The Art of Giving

When I was 17, my mom turned 40. I had just recently graduated from high school, and I was earning money from a summer job. I thought about a gift for her and decided on a book I liked, Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem. She was polite and thanked me for it, but I doubt she ever read it.

This is no slam on her. It's all on me. In this case, it truly was the thought that counted. My mom is a reader, but this book of essays by a writer I admired is not her cup of tea. I had violated a rule about the giving of gifts. I had not bought the book with her in mind. I had bought it with me in mind. I had a vague idea that my mom would read the book, and we'd have discussions about it. In other words, I wanted her to give me something, her time, her thoughts, her attention. Any gift I gave should have reflected that the occasion of a milestone birthday was all about her.

I am not alone in my mistaken notion about what constitutes good gift-giving practice. I see it happen all the time. A well-meaning relative insists on giving you a piece of furniture, when what you really need and want is help paying your child's college tuition. Or a new sweater, or almost anything else.

On a larger scale, some presidential candidates say they'd give low-income families tax breaks, when what they really need are better jobs, child care, schools, transportation and health care. 

To be a good gift giver, first of all take what you want completely out of it. Instead, pay attention to what interests the recipient, and what they love. When in doubt, ask them what they need and want. These, and your own love, will guide you to finding a gift that suits them.

Year in Review

Ever since I can remember, I have had vivid dreams. Some I remember for years afterward. I have come to see my dreams as stories that are telling themselves to me, often having some bearing on my waking life.

Last night I had two dreams. Both were with Don, my husband. In the first we are in what seemed to be the eastern part of Colorado, a few hundred miles away from our home. He had bought a car. But this isn't just any car. It is shaped something like a car, with the aerodynamic lines of a race car, and a small passenger compartment. It also has absolutely no leg room, and no wheels. Even stranger, Don is expecting me to drive this contraption back to our house.

I envision myself being poured into this vehicle, like gunpowder in a bullet, my legs sheathed in its nose. How am I supposed to operate this thing? Where are the pedals and the ignition?

I protest, "I'm going to have to stop every five miles to stretch my legs! This is going to take forever!"

A cenote in the Yucatan

The second dream takes places on Hugh Jackman's ranch in Australia. Don and I are doing a self-guided tour of a pumpkin patch that Hugh (yeah, because it's my dream, and I'm on a first-name basis with the hunky Mr. Jackman) and his sons planted. Like the car in my previous dream, this is no regular pumpkin patch. It's planted in the bed of a cenote, an underground river found in the Yucatan, and pictured above. As if cenotes aren't spectacular enough, this one has sandstone ceilings swirled with gaudy desert reds and oranges that loom at varying heights. The pumpkin plants are growing lushly in the bed of the river, in water of varying depths, the vines, stems, leaves and fruit undulating together to resemble elephant heads. Don is riding alone in a vehicle without wheels (similar, but different, from the contraption in the previous dream), and I am on foot, making my way from one patch of high and relatively dry ground to the next.

It is all so weird and beautiful, I think to myself.

This sums up this year pretty well. First, the weird and the disorienting. In February, Don got a diagnosis of intermediate grade prostate cancer that he ultimately elected to treat with Cyberknife, high-intensity, external beam radiation, and Androgen Deprivation Therapy, which is exactly what it sounds like: lights out on the male hormones, to starve any remaining cancer cells of fuel. Every cancer treatment exacts its tolls, many of which are visible to others, like hair and weight loss. Don has had neither. The tolls of his treatment are largely invisible to others. They are of such a personal nature, it has been difficult to speak of them with family, friends and acquaintances. During the most stressful period of our lives, we have had to lean on each other more than ever before.

Even with the numerous side effects, Don has been a trouper. One of the worst moments of this process was watching him walk for the first time into the room where the radiation would be administered. In his baggy surgical pants, he looked so small and vulnerable. But this is just one moment of so many. I am learning so much from watching this man navigate the toughest experience of his life with so much courage and grace.

As my first dream intimates, I have struggled to keep up with the pace of this challenge. How am I supposed to operate this new vehicle? Where are the controls? I'm being squeezed and molded, like a newborn making its way through the birth canal. Whatever trip I'm required to take in this vehicle is probably going to take too long and be very uncomfortable, with numerous starts and stops.

