by meghanleborious | Apr 6, 2020 | Notes on Practice
I’m listening to a livestream piano concert now given by a teen named Donny, who is the nephew of a friend. She shared that he has blastoma and autism, and just lost his mother. As I join the stream, Donny opens with three of my lounge-singer-grandmother’s favorite songs: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Misty, and Unforgettable.
***
I’ve been crying intermittently all day.
After 14 days of strict quarantine, my ten-year-old son, Simon, and I were able to join the household of my parents, in their house in Northern Connecticut yesterday.
***
Now Donny is playing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. He’s not reading any sheet music, and he’s really good and really into it. He mentions playing something “just like mom used to play it” and a male voice off the screen says, “You played that song at her service.”
***
Yesterday, Simon was very excited, got up super early, and raced to my parents’ room to climb into their bed and hug them. We had planned a whole coming out party, with dance and singing.
But this morning, Simon and I struggled. He seemed resistant to everything and uncooperative. He didn’t want to sing, dance, or help his Nana make a giant chalk drawing in the street to express thanks to health care workers.
Simon’s father, who was officially my partner for eight years, and has been my not-husband and close friend for another ten, decided to stay in Brooklyn, rather than come to stay at an apartment nearby we were able to arrange for him.
***
Every time Donny finishes a song, the off-camera person (his father?) claps enthusiastically.
***
I took a break from parent-child volatility to dance the Sunday Sweat Your Prayers 5Rhythms dance class at 11AM, happy to connect with community. Before joining, I took an emotional call from a family member I’ve been worried about.
I started late because of the call and caught only the tail end of the rhythm of Flowing. Today I cried hard as soon as I started to move, especially during a song with lyrics about loss. Lately, I’ve been recording myself when dancing for my own interest; and on the video my feet seemed a little hesitant in this beginning part. In Staccato, I had no trouble finding expression and inspiration, but with so much yoga and dance lately, my knees are a little tender, and it’s like I was trying to avoid stomping, a tiny bit aversive. In Chaos, I moved quickly, coiling and shaking. In Lyrical, my hands seemed to take over, but my arms didn’t seem to be fully extending. Overall, I was kind of flat today, compared to my usual athleticism.
Near the end of the Sweat Your Prayers class, Simon’s came in and said, “Mom! Get. Me. Socks!” Another period of challenging exchanges was set off.
While I was dancing, my Mom created a giant chalk drawing across the street that says, “Thank you, helpers!” She tried to engage Simon, but he was resistant. Challenging because the reason she designed the project was specifically to engage Simon. A motorcyclist went out of his way to avoid damaging her cheerful drawing. Another passing driver beeped and waved, smiling.
Everyone in the house seemed to be having a hard time.
Now? When we’re faced with so much danger, so much uncertainty? How can we be anything but overjoyed to be together? Unceasingly loving and kind? I know connecting with the people we love is the top priority now, and felt dismayed that it wasn’t going well.
Eventually this wave of unrest managed to work its way through, and we agreed to sing a few karaoke songs together.
Singing is very emotional for me. My Dad loves to sing, and we’ve been singing together like this for my entire adult life. It’s easier for me to sing with him because I can follow him. On my own, it’s much harder to carry the tune. When we sing, I feel the mixed happiness of being together in joy, and pain of knowing how much this will hurt if there is a time I don’t have him any more. Also, my Dad is the most tender-hearted person I know, and it comes through in his singing voice.
All four of us were smiling and dancing. Simon, though still young, is a trained musician with a strong, clear voice, and belts out a few of his favorite songs. I put on a hot pink tutu that I found near the karaoke studio in the basement. I was having a little trouble because sadness kept bubbling up; and it’s hard to control your voice when your heart wells up into your throat, but still sang with feeling. My Mom alternated between singing and dancing–at one point waltzing with Simon–and she took a video of Simon, my Dad, and me singing a melodramatic 80’s song.
My Dad had a heart attack two years ago, and was recently diagnosed with diabetes. My Mom and my Dad will both turn 70 this year. As we sing, I think again and again of how precious these moments are, and how grateful I am to have them.
