I See You

Anyone else out there feeling vulnerable?

Coronavirus, and not knowing for sure what's next or right or reasonable in preparing for, preventing, and managing it, is our new shared, global, collective anxiety.  COVID-19 has also become part of the greater preexisting web of things we worry about, while expanding and exposing our already tender underbellies.

Quarantines and social distancing and closed schools and businesses are conspiring to keep us apart for our own good.  And yet, we need one another.  Because underlying This Big Worry are all the other stressors and circumstances, short- and long-term, big and small, which existed before and many of which will still be around after Coronavirus has peaked and then waned.

Maybe it's Daylight Savings.  Lack of sleep?  Elections.  Tragedy.  There's menopause.  Cancer diagnoses and treatments.  College applications, acceptances, and rejections.  Grades.  Finances.  The stock market.  Depression.  Parenting.  Providing.  Trying to make a doctor's appointment.  Your child's behavior.  Being a good __fill in the blank__.  Death in your family.  Fear of death in your family.  Taxes.  The news.  Accidents.  Social media.  Anxiety.  Report cards.  SAT tests and scores.  Being responsible; is this what it means to be responsible?  GPA.  Insurance.  Deferred maintenance.  That pit in your stomach. Your children. The Joneses. Marriage.  Dating.  Your appearance.  Driving.  Climate change.  Being left out or feeling left out or FOMO.  Natural disaster. Your to-do list.  Your job?  Mortgages, or rent.  That thing you said. Also that thing you didn't say.  Your carbon footprint.  Panicking...or not panicking?  Your parents' health. Missing your parents.  Your relationship with alcohol. Someone else's relationship with alcohol.  Your relationships.  Do you need therapy?  Therapy.  Passwords.  Travel.  Real ID. The DMV.  Copays. Aging.  Being dead. Suicide.  Living up.  Being there.  Being there when you can't be.  Nutrition.  Clean water.  Regret.  Wildfires.  Preparedness.  Helping others.  Doing your part.  Maintaining perspective.  Being aware.  Not overreacting. Putting your phone down.  Laundry.  Doing enough.  Organic food.  Charitable contributions.  Forgetting.  Animal rights. Violence.  Retirement.  Healthcare.  Job performance.  Balanced meals.  Landfills.  Recycling.  Faith.  Teenagers.  The cost of oil.  War.  Feeling accepted.  Feeling seen.

Vulnerabilities are normal and natural and every day; they accentuate our humanness and connect us with others.  They're why we innovate and why we experiment and create; they're why we write novels and poetry and plays and songs and make music and paint and sculpt and reach out and act courageously and help and represent others.  Sharing our vulnerabilities and connecting with others' fears and insecurities helps us feel less lonely.

Our vulnerabilities can also spotlight our least desirable tendencies; they're why we manipulate and hoard and judge and fear our neighbors and develop addictions and point fingers and lash out and isolate ourselves.

And we're all vulnerable right now in our new shared reality.  Social media posts would suggest that we are asserting or seeking validation that our own approaches to current circumstances make the most, best sense.  Despite our links to experts' advice and testimonials, most of us don't really know the actual best way forward.  So we muddle through, collectively, along both parallel and intersecting paths.

At the height of his own fearfulness, Scaredy Squirrel, a Master Paranoiac and Overreactor, fell out of his seemingly safe tree sanctuary and serendipitously discovered he could fly.

But it's not a great time for us to venture forth into the Great Unknown.  We are likely to be having to hunker down (or up in our trees) soon with our nut supply and a limited view.

If elbow bumps are the closest safe contact, hugging and helping become rare gifts.

And that's why it's more important than ever to poke our heads out of our trees, acknowledge one another from a safe distance, and share more than our excess toilet paper, as our other struggles appear to recede in significance in the face of this pandemic.

Because Coronavirus isn't our only reality.  It's not our only vulnerability.

