The walk worked

Saturday morning she got the call, and today we got permission to tell our world: beginning in July, Laura will be the Principal of the Upper School at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City. New York is the place where all the people live, and where they know how to dress. I'm told that in some parts of New York, little girls can walk in heels by the time they're 10 and little boys can tie a tie. The people have learned not to say hello to other people on the street, and it works for them. Saves a lot of time, I guess.

We both have a lot to learn.

Fortunately, the school itself seems quite friendly and down-to-earth. Fieldston is a progressive school --and actually I should put that in caps. Fieldston is a "Progressive School," which is an Actual Thing you can Google. The search committee members were very warm and kind at the meet-the-spouse dinner, and seemed to want things to go as smoothly as I did. They seemed to follow my mind and its wanderings. And most of them ordered the flan, too. I think we will get along well.

Laura and I will get to see what it's like to be together only on weekends, a serious downside to an otherwise fantastic turn of events. I think my blog may become my best friend in her absence, so don't go anywhere. Despite my genuine happiness about the job for Laura, I had several nightmares last night -- testament to my anxiety, I suppose, about all the changes afoot. The bottom half of my face fell off as I tried to ask for help, for example. I hate when that happens.

But overall, we are very happy about this upcoming adventure. It is important to mention, since I ranted in my previous post about the glass ceiling on Laura's career, that the Head of Fieldston wrote in his announcement to our new community: Please join me in welcoming Laura, her wife, Dr. Paula Chu, and their three grown children, Yani, Ting, and T’ai.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you've just got to love evolution.

Let Robin drive the Batmobile

Laura is in the running for a big job in New York City. Toward the end of this week she's having a daylong, second-round interview, meeting the whole family. It is just about all we are talking about on our long walks these days.

Given her experience, ability, and Lauraness, Laura ought to have been a head of a school for the past ten years or so. But her forehead is bruised by bumps against a thick glass ceiling. People around us seem surprised. Surely not, they say. Surely we have shattered glass roofs and ceilings and the cloudless sky is the limit on Laura's career. But no. There are exactly zero boarding schools (where Laura has spent 30 years) in the country with a Head of School who is gay. Though dozens of search consultants have approached Laura over the years, when she tells them who will be flossing next to her in the Head's house, the message changes from "we are desperate for you to apply," to "well, we still welcome your application." It's enough to make me want to stop flossing.

So that's a lot of why this past summer Laura left her ten-year post as second-in-command at a school she loves. Not the flossing; the ceiling.

Laura makes a great Robin: she has a remarkable gift for supporting Batman. She can make him look sharp, watch his back while he careens around town doing his thing, getting his credit -- whether that superhero is a student, a colleague, a head of school, or a spouse. Heck, in many cases she has taught Batman to drive. So career-wise, it's frustrating when you can do that, and you know Batman will never pass you the keys to the Batmobile. You have to sit in the back all the time. You get frustrated and carsick.

Laura and I have had a wonderful few months together while she figures out where-to-from-here. My eyes still bug out when I come out of session and supper is on the table, the library books have been returned, and there is a bowl of peeled grapes on the table. Okay, that last bit hasn't happened. That would be weird. But having Laura around most of the time, when I am accustomed to her working 65 hours a week, has been fabulous. She tells me that when she was a long distance runner, the most important day in her training was the day of rest. This year, she is having that rest.

But we can only manage that for one academic year, and then back to making dough she must go. She also needs to go back to being part of a community. Laura was born to lead, even if it means being Robin, being second in command.

Now and then Laura thinks maybe she should be a counselor again. She's done that before. In three different schools in fact, she's started out as counselor and then, like a rubber ball held under your bathwater, she bobs up to the top. The Head taps her to be Robin. She doesn't ask for these roles; she just bobs up to the top.

Having Laura do what I do would be like having Secretariat give pony rides at the county fair. What a waste of leadership muscle.

Aaaanyway, we are gearing up for this interview! I won't say where it is, but it is at another school she thinks she could love -- maybe even as much as she loves the school she felt she needed to leave. I am tossing her questions and lobbing her fer-instances. And I am coaching her on how female candidates walk around a new campus. Not that I want her to be anyone but the boxer-wearing, shoulder-swaying, tooth-flossing wife I love! But let's face it: we want her to put her best foot -- not shoulder -- first.

Here is Laura walking before today's tutorial at the reservoir:

Here is Laura walking with instructions to move her arms, not her shoulders. You be the judge. Who's Robin now?

