Brain Matter and Matters of the Heart (A Monastic View)

I’ve got several stories churning within.  They are spinning around and collecting enough centrifugal force and electricity to light up the northern sky.   At any moment they will materialize fully formed from this place of stardust and fermentation called my brain, specifically Broca’s area in the frontal lobe.  My parietal lobe is responsible for interpreting language, interpreting signals from vision, hearing, motor, sensory and memory, and spatial visual perception.  Your parietal lobe is responsible for these functions too, but mine seems to get a bit wonky and takes great amounts of artistic license and poetic license in it's interpretation of the greater outside world.  

Today, I’ve decided to focus on a new story instead of taking one from the fermenting barrel deep within the inner workings of my brain. It seems important to start the New Year with a newly developed story.   Something that just transpired, like in the last 24 hours of this brand-new, fresh, clean, spanking New Year, and I want to share it.

I started this New Year in Quebec, and although I have never desired as much, ever, or even contemplated the idea past a resounding “No way!” a couple of years ago, when a very close friend of mine had even suggested it, for himself mind you, not for me, I spent the first morning of this New Year, and the last evening of last year, in a small, compact cell, as in monastic, not prison.  Why?  I can’t entirely pinpoint why exactly, but there are a few thoughts swimming around that might shed some light on how I ended up in Old Quebec, the fortified section.  That might be redundant, all of Old Quebec might be cordoned off by a wall, fortified, complete with canons aimed, but probably not loaded.  I don’t know.  I use to know these things.  I once refused to travel unless I spent several months reading about, and studying every historic, interesting, unusual and odd feature of a destination.  Now, with my frontal lobe aging rapidly, and slowing down, or maybe speeding up the delivery of adequate amounts of appropriate axons to all the right synapses, I have become a bit more willy-nilly and free-spirited about my adventures. I recall that other, more cautious, planning out version of myself with a sweet fondness.  She was, if nothing else, well prepared and could action pack a trip like nobody's business.

Recently, my brain somehow connected cautious and adventure into one righteous feeling connection and  lead me to book a night at Le Monastère des Augustine.  For you anglophiles, that would be the Monastery of the Sisters of Augustine, which I think would really mean convent because well, monks are not nuns… monks stay in monasteries, nuns stay in nunneries, and convents….Anyway, I’ll research all that later.  For now, what’s important to remember is that I actually planned to spend a not so rocking New Year’s Eve in a monastery, and I liked it.  (Katy Perry will probably not write the lyrics to that song….)

So how did I get here?  Well, to be honest, it was a bit of a long and bumpy, sad-assed, and painful ride.  One that I was not always aware of, or keenly in-tuned with.  Let’s just say I had a challenging year after an impossible to fathom year, following 2 or 3 straight out of hell years.  But I tend toward optimism with a glass half-full, rimmed in sparkling cynicism.  I am a fervently hopeful realist, which sometimes appears as desperately expectant.  So while I was driving through my not so great years in my aviators, with my long blonde ponytail bouncing behind me and my coral-colored chiffon scarf gently waving in the cool breeze cruising down the highway it wasn’t always clear I was heading to hell in a custom fitted handbasket.  

OK that was too much poetic license even for me….ahem… Two days ago, I was driving up the Northway with my too-short George Michael inspired butch cut, heading to the Canadian border. (My up to recently, hair-goddess took liberties, or fell into a deep sleep and awoke after the hair went missing last go ‘round)   When asked by the customs officer where I planned to go in Quebec (and hold on to this detail, it happens to be New Years Eve) I answer in my very best version of not French and barely English “The Monastere of the Augustens”.  Suddenly, but briefly I realized I looked almost pious, which was really just road wary and aging with cursed Irish skin.  I was alone traveling to a monastery for New Year’s.  I think to myself, “How absolutely surreal my life has become.”  And believe me, young men working at the border know not to laugh or grimace or register the deep sadness this might convey.  They are thanking God they are not old and alone and heading to a monastery.  Needless to say, I am not delayed at the border, I am practically given a high speed escort to get my sad-assed self away.  I say a Hail Mary and head nord-est.