Don in his new Ganesha meditation shawl

During walks, Don and I often reflect on this journey we're on. Like so many things in my life, contemplating the future makes it seem more difficult than it turns out to be once underway. So now for the beautiful. After years of watching me meditate, he asked me to teach him. He's taken to it like a duck to water. Last summer he took a four-week meditation course at Eldorado Mountain Yoga Ashram, and the group jelled so well it's continuing. He's making friends there, and he often accompanies me to Monday night services led by my beloved Babaji Shambhavananda.

As for me, the vehicle is operating just fine, without me needing to know where the controls are, or even where it's going. At the moment, the trip is taking as long as it takes, and I have plenty of leg room. Along the way, Don and I are growing, separately and together, just as it has always been with us. Plus, there are beautiful sights along the way--an underground, underwater pumpkin patch/elephant herd. It's all so good I'm looking forward to what the Dream Maker has in store for me. Who knows? Maybe Hugh will make an appearance.

Yeah, baby. Because it's my dream, that's why.

"It"s Always Ourselves We Love the Least"

A great line from Bruce Cockburn's Song "Burden of the Angel Beast

A few years ago an intuitive healer noticed my Vitamin S deficiency--self-love, that is--and recommended a remedy. As I put lotion on my body after bathing, I would repeat, "I love myself, and I support myself."

I grew up in a family, like many in the United States, that prizes humility. No one loves a braggart. Telling myself I love myself was not only counter to my conditioning, it felt embarrassing and, frankly, ooky. Loving other people and making myself loveable was my job, and in exchange, presumbably, others were supposed to love me back. Only sometimes they don't. More often, I find loving others to be difficult. 

I had nothing to lose by taking Kelly's advice. After all, feeling high on others wasn't helping me feel better about myself. The first couple dozen times I did it, I practically had to hold my nose it felt so unnatural. What if I became a narcissist? I continued for a few months, without noticing any perceptible change, before dropping it.

Within the last year during an Ayurvedic consultation with my friend and sister yoga teacher Heidi Nordlund told me I am very good at loving others, and not so good at loving myself. I was still deficient in Vitamin S. Heidi recommended repeating as often as possible, "I love me," like a mantra.

I chant mantra every day to celebrate and summon the qualities of the deities. But really? A mantra devoted to loving myself, ala Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"? Again I was resistant. I let Heidi's advice go without even trying it.

One dark day a few weeks after my husband's prostate cancer diagnosis in February, I let myself imagine what being widowed would feel like. [Update: he is undergoing treatment, and all indications are that it is working. His PSA dropped from 4.5 to 0.56 this month. He will definitely survive this. Weird states of mind like mine are all part of the process of coming to terms with a cancer diagnosis.] My first question was, "Who would love me?" I didn't want to think about that any more than I wanted to repeat "I love me" a couple hundred times a day.

But a few days later as I was meditating, I got a two-word message: "Love yourself." There it was again. I didn't think of the means Kelly and Heidi had offered me until a consultation with Heidi last month. She again suggested repeating "I love me." Same resistance on my part. How could that work, and so forth.

After a couple of weeks of stalling, I tried it on a particularly rough day. I kept beating back my doubts about its efficacy as I hiked with my family. All the way up I felt I no sense of uplift, much less of self-love. Instead I felt annoyed by my lack of progress, and with myself. 

But as I approached the summit, the thought came to me, It's acts of faith and daring that constitute love. I was expecting too much too soon from the practice of repeating "I love me." I need to keep at it, in the same way I persist with my yoga practice, the same way I keep at it with writing, and all the other things I enjoy doing and/or am good at. Not many of us actually make the effort to love ourselves. The belief is that it will take care of itself. In 54 years on the planet, I can tell you it will not. I could free myself from a whole lot of angst and co-dependency, if the person I'm with always loves me always. It's a radical proposition that so far has yielded only this modest realization. 

Alert to Growth

I have a history of killing houseplants. It's not that I set out to do so. I sincerely want to be surrounded by leafy, blossoming things, as I was growing up in my parents' house. I am an inconsistent plant parent. I alternate between overwatering and underwatering. I have better luck in the garden. Under the sun and sky, my efforts matter less. 