Liebe Liebster; a hard act to follow

Lisa Watts has outed me. Lisa writes Minding the Miles, a blog I think she writes while running. Lisa is my beloved sister Ellen's beloved friend and running partner, and in every story I hear about Lisa, she is running. I think maybe Lisa runs all the time, the way the rest of us walk around and open the fridge and then check email again. When Lisa crossed the finish line at the Cape Cod Marathon a few years ago, my memory says she took a swig of water, picked up one kid (hers) to pop on the breast, held another kid (also hers) on her hip, and had a couple of others (okay, I guess they were all hers) embracing her proudly. Lisa's sweet-as-that-swig-of-water blog is the only other blog I sort of know. Since I like it, I think it deserves the Liebster Blog Award, which spotlights good, small blogs. But the award accidentally outs the frauds among us. That may not be the overt purpose of the award, but in my case, that is the result. Because Lisa kindly nominated taotechu for the same award, a designation that means one small blogger (you can actually be fairly large, but the blog needs to be pretty small in terms of followers) (although Lisa happens to be sort of small, by chance) thinks another small blog is worthwhile. And now, like in an awkward game of tag where everyone else is older and runs faster than you do, it is my turn to pick five (5!) of my favorite small blogs and nominate them.

I don't follow any blogs. Unless -- weather.com doesn't count, does it? Sometimes I follow that.

I feel like a fraud, hoping for blog followers when I do not follow blogs myself.

I always felt like a bit of a fraud back when I was an English major in the 1970s, so I recognize the feeling. I could write papers well enough, but reading with a dried out highlighter and a dictionary wasn't as much fun as it sounds. 17th century poetry, as one fibrous example, was like eating unshelled seeds -- lots of parts passed through undigested, and the tiny kernel of meaning was small satisfaction for all the work it took to get at.

Sure. I cried when King Lear found Cordelia and began to outgrow his tight heart just before dying. And I have snorted over witty passages by Whatshisname and that other writer, too, that I wished in the moment of reading I would never forget. I like getting literary references that are meant to invoke only a secret, prideful smile among those in the know. But all that is easy, and came with the assigned syllabus. It does not make one a true reader. When given time to read for pleasure, back in college and to this day, I don't pick up one of the truly timeless novels that sits on the long list of books I should get to someday. If I were the real McCoy (ref. Macbeth, Act II, scene iii), I'd read all the time. I only read about half an hour a day (guess which one), unless you get me out of the house and onto an airplane, a guest bed, or a waiting room chair.

I can't imagine what I'm doing with my time, such that I don't know five blogs to introduce you to. It's not just blogs I'm not following - I'm not following anything. I couldn't tell you if the Superbowl has happened yet this year or not, or who might play or maybe did play in it. Until an alarming hoopla went off over some verdict, I hadn't heard about that woman who everyone thinks did something bad to her child but then got let off. I couldn't tell you her name. Baby Jessica?

I should follow more things, but I feel uncomfortable watching political debates, listening to stories of kidnappings and rescue missions. Or watching competitive figure skating; no thank you. I can wait for the replay or the summary; in the moment itself, I just want everyone to be okay. When others are guffawing at Whohe Perry for forgetting what federal department he plans to eliminate, I can hardly bear the embarrassment for him. And his family! Oh, God, poor things. Does he have a family? I wouldn't know.

I only skim the headlines to make sure the world isn't coming to an end, because I wouldn't want to be caught off guard if someone strikes up a conversation about it while I walk my daily loop. Every now and then I will ask my beloved son, T'ai, for a recap of the season's news, because though can be a serious flake, he is the real McCoy in terms of following and reading. "T'ai, what's going on in Egypt, really? What's this Cain stuff about? Just give me the gist."

Sometimes my clients think I am taking down a note about them, when actually I have picked up my pad to write down something they've said that sounds like they assume I know: L. Gaga, I'll scribble.

Authentic students of literature, authentic students of the world, spend their free time reading classics and blogs that aren't even assigned. I've never read Ulysses, and I've never read Middlemarch. Man, it feels good to get that off my flat chest. I have not actually read War and Peace. And though I am so grateful to Lisa for thinking of taotechu so kindly, I don't know how to pay-it-forward with names of other good, small blogs.

This is like it used to be taking off a tight bra on a hot day, coming clean about these things. It's freeing, but revealing in an awkward kind of way, too.

