It’s really over. Weird.

Close to two years ago, I went back to college to complete my long-delayed Bachelor’s degree. It was exciting, challenging, illuminating, and freaking exhausting. In one of my first meetings with my advisor, due to some miscalculation, he put a very ambitious graduation date in my head – Spring 14. It really should have been Spring 15. Yet, once I got that first date in my head, I made up my mind that was what I was going to do. I took advantage of the alternative ways of gaining credit for life experience. I went to Summer School. Some semesters, I took nine units instead of a much more reasonable six. 

And I made it. I graduated in May, walking alongside a group of women whom I considered comrades in the Dominican trenches. The next day I celebrated surrounded by friends from all decades and corners of my life. It was fucking glorious. The day after, I left for a week-long silent meditation retreat where I spent most of my time just gazing at the tall grasses as danced in the breeze and fell in love with the antics of these little yellow birds. I was too exhausted to even meditate, and that was OK. It was the temporary cessation of deadline stress, which I so needed.

This lasted maybe a month or so, pretending there was nothing over my head.  However, there still was. I had taken an “In Progress” on my Senior Thesis and it was due August 1. Of course, being the procrastinator that I am, I didn’t start work in earnest on it until about two weeks ago (though parts of it were already written).  The writing of it wasn’t too difficult. For the most part, it  flowed. However, it is somewhat unconventional as far as Senior theses go. I submitted my draft to my bodhisattva-like advisor and nervously awaited her critique. She loved it. My final draft was submitted a week later. I made the suggestion minor tweaks, and voila! my Senior Thesis was finished.

Unlike other papers, turning this is was a more formal affair, with forms to be filled out and papers to be signed.  Today, I dropped by my advisor’s house for her signature. “You’re done. That’s it. It’s over”, she grinned and raised her arms high in the air in preparation for a huge hug. I stood there looking confused, so she just went ahead and embraced me. Even after the hug, I still looked like I was completely lost. “Graduation is both a celebration and a loss. It’s a new beginning, but it is also an ending. It’s natural to grieve an ending” she said wisely. 

I have already celebrated, and celebrated well, the achievement, the new beginning. Perhaps now is the time for a wee bit of reflection and maybe even some sadness. I loved my time at Dominican, even though the relentless pressure of deadlines sometimes prevented the material from being savored and digested as they deserved.  I’m going to miss it. (But, not enough to go for my Masters . . . at least, not yet.)

So, I had this great idea . . .

Another semester has been survived . . . barely. It seems that with each subsequent semester  more personal wounds get reopened and more triggers pulled. That’s what I get for studying the humanities, I guess.

Workload-wise this last semester was challenging because I had another round of the Humanities Seminar. Each week we had to read books by authors such as Plato, Shakespeare, Wolff, DuBois, Emerson, Thoreau, etc. Procrastination was not an option with that class. You had to read a book each and every week and be prepared for discussion, as well as some written work that was also due. Loved the material. Hated the pace. My other class was my science requirement – Environmental Science. The lectures were really interesting, but the lab was poorly organized. It was taught by two different professors who apparently had very different standards when it came to grading.  A paper graded by the old fellow would maybe get a C+, while a paper with the exact same effort graded by the younger woman would yield me an A.  The class was made up of a lot of middle-aged white ladies who take their grades VERY seriously. So, naturally there was a revolt. Deans were called. Complaints filed. And ultimately, grading responsibilities were taken away from the old fellow. Don’t fuck with middle-aged white ladies.  We will cut you . . .well, probably not, but we will file a complaint and make a few phone calls.

The most taxing of my courses was the little 1 unit P/NP class called the Senior Project Workshop. Every senior has to do a Senior Project.   You can either do a 30-page research paper, or a creative project with an 8-page research component. I am, of course, opting for the latter. The point of the workshop is to help hone your topic, find an advisor, and get a good start on your research.

