. Everyone dies. It is true that some suffer more than others but none of this is about deserving, except for people who’s basic rights to live without violence, with good food, clean water, access to medicine, are violated.
For the rest of us, it is just about the body, its capacity for life and healing as well as its capacity for sickness and death. Loss is painful and at times devastating. But there are many types of losses that are the normal.
In cancer recovery, we often speak of the “new normal”. It is a useful concept for many. When I got cancer, I worked with an psychologist who had a lot of experience with people facing physical illness. I told her that I not only wanted support through my cancer assessment and treatment but that I wanted to work hard to prevent depression or experiencing traumatic stress. Her main recommendation was to integrate my cancer experience into the rest of my life and to not compartmentalize it. She noted that people who try to shut off potentially traumatic experience from the rest of their lives, are more likely to get depressed or traumatized.
I can only speak for myself, but I found that accepting cancer as part of my life, writing nearly daily about my experiences with cancer assessment, cancer treatment, and my day-to-day life to be very healing. I don’t mean that it wasn’t painful. I experienced all of the grief emotions. I mean that my grief process was one that brought forth acceptance and healing. I drew on this when I got sick again.
Death and illness, life and healing, anger and happiness, joy and sadness, growth and decline, anxiety and equanimity, all of these things are part of the oldest normal.
Be well, friends.
P.S. The reunion has outdoor opportunities, so don’t worry about whether I can attend or not.
As you can see in the photo, Basie, our 9-year-old cat is beautiful. He is also snuggly and purrs a lot. Basie has asthma, which has gotten worse. He’s been a “good eater” for many years but during the pandemic, with someone at home all of the time, we did not do a good job monitoring his food intake. Basie would eat all of the time, if he could. Consequently, he is on a diet to lose 7 pounds. He has lost about 1/10th of a pound. 7 pounds is a third of his total body weight since he was weighed at his last veterinarian appointment. His vet has prescribed special food. I’ve been measuring it carefully. Basie complains loudly but he is getting used to it.
Having to lose a 1/3 of one’s weight is A LOT. As a comparison, if I had to lose a 1/3 of my weight to get into the “healthy weight” category for my height, I would have to lose nearly 60 pounds. Basie’s current weight makes his asthma worse and puts him at risk for diabetes. When I tell people that Basie is on a diet for his health, they don’t bat an eye. It makes sense that he needs to lose weight. When people see photos of Basie, they recognize what a beautiful creature he is.
Now, let’s talk about weight and people, specifically female people. How many of us have had our worth judged by our weight? How many times have we had our worth judged by our weight? I’d say that it would not be unreasonable to think a typical number is in the thousands.
How many of us have been judged for trying to lose weight or not trying to lose weight? Or trying and not being successful? How many of us have prioritized how losing weight can make us look more attractive versus physical or emotional health benefits?
There’s a lot of policing of women’s bodies and there’s a lot of reactivity about that. People can be repulsed by the sight of an overweight person and say something negative. When called on it, the response is often, “I just care about their health”. This response is bull shit most of the time. It’s just fat shaming. I’ve also seen reactivity when women tell someone that they are exercising and watching their diet, “BMI doesn’t really mean anything. It’s biased and a form of fat-shaming. You should never follow a restrictive diet. You need to love your body.”
I had a lot of shame with my body and being overweight from the time I was a kid to about age 48-ish. I had shame about my body and my weight even when I was not overweight. I had an audio-tape in my head that told me everyday that I was fat. By the time I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 46, the tape only played when I was overweight. Having breast cancer provided me with a natural opportunity to re-visit my relationship with my body. I decided to make a concerted effort to try to stop the tape and over time, I learned to love my body and to appreciate what it allows me to do in my life. The daily tape stopped and although I still have to work on it, the shame is nearly completely gone.
Even when I had a negative body image, I was careful around my daughter to not talk about my weight, her weight, or the times when I was engaged in a campaign to lose weight. Once she became an adult, like 21 or so, I commented once that I was trying to eat less. (This was after my SCAD heart attacks in 2017, while I was completing cardiac rehab.) She said, “But Mom, you’re not fat.” I replied, “I like my body and I think I look good but my doctor thinks it would be better for my heart to weigh less.”
