Dirty Dishes

Doing--or not doing--the dishes is a cause for disagreement among many couples. Sometimes the underlying causes are not what we think they are.

Last Friday, during a session with our therapists David and Tom (who co-facilitate together), Linda brings up her frustration at my leaving dirty plates on the kitchen counter and not putting them in the dishwasher.“I don’t believe this,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I don’t want to waste time talking about dirty dishes in a session! This is something couples do in their first year of marriage. Surely we’re beyond all this!”
“Well, it bothers me,” Linda says vehemently, “I want to talk about it, especially since we can’t talk about it without getting angry. I know there’s something bigger going on.”
“What a waste of time,” I say squirming in my seat. “Besides, I try so goddamn hard to keep the counters clean. I obsess about it. I’m like an OCD gone wild. I put everything away. I clean the counter with paper towels, I get up every last crumb . . . and you accuse me of messing up the place? Damn it, I’m trying to do everything I can to please you.”
“I don’t see why you have such a big problem putting things in the dishwasher. Is it that difficult?”
“First you asked me not to leave the dishes out to air dry, and now I dry them and put them away. What more can I do to make you happy?”
“Put the dishes in the dishwasher.”
I feel a wave of anger. “But I do put them in!”
“No you don’t. You neurotically take dishes out and wash them by hand.”
“That was just once . . . and I enjoyed doing it. What’s the problem with that?
It’s as if a seething volcano of anger is filling the room—all coming from me. And I never show my anger!
“What’s the anger about?” Tom asks.
An image surfaces of my stepmother Nancy doing the dishes before we’d even finished dinner. “My stepmother was so uptight she would grab the dishes off the table before we had finished eating and take them into the kitchen. And that was always the moment we were all beginning to have some fun after a few glasses of wine. For once my dad was happy . . . and she couldn’t stand it.”
“Uh-oh, I did a Nancy,” Linda cringes. “Peter hated his stepmother. He told his friend over the phone that he hated her and wanted to kill her—and she was listening on the other line.”
Tom raises his eyebrows. “That’s interesting.”
“Yeah, I really did—and I meant it. I really did want to kill her . . . but let’s move on. I want to get deeper on this.”
“Oh, that wasn’t deep enough?” Tom asks.
We all break up laughing.
“She really was cold and mean,” Linda adds.”
“I used to get furious at her for lying in bed all day reading and watching TV. I get angry at Linda for doing the same thing.”
“Nancy was not your mother, though, was she?” David asks.
“No, she was the ‘wicked stepmother.’ Suddenly a realization dawns. “But I had no reason to get angry at Nancy! This has nothing to do with her. It’s all about my mother. She must have been sick and in bed with cancer, and lying in bed all day. I was frightened and had no idea what to do.”
“You were only eight or nine then, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, I vaguely remember standing in front of our couch, while my mom tried to take care of my little brother Richard, who was just a baby. She said something like, ‘You’re a big boy now. You have to help me. I’m not well.’ I wanted to please her, so I made up my mind to do whatever I could to help her.”
“Was she sick then?” asks Tom.
Linda jumps in, “I’m sure she was . . . it was about three or four years before she died.”
“I must have realized that if I wasn’t a good boy, and didn’t help her, then she would die.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it felt like you’d literally die,” David says.
“That’s true. I was my mom’s favorite. She must have been really sick then—but no one told me anything. I can vaguely remember her coming home from the hospital, but . . .”
“He doesn’t remember anything about his mom,” Linda adds.
“What happened is that I did become invisible,” I say, shaking my head. “I was totally ignored. When my mom died I was left to fend for myself. The only way I could get love was by helping . . . by being a good boy. I had to produce. It was life or death.”
Tom and David nod their heads and just listen. I’m so grateful for their quiet wisdom.
“It’s no wonder I can’t relax. No wonder I’m so driven. I can’t even slow down, even for a second, or I’ll be dead. There is this terror of emptiness.”
“So you have to keep running as hard as you can . . .”
“Oh my God,” I say, turning to Linda. “My getting upset with you reading and watching TV is not because of you! It brings up the trauma of seeing my mother sick in bed, and having no idea what was going on.”
Linda reaches out to touch my hand.
“This has been so hard for you,” she says. “First you had to live through this with your mom, then with Fran when she was sick, and now me.”
“And this whole thing about the dishes has nothing to do with Linda,” I say, getting back to our original argument. “I’m terrified that if I don’t do everything perfectly, I will die! I HAD to please my mom. No, it’s more than that . . .”
“Dying isn’t enough?” Tom asks with a wink. We all laugh, relieving the tension.
“I must have known on some level she was getting sicker and sicker. I was petrified.”
“And no one said anything, making it even harder,” David says.
“So feeling that I’m somehow failing Linda brings all this up again, especially since Linda is sick and in pain so much of the time.”
“I don’t want to be,” she says lovingly.
“I know, I know . . .”
“And when you criticize me for not doing the dishes right, I feel hurt . . . like I’ve disappointed the person I love most in the world.”
“Oh sweetheart, I love you so. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. You’re my love.”
David and Tom smile.
“I’m so sorry if I got angry at you.”
We look deeply into each other’s eyes.
I feel a warm sensation spreading through my belly . . . a huge knot of energy has been released.
Our dogs, Kamalani and Lukey (always present for our therapy), have been chewing on hooves. They look up at us.
So, you’ve finally figured it out?

