F-Words and Beyond

It's been an F***ing few days.

The "F-word" here is Feel.  I've been feeling a lot of things recently, and to quote what my roommate said one night about feelings: "They suck."

Now, as a Feeler and a (music) therapist, I'm all for feelings, and I believe they are healthy indicators of many things if received and processed in a healthy manner.  But sometimes, feelings are just too much to handle.

While my life has been wonderful these couple of weeks--I've had nice visits with my parents, good times with friends in the great outdoors, and some fun swing dances--there has been a heaviness that has weighed on my heart.  It seems that, just by going through life on earth, I have been absorbing so much of the sorrow around me, and I have been carrying the sorrow of others upon my shoulders even as, externally, this season of extroversion has been enjoyable.

A few things have been carrying me through.

Friend:

I realized the other day that I needed to stop carrying my burdens alone.  My best Friend has been waiting gently for me to cast my cares upon Him.  Once I did, He gave me rest.  Jesus is the best Friend I could ever ask for.

Faith:

I reviewed Hebrews chapter 11, also known as the "Faith Chapter" of the Bible.  From October 2012-December 2013, I committed this passage to memory, slowly meditating on each verse and allowing living examples to strengthen my faith.  I want to keep these verses fresh in my heart, as I'll need a lot of faith in this upcoming transition.

In the alphabet, "G" comes after "F", so I'll move from "F-words" to "G-words".

God:

This is a word that so many people use and relate to in their own ways.  But for me, the only way I can have a healthy view of and relationship with God is through the above-mentioned Friend.  "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me," the Friend once said, and His Friendship is the reason I can come to God when I'm feeling weak and broken and messed up inside.

Gregorian Chant:

I've been listening to Gregorian Chants on YouTube, and it has done wonders for my weary soul.  To quote Victor Hugo: “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.”  'Nuff said!

RSC Reflections

My Office Has Become a Confessional

Each day they come, these residents of mine, with their aches and pains and their walkers and canes.  On their faces, wrinkles hint at decades of both frowns and smiles.  They sit across from me, with my office desk providing a boundary that demarcates our professional relationship but also invites openness.  Boundaries help people feel safe, and when people feel safe, they open up themselves to you.

Resident RG, in the midst of us working on getting him a disability claim from a VA office in Hollywood, FL, told me about all the ships he’d ever served on, about growing up black in Mississippi and joining the Service as a way to have a hope and a future.  As a boy, he got hurt once when he was far away from home and had to be rushed to a local hospital for help.  “Ah was the first colored person’d be treated at dat hospital”, he said, his round eyes glittering like beads.  Back on those days, being colored meant being second class, and he said he was happy to see that our country now had a black president.  RG was a funny man.  He winked at you and said, “Hi Baby, how you doin’?” (I imagine he did the same when he was in Asia with the navy and picked up prostitutes—he told me about that once), but when you demanded that he respect you, he sat down and told you about his life.  His nails were also most fascinating: he got them manicured on a regular basis, and his French nail-tips were painted green. 

Resident RW, born in Italy and raised in America, had fiery blood and hot temper coursing through her veins.  Phone appointments sounded something like this:  “Ohhh, you know, I got this letter and I don’t even understand what it says”.  Her voice would grow louder as she continued, “This is all so stupid.  Can you help me?”  She’d bring me her Social Security notices, and the letter telling her she no longer qualified for Medi-Cal.  “What’s this stupid all about?” she’d fume, throwing her head into her palms, mouth open with disbelief.  I told her to sit back and let me call Medi-Cal.  I would figure out all the details, and all she had to do was speak with them briefly and give them permission to speak with me about it.  At the end of the call, I always got a warm hug and kiss on the cheek.  “Ohhh….thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said, and I could still smell her perfume on my neck as she walked away.

RW once told me that, being raised “the European way”, she took care of both her parents until they passed, faithfully driving them to every doctor’s appointment and taking care of their activities of daily living.  “Now, my kids?  Hmph.  Not them.  They’re too busy with their lives over there by the Ocean.  They’re not like you Orientals, that take care of your own, you know”.

Though I didn’t say it to her, I thought to myself that the stereotype of filial adult children amongst Chinese families wasn’t necessarily all that true.  I thought of Resident DL, who was born in a village in China and single-handedly raised three children.  Her husband cheated on her and lives in China with his mistress to this day; she immigrated to the States as an older adult, equipped with only a background of illiteracy and poverty.  Recently, DL had a falling out with her daughter, which happened during a visit to daughter’s house (30 minutes away by car).  DL's husband’s health is getting pretty bad, and her daughter wanted DL to invite the husband to live with her in the States to be taken care of.  When DL refused, daughter kicked DL out of the house and refused to drive her back home.  DL spent the entire evening slowly making her way home through the bus system, spending hours at the bus stop shivering in the cold.  “I can tell no one about this,” she confessed to me, “because what would they think of me?”

