The Serenity Garden

I am coming to the awareness that building a serenity garden is different from learning how to live in it.

When I moved into my new office in April of 2010, I was so happy to have more space in a much quieter building with great parking available to my patients. But the piece that I loved the most was a big south-facing window on the second floor that looked out on a flat porch that could be accessed by a door in my adjacent waiting room. That whole spring I began to create my serenity garden. Over many weeks I brought up beach rocks, black river stones and smaller, multicolored aquarium stones for the roof floor. I planted pansies in wooden window boxes along the metal walkway. I hung spring planters from the fire escape and put all kinds of annuals in blue-glazed pots along the walls.

As it began to take shape an interesting thing began to happen. Patients in the waiting room began to notice. One patient brought me three organic scarlet runner beans and I put them in the window boxes so that they would climb up the hand railing along the walkway. Another patient brought me a beautiful blue-green ceramic birdbath. Another brought in a beautiful, unusually- shaped yellow stone and asked to place it in the garden herself. One patient I did not know wrote to me that she had been coming to that waiting room for six years and the garden and plants and water were "a pleasure and an urban joy!"

A final touch was to hang bird feeders so that they were just outside my office window: suet feeders, a wild bird feeder, a thistle mesh bag for finches and a small nectar feeder for hummingbirds. For the first five months no one came. I put ads in the East Side Weekly, I spread seeds on the ground, I breathed and held positive thoughts. Each morning I would go on the roof and weed, prune, water, change the bird food just as the sun was coming up in the east at the end of Angell Street. It was quiet and peaceful and I could smell the freshly baked breads and scones from the first floor cafe.

It was amusing for me to watch what happens to the mind when things don't go the way we expect: I have the wrong birdseed, I advertised in the wrong papers, I have bad bird karma. And of course, when they finally did come, they were "just sparrows"- not that there's anything wrong with sparrows, but would it throw the universe off if a chickadee or a goldfinch stopped by?

And then the squirrels came to my serenity garden. They would dig in my plants and kill the roots of my flowers. They jumped up onto one tray feeder and I remember in the middle of a couples' session, jumping up and banging on the window yelling "Get outta here!" By the time the couple looked out the window, of course they saw nothing and I made up in my mind that when they left the office, they would exchange knowing glances and she would say "George, we're actually coming here for help from him!?"

One day, I swore the squirrel set himself on the window ledge, looked in to find me, and made provocative faces at me. My mind, again, wandered from serenity to murder. I thought about building a 'squirrel blind' (think camouflaged tent) where I would wait for the critter to come and then shoot him with a paint ball pellet and he would have to go home to his family and friends and explain why he had a big yellow blotch on his rear end.

So what did I learn from this experience? 1) Birds come when they want to- lots of them; 2) Serenity takes some work; 3) Guns, not such a good idea (at least with small kids around).

My Old Friend

On honoring a dear friend and on learning how to age with grace.

It was a tense moment in early August as I picked up the dice, during a rough stretch when I had fallen behind my friend, Ab, 9-3, in the 10th Annual Summer Backgammon Tournament at Baker's Beach in Westport, Massachusetts. There were probably close to 20,000 people, as I remember, gathered around us on the beach, with barely a person even whispering a tense word. Ab stared intently at the board, every bit of attention focused on my next critical throw- double 4's, a tremendous gasp from the crowd as I not only won the game, but went on to take an 11-10 lead by the end of August: a truly amazing comeback!

During the winter months, Ab would send me a post card with a picture of the Swiss alps, saying that he was taking an advanced seminar with Europe's backgammon master, Wolfgang Steiner. I would send Ab a postcard back with a picture of St. Mark's Square in Venice, saying that I had taken the seminar two years ago and that Steiner's reputation was vastly overrated.

One day a young man wandered over to us as we played our favorite game on the beach and asked if he could "play the winner". Ab and I glanced at each other and he said that we wouldn't know "the winner" until the Fall. The young man watched anyway. After Ab moved a 6-4 dice throw, I said "Ab, that Nimzo-Indian defense you're playing was discredited 6 months ago in an article in the Viennese Backgammon Journal". Ab calmly looked up and asked me if I had read Wallett's brilliant rebuttal of Steiner in the Parisian Backgammon Monthly. The young man looked in awe to be in the presence of such players.

Ab is my old friend- not like Elliot and I, who go back to 5th grade together. Ab is old (88) and he is my friend. About 65 years ago when he graduated Brown University, he worked for two years and saved every penny while he waited for his beloved Marilyn to also graduate Brown. When she got her diploma, Ab had saved enough for a down payment on a house in Fall River and he carried Marilyn over the threshold of that house where they have lived ever since- until very soon when they will move to a senior living community in Providence. Ab will also resign as chairman of the board of a major bank in Fall River. He will end his 25 years of service at a soup kitchen and a food distribution center. He will continue playing clarinet and trumpet in a band but will cut back on the number of gigs.