***
Now my mom is sitting with me, watching and listening as Donny plays Ave Maria.
***
In Stillness of the 5Rhythms wave in the Sweat Your prayers class, I sink deeper inside myself, imaging that I’m channeling light, and sending it out one hand, around the entire world where it pours out white fire, then back into the other hand after a trip around the world. Soon, I imagine the entire world engulfed in purifying flame, flickering with spirit fire.
***
Donny ends with Danny Boy, a song my both my grandmother and my great grandmother loved, and we are in tears, sobbing along to the lyrics.
At the end of the concert, Donny walks toward the camera and takes a formal bow, then signs off.
***
I didn’t want surprises tomorrow morning right before I have to work, so I checked my work email right before posting this. I learned that another student I’m close with has lost a family member.
My heart breaks. So many people are suffering now, most especially those who are vulnerable because of poverty.
For now, there is nothing to do but practice, and pray, and try our best to love the people who are close to us as skillfully as we are able.
April 5, 2020, Broad Brook, CT
by meghanleborious | Apr 5, 2020 | Notes on Practice
Today is the 14th day of a 14 day quarantine for my ten-year-old son, Simon, and me. We’ve been staying in an apartment that is attached to my parents’ house. We’re in quarantine because we just came from our home in Brooklyn, NYC, the epicenter of the US coronavirus outbreak, and I’m afraid to expose my parents or anyone else to the potentially deadly virus.
Work seemed quiet today. I think I’m supposed to attend several meetings a day, but no one has been calling to include me. It’s possible I need to actively seek out a link to join, but today I wasn’t rushing to do that. There is an old pattern nattering away that is afraid I’m doing something wrong or that I’ll get in trouble, but I’m doing what I can to calm that voice. I’m always working hard for my students, but I know that getting myself tense with stress will lower immunity and make things harder for both Simon and myself. And if there’s a chance that I might die–there’s a chance that any of us might die from this–I’m not going to spend these precious weeks tangling myself in red tape. Life is simply too short, no matter how you look at it.
The most important thing now is to be present with Simon. Fourteen days of being together 24-7 has had its challenges, but overall it feels like a blessing. There are days when I’ve felt like a train-wreck of a parent, but today was happy. Lately, I’ve been more firm, but also softer. I’ve also tried to meet him with a wide bandwith for whatever he’s bringing, and to give him the space to huff off, slam doors, and insist on his independence as much as I can possibly tolerate.
Today, we went for a walk. This wasn’t his first choice for a lunchtime activity. He wanted to play together on the swing in the yard, but I really needed to change locations, at least briefly. I tried all kinds of negotiations. He did everything he could to get his way. Almost every day, I’ve yielded to his preferences, but this time I felt pretty strongly.
He walked several yards ahead of me, his arms crossed, stamping his feet, and made several emphatic comments about how I was forcing him and how he absolutely refused to have fun. In the past, I might have just abandoned the whole effort, or at least made a big showing of maybe abandoning it. This time, I just kept walking, saying “Thank you for coming with me, even though you really don’t want to.”
We walked a circle around a big field, on this overcast, windy day. Light rain scattered with the wind. I felt sad, and let in the feeling. It wasn’t just this conflict with Simon but the colleague who lost a close friend yesterday, the students who lost family members, the friend who is cut off from her family by border closings in Canada. The parent of one of my high school students who is a home health care worker caring for people with coronavirus and constantly afraid. 
The starkness of the scene touched me.
I didn’t emote strongly though, mindful of the possibility of using tears and sadness to overrule others’ anger, a pattern I’ve been trying to short-circuit.
Eventually, Simon said, “Mommy, can I have a hug?”
“Of course.” I pulled him close and we tucked our heads together.
A pair of gigantic hawks (eagles? maybe?) soared overhead and I pointed them out.
“I’m sorry I was so grouchy and mean.”
“Simon. It’s ok. Really. It’s a stressful time. You can be however you are. To me you are perfect.”