It is a shameful thing to be a Chinese mother who has raised unfilial, disrespectful children, children who don’t take care of you in your old age and don’t want to spend any time with you.  So when neighbors boast about adult children who send them expensive gifts or take them out to dinner every weekend, DL says nothing and has eventually stopped associating with her neighbors.

But even those with responsible and respectful children have sorrows to bear.  Resident LL has a wonderful husband and a caring daughter who takes her out to lunch frequently and allows her to stay over whenever she pleases.  LL has sought me out to tell me about her struggle with depressive symptoms, symptoms she attributes to having pent up sorrow within her.  She fears being alone, and she is afraid of answering her door.  For those who grew up in Communist China and experienced the Cultural Revolution, knocks on the door could mean many things.  I did my Master’s degree in this area, so I have an idea of what LL is describing.  People can do unspeakable things to one another.

LL’s daughter discourages her from speaking about the past.  “Your life is better now, mom, why don’t you just live out the rest of your days in peace?  Talking about it will only make you feel worse.”  But LL must tell someone, and somehow, because I hand out taxi vouchers to her every month with a smiling face, I have become that someone that she trusts.  In the confines of my office, separated by my work desk, she has found a safe space to speak.  She speaks of her husband, who grew up in an intellectual family and was punished in the Cultural Revolution for coming from a family of “privilege”.  He was sent to the countryside for labor reform, and while he was away, his parents were persecuted.  Things became so unbearable that LL's father-in-law committed suicide by jumping into a well with a heavy stone tied to his waist.  LL’s mother-in-law had a heart attack shortly after hearing the news and passed away before LL’s husband had a chance to see her.

“How can I possibly be happy while bearing these scars?” she asks me.  I have no suggestions to give, but a listening ear is all she is asking for.  “I feel better just sharing with you,” she says as she gets up slowly and hobbles towards the door.  “I can’t speak of this with anyone else here.  Next time, I’ll come and chat some more.”

As I watch her exit my office, I can’t help but think that, were I to be paid one penny for every secret disclosed in my office, I’d be rich by now.  Each resident who comes in to talk confidentially somehow thinks that they are the only one who shares, not knowing that there have been other residents before them who have done the same thing.

Earlier that day, Resident AC had shared with me that she left home at 13, fearing Communist persecution of her well-do-do-household (landlords under the pre-Communist feudal system).  She wandered from province to province until all of China had been trodden by her feet, and finally was able to leave China when family members got her out.  “I never want to go back again,” she said, tears welling up fast under her drooping eyelids.  I observed her worn hands ornamented with bracelets and rings, noticing how her fingers seemed to be bent the wrong way at the joints.  AC lost her husband 2 years ago, so she is alone in the States (with family in China and South America).  She walks to the market every morning and lives on her SSI allowance every month.  She has a caregiver that the State of California pays to help her with housekeeping, and her doctor bills are covered by Medicare and Medi-Cal.  “American Government takes very good care of me, and I am grateful” she always says when I help her read her mail.  “I am also grateful for you too,” she adds.  “You help all of us seniors so much, with so much patience...we seniors who are illiterate and useless!”

“One day I’ll be old too,” I always say, “and I’ll need people to help me then too.”

The first time I said that, AC looked surprised.  Now that was a new thought!

It’s one of the best things to see a gleam of surprise or hope in an older person’s eyes.  They say the eye is the window into the soul, and I have had the sacred privilege of gazing briefly into so many souls.  My office is my workplace and their haven, and amidst phone calls and applications to Social Security and other government benefits, conversations happen that bring a timelessness to my relationship with my residents.

My office has become a confessional, and I have unwittingly become a priest to souls that crave emotional and spiritual support.  There have been times when I’ve closed my office door to pray with a resident, and I have beheld true transformation in their lives as a result of those prayers. 

Remember DL, the one whose daughter kicked her to the curb?  It’s taken a few phone calls on my end and lots of reminders for DL to stay focused on what she knows to be True and Helpful in her life, but the mother-daughter relationship is slowly mending, and DL is willing to forgive her husband for his infidelity.  She still has trouble socializing with her neighbors and almost got into a catfight the other day, but isn’t that how the human condition often is?  We improve in some areas while regressing in others.  And at my residents’ age, all I can ask for is that they continue to live in the fullness of their humanity in whatever capacity they are able.