Like a lot of people, I put on weight in the first few years of the pandemic. I’ve tracked my meals with apps for years and although I did not follow plans perfectly (I tend to do a fair bit of late night snacking after a day of healthy eating), I was not really eating more than I did when I was younger, and weighed less. I am active and walk 3-4 miles almost every day in addition to hiking during the summer. I’ve done this for 12 years. Nonetheless, my attempts to lose weight in the last few years, have been difficult.
In the meantime, I’ve injured the ball of my right foot. I have Morton’s Neuroma, which is caused by a thickening of the nerve under the metatarsal bones. The nerve thickens like a callous in response to repeated pressure on the ball of the foot and then the bones hit the nerve. It causes extremely painful shooting pains in addition to soreness. The injury was caused by my stair training last spring and summer in preparation for our camping trip to Alaska (which ended up being postponed). So my right foot was getting pounded by walking up and down all of those steps. My first response was to change my shoes from hiking shoes to HOKA’s, which are thickly padded and made for foot rehab. That helped and then it didn’t. I stopped doing the steps. For hiking, I bought a second pair of HOKA’S, a different model, and then I switched shoes halfway through the hike. That helped put the pressure in a different place but I was not able to do some of the hiking, especially when it was rocky or there were lots of tree roots.
By December of this year, I was in pain my often than not and by last month, I could barely walk around the house. So I went to my internist, thinking that I could get a referral for physical therapy (I thought I just needed to stretch my calves and Achilles tendon). Instead, she diagnosed Morton’s Neuroma, which is not treated with PT, and referred me to a podiatrist. I was able to get into the podiatrist the next day and I am now getting treated with accompanying improvement.
The main goals of the treatment is to 1) reduce inflammation of the nerve and 2) reduce pressure on the ball of my foot. I’m taking a series of steroid shots to reduce inflammation of the nerve quickly. I’ve started wearing orthodics that shift my weight to my arches from the ball of my foot. I have selected shoes that all better for my particular foot problem. I met with a different podiatrist (a well-known evidence-based podiatrist) earlier in the week. He told me that for the short-term, my bare foot should never hit the floor, even in the shower. So now, I have shower shoes and house shoes.
What does this have to do with weight? Not surprisingly, carrying more weight puts more pressure on the ball of my foot when I walk or run. Carrying more weight also makes my heart work harder and I have a chronic heart disease. Yes, there is a bias against women and weight in our society and that affects the medical field. And yes, programs like Noom and Weight Watchers contain harmful elements. And yes, restrictive eating is a bad idea for some people. This is my body. Losing weight is a good goal for me, and I know that tracking what I eat, being selective about what I eat, and reducing what I eat can be a helpful combination for me.
Losing weight is not easy, especially after menopause. Research on weight loss suggests that diet is more important than exercise in dropping pounds. (Exercise has so many emotional and physical health benefits. I am not discouraging people from exercising.) I’ve long suspected that in following a weight loss plan like Noom or Weight Watchers (I’ve lost weight on both in the past), I’d have to eat less than the plans suggested. I’d been on both Noom and WW during the pandemic and even when I followed them, I didn’t lose weight. I’d never really considered weight loss drugs before but I thought it was worth exploring. I take a statin drug now for my cholesterol. Losing weight is really hard. Why do we think we’re “cheating” if we consider other options?
I had my annual physical last December with my new internist. (My long time internist, Dr. Hyde, is enjoying a well-deserved retirement). I brought up my weight. She mentioned her weight loss success by reducing late night snacking. (She is not overweight and looks no older than 40.) In other words, she made weight loss sound easier than it is for many people. I told her that I’d tracked so many consecutive meals on Noom, thousands, that the counter went back to 1. I’d exceeded the counting capacity of the program. I told her that I’d been keeping within my points on Weight Watchers. I said, “I’m giving this one more effort to be incredibly scrupulous and to make sure that I am tracking portion sizes correctly. I’ve lost a couple of pounds since Thanksgiving. But it is so difficult to lose weight since menopause and if there were weight loss drugs that I could take that didn’t have bad side effects, I would do it.”