He wasn’t willing to take that in at first but kept walking with me.
The sky was low, with sculptural grey forms shot through with light moving across the horizon, seeming to rest on the just-budding trees that lined the field.
When we returned, we played on the swing before I had to go back inside to work, laughing together, a victory for both of us.
The afternoon passed quickly. I worked mostly on grading and planning for next week.
Before settling in to dance, I decided to sweep. After sweeping, I decided to wash the floors. Lately, I’ve been washing the floors with diluted bleach every day, disinfecting all surfaces daily, and even washing our shoes. I’ve never been a big cleaner. At times quite the contrary, but lately I’ve been diligent.
I spent a few minutes creating a new wave for myself with existing music, and rolled up the carpet.
Today I decided to draw a circle to dance inside of. Remembering the box of children’s art supplies in the apartment, I went to see if there was chalk I could use to actually draw a circle. To my delight, I found a perfect material. Drawing a white circle around my dance area, I envisioned a space of safety and power.
Today is Friday, and nearly every Friday for the past thirteen years, I’ve attended Tammy Burstein’s Friday Night Waves 5Rhythms class in the West Village. I thought about reaching out to her as I stepped in, but Simon was using my phone to play Roblox with his cousin, and it didn’t seem important enough to wait. Instead I carried her in my heart as I pushed play and stepped in.
The 5Rhythms is a dance and movement meditation practice created by Gabrielle Roth. The 5Rhythms are Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness. At first glance it probably just looks like a crazy-fun dance party, but there’s more to it. There are no steps to learn or anything, and it could be any kind of music; instead, the idea is that the more fully you engage with each of the rhythms, the more possibilities you open up for yourself.
Having an actual circle on the floor was a good support in the rhythm of Flowing. I took my time, moving throughout it, giving myself a break from pushing, sinking into a comfortable groove, and bringing the focus of my attention down into the soles of my feet.
In contrast to some recent dances, I moved from Flowing into the rhythm of Staccato easily. I thought, “Wow. Staccato is the one place when I’m almost never crying. This is a good pick-me-up. I love Staccato! It starts and I just jump in and start smiling.”
Then, as you might predict, I started sobbing.
In the field earlier with Simon, I had asked him, “If you could command one element, which would you choose?” He said “Fire!” and I invited him to practice, demonstrating by imagining that I was throwing fire at a sports wall in the middle of the field.
In Staccato, inside this circle of safety and power I had cast, I felt the power of fire. I could actually see the same sport wall through the chaotic brush at the edge of the yard from the window of the room I was dancing in, and practiced throwing fire to it. Fire concentrated in my belly, but it wasn’t held there, it’s like it was always rushing in and rushing out. I had to keep reminding myself to soften.
Suddenly, I was overcome. Power was rushing in and using me. I was pouring out white fire, intended to incinerate the pestilence that has taken root, intended to annihilate the roots of bias and oppression, which are causing some to suffer more painfully than others, especially during this global pandemic, this period of emergency and fear and survival mode.
As with parenting lately, I felt more firm, yet softer.
In Chaos, what I was thinking of as the boundaries of my circle got more complicated. I felt like it was actually a sphere that was pulsing out. At the same time, influences were pouring in. It was no longer the sharp boundary I thought I wanted, but an intersection, a transmission.
Lyrical found me patient, pensive. Moving into lightnes today with measured exuberance, tilting and casting, using momentum, imagining my hands and feet as heavy, as ballast for a cruising boat.
Stillness eventually melted into sitting meditation. From there, I spent nearly another hour in ritual, still using the power of the circle, and the energy raised through concentrated dance. In writing, I invoked my many helpers, guides, deities, and ancestors to keep those in my dwelling safe and healthy. I also asked them to keep all of those I love safe and healthy, to eradicate disease and pestilence from this plane, and to protect the health of all beings everywhere.
I am in a trance now. On coronavirus retreat. Blessed to be able to withdraw. Doing my best to take skillful action, to express my heart, to speak against injustice, to soften and let the painful reality in, and to stay alive.