I came into the semester really excited about my project. You see, I had this great idea: I would do my research on trauma and memory and then as the creative bit I was going to revisit the event that was the beginning of the end of my academic career in my 20s.  There was something poetic about coming full circle and transforming that trauma from being destructive and painful to something  triumphant and  healing. It was going to be fucking awesome.

The idea was to revisit this event by interviewing the witnesses and those close to me at that time. I wanted to film the interviews. I thought their expressions as they revisited that time would tell more of the story than their actual words. Two filmmaker friends of mine agreed to help me.  Friends as well as my academic and spiritual advisors were cheering me on. It was bold. It was brave. And, of course, it was doomed to failure.

The problem with a project such as this is that is dependent on other people willing to play along.  Over the years I’ve done lots of processing of this event, and I was ready to look at it with a new lens.  I wasn’t prepared for the resistance I encountered from the other witnesses: one refused to speak to me at all, two initially were willing, but blew off our appointments to talk; one, I sadly discovered, killed himself; and my brother said that he “has chosen to forget everything about our shared past together.”

Ouch.

For the workshop, our final deliverable was supposed to be an introduction to our project, complete with thesis statement. I wrote, instead, a eulogy for not only my project, but for any hope of me having anything substantial to say ever. It was pretty bleak.

My advisors offered me suggestions for salvaging my idea. They tried to prop up my spirits. I felt completely depleted, bereft of hope or inspiration. As you can imagine, this made the holidays super fun.

As of this writing, I still don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. However, having had a little bit of rest and solitude, I feel slight sparks of inspiration returning. There may even be something in the failure of this project that may become a project. There have been learnings, but they really have nothing to do with the original trauma I wanted to explore.

School starts again in about three weeks. I’m hoping that those little embers of inspiration don’t burn out, but rather become some wonderful creative fire so that by the time the semester starts I’ll once again be brimming with enthusiasm.

Wish me luck. I’ll need it.

Quarterly check-in

Yes, it does seem that the only time I remember to catch up with my bloggedty-blog is when I’m on break from school. And so it is now.

This has been my summer of aversion. Both of the classes I took this summer brought out all kinds of lovely, teenager-esque bouts of rebellion and sullenness. As I told my therapist/teacher/mentor it felt like I was finally going through the adolescent rebellion phase I missed out of as a teenager.  My inner voice was so loud and whiney – I don’t waaaaaaaant to. This is stuuuuuuuuuuupid! – it sometime leaked into my outer voice.  It is indeed fortunate The Boyfriend suffers from some hearing loss, as it gave him an easy out to ignore my bitchy, petulant complaints.

I had been looking forward to what I thought was going to be an easy A – The History of Stained Glass. It was one of those short courses: two-and-a-half hours a night,  two nights a week for five weeks, with a few of those nights being field trips to local churches. Oh right. Churches. Christian churches. Religious iconography. Lots of Christian religious iconography. Did I ever mention I have some long-standing and deep-seated issues with Christianity? One would think after the anguish and angst  I put myself through the last semester writing a 20-page paper comparing and contrasting Christianity and Buddhism to meet my World Religions requirement, that I would know better than to submit myself to an intensive class filled with a whole lotta Bible tales.  However, my prof was cool and kept the emphasis on the metaphorical aspects of color and light and made it quite approachable even for us heathens.  Yet, when it came time to do our final project, I didn’t go anywhere near church glass and did my paper and presentation on Frank Lloyd Wright. And yes, I got an A, but I wouldn’t describe it easy.

The other challenge I took on simultaneously, except for it lasted 10 weeks, was math. Please don’t ask me what kind of math it was. I doubt the teacher could even describe it.  The catalogue called it Finite Math. It didn’t much matter what they called it, it was a requirement so I had to take it.