She told me that I qualified for weight loss drugs. We discussed options. I expressed interest in the oral medication, Contrave, which is a combination of two drugs that have been around for a long time. The combination is associated with modest weight loss for about 45% of people and it is not contra-indicated for me in light of my cardiac issues. She told me to do research and to message her if I wanted a consultation with the pharmacist. This is a new process at my medical clinic. You meet with their pharmacist for a new prescription. So I set up a telehealth visit with the pharmacist after one of my healthcare team informed me that my insurance does not cover Contrave (it’s $500/month) so I could not get a prescription. I replied, “Can’t the pharmacist prescribe the generic forms of the two medications that make up Contrave?” The health coordinator replied that this was possible. I am perpetually stunned by the amount of medical knowledge that’s required to advocated for my needs.
To make a long story short, I got the prescriptions ($15/month) and completed my first week yesterday. Even on the starting dose, it seems to be making a difference. I’d been losing an average of 1 pound a week since Thanksgiving and lost 2 pounds last week. My portion sizes and snacking have decreased a lot. I have lost a total of 10 pounds and I am starting to feel the difference. I am hoping that all of my efforts to heal my foot injury will translate to wonderful hikes in Alaska this summer.
Like Basie, I am beautiful. My body is a marvel. I hope to lose more weight so that I can do more of the things that I like to do, like ceramics, cooking, walking, and hiking, all things that require my being on my feet.
I hope sharing this will help reduce some of the baggage around women and their bodies. Our bodies are beautiful. They keep us alive. This is my body. I do with my body what I believe is best for me. You have your body and you make your decisions for yourself. This is body autonomy and it’s a beautiful thing to support in one another.
Today is the U.S. Thanksgiving, a day filled with good memories of family get-togethers and a focus on gratitude. (There are also the difficult family dynamics, too, and grief for family members and friends who have been lost.) The holiday, however, is built on colonialism and genocide of what were sovereign nations prior to the arrival of Europeans.
The good parts of this holiday don’t erase the bad parts. The bad parts do not erase the good parts, but the bad parts are really horrible.
I aspire to be a peace maker. This has been a long time goal, probably since I was a small child. I was probably uncomfortable with people being unhappy and wanting to please. That temperamental trait grew and I’ve worked hard to respect the rights and value of people, including myself. It has been a long road.
There’s a strong pull for human brains to “take sides” and it is particularly strong right now. I have been participating in a meditation group, focused on reactive judgments (Transforming the Judgmental Mind), for the past 7 months. We now meet every month via Zoom. The last meeting was right after the Hamas attack on Israel. Everyone felt grief for many reasons and since many of the members are Jewish, they held grief for the people of Israel and Gaza within the context of multi-generational trauma.
Today I am grateful for the opportunity to hold space for grief, for gratitude, and the intention to take the side for peace.
Be well,
Elizabeth
We are staying in LaConner, WA for the Thanksgiving holidays. This is a haven for migratory snow geese and other birds. It is also located in the Swinomish Reservation.
Dear friend, a sincere apology I know that my words are often rather repetitive please believe me it is not intentional but to be honest with you I only ever really say one thing and it’s getting more difficult to find new ways to say that we should take care of each other.
This is one of the many “plague poems” documenting the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr. Loeb writes about 4 poems a day and has done so since March 2020. He is a Ph.D. student at Penn State who studies technology, disasters, and more.
I also feel that my words are rather repetitive during the pandemic, which is one of the reasons I don’t write much anymore. Actually, I have no problem repeating myself but it is discouraging that “we’re all in this together” has turned to a message of individual responsibility.
I feel gaslighted by leadership, even the administration I help vote into office and fervently hope will be re-elected. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control, a federal agency) posted a photo on social media earlier this week showing a line up of cars, carrying staff members, to the offices with a caption commenting on how many CDC employees had returned to in-person work. The CDC houses administrative staff and researchers. In other words, they are perfectly set up for distance work. Meanwhile Covid-19 rates are climbing again. Why not wait until we better understand how to prevent and treat Covid, especially long Covid? Why not talk about how the CDC is reducing risk for employees with increased ventilation, filtration, and masking?