Am I becoming a cliché? An old single woman alone?  Did that customs officer try not to smell the odor of too many cats, without knowing I don’t have any? This may be the first time my short hair could be linked to a life calling, an avocation, a need to fit neatly under a nuns habit, as opposed to being the international trademark for lesbianism.  Short hair bothers a great many men, and it throws off many women as well.  Hair-style and sexual preference is another story worth exploring for another day.  Allow me to interject the brain connection, the mesial temporal lobe and the amygdala relate to sexual orientation and the pituitary gland relates to hair growth.  I say hair growth and not "hair style orientation" because well, if my hair grows long, I tend toward thick, knotted, jutting out independent clumps of the makings of some very bad hair days, which make me feel unattractive, and   agitated, and off kilter.  Short hair just works better for me and does not relate to libido.  Although if you dig deep enough, as I have, there is research about the follicle stimulating hormone that is produced in the pituitary glands which is managed by the brain. Of course that relates to sexual function not partnering.  And digging deeper still…there are studies about women who suffered TBI as a result of an accident and suddenly decided they were lesbians.  I kid you not.  I don't think there were any studies that dropped men on their heads to see if they suddenly had a penchant for capris and began downloading Patti LaBelle  tunes. Maybe those women just needed a good jolt to break free. I didn't examine the research.  I have a friend who believes many women that divorce later in life become “political” lesbians because they have had it with men.  

Wow, I am so far off the path of my story now, I better get off at the next exit and turn this tale around, and get it back on course.

So anyway, leading up to New Year’s Eve, or maybe right up to December and that magical time of wishing for that rarefied and elusive magical time, I came crashing into the reality that my life circumstances (isn’t that a tidy little ambiguous catch phrase!) have changed drastically and I never quite know how to navigate the holidays that no longer take place in that darling proverbial place where the children once scampered underfoot, where the same collection of Holiday CD’s made some of us grimace and others dance or sing sweetly, or gather around the piano, OK that happened maybe twice.  That same place where baking was an island onto itself and I was the empress of cinnamon and sugar and pounds upon pounds of pale yellow butter fluffed light with carton upon carton of eggs and enough flour to make a path back to the mainland.  Christmas has so many memories of family and feasting, board games and laughter that I can’t seem to navigate away from or towards creating a new set.  I do realize it also has memories of tension and decorating debates and clipped conversations and a couple of way too many alcohol-infused un-pleasantries.  Ah, family!  Can’t you just see Tiny Tim propped up upon my shoulder right now? (Nah…me neither).

I hate to admit I have not yet fully settled into singlehood, and this seems to reveal itself during the holidays.  It’s not even singlehood, as much as still feeling guilt for playing into the concept of ruining the lives of my children.  And of course, I know, my divorce did not ruin their lives.  It may have set up some road blocks and added a few twists and turns that none of us were prepared for.  We did not get any free passes for the speedy quick line, we didn’t pass go and collect $200, we got stuck in the Molasses swamp and had to take two steps backwards a few times over.  During the holidays since, we all seem a bit thrown together, and I’m not quite sure how to wrap us back up, tightly swaddled in sugar plum joy.

This year I actually believed I was feeling a bit more relaxed about life.  Without warning I unexpectedly started to waffle and teeter and become a bit of a grumpus.  OK maybe it was more like a pulsing boil, but who knew?  Leading up to this season of joy and wonder was a bit touch and go for my closest friends.  It seemed I needed somewhere to release the growing steam in the pressure cooker I was attempting to prepare my feast or hide my pain in.  I caught myself just in time and readjusted the heat valve.  Owning my irritability helped me focus. It caused me to rethink other not quite working parts of my life.  

I had been in a relationship that I was not available to.  My unavailability was causing increasing internal conflict that I was attempting to dispel, and write off, or deny, a not so healthy pattern of coping, or avoiding coping.  Between work and going to graduate school my already disorganized approach to life had become increasingly chaotic.  I was spending most of my very limited free time elsewhere without time to rest and replenish, let alone keep up with laundry and stay on top of ordinary daily responsibilities, mundane bits of living reasonably, you know, cleaning the toilet, buying groceries, binge television viewing, getting to work on time, eating a healthy meal.   I enjoyed the time, the company, the opportunity to escape.  But I needed a grounding post, not a getaway.  It felt increasingly wrong.  I didn’t know how to be relaxed and enjoy the moments without wanting the moments to lead to that next phase of readjusting lives and households and habits.  I’m not there yet.  I know it would have become a hot mess fast if I tried, but I struggled with feeling it wasn’t fair to not try to make this everything and more.   I couldn't. 