While I wouldn’t say I was looking forward to it, I’m not completely math aversive. When it comes to everyday and business math, I’m pretty good. Back when I used to crunch numbers for survey research, I even found it fun. This class was not fun. If it weren’t for the kindness of the substitute prof (the original professor was in a serious car accident the second week of class and never returned) who took pity on us, I could have easily ended up with something less than an A. (Who me? Obsessed with grades?) I think we were graded by our efforts and earnestness rather than any real understanding. Inwardly, in class I was screaming “Why? Why? This is stuuuuuuupid!” yet from all outward appearances I was engaged and was able to answer questions by mere pattern recognition rather than any deeper understanding of the problem.  The final was a take-home and we were encouraged to work with our classmates on it. On the final day of the class, our prof made us each a card with a personal note, and gave us a hug on the way out.

In about two weeks, I return to school.  From what I can predict this semester will be filled with lots of reading for my Humanities seminar, and who knows what the Environmental Sciences class will be like. I also will start work on my Senior Project. Lots of thoughts swirling around about that. The one I’m most interested in doing has a lot of contingencies around it. It’s an exciting prospect, but too early to write about.

Hope all has been well in your parts of the world.

School’s out for summer

I wrapped up my last class of the semester this week. It was an intense semester, with nary a break in workload. Essentially, I was doing a full-time class load on a part-time basis. So, one would think that when the end finally came last Tuesday, that there would be sense of elation in being free from the heavy workload, or at least a flush of pride for my accomplishment. But, no. Instead, I immediately felt my spirit start to slip downward. While I posted “woo hoo” on Facebook to acknowledge the end of the semester from hell, I felt more like “wah, huh?”

An old classmate from Burbank responded to my “woo hoo” status with a faux yearbook comment, including the mandatory (or at least in our day) “have a bitchin’ summer.”  Those words released a flood of memories of what the last day of school used to be like: it was only a half day, with no expectation of any kind of serious work to be accomplished; the giddiness of the prospect of three months where every night was like a weekend night wherein we could stay up late and sleep in the next morning; and usually, that first night of the summer felt particularly celebratory, including the mandatory blasting of this little ditty:

It’s different as an adult. Being out of school just means a temporary let-up of the pressure of the unrelenting due dates. With less distractions from school, I can give more energy to work. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

I need to stop this before I once again land in my dark place. I just wanted to touch base, say “hi” to y’all. I’m hoping that I’ll have the inclination to blog before Summer semester starts at the end of the month. After this semester, I done run out of words with all the writing I had to do for class – maybe about 60 pages total?  So, it makes perfect sense that right now what I’m most excited about is the Oakland Internet Cat Video Festival where no words, or much thought is needed to enjoy such simple pleasures as surprised kittens.

The lack of adventures of a middle-aged coed

As I wrote a few months ago, I’ve gone back to school to finish my senior year of college, and to finally lay claim to those letters that I gave up on 30 years ago. And I don’t regret that decision. Not at all. I just wish someone had told me how much freakin’ work it entails!

I was quite excited about being in the classroom again. Firing up some old neurons that hadn’t been sparked in decades was something I was looking forward to. Perhaps even meet some new interesting people with whom I would spend my leisure time chatting with at a cafe or lounging on the quad discussing some obscure philosophical treatise. Ah yes, college life.

But somewhere in this fantasy, I forgot about having to complete actual homework assignments; papers, projects, and presentations.  Oh right. So, most of my non-school evening nights and weekends are now dedicated to homework. I do allow myself one evening of guilt-free TV viewing. Which, course, is not to say that I only watch TV one night a week. I just watch it and feel guilty about it.

The old, bad habits that got me in trouble the first time around are once again rearing their ugly head. I am a major procrastinator. But, at least this time the procrastination gives me a jolt of adrenalin and I finish the assignment just in time. Before, I would procrastinate until I would be awash in panic which would then turn into hopelessness and I would just give up. I’m not giving up anymore. And apparently whatever I’m doing is working because I’ve been getting A’s on all my assignments.