I see you, parenting a child with disabilities.  I see you, cutting corners to make ends meet.  I see you, in charge of making the tough calls in times like these.   I see you, unable to visit elderly loved ones.  I see you, worried about a family member's mental health.  I see you, mourning the death of your parent(s).  I see you, minimizing your own stress while maximizing your availability for others.  I see you, wondering if you/he/she will graduate.  I see you, worrying about test results.  I see you, struggling to speak up.  I see you, researching resources to help yourself or someone else.  I see you, wondering if anyone notices.

I see you. 

I see you, trying hard every day.

Acknowledging the journeys of others, unfolding before us even from a distance, might be what keeps us best connected in these unprecedented but also normal times.

I see you, searching for meaning.  Whom can you help be and feel seen?

List: Little Loves

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’m thinking of all the people and things I love as well as those which may never receive valentines, but nevertheless warrant my recognition and affection.

Here’s my Little I Love You list:

1.  Mittens and pacifiers and stuffed animals, etc. dropped out of strollers but picked up by someone and hung in a noticeable spot (fencepost, bench) in hopes that the owner will discover and recover that lost and loved item.
2.  Little kids sporting backpacks of disproportionate size to their growing bodies and featuring numerous dangling thingamajigs from zippers, etc.
3.  Plants that grow in seams and cracks of brick walls, freeways, bridges and other seemingly uninhabitable spots.
4. The transportation workers who are installing spikes on our bay bridge to prevent people from dying by suicide.  I hope they feel as important as they are in saving lives.
5. Yarn bombers and Banksy and Shepard Fairey and other folks who spread messages of goodwill or needed change through visual magestry.
6.  The kid in the class who, in moments of teacher exasperation, makes meaningful eye contact to convey, Yeah, I feel you. And every other form of similar kinship that happens subtly out there when two people share an empathic moment, even strangers in a crowd, traffic, subway car, etc.
7. People who feel little disappointments every day—not being picked for the team, not winning the classroom raffle, not getting the top score ever, not being asked or invited to the group thing, but who pick up and dust off and show up everyday cheerfully nonetheless.
8.  Hummingbirds and butterflies.
9.  Hilarious (and harmless) people on the internet.
10.  Elderly people with walkers or canes who walk their dogs daily, even in the rain.

Hope Helps (and Heals)

Today our high school had a "Mental Health Awareness" assembly featuring our own courageous staff members sharing their and family members' journeys through depression, anxiety, substance abuse, suicide, and grief.  A teacher shared the secret she carries, that she has a third son who died 33 days after birth.  She told our students that mothering him has made her a better teacher and person.  Another faculty member recounted her battle with agoraphobia and anxiety, reassuring students that since therapy, she's been nearly panic-free for 20 years.  The daughter of an alcoholic mother, one teacher urged students in similar situations to take care of themselves, and believe in themselves.  A charismatic teacher on campus surprised students when he shared his history of depression.  Students learned that struggle is common, and that you often can't tell who is fighting internal battles.   Student filmmakers aired inspiring public service announcements about positive coping skills and the power of reaching out to one another.

The program was so powerful students walked out saying, "Thank you..." and "That was amazing."

Some staff members admitted the presentations unearthed unexpected emotions.  There were listening ears, compassion, and hugs in the hallways.   

Our principal followed up with this email to parents:

"Dear Parents,

Mental health issues impact individuals within our campus community, and these struggles influence how many of us navigate our daily interactions with peers, teachers, colleagues, parents, and friends. Today our students participated in an assembly to promote Mental Health Awareness. We hosted this event to bring information and resources to each member of our school community, to let everyone know that there is help available, and to let our staff and students know how to ask for it.

Please ask your child to share his/her thoughts about today's presentations. Our school counselors are available for your students and you and are equipped with expertise and resources to share; we encourage you to contact us with any concerns you have about the well being of your student.

 We may not always understand one another, but we have a shared responsibility to treat each other with empathy and compassion.  We are proud of the community we continue to build at Coronado High School and look forward to more opportunities to emphasize to our students that they are not alone. With care and respectful consideration, we have each other."