POSTSCRIPT: You MUST read Ellen's comment below to understand how DEEP MY AFFLICTION IS.

you have to be connected to be able to let go

Did we even get around to naming the storm that shook us by the scruff of the neck a few weeks ago? Around here we just call it "the storm." It was the most dramatic weather event I have experienced. The night of the storm, I was staying with Ting and Dave in Northampton. We lost power in the middle of stir-frying, and ate the half-cooked meal in the flicker of candlelight. Afterwards we stood by the window as the night darkened, listening, watching the heavy snow fall. We were captivated by one old oak tree: moving in the snow and the strong wind, the tree looked almost liquid, like seaweed moving under the ebb and flow of waves. Watching something so solid transformed into a fluid state was pretty trippy, like a dream. Nature had shifted into some unknown gear, and its usual laws didn't seem to apply.

Then, too, there were the sounds of the storm. How often do we, as adults, hear a truly new sound? None too often, my friend. A new ringtone, maybe. But not a new sound from the world itself. The creaks, then pops of tearing, breaking, exploding trees were all new and frightening. Trying to sleep that night, I felt like a deer must feel during hunting season -- unable to relax for a moment, alert to every sound. A heavy branch would hit the house with a new sound -- a blow from a roof-troll's sledgehammer -- and my heart raced for long minutes afterwards. In my mind, I knew we were likely safe. My body somehow thought differently.

Along with most people in our area, following that night we were nine days without power. Though I was glad for the eventual return of light, heat, and refrigerator, the truth is that I enjoyed the enforced pace of being without electricity. Laura was less chipper about the whole thing, and I can't blame her; for one thing, she had to evacuate the house while I saw clients in front of the roaring fire. She'd go off to West Hartford in search of a place to plug in and warm herself up. Meanwhile I heated water over the fire and stared at the dancing flames with my clients. Though chilly when two steps away from the fire, I was not unhappy. I liked feeling awake. It was like riding a bicycle on an unlit road on a moonless night. I was paying attention.

We are still navigating around the piles of fallen branches that line the streets. Wounded trees are everywhere. But here is the thing, now three weeks later, that captures my mind: once a branch has been broken, it stops receiving signals from its source. It doesn't know that it is time to let go of its leaves.
So I think of cancer, of course, when I see those dangling branches with their full loads of leaves that don't know how to let go. I think of how cancer cells don't know that it is time to stop. I think of how life, being connected to the Source, means being able to die. Cancer cells aren't connected enough to the Source to know that they should die. Those cells that are connected know enough to eventually bring us all to a natural death, by letting go when it is time. Somehow there is Grace in there, even though my mind wants to find a way to a cheerier conclusion.

This is one of the ways cancer changes you. I look at this broken branch and see veins, mammary ducts -- and a mirror of life.

peekaboo

What. What.

You thought I was ending taotechu? Guess I fooled, well, us -- all 54 of us, or the 5 that are still listening.

Which reminds me of a story. Last week, Laura was trying to figure out how big a turkey you need to get in order to feed the crowd we are hosting on Thanksgiving. She found her way to a website that had a little trivia quiz. "How many Pilgrims were at the first Thanksgiving?" it asks. She reads the question to me at the breakfast table. "Hey, let's guess," she says. We each take a few seconds. "Gee, I dunno," I say. "Could be like 100. Or maybe 12."

I'm breaking walnuts and sprinkling them over my Grape Nuts. She is staring at the screen. "How about 43?" I say between bites. "43," she types in.
"What's the real answer?" I ask.
"Huh. It doesn't say," she says, searching the site. "Oh, here it is. 43! Oh. That's us. Huh."

It turns out she was on a page asking for an expert answer to someone's sincere question. Some kid typed in her homework question, waited for the answer, and then put our stab-in-the-dark response into her little essay. It's somewhere out on the web, and other kids in other Novembers will no doubt have the same question asked of them: "How many Pilgrims were at the first Thanksgiving?" They'll be pleased to so easily find our definitive, authoritative-sounding "43." They'll write that down and hand it in.

This is how history is formed and recorded.

Mind you, it is only now, as I take a picture of our pronouncement, that I see that the question is about "pilgrams." I like to think that would have tipped me off.

Now I can't figure out how to segue back to the entry I intended to make about all the broken trees the storm left behind.

I will post this and see if anyone is still here with me. Then, I want to say something about broken trees.
And about cancer, too.

So long from taotechu

Dear Readers:

Oh, how I have been stalling on this.

It is time to take taotechu off the shelf where it has been gathering dust, spider webs, and spider veins. But instead of wiping it off and setting it back in place, I am wrapping it in this rag of a note to you all and storing taotechu in the attic.

