Pensieve on Life Support: Just Breathe.
It will come as a surprise to no one that when one loses the ability to surf the web for a month and change, one is then confronted with an incomprehensible amount of extra time. I use the word 'confronted' because it's jarring in this American culture of "achievement at any cost" to have down time; immediately, the pleasant surprise of having a surplus of minutes to spare is replaced by the temptation to fill the space with a lot of white noise activities - sleep, errands, work, phone calls, etc - the stuff you'd already reserved other time slots for, only now you can do them... longer. In my case, I was fortunate for my lapse in connectivity to come in tandem with a few major events. I am moving out of my apartment. I've replaced all my college furniture. I completed a life-drawing course with a new set of personal expectations and the reassurance from my teacher that I should continue along the path towards a portfolio of original artwork. I've started a Yoga class. I've been out dancing/gone to the movies/been on dates with friends...
More recently, there's been quiet time, and it's helped me tremendously to regain some footing, especially when the busy holiday season threatens to throw me off kilter between the gift-shopping, card-assembling, HP-art, end-of-year work deadlines, and just about any other hyphenated task you can think of. It's ironic. The winter holidays, whatever your religion/beliefs, are supposed to be some kind of celebration, but all the rushing, running around, marathon cooking, racing to complete the 2007 to-do list before 2008, doesn't really leave time for a lot of honest-to-goodness celebrating, and by that I mean, being with one another. Existing in the moment as it's happening. Isn't that what that countdown on New Year's Eve is supposed to be? For a full minute, you are 100% present in... the Present. It's probably the only 60 seconds in the year where we do that, and the last month has been a real reinforcement of how unfair, how wrong that is.
In Yoga class, we once spent a full class period learning how to breathe. That sounds silly, but you'd be surprised at how hard it was, and for a couple of reasons. First, it's disconcerting to finally acknowledge that, for the majority of our lives, we take air in tiny sips; it's any wonder we're not gasping for air half the time. Secondly, to force your control over what is supposed to be an involuntary function is scary because for a few moments, you're at odds with yourself. Part of you is stuck in the subconscious, limited, routine in-and-outness, while the other is fighting against it to open you up so you can breathe stronger, deeper, freer. (No I'm not quoting Daft Punk.) In the practice of re-training yourself to perform a simple life function, you return to the present moment. Time is no longer split between daily tasks. It's not even divied up into minutes and seconds. You are your own clock, keeping time with the tick-tock inside your chest. It's trippy.
Anyway, the wisdom you are meant to take from this practice is this: Without the ability to breathe, your ability to live ceases. Control your breath - control your life. Stressed out? Regroup by forcing yourself to take a deep breath. Depressed? Take a vivifying breath in and breath out some of the pain. It's not an easy fix, per se, just a simplified one, and that's another reason why it's challenging, and probably also why it's beneficial.
There's a catch to this practice that we haven't really addressed in my yoga class yet, although I'm sure plenty of metaphysical yogic texts I haven't read yet and thensome have touched on the matter. What happens to the timelessness of breathing in and out when you stop breathing? At some point it has to happen. Let's say you follow the rules - you manage to execute perfect control over your breath for your entire lifetime and are thus able to exercise control over your ability to be: do you ultimately reach a point where, whether by senility, sickness, homicide, or fillintheblank, you have to give up control of your life? I'm imagining the most skilled Yogi in the world - a man at one with the universe and all it contains - sitting on some hilltop in India with his legs crossed, and it's hard to think that even he will stop breathing at some point, because he's just a man, and men -- and women -- die.
This all sounds really morbid, but as I said, quiet time has some interesting effects, and mine has been shaped by an unexpected occurrence. My coworker, Lt Col Sam Walker, passed away last week. I didn't say anything on LJ about it because, being without a computer and without internet access at work, I couldn't. Colonel Walker had leukemia for nine months, but he didn't tell any of us about it with the exception of a small group of other lieutenant colonels. He just quietly went through his treatments and showed up for work... went out to lunch... breathed in... breathed out. His office is just across the hall from my desk.
Two weekends ago, he was admitted into Walter Reed with hemorrhaging in his brain. We found out about it last Monday at our staff meeting when, after all our numbers and goals and EPR problems were addressed, Lt Col Asher told us she had some news - that he was in the hospital and in bad shape, the bleeding in his brain inoperable. I'm sure I don't need to elaborate on the environment in the conference room after that, but you can bet that we were all "living in the moment". I suppose it makes sense. In the same way you become still and quiet when Dick Clark counts down to the New Year, together, our entire directorate commenced a different kind of countdown.