For this one spectacular and implausible moment I am invested in finding out how my story unfolds.   For an undisclosed time frame I need to explore what this means.   Before trying to create and fold another person’s story into mine, I need to be certain of where my story starts and ends, figuratively speaking of course.   I look forward to the option to make beautiful origami in the faraway and unknown future.  Being honest with oneself is not always an easy task, but being dishonest to avoid pain, compounds it. I'm not sure he will ever thank me for this.  I hope he forgives me for my.... honesty? I hope he finds an adoring woman to love deeply. 

Christmas came and went with a wonderful feast, a hike, a few good movies.  My children, two of the three were home with me.  It was quiet. Mostly.  Save the trip to the ER into the first light of Christmas Eve, the stitches, the now unfinished table, the deep, and warm conversations and loving bond strengthened between mother and son, the opportunity to nudge him lovingly toward his own greatness, his potential, and away from his minor fallibilities. 

After Christmas, I decided to offer my daughter and her boyfriend a ride to the Finger Lakes so she might see my mother and sister at least briefly before traveling to her father’s house for a few days.  I know it will be helpful, and it will extend her too brief time home with me.  It is on this trip, which always feels endless, that I decide a trip to Quebec might be in my immediate future.  I will be in the Adirondacks for a few days, and well, it’s merely a hop, skip and a pirouette away from there.  I could use a small adventure before I jump back into school.  I share this thought with my daughter as I’m driving.  She laughs at me.   I had just complained about the endless seeming drive to Honeoye, with hours to go before I sleep, hours to go before I sleep. We are reading Robert Frost in fourth grade, this poem never seemed closer as I drove in the grayness and rain to see my family.  

I will jump ahead now.  Know that it was a hard visit.   It was a painful reminder of all that I have lost and all that I am losing, of how I have not always known how to articulate the pain, without causing more. I have been human in all of the ugliness that can resemble.  I am sorry for that, but it’s not always clear if I need to be sorry for my actions, or sorry for my circumstances.  I am sorry for my losses.  I am heart-broken by some.  The brain does not break so easily, it is needed for so many operations, it can’t easily take time off for suffering.  

I begin earnestly searching for place to stay in Old Quebec, any part of Quebec, No, only Old Quebec will do.  Listen, it's surrounded by a fortified wall. It's a French speaking city, a built in language barrier? Perfect!  I can stay in a cloistered monastery? BINGO!  I book my stay, and travel to the Adirondacks after getting the results about my youngest son’s sliced appendage, his hand does not have to be amputated.  His thumb, works, mostly, it’s healing, we’ll know more next week.  I get to my somewhat cloistered cottage by nightfall and sleep deeply. I wake, and putter about before driving towards Quebec the next day. As I drive my wipers are working independent of me.  They won’t stop working in fact.  They are constant, and quick, and setting a tone I don’t quite agree with.  But I’m an adult, an older one even, and I can just call the dealership in Plattsburgh and see what they can do on my way to Quebec,  because hey,  it is New Year’s Eve, and well, there must be other fiercely haired people out there with nowhere special to want to go tonight, right? 

There were in fact, a diverse haired people in the Plattsburgh Scion Dealership.  Just because I am an older adult does not guarantee there will be a Toyota dealership in Plattsburgh.  Scion, seems to be a code word for Toyota, or maybe it’s less ethnic sounding?  The Scion, hmmm, “the shoot or twig” of the Toyota brand…doesn’t sound very appealing to me, but they were good enough to bring me in so I can let go of the critical observations.  After a couple of hours, an oil change for good measure,  the service department determined my wiper switch was the problem, it could not be fixed however, but pulling the fuse would stop it until the part could be ordered and replaced.  Since it was lightly drizzling a wet snowy mix, they decided to keep the fuse in, set me on my way with a sharpie marked fuse and a fuse puller, and off I went.  Slightly anxious, I decide to play my old game of spiritual signs and Irish voodoo mechanisms interpretations.  I decide, "apparently the Universe wants me to clear my viewpoint, and apparently my view of things needs some steady, relentless wiping clear. "