This is sad for me. I've wanted to keep taotechu going. It wrapped me in a soft, warm layer of comfort and cheer throughout the WTF of breast cancer. But when I made the shift away from cancer and posted a few letters, those trial balloons just seemed to float away. I watched them shrink in the sky. They weren't connected enough to you or to me. And it turns out that letters that are more connected, more personal, belong to the person I have written. They don't belong to a blog. I felt like I ran out of balloons. Or maybe they were that kind that are so hard to blow up your cheeks hurt.

The letters drifted off, but cancer is still on my mind. I think I am probably okay, that it will not return. But there are reminders, all the time. A dear friend, who went through an identical course of chemotherapy at the same time I did, has been stricken with a raging recurrence and is fighting for her life. I have half a dozen clients who have had cancer, and believe me, they continually have a creepy feeling that something is going to jump out and grab them, whether they are eating organic or not.

I can't keep writing about that creepy feeling, and I can't keep writing as if I don't have that creepy feeling. It has been a little eddy in which I am spinning, the way Eeyore did after falling into the stream when Tigger took him by surprise. Eeyore floated on his back for a long time, as I recall -- and not in the sweet way you do on a summer afternoon in a clean lake under a cloudless sky. He was morose about it.

I don't feel morose. But I recognize that I am in an eddy, and that it's time to climb out. Because the blog I so love has come to feel like pressure instead of release. Maybe that is a good thing; maybe there is less to release. I appreciate that, but I don't want to trade it in, homeostasis-like, for pressure.

The blog is an audience on the shore. They watch in beach chairs, the sun setting in their eyes. They are long, long bored with watching me float. Is she going to do anything else? they ask each other. Last year she dove in and then did a handstand underwater, says one person. They yawn politely, shade their eyes with a hand, try to make out my flat form on the surface of the water.

I still want to sculpt some of the blog into a little memoir, and I am bringing that down from the attic to see how it looks after a year of storage. But breast cancer memoirs are a ha'penny a dozen, and I am no longer optimistic that my little story of little breasts and a lotta luck and love can, well, float.

There you have it. Attics, cobwebs, balloons, Eeyore, a squinting audience, a book and a blog getting waterlogged. What a soggy mess.

Pass me a towel? I'm all wrinkly, and I want to watch the sunset with you.

Dear Readers, you will be relieved to know I have no adequate metaphor to express the gratitude I feel.

Love,
p

P.S. Will take taotechu down sometime before Thanksgiving. By that time, I'll be wrinkly and cold.

An insight crystalizes

Dear Staff at the Kaua'i Wildlife Refuge Complex:

I was among the many people who came last month to gaze at the plunging cliffs and the crashing Pacific near the Kilauea Lighthouse. I cannot remember the date, so I can't help you identify which person was on duty. That's how relaxed things are in Kaua'i -- hours, days, and dates blurred quickly. In fact, breathless beauty aside, my favorite part of Kaua'i was its slowed pace, its informality and ease. Going barefoot in the grocery story was the highpoint of my long and otherwise humdrum food shopping career; I am likely never to have that experience again.

I am writing to thank one of your staff members for the brief conversation she and I had. I imagine it has been eroded from her memory by now, but it has stayed with me, and I will refresh the memory often. I will address her directly, in the hopes that you can find her for me and pass her this message:

I had questions about the volcanic rock -- the many, many layers of dark, igneous rock. I knew they came from repeated eruptions, but so many? How could it be? And all the same? Did some cool more quickly than others? There were so many layers it looked like black sedimentary rock. And what is that even darker intrusion over there, in that outcropping? You weren't sure, but you loved the question. You asked me what kind of work I did -- was I a scientist? A geologist?

I made a sheepish, scrunched face. Gosh, no, no, I confessed with a small smile. My childhood dream was to become a geologist, but no. I am a psychotherapist. A counselor. I felt small.

You didn't miss a beat. "Same thing," you said, with conviction. I cocked my head. "Totally the same thing," you repeated. "You look at layers within someone. You try to figure out how they got there. Why did one layer cool more quickly than another, and why did crystals form here and not there? And what is that dark intrusion I see? How did that get there? You are still a scientist, doing the same kind of exploration, except your field is the person you are sitting with."

Can I tell you, dear Naturalist? Can I tell you how my heart thumped with joy when you said these things to me? I have always wondered what would have happened if I had stayed with my passion of science, and  a part of me -- a dark intrusion -- has long felt cowardly for not having taken that path. Your words showed me that -- from the distance of a telescope, a microscope, or a metaphor -- what looked like two paths might actually be one: simply, mine.

You helped me spot a crystal deep within the bedrock of me.

Thank you and aloha,

paula chu