Such awful news is inevitably accompanied by the implicit message that there's nothing you can do, which is why what happened next is so extraordinary.
We were pretty much not expecting him to last the night - he'd lost about 75% of his blood in surgery and while he wasn't in a coma, he had been sedated into an unconscious state. At most, we had all made plans to provide as much support to Sam's family as possibe, but then Lt Col Traynor wrote a short email saying more or less that if we wanted to do something, we should donate platelets because he was going through them so rapidly that he was depleting the reserves in Walter Reed and elsewhere.
And thus, the troops were mobilized.
In clusters, my coworkers took field trips up to Walter Reed to make their donations. Still doubling as a workflow manager, I had to stay at the office to hold down the fort while everyone did their duties to help Colonel Walker. Being still relatively new to the office and a contractor at that, I wasn't sure how my bosses would take to my leaving the office to donate, especially since I hadn't had the opportunity to become as close to Sam as they had all been. My best bet, ultimately, would be to leave for Walter Reed while everyone went up to Andrews AFB for the Commander's Call on that Friday afternoon, four days after we got the news of Colonel Walker's condition.
On December 7th, I drove to Walter Reed, got lost on the enormous hospital campus, got pricked, prodded, and hooked up by both arms to a machine that took blood out and siphoned it back in at room temperature while holding onto my platelets. Despite this process, it really wasn't inconvenient. I felt happy - proud to do it because I was doing something to help, using my life to help prolong another's. I ran into LtCol Traynor in the donation room, where she and the medical technicians who worked there were joking about how she singlehandedly gave them so much work to do, because so many people turned up to donate for LtCol Walker. While I was hooked up to the centrifuge, they put on "The Incredibles" for me to watch - maybe I figured my platelets would be positively charged if I was watching a movie about a family of superheroes.
It took an hour and a half for the donation to be complete. I didn't really feel any side effects - I was chilly, to be sure, because when your blood comes back at room temperature, that's just what happens - but at around 3:15 or so, I inexplicably started to get a little... weepy. Being on the cusp of PMSing (apologies for the TMI), I didn't think too much of it until the ride home... when LtCol Johnson told me over the phone that I didn't have to come back to work because LtCol Walker had died.
I could talk about the ride home and how awful I felt that I was too late, but that would detract from where I'm going with all this. It may be hard at this point to convince you that this is not so sad a story at it seems. Granted, it is tragic that Sam passed away. It helps some to think that his death was a merciful outcome, as we don't know what would have been left of the LtCol Walker we all knew had he woken up from his sleep. Either way, we all feel the loss profoundly, and assumed the task - more out of love than of duty - of memorializing him as an officer, a gentleman, a father, a husband, and a friend, even as we complete our other daily tasks, walking by his empty office.
What I'm getting at, I think, is that we're allowed to be sad, but to focus on that would mar our ability to recognize the signficance of what really happened. The miracle was that, because he somehow managed to breathe in and out for four days after we thought he was supposed to die, a string of more miraculous events happened therewith. In four days, all of us who could act, did. Four days gave his family time to understand that they had the support of all of his friends and coworkers. And while my platelets could not help him, as Colonel Johnson told me in consolation as I rode home that night, they will help someone. I said to my mother on the drive home that I have never in my life felt so deeply the truth of the Christmas adage "Good Will Toward Men" as I had that week.
All of this, because we removed ourselves from living by the clock; our time was measured by LtCol Walker's living breath.
A week later, I'm printing out 300 copies of the memorial service program when LtCol Asher, our Deputy Chief and one of Sam Walker's close friends, comes out of her office with her usual radiant smile and says, "Are you coming to the ceremony? REM and Van Halen will be there, and you don't hear of that happening all too often for a memorial celebration!" I keep my admiration of her to myself. She doesn't seem the sort to want praise for holding it together during such a difficult time, especially since she had made sure that his ceremony would be as lighthearted as he was in life.
Now that it's over, I sit here in my quiet space and try to breathe. Everything happened so fast - we didn't know Sam was sick, so his decline from a healthy man to a dying man was, for us, instantaneous. But the week that followed will be stamped on my heart forever because, for four days, time slowed down enough for our office to experience exactly what this season is supposed to be all about. Showing your loved ones that you care. Finding communion with perfect strangers. Celebrating life, love, and miracles. And at the end of it all, we will count down to a new year, holding one collective breath with the rest of the world to cherish for always...
