17. What Scares Us

“We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us.”
—Pema Chödrön

The living room looked dark and eerie as Jen walked back inside, alone in Michigan for the first time. It was early, just about seven o’clock according to the clock hanging on the wall, though the sun outside looked like it had risen hours ago. She tried to decide how she would spend the fifteen hours before it would be acceptable to go back to sleep. Her stomach lurched and her familiar queasiness escalated to a level she hadn’t experienced so far. She sat down heavily on the couch, with her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands, and stared at the wall across from her.

She felt the strong urge to climb back under the covers on her wobbly bed and postpone the decision. No one would notice if she slept in, or in fact, if she slept all day. Nobody here knew her and nobody was expecting her to be doing anything. This was total freedom, she realized, trying to psyche herself up for the unplanned day ahead, but it seemed more like utter senselessness, and she wondered whether she had been entirely misguided all the times when she had longed for a life without obligation.

Now, granted that thing that she had so often longed for, a day with truly nothing that she needed to do, Jen hastened to fill it with plans. In her head, she began to make a list of activities for the day; then, spotting a notepad that Becky had left on the coffee table, she sat down to write the list down on paper. It was satisfying to see the list grow and that her plans, documented in this physical way, would fill over half a page:

Go to the co-op.
Get tea and breakfast.
Maybe ask the cashier about yoga classes. (Since this would be the first time that she would stand in line to pay for her own drink.)
Buy Mid-Northern-Central Michigan University t-shirts. (If she was going to be living here, she might as well try to fit in.)
Go to Snail Plant and spy on secret army.
Come home.
Do yoga in the yard.
Cook healthy dinner. (Using the array of healthy ingredients that Becky had stocked the kitchen with before she left).
Read before bed.

It sounded pretty full when she wrote everything out like that. Still, she realized that these activities actually added up to rather a sparse day. She couldn’t possibly spend much more than an hour at the co-op, and she would be lucky to fill an entire half-hour snooping around the Snail Plant.

Then she had an idea, and she added one more item to the top of her list, above all the others: “WALK TO TOWN,” it said, in large letters.

This new aspect of her plan made her almost excited. Walking would be an adventure, and would take up the entire day; if she walked all the way into town, and then to the Snail Plant, and then back, it would definitely be dark by the time she got home. It was the sort of thing that she always fantasized about doing in Los Angeles, spending a whole day just walking. But in LA it would be seen as impossibly weird to walk anywhere more than a few blocks away, and anyway there would be nothing to look at as she walked; just blocks after block of broad boulevards lined with identical buildings and palm trees. Here there was a lot to see, a whole new landscape of forest and Midwestern suburb that was unlike anything Jen had ever experienced on either of the coasts where she had lived.

If she was going to walk, she needed to eat some food first, she decided, feeling proud of herself for her practical planning and self-care. It would be nice to make a little breakfast and some tea. Mint tea would be good for her queasiness, which had already subsided a bit, and then she could get some black tea later at the co-op to keep her alert through her long day. She would go upstairs and choose a book from the bookshelf, a first book that would set the tone of her stay here, and sit and read and drink tea. It sounded so pleasant, so civilized, that some of her dread lifted and she became excited about the morning ahead of her.

She walked towards the back of the house to the kitchen to figure out what to eat. There was bread in the freezer, and peanut butter in the refrigerator; that would be a nutritious breakfast for a long walk. She pried two slices off of the frozen loaf and dropped them into the battered old toaster on the counter, which looked tiny compared to the six-slice deluxe model she was used to using at her house.

The cupboard with the tea was now stocked with a number of exotic varieties that Becky had picked out. Jen rummaged through the different medicinal teas—for throat problems, stomach problems, “women’s” problems, and cleansing—and assorted varieties of chai, before choosing the same licorice-spearmint blend that had been left in the cabinet earlier by Paula’s family. She grabbed her mug, the same one she’d been using all week, from the side of the sink, filled it with water, and carried over to the microwave.

But looking at the slick black door of the microwave oven, her tea enthusiasm cooled. In her pleasant-morning-fantasy, the tea would not be heated in a microwave; it would be poured from a steaming kettle. She looked over at the stove, hoping to see a kettle there, but the crooked burners, circled in black where the white enamel had chipped away, were bare.

They must have a kettle here, she thought to herself, opening the cupboard below the microwave. She lowered herself to her knees, shifting stacks of pots and metal bowls around to see what was behind them. She peered into the far dusty recesses near the back wall, but there was no kettle.