One thing is different this time around, though. I’ve found I’ve developed this streak of perfectionism. Or maybe I’ve had it all along, I just gave up before since I knew I couldn’t achieve it. Now, I’ve developed this delusion that I can actually achieve it. I polish my papers until the prose glistens. We’re required to use at least five citations on our research paper? I use 15. I question my art history professor’s qualifications because she gave me 100 on a paper when later I found a misplaced comma. I really only deserved a 98 for that mistake alone.

Hopefully, next semester, I’ll calm the fuck down. I doubt with my class load I’ll have time for my neurotic shenanigans. My Humanities seminar (non-Western civilizations) requires us to read a book a week, and in my Critical Inquiry class I will be producing two to three 15 page research papers.

Why yes, yes I am crazy. But I’m kinda loving it.

Entering the path of do-goodery

All kinds of changes are afoot here at Chez LazyBuddhist. In addition to becoming a half-time college student, I’ve started down the path of do-goodery.  In my mind, I always thought of myself as a do-gooder, but it was all intent and not much action.

Living in Richmond, California, I can see around me a lot of need.  Less than a mile away from my cozy enclave of Point Richmond is the neighborhood of the Iron Triangle and the community of North Richmond.  Richmond’s reputation as being a dangerous place to lives mostly comes from the crime, gangs, poverty, addiction and hopelessness in these two areas. In addition, both are directly downstream from the Chevron Refinery, so the health of the neighborhood is not good – the pediatric asthma rate in those neighborhoods are so high, hospitals may as well hand out an asthma inhaler with every new birth.

Three years ago there was a crime committed that got nationwide attention: the gang rape of a 15-year old girl at a school dance at Richmond High. Even now as I write this, my heart hurts for the girl, for our youth, and also for the community. At the time, I wanted to find some way to help to stop the cycle senseless violence that so many young people in our city seemed to be involved in. But, nothing presented itself in a way that made sense for me.

Fast forward three years later. This week I started volunteering at Richmond High as a writing coach through an amazing program called WriterCoach Connection. (Go ahead, click the link and go read about them, especially those of you in the Bay Area who are looking for a well-organized, worthy group to volunteer with. I’ll be here when you’re done.)  I had learned about the organization from a couple of writer friends of mine who had volunteered with them in the Oakland schools.  They both seemed to really enjoy it. So, when I learned they were expanding their program to Richmond, that’s when I knew I found my foothold into community do-goodery.

Most of the volunteers I trained with were Richmond residents – parents, grandparents, retired educators, writers – who, like me, wanted to find some way to help their community.  Even after six-to-eight hours of training we were still nervous about our initial encounters with the kids. Would they like us? Would they see we had no idea what we were doing? Would they even be willing to accept our help? How am I supposed to help a kid compose a thesis statement when I barely remember what one is myself? Oh sweet Buddha, what in the hell have I gotten myself into?

There for the whole show

For  day or two after leaving Spirit Rock, I find myself sometimes looking at a clock and reminiscing about what I was doing at that time while on retreat. For instance, it’s 7:04 am right now. Yesterday at this time I was walking down the hill to the dining hall for breakfast having  just finished the 6:15 meditation session.

I now find comfort in the regimentation of retreat. This was probably my first one where I went to every single sitting, and did at least some walking during each session of walking meditation. Since I brought neither book nor journal, there was no running back to my room during the walking sessions to record my profound thoughts about how, for instance, I was dead sure Ann Coulter was on this retreat. (Seriously, I was entirely convinced that this very tall, thin, rather hard looking blond woman was Ann Coulter infiltrating our blessed retreat just so that she could make fun of us on FOX News. As it turns out, she was not Ann Coulter, but a very nice woman named Diane. And while I understand she can’t do much about her build and general features, I would advise her to do away with the straight blond hair if she wants to stop frightening gentle souls and woodland creatures.)