Hurry-Worry Never Works

In 1959, Tsung Tsai, a Buddhist monk, escaped from the Red Army troops that destroyed his monastery, and walked three thousand miles across China to Hong Kong, nearly dying in the process.

Years later he ends up living in upstate New York, where he builds his own house and lives a monastic life. During a snowstorm, he meets his neighbor, a young hippie poet from New York named George Crane. An unlikely friendship forms between them as they sip tea and read poetry together. Tsung Tsai shows the poet some poems in Chinese, and George gets very excited about the idea of translating them into English. But Tsung Tsai knows that it is not yet time. “Hurry-worry never works,” he says.

George Crane later writes about this extraordinary friendship (and and their daring journey into Lower Mongolia) in his delightful book called Bones of the Master—A Journey to Secret Mongolia.

I often think about Tsung Tsai saying, “Hurry-worry never works” in reference to my own life. Lately I’ve been obsessively driving myself to “get things done.” My busy little mind says, “If you can just finish this project, then you can relax.” Once I finish it, I’m saying, “You’ve got to get those letters out.” On and on it goes. Soon there is no time to breathe (because of my own self-imposed deadlines), and my body becomes tense and stressed out. It’s all about “me” having to get “my” projects done. What a vicious cycle.

Today, while meditating, I could almost feel the frenzied rush of “hurry-worry” thoughts. I notice that it’s all about “my” thoughts, “my” feelings, and “my” worries. What would it be like not to have these thoughts? What would it be like not to be constantly thinking, “I need to do this, I need to do that?” I realize that I don’t have to live with these little gnats constantly buzzing around in my head. All I need to do is “flush” them out by dropping inside and being still. If I place my attention on what’s happening right here, right now, there's no room for the "me" thoughts. And when they come back (which they most certainly will), all I need do is take a few moments to be still once again. What’s left when they are gone? Nothing but empty awareness. When there’s no one there to claim these thoughts, there is nothing but peace. What a relief.

The challenge is that if I do slow down, I have to look at why I’m so driven to get all this stuff done. I have to ask, “What is all this “doing” about? Do I need to create meaning in my life through doing, and more doing?” Is it all so that I will feel important, fulfilled, and happy? Am I justifying my obsessive behavior by saying I have to make money, support my family, and make a contribution to the world? Is it so that I can avoid seeing who it is that I truly am? Who would I be without any of that? A very peaceful guy.

I remember an interview Lama Surya Das had with the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa, a little Tibetan guy with a sunhat, big glasses coming down his nose, and a hilarious expression of gleeful laughter on his face. He told Lama Surya Das, “I would say that not doing too much is the important thing. We tend to try to overdo everything. Such conceptual actions just create more karma. Consider nondoing, nonaction for a while, and leaving things as they are.”

And here’s the kicker for me. In reference to his own life, the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa said, “I have a mission of not doing anything. My goal is not doing anything, ultimately. Just being. That’s it.”

Now that’s something worth doing!

Snookered

The waves are breaking gently on shore as I take my regular walk down Baldwin beach on Maui. The drop-dead gorgeous beach stretches a half-mile before me, with hardly a soul on it. I take in the special color of the water today, a light turquoise that extends one hundred yards offshore. My dogs walk along beside me, sniffing for any food that may have been left behind by previous beachgoers. I take a deep lungful of the fresh salt air, clean and pure after blowing across thousands of miles of ocean.

