Body, Mind and Soul

Lately it seems I spend ordinate amounts of time visiting various professionals who roam around my body, checking it, prodding and sticking it, and so on.  This is partly because I am over sixty years old, partly because I’ve had cancer and so now have to be regularly tested in all sorts of ways, and partly because it’s summer and I save all these appointments for what are supposed to be the relaxing months for teachers. In the last month or so I’ve gone to (in no particular order):

1. oncologist (check-up)

2. mammography (ditto)

3. urological surgeon (don’t ask)

4. gynecologist (another check-up)

5. pelvic ultrasound (ditto)

6. skin cancer check

7. opthamologist (check-up)

8. orthopedist (shoulder tendinitis)

9. physical therapy for tendinitis (4 weeks)

10. dentist (still another check-up)

11. pulmonologist (new medication for chronic though mild asthma)

I’m sure I’m leaving a few out. And some of these have to be repeated in the fall (the oncologist wants me to have yearly breast MRI’s in ADDITION to yearly mammograms — her idea is, why not?).

My point is that as my body is sagging, bagging and turning into old hagdom, becoming less and less a joy and the modest source of pride it used to be;  as I become more and more interested in and focused on the mind and the world, that same body is pulling at me like a small demanding, even spoiled child — look at me! Pay attention to me! And if you don’t, you’ll see – I’ll get even! Ouch.

It all seems so unfair. But as my friend KS, a Buddhist, remarked to me recently, “You say you don’t believe in anything, but you speak as if you’re angry at someone or something for the way things turn out. There’s no one to be angry at.“

Now there’s a thought my body couldn’t have come up with.

Louise Bourgeois; Local Raccoons

Two days ago I went to the Guggenheim to see the Louise Bourgeois exhibition. I also reupped my membership, which cost only $64, as I am now a senior. With membership comes a small canvas tote (je t’aime Louise Bourgois) and  the right to bring guest(s) for $10. So… if any of our original group would like to accompany me to the museum on any weekday, I’d be glad to go again. I missed one gallery by accident, and one was temporarily closed.

I have never really warmed up to her early work, but there are many pieces from the 1990s and 2000s that I had never seen before, and some of them were, to me, incredibly compelling. Some sample quotes from L.B.:

[referring to a sculpture's tortuous, yet ultimately balanced, quality]: That is the tension of being human–the fragility of people. We are always afraid of falling, so we balance ourselves.

It is not so much where my motivation comes from, but rather how it manages to survive.

I need memories. They are my documents. [Poster's note: So do we all need our memories, which is why Alzheimer's is such a horrific disease.]

[Stitched on a bed coverlet in a piece titled Cell 1] Art is the guarantee of sanity [not so, sez I]. Pain is the ransom of formalism. [If anyone out there knows or can guess what that last one means, please comment.]

Riding my bike this morning on the way to the Central Park tennis courts, I heard a man say to his companion, “There are two of them.” Two whats, I wondered, so I stopped my bike, intending to ask them. Just then I saw what was obviously a young raccoon scuttling through the  bushes–then another. According to the couple who had spotted them first, there has been more than one raccoon family in that location [100th Street entrance, large tree about 60 feet from Central Park West]. Warmed the cockles.

The Day of False Starts

Bali is beautiful. The weather is warm but not too hot, and cool in the evening so I don’t even need the ceiling fan. We’ve arrived in Ubud in the middle of preparations for two mass cremations, events of high social and religious significance. And my daughter C’s friend M, who lives here, is married to a man whose family is involved with one of these cremations. People are busy creating offerings and statues of bulls that will be used in the cremations — this evening women walked up our street carrying on their heads elaborate containers embellished with gold foil. Next week the actual ceremonies take place, and we’ll be able to see one of them next Tuesday.

So why is today a day of false starts? Let us count the ways.

(1) We’ve been having minor technological problems; the charger for my phone may have burned out because I forgot to plug it into the converter before plugging it into the adapter. So I’ve been looking for a new converter. Meanwhile, Christie’s looking for a new battery for her camera because the converter has been erratic in recharging her camera’s current battery. No luck on either front.

