cooking for pika <3

Cooking for pika is a blast. You get to turn this lovely assortment of vegetables in to...


This lovely mushroom soup, made with home-made stock... I don't even like mushrooms and I like this soup...

These excellent baked red potatoes (organic, yay!)...

This cauliflower-watercress-chard stir fry...

And this tasty chocolate cake.

Nobody doesn't love good food!

ouch

A few afternoons ago, my grandmother suggested (as we sat by a sunny window in the Museum of Science cafe, watching the river) that I continue to write here, despite having nothing sunny or insightful to say. She probably knows what she's talking about, being an octogenarian and all.

Well. In one big breath, I was rejected from all the graduate programs I applied to, I was rejected from all the orchestras I auditioned for, I'm losing money because my job doesn't pay me enough, I have no idea what I will be doing next year, and my health has suffered seriously under all this stress.

I've watched as almost everybody I know has gone through tense moments - waiting for graduate school admissions, job offers, summer opportunities, audition results - and emerged with nervous, relieved smiles on their faces. People knocking on my door late in the evening, holding tight to a letter, sighing their sighs of relief... It's not that I'm not happy for them - I am - or even that I'm particularly jealous. It's the feeling of shame that really gets me, watching everybody else emerge from their respective battles victorious. Makes me cringe every time. As if everybody I know is sailing on past me, catching wave after wave of hard-earned opportunity, while I sit helplessly with the rubble of my little shipwreck. Where did I go wrong?

My GPA was high enough, that can't be the problem. Had a nearly perfect GRE score. Very good recommendations (including the head of a department that rejected me), and they were all turned in on time. Few years of research experience. Couple of awards. I think the essays were OK. For the first few weeks, I mentally ran through my qualifications over and over, as if I'd suddenly realize, on the five-thousandth repetition, that I forgot to submit an application or that my GRE score was actually horrible. Of course, that didn't get me anywhere. But so far, nobody has been able to offer any insight in to the situation. I have no idea what went wrong. No idea at all.

Of course, it's not all misery and woe. You hear the news, you spend an afternoon staring out the window at the rain, and then you bounce back. The job hunt is on. Life hasn't stopped short. But neither has it really gone back to normal. People ask me how I am and I have no idea how to respond. The truth is that I'm constantly worried - about money, about getting a job, about what it means that I can't seem to do what I want with my life - and that I don't feel well. I feel left out, left behind, and just plain sick. It's been a month since I had a day during which I felt completely well, and eating has become difficult again. Sleeping, too. And I haven't been able to run for over a week.

On the other hand, last night I slept through the night for the first time in weeks, and on top of that, I didn't wake up feeling sick. I *am* trying very hard. Plenty of meditation, rest, vegetables, water, and rational reminders to my panicked self that this is not the end-all of anything at all. This is just another experience, another friend to meet along the road... and how I respond will speak more boldly about who I want to be than any letter of acceptance ever could. Maybe things are beginning to look up... maybe, as everybody keeps reminding me (much to my annoyance), this might be the best thing that ever happened to me. I have to admit that it sure doesn't feel that way, but it'd probably be good for me and everybody else if I stopped rolling my eyes at the suggestion ;)

PS. I already stopped rolling my eyes.

this old place

I'm startled to find, upon opening my eyes and looking warily around, that I have somehow stumbled in to a very familiar, very unpleasant thicket. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I know some of the uglier scenery all too well. This tangled state of mind... I don't like it one bit.

I am not trying for poetry - this is simply difficult to explain. Very difficult. Like a word you just cannot bring in to focus, no matter how long you squint at it. Like a story you forget in the midst of telling. Like a melody you can imagine, but can't quite sing. Whatever I say, I hear my voice saying it in a casual, expository sort of way... it's a lie, a gloss, a colorless copy, a 3rd-hand rumor, somehow the authenticity is lost before I even form the words.

I know I've been here before. I recognized it right away when I found myself surfing the web obsessively, reading things I didn't want to know, things that scare me, things that I hate seeing. Why? I found myself falling asleep in a haze of fear, with some semi-conscious sense that I should remain vigilant in sleep against... what? Walking down the street, full of a sense of dread that... something is coming. There is a constant twisting pain I need to get rid of, but how?

It is easier to find your way out of a thicket with your eyes open than with your eyes shut. Here's to the strength to find the way.

retreat part 3: you're nobody!