April 3, 2020, Broad Brook, CT
by meghanleborious | Apr 1, 2020 | Notes on Practice
Things I wrote even two or three days ago seem so dated now. The pandemic is intensifying in this region.
I’m in the eleventh day of a 14-day quarantine in an apartment attached to my parents’ house, along with my ten-year-old son, Simon. We are in quarantine because we just came from Brooklyn, NYC, the epicenter of the United States coronavirus plague, and I’m afraid to expose my parents.
Fear, sadness, and anxiety come in waves.
My work is to teach meditation to teens in a Brooklyn High School, and in a matter of days, like many other teachers, I had to make the pivot to online teaching. I’ve been working tirelessly to engage my students, but at this point less than half are actively participating in the online class. So I sent an email to their parents to let them know their students’ status. One parent responded that she is working 12 hour shifts and it is hard to keep up with her child’s assignments.
I realized how insensitive my email was, given the circumstances.
Some of the parents of my students are low wage health care workers. Many are working long shifts caring for people infected with coronavirus, seeing up close how horrific the disease can be. They are risking their lives, day after day after day. Some are doing it because of altruism and a deep calling to serve. Some are doing it because they absolutely have to work, and do not have the resources to take any time off. Many are single parents.
This is a slap in the face about the real impact of bias in our society, and one of the infinite ways coronavirus is disproportionately impacting communities of color. I thought about the privilege of being able to withdraw from NYC, and the fact that there are many people who don’t have the same option.
And I’m seriously bugging parents about their kids doing their classwork. Really?
Some of my students have a parent or grandparent who already has the virus.
There is now an emergency tent hospital in the middle of central park. A US Navy hospital ship arrived Monday to help exhausted health care workers as they toil, often lacking even basic protective supplies.
In answer to a writing prompt, “What is one thing you wonder?” One student wrote, “I wonder if it’s even safe to go outside and get a breath of fresh air.”
Every day, I start with a period of meditation, before the sun is even up. I transported my entire altar box and all of its contents to our new location, and re-created the exact altar that I had in Brooklyn right before we left. I also brought many of my cherished books, and arranged them beautifully near the altar.
Lately, my morning meditation feels more like prayer than meditation, as I focus energy and attention on wishing health and safety for everyone I love and for all beings, mixed with other meditation practices and contemplations.
I have to clock in to work at 8:15 but most days I start long before, after taking a shower, trying my best to get Simon oriented to his schoolwork, and having breakfast.
I make sure we get outside at lunchtime, and again after my workday ends at 2:50. We play on the swing in the yard and laugh. Sometimes I can even convince Simon to play soccer or take a bike ride with me.
Yesterday, I heard my mom crying through the wall, and learned that the son of one of her friends is in hospice.
Today, she told me that my cherished great aunt is not doing well, either. Her 100th birthday is this spring, but since she has been isolated and has no visitors, and therefore nothing to anchor her to this world, she has been dissolving into spirit. She lives next door to my parents’ house, in the same house that she and my paternal grandfather grew up in with their parents, my great grandparents.
I wanted to run next door to support her in her transition. I rushed out in the direction of the house, without even a coat, and just stood there, crossing my arms to hold my sides, knowing that I couldn’t go in. That I wouldn’t have a chance even to say good-bye.
I was crying, of course. And Simon wanted to know why I was crying. I told him and he started crying, too. We went for a walk, talking about what happens after you die and sharing jokes. I brought up Gabrielle Roth, the mother of the 5Rhythms practice, and told him I didn’t think dying was so bad for her. He said, “Yeah, but she was this crazy witch dancer…” I didn’t respond but had to smile, at least for a moment.
I don’t know what I would do if it weren’t for practice. Most days I do yoga, which helps me to feel grounded and flexible.
I also dance the 5Rhythms for at least one wave a day. And I’ve been recording myself, which is a new habit. I can’t even keep the videos because they take up too much space, but it is interesting to watch myself when I play it back in the evening.