(2) We called the cooking school where we’re taking lessons tomorrow and Saturday. They want payment in rupiahs, so at first we thought we wanted a bank to cash our traveler’s checks. But on the way up Jl. (Street) Hanoman, we decided it might be easier just to take cash from the nearest ATM. That turned out to be on the main road through Ubud. The first ATM we entered only “spoke” to us in Balinese, which should have alerted us that it wasn’t an international ATM. But no. We kept trying, until a security guard came over to tell us it wasn’t international. He directed us across the street, where we got our rupiah

(3) We had originally thought we’d go to a museum today. But by now it was 12:30, and we thought that by the time we got to the museum, which we’d have to take a taxi to, it would be time for lunch, so let’s have lunch now. We walked a couple of blocks to Nomad, recommended by Lonely Planet as having Balinese dishes in tapas-size portions. Nomad is like most (all?) Balinese restaurants, open air on three sides. We ordered a platter of all the tapas and a green papaya salad. And waited, and waited, and waited. It was more than half an hour before our food arrived, and it was way too much food. However, we made the most of it, and it was quite good.

(4) By now, I was thinking a museum was not in the cards, and perhaps we should just go to the Monkey Forest. We’ve been here for three days, and I still haven’t been to the Monkey Forest, which is walking distance from our hotel. So we set off down Monkey Forest Road. C stopped in several shops, trying on a dress (too short), a feathery sweater (bought two), and Crocs (bought a pair). My innards, however, were beginning to set up a protest, so I looked around for a likely bathroom. Across the street was a medical clinic — they should let me in. Indeed they did, and it was a Balinese toilet, a porcelain hole in the ground, which a barrel of water and scoop for flushing. And I had diarrhea. Not pretty. However, I felt better afterwards, and we continued on toward the Monkey Forest. This time, though, C needed to get back to the hotel, so we passed the Monkey Forest, stopping only to take pictures of the monkeys cavorting over the roof of a nearby shop.

(5) Back at the hotel, I was hot, sweaty, and tired. All I wanted to do was take a nap. Which I did, until it was time to go up to C’s friend M’s café, conveniently named Kafe, to try out the Internet and recharge C’s laptop. Neither of these efforts was successful either, at first. But we’re going out to dinner soon and should be recharging out own batteries. And tomorrow is another day.

On Writing and Reading and Loneliness

Rather a lofty title for what will probably not amount to much, but…

My starting point is the posting by Amaryllis, Sunday, Sunday. A. accomplished everything she set out to do,  which gave her a feeling close to bliss, a sort of power. I have, alas, rarely accomplished all that I set out to do, at least in the writer’s world. (I believe I was supposed to contribute a post either yesterday or the day before. Late, as usual.) In college, I did write two things I was proud of, a paper on Matthew Arnold (which my brother plagiarized a year later in a freshman English class at a different college, and for which he received a $250 prize) and a long satirical poem on the New Criticism “after” The Rape of the Lock. Both were done at the last possible moment, on no sleep + amphetamines, and so the process was rather horrendous.

Since then, I have written some OK poems and one mediocre short story. [Note on those: a therapist I was seeing in 1975, in Washington, D.C., wanted to see my writing, so I gave her everything I had done. Not long after, I quit, owing her $100,  and she refused to give me back my writing until I paid up. I didn't pay. I didn't have copies. All lost. Typical of my irresponsible self. But also, I think, fucked up on her part.] Currently, I am working on a long poem, “Running on Riverside” but that project has stalled because I decided that at least two lines of each four-line metered verse should rhyme and the result, sad to say, too often resembles doggerel. I am also writing a sort of expose piece on de-tox centers I have known and loathed. The latter is more likely to see the light of day than the former, but one never knows. And I know with certainty that if I DO finish either of these, I will feel ???–not bliss surely, but a sort of power, power over a life-long habit of procrastinating.