There two events that occurred while on my retreat that ended up hijacking all my hopes for a blissed-out few days (which, yes, I realize is not the point, but let’s face it, no one goes into a retreat hoping to see how fucked up their mind really is. While your teacher may be pleased about your insight into your obsessive monkey-on-a-mixture-of-alcohol-meth-and-prescription-drugs mind, it doesn’t always make for a pleasant experience.)

The first event happened right out of the gate. On the first morning, I came back to my room after breakfast to find my phone blowing up with text messages. This was surprising on two fronts: first, I’ve never had any connectivity before up at Spirit Rock. It has been one of the rare times I am grateful for AT&T’s shitty service. But, apparently that has improved, therefore the texts; second the texts were all wondering if I was OK and how was the weather in Scotland.  Finally, it became clear – my Gmail account had been hacked. A message went out to everyone I have ever emailed in the last 8 years saying something to the effect that I was stranded in Scotland after having been robbed at gunpoint – please send money.

I went to the manager’s office to plead to be able to use their computers to change my passwords on not only my email, but some of my other accounts. After a quick chastisement from one of the retreat managers about having phone turned on, she let use one of their computers to go in and stave off any further damage.  As far as I could see, they had only messed with my email account despite my being a very bad bad internet user and having the same password on multiple accounts.

So, having done all I could do to secure my accounts, that should have been the end of it, right? But, noooooooooo. When you’re sitting silently for over 5 hours a day, your mind has the opportunity to really make up some totally mad shit, and then rehash that over and over and over . . .  Plus, the texts kept coming in: my brother contacted the FBI; a friend of mine played with the hackers and agreed to send them the money, all the while bcc’ing the Edinburgh police in hopes they might nab them while picking up the imaginary transfer at the Western Union office; and someone asked me to pick up a kilt for them. But, when I realized I was just getting hooked into the amusement and drama, I decided to give my phone to the manager to hold on to for the duration of the retreat. It was time to let go.

My head settled down a bit for about a day, but then another drama decided to take my mind for a joyride. My “yogi job” (a daily chore all retreatants do) this time was dinner prep, which is mostly chopping vegetables. That should be nice and meditative right? Unlike my preferred yogi job of housekeeping, which is an individual task, supper prep is a group event.  There were five of us chopping veggies, scooping dough, or squeezing prunes (I never want to touch another prune in my life).  On day three, one of my co-yogis was watching me as if she was waiting for me to spit on the food or something. At one point, she went in to talk to one of the cooks, who then also came out to look at me.

Oh lordy lordy me, paranoia will destroya, ya know? My mind started to go ape shit. I was already extremely uncomfortable doing the task. Standing for long periods over a cutting board does a number on my back, which was already feeling challenged from the long periods of sitting, which was probably exacerbated from a sleep deficit. For the next 24 or so hours, my mind spun out over my imagined infraction mixed with back pain. And thanks to the joys of mindfulness, I was there for the whole show.  Great. Fucking great.

By the end of this short retreat however, I was weepy that it was over, and was fomenting some long-term plans to one day sit a three-month retreat.  Despite, the physical and psychological pain these retreats sometimes bring up, I know, on a deep level, this is what I need to be doing.

Giving up the written word

The other day when I was meeting with my Kalyana Mitta group (basically a Buddhist support group and book club), one of my sangha mates said. “I have to confess I was naughty and brought a book with me on retreat.” I looked around the room to see the reaction to his revelation. For the most part, everyone looked understanding and sympathetic to his disclosure. On the other hand, I probably looked fairly puzzled. Doesn’t everyone bring books with them on retreat? Oh god, am I the only one?

Of course, I have read and heard teachers advise against reading or writing during retreats. It breaks the continuity of mindfulness. The oft-used analogy is if you put a kettle of water on the stove and then take it off, then put it back on and take it off, the water is never going to boil. Same thing with our mindfulness. If we keep losing it by getting lost in words (written or being written), it breaks the continuity of the mindfulness and we’re never going to get the full benefit of the extended practice period. OK, yeah, I get it. But, honestly now, are people actually holding to that?