Today, Flowing did not come easily. It was hard to settle down, and I noticed that I wanted to move into Staccato quickly. Maybe there was just too much to let in today.
I can hear Simon talking with his friends on video chat throughout the video as I play it back…One source of private guilt is that pretty much all of the time that I’m in formal practice, he’s on a screen chatting with friends or playing Roblox with them. He blows through his schoolwork in under two hours most days.
At the start of the video, I squat in front of the altar and dedicate my practice to my ailing great aunt, Mae Grigely, and acknowledge the power of practicing for someone else.
Staccato never fully ignites today, either.
In Chaos I come alive though, with speed, resistance, release, and wild surrender, spinning and letting momentum fling me to all kinds of edges. The gap when the beat drops out seems to be when I get the most creative.
The Chaos Lyrical song I chose is 165 beats per minute, and I twitter wildly, racing to express the layered, exploding sounds. I pause briefly and leave the room to address one of Simon’s questions, then resume this ultra fast dance, responding more and more to the melody and less to the wild rhythm and rising upward as the track evolves.
In the second Lyrical track I am transported, moving with soaring undulations, the afternoon sun in one vertical rectangle catching different parts of my body as I move.
In Lyrical Stillness I cry throughout the track, singing part of the lyric in jagged gasps. I cry again watching myself. I look so alive and so sad. My heart was broken in this part, is broken.
“Ewwwwww!” Simon screams from the other room, for some unknown reason.
I whisper-sob through the last song, sensing my grandfather, who once lived in the very room that I am dancing in. He loved the ocean, and would make the Christian sign of the cross as he waded into the sea. He would fold his hands behind his head, cross his ankles, and float on the bobbing waves for long periods with his face to the clouds. He was a man of few words, but I always thought this was a kind of prayer for him.
I end in a squat in front of the altar, as I had started, dedicating the merit of my practice to my aunt and to all beings everywhere.
Today, this period seems more like a time of survival than of possibility. One of my meditation teachers led an online practice and talk tonight, and he reminded us to do what we can to stay connected to our humanity. My practices encourage me to open to the reality I’m immersed in, knowing that every moment is a chance to deepen in my ability to be present, even when it is uncomfortable, stressful, painful, or sheer agony.
In the words of Pema Chӧdrӧn in Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change, “If you can stay present in even the most challenging circumstances, the intensity of the situation will transform you. When you can see even the worst of hells as a place where you can awaken, your world will change dramatically.”
May it be so. Blessed be.
March 31, 2020, Broad Brook, CT
(Photo1: military.com, photo2: News7)
by meghanleborious | Mar 31, 2020 | Notes on Practice
“Mommy, why do you cry so much?”
That’s the quote I remember most from this week.
I was trying so hard to step up for my students. I kept spending hours creating materials and assignments, then realizing I had done everything wrong and having to start over. I spent almost an entire day trying to figure out how to use google hangouts. I also created usernames and passwords for countless websites, trying to learn everything at once.
I felt an enormous amount of work pressure, and have been asking myself hard questions about if it’s being put on me, or if it’s pressure I’m actually putting on myself.
At the same time, I’m managing Simon’s learning, cringing with the fear that he will lose half a year of learning, and cringing more at all the video games he has been logging hours on, as a way to connect with his friends. And feeling the pain and sadness and grief of so much societal loss, and fearing personal loss, too.
Today is day 8 of 14 days of quarantine. It’s Saturday, and I slept until 9, instead of waking up at 6:15, as on weekdays. After breakfast, I did yoga practice for nearly two hours while Simon chatted online and played video games with friends.
Simon and I tried to do the online zoom version of the NYC Sweat Your Prayers 5Rhythms class, but by the time we logged on the class was already wrapping up. Instead, I put on a wave I’d played a few days before. Simon was half-hearted at first, feeling pulled by his video games and friend chats, but we started a dancing game of throwing a shirt at each other and trying to dodge it, and he managed to stay engaged throughout the wave.
