Carpe Diem

It looks like the beginning of a hard winter.

J has just commenced her first round of chemotherapy for her stage IV metastatic breast cancer. The side effects (fever, aching and loss of appetite) have already devastated her energy and, to a lesser extent, her spirit, and this is only the first day after the first treatment.

J lost her mother to the same disease at the relatively young age of 55. Her mother suffered through chemo, but unsuccessfully. She refused a second round, as I understand the story, and it is not difficult to see why.

One of the difficult transitions J has been facing is that of letting go of her expectations for life. We all, whether we acknowledge it or not, live a good portion of our lives in anticipation. And another big chunk is devoted to the past, whether rose-colored or not. Cancer of any type, however, or indeed any other life-altering disease, forces a change of perspective.

How one feels right now becomes the focus when pain is so omnipresent. One of the handout booklets from the oncology center cites cancer as somehow improving one's ability to live in the present, because to live in any other expectation is a waste of time and precious energy. I can vouch for this as a computer instructor in a public library. Most of the seniors I teach are very much focused on the present. They want to learn enough to be independent of all those people who are mostly younger than they are, because the young are impatient: they are future-focused.

As we progress towards our second babyhood, we once again become dependent on and appreciative of those around us who are our caregivers. As we grow dependent after a life of independence, we grieve our loss of control, our limitations. But each new day is ours, even if only in some small, inner way that is not necessarily obvious to those who care for us and about us.

And so it is with the will to live one day at a time that one "beats" cancer, even if it eventually wins.

For the love of lava

The Lava Lamp

You know, there's something brilliant about the lava lamp. I'm not talking about the level of the lighting, because we all know that there's something very subdued and subtle about lava lamps. The brilliance lies in the way it fascinates and intrigues.

Like most things in life, the lava lamp does not immediately perform its formless magic upon being turned on. It takes a while for the 40 watt light in the base to heat the wax enough to begin the process of changing the specific gravity to cause flotation.

And this is, of course, a metaphor for most things in life. Things that begin immediately tend to end immediately if not sooner, in my experience. The things that we savor, such as a fine dinner or an episode of meaningful lovemaking, do not have instant beginnings. They take planning and consideration.

When the wax heats to the right temperature, the process begins. Thanks to the laws of physics, chemistry and thermodynamics, a blob rises through the water and becomes a ball as it separates from the column that feeds it. And it ascends for a time, and it stays at the top for a time, but all too soon, it sinks slowly down, often being compressed by a new blob on the way up.

And this is, of course, a metaphor for most things in life. Thanks to the laws of gravity and similar imponderables, the blob is doomed to descend, slowly and perhaps with a certain dignity, but nevertheless downward, inexorably to be absorbed at the bottom of the column, to await a tranformational experience that will renew its upward course. But it will not be the same blob. It becomes a part of all that it has met.

Can you relate to this? Is your life a series of ups and downs: the ups caused by the heating and energy of some source that may not even be visible or clearly understood, and the downs the result of the inevitable cooling of interest and the general downward pull of forces that seem only too ready to work against always being up?

Eventually, the general temperature of the lava lamp heats to the point where the large and sensuous blobs give way to a chaotic mix of small balls and bubbles, and the charm of the lamp is perhaps diminished by a more frenetic mode of activity. And eventually, the action ceases as the water is too warm to allow for the cooling which brings the ball back to the bottom. And so the last generation of lava modules rests for a while at the top of the lamp. But when you turn off the lamp, everything gradually returns to the state in which it began, at the bottom of the lamp.

Without wishing to beat the metaphor to death, I can say that this phase may recall that critical stage in human development called "Midlife Crisis", where, after a life of increasing tempo, and compulsive need to achieve as much as possible, one comes to the realization that you are but one blob in a very numerous crowd of like-minded blobs, and even if you make it to the top, you won't hold that position forever. "Cool it!", and so you do, and you begin the final descent as the energy that moved you to action no longer seems so compelling.

But it is not necessarily a descent into darkness and incapacity, unless you allow it to be so. Like a blob of cooling lava lamp wax, you may find that you will coalesce with a larger group like yourself at this stage, having in common the experience, the judgment, and the perspective that is somehow comforting and welcome amongst like-minded companions. And you may not resent the surrender of your rugged individualism for the greater good, at least as much as you did when you were on the way up, or even at the top.


The lava lamp. It's all in how you look at it.

Byron Katie

I confess: I like days off. For the most part, Saturdays are not days off, because the accumulated and regular tasks tend to take a largish bite out of the available time. The laundry, the dishes, vacuum cleaning and generally picking up are just the beginning. Sometimes the housecleaning extends to carpet shampooing, since the Law of Baby Feeding Gravity is in resurgence. And then there are the special efforts required on days when a cooking and baking frenzy has left the sink invisible under the overburden of assorted tools, pans, beaters, whisks, measuring devices and platters. Needless to say, I am not the original user of this type of gear: as they say in baseball, I follow in the cleanup spot.

It's not as if I'm the only one engaged in these activities: we have a shared schedule that works fairly well for the most part. Before we put this in place by consensus, there was a sense of resentment which would rise to considerable heights when a string of days went by with little evidence of cooperative effort. It's amazing how formalizing a schedule can lead to better habits while reducing excuses.

Sundays, however, are more like it. Once having freed myself from the family-based historical guilt feelings associated with failure to attend a place of worship, I found out how beautiful the seventh (or first) day of the week really can be. What a gift to be able to sit around in pyjamas (rather than office duds) and explore new worlds of sound and sight on the internet, at my own pace, without any particular objective except to find worthwhile things that have been unknown to me until that moment.

I've always felt uncomfortable using the phrase "I found ... on the internet." That's claiming too much credit. What I "found" is not a discovery so much as an uncovering of what has been there for some time.

Example: TheWork.com. Many thousands of people know of Byron Katie and her simple, four-question method that results in turning around the direction of lives.

I came upon this amazing woman and her story while watching an unrelated video on YouTube.com. There are dozens of videos of interviews and sessions that she has done over the course of 20 years or more, but the essence of her presentations is always the same. It involves identifying the issue (say, resentment over dirty dishes being left in the sink, or toys on the floor), examining how I feel about and react to that issue, and then questioning what life would be like if I did not have that feeling. The objective is to see whether or not what I am thinking is true. Katie believes that we are so attached to the truth of our own thinking and assumptions that we don't think to question them, to see what the truth really is.

The end of this process comes in the turnaround, when I see that the resentment is something that I generate, rather than the people who leave the place messy, and once I free myself of this belief, I can calmly and more appropriately deal with it. Over time, she says, this process of questioning becomes automatic whenever confusion (which is the source of suffering) occurs.

There are many others who have found their own pathways out of their suffering and have shared their experiences and ideas with the rest of us. A day off is a good time to explore them and find out which ones work for you.