Apparently, people do.

Tomorrow I’m off on retreat again – five days up at Spirit Rock at a silent retreat co-lead by my golf club wielding teacher. When I met with him yesterday, I wanted to get some clarity on the reading thing.  He confirmed what I had heard before and whipped out the ol’ kettle analogy. I get it, but what I can’t understand is what people do in their rooms after the last sitting and before they fall asleep.  We have no access to electronic media – there is no cell or WiFi signal out there. And certainly no TV. Do people simply sit in their rooms staring mindfully at the walls?

My teacher looked at me rather gently as he told me the obvious: after the last sitting, people simply go to sleep. Oh right. Sleep. At 9:30 at night. Sleep. With no need to wind down, no transition. What a concept.

I have often marveled at how many of the dorm windows are dark when I come out of the last session at 10 or so.  I’m usually one of the last to leave the sitting, so I know all my  fellow yogis aren’t in the hall. Maybe they’re down in the dining hall enjoying a nice rice cracker and a cup of tea.  Doubtful. So the only other option is that they are already in bed. At 10 o’clock. Does not compute.

As you may have surmised, I’m a night owl. I tend to go to bed between midnight and 1 am.  Trust me, I’ve tried to go to bed earlier, but it doesn’t work.  I even diagnosed myself with a mild case of Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder.  I’m fortunate, it doesn’t impact my life that much since I tend to stay away from jobs where I have to be at work early or where my boss is a stickler about tardiness.

I’m also one of those people who cannot simply hop into bed and fall asleep no matter how tired I am. I need time to wind down. Even if I get home really late, I watch a little TV to let the mind know it’s time to stop thinking. So, on retreats with no access to mind-numbing TV, I will spend some time journalling and then take a dharma book with me to bed and try to read myself to sleep. And even that doesn’t always work, especially when I’m struck with anxiety or energy surges from a long day of meditation. As much as I love Spirit Rock and being on retreat, I’ve had plenty long dark nights of the soul there when I’ve found myself battling anxiety and sleeplessness.

Since this is a short retreat and with my teacher co-leading, I’ve decided to push myself a bit. I’m giving up the written word for the duration of the retreat. No reading, no writing.  I’m going to keep my kettle on the stove. If that means I’m still in the hall meditating at 2am, so be it. Basically, I’m going to meditate until I’m exhausted and can hopefully fall asleep without my routines.  (Though, don’t expect me at the 6:30 am sit.)

It sounds a bit extreme, I realize. But, worry not, I’ll still have a book tucked away in my suitcase if my plan doesn’t work out.

Struck by the golf club of wisdom

Years ago now, back when I was still deeply involved in the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT), I felt I was very firmly “on the path”. I had my bags packed for Enlightenment, or at the very least, some Pure Land.  I had my map, which we chanted at the beginning of each class – Prayers for the Stages of the Path. I trusted that my Spiritual Guide knew how to get to the top of the mountain, I just had to be willing to make the schlep.  I was going was to a place beyond suffering where I would abide in bliss and emptiness and hang out and radiate blessings to all the poor suckers still stuck in samsara. Or at least I thought it was something like that.  The only model we had for enlightened beings were old Tibetan dudes, most of whom were dead.  Enlightened beings never looked like me.

When I stepped off the Mahayana path and started down the much more mindfulness oriented path of Vipassana, my spiritual goals changed.  I stopped fetishising Enlightenment as the end all and be all. That may come eventually, but for now I was simply trying to stay present, right in this moment.  And by going on retreats, I was able to get a taste of some of the bliss that comes with a highly concentrated mind, and experience the peace that comes from mindful attention to my moment-by-moment experience.