I have but a few more weeks left to inhabit this office of mine before I move away, and I write this a week before I will officially tell my residents of my resignation.  So many have said, “Please don’t ever leave.  You have to work here until I die,” and I am dreading the looks on their faces when they find out I will not be here in a few months.  As resilient humans, they will eventually bounce back, and someone new will take my place that they can hopefully put their trust in.  But I hate to think that my decision to go back to school will become yet another sorrow in their lives.  I hope they know that their stories and secrets have made me rich beyond compare and that I will carry their sorrows with me until the end of my days, knowing that there is nothing more intimate and more holy than sharing in another human’s suffering by listening to them recount it.  The office that has become a confessional is a storehouse for sacred secrets, and when I leave this job, those secrets will accompany me as reminders of this special season in my life.

Each day they come, these residents of mine, with their aches and pains and their walkers and canes.  On their faces, wrinkles hint at decades of both frowns and smiles, and I greet them with a listening gaze that invites them to tell me all about the stories behind those wrinkles….

Random Thoughts = Running Commentary

Today, I skimmed a blog in which the blogger talked about the what and why of his blog:
http://www.jrdkirk.com/what-why-of-my-blog/

A nice nugget I took away: A blog is "'web log'", a "running commentary of things I'm reading, thinking, and processing"

As a non-external processor, it's rather scary to put things in writing in a semi-public way.  I second-guess pretty much every sentence I compose.  For example, from a recent post:

"Today, I realized that I hadn't done any serious reading in a month--and that it was killing me"

As soon as I typed the sentence, I thought: What do I mean by "serious reading"?  Do I need to clarify that?

I wrote that sentence in the context of saying that I started skimming blogs again.  (I used to skim at least a blog post a day, but lately I haven't had the patience.  I've enjoyed watching clips from Dancing with the Stars on YouTube instead).  The lack of influx of ideas was what was killing me.  Are some blogs serious reading and others not, depending on subject matter and quality of writing?

I have been re-reading "To Kill a Mockingbird".  But when I typed the words "serious reading", I didn't factor in Lee Harper's classic because, after having read it every year since high school, it's become something familiar and soothing to me--a type of recreational reading--even though the subject matter is quite serious.

What about a study I'm doing at church on the Book of Daniel?  We're reading lots of scary prophecies right now--is that not "serious reading"?

Blogging is such a weird thing because the process is so private, but the results are open to the public--or at least whomever stops by the blog to take a look.  It actually reminds me of a practice session of a musical instrument.  When I practice, I am alone, and I am in the process of developing my musical self.  But when I practice, the sounds I make are audible, and passerbys will hear a lot of what's going on.

I have always had trouble practicing, and I have a love-hate relationship with music.  My ears are super sensitive and my musical brain is goes into analysis mode anytime I hear Western Classical music.  This means that when I practice the violin, I'm constantly frustrated with my inability to produce the quality of sounds that I would like to hear.  It means that I fight the urge to grimace when an orchestra is not quite in sync during a challenging passage of a symphony.  Even certain radio broadcasts give me adverse physiological reactions, because I don't agree with the artist's interpretation of a particular musical piece.

Teaching music is another matter.  I have a lot of patience for students, and I enjoy helping them overcome challenges during a music lesson.  I tailor my teaching style to fit the student's need, and I communicate with parents so that they become a help rather than a hindrance to their child's musical development.  My students' musical imperfections don't bother me one bit, because I am interacting with those imperfections in a way that empowers improvement.  I could probably start a whole other blog on what I've discovered during my nearly 15 years of being a music teacher...

So back to blogging, and this idea of a "running commentary", and what music has to do with all of this [Note to self, this is not necessarily like the "concluding paragraph" of a term paper in which I must tie together all the ideas presented.  This is (not to belittle it in any way) *merely* the final thought/"commentary" that I will type before ending this blog post] :

Maybe, after 7 years of not practicing my violin on a consistent basis, I should start again. Maybe I can think of practicing the way I think of blogging: it's a work in progress, and the beauty lies in the imperfection.

More Random Thoughts: Better than Wine

If you've read my previous post, today's random thoughts might make some sense.  As a refresher, I put this at the end of the post:

Growing up, all I wanted was to get married young, have 4 kids, and homeschool them. It seems that God had other plans for my life. There have been amazing blessings, and there have been disappointing experiences. A few cherished dreams have died excruciating deaths. 

Recently, the one and only blind date I've ever gone on proposed to the woman of his dreams, and I rejoiced.  As I blessed them from the bottom of my heart, I thought back to 2 years ago, around this time in May, when his aunt called me out of the blue and asked if I'd be interested in being introduced.  Having just ended a near-engagement (one of the "excruciating deaths" mentioned), I politely thanked her but said I wasn't looking for a relationship at the moment.  Somehow that was misinterpreted, and the next thing I knew, I received an email introduction and was scheduling a time to meet up with this nephew.

The date was wonderful.  He treated me to lunch like a gentleman and asked lots of good questions.  Being six years older, he had gentle confidence and was not out to waste my time.  I truly enjoyed talking about family backgrounds, spiritual testimonies, and life interests/experiences.  At the end of the first date, I knew that I had had a wonderful time but that I would probably only view this guy as a friend and nothing more.  But I was open to giving it a second try.