As we will cherish Sam Walker.
In Memory of Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Steven Walker
September 28, 1963 - December 7, 2007
*Touches wand to her temple, draws out a silvery strand, and watches it fall into the glowing basin*
More recently, there's been quiet time, and it's helped me tremendously to regain some footing, especially when the busy holiday season threatens to throw me off kilter between the gift-shopping, card-assembling, HP-art, end-of-year work deadlines, and just about any other hyphenated task you can think of. It's ironic. The winter holidays, whatever your religion/beliefs, are supposed to be some kind of celebration, but all the rushing, running around, marathon cooking, racing to complete the 2007 to-do list before 2008, doesn't really leave time for a lot of honest-to-goodness celebrating, and by that I mean, being with one another. Existing in the moment as it's happening. Isn't that what that countdown on New Year's Eve is supposed to be? For a full minute, you are 100% present in... the Present. It's probably the only 60 seconds in the year where we do that, and the last month has been a real reinforcement of how unfair, how wrong that is.
In Yoga class, we once spent a full class period learning how to breathe. That sounds silly, but you'd be surprised at how hard it was, and for a couple of reasons. First, it's disconcerting to finally acknowledge that, for the majority of our lives, we take air in tiny sips; it's any wonder we're not gasping for air half the time. Secondly, to force your control over what is supposed to be an involuntary function is scary because for a few moments, you're at odds with yourself. Part of you is stuck in the subconscious, limited, routine in-and-outness, while the other is fighting against it to open you up so you can breathe stronger, deeper, freer. (No I'm not quoting Daft Punk.) In the practice of re-training yourself to perform a simple life function, you return to the present moment. Time is no longer split between daily tasks. It's not even divied up into minutes and seconds. You are your own clock, keeping time with the tick-tock inside your chest. It's trippy.
Anyway, the wisdom you are meant to take from this practice is this: Without the ability to breathe, your ability to live ceases. Control your breath - control your life. Stressed out? Regroup by forcing yourself to take a deep breath. Depressed? Take a vivifying breath in and breath out some of the pain. It's not an easy fix, per se, just a simplified one, and that's another reason why it's challenging, and probably also why it's beneficial.
There's a catch to this practice that we haven't really addressed in my yoga class yet, although I'm sure plenty of metaphysical yogic texts I haven't read yet and thensome have touched on the matter. What happens to the timelessness of breathing in and out when you stop breathing? At some point it has to happen. Let's say you follow the rules - you manage to execute perfect control over your breath for your entire lifetime and are thus able to exercise control over your ability to be: do you ultimately reach a point where, whether by senility, sickness, homicide, or fillintheblank, you have to give up control of your life? I'm imagining the most skilled Yogi in the world - a man at one with the universe and all it contains - sitting on some hilltop in India with his legs crossed, and it's hard to think that even he will stop breathing at some point, because he's just a man, and men -- and women -- die.
This all sounds really morbid, but as I said, quiet time has some interesting effects, and mine has been shaped by an unexpected occurrence. My coworker, Lt Col Sam Walker, passed away last week. I didn't say anything on LJ about it because, being without a computer and without internet access at work, I couldn't. Colonel Walker had leukemia for nine months, but he didn't tell any of us about it with the exception of a small group of other lieutenant colonels. He just quietly went through his treatments and showed up for work... went out to lunch... breathed in... breathed out. His office is just across the hall from my desk.
Two weekends ago, he was admitted into Walter Reed with hemorrhaging in his brain. We found out about it last Monday at our staff meeting when, after all our numbers and goals and EPR problems were addressed, Lt Col Asher told us she had some news - that he was in the hospital and in bad shape, the bleeding in his brain inoperable. I'm sure I don't need to elaborate on the environment in the conference room after that, but you can bet that we were all "living in the moment". I suppose it makes sense. In the same way you become still and quiet when Dick Clark counts down to the New Year, together, our entire directorate commenced a different kind of countdown.
Such awful news is inevitably accompanied by the implicit message that there's nothing you can do, which is why what happened next is so extraordinary.