Buddhists are always talking about the concept of anatta, non-self.

Here's what I used to think of that concept:

Ugh, how horribly boring. Buddhists must think that we are all identical dolls, unpainted and unshaped, made from the same tired old mold. We're all blending in with one another, bland and uninspiring. What a depressing way to look at the world.

Here's what I think they mean now:

I am an instance of life. By which I mean, "life" is not a thing that exists outside of the beings that are alive. This is quite obvious when you think about it. But it's an interesting perspective to take. It means that I am not slogging through a chilly snowdrift of life, nor am I drowning in a bog of life, or mucking through a pit of life, constantly battling against it. Life is just living. And everything that is alive. Whatever our experience, very simply, that is life. We don't get to design a concept of Who We Are in some abstract pre-life greenroom, and then step out in to life in the character of who we want to be. It's already happening, it's already here. I think what the Buddhists mean by non-self is that we are all flickering, constantly changing, unique, beautiful apparitions of life. To hold on to an static idea of Who We Are can only be painful, because it can only change.

At first, I was really frustrated with that view. Am I not supposed to know who I am? Am I not supposed to understand myself? Am I not supposed to recognize faults and take steps to correct them? Sure seems like a lazy philosophy to me!

Perhaps it is obvious to everyone but me that discussion of Buddhist ideas often takes place on two different planes. (It took me almost the whole week to realize this!) On one level, they talk about non-self, but on another level, in order to navigate our lives as human beings, the self sure is a useful concept. I think it's all about taking ourselves with a grain of salt. We can observe ourselves, our tendencies, our strengths, our faults... all with the open-mindedness to notice when and if our tendencies change.

I think am beginning to understand why this is so important. A while ago I had a very difficult experience. A friend of mine informed me that I had not been a good listener in a conversation. I was absolutely devastated - even more so because I could see that she was correct. There is nothing I try harder to cultivate than good listening skills. I am very attached to my identity as a good listener. To have that identity shaken was very, very upsetting - I even had thoughts like "I have failed at the one thing I care most about". If I hadn't been as attached, maybe I would have been able to take my friend's comment with more grace and dignity, apologize more sincerely (instead of being so embarrassed that it was difficult to speak), and bring more awareness to the situation instead of avoiding conversation for days.

Einstein seems to have figured this out, among a "few" other things:

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security."

**Discussion not included: how we are basically made of rearranged, and constantly rearranging molecules that have been hanging around on Earth for 4 billion years. It's cool to think that part of you was once probably in the tooth of a T. Rex, and that you're basically built of smashed stars and that you're breathing in molecules that were in the lung of the person next to you 2 minutes ago, and therefore we're all connected etcetera, and the geek in me loves it, but it didn't seem relevant.

retreat part 2: your own personal monster

You know how, when you have an important conversation coming up, or an important meeting, or a special moment, you rehearse in your head exactly how it will go? You plan what you'll say, and how you'll act, and even what the response will be? Well, I do that, anyway. All the time, as it turns out. And... it NEVER works. I mean, sure, sometimes you get half-way through what you were going to say before the situation throws something unexpected at you, but oftentimes, you get 2 seconds in and things are already different. I don't think I had ever noticed before just how ineffective my planning is. In fact, this is what I thought was happening: I'd rehearse obsessively for some moment. Then the moment would arrive, and unfold completely differently. I'd feel very relieved that the moment was OK. I'd attribute its OK-ness to my rehearsing. Huh? That makes no sense!

At first, I was sort of terrified by the idea that no matter how carefully I prepare, my own life - even the words out of my own mouth - seems to be out of my control. All my care and concern isn't helping! I'm some monster that will just say ANYTHING! Oh no! But then I realized - I don't do that, either. I never just say any old thing. No one does. I say things that are in line with my intention, which is usually to be caring and kind or whatever. Somehow the monster that does all my speaking for me has a pretty good idea of what I want to say, but it never reads my note cards. It just ad-libs on a theme.

Have you ever had the experience of driving somewhere, and arriving at your destination only to realize you have no memory of the last 5 minutes or so? It can cause a panic - are you really sure you stopped at those stoplights? I think most people have had this experience one way or another. I have always been very unsettled by the possibility that I am not actually in control of my actions. I recently wrote about a study that showed that a brain scan can predict which of two simple options a person will choose before he or she is aware of having made a choice. I was seriously upset by that study. I even tried to talk to a few professors about it, who didn't quite understand how unsettled I was. Isn't it a horrible thought? To think that even when you think you're in charge of your choices, and you put your heart in to doing the right thing, you're powerless?

