The Snow That Heals

A curious thing happened to me today. I had several really wonderful interactions, all due to shoveling snow!

How strange.

I live in a nice, family oriented community in Baltimore, rowhomes mainly, populated by 30ish and 40ish couples with young children.

Having no children myself, I often smile a lot to everyone playing outside, but rarely interact. Other than to grunt as I come home late and can't find a parking spot or laugh when a neighbor's dog jumps the fence into my yard or look curiously when children play endlessly on a patch of grass and stones in my front yard.

But, yesterday and today... during "Snowmageddon" here in the Mid-Atlantic, I've been shoveling like a you-know-what. And, so have all my neighbors. And their kids. And their dogs. And mothers. And husbands and wives.

And, you know what? They are really nice.

People helping each other dig out. Making friendly conversation. Refreshments.

Like a community of Eskimos... sorry, Inuit (that's the new PC term)... meeting out amongst the igloos and seals and whale blubber.

So, one of my neighbors, with whom I'd had a really bad interaction a few years ago over a barking and threatening dog, made some friendly comment about this not happening in California (where I'm from), so I took my headphones from my Ipod off and said hi... then, I remembered the incident where we had been yelling at each other years ago (I totally blocked it out since then) and asked him about it... he said, "yes, I remember".

And, so I said those magic words... "I'm sorry". Which I am and was and am again. I was a bit of a prick, after a long call night during training and his young dog came barking at me, so I freaked and he told me to chill, that it was just a puppy, so I flipped at 2AM on a Tuesday...

But, now, magically, nearly a decade later, during this snow hell... well, we MADE UP. And it was really nice. And he remembered that I was a doctor. And he apologized also. And we talked about his dad, who is now sick and his kids and my buried car and well, IT WAS PRETTY COOL.

The second interaction was equally neat. My next door neighbor, with whom I'm friendly, came out with his young daughter and we were shoveling side by side. We started yapping about this and that, when I realized that he was shoveling MY car out, having already finished with his car. It took about 30 minutes for me to realize that he was just helping me along, tidying up my part.

Now, this isn't just some miniscule amount of snow we're talking about. This is like almost 3 feet in the Maryland/Baltimore area.

Without a word, just helping me along. Daughter playing. Dogs running around, pooping and whatever they do.

It was kind of Beaver-Cleaver in a way. As much as an Asian guy from California knows anything about Beaver or Cleaver...

Finally, I went to shovel my kung fu school out of misery as well this afternoon. A massive amount of snow. Kind of a Zen experience.

Well, a block down, this guy is shoveling out in front of his business. No one else is doing anything on the street. That whole commercial area is just buried.

Well, this guy sees me toiling away, sort of in a trance, in a daze, just mindfully shoveling to save my life.

He motions behind him, to something/someone I can't see.

And BOOM, out comes this SNOWBLOWER!

He is like a 100 feet from me. Not close, with a whole lot of snow.

So, he waves and then just starts approaching me, blowing away the whole sidewalk, until he gets to where I am.

And, he helps clear out my area as well as the rest of the block.

For nothing. Barely a smile and a nod from me.

I just yelled, "thank you" as he snowblowed away from me back towards his shop.

It's funny. I'm usually kind of cynical about people.

But, yesterday and today... well, it was pretty neat.

I'm almost glad it's going to snow again tomorrow...

Avoidance

I feel so withdrawn.

Empty.

Attached.

The Buddha teaches that life is suffering. Dukkha. The root of that suffering is in our desire, our attachment to our wants.

The more we desire, the more suffering we feel when that thing, that person, that feeling is lost. As it inevitably will be lost.

We all decay and die.

Life is an illusion.

I hurt someone very dear to me today. Someone I care for deeply. Who I love.

I feel it as a result.

I know it will pass. As all things do.

But I feel it nonetheless.

Death and the Maiden

My partner's sister just died.

28 years old, pregnant with twins.

A complication in the third trimester. The liver enzymes go up, the blood counts go down.

Babies come out of Mom.

Dead.

Mom goes into organ failure. Dialysis. Ventilator. Bleeding.

Dead as well.

I don't know this women. Or rather, I didn't know her.

We forget sometimes how dangerous pregnancy can be. In times past, many children never survived to adulthood. Maternal complications were so frequent and severe.

But, we live in such a different world now. We all expect pregnancy and childbirth and the first years of life to be so wonderful.

We are just stunned when it goes wrong.

I'm stunned.

I can't imagine what her husband is feeling. Life, about to be realized fully with the birth of the first children... now, destroyed. No children, no wife. No life.

Hug your children and your loved ones.

Our brief dalliance with this life will soon end.