Crossing Over

The girls and I are sleeping at my parents' house tonight; the bridge to the mainland is closed. Four hours ago, a young man no older than 18 by eyewitness accounts skateboarded up the bridge and sat atop its westbound edge. We were sailing underneath in the Beer Can Races when it became clear traffic on the bridge was halted. Harbor Police boats began patrolling the waters below him; helicopters circled overhead.

I couldn't believe it at first, assuming it was an accident up there causing the delay. After over 20 years of living and/or working on the island-peninsula, it wasn't until this year that I knew someone who'd leapt from the bridge. And now, I know two.

I crossed the bridge last night right after a woman abandoned her car and jumped; that morning the bridge was closed for hours until a man was successfully talked down. This morning I cried in my car as I crossed over; the bridge is part of my daily commute and the view from its span can lift my spirits, but our relationship is strained.

Tonight I cringed, fearing what the boater's perspective would yield. I type and hope a conflicted young man surrenders.

On the way to work the day before yesterday I noticed a dead possum in the road on the hill, almost to the shoulder, as if the journey across from one hospitable habitat to the other were just a little too long, or maybe a long shot from the start. I knew I'd watch the evolution of that carcass each day thereafter, like Richard Eberhart's "Groundhog," wondering why the possum left the comfort of the canyon in the first place.

By 10:00 AM that day we learned about the surgery of Auntie R, my husband's sister, whose brain tumor was malignant and aggressive and whose doctors' prognoses were grim.  I visited Husband at work to break the news.  His sister had always taken care of him when he needed her, he shared.  Now he would help her.

In the afternoon I picked up the girls and we drove home up the hill past the possum, admiring hawks orbiting in sweeping ovals above. We parked beneath our giant Aleppo Pine tree, as a flurry of feathers floated down on our car. Big Sis was the first to notice.

"Mommy, look up! Feathers! Lots of them!"

At first the downy wisps looked like ashes we'd seen during wildfires. And then I noticed a hawk perched high in our tree with a smaller bird clutched in its talons. Our attention and exclamations sent the hawk flying off, victim in its beak.

"I don't like that bird," scowled Little Sis. I explained that the hawk was feeding itself, as we need to do (and remember, kiddo? We even eat the occasional cow and chicken?).

She wasn't having any of it, though, pointing out that she, in fact, wasn't directly responsible for her food's demise.  I bit my tongue, recognizing that my daughter was simply doing what I was attempting to:  categorize and rationalize and harvest distinctions between signs of mortality and death, all around us.

The running dialogue in my head reminds me of Pablo Neruda's Book of Questions:

What is the meaning of one possum's life?  


How do I reconcile someone taking her own life with my sister-in-law's valiant quest to save hers?


Are some depressions as terminal as some cancers?


Is the hawk a callous killer?  Are we, human carnivores?


If I were Syrian today, how would I talk about death?


How do we know which deaths are welcome?


What does it mean that we close a bridge for six hours to save a life?  


How many lives are we forgetting or choosing not to save?


Does the value of our lives diminish with age?  Are our lives more precious when we're young?


How do I talk honestly with my (already anxious) children about life and death?

For tonight, the inconvenience of a closed bridge necessitates a slumber party.  I tuck my daughters in bed together at their grandparents' house.  In turn, my mother bids me goodnight, with a sigh of satisfaction that her "eldest bird" is in her nest for the night.  

Husband has flown across the country to be with his sister and his dad and our courageous niece.

The possum is decomposing; the hawk is hunting; the cancer threatens; the bridge is still closed.

But, I feel hopeful.

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all"
--Emily Dickinson

If You Can't Remember a Better Time

Last week began with the poignant story of Marina Keegan, a young writer with a promising career who died in a car accident only days after graduating from Yale.   And our high school is reeling from a week of broken hearts and limbs.  Arms and elbows will heal, but other recoveries take much longer, and true loss is irrevocable. I am thinking of the hurting parents, families, and friends in our community.  When a parent at her son's ICU bedside urges, "Hug your family today," listen. 