Living 24-7 in quarantine in the apartment attached to my parents’ house that was created for my grandparents has been tender. I have always had hesitant excursions to this place, sitting to talk at length with my grandmother when she was frail and with limited mobility, crossing through to retrieve something from the refrigerator when the main house was full and we were cooking for a holiday. Most of life seemed to happen next door, at my parents’ though.
Now, as we are in quarantine, I have a whole new perspective. It is a beautifully designed four-room apartment that is easy to keep clean, and I am grateful for how it has held us. I feel close to my grandmother, my grandfather, and also to my brother, who lived here for a period. And though it hasn’t always been easy, I’ve been grateful for the time with my son, who will enter the teen years soon.
In terms of dream analysis, previously unused rooms now put to use represent finding new layers of consciousness, and new layers of potential.
The world is shifting.
We are in a parenthesis.
It is a period of chaos, fear, and reckoning. As painful as it is, especially for those grieving personal losses, it is also a time of great possibility. A time when we can remember what really matters, when we can collaborate on a new vision, one in which the earth is revered as sacred, where presence is valued above achievement, and where we can prioritize love and community as our greatest wealth.
March 28, Broad Brook, Connecticut
(Photo: dataisbeautiful on reddit)
by meghanleborious | Mar 31, 2020 | Notes on Practice
The stress is making me feel blurry. It is exhausting.
I’m in the third day of 14-day quarantine in an apartment attached to my parents’ house, along with my ten-year-old son, Simon. We are in quarantine because we just came from Brooklyn, NYC, the epicenter of the United States coronavirus plague, and I’m afraid to expose my parents.
I know we are blessed and privileged to have somewhere we can withdraw while the virus seizes every corner of the world. Even here, in a small apartment in Northern Connecticut, I am afraid. For myself, for my son, for my near-elderly parents, for my family, for my friends, for the world. And feeling the weight of worldwide grief.
Simon and I walked on a beautiful path in the woods this morning, and resolved to watch the woods wake up in the coming weeks.
On the way, we found that a neighbor had put out several young adult books that appealed to him. We left the city quickly, and are out of new books. Thinking of the video games I wished to limit, I was tempted to gather some for him, but he insisted it was too much of a risk.
Later, I developed severe allergy symptoms, with a faucet-ing nose and powerful sneezing. I had a video appointment with my (exhausted) doctor who told me it was unlikely to be coronavirus. He prescribed antihistamines, which are so far not helping at all.
During the day, I struggled to do my high school teaching job, nurse my illness, and monitor and support Simon’s learning. I cried more times than I can count.
Tonight, my parents sat near the other side of the wall dividing us from the main house to listen to Simon play songs on the piano. We could hear them applauding each time he paused. We asked if they could throw any dessert food onto the deck, and though they were out of treats, they made chocolate chip cookies and put out a warm plateful.
Overall, though, despite these blessings, I felt sick, tired, down, discouraged. Impatient. Flat. Depleted.
After the work day and after taking care of multiple responsibilities, I found some time to dance a wave in my new makeshift dance studio–once my grandfather’s bedroom–while Simon played video games with his friends.
I decided to video this personal wave. I danced so vigorously that the camera kept migrating, and once fell onto the floor. I have not often recorded myself dancing, and I found it fascinating. To my surprise, I loved watching myself move. From this perspective, I seemed committed and creative. In the wave I danced before making the difficult decision to leave NYC, Staccato seemed blurry, hesitant. In this wave, it was ferocious. I couldn’t believe how much energy and force was released in Chaos. In Lyrical, I bounded, using every level, flinging up from the ground nearly to the ceiling, flexing my back, extending my arms. And I remember how it felt inside myself as I watched the Stillness section. I was spinning disks at all of my chakras, each a color of the spectrum, and then the room was crowded with spirits, helpers, and guides.
I ended with a prayer for health and safety for those I love and for all beings.
March 22, 2020, Broad Brook, Connecticut
(Photo 1: from grizly.com, Photo 2: by Meghan LeBorious)
