The Compliment January 31, 2023

In the past month or two, I found myself to be the recipient of unexpected compliments, and I was surprised and also quite delighted to hear them. It all started, I think, at Christmas dinner at Marcia’s house. Marcia and I met each other 50 years ago in an engineering graphics class at Penn State. We became friends and then roommates both in college and in graduate school at MIT, and we had married and migrated to California at about the same time. During dinner, Marcia mentioned to the group that I was the best mathematician she knew. I nearly fell out of my chair. It is true that I used to be very good in math, but surely Marcia herself is equally gifted or has known others who must have surpassed me. I was deeply humbled and also so grateful to be acknowledged in this way. 

Then last week at Bach Choir practice, the new soprano sitting next to me learned over not once, but twice, to say, “You have excellent posture.” “Oh, thank you!” I twice replied. I then discovered she is a Pilates instructor, which made the complement all the sweeter. 

As readers of the blog might know, I am an Athena, and one of my mini-goals in life was to encourage (or should I say “pester”) my dear friend Jeannette until she got her will in order, which she finally did. The other day she said, “Jane, I have to thank you for really pushing me to do this – it is such a relief.” 

Giving and receiving praise is such a delightful human activity, and I was kind of startled by my response to all this. Is it possible that I’ve been receiving such compliments all along, but that I’ve been too low to really appreciate them? My online neuropsych and Buddhist guru Rick Hanson claims that we humans are “Velcro for bad and Teflon for good”. Perhaps all this work I did in 2022 to develop new stability, including to savor the good, has enabled me to be a better recipient of others’ generosity. Bring it on! I’m ready to hear it! 

And a coda: Last night, at rehearsal for the Marin Symphony, I whispered to the singer next to me, “I’m really enjoying sitting next to you. You are keeping me on track.” As we gathered our belongings at the end of rehearsal, with tears in her eyes, she said, “Thank you for telling me that.”

The Pull of a Pet January 10, 2023

In January 2022, as part of my new-year musings, I resolved to get a dog. The year came and went, and still I have no dog. 

I had made this resolution mainly to boost my spirits. After my tuxedo cat Pogo had died in 2021 (on my birthday, as a matter of fact), my loneliness became more acute. Bringing a dog into my life, I reasoned, would augment my health, well-being, and circle of friends, not to mention provide a good home for a rescue animal. 

More than a decade before that resolution, when Annie was still in high school, she and I had adopted a five-month old puppy with curly black fur, floppy white paws, and a sweet pink tongue. Her name was Daisy, and we were both thrilled. 

I had only a week with Daisy, though, before I faced the agonizing decision to return her to the SPCA. On the plus side, she was smart, well-trained, and agreeable. We enjoyed our walks, and I got to know my neighbors. Daisy was good on-leash and off-leash at Crissy Field, running into the Bay and returning to me when I called her. And she sat patiently outside the window of a coffee shop when I met friends. 

But, as puppies do, she had a bit of a chewing problem. Day 2 she chewed a shoe. Day 3 she chewed a table leg. Day 5 she chewed the window shades. All of that was to be expected. But on Day 6, she chewed Pogo. 

Well, maybe not “chewed” exactly – and here I will give her the benefit of the doubt – maybe she just wanted to play. Pogo and Daisy tumbled down the stairs in a chaotic and noisy embrace, and as soon as he got the chance, Pogo ran out the back door and didn’t come home till the next day. It seemed that this relationship was doomed, so back to the SPCA I went, with Daisy and Annie. I was in full-scale bawling mode when I told the staff that I had to return her, but they gently replied that a man in Oakland had been calling every day to see whether Daisy had been returned. As so, sadly I relinquished my little friend, and I’ve been remorseful about this decision ever since. I was already in love with her. 

So, what’s it going to be for 2023? Will a little pet enter my life again? I surf the humane society websites, I even visit them in person now that COVID conditions are relaxed. But still, how can I make this leap. I have every excuse, and no excuse. It is a leap of faith, and I’m going to need someone to push me.

A Matter of Trust December 12, 2022

This year, I have been thinking a lot about trust. My musings began when I endeavored to process an unsettling trend in one of my relationships. My jaw literally dropped when it hit me: I can no longer fully trust this person. It wasn’t a willful or malicious act on the other’s part, perhaps just thoughtlessness or a side-effect of aging, but the realization was a punch in the gut even so. 

Last May, my trust was also betrayed by the school I was working for, when I discovered I was to be replaced by a new hire on the very last day of the spring semester. I felt exploited, and devastated. 

Trust is an essential element to the health of our lives, both personal and societal. It is the security blanket that allows us to function, to love, and to explore. We take it for granted that clean water will flow from the tap, that our husband will be there when we come home, and that our COVID vaccine will work. Is it any wonder that our society is shredded, when our leaders say anything to ensure political advantage, yet say something different when that advantage disintegrates? 

I started to realize how important trust is to me and how I had taken trust in others for granted. As a girl, I trusted my parents completely. I trusted “the system” to be fair, that if one worked hard, one would be rewarded with a good education, a decent job, a safe place to live. I also found myself thinking about relationships that were beneficial for me and fostered trust, specifically those with my teachers. Yes, even at my advanced age, I rely on teachers to stimulate me, on an almost daily basis. 