It’s not just the U.S. I see this pattern all over. Yes, the acute death rate from Covid-19 is down. It’s no longer in the top 3 causes of death in the U.S., for example, but it is still in the top 10 and may remain there. It is also a common cause of long-term disability. I’d give you the stats but you have probably already read them so I will tell you a true story about a real person.
My brother, Joe, is 66-years-old and just retired as a high school special education math teacher. In early 2020, he was working at a middle school, down the street from the Life Care Center, a nursing home in Kirkland, WA. You may remember that this was the place originally designated the North American epicenter for the Covid-19 pandemic. The teacher’s aide in the classroom is married to a first responder. She got Covid from her husband and gave it to my brother in January/February 2020. It was mild and he just thought he had a cold. Fortunately, his wife was away at the time and was not exposed to him. My brother’s physician told him to assume that he’d had Covid (there were no tests then, remember?) and he got vaccinated as soon as possible. Joe followed recommendations carefully. In August 2022, he attended a family wedding in Montana. He contracted Covid again, this time long Covid.
Joe told me, “I don’t remember between August and November”. He took a leave-of-absence from work because it was too difficult to teach mathematics and write I.E.P.’s (individualized educational plans) for his students. Fortunately, he was able to get a good neuropsychological assessment, which established his need for workplace accommodations, including a workload reduction. He made it through the year but said it was really hard. Thank goodness that he had already planned to retire and did not have to do so earlier in his career.
Nonetheless, it is feeling like an increasing struggle to get my extended family to take precautions even given that our brother has had long Covid, our mother is nearly 89 years-old, and their sister has a rare heart disease. There are others in the family with significant risk factors but they don’t see themselves at being at higher risk. There are also a lot of teachers in my family and a couple of them teach little kids, who at this point have been found to be more likely to carry and transmit the disease. During the summer, it is no big deal because we can visit outside. But in the colder months, it is getting increasingly difficult. I nearly opted out of Christmas last year and I am strongly considering skipping it later this year. Everyone can just leave me alone to live my semi-hermit life in peace. Bah, humbug!
My mother-in-law, Nancy, is currently going through cancer treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I won’t go into detail but it was serious enough that we cancelled our planned three week camping trip in Alaska. About 1/3 of the people in the cancer center wear a mask, including front office staff. In fact, one women at the front desk makes it a point to tell people wearing masks that they don’t have to. THIS IS IN A CANCER CENTER! WHAT THE HELL? People were so careful about it before, now even healthcare settings with highly health compromised patients are leaving it up to individual responsibility.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not depressed and I am still having fun in my life, going on local hikes and making pottery. I am lucky in my job to have a lot of control over my office environment. But I am discouraged about our species. On the one hand, it seems like little sacrifice to wear a mask or put a HEPA filter in place to make public spaces more accessible to people at risk. Don’t people with liberal politics believe in inclusion and accessibility? On the other hand, these are most challenging times. I get it. There is a lack of clear guidance. I do spend a significant amount of time keeping up with research advances from a few sources that I trust. But until we have better prevention and treatment options, I will continue to use the tools at my disposal to reduce my risk of contracting or spreading a serious disease. That means I get to do a lot but I also miss out on things.
With every new wave the message is the same: “we have the tools” do not worry do not panic for we have the tools and since you are part of the we you ostensibly have them as well, though it has been a long time since an appeal to you as part of a we was itself one of the tools.
Breathe in, something happens. Breathe out, nothing happens. Breathe in, have a worry. Breathe out, have a baby. Breathe in, worry about the pandemic. Breathe out, life ever changed.
I’ve written before about how having cancer or SCAD or any other serious disease gives us “usual suspects” to worry about. I could get cancer again, I could have another heart attack, I could get Covid, I could get long Covid. Even with the usual suspects, other causes of death can get us, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, or maybe long from now. We never know.
Two Thursdays ago, my daughter’s new 24-year-old boyfriend was riding his motorcycle to his apartment for a date with my 24-year-old. He was hit by the driver of a car, making a left into their driveway.
I think of how he was feeling on that motorcycle, happy and free, looking forward to a date with his new girlfriend, breathing in and breathing out.