As we walked along the beach one day this summer, he bent down and picked up a banded rock- a rock with, usually, a white band around it. He cleaned off the sand, looked at it intently and showed it to me. "Jon, this is a beauty. I'll have it assessed professionally, but I would guess it's worth at least $30,000." I said "at least that much, Ab. Your collection must, easily, be worth tens of millions by now".

He told me he was nervous about the move from his home: "All my friends from Fall River are gone now.... I'll have to make new friends, I guess. And it won't be easy going through all the letting go at once- but it's time." I told him that once they move, we could extend the summer backgammon tournaments into the fall and winter. That cheered him up.

I thought of all the things he'd done and seen in 88 years. During World War II, he was in an infantry division that supported another unit in liberating Buchenwald concentration camp. I thought of the all the things that he'd been asked to let go of and I felt such admiration and respect for my dear Old Friend. I just thought, "When I grow up, I want to be you". God willing.

Visits from Uncle Charlie

I have an ongoing struggle with technology and my resulting brave struggle to march into the 21st century.

It's finally quiet on the ward. It's the hour after lunch and the hour before group therapy when I will listen to Karen tell us about her Uncle Charlie who comes through her bedroom walls to steal her sweaters; and to Richard who has a tattoo on his neck of a snake and a rose with the words "Don't Take Me Alive"; and to Mike who believes the Judgment Day has already come and we are, all of us, all ready in Heaven with the Day Nurses and the Psychiatrists administering our eternal ward rooms and medications...I'm not judging, mind you, because I am painfully aware that I am far from solid ground myself.

Let me start at the beginning... A few weeks ago I faced a painful awareness that my virus-riddled and slow moving dinosaur of a PC had to be put down. Putting it down, killing it or disassembling it was not the problem. It was the terrifying thought of what I would have to go through to get a new one. So I called my friend, David, and he said he would go with me to Staples and hold my hand through the ordeal. He met me at the store, said he's done "the research" and had, in fact, bought "that one" last month and that it was on sale and his recommendation was that I get it too. Then it began to happen... David and the tech support person, "Darryl", started talking to each other. The scene began to blur and they now were talking in tongues. I was looking through the long end of a telescope as they debated rams, giggle bites and voltage regulators. Then I remember pulling out my credit card, smiling and saying "thank you ".

David tried to help me set up the new machine but we didn't know how to connect it to the wireless printer or how to find six years of Quicken data or where to find my address book. Also I couldn't find where my free four hours of online training were so I called my "chief wizard" consultant who yelled at me for buying a PC and not a Mac, and then made everything work for another $240. My wife told me I should have bought a Mac. I called my friend Peter who told me I should have bought a Mac. I was disappointing everyone. I began taking tranquilizers and went back into therapy, hoping to avoid an inpatient hospitalization. I realized one day before the return policy ran out that I'd made a mistake buying this PC and I brought it back to Staples. When "Darryl" asked why I was returning it, I told him I was going to get a Mac. He smiled and said "Good move!"

Have you ever been in an Apple store? There are about 11,000 gawkers and geekers in there day or night. I threw myself around the ankles of a blue-shirted young man who unclenched my desperate hands and told me he didn't work there but I should talk to a salesperson.... Anyway, I bought a computer, arranged for a "training of data transfer", signed up for "one-to-one tech support", whatever that is; purchased 3 years of "I Care" which I think is where they send you a card on your birthday. And then I went for my inpatient evaluation.... The psychiatrists tell me they are confident I can someday walk out of the hospital into a bright shining 21st century. I smile flatly and say "I hope so, Doctor". But I really believe that I never was meant to leave the 1960's. And last night, Uncle Charlie came through the walls of my ward room asking me if I wanted to buy a Kindle.

Life Is Short, and so Am I

Aging, possibility of having cancer, and becoming a grandfather for the first time are all good ways to bring things into sharp perspective.

"There are 50 ways to leave your lover"... - Paul Simon

I became a grandfather for the first time at the end of the summer. My daughter had asked me what I wanted the baby to call me when he/she began to speak. I thought of all the deep, meaningful connections from my past and I said "Yastrzemski" (after the great Red Sox left fielder of the 60's). Without breaking stride, as only my daughter can, she said "Too many syllables". Realizing the wisdom there, we settled on "Grumpy".