The drive is long.  It’s cloudy, and snowing intermittently, my wipers are assertively combating the effect.  Aggressively so.  I am getting a little more road wary, and begin questioning.  Why am I traveling again? Why can’t I be still?  Was this a good choice?  The roads are slick and the cars are racing quickly. towards the New Year, hope, excitement, celebration.   I have always been fearful of driving in these conditions, but I’m holding up nicely in spite of this fact.  I drive up close to a few more memories on this trip.  Old fears arise. When I finally get into Quebec, my GPS leads me up a few steep hills and twisty, narrow turns in the snow.  I don’t have time to participate in my fear of hills, narrow curves, phantom, possible patches of black ice.  Fortunately my new tires permit the indulgence of reaching this small internal peak, allowing me to conquer a few of my fears.  In that brief moment, I realize overcoming fear is as simple as not attending to it, brushing it off in haste, without reacting, or responding to it.  Remarkable.  The connections between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala allow me to reprogram my fears, and even make them extinct. I like this.  The capacity to change, be better, grow is within us.  Easier said then done, but possible is the magic pearl to focus on.

I park, slightly obnoxiously, tightly, into a size 2 parking spot with my size 8 car between two behemoth SUVs.  I can barely squeeze my size 8, or 10, or 12 ass out of my car.  I imagine everyone is observing vespers and won’t be leaving soon.  They are probably kneeling or chanting or watching the blood dripping from the ceilings, spell-bound and raptured.  My Toyota is safe for a bit, and the wipers are quiet with the engine off.  (I wasn’t really thinking about the blood dripping, but it makes things a bit more colorful, don’t you think?).

I am awed. The monastery, or hotel is incredible.  The stone walls are alight with glass walkways connecting the old wing with the new facility.  It is striking.  The glass and steel structure allows a view of the old turrets and adorned statuary, stained glass and wooden doorways, keeping everything intact and visible. The combination of architecture is brilliant.  I check in and am welcomed by the kindest staff.  I find my room, a ridiculously small, simple “cell”.  It is in the original building.  Authentic.  Inside a wrought iron bed covered in a white down comforter, over stiff, starched sheets, a beautiful antique quilt neatly folded at the end, welcomes me.  White walls, wooden beams, a window overlooking, the St. Laurence River reveals industry, a ship yard, all snow covered, the courtyard below, it’s all perfect!  I feel exuberant suddenly. Giddy, and slightly giggly.  (Picture Julie Andrews twirling, but inside the convent, not in the wide open hills of Switzerland, or Austria, or you know, that hill she twirls on.  Short hair tight to her head, she glows with exuberance…). 

I hadn’t thought of my friend’s desire to stay in a monastery in years.  But as soon as I recall this, I feel happier.  I get it! I understand.  Simultaneously, I am filled with happiness and a peace that I haven’t felt in years.  I imagine him lying stiff in his much wished for monastic cell trying to pray down his burning earthly desires and I can’t help but laugh, quietly, of course, in my head.  I am suddenly filled with a warmth for him and am grateful for the time we had as very best friends.  And it is in that moment, I am still.  And quiet.  Thankful for so much.  And ready to allow in, all that I have struggled with and maybe not been so thankful for.  I am ready to breathe through it all.   I remember how now, in through the nose, out through the mouth, slow, steady, again.  I feel safe in a way I haven’t felt for a very long time.

I realize then, I have been suffering losses. Too many.  The largest one, the one I am not entirely able to suffer, because it is not entirely my loss,  has consumed me.  I have had no place to put it.  I can’t get close enough to it, and I can’t get free from it.  I tried to attach it to the loss of a love that was never earthly bound or grounded.  I realize now, I had been attempting to fight one loss onto another so that they could both become unrecognizable, rule each other out, be done with.  It did not help.  The losses remained.  My ambiguity about each, grew larger. 

I lied on the bed in that cell for mere seconds before this truth filled my veins;  We are not prepared to grieve for the loss of our children’s futures. 