Take my online voice teacher, Julia Nielsen, whom I’ve been tuning into on a weekly basis for two and half years. She is extremely knowledgeable. She is non-judgmental. She endlessly encouraging. And she shows up, twice a week and then some, prepared and engaged. I trust her with my voice, without question. 

Then there is my online mindfulness guru, Rick Hanson, whom I’ve been tuning into for more than a year. I trust Rick. I know that there will be a jewel in his weekly JOT (Just One Thing) as well as comfort and inspiration in his Wednesday meditations. I know that each time I come away from his writing or talk, I will feel refreshed and have another little nugget to chew on. 

Finally I come to my current art professor, Jason Dunn, who teachers ceramics at College of Marin. I had been aware of Jason for some, and though ceramics wasn’t high on my list of art disciplines to delve into, I knew he was one of the best art teachers at COM. Now, I’m just emerging from three months of clay building and glazing, and yes, I trust Jason completely. He is there for us everyday, cheerful, knowledgeable, experienced, and supportive. 

Surely we can all name moments when we’ve been stunned by a personal betrayal. How does one regain trust after that kind of insult? Is it even possible? It is a “one-foot-in-front-of-the-other” kind of thing, a slowly knitting of a wound. The process will always leave a scar, but perhaps we can function with it anyway.

What if... August 10, 2022

It’s said that as we get older we spend more time looking backward than forward. We reflect on people we’ve loved, happy times we’ve shared, places we’ve been, but with all that sweetness comes also the bitterness of loss, injury, or disappointment. 

From time to time I look back upon the choices I’ve made, not necessarily to applaud or disparage them, but to understand them, and maybe, if it’s not too late, to learn from them. Sometimes I even drift into “what if…”. 

This all came to mind again when I read a New Yorker article entitled “In Another Life” by Joshua Rothman, who takes us on a literary “what if” through Henry James, Tolstoy, Sartre, and a variety of poets. 

For me, most of life has just been following the scent that led me, and there were very few decisions of seemingly deep consequence to be made. Of course I would go to graduate school, even though I recall having a very attractive job offer from IBM. Of course I would marry the man I loved. Of course I would move to California, why not have an adventure? 

But there was one decision that I have come to regret, or at least to question many times: When Annie was still young, I was offered the position as head of an Institute, indeed an entire research enterprise, in Melbourne, Australia. It was an incredible opportunity, but it came with financial repercussions, as an American, and familial challenges, as my parents were aging. I made the decision to stay – to keep a good and stable job and to not abandon my sister with the full responsibility to care for our parents. 

I can’t say that I would have been “happier” in Melbourne, but I can imagine that Annie might have better weathered her adolescence there. And for that reason alone, knowing what I now know and what she and I have experienced, I can’t help but think life could have been so much better if I had chosen a different path.

The January Resolution July 6, 2022

As I’ve mentioned before, since I retired I have had the luxury in early January of a break in the action. This has given me the benefit of a little time to rest, to reflect, and to redirect. In past Januarys, I’ve joined Al-Anon, committed to making a boundary with a someone I cared about deeply, Marie Kondo-ed my papers, clothes, and kitchen, taken a happiness course, and weaned myself off an anti-depressant. This January, I decided to take this anti-depression idea one step further: to vow to never again fall into that black abyss. 

I have never had a depression serious enough to plunge me into a hospital, but I have suffered four times in my life in what I refer to as “situational depression” – something happens in life that poses a great challenge and great sadness, leading to the debilitating mood disorder of depression. In a depression, for those of you who haven’t really experienced it, it is almost impossible to feel joy. Now think of spending maybe 15% of your life this way. What a complete waste of a perfectly good life!

(Just for the record, my low points were in graduate school, which seemed interminable, when my first husband decided he no longer wanted to be in our relationship, when my second husband died, and when my daughter was in the throes of addiction.) 

In January, I vowed to end this cycle. My friend Jeannette referred me to an online lecture by Zindel Segal, a Canadian Clinical Psychologist who, with two partners, developed a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy approach to preventing depression, based on the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn. Segal describes how having once had an episode of depression, the neurological pathways are primed to transform sadness to depression once again. And so the task of the patient is to be more in touch with the pathways and to develop strategies to divert or blockade them. 

Segal’s ideas resonated for me. They are a variant on the old Buddhist saw “pain is everywhere, the suffering is up to you”. Yes, sadness is everywhere, but maybe the depression part is optional. How could I develop the mental attitude and skill set to deal with this monkey on my back? 

I bought the group’s book and workbook, enthusiastically plunged into the daunting daily commitment to meditations of varying types and durations and less daunting tasks of reflections. Segal et al. argue that we ruminate to try to intellectually pull ourselves out of depression – wow how true! – but instead we should just relax into the pain, recognize it as pain, but learn to absorb it through awareness and practice. They refer to it as “being brain” rather than “doing brain”. 

I wish I could report that I have transformed my approach or attitude or capacity or something like that, but the truth is that I have no idea. Several times, I have certainly caught myself dipping into that black ink, but managed to pull myself back out fairly quickly. I’m half-way through the year and a bit frustrated that I haven’t had the epiphany I expected. Maybe I’m a little sad, too, but I’m trying to be much kinder to myself. Maybe when the next challenge in life meets me, I’ll be able to ride the tsunami with a better perspective and a little more equanimity.