Fourth Form of Madness

I don’t watch a lot of tv because basically I am never home or when I am I’m doing yoga or studying (yes I know I lead an exciting life!). The other day whilst I was sitting with someone who is basically bed ridden at the moment, I watched some of the tv that they were watching. The experience left me horrified, I literally started to feel knots in my stomach. Not because of the programs but because of the adverts. As we sat there, we were constantly bombarded with ads for prepaying your own funeral, life insurance, income protection insurance, this insurance and that insurance. Enough already. Life is going to happen with or without insurance. You can be insured or prepaid up to your eyeballs but Life is still going to roll on regardless finding one little area you haven’t insured. Now I understand the concept of insurance and I understand that it ensures certain lifestyles blah blah blah after loved ones die etc etc. What I guess sparked my horror was that all these companies are feeding on people’s fear, their insecurities. Isn’t it irresponsible to incite more fear in people – if it isn’t – it should be! I am sure we all realise life is already a beautiful, exhilarating, express roller coaster ride through a tunnel of obscurity that ends in precious slumber – no-one needs to add further adrenaline fuelled double loops.

Maybe it’s more about just showing up and standing by Life, no matter what. I had a guru master (my husband :-)) patiently teach me this one over many years. As far back in our relationship as I can recall, I always remember my husband saying something along the lines of “Life is mostly about showing up, over and over again”. Didn’t get it for a really long time. No indeed, at that point my life was all about running away from everything, myself, my fears tinged with being the best in whatever I did in as an antidote to my fears. No wonder I was so exhausted back then! Over the years of hearing my husband not only say this but live this, it started sinking in.

However, his saying for me was best demonstrated by his fighting. My husband has been involved in martial arts for over 20 years. When I look at this side of his life I see a true artist with his best and most beautiful creation, himself. Yogis and martial artists have a lot in common when it comes to navigating the self and I have nothing but respect for his knowledge that he shares with me (even though sometimes I am not the best listener or unlearner :-)). My husband approaches fighting like he approaches life, he shows up, no matter what. He faces his fear, takes a roll and a tumble, and win, lose or draw accepts the result. And there were long long periods of no winning. I remember these periods because I used to marvel at how he just kept going. Then I started to realise that he did because he loved it, no question of result, he just loved what he was learning (which at that stage was to be the most gracious in defeat :-))and what he was creating. I believe I started to learn this absolute gift by osmosis, by just watching him be. Over the years, I started to hear myself say, “Life is different when you stay in the love of it”. I often wondered where I got it from, then one day as I watched my husband roll in competition, where he looked totally, relaxed and enjoying the process, I suddenly realised that he was fighting with pure heart, just for the love of it, and it left no doubt where I had learnt this newly acquired skill from.

I know life is all about learning but sometimes it all can be a bit too much. Take today. I spent the day with Descartes, in particular, his new theory of ideas and the union of mind and body. Eight hours of that mumbo jumbo and I quite clearly had lost my mind (which actually solved the problem of body mind union quite nicely). In a delusional state of philosophy overload I decided to take my beloved doggie for a walk to try and clear both our minds and rejuvenate both our bodies and souls.

Luckily the cat decided to come with us and when that lady gets something into her mind, nothing has the power to stop her. After several attempts at trying to trick her into the house, I decided that my “crazy eccentric cat lady” image didn’t need any further promoting in our neighbourhood and begrudging let her trail behind us. She thanked me with loud exaggerated meows that were just in the right pitch to potentially shatter my ear drum and to alert everyone to make way for the crazy lady walking her cat.

Nature has a way of levelling things out, making things right according to her own terms. I think some people refer to this as karma. Well we had only set one foot (or paw) in the park around the corner from us, when karma swooped down upon puss, literally. A tornado of little grey birds circled above her head, with the occasional trained kamikaze breaking out of formation to drive bomb her head. In perfect synchronicity, the neighbourhood St Bernard came slumbering around the corner and spied lunch in the form of puss. I love the lady that walks that St Bernard, she is friendly, always picks up the extensive poop that her pouch produces and never fails to keep a watchful eye out for puss if her Bernard is off the lease…….that is until today. All of a sudden I was well aware of a big lumbering ball of fur and drool breaking the sound barrier making its way towards it’s object of it’s desire. For those that think that animals don’t have mind (the capacity of intellect), they should think again. I literally saw puss weigh up her options, slow painful death of being pecked to bits by the grey messengers of god or sure sudden death in the jaws of the slobbering poochie. Puss chose neither, puss chose life instead and literally did a back flip that Nadia Comaneci couldn’t have nailed, whereby shaking the birds and then legged it at a speed I have never seen her move at to the security of a tree. Meanwhile, my beloved dog gave me a look that only could be read as “who’s walk is this anyway?”