Last summer we inherited a banana tree plant from one of Don's co-workers. We left it on our patio, which gets the hot morning sun, and promptly forgot to water it or to pay any attention to it at all. Eventually Don rescued it by putting it in a larger pot and setting it on the hearth inside. It began to thrive, growing taller and sprouting a new stalk within the first few weeks. At Christmas time, I decorated it with sock monkey ornaments.

Who doesn't love a sock monkey in a purple tutu or a Santa costume?

Earlier this summer I noticed the central stalk's leaves were getting brown. I figured I was performing my usual involuntary plantslaughter and tried to ignore it. 

Last week I took a good long look at that plant and decided to do something on its behalf. With kitchen shears I cut away a few dead leaves. It still looked like a dead plant, but with a few less dead leaves. It needed stronger medicine, so I took a sharp knife to the central stalk and cut it almost to the top of the potting soil.

Remember the new stalk that sprouted after it was transplanted and brought inside?

There was already a whole new healthy plant growing alongside the dying part.

The plant was now two healthy, thriving, green-as-could-be stalks that were apparently waiting to be recognized as the replacement plant. So captured was I by the plant's withering leaves, and my part in this failure, I was not captivated by the fresh growth.  An unfortunate part of my temperament gets so caught up in grieving what's lost, I forget to be alert to new growth. 

More new growth

On closer inspection yesterday, I noticed a new shoot sprouting out of the stump of the central stalk. This is a good plant. It has survived neglect, transplantation, my clumsy care and an amputation. My yoga training teaches that death and rebirth are happening simultaneously, in life writ large and small. This is not a matter of faith. It is a fact of life, illustrated beautifully on my hearth. It happens in its own time, of its own accord, independent of me and my efforts.

If You Really Want To Help

Don't get no better than this. This postcard from my friend Rhonda is the best example of what the bewildered caretaker of a loved one going through cancer treatment needs to hear. Simple, sweet, telling me how valued my friendship is.

Heading into the sixth month after my husband Don's diagnosis of prostate cancer, I'm just now coming out of the numbing shock of it all and heading straight into choppy waters of hope mixed in with depression, anger, gratitude--well, hell, the whole spectrum of emotion. He has made it through radiation treatment, and started a six-month course of hormone suppressant therapy. We're hoping for a good outcome, while knowing with certainty that the future is uncertain.

Many people have been very kind and asked me what they can do to support me and my family. Some, like Rhonda's postcard above, have hit all the right notes. Nothing complicated, simply offers of support and a personal message of appreciation. Before Don's diagnosis and treatment, I am sure I said and did some things that were intended to be supportive, but fell short of the mark. I wish I'd known then what I know now. I wish someone had told me, for instance, that, "Keep your chin up. It's going to be OK," is probably the most superfluous thing to say. Yes, I'm on an emotional rollercoaster, but overall I'm taking care of the usual business. How does anyone else know that it is going to be OK? Not even the radiation oncologist offered such certainty. Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook whose 47-year-old husband Dave Goldberg died suddenly in May, writes much more poignantly on the topic of "It's going to be OK" than I hope I ever will.

Here are two other ideas for how to support someone who is squarely facing mortality issues.

When you ask me how my loved one is doing, also ask how I'm doing. As Don's spouse and caretaker, I appreciate the attention. I'm not going through what he's going through, but I'm going through it with him.

Please let me be honest about what's going on in my life. I have gotten the message from some that going into the details is not what they want to hear. Before Don's treatment, I was the kind of person who will tell you exactly how I'm doing. I'm even more that way now. Yet I have gotten the distinct message from some that going into the details is not what they want to hear. Fair enough. But remember, you asked. I now ask people if they want the spruced-up PR version of how things are going. I can certainly do that. Know you're not really supporting me, though. I'm actually supporting your illusion that everything must be sailing smoothly along.

I truly hope no one reading this ever goes through this kind of ordeal. But surely we will all experience losses and will need comfort, and have already. In the meantime, there are plenty of people out there in need of a safe place to share their doubts and fears. Offer a little piece of your shoulder for them to cry on.

Cliff in Shirohama, Japan

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

--Leonard Cohen

I took this photos in Shirohama, Japan, the day before I came home. The growth of flowers and vegetation along the seam of the volcanic cliff seemed intentional, as if someone had planted a garden there.

As I sat in church contemplating all that is happening in my life, I thought about the sensation and texture of sadness and how it feels like what was good and whole is falling away. Separation is a natural part of life, but oh, it's so damned painful and so full of hard, hard lessons. What could be the blessing in that?