A few feet ahead of me I see a dollar bill lying in the sand. How did that get here? I think. I don’t see anyone around. Maybe I should pick it up and find its owner? I reach down to pick it up, but the wind blows it a little further up the beach. Well, maybe it doesn’t belong to anyone any more. Finders keepers. But is it worth chasing a dollar bill? A dollar bill doesn’t get you very far these days. I take a few steps and stretch out my hand to grab it.

Once again it flutters in the wind and blows further up the beach. Now this is getting crazy. I’m not going to let that dollar bill get away and disappear into the bushes. The wet bill lies flat on the sand. This should be easy. Grab it quick! I almost have it in my hand when, whoosh, it flutters a few yards away. Damn. I nearly had it.

I’ll give it one last try. I take a few steps, pulling the dogs on their leashes. They look up at me, wondering what I’m doing. Now—I’ve got it! I zip my hand out for the final grab, when the bill suddenly takes off high into the air, reeled in by two guys who are laughing hysterically.

I start laughing along with them, “I’ve been snookered! Good one!” I yell to them over the wind. “You guys are good!” They’re bent over in laughter and I am too. “Next time put a twenty on!” We’re all in hysterics. I wave and continue down the beach with a big smile on my face.

How interesting, I think. Here I was, peacefully enjoying my walk, when out of nowhere, a desire showed up at my feet in the form of a dollar bill. My first reaction was, “Can I return it to its owner?” The next thought was, “I just can’t let this go. I’ve got to grab it.” I jumped, then jumped again, reeled in by my desire, totally forgetting my peaceful walk.

Life shows up in wonderful and mysterious ways to show us exactly what we need to learn . . . and I’m still smiling.

Geezer in Paradise

Aging is like going through a funnel. You start out with so much room, spinning so fast, wondering just how far you can go, but in the end you wind up going through the hole.
Albert Brooks

There is no set date for it, but geezerdom seems to start around the time when the odometer rolls down towards 70. It’s very different from being a fresh, young “senior citizen” who has just turned 55, and signed up for AARP, excited that you can get discounts at the movies. Geezerdom comes later, when your body starts to fall apart in a major way, your face starts to looks like a cadaver, and you become invisible to the world.

I thought that by moving to Hawaii, I could add on a few more years of looking like a young, healthy “senior.” I could at least have a tan, wear my hair in a pony-tail, and look like an eccentric hippie. But not so. The young, hip clerks in grocery stores either look right through me, as if I don’t exist, or they make an effort to be real polite, “Do you need some help with your bags today, sir?” No, of course I don’t need help with my goddamned bags! Perhaps if I lived in Florida, and not Hawaii, it would be different. Both the clerks and the baggers would be older than I am.

Well, at least there is one fellow geezer here on the island who hasn’t faded into the woodwork. His name, of course, is Ram Dass, the grand elder statesman who inspired a whole pack of baby boomers through the sixties, seventies, and eighties. He wrote the cult classic Be Here Now way over 35 years ago. His marvelous book Still Here shows boomers how they can age gracefully. Since his stroke ten years ago, after which he was confined to a wheelchair, Ram Dass doesn’t get around much anymore. But he still shows up just about everywhere on Maui to lend his shining presence to events.

When he holds his monthly get-togethers, there are always a lot of young people—island hippies, a young mother with a baby at her breast, bronzed young men with sun-bleached hair in a ponytail. Now, unlike me, they don’t see Ram Dass as an old fart. What’s the difference? One difference is that they admire him for all the drugs he has taken (this is Maui, remember?). Another is that he laughs at himself a lot—and at the world. And most of all, he sees no difference between himself and anyone out there. For Ram Dass, there is just life going on around him. He doesn’t judge people their looks, what they’re wearing, or by how young or old they are.
And most people don’t judge him; they love him.

So the next time I feel invisible or feel judged for being old, it is an opportunity for me to see what is beyond age, beyond looks, and beyond the body. Let’s face it, we scare the hell out of these guys. They’re terrified they will become like us—and they will!

If we can find it in ourselves to love them—even if they appear not to see us, or speak slowly and in a loud voice, believing we’re deaf and stupid—love will melt away all the differences. Because love is all there is, and it is who we are.