She searched the two other low cabinets, which contained a promising assortment of cooking vessels—large stock pots, frying pans, plastic bowls and Tupperware containers—but no kettle.

Looking frantically around the kitchen, she spotted some high cabinets near the ceiling on the sides of the sink. She dragged a chair over from the dining table and climbed onto it. She reached above her head, then winced and drew her right arm back down as the stretch agitated her broken rib. It was almost painless now, after four weeks; Becky had said that broken bones were supposed to heal fully in six. Still, every so often she would get a piercing reminder that her body was not fully intact, and that she needed to be careful with it.

She lifted her arms again, this time more gingerly, opened the cabinet, and reached up to feel around inside of it. She pulled out a few odd items: a kitchen timer, a coffee grinder, and a small crock pot. She crouched on the chair and placed them on the counter one by one. Still no kettle, she thought in frustration, as she patted her hand around the back of the cupboard, finally hitting the rear wall without finding anything else. She moved the chair over and tried the other two ceiling cabinets, but they were empty, except for a phone book from 1994.She began to panic. She wanted tea, not-from-the microwave tea. She would have to buy a kettle, but she would be on foot today, so she’d have to carry it with her all the way back from town, and meanwhile she would have to drink her tea from the microwave. She sat down on the chair she had jut been standing on, crossing her arms sullenly across her chest. Ugh, the microwave, she thought to herself, staring resentfully at it. It was awful, entirely violating the aesthetic of the rustic morning she had planned for herself.

She felt her breathing speeding up to match her annoyance. She hated feeling like this, helpless, allowing one small problem to ruin her whole day. She wondered what Becky would tell her to do, or that substitute yoga teacher who always spouted all the philosophy. Don’t let frustration cloud your thinking, she told herself. Focus. She thought of an affirmation she had read on a poster in Becky’s room: “Persevere patiently until the end.” She took a deep, slow breath and cleared her thoughts. Focus, she told herself. Persevere. Where, she asked herself, with new attentiveness, would Paula’s mother keep the kettle?

Visually, she scanned the kitchen one last time, looking for spots she hadn’t checked. She counted the cabinets, high and low; she had searched every one. Then she began to look at appliances—could it be on top of the refrigerator? She stood on her tiptoes to look; nothing up there. What about the oven? There was a possible spot: the old, rickety oven looked like it might have one of those strange metal drawers built in below it. She walked over to the oven and kneeled to examine it. The bottom section, below the oven door, had a handle. The drawer stuck a little when she pulled on it, until its contents shifted and resettled with a loud clinking noise, allowing it to slide open. Inside she found a number of dirty metal cooking utensils, wedged forcefully together like an incorrectly assembled puzzle, all covered in a thick layer of dark grease. There was a muffin tin, several baking sheets, a stainless steel bowl, and then, stuck in the very back of the drawer, an old, dinged-up kettle.

Jen sighed loudly in relief, and for a moment she collapsed pleasantly onto the floor, exhausted from the effort of her search. Then she felt something sticky on her arm, and realized that she was lying on a dirty kitchen floor; she sat back up and tried to figure out how to remove the kettle from its revealed hiding place.She tried at first to yank it out clumsily, but then decided to do things properly, to set a good precedent for her new life in this kitchen. One by one, she loosened each pan and stacked it neatly on the floor next to her. The kettle, which was the farthest back, emerged last, sticky with grime and dust, and darkened by funny splotches of black and yellow. She placed the other pans neatly back into the oven drawer and closed it with a loud clatter.

In her past life, the filthy coating of the kettle would have immediately ruled it out as too disgusting to use. Now, though, she was so excited to have found it that it didn’t matter what condition it was in; she could work with it. In fact, she welcomed the challenge. I will make this kettle functional, she thought, and then I will really appreciate my tea.

She brought the kettle to the sink and set it down while she waited for the water from the hot tap to warm up. Next to the sink was an old dish sponge. She picked it up, but then saw something better: a little silver ball of steel wool. She doused it with dish soap and began rubbing it over the rounded side of the kettle. It was pleasing to see the black grease break up, to watch the silver color return to the kettle's smooth sides. Even though the grime was thick, it didn’t take very long to dissolve; in few minutes, the kettle was perfectly clean and presentable.