Years ago, I read (some piece on life’s “stages”) that as one grows older, one comes to depend more on “the life of the mind” than the life of the body. I took that to mean that I would stop exerting myself physically to the point of exhaustion and, often, injury, and read a lot more. Maybe learn a new language? Audit a courses or courses at Columbia? Learn to play the guitar? (No kidding, I did try to learn how to play the guitar. Didn’t try hard enough.) But the fact is, I get as much satisfaction from playing a good tennis match as I do from reading. The way Amaryllis describes her feelings sounds to me the way I feel after strenuous physical exertion, which causes those lovely endorphins to kick in and do their thing. And the closest I have come to what I might call bliss (other than good sex with a person I love) was when I finished the NYC Marathon in close to 8-minute miles.

Reading is harder than playing tennis or running or riding a bicycle or swimming because it requires that you think about what you are reading. I read a lot. Reading is a lonely activity, unless you are in a study or reading  group. So is writing. Which brings me to Tennessee, Williams, who was both a voracious reader and a prolific writer. I am reading his plays in chronological order (I’m up to Night of the Iguana) and his notebooks (edited by Margaret Thornton), and will eventually get to his short stories. [Note on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Kazan got Williams to make changes to the last act, changes which, in my mind, ruined the play. If you've seen only the Broadway version and/or the film with Paul Newman and Liz Taylor,  check out the original text.] Last year I read Williams’ Letters to Donald Windham as well as Windham’s Lost Friendships: A Memoir of Truman Capote Williams and Others. Both worth reading.

In Battle of Angels (1941), a character says, “We’re all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins.” In the rewrite of that play, Orpheus Descending (1947), the same character speaks the same line, but adds, after “skins,” “for life.” Williams was a tortured, lonely soul beset by demons, but instead of killing himself or letting drugs and alcohol completely ruin his mind and body (the substance abuse didn’t gain ascendancy until the last two years of his life), he WROTE–some good plays, some bad plays, and some absolutely wonderful plays, plays that will be read as long as people read. He also swam a lot, his swimming venue of choice being Key West. And swimming, like reading and running, is a loner’s activity.

If you conclude from this posting that I am alone much of the time, you are right. I guess that’s the way I want it. I talk to my sister via telephone almost every day, and most days spend some time–though rarely a lot of time–with my boyfriend. I also see my son at least once a week, sometimes for dinner. I seem to have lost focus. Full stop.

Sunday, Sunday

This holiday weekend I passed up an opportunity to spend a day or two at our own DK’s country house in order to work at my writing, which has been pressing on me lately, since the deadline is looming. Now here it is Sunday night, and I accomplished everything I set out to do. I’m here to say that this gives me a feeling close to bliss, a different kind than family or romance or even aesthetic pleasure (which it’s close to). It’s the sensation of power, in a way, of pushing myself in a direction I’m reluctant to go and having something to show for it to the world (not that “the world” will be reading it, exactly).  Not power as in presidential power, or telling people what to do kind of power. Work, when it goes well, gives me the sensation of competence (and sometimes compensation, though not enough), of mastery, of connection to the world.

When I have something to write, I need to rev up the mental engines by reading, then writing down my thoughts about what I’ve read in a notebook. Little themes and ideas and lines come to me when I wake up, or when I’m walking or showering or cooking. Then I procrastinate and feel guilty and anxious, until I see it must be done. In order to start the serious business of putting it together, I need certain conditions: I must not be at home; I must not be anywhere there is noise or distraction of any sort (see “not being at home”); I must be physically near other people but not able to interact with them. The Columbia library is perfect, especially now that you can plug in your computer anywhere. I have a special desk in a particular room that feels like my own place — it’s tough when someone else has gotten there first. The ideal condition is that the room has a few strangers also hard at work, but no one talks. Once when I had a really hard task to do, I went away for the weekend to a bed and breakfast in a town where I know no one, and stayed in the room writing all day, leaving for meals and walks. It wasn’t at all lonely, because I was there for work, my own work.

I’m writing a paper on loneliness in life and literature for a conference in Vancouver at the end of July. An odd thing happened last week: I went to the library to do a bit of research on the subject, looking for books in literary criticism, psychology and sociology. I looked at some books, most unhelpful, and came across an anthology on loneliness by various psychologists. One article looked interesting and I copied a particularly good sentence: “Loneliness is a feeling of deprivation that painfully, but hopefully, turns outward for fulfillment.” Then I noticed that one of the two authors was my own brother, a psychologist: he had written this decades ago. It was a strange feeling to come upon his work in these circumstances, like meeting him in an unexpected place.