That 24-year-old died six days later. He no doubt received excellent care at our excellent trauma center but his injuries were extensive.
His parents have lost one of their children. Our daughter has not only lost a dear friend and boyfriend, but has lost the sense of youth and agelessness. He lost the potential of the rest of his life. The world lost his presence.
Breathe in, my dear 24-year-old is safe. Breathe out, another mother’s 24-year-old has breathed his last.
By the time I was 24-years-old, I had dealt with the death of my grandfather. It was hard but old people dying is a more acceptable part of the life cycle than a young person dying.
John and I have been worried about our own 24-year-old. How will we support her through this loss? So far, she is grieving in a healthy way and mostly without out assistance. She has friends and loved ones, some that we know and some who we don’t. Our lives overlap but not completely.
Breathe in. Breathe out. As Jon Kabat-Zinn says, “As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong.
Breathe in, nothing happens. Breathe out, something happens. Breathe in, everything happens. Breathe out, too much happens.
I have been grieving about the boredom and isolation that the pandemic has brought. Thank you, boredom. Thank you isolation. You are better than so many alternatives.
We are nearly three years into the Covid-19 pandemic. I would think that I would have a lot to say about this in my blog. When I was undergoing breast cancer treatment 10 years ago, I had a huge need to write. I wrote every day. I also remember that when I found out about my breast cancer diagnosis, I felt compelled to tell a lot of people right away, friends, family, acquaintances, and people I didn’t even know. It was almost like having a horrible secret would have made me even more vulnerable. Although I am a clinical psychologist, I am not a trauma expert. But I know a little about a trauma treatment, Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, part of which involves telling about the incident in detail, describing it, and processing it. The goal is to prevent PTSD. I think I was doing that naturally and it was also encouraged by my psychologist at the time who noted that people who do not integrate potentially traumatic events into their lives are more likely to experience more traumatic stress.
I see having had breast cancer as part of my life, as well as the heart attacks I experienced 5 years ago due to SCAD. Both diseases came at a total surprise. I didn’t have any known risk factors. I was a middle-aged woman with a lot of personal and professional responsibilities. I was of the “gets shit done” generation. But through a whole lot of work, support, and access to excellent healthcare, I made it through. I used my own special brand of flailing grace, radical acceptance, and learning the same life lessons over and over. Mortality was a constant possibility but not a constant worry.
The Trump administration and the pandemic changed that. I knew Trump was going to be bad. I spent the entire summer and early fall of 2016 distracting from the horror of his potential administration with canning. I canned every beautiful Washington State produce with seeds. After I’d canned all of the stone fruits, I moved onto figs and tomatoes. I canned apple jam in the fall. When I ran out of fruit, I made pickled onions. It was a productive distraction. I canned hundreds of quart, pint, and half-pint jars, wide and regular mouth. We ate a lot of it, salsas, chutneys, and jams. Did you know that you can make great frozen yogurt with two ingredients? Yes, mix 1 quart of yogurt with 1 pint of Trump stress jam. I gave away so much for Christmas, as host gifts, as “Hey, take this off of my hands” gifts. A couple of years ago, things oxidized and did not look good. They were not gift worthy and would not make tasty looking frozen desserts unless, of course, you are a fan of vaguely brown frozen yogurt. All of those jars languished in my home office, which was also full of pottery, Costco sized containers of paper towels and toilet paper, craft supplies, and yes, file cabinets and file boxes of patient files. Getting through my office has been a major slog. I mostly stay out of there. I didn’t want to deal with it. It has been completely overwhelming, unpleasant, embarrassing, and so not me to have a room that is a disaster area.
The pandemic has worn us down in different ways. Between the pandemic, climate change, and the rise of authoritarianism and white supremacy, I find that I am slogging through a lot of the time. Yes, I do have times of joy. I have much to for which to be grateful and I feel that gratitude. But I am also doing it with an eyelid wider open to the human capacity for evil as well as for incompetence in dealing with a pandemic and other existential threats. And I don’t just mean in the U.S. As a world, we have done a pretty bad job with the pandemic. I know that a lot of people have had their eyes wide open their own lives. I am learning things they already knew.