But becoming a grandfather led me to think about what lessons I could pass on or teach this new being of light. Well, I went back again to meaningful lessons in the past that I had received. The lesson I remember most from my dear father was what he would always say when he wanted to offer a helping hand through a dark moment. He would say "Life is short". I thought that was meaningful, but, really, I had no idea what he was talking about. When I was young, growing up, life wasn't really short. It was very long- it was forever, really. But as I grew up and became an elder, I came to understand what his words meant. As I experienced dark, scary things (like my dad dying), I came to know that life is really very short. His lesson was an invitation to stay in the present and embrace the preciousness of life in every breath.

"Life is short". We've all heard those words and we endorse the wisdom of them, but it's only when life shows us its ragged, hard edge that we really know those words at a heart, visceral level. So many times I had come up short in holding the truth of this teaching.

On April 18th I had a prostate biopsy. For two months I tried to sit with the uncertainty of what this might mean. Because I did not want my daughter to be distracted from her pregnancy, only two other people knew about the biopsy: my wife and my dear friend, Peter, who had been through radiation treatment for prostate cancer four years earlier. As I lived through the waiting, I tried to breathe and stay in the moment, but many times I fell short of being able to do this. It was so much easier to rehearse and to drift into the future of "what ifs". My dad's lesson, "Life is short" brought me some comfort and helped bring me to a place of perspective.

When the doctor called me on April 25th, I realized that the only words I had not rehearsed, the only words I was not prepared for were "Everything came out great, Jon! All the biopsy samples were benign".... The truth is, I think it's really hard for any of us to stay in the present moment for very long. We all fall short again and again. There's always something fascinating going on that lures us back into marching in the parade....

So, at times, life is so very short. It really does seem like yesterday that my own beautiful daughter was home birthed into my trembling hands. And now I'm thinking about words I might pass on to my first grandchild.... "Life is short" seems just perfect.

Wounds

I believe that, if somehow we could see beneath the outer presentation to the inner wounds, we would experience nothing but compassion.

So, I've been thinking a lot about wounds and all the many applications, or 'apps' as they say now, that that word has to the body and the spirit. This is just something I do - to take a word and play with it, invite it in, live with it. I do it alphabetically and, when, after months or years, I get to 'Z', I start over. It's just my off beat mind's lifelong affair with words. Many months ago it was the word 'ice': ice that forms around the edges of a human heart when one is forgotten; ice that envelops and crushes Shackleton's ship, the Endurance, in Antarctica in 1915 and then the ice that literally carried the 28 surviving crewmen on a life and death journey of 16 months; ice in my glass that reflects a warm November sun as I sit at the little outdoor cafe downstairs from my office.

And then as I look up from my ice I see him walking, slowly, past me, again- a small man with a beard, walking with a cane in his right hand, moving his right leg forward, then dragging his left leg behind. He always carries a shopping bag hung from his right arm. His left arm looks crooked and lifeless. And he has a big pronounced wound on the side of his head running from his hairline down to his cheek. I've seen him many times walking in the square where my office is. I've actually tried to position myself to cross his path so that I could smile or say hi - but he never looks up. His head is bent down and his eyes are set 6 feet ahead of him on the ground, as if every bit of energy is focused on finishing the journey without any more distraction or challenge than he's already facing.

I make up stories about him. Stroke? Maybe the wound is from a car accident leaving him paralyzed on the left side. Why doesn't he use a motorized wheelchair? Maybe he's proud or maybe he doesn't want to lose the little mobility that remains to him. Why doesn't someone help him with his errand? Does he have a family? What a courageous man - or maybe stubborn or bitter. A wound that dramatically altered the landscape of his life - that suddenly changed the arc of his unfolding...

I have a friend, Carolyn, my age, whose son, David, died a few years ago at age 25 from congenital heart defects he'd had from birth. He had graduated Princeton and had decided two years before his death that maybe the fault lines underneath him might just be stable enough to risk getting into a serious relationship with a girl. But the fault lines gave way. It was a warm sunny October day at the gravesite. A lot of beautiful words, a lot of tears. Usually, some people take a shovelful of dirt and place it on the lowered coffin, and then leave. But this day, because so many people were there, everyone shoveled, until the grave was filled- and then I saw something that will stay in my memory always. Carolyn stood on the fresh gravesite, got down on her hands and knees and smoothed the ground for David's final resting place.

When I see Carolyn since then, I don't see the visible wound, but I see it's effect. There are more gray hairs, more lines in her face, a sadness that is soul deep. Her wound also eff ects the way she walks. Her walk is more hunched, less brave, less confident.

So as I think about wounds on this warm, sunny day, I think that there are visible wounds and there are wounds that are seen by close friends and then there are wounds that often are unseen by anyone. I think that we may never really know how another has suffered and, perhaps, all we can do is offer a little more patience and kindness to whoever may cross our path.