The ease with which she resuscitated the kettle surprised Jen. It wasn’t like she never washed dishes; at home, she often prepared her own tea or breakfast and then rinsed her plate before putting it in the dishwasher. She wasn’t completely inept at normal household tasks, she thought with satisfaction, comparing herself to Chase, who had a live-in housekeeper and a personal chef who did absolutely everything for him. Still, cleaning a filthy kettle was a new height of practicality; in LA, she would have just thrown it out and bought a new one. But with not much effort at all, this former piece of garbage was usable again. It’s really a cute little kettle, thought Jen, pleased with her work.

Rinsing the inside and outside of the kettle one last time, Jen filled it with water and placed it on one of the front burners on the stovetop. Then, looking at the microwave, she made a decision.
She walked over to it, pulled it forward, and reached around the back to unplug it. Lifting it awkwardly from the counter, she carried it into the hall and set it down right in front of the inconspicuous door that led to the basement. She opened the door and switched on the light, illuminating the tangle of cobwebs that Paula had never swept from the staircase. It was difficult to carry the microwave down, with its bulk blocking her vision so that she had to feel each step tentatively with the ball of her foot before she committed to it.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she set down her heavy load and surveyed the basement. Unlike her finished basement in LA, it was dirty and mildew-smelling, and filled with boxes, paint cans, and other assorted junk stacked in messy piles. One corner of the basement angled upwards towards what appeared to be a trap door to the yard; the space underneath was littered with bits of dirt and small rocks that had fallen through from above. There was no furniture at all. She hoped there wouldn’t be too many tornadoes so she wouldn’t have to spend much time down here.

It was obvious where the microwave should go: with the discarded television sets and kitchen appliances against one wall. She felt sad for it as she set it down in its electronic graveyard, buried alive while it was still in functioning condition. But it also seemed appropriate to leave it down there, where she wouldn’t be tempted to use it, to submit to the ease of speed and convenience rather than doing things the proper way. As she climbed the stairs again, she resolved to dust the spider webs herself, as soon as she had a day to spend around the house—maybe the next time it rained, which, she had heard, actually happened during the summer here.

Shutting the basement door behind her, she felt satisfied. Now that she thought about it, she wondered how she could have used a microwave oven for so long. She didn’t even know how it worked, this magical box that heated up food and liquids without ever getting hot inside. She had some vague idea: “microwaves” infiltrated the food and heated up the water molecules inside of it. Or something like that. But what were microwaves? Did they come out of those little holes in the plastic lining of the box? What were they made of? What generated them? She had absolutely no idea, but whatever it was seemed like it had to be pretty unwholesome.

She could hear the tea kettle whistling in the kitchen; she resolved to turn it off in just a moment. First, she climbed the narrow staircase to the room that was now her bedroom and stood across from the tall bookshelf, looking for the book that she would read during her breakfast, the book that she would carry with her into town so that she could sit and read while she ate her lunch at the co-op after she talked to her cashier for the first time. The first book, her foundational Michigan text.

Her unarticulated plan was to read one of the Zen books from the spirituality shelf. Ever since she had first examined the bookshelf, this had been her unspoken intention. While she hated to admit being curious about anything associated with Skipper, she couldn’t help but be intrigued by his professed belief system. During this first, difficult week in Michigan, his words had resonated in her head many times: “That’s the central paradox of human life: acceptance versus desire.” It hadn’t fully made sense to her when he said it, but increasingly she was thinking of this paradox throughout her day, as she tried to decide what it was exactly that she wanted and whether she could accept what it was that she had. Here she was in this new town and this new life, and she knew that she wanted something, wanted it horribly, but she didn’t know yet what it was.

She scanned the top bookshelf looking for books about Zen. The book about Zen and sexuality was a little too much for her right now, plus it would be embarrassing to be seen reading that in town. There was another called Ancient Zen Texts. She pulled it out and let it fall open to a page somewhere in the middle. The page was discussing various scholarly interpretations of a particular letter of the Japanese alphabet. All the scholars agreed that the repeated use of this character in the words of a particular Zen text was symbolic, but they could not agree on what the symbolism entailed. One author was certain it represented “the spirit that imbues all living organisms,” while another believed that it extended not only to organisms but to all organic materials such as dirt and rocks. A third author believed that the character symbolized energy that travels between two bodies, such as magnetism or electricity, or, by further metaphorical extension, sexual tension.