Because of course there is blessing in all that happens. All one needs to do is look and see that a great crop of blessing and grace is happening all around us at all times. As my heart breaks, it opens up little seams where new things can grow, like the flowers on that cliff in Shirohama. Seeds of hope and transformation, love and joy, are already planting themselves in the freshly opened cracks in my heart. Grief's tears are purposeful, urging the seeds to sprout, so all that was lost is replaced. Not as it was before--God never promises that--but new and different and reminding us of goodness' constant presence in the face of loss.

No Regrets

Saying you have no regrets is popular in our culture. Most of us want to feel we're in control of our lives, that we make good decisions, and those decisions don't have a negative impact on others. Feeling sorrow and remorse for something we've done that results in harm to others is also painful. This often motivates people to take corrective action, whether it's offering a heartfelt apology or taking a course of restorative justice. Only when you take these steps with humility and sincerity can you say you have no regrets.

The first weekend in May, Pamela Geller of the American Freedom Defense Initiative hosted an event in Texas she called the Muhammed Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest, with a $10,000 prize for the winning cartoon. She knows full well that Muslims consider blasphemous any depiction of their prophet, so the very premise of the event was regrettable. What could go wrong? The event attracted the attention of two unbalanced individuals identifying themselves as Islamic freedom fighters. They arrived armed, wounding a security guard before police shot and killed them.

In an Associated Press interview after the shootings, Ms. Geller said she has no regrets about holding the event, predictably citing her right to freedom of speech. (Many eloquent and learned people contributed to a terrific survey on the rights and responsibilities of free speech.) She says she's already planning similar events in the future. Holding the first events was borderline sociopathic, but insisting she'll organize more of them leaves no doubt that she has psychiatric issues.

To say she has no regrets is also an incredibly entitled statement, as if her lack of regret is of first and foremost importance. People were shot at, one was wounded, and police killed the gunmen. There was a lot of avoidable trauma that occurred because she set up the conditions for people to take offense, and two fools took the bait. How can the person who hosted the event not have regrets about what happened? Does she think that not having regrets makes things right for the wounded security guard? After what happened, having no regrets is a luxury she can no longer afford.

Ms. Geller has a history of sticking her finger in the eye of those she considers enemies of freedom, namely all of Islam. Her organization Stop Islamization of America did its best to stop the development of a Muslim community center near the World Trade Center site, calling it the "Ground Zero Mosque," though it was neither. Here are some of the posters her organization sponsored on subways across the country:

No one with a conscience could post such things.

Ms. Geller says she will wear a bulletproof vest at the future events. Will she offer them to security and attendees, too? Actually, anyone who would attend one of her contests is either terminally naive or looking for a fight. As a practical matter, no insurance company would ever underwrite another conference of this kind. She's clearly blowing smoke.

There are citizens of our country who equate this drivel about having no regrets with leadership. They say they want a leader who makes a decision and sticks to the letter of that decision, no matter the consequences. They want a leader who, in the words a Daily Kos' editorial used to describe the presidential candidacy of Ben Carson, says the Affordable Care Act "is the worst thing to happen to America since institutional slavery." This is not considered a gaffe by the same groups egging on Ms. Geller. "It's considered speaking truth to power," the DK editorial continues. "These are things that a vast swath of the conservative base believes in their bones, and they're damn happy to have someone finally willing to say it out loud." Ms. Geller certainly falls into this category.

OK, so this happened. I actually agree with something Donald Trump said about the debacle in Texas.

"What are they doing drawing Muhammed? Isn't there something else they can draw? I'm one who believes in free speech, probably more than she [Geller] does. What's the purpose of this? She's taunting them."

If Ms. Geller was so inclined, now would be the perfect time to change course. An organization that is for something rather than against Islam and Muslims is likely to be more durable. She could accomplish this by creating and encouraging dialogue between those who are concerned about security and moderate Muslim leaders who share similar concerns. There are plenty of organizations already doing this work, including Free Muslims.  Ms. Geller could rehabilitate her reputation and do good work by teaming up with them.

It's entirely possible that she and those who follow her lead may be unrepentant haters. But I can't and I won't stop dreaming of days when the voices of harmony drown out the voices of dischord.