It is formidable for me to state that.  I can’t know what the future holds for my daughter.  I know her cancer has taken things away from her that she was not prepared to consider, and was not afforded the luxury of time to ponder other possibilities.  She is not old enough for cancer.  These are not entirely, or directly, my losses but I feel them in their entirety, in ways she cannot.  She is too young for cancer.  She feels more, deeper, things I cannot know or feel.  It makes me feel out of line, wrong somehow, to suffer the losses that are hers.  How complex.  We are not meant to suffer the loss of our children’s futures.  The futures we are spoon-fed to believe are statistically sound, expected norms, out of our control but expected nonetheless.  I am not alone.  I have friends that have children with cancer, suffer mental illness, debilitating disabilities, anxieties, fears, addictions.  Friends that suffer the loss of a child’s future they can’t imagine. Friends that feel great amounts of guilt for not simply being thankful their children are alive.  And they, I, do feel grateful for this too.  More so than can be imagined, or ever again taken for granted.

I realize later after dinner, exquisite, delivered by the chef, charming, a walk into the center of Old Quebec, a few shops, the ice skating arena! glorious, the keeping of time has changed for me.  I have observed for quite some time, and written about how the keeping of time by women, as opposed to men differs greatly.  Our bodies keep time, monthly, until we age.  Our children keep time for us as we prepare them for each step, developmental milestone, rite of passage.  By the time we reach middle age we are ready and able to spend time on ourselves, we have energy, and suddenly, time!  But we also look forward to those other markers of time, our children growing up, settling down, having families of their own.  Outliving us.  How can they not? It’s expected, statistically supported. How will I keep time now? 

I could not imagine my daughter would have cancer, stage 4, or otherwise.  I was not prepared to mourn the loss of her as she struggled through holding on and moving forward.  I had so few places to put down these stages of grief, for a grief I was not able to name, because it’s a grief for something unknown.  How do you grieve for the loss of a future?  How do you not, in these circumstances?  Finally, putting words to my emotions, in this sacred place brings more peace.  I don’t know what the future holds.  I don’t know what she will want, or do, or have in her life.  I don’t know when or if cancer will take her.  I know she won’t give herself to it.  She’s alive and reasonably well, and beautiful and strong.  I know I can’t continue to see her’s as a life half empty, ticking away. 

I once read in some new agey, cancer curing, holistic type book or website the brain can be retrained by sending it messages, internal dialogue.  Just like driving up an ice-slicked steep and winding hill in Old Quebec can change my fear response and make me a more confident driver.  Our brains direct all those interactions within.  Axons, synapses, nerves, feelings, health conditions, all interconnected internally.  I have asked my daughter to tell her brain this message every morning when she wakes up, “Listen up, brain, make the cancer cells weaker.  Tell them to get the fuck out", I chide.   She thinks I’m nuts.  I think, “So, maybe I am, what do you have to lose?  You don’t have to say it out loud in the middle of a party, or church.  Shit happens.  You can be hit by a truck and become a lesbian, not that that’s a bad thing, mind you.  A little dramatic maybe....  Fine, maybe ask it politely, or offer it some brain-food, kale, salmon, kiamichi, or is that kombucha?, quinoa…..who can keep up?”.

I wake early, have my breakfast, in silence, the rule, here.  This is not hard to accomplish.  I am awake and seated in the restaurant at 7 am, on New Year’s Day.  I am alone.  I mean no one else is even awake at this time.  I enjoy breakfast, happily.  Fruits, yogurt, granola, all of those things that sing health, happily, readily, not deep in the back of your own cupboards hiding out until you have to reckon with the extra 10 or so-o-o-o-o many pounds that clung onto your slower metabolizing, menopausal midriff, thighs, and upper arms.  I am still a bit exuberant, healed, at peace.  Dorkily joyous, and knowing I could spin into a twirl at any moment.  My ice skates that I bought myself for Christmas, the white and gold adorned pair are waiting with glee in my car.  I get to them, put them in a cloth bag and practically leap to the Rink Place D’Youville in front of Palais Montcalm.  I cannot speak French, or read it, and there is only one number on the sign, 22h.  It closes at 10? 