Jen flipped through the rest of the book, scanning for something more illuminating for her own state of mind, but it mostly looked similar to that first page. She placed it on the bed as a possibility and continued looking for something more promising.

She didn’t see any other books on the spirituality shelf that interested her, at least not right now; maybe she would like to learn about the Kabala or Central American tribal religions someday, but right now she felt that it was Skipper’s philosophy that she wanted to understand. It’s okay, she told herself; she could buy something suitable at the bookstore once she walked into town. She just needed to find something on this bookshelf to tide her over until then.

She squatted to search the books on the very lowest shelf, Paula’s shelf. She needed to pull the books out to see what they were, since the titles were worn off of all their spines. She grabbed three thin books in one handful and spread them like playing cards.

She was startled to discover that she had found exactly what she was looking for. In her hands, aligned like a perfect straight flush, were three books by the same author, all with the same cover design, and all on the topic of Zen. One, Zen for Relationships, was clearly not the right choice. She put it back on the shelf and looked at the other two. One was called Zen for Everyday Living. The other was called Zen for Times of Crisis.

She wondered which one better applied to her current state. Logically, she felt that “everyday living” was more apt. It was, after all, a perfect description of what she needed help with; she did not know what her everyday life here would entail, what she would spend her time doing. And yet emotionally, she felt drawn to the book on “crisis,” even though there was no clear reason why this term would apply to her current situation. Maybe her divorce, or that thing with Skipper, or when she broke her rib—those had been acute traumas that called for immediate action. Now things were just…new. New and scary, if she thought about it, but if she didn’t think about it then everything was fine. “This isn’t a crisis,” she said aloud to herself, scornfully. “This is just life.”

She held one book in each hand, judging their weight against each other like a scale. Finally, she put Everyday Living on the floor and examined the back of Crisis.

In place of a blurb, the book had several expert testimonials as to its quality. “Thomas Fo is a national treasure,” the first one said. It was attributed to a professor from the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California at Santa Cruz. “His authority on the fundamentals of Zen philosophy is unquestionable, and his ability to convey these precepts to the common reader is unparalleled.”

Hmm, thought Jen. With that description, she imagined the book could go one of two ways: it could be a useful beginner’s guide or a trashy self-help book. She read the next testimonial, which came from a woman described as a “paranormal expert and life coach.” Already this seemed to be a clear sign pointing towards trashy.

“Fo’s perceptive analyses and practical strategies are a must-read for every person facing one of those pivotal moments of decision that make us human.”

Although Jen found this description to be distastefully on the self-help end of the spectrum, it did sound like what she was going through. A pivotal moment of decision; if that’s what a crisis was, then she was in one. She was definitely leaning towards this as her first bookshelf-book.

There was one final testimonial: “I have been a great fan of Fo’s work for many years. His teachings have informed all of my most difficult decisions and helped me find my own personal path to success.”

This one came from Nicolai Snail, who was described simply as a “mogul.”

Jen was fascinated now. She rose up from the floor and sat down on the shaky bed. She could hear the neglected kettle still whistling downstairs; just a minute more, she told herself.

She opened to the first page of the introduction. It started with a story about the author’s life:

“Eleven years ago, I was deeply engaged in that most despicable of careers: acting. I appeared in over seventy television commercials, endorsing products that I had no interest in or even knowledge of: electric razors, amusement parks, batteries. I did a few plays at night, weird student-project types of things that paid almost nothing and never had more than a few people in the audience, friends of the playwright. Every week I went to auditions, trying to get a big break in a sitcom; I got called back a few times, but I never quite got the job. As soon as I raised enough money, I planned to move to Los Angeles, where the real jobs were.

“What was this prize that I was seeking, the sitcom job? Sure, it was steady work, a regular paycheck, an end to the horrible ordeal of auditions. But if a reliable income was my goal, surely there were easier ways to get there than by acting on a television show. So it must have been something else I was after. If you had asked me at the time, I would have said it was artistic expression, the honing of my craft. But what was this craft? Where was the artistic merit in mimicking a stereotype so familiar it was devoid of all meaning, feeding a passive audience the same comfortable, received ideas that the television had taught them since childhood, contributing to the buzzing swirl of half-formed ideas that is the American pop consciousness?”

Jen found herself nodding; she had often felt the same way about her work, the hopelessness of contributing to an already saturated media with yet more distracting fluff. It was a truly depressing feeling, and she completely understood why the author might characterize it as a crisis.