That study still makes me uncomfortable, but less so. One thing you do on retreat is establish the intention to keep paying attention to every moment as it is happening. You decide that you want to be paying attention. Invariably, your mind will wander and do things that are out of your control, including make decisions like "itch your left foot" and "time to take another bite of food" or "time to turn around and walk the other way". But somehow, your attention returns, over and over, out of that thicket, spontaneously. The direct experience of that attention returning gives me confidence that something I am doing, something deeper than fine control, is influencing my life.

It's kind of like realizing that you've never been a very good driver. For years, you've been priding yourself on your lack of accidents, for staying on the road in icy conditions, for not running over that cat, for avoiding those potholes. But then all of a sudden you realize that if you take your hands off the wheel, actually, the car drives itself. You can un-clutch your hands and lean back a little. As long as you've got your eyes on the road, the car takes care of the details.

The catch is, if you fall asleep, the car still crashes. Don't get too cocky - the AI isn't all that great. Somehow, it all depends on your attention...

retreat part 1: shhhh

It's QUIET. Quiet so loud you can hear it. There were almost 100 people at the retreat, all not talking, all not reading, all not writing, all not listening to music, all being as outwardly and inwardly still as they possibly could. You sort of descend in to stillness, like going down in to a deep well. At first it was a scary prospect. I wondered if I'd suffocate down there, without words. But it turns out that the air down deep is cool and live. It's refreshing not to have to make small talk, or be pleasantly entertaining, or talk when you feel down, or explain yourself if you just feel like leaving dinner early.

I did get a bit word-starved at first. I found myself reading the label on my toothpaste over and over, without even meaning to. And of course, there were difficult moments in the retreat, when I was upset or scared, and I wished that I could talk, but in the end, I'm glad that I was on my own. I think that in a difficult moment, we all want someone to tell us that everything will be OK. It's comforting, but have you ever noticed how quickly that comfort evaporates? When there is nobody to reassure you, to tell you that you are all right, you are forced to look at your problem head on. And when you do that, it's never quite as bad as you thought.

Perhaps you can handle anything that comes your way, by yourself. Perhaps you are much stronger than you think.

why i could never be a doctor

My job requires that I use splenic dendritic cells, harvested directly from the spleens of mice. The cells cannot be stored or cultured for any length of time because they mature and become useless very quickly. This means that every time I do an experiment involving splenic dendritic cells, a mouse must be killed, and its spleen harvested immediately.

I am already "exempt" from killing the mice myself - a co-worker does it for me. This was not always the case. At first, it was assumed that I was merely sentimental about rodents (on account of having them for pets) and that my discomfort would pass. (I am leaving my moral qualms with the use of animals for various human purposes out of this post.) Then, I proved myself utterly useless in the euthanasia process by crying so hard that a) I could not even SEE the mice through the tears and b) I had to keep taking off my surgical mask to blow my nose. Ok. So somebody else will do that job.

Now, I receive the spleens, which are approximately 1.5 cm, red, bean shaped organs, on ice immediately after they are harvested from the mouse. The spleens arrive with bits of connective tissue still attached. Before I begin to process the spleens (to extract the cells I need), I have to remove the little bits of fatty tissue. I do this with tweezers and surgical scissors. It takes about 5 minutes.

What has convinced me that I should never, EVER try to be a doctor is this: even though I've now processed more than a dozen spleens, I cannot get used to the sensation of pulling off the fatty tissue. I've always had a sense - unsubstantiated until now - that I would be unable to cut in to the skin of any organism, dead or alive. Many people have tried to convince me that performing surgery or autopsy or dissection is not as repulsive in actuality as it may seem in concept. This does not appear to be true for me. Every single time I clean those spleens it absolutely sickens me. I have no experience cutting any other kind of tissue, but something deep in my brain tells me that it FEELS WRONG. I just seem to have this built-in visceral knowledge that tissue is NOT SOMETHING YOU CUT, just like I have built-in knowledge that I should never break a bone on purpose, or never put my hand in a fire on purpose. I just can't get used to it.

Other people do not appear to have this mental block. This is a good thing, since if I ever need surgery I'd very much like to have a surgeon who is not freaking out. But man oh man... I'll leave doctoring to those with stronger stomachs than I.