“And I scream from the top of my lungs, What's going on?"
-4 Non-Blondes
A couple of weeks ago I went into the dentist expecting to be fitted with a crown for my implant. It had been just shy of a year’s process that was fraught with too much of the unexpected. A cracked root, a big infection, less than desirable patient care from each dentist I saw, much advocating for myself in a field I knew nothing about. And of course, a lot of discomfort, time and a lot of money. Finally, the extraction, graft & implant were finished last October. All I had to do was wait for the bone to grab the titanium and I could get my new tooth. All was well until two weeks ago when my dentist gave me the bad news: “your implant failed.”
I went home confused and I think a bit in shock. I’m blessed with generally good health, and I had never before encountered such a weird process for such an unsuccessful outcome. Because of how unpleasant the process had been, because there seemed to be no good reason for the failure, “you were unlucky,” a cascade of worry flooded over me. Bone loss, try again, get a bridge, I just didn’t really know how to process it. I didn’t know who or what to trust. I arrived home and logged on to my painting class.
Over the next three hours I focused on painting loose florals. I lost myself in Sunflowers of Aureolin Yellow and Ceruelan Blue. I thought about Ukraine as I laid my wet brush down on Arches Cold Press paper. Teacher Jess coached me to keep breathing. Sunflowers miraculously emerged. I stayed focused, but I also thought about my tooth and my distress. I also thought how fortunate I was to not be huddled in a subway having to worry about any of this while bombs were going off over my head.
We do that don’t we? In times of our own minor suffering, we compare ourselves and our circumstances to others in much more dire circumstances. I’m sure I’m not the only one who grew up with the mantra, “Finish your meal, there are starving children in Africa.” It’s a bit selfish, really, to evoke other’s suffering to ease our own, but perhaps we should work harder to see ourselves relative to others with whom we share this planet. It’s not a bad thing to recognize our own privilege.
Even with sunflowers, even with several dental options available to me, as the week went on, I became aware of a growing malaise. I tried to name it: Pandemic Fatigue, Inhumane War, My Tooth, but nothing really defined the emerging sinkhole in my spirit. I felt a bit selfish in my brooding, given the bigger picture. But then in a meditation I realized what it was: I was losing hope. This was a shock to me, like my failed tooth. In the 65 years of my own life, filled with its own privilege and suffering, with its own struggle to see my place with others, I had never lost hope.
I sat down to my painting table and wet my brush. I wondered what to do next. I thought, “my whole life has been devoted to hope, to optimism, even in the darkest times.” I realized at that moment I wasn’t simply a Tai Chi/Qigong teacher, I was a person who always had hope. I was a person who thrived on being with other hopeful people. As I painted more sunflowers I sifted through my immense grief and disappointment. Here we are, in such a failed place as humans. How unexpected.
I sat with this feeling for a few days, not trying to talk myself out of it. I just wanted to let it be. Even though I couldn’t quite feel my way out of it, I did know in my bones I believed in something bigger than this hopelessness, this disappointment. LaoTzu, Buddha, Jesus, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, they’ve all seen a lot more than I have and somehow if they believed that light can come from darkness, I’d find my way back too.
In the weeks since my dental news the brutality of this war continues. Here, on this side of the privileged world, I have a new plan for my tooth. I continue to paint sunflowers and I donate to Ukraine. I grieve the inhumanity we do to each other, but I also celebrate my friends victories over cancer. Every day goes on, hopeful and less than hopeful, joyful and disappointing. And now Spring is here. I plant seeds and look for light.
As I continue to reflect, I have come to but one conclusion: quite simply, right now, this is our experience. We cannot talk or evoke or rationalize our way out of it. For each of us, whatever it is, this is what we are experiencing. And no matter what this experience is, no matter what this now is for each of us, we just do not know what the future will unfold. Where then to find hope in such dark, dark times? It’s hard. Where I look is to those who have seen more than me and what sustains them - belief in the one law that is always true: everything changes. Everything changes. Somewhere in that knowing, for me anyway, hope lives.
“Stay with me, Let's just breathe.”
-Pearl Jam