It’s 7:48.  It’s beautiful, the ice, glass-smooth, prepared very recently after last night’s use.  I sit down and begin to change into my skates.  I am happy, like a small child at Christmas.  Delighted.  When the groundskeeper approaches me, slightly annoyed at my attendance, and next, my lack of French, it’s unclear what he is saying.  He puts up the international symbol for 10, holding up two outstretched hands.  But then, as he’s leaving, he adds one hand.  15?  Maybe it opens in 15 minutes, at 8?  I weakly convince myself, and head out through the city on a walking tour.  I’m not sure if it’s his Wernicke’s Area or mine, that is not functioning at full capacity.   That’s the section of the brain that processes speech sounds from others. It helps with auditory coding to receive and understand language.  Wernicke doesn’t sound French or bilingual, even.  It’s 2 degrees below zero, but I don’t mind.  My sensory cortex has been numbed by the adrenalin rush.  I am thrilled to be here.  As I venture back, I see that no one is there, and I walk on.  It’s OK.  I will go back to my room, warm up, write a little and pack up. 

Instead, I find my way into the Basilique Cathedrale Notre.  I am immediately hit with the warm smell of candles, incense, oils.  Mass.  I sit down and gather myself in, trying to untangle my camera from my scarf, as I place my big white-gold ice skates beneath the pew.  I’m comforted. I have enjoyed visiting churches, basilicas, cathedrals, a small indulgence in my travels.  They have become a centering place when I am far from home.  Familiar.  Grounding.  Marvelous.  Quieting.  It has not even occurred to me until now, that I have not cursed God through my struggles.  I am happy for that, for knowing it would have only given me another struggle to contend with.  I am content with this relationship I have formed with God.  The conditions of it are somewhat basic.  Don’t blame.  Be thankful. Expect surprises, good and bad.  Don’t get too dramatic.  Carry on.  Oddly enough, it sounds a bit like a loveless marriage; serviceable, dependable, comforting?  Slightly predictable would be a stretch here.  Maybe I can apply those conditions to other relationships.  Maybe God can step up his game a bit, or maybe the mundane is not so bad, maybe he can work on mundane and cut back the big dramatic overtures, for a bit.  Maybe.

I make my way back to the hotel/monastery, pack up and walk along Rue d'Youville to the ice skating rink.  It is crowded with young families.  This makes me very happy.  This cycle of life, teaming forward, an unmistakable constant in an otherwise unpredictable day. I change into my skates, tie them up and rise slowly.  It’s been years since I have skated. I push off, left foot, then right, over and over, gracefully I glide.  Freely.  Happily circling the arena, gaining confidence and speed.  Around and around.  I overhear a young American laughing at himself, “I don’t know how to stop, I just slow down”  he tells a friend.  I smile at this great plum of wisdom.  I am, learning how to stop, to be still, to slow down. 

I did not plan to grow old alone.  I would have once mourned such a future, dreaded and feared it.  I imagined I would spend my days married, growing old, slowing down at some point, perhaps enjoying some senior couples cruises or some such version of middle Americana that I had been prepared to endure.  I thought.  I tried until I no longer could.  I am growing old. I am alone.  I am seeing the world.  Every couple of years or so I lasso up a cowboy.  I might settle down, in some form or another.  I recognize I would have wasted time mourning this future, it suits me at times.

I head home, calmly.  My wipers remain hyper-alert.  The marked off fuse does not appear to relate to the wipers.  They continue after I crawl under the panel to pull it out.  I replace the fuse. And drive with the constant, aggressive wiping.  I try to call out to the universe, “OK, already, I can see things much more clearly”, but my message is not heard by the Universe.  The wipers persist.  I make it to the border.  The sky is alight with pinks and blues and gold.  I am filled with that patriotic sensation, it feels good to be “home” in my country.  Free, or freer? Safe. I am happy deep through.  Looking forward to this New Year, the fresh start, my daughter’s unknown and potentially marvelous, perfect future.  I can feel it now.  I turn off the North-way onto the dark, back roads leading me to my warm, quiet cottage and notice, suddenly, the wipers have stopped, I can see for miles, so many miles.  There are it seems now, so many miles to go before I sleep.  I have promises to keep, and so many miles....

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow. 
  
My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year. 
  
He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.
   
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.