So when he texted a while later, I acquiesced, and we met up for dessert in a more casual setting.  We had another great conversation, and I felt like I could completely be myself around him.  When the date was over, I felt a little sad that I would probably not say "yes" to a third date, as I was certain that I would not be interested in anything beyond a friendship.

Luckily for me, it seemed that this guy felt the same way, and the invitation to a third date never came.  Two good dates, no hard feelings.  What a blessing!

Two years later, he is getting married to a lovely lady, and I am happily single.  

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that I've started reading blogs again, and today's blogs were by women who love their husbands (and kids, if they have 'em) but are adamant about women in the church seeing themselves as more than just wives and mothers.  God has a place for women in the Church, and (to butcher a summary of their posts) Jesus is the reason we can be feminist.  Technology and social media open up so much room for stay-at-home moms to live out their passions, I thought to myself.  Some of these women write really well, and some of them have made quite a name for themselves through their blogging.

As for me, I would still love to get married and have kids someday, but I am also more than content with my status.  I have experienced a kind of Love that transcends what any human could ever give me, and I'll even confess that sometimes I'm reluctant to desire marriage because I'm afraid that marital love will be disappointingly lame compared to what I've experienced from the Divine.

"But I am not going to give every detail. Some things lose their fragrance when opened to the air, and there are stirrings of the soul which cannot be put into words without destroying their delicacy"
~Saint Therese of Lisieux, in "The Story of the Soul"

Looking Ahead/Random Thoughts

Today, I realized that I have approximately 6 more week of work left, followed by approximately 6 weeks of "transitioning"/vacation, before I become an official Yalie.

That blows my mind.

You may have noticed that I did not blog once in April.  I didn't journal much, either, and my email correspondences have fallen pathetically by the wayside.  I guess I was too busy, uh, socializing.

Once friends discovered I was leaving, I discovered that I had better spend time with them before I leave.  For 2 years now I've been longing to get out of LA, and now that I'm actually going away, I've decided to "live it up" and enjoy the connections I've made.  One week, I had a social activity every single night, and I ate out more than I cooked at home.  I told my parents: "Is this what other single, young Asian Americans do on a normal basis?"

For me, a week was enough.  It was fun, but I could never maintain that kind of lifestyle.  I need breaks in between when I can breathe and just be me.  It has been interesting to "play the extrovert", though; this season has meant doing lots of things with people--and actually wanting to do them (rather than forcing myself to go out).

When I contrast this with what my life will/should look like come August, I can scarcely believe that the same person who is getting tan in the great outdoors will be hitting the books in the library.  Instead of making and spending money as a young adult, I'll be investing my time and energy into personal and professional development within a spiritual environment.  I'll be living in a 2-bedroom apartment with another introvert, right on campus, and instead of driving to work, I'll be walking to class every day.  Hopefully I can find people with which to play ultimate frisbee and swing dance (on a college campus, that shouldn't be too hard), but my priority will be on attending lectures, concerts, and forums.

Today, I realized that I hadn't done any serious reading in a month--and that it was killing me.  I started fussing to myself, and I felt desperately out of sorts.  Remembering that my brother had sent me a list of blogs to check out, I searched for the long lost emails and began perusing posts on process theology, racial reconciliation, and other interesting topics.  Ah, ideas!  How lovely it is to swim in your midst, confused, inspired, infuriated, and curious.

Reading other people's blogs has done as much--if not more--for me than the counseling sessions I've attended.  It's helped me process things and hear other people's thoughts in my own fashion.  My first post was called, "Why I don't Want to Start a Blog", and I suppose this post could have been titled, "Why I read Blogs".  Except it isn't, because I'm so extroverted  scatterbrained these days (I know, it's unfair to say that because it's simply not true) that I can't really develop an idea into a full post.

Hopefully, this whirlwind of fun will die down soon.  Getting ready for Divinity School means more than packing up my things and transporting my car across the country.  Getting ready for Divinity School means quieting my heart so it can listen and clearing my mind so it can learn.  It means wrestling with the question of why I have been given such opportunity when others are experiencing challenges and suffering that they did not deserve.

To quote one of my Facebook statuses (to be specific, the status I posted the day I went public with this blog):

Growing up, all I wanted was to get married young, have 4 kids, and homeschool them. It seems that God had other plans for my life. There have been amazing blessings, and there have been disappointing experiences. A few cherished dreams have died excruciating deaths. 

Things seem to be coming together of late. I am very grateful, but I never want to forget Suffering (my own past suffering and others' current suffering) in the midst of this present Joy: I'll be moving away from California this August to attend Divinity School. I'll be making my final decision in a matter of days, but anyone interested in the process can read about it here: [link to this blog]….

…...