Perfecto!

Perfecto!

10/13/2011

I have been cranky lately. My body isn’t working, I’m in pain, and I’m spending too much time at my job and too little with my family. Even though I warned my mother not to read my blog because it would be too sad for her, I have found that when I write, somehow the light creeps in. My writing is probably not more than my mother can handle. I am contemplating that perhaps even the darkest parts of this arduous journey in this difficult body are not more than I can handle.  Perhaps.

Being the person that I am, I cannot stop myself from taking more on.  More responsibility, more causes to fight for, more projects, more plans, more, more, more. I understand that I am not unique in this. Many people bite off more than they can chew. The disease of the 21^st century woman with an education, a family, a career (or two) and a sense of obligation to the world. We can do it all (and should)!  I can do it all (and it has to be perfect)!

I am not just a professor, I am also a division chairperson. I am not just a professor and division chairperson, I am also a psychotherapist in private practice. I am not just a professor, chairperson, and psychotherapist, I am a mother of two small children, a devoted partner, a loyal friend, a sister, a daughter. In the midst of all of this, I am ardently studying Spanish to catch up with my almost 2-year old daughter, and feel guilty that I am not also brushing up my French because my son’s new teacher is from Provence and he has the opportunity to learn another language.  My bountiful crops of home-grown, organic produce taunt me from my imagination: A garden Christina? You can’t even manage a garden?

It gets worse. I have joined a health/lifestyle game where I have committed $100 to be obliged to a) exercise daily b) reduce my smoking c) record everything I eat in an online journal d) eat 5 “sanctioned” meals daily, at pre-determined times, and e) communicate daily with the other players.  In this “game” you earn points, and the person with the most points at the end wins $500.  I am an achiever. I am used to being perfect at wherever I direct my substantial will.

This is my third round of the game. In each one, I have lost significant sums of cash and pride but very little weight. But when the next round starts, my frontal lobe shuts down and I convince myself again, that I can be perfect, and take home the prize to prove it. I re-join. I pony up. And I immediately fall behind. It just kills me that I can’t get “perfect” days like the other players, all of whom have left me in the dust. Three times now.  Three times, nowhere near perfect.

Cleaning is one of the areas in which I cannot forgive myself for being less than perfect. Sandra’s birthdays are another. I torture myself with ideas about how to make her birthdays perfect.  I collect gifts for 11 months, so there will be enough, so I will be enough. Sandra has nothing to do with it, it’s about me, and needing her to know, at least for one day each year, that she is perfectly loved.

Today is Sandra’s birthday. Tomorrow I will start the 2 weeks of the year in which her next perfect birthday will not loom over me. Then I will start to plan again. 

I laid out her gifts, bought throughout the year, things that she loved when she saw them wherever they were before they lived in my “birthday box.” I laid out our fiesta plates, pulled out the birthday hats, tried to make the kitchen perfect. Our housekeeper and her sister, Luciana’s nanny, arrived early, to make chilequiles and a big cake of flan. These women, and their daughters, have become family to us.  The kitchen filled with people, laughter, conversations in Spanish that only Luciana really understood, incredible food, and delicious smells. Luciana was on fire, she so loves to entertain her second family with sheer adorable-ness. Rudy was so excited about his favorite mom’s birthday that he popped her balloon and hid under the table for most of the morning. The family we always wanted. Right here, in our kitchen, on the perfect day.

Hilda and I went to work creating space in the bedroom; creating peace.  We cleaned and put away EVERYTHING, just as Sandra likes it.  We talked of God, Christianity (hers), Buddhism (mine), and love and acceptance (both).  When my body gives out, I come back to writing. Rested, I go back to creating peace for Sandra.

I am reminded that everything is already perfect. Wobbly legs, clutter, extra weight that is not going anywhere, spinal lesions, aging bodies, children who pop the decorations…All perfect.

And then this, in my email inbox, my weekly thought from Buddhist nun Pema Chodron:

Perfect, with room for improvement

Zen Master Suzuki Roshi once looked out at his students and said, “All of you are perfect just as you are and you could use a little improvement.” That’s how it is. You don’t start from the view of “I’m fundamentally messed up and I’m bad, therefore I have to get myself into shape.” Rather, the basic situation is good, it’s sound and healthy and noble, and there’s work that we need to do, because we have ancient habits which we’ve been strengthening for a long time, and it’s going to take a while to unwind them.

Perfect.