Monday, February 6, 2023

 Monday, February 6, 2023

     I slept well. I heard a woman’s voice talking to Koa as I woke up. At first, I thought it was Lauren, but it was Ali, his paternal grandmother. She arrived early and got Koa ready for school, so Bobby and Lauren could sleep. She would take me to the airport.

   We didn’t take Koa to preschool. After getting up and dressed, he said he just wanted to rest a minute. He knelt down, put his head on a hassock, and fell asleep. He was still drained from his long night throwing up. He stayed home while Ali drove me to the airport and herself to work.

  On the way, I heard some Koa stories. They pass a car dealership on their morning drive. Koa took a particular liking to a red Ferrari. Ali told him he had to save a lot of money to buy one. Koa started thinking of saving money immediately. His dad gave him a dollar for something. Koa wanted to save it for the Ferrari.

   Every morning, Koa says, “I don’t want to go to school.” Ali says, “I don’t want to go to work.” Koa says, “Okay, you go to school, and I’ll go to work.” Ali tells him, “You don’t get to play games at work. It’s just work, work, work. No naps, no snacks.” Koa says, “Okay. You go to work, and I’ll go to school.” This child will be three in March. His verbal and thinking skills are off the charts. But he is still just a two-year-old with these advanced skills. He is absolutely delicious and delightful, but he makes the adults in his life run for their money.

   Once I got to the airport, everything went smoothly. When I landed in Kona, Scott picked me up. The house is only a few miles away, about five miles from curbside to the driveway.

  One day, a few months ago, I saw a woman walking down our street pulling a rolling suitcase. I had to ask her if she walked up from the airport. Yup. Now, I can say I’m within walking distance. That’s pushing it. It is not just a good five miles; most of the walk is up a steep hill.

       Visiting with Lauren and Bobby was wonderful, but it also made me sad. They have a large (relative to my family) embracing family on both sides. I have a small family, and it’s not embracing. All I had was Mike. He meant the world to me. Sadness weighed heavily. Getting home felt good. I love my home. The common rooms can’t even be closed off from the outdoors. Nature embraces me.

    I got home and napped. When I got up, I emailed my primary physician to say I suspected I had another UTI. I took the antibiotics for the last one the doctor prescribed. When I saw the test results, I was surprised to see the results were ambiguous. I wouldn’t take another dosage before I got clear results.

  I watched more of The Morning Show on Apple TV. The review was mixed. A critic said they were trying for drama but didn’t quite make it. I’m enjoying it. Anniston, Reese, and Carell are excellent. The characters are complex. The subject is workplace sexual relations and the MeToo Movement. All variations on the problem are presented. There are no good guys who come out without a stain. It’s the human condition. Complex.

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Musings

 

   I’ve been reading Robert Wright’s Why Buddhism is True. He’s not arguing for the metaphysical aspects of Buddhism but the psychological ones. Buddha observed the human mind and came up with ideas that are only now being recognized by Western psychologists. Mind you, Buddha was around 2,500 years ago. Wow!

   One of the truths is the concept of the non-self. This is tricky. Like the ego, perhaps identical to the ego, you can’t live with it, and you can’t live without it. We can’t walk around without an identity. I am an elderly, white woman, born and bred in New York, and now living on the Big Island in Hawaii in the USA. I have a master’s degree and am considered an intellectual. I like to think abstractly. I worked most of my life as a teacher in some capacity. I still think a lot about the educational process and tutor. I was married for 45 years to Michael D Ross. Now, I no longer am. He died. But none of these aspects of myself that make me are fixed. They could change at any moment. In that case, who am I?

   Buddha was concerned about human suffering. He was looking for a way to ease it for people. He realized that while life causes us pain, we also add to our suffering. If I lost any of the aspects of myself listed above, I would still be me. Ah! I already have lost one of the aspects from above. Mike died. I had a strong sense of self beyond my relationship with Mike. I know people who don’t. My mother-in-law said she stopped being a person when her husband died. How’s that for achieving a non-self. She not only lost him, but she also lost her sense of self. Buddha’s point is we are more than whatever our identities are at any moment. Whatever the new self is about, it is worthy of respect and dignity. We were not what we thought we were. If our concept of self is ripped from us by life, we are never diminished.

   On the other hand, Wright referred to a talk Buddha gave about not being our toothache. If we stop reacting to the pain, it subsides because that which causes suffering is eliminated. Huh? Now, I have some trouble with this. That may have been good advice in Buddha’s time when there was probably nothing to be done about a toothache other than pull it. Today, we have advanced dentistry. We would be fools to not do something about the tooth. An abscess can be fatal.

   Buddhism sounds like it promotes indifference. That’s called the ‘near enemy of equanimity.”  The purpose of mediation, as taught by Buddhism, is to calm over-reactivity. Once that’s dialed down, we can consider our options. There should be enough pain from the toothache to remind us not to neglect the problem.