I used to believe that people were inherently good and I still believe that all life has value and is worthy of respect. I do not believe that people are inherently evil, either. I believe that we are an incredible species of great capacity for a great number of things, including amazing good, horrendous bad, and simple mediocrity.
How do I apply these lessons during the pandemic? Sadly, I find myself relatively isolated and finding my trust in formerly trusted people and situations, tested. I have experienced two of the top killers of women, cancer and heart disease. Covid-19 is still in the top three. The public health messaging has been confusing, at best, in terms of protecting myself and others. I understand that there is no way to reduce risk to zero but I also know that using high quality masks in public indoor settings, filtration, ventilation, vaccination (with regular boosters), and testing reduce risk substantially. We’ve lost over 1 million people in the U.S. alone. People are still dying and there are untold number of people of all ages who are experiencing or will experience chronic disease. We don’t know what will happen to those people. Time will tell.
But even with all of this uncertainty, people are tired. And if they follow the main public health guidance, they could be living a pretty high risk lifestyle. I have a Ph.D. I am pretty good at figuring out who knows what they are talking about and to check what they say with primary source research. I can catch big errors. People who don’t talk like real researchers putting public health at a priority. I am not an expert in public health, covid-19, infectious diseases, etc. But what I can tell you is that we are not getting the straight scoop. I understand the pressures, you know, “Hey, if we lose this election, democracy may fall”, but I would at least expect our CDC to be better. It is really disappointing.
I am also disappointed that winter holidays are getting harder and harder. About one-third to half of my family has significant risk factors for bad covid outcomes, whether they know it or not. There are also a fair number of teachers in our family. They have high risk of covid exposure. Some of them mask at school and some don’t. Unmasked indoor visiting with our 88-year-old mother is not a good idea. It’s not a good idea for me, either. My mom has a large covered outdoor deck. People are getting tired of meeting there for winter holidays. Almost no one else is taking those precautions. Other people are eating inside of restaurants, too. I don’t do that. Other people have people over to their homes, unmasked on a regular basis. I don’t do that. I get it. It’s hard for me, too. It is also hard to bring up this subject with people, even nice and reasonable people. People don’t want to think they are doing something wrong. Sometimes my just wearing a mask while they aren’t can trigger a little shame spiral. Especially if I provide explanation. (I recently read a meta-analysis that showed a 95% increased risk of a cardiac event in the year following getting Covid. I don’t even bother telling people.) Or it doesn’t trigger anything because the government messaging of “to each their own” has become the new normal.
One of my siblings suggested that in the future, any one “at risk” attends holidays via Zoom. I know that a lot of people feel that way or don’t realize that by not engaging in masking while in public indoors, they are leaving a lot of vulnerable people out of a “back to normal” way of living. These are people with no sick leave (every self employed person the U.S., part-time workers, gig workers, etc), access to healthcare, and or people who live with vulnerable family members.
The pandemic started in 2019. It is 2023. I did my canning in 2019. Several months ago, I started picking up the pace on scanning and shredding my patient files. (A typical file is about 250 pages and I see about 80-100 patients a year.) I had over 100 pieces of ceramics and I gifted or sold almost all of it over the holidays. (Yay, I can make more pottery!) Yesterday, I started opening jar after jar of my leftover canned goods. I saved what I could. (I am dehydrating jam to dissolve into savory dishes where the oxidized color will not be gross). They are all washed and over half have been given away. I can actually walk in my office again though there is still much to be done. I have made sure that I have a week off every couple of months from my job. (Working in mental health has been particularly stressful during the pandemic and thanks to my experience with SCAD, I know that stress can literally kill me). John and I just booked a camper van in Anchorage so that we can explore Alaska for three weeks this summer.
I am back on the road to flailing with grace, complete with a mask, like Zorro, except that I know to wear the damn thing over my mouth and nose.
Peace friends. I will leave you with something I made that was not a mess, one of the trays I made, complete with toffee, right before Christmas. I may be a semi-hermit but I can make things and that gives me joy.
George Lakoff has retired as Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. His newest book "The Neural Mind" is now available.
My Eyes Are Up Here 