Back in the seclusion of my bedroom, once again flicking through the various literature on Descartes take on mind (immaterial) and body (material). I no longer cared if I couldn’t intellectize my way to seeing how the immaterial (mind) could possibly be in union with and interact with the material (body). Didn’t need to, I had just experienced the collusion of the two to produce action that efficiently and affectively secured the wellbeing of puss. The puss that was now settled comfortably beside me licking her paws and acting like nothing had ever happened.

My nanna was a woman of god, a true devotee. She didn’t swear, instead she used words like “pussycat” or “jumper” when something made her cross, which was usually when she dropped a stitch in her knitting. I loved being babysat by her and Poppa, they used to surprise my brother and I with new Abba records and Nanna used to play the piano whilst we would try to warble along the best way we could, killing every note with little mercy. At night, tucked up alongside her, Nanna used to sneakily trick me into falling asleep by playing her “Who can be quietest for the longest” game. I fell for it every time, and was soon slumbering in peace as I’m guessing so was she. Most of all I remember her stories she would tell me, now I recognise them as always having moral substance, a code to live by, but at the time I just loved listening to her voice and the tales.

My Nanna suffered greatly though out her life with mental afflictions that although labelled many names were never cured. These bouts of illness would last many years at a time, with long stays in institutions, many bouts of shock treatment and copious amounts of medications. Without being to Pollyanna about it, these were dark times full of suffering, but they were also times filled with something else. Being a young girl and then woman watching her beloved Nanna endure this suffering was difficult but it also at the same time filled me with so much respect and awe for this gentle and kind lady who had the resilience, strength and courage to come back time and time again from the brink of desolation always with her love of god intact.

One such time occurred when I was in my late twenties, Nanna had been in a catatonic state in an institution for over six months. I would visit with my mother and watch as my mother lovingly spooned food into her mother-in-law’s mouth that more often than not dribbled out. This feeding ritual during this phase taught me so much about the beauty of duty, much more than Kant could ever dream of portraying in his words. Truly this time it seemed the Nanna we knew was lost to us and we were being advised that this might very well be the case. Fast forward two weeks and I am taking Poppa to visit Nanna, My Poppa was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s at this point so his conversation could be a bit random which made for many an interesting moment. I had spent the journey trying to in still in Poppa not to expect to much from Nanna and that she wouldn’t actually be talking to us today. You should never make predictions about life. There we were walking to the visiting room, when I realised that the very talkative women I was staring at being wheeled down the hallway towards me was none other than my Nanna . Admittedly she did think Poppa was her brother and she kept calling me Lorraine but on the other hand Poppa kept calling me Denise and thought we were still in war times just before he left for it. As I sat there mulling over the flimsiness of identity and reality, and marvelling at my Nanna’s ability to bounce back from oblivion, Nanna started asking about church timetables and I knew she was truly back!

In the later years of my Nanna’s life she required constant care in a nursing home. Years on assorted medications had affected her kidneys so all medications had to be stopped. For most of the last five years of her life, she slept, waking occasionally throughout the week to take minimum food and liquids. Nanna was around 40kgs and suffering. When I visited most often than not she was asleep but always crying out in her slumber so I was concerned with what mental state and mental trials she might be enduring. On the occasions I visited and she was awake, she was always in a state of anxiety and confusion, which I soon learnt could be settled by reading to her from the Bible. I read, she would become subdued and contemplative and usually say something reflective about the passage. There were times I tried to sneak in Buddhist readings and other spiritual texts, at which she would listen politely and then say “Could you read to me from the Bible dear”, I guess Nan had her favourites. On one visit where she was asleep one of the carers told me that Nanna would often awake from days on end of being asleep to say to whoever was in the room “Do you know God?” with so much authority that people were afraid to say if they were atheists. This kept me chuckling for quite some time on the journey home.

I was asked to give a eulogy at my Nan’s funeral. I tried to portray what a remarkable woman of god and all the things she taught me through the living of her life but at the end of the day, words are words – it is through the living of all experiences that understanding comes. I don’t think I have known anyone, in the flesh, with more resilience than her, more acceptance of the way life is. But I guess above all, I look at my Nanna as an incredible story of love. After all she endured, and it was vast and horrific, she loved god/ life, just the way it was, over and over again.