Thirsty, Swimming in the Lake

This is the title of a book of which the Matron is extraordinarily fond: Thirsty, Swimming in the Lake. Morita Psychologist David K. Reynolds wrote that book; he describes Morita Therapy as Zen meets Freud. How the Matron loves that collision! Her delicate soul and psyche seem to exist precisely on that plan – part cosmic and part neurotic. Thirsty, Swimming in the Lake points out how silly and self-induced the obstacles to our happiness can be. Take a big drink, darling!

Zen Koan

Doshin (monk): “Open the gate of release for me!”

Sosan (other monk): “Who has constrained you?”

Doshin: "No one constrains me."

Sosan: "Then why do you ask for release?"

The moral of these stories? Suffering is frequently self-induced. Our minds can be the meanest enemy because we cannot escape. You take those troubles -- the worry, the self-doubt, the anger, the fear -- wherever you go. Unless you can find release.

Here is a poem. Stay tuned for post-poetry Dr. Matronly Follow-Up.

Clifton

I loved booze,

and pills I loved more.

I still love them.

I still want them.

My wine, my Dexamil,

my after-dinner tall

tumbler of scotch,

my morning black espresso,

my Valium at work,

and more Valium.

It worked.

The Dexamil let me drink,

the drink kept me from feeling,

the Valium kept my hand from shaking.

The Dexamil let me drink

in the face of my psychiatrist saying,

I think you drink too much—

I think I won’t see you if you drink.

In the face of fines,

in the face of swinging at a cop,

in the face of connecting with a two-by-four,

in the face of cops looking down at me in the middle of

Amsterdam Avenue

in a Brooks Brothers suit, a briefcase,

in the middle of Amsterdam Avenue—

Where do you live, sir? We think you should go home.

I drank at Hanratty’s for four reasons:

it’s near where I live,

they cashed my checks,

they closed at one,

and they took me home.

At home, I would have another

scotch and a pill,

at 5:30 get up,

drink coffee, take a pill—

I had—I have

a responsible job.

I was always the first at my desk

and last to leave.

I never wanted to work.

I wanted someone else to take care of it all.

I don’t know why I’m alive today.

I don’t believe in God, I’m a strict Freudian.

When I stopped, I thought,

This is unspeakable deprivation.

I whined and cried.

I sat in the back eleven months

pitying myself. Home

from dinner with board members,

with two glasses of wine, the first in a year—

I opened the half bottle of scotch

a guest had left. It was months under the sink.

Often I’d thought of it. Always,
I knew it was there.

I poured scotch into a tumbler,

and I couldn’t drink it.
I couldn’t. I thought, I can’t go through all that again.

That was ten years ago.

My hair is gray. A doorman

with whom I left a package yesterday

described me to my friend as “distinguished.”

Lots of things are the same.

Some things are changed, changing.

I love booze in my dreams.

I drink booze and take pills in my dreams.

I don’t ask Why

do I love alcohol? Instead,

I have habits strict as the former ones,

meetings, books, service.

The dreams full of booze keep telling me what I am.

Late in my life,

In the numb elegance of this city,

I made a decision—

or the decision

shining in the soft, brutal darkness

took hold of me—

to live.

Often I am peaceful.

I never imagined that.

Sometimes when the going gets rough -- the worry and doubt compile or the bad habit feels like a hook that cannot be shaken from her spine, she thinks of this poem and the poet who wrote it, Joan Larkin. And the Matron softens herself. If you drink the water that surrounds you, you won't be thirsty. Sit in the soft brutal darkness. Let the decision, whatever it is for you, take you in its hand.

Meditation, Sunday

Today, this boy would've turned 21. This is his birthday. Here, the Matron updates his story. She's corrected an error in the narrative below. More importantly, she has an addendum. (that would be at the end - get a tissue and read on)


April 14th: The Longer Journey


When the Matron confronts this hill on her daily 4 mile run, weariness overtakes her. Worse? See that slight bend ahead? This is what is on the other side:


More hill. Lots of this.

She lives in a neighborhood nestled high above the city, full of 100 year old houses with million dollar views. Did she say high above the city?

Very. Every day, the Matron follows the city park path that runs right along a river bluff.

Sometimes she feels sorry for herself and a just little bit whiney. Oh, about everything.

The job interview, the wrinkle that is not a flexible laugh line but a permanent entity, the economy, Stryker's disdain for hygiene, the weather, that stupid hill she must climb one more time, Satan's Familiar, Scarlett's inability to fold a sock or close a drawer, the way her husband wipes his mouth with the back of his hand instead of a napkin (only when eating cereal).

The Matron frets and whines and puffs but then she eventually goes down the same hill and sees this, every day:



This is where a boy the Matron does not know but read about in the newspaper fell off the cliff and onto the railroad tracks next to the river, hundreds and hundreds of feet below.



You can see, his name was Georgie.

Because the Matron's neighborhood is high above the city and boasts a spectacular view, he was here with thousands and thousands of other people to watch fireworks on the 4th of July.

Being a teenager and and immortal, he crossed the little wimpy one foot safety chain and got as close as he could.

His mother was standing behind him and got worried: "Be careful!"

He laughed: "I am not going to fall."

Mother: "Really! Step back!"

And being a teenager and immortal, and seeing the tiniest ledge below, he decided to play a little joke on his mother.

"I'm fine! See?"

He jumped. But missed the ledge.

This is what the Matron read in the paper, nearly five years ago.

But every day she runs past that wooden cross. Sometimes there are new flowers. Sometimes a rosary or poem.

Every day she runs past that wooden cross and thinks about that mother and that boy and those few seconds.

She stops whining, usually because she has to cry. Again.

~*~*~*~*~*

Addendum

Near the July 3rd anniversary of that child's death the cross was removed for several days. When it was replaced, there was a woman's name on the cross instead and a little card sat by the cross for about a week that read:

"Because a big part of me went with you. Love, Mom."

Friends, the Matron believes there's something bigger than each of us at work in this world. Please give a piece of yourself--a prayer, a good wish, a little love --to this mother today, on the day she gave birth to the boy she lost.