I consoled myself with The Weepies this weekend; despite their name, their songs lift spirits.  Here are the lyrics to Deb Talan's song, "Comfort" (listen here):

When everyone has gone to sleep
And you are wide awake
There's no one left to tell your troubles to

Just an hour ago you listened to their voices,
Lilting like a river over underground
And the light from downstairs
Came up soft like daybreak,
Dimly as the heartache of a lonely child.

If you can't remember a better time,
You can have mine, little one.

In days to come,
When your heart feels undone,
May you always find an open hand
And take comfort wherever you can, you can, you can...

...But just like you thought when you stopped here to linger,
We're only as separate as your little fingers.

So cry; why not? We all do.
Then turn to the one you love.
And smile a smile that lights up all the room.
And follow your dreams, in through every out door..
It seems that's what we're here for.

And when you can't remember
A better time,
You can have mine,
Little one.

Lazarus

I'm not really sure how to write about suicide. I've written a poem about it. And I've thought about suicide. Not seriously, but enough to add my fear of my own self and of finality to the hundred reasons why I will never keep a gun in the house. It's a pretty legitimate fear, I think: the fear of my own potential to harm myself or others. I believe I understand myself well, but when someone I know kills himself unexpectedly, I wonder. I wonder about the dark corners and alleyways the brain can wander into, all by itself. With no one but itself to talk to.

Right before heading in to teach a guest lesson to some 11th grade English classes today, I got the call from my husband that a former student had taken his life.

He was just home from serving in Iraq. We were excited he was safe, successful, that he had come so far, through hardships he faced earlier in his life. By all accounts he was happy, optimistic.

But what do we know?

My lesson was on Sylvia Plath, on her poetry, in particular "Lady Lazarus," in which Plath chronicles her three attempts at suicide. "Dying is an art," she writes, "I do it exceptionally well." Yet Plath, of course, lived to write this poem, barely: on her fourth attempt to take her own life, she succeeded. I dissected the piece with our students, admonishing them to characterize Plath as "mentally ill" versus "crazy." Depression, I reminded them, isn't crazy. Attempting to kill oneself three times may be. I honestly don't know.

Depression isn't glamorous; nor is suicide. And my audience was teenagers. I felt conscious of my language, of judgments I might imply. Sylvia Plath didn't enjoy the life she artfully documented. She was unequipped to fully cherish her children, acknowledge her own creative genius, keep on keeping on. Persevere, I wanted to implore these kids. Reach out.

It gets better, those who understand have been pleading.

Suicide, people say, is selfish, and horrible, and an untenable reality to leave loved ones. Several years ago a single mother killed herself in the midst of her daughter's senior year in my class, leaving a beautiful and creative young woman behind. What was she to do, we wondered? How could she balance her mother's supposed love for her with her mother's need to leave her behind?

I've concluded I cannot judge a parent whose pain is so deep she's willing to hurt her children. I can't fathom that pain, can't excuse it nor condemn it.

A high school classmate, a college classmate, my brother's best friend, my cousin: all ended their own lives.

Today, as when my cousin died, the details left me wondering. Maybe, I think, he didn't mean it. Maybe it was an accident--a gesture or a stunt, gone awry.

Now: the despair and confusion. Next, the sewing together of signs, the guilt, the should-haves and might-have-beens, the frustration and anger over losing a young, promising life.

How do we support the living under such circumstances? Already, on Facebook, I see his classmates and friends remembering, reaching out, resolving to stay connected with one another.

We resolve to talk about sadness and despondence. To listen. To trust our instincts, to risk being a nag when we're being shut out. To recognize signs in ourselves, to replace the burned-out bulbs or check the wiring.

We resolve to not allow the manner of death to overshadow the manner of his living. We resurrect the beauty.