Elizabeth Bentley

I’ve been reading a biography of Elizabeth Bentley (Red Spy Queen, by Kathryn Olmsted). I don’t know how many people nowadays have even heard of her if they’re not specialists on American communism. She was a Communist in the 1930s and 1940s, and collected information from Communists and sympathizers in the government which she then passed on Soviet agents. Then she became a notorious informer to the FBI and tried to make a living as a professional anti-Communist. According to her biographer, Bentley became a Communist because she was lonely and wanted a group to belong to, and because she had a rebellious nature; she became a spy go-between because that’s what her lover (Jacob Golos) did, and when he came under the surveillance of the FBI, he handed over much of his work to her.

One of the interesting thing about her story is the media coverage when her role as a spy was first publicized. The early news stories called her a “blonde spy queen,” even though she wasn’t blonde. But the idea that she was glamorous and blonde fit gender stereotypes of the late 1940s, and the press continued to describe her that way even when photographs showed she was neither.

The very idea of a “lady spy” was hard to accept, since spying was thought to be a man’s profession, but easier if one considered her to be a temptress. Newspapers portrayed her either as a sex-starved, man-eating seductress or a sexually repressed, man-hating spinster.

It was also important, at the beginning of the cold war, to make it clear that “our” (American) women were very different from “their” (Communist) women. Americans believed that Communist women were promiscuous and dominated their men, whereas real American women would defer to their men and remain virginal until marriage. Their women took male jobs, while our women stayed home and took care of their children.

Bentley fit the stereotypes uneasily. She was an assertive woman, but she wasn’t the dominant one in her relationship with Golos. She certainly wasn’t beautiful, in fact, she looked rather maternal, with a round, pudgy face. She did sleep with a lot of men, and didn’t show good judgment in her choices, but she did her best to control her life as she was used, first by Communists and then by anti-Communists.

** addendum on July 4: I just finished the biography and have something to add about gender stereotypes of the time. Among all her problems, Bentley was an alcoholic, prone to nervousness (fear that the NKGB was going to kill her for betraying them) and also making demands on the FBI that sometimes amounted to blackmail (if they didn’t give her money to live on, she would find it difficult to cooperate with them as a witness). According to her FBI file, the agents attributed every problem they had with Bentley to “she must be going through menopause” — this over the course of more than 15 years!

Today’s thoughts

I don’t know how you feel about it, but I am thoroughly sick of everyone — everyone – telling us without any questioning what a “war hero” McCain was. Yes, I feel bad that he suffered (though many, many others did too, and do, in every war), and we may all admire the ability to endure that suffering and not go nuts. But how is someone who was shot down from a fighter plane a hero, exactly? Isn’t a hero someone who DOES something active? In my book a hero is a person who sacrifices himself or herself to help others, and this doesn’t qualify at all. I wonder — are others thinking this too, in the media and in the public at large, and are afraid to say so? Has the culture of “patriotism” become so entrenched that critical thinking is unacceptable?

Then there’s the question of whether Wesley Clark was right that McCain’s experience as a P.O.W. doesn’t automatically qualify him to be President. I say, DUH. No one in the media who has screamed and ranted about this has actually explained why it’s wrong, in fact. But again — it’s verboten to express the very thought, to the point that Obama himself has to repudiate Clark’s brave statement. I know he’s trying hard to get elected, but really.

On a happier note, I am reading May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude, and enjoying it very much. She was a prickly but thoughtful character whose poetry I’ve always liked, and this is about her struggles in the early 70s to live alone while battling depression. It’s also an interesting view of what it was like to be an educated woman in that era. I recommend it.