We were pretty much not expecting him to last the night - he'd lost about 75% of his blood in surgery and while he wasn't in a coma, he had been sedated into an unconscious state. At most, we had all made plans to provide as much support to Sam's family as possibe, but then Lt Col Traynor wrote a short email saying more or less that if we wanted to do something, we should donate platelets because he was going through them so rapidly that he was depleting the reserves in Walter Reed and elsewhere.
And thus, the troops were mobilized.
In clusters, my coworkers took field trips up to Walter Reed to make their donations. Still doubling as a workflow manager, I had to stay at the office to hold down the fort while everyone did their duties to help Colonel Walker. Being still relatively new to the office and a contractor at that, I wasn't sure how my bosses would take to my leaving the office to donate, especially since I hadn't had the opportunity to become as close to Sam as they had all been. My best bet, ultimately, would be to leave for Walter Reed while everyone went up to Andrews AFB for the Commander's Call on that Friday afternoon, four days after we got the news of Colonel Walker's condition.
On December 7th, I drove to Walter Reed, got lost on the enormous hospital campus, got pricked, prodded, and hooked up by both arms to a machine that took blood out and siphoned it back in at room temperature while holding onto my platelets. Despite this process, it really wasn't inconvenient. I felt happy - proud to do it because I was doing something to help, using my life to help prolong another's. I ran into LtCol Traynor in the donation room, where she and the medical technicians who worked there were joking about how she singlehandedly gave them so much work to do, because so many people turned up to donate for LtCol Walker. While I was hooked up to the centrifuge, they put on "The Incredibles" for me to watch - maybe I figured my platelets would be positively charged if I was watching a movie about a family of superheroes.
It took an hour and a half for the donation to be complete. I didn't really feel any side effects - I was chilly, to be sure, because when your blood comes back at room temperature, that's just what happens - but at around 3:15 or so, I inexplicably started to get a little... weepy. Being on the cusp of PMSing (apologies for the TMI), I didn't think too much of it until the ride home... when LtCol Johnson told me over the phone that I didn't have to come back to work because LtCol Walker had died.
I could talk about the ride home and how awful I felt that I was too late, but that would detract from where I'm going with all this. It may be hard at this point to convince you that this is not so sad a story at it seems. Granted, it is tragic that Sam passed away. It helps some to think that his death was a merciful outcome, as we don't know what would have been left of the LtCol Walker we all knew had he woken up from his sleep. Either way, we all feel the loss profoundly, and assumed the task - more out of love than of duty - of memorializing him as an officer, a gentleman, a father, a husband, and a friend, even as we complete our other daily tasks, walking by his empty office.
What I'm getting at, I think, is that we're allowed to be sad, but to focus on that would mar our ability to recognize the signficance of what really happened. The miracle was that, because he somehow managed to breathe in and out for four days after we thought he was supposed to die, a string of more miraculous events happened therewith. In four days, all of us who could act, did. Four days gave his family time to understand that they had the support of all of his friends and coworkers. And while my platelets could not help him, as Colonel Johnson told me in consolation as I rode home that night, they will help someone. I said to my mother on the drive home that I have never in my life felt so deeply the truth of the Christmas adage "Good Will Toward Men" as I had that week.
All of this, because we removed ourselves from living by the clock; our time was measured by LtCol Walker's living breath.
A week later, I'm printing out 300 copies of the memorial service program when LtCol Asher, our Deputy Chief and one of Sam Walker's close friends, comes out of her office with her usual radiant smile and says, "Are you coming to the ceremony? REM and Van Halen will be there, and you don't hear of that happening all too often for a memorial celebration!" I keep my admiration of her to myself. She doesn't seem the sort to want praise for holding it together during such a difficult time, especially since she had made sure that his ceremony would be as lighthearted as he was in life.
Now that it's over, I sit here in my quiet space and try to breathe. Everything happened so fast - we didn't know Sam was sick, so his decline from a healthy man to a dying man was, for us, instantaneous. But the week that followed will be stamped on my heart forever because, for four days, time slowed down enough for our office to experience exactly what this season is supposed to be all about. Showing your loved ones that you care. Finding communion with perfect strangers. Celebrating life, love, and miracles. And at the end of it all, we will count down to a new year, holding one collective breath with the rest of the world to cherish for always...
As we will cherish Sam Walker.
In Memory of Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Steven Walker
September 28, 1963 - December 7, 2007
*Touches wand to her temple, draws out a silvery strand, and watches it fall into the glowing basin*