Yet, I still had this sense that I would never totally have my spiritual shit together.  All the teachers I had come to admire had traveled to Burma, Thailand, India, etc. and did long retreats. Instead of old Tibetan dudes, my new spiritual role models became the prototypical Spirit Rock teacher – a Marin-dwelling, Jewish psychotherapist.

One day, not so long ago,  I was on my way to see my therapist – a Marin-dwelling, Jewish Spirit Rock teacher. As I drove up to his home office I saw him remove a set of golf clubs from the back of his car. Golf clubs? Gurus don’t play golf. I was completely thrown. We probably spent half the session talking about why I was having such an averse reaction to the fact that he played golf (nay! loved golf). No conclusion was reached by the end of the session. I left as baffled as I was when I arrived.

The next morning as I was driving to work I was still mulling my rather extreme reaction to the golf clubs. Then it hit me. Seeing my teacher with those golf clubs pretty much shattered the picture in my head of what a person who has their spiritual shit together is like.  So, I mulled, if that picture is false, then who is to say that I can’t have my spiritual shit together? Why does my awakening have to look like an old Tibetan dude’s, or  my Marin-dwelling, Jewish therapist/teacher’s?

Those golf clubs struck me like a vajra.  For the rest of the trip into the office,  my ordinary view of other drivers and pedestrians shifted, and I saw them as potential Buddhas (beings who totally have their spiritual shit together).  The hipster girl walking across the street talking on cell could have been a Buddha. The old Chinese lady getting off the bus with her bag of groceries had a Buddha nature. Even the cabbie who cut me off may have been fully enlightened. So why not me?

I never realized how much I had been holding on to these pictures of what a person who had deep spiritual realizations looked or acted like. Nor did I know how much I had excluded myself from that picture.

But, no more.

Tears for Aurora

I blame my metta practice for how easily and frequently I find myself tearing up.

As I watched Anderson Cooper tonight interviewing victims of the Aurora, CO theater shooting,  I noticed I had stopped breathing. I recognize too well the look of shock and horror in the witnesses eyes. My heart breaks for them. I cry for them. I know from experience their lives may never be the same. A trust has been broken. While there is no written contract stating that your life will never be touched by violence, you certainly never expect to be just minding your own business in the relative safety of your home or a movie theater and then be confronted by someone with a gun.

That happened to me over 30 years ago and there are still reverberations. I was at a friend’s house and two men burst into the home threatening to shoot us. They didn’t. They did other things. My body still holds the memories. The event still occasionally revisits me in my dreams. This even after years of psychological and spiritual work. I feel fortunate to have therapists and teachers who have helped me turned that shitty event into the manure in which to grow my compassion.

But through the tears there is also anger and outrage. But, it’s not directed at the shooter. I don’t feel pity for him, yet I know it takes a very sick, deluded person to do what he did. No, my anger is at the NRA and its supporters who think it’s OK to be able to legally sell assault rifles to the general public and who have fought tooth and nail for people to be able to buy as many guns and as much ammunition as they please. No red flags were raised about this guy and his recent weapon buying spree. It was all legal. And it makes me sick. And I want to get on a soapbox. I want to blame some “other” for allowing this. But, I know it will do no good. Already online I can read the gun control debates. Everyone just spouting “I’m right, you’re wrong” with no true dialogue.

Tonight as I was doing my metta practice I did a round for everyone affected by the events today in Aurora. And while I certainly wish them happiness and peace, health and strength, and ease of well-being, I wish with all my heart for them that one day that they may once again feel safe and protected. It may take some work, but I want to hold them and tell that it is indeed possible.

Coming clean

Recently I made a big decision. Not a particularly life-changing one at this point in my life, but it is a big commitment of time and finances. It’s a bit of unfinished business from a time in my life when everything went very, very wrong. It’s a decision that under most circumstances should be applauded. But, instead this decision means I have to tell the truth and face the shame of having misrepresented myself for most of my adult life.