Vacation coming up

In four days, I’m flying to Bali. I am both excited and nervous — excited because it will be beautiful and I’m already planning to take a cooking class, do some yoga sessions, watch white herons nest at dusk, maybe climb a volcano to see the sunrise, and observe a mass cremation ceremony. But nervous because  it takes forever to get there and back. It’s halfway around the world, so flying west, we go from JFK to Vancouver (6 hours), Vancouver to Hong Kong (12 hours), and Hong Kong to Bali (4 hours). Coming back there’s fewer stops but longer time in the air, 16 hours from Hong Kong to JFK. How many crying babies will there be? How much like steerage will coach class be? Let’s just not think about that, but still beware of the  possibility of blood clots, that airplane hazard.

I’m a pretty good flyer, that is, I can close my eyes and pretend to sleep, and maybe actually even sleep for 40 minutes at a time. The first time I flew, I was 19 and sure I would be fearful. Instead, once up in the air and sitting by the window, watching the clouds pile up in ever more majestic, puffy mountains, I had the very strong image of the  plane atop a long pole attached to a truck on the ground. What was there to be afraid of, as long as that truck stayed on the road?

Are you a good flyer, or a bad one? Do you need to take drugs or strong drink to get up in the air, or do you bring books, crossword puzzles, knitting to keep you occupied? Can you sleep up there, or do you have to stay awake to keep the plane up?

Week ending June 22, 2008

Yesterday I went to a delightful baby shower for a friend of my daughter’s, a young woman I’ve known since she was five years old. We all had to write “advice” for the new parents to be read aloud by them, and someone wrote, “You’ll never have peace of mind again once the child is born” (it sounds mean but was humorous in context). I turned to the father-to-be’s mom, who was next to me, and said I thought that was true — I’ve never stopped worrying about my three children now that they’re grown up. “Not me,” she said breezily, “I’m just not a worrier. I always think things will turn out okay.” “And do they?” I asked. She looked very vague — I suspect non-worriers are often vague when confronting the ugly or sad parts of life – and just smiled.

 

So my theme for this week is worry, or its heftier partner, fear. Now that I’m of that certain age, I’m more confident about some things — not caring what others think of me, making friends easily, knowing what I can and can’t do — but I’m also more fearful, I think. The sudden deaths of Tim Russert at 58 and George Carlin at 71 from cardiac arrest makes me fear for my life. Hearing about a toddler beaten and stomped to death by the side of a highway in California while onlookers stood by helpless makes me fearful of the nature of the universe in which horrors like this can happen to the innocent and helpless. Losing my glasses for two days, only to have them returned after I ordered new ones for hundreds of dollars, makes me afraid of diminished mental capacities. I wish I could be confident that my children will be fine when they make life decisions (moving, getting married, taking new jobs, having babies), but the truth is that fear for them grips my heart when something changes.

 

The best part of this week was a small pleasure: holding the hands of my grandchildren as I took them to nursery school and third grade. Other than that, the pleasures were artistic:

 

What I’m reading this week: Vivian Gornick’s Elizabeth Cady Stanton: The Solitude of Self. This is not something I’d be likely to read on my own, so I’m grateful that I “have to” read it for my work. VG is always excellent, and her subject is fascinating.

 

What I saw this week: I very much enjoyed Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World, a documentary about Antartica, with terrific visual beauty but also interesting and provocative portraits of the scientists who work there. I love Herzog’s weirdness — in general I’m more attracted to weirdness than normality. And the lack of fear of the scientists who dive under the ice for specimens without compasses or lines, something you couldn’t pay me enough to do, is endlessly intriguing to me. I’m astounded that some people take risks where I’d be scared to death.

 

I also saw a little gem of an exhibit with Sonia at Columbia University — some ancient Chinese statuary. We attached ourselves to a tour guided by an expert collector — I love experts. I also love Asian art. Thanks, Sonia.

 

And the Spec Shop was decent enough to cancel my order for new glasses. Thanks, Spec Shop. Life goes on.

How we got together

The women of this blog first met 11 years ago. We wanted to talk, in a CR fashion, about women, aging, and sex. We’ve been meeting just about once a month since then. We’ve read and discussed books, gone to movies and plays, exchanged our wide variety of experiences, learned from each other — and now we’d like to share our interests with you, the readers of this blog.