The weekend portmanteau post

As promised, my post from the weekend:

Thursday, August 18, 2011. As I mentioned in the last post, I am keeping an ongoing log of what I want to say these three days we are on Whidbey Island. I am staying here with friends and family to have some time away. It is beautiful here, looking out over the cove with mountain ranges beyond the mainland across the way.
These particular friends of ours are a couple with whom we try to make such a trip every year. We are also here with our son and his fiancée.

These are usually events at which there is a huge amount of eating going on, with snacking in between. This morning I used the fact that I got up early and breakfast was not slated until 9:30 to contemplate my hungers and the need I felt to eat before the meal was actually served. By taking a mini-vow (to coin a phrase) not to eat anything other than water and my beloved decaf coffee until breakfast was on the table, I was able to watch these various hungers arise and pass away without having to do anything about them. 

I have written elsewhere about the feelings of entitlement that lead me to overeating, and the inviolable right I feel to eat whatever I want whenever I want when on vacation is a huge one for me. This particular trip with these friends has a long history to it, and overeating has often been part of that history for me. Bring on the candy and the chips! Bring on the cake and the pie! Bring on the ice cream! Hey, I’m on vacation! But this is a perversity of the idea of relaxation, really. It doesn’t truly make me any more free or relaxed to stuff myself. This is just another form of conditioning I have used over the years to make me feel that I am not truly constrained by rules of anyone’s making while I am taking this break. The bottom line problem here is that when I feel this way, I am thinking of my changed relationship to food as a set of rules rather than a philosophy of eating that transcends all times and situations. It is my belief that setting up such a rule book only invites rebellion, as if I am two people, one of whom sets a bunch of rules and the other a rebel who chooses to break them from time to time. This dividing out of my self is not psychologically or spiritually healthy. It’s also not the truth, which must be the core of any sustainable system of belief.

Which is to say: my goal is to not set up rules on this vacation, but also not to overeat, and to use the urge to gorge as an opportunity to look once again at my relationship to food and what that urge might mean in this context and in my life. It should be interesting.

Friday, August 19, 2011. A grey, bleak, beautiful day on the coast.
The inlet is socked in with fog, but the sun is trying to make a breakthrough. I am inexplicably sad today, probably for many reasons. I do have a tendency to leave a place before I’m gone and have to guard against not being able to enjoy our last full day here. I love the people I am with and would not like it if this became anything other than a joyful time. One of the lessons of the Buddha I sometimes feel least able to incorporate into my everyday life is the idea that all things arise and pass away, the name for which is usually translated as impermanence. It is worth recalling that when he said all things arise and pass away he meant all things, not just those we wish to have arise and pass away. All those we love will age, sicken, and die, as will we. This was one of the core discoveries that led the Buddha on his path, and is one of the things that can guide me on it as well. My mother-in-law is ill, as is my brother’s mother-in-law, coincidentally enough. We all struggle financially, emotionally, and physically. This is the nature of being a human in this world. It is inescapable.

When I am feeling the way I am now: sad, anxious, tired, lonely (that’s an odd one in this context, isn’t it?) I know that the surest way out of this is down into the middle of it. To push it away from me is to increase my suffering and it is not all that uncommon for it to increase the suffering of others as well. So, my vows for this day: I will strive above all to ensure that I do not increase the suffering of those with me. I will invite the rowdy prisoners of my grief, my pain, and my sadness into the house of my heart and set them free there. They cannot do any harm to me that I do not let them do. They only have the power I give them.

Saturday, August 20, 2011. To a remarkable degree, my aspirations of yesterday were effective. Kathy has taught me the invaluable lesson that when I go into any situation with the attitude that I am here to be of service, it makes my life and the lives of others immeasurably easier and more pleasant. I know this sounds a bit odd, this “being of service”, as if we are serving every whim of others and placing ourselves second, but that’s not how it is meant. Rather, it is an attitude shift, a recognition that seeking to have my needs met by others is futile at best (and extraordinarily selfish at worst); instead, I can think how I can make the lives of others better, how I can practice the brahma viharas in every context. 

We had a beautiful day on the beach and even built a driftwood teepee together.

It was a magical, nearly perfect day, even if I did come in last by thousands and thousands of points playing Farkle. Ah, well, even there I was being of service, allowing my fellow players to get all the good rolls. I hope they appreciate it. Today we came home and rested from our vacation, a much needed transition. Transitions are hard for me. I hope to write about that tomorrow.