I have decided to go back to school to complete my Bachelor’s degree.

Even now that’s hard to write. In telling even my closest friends it feels like a coming out of sorts. It’s hard to admit to others that I didn’t finish my degree. Most people thought I have, and I have made no effort to dissuade them from that notion. When people talk about college I have always said with confidence “I went to Berkeley”. I don’t say I graduated from Berkeley, nor do I tell the complete truth that  I dropped out from Berkeley in the latter half of my senior year.  Well, that’s not entirely true either. Since I’m being honest, I have overtly lied about having a degree. When I was much younger I lied on my resume and said I had my BA in Film Studies. I figured a) being only one semester away from graduating was close enough b) they wouldn’t check anyway and c) no one was going to hire me based on a degree in Film Studies, for fuck’s sake. But still, it was a lie and lies have a way of weighing on your conscience.

The decision to go back to school was a relatively sudden one, not something I’ve been ruminating on for a long time. It never seemed necessary.  I’ve made my way through the working world based on my smarts and initiative, not on a couple of letters after my name. Yet, after some long, deep discussions with a colleague of mine about our accidental careers, I realized I had painted myself into a corner. Granted it was a comfy corner with good pay and benefits, but it was still a corner. Will a BA open up whole new career horizons? Especially a BA in Humanities? Maybe, but probably not, especially not at my age. But, at least I won’t think twice about applying for jobs where a BA is required. Also, should the foolish notion of graduate school cross my mind, at least I will have met that whole “graduated” requirement.

I will be attending an evening BA completion program at a lovely, small, and well respected private university that is with only 7.5 miles away from my home. Rather than doing an online program, I wanted to have that human touch (after all, my degree will be Humanities) and to be in an environment where studying non-career enriching topics such as literature or art history is valued, not questioned, as in “how on earth is that going to help you in the real world?”

So far everyone I have chosen to tell has been very happy for me. A couple of them were downright verklempt. And as I have started to free myself from this lie I had to told to others (but mostly to myself), I am finding myself feeling oddly vulnerable. I am stripping off a layer of identity – “Berkeley graduate” – that I had taken on even though it was a lie. And under this layer of faux identity, I am finding the skin is very pink and tender.

And it’s OK. It’s amazingly OK.

2 bd/2 ba apt available – dogs OK

Tonight, as was I was fumbling with my keys to get into my house, I was besieged by the frantic barking of the dogs in the apartment building next door.

“Jesus, dogs, I live here. Can’t I come and go from my own house without you losing your shit?” I mutter to myself. (And yes, I know it’s not the dogs’ fault, but the humans. Still it gets old. Really old.)

It’s not a new complaint. These dogs are only the latest in a series of frantic dogs who have lived in that particular apartment over the years, which got me musing about the occupancy criteria.

Potential tenants (PT): We love it!  We’ll take it.
Landlord (LL): OK, great, but I need to ask you some questions first. Do you have a dog?
PT: Um, we have two. The ad said dogs were allowed.
LL: No, that’s great. How big are they?
PT: Oh, they’re small. Chihuahuas.
LL: Perfect. Do they bark a lot?
PT: Well, they’re protective. Yes, I guess they can be a bit vocal at times.
LL: But could you characterize them as “yappy”?
PT: Some might call them that. But, they’re only like that when they get bored or lonely.
LL: How often are they left alone?
PT: We both work, so they’re alone pretty much all day, and well, frankly most of the evenings too.
LL:  Are they territorial?
PT: Like we said, they’re protective. If anyone comes close to the house, they’ll probably bark.
LL: How close?
PT: I don’t know, 50 yards?  Yeah about half a football field in any direction sounds right.
LL:  Perfect!  Your dogs sound like they will continue the long distinguished history of bored-psycho-yappy dogs that have occupied this particular apartment. I’ll get you the paperwork and we’ll get you moved in ASAP. Welcome to the neighborhood.