“One evening, after a long, stressful week, I was at a party with a few actor ‘friends,’ trying to relax. I was talking to a woman I had known for a few months, and she was telling me a story about an audition. As I listened to her story, I tried to appear involved: I nodded attentively, laughed at ‘funny’ spots, made a sympathetic face when I felt the story called for it. And yet, I had the distinct feeling that all of these reactions were feigned, that I was still ‘acting.’ I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. I would think to myself, ‘Don’t act! Be sincere!’ Then I would envision what a sincere person would look like, and I would shape my facial expression to look like that.

“I realized, with horror, that I no longer knew who I was. I was so caught up in trying to be a successful actor that my life had become a performance. I tried to figure out how I felt about the story she was telling me, and I realized that I had no idea if I was amused, or sympathetic, or annoyed. I knew how to display the façade of emotion, but not how to feel my own, true feelings.”

Jen looked up from the book and remembered that the kettle had been whistling for quite a while, at least fifteen minutes. Reluctantly, she closed the book and carried it downstairs to the kitchen.

When she turned off the stove and poured water for her tea, the kettle was light to lift, and she felt stupid to have boiled away all her water after all that work to find the proper heating vessel. Still, there was just enough left to fill her cup to the top. The minty steam pouring invitingly from her mug validated her choice of the kettle over the microwave; her microwaved tea had never smelled half this good.

Her toast, still sitting in its slots in the toaster, was cold, but she didn’t mind. She put it on a plate and spread peanut butter on it. She licked the peanut butter from the knife and realized, as her stomach growled aggressively at her, that she was ravenously hungry. Dipping the knife back into the jar (after all, she rationalized, I am the only person who will be eating it), she spread a bit of extra peanut butter on the toast, and even added some honey from the squeezy-bear that she had seen in the tea cupboard.

With her feast prepared, she sat down at the table, where she had left her book. It was a nice place to sit. The table was in front of one of the windows, allowing the morning sun to enter and warm her chair, and giving her a dazzling view of the lake sparkling in the daylight. Still, she was more excited to get back to reading than to enjoy the scenery. She opened the book, flipped to the second page, and propped it awkwardly open using salt and pepper shakers as weights. She continued reading where she had left off, with Thomas Fo’s realization of the shallowness of his life as an actor.

“I realized then that I needed a change. I needed to escape from this false existence while I was still conscious enough to recognize its falseness. So I did something a bit drastic, something that many would say is only possible when a person is very young, or very foolish, or very desperate. (I was all three).

“I sold all my possessions except for a small suitcase of clothes and a small box of books, moved out of my apartment, disconnected my phone number, and traveled to a Zen monastery in a small island town off the coast of Canada.”

Wow, thought Jen, looking up from the book for a moment as she became aware of something, some strange association like déjà vu in the opposite direction, like recognizing something that you were going to see again in the future. The sun was shining right into her eyes now, and the light reflecting off the lake was blindingly bright. She turned her head back down towards the book. The introduction was almost over. Jen read the final two paragraphs:

“This book chronicles those difficult years—as an actor and as a student of Zen Buddhism—and the lessons I learned from those years of struggle and study.

“The greatest lesson I have learned is this: Always be honest with yourself, and don’t engage in behaviors or mechanisms that you can’t explain. Resist the false consciousness of consumer culture. Do not act if you can be. Do not drive if you can walk. Complex amenities make us stupid to easy solutions. Simplify your life and face each challenge honestly, with unclouded vision.”

Jen was in awe as she read these final lines. It seemed a bizarre coincidence: so many of the principles that Fo was describing constituted the very project she was currently engaged in. She had given up acting and moved away from her home. This morning, she had decided to walk to town rather than driving. And just minutes ago, she had rejected her microwave because she could not understand how it worked. She and this Thomas Fo must be kindred spirits of some sort, she thought. She was anxious to turn to the first chapter, but decided to save it for after the first leg of her walk; she was even more anxious to get started with her day’s adventure, which this book would now become a part of.

She picked up the book from the table and closed it pensively, holding it between her two hands for a moment. Then she carried it into the living room and placed it on the coffee table, next to the notepad she had written on earlier. She tore off her day’s to-do list, folded it in half, and shoved it between the pages of the book. This would be the first item to go into the backpack she would carry into town.

Half an hour later, she left the house, her backpack filled with water, a jacket, and her book and to-do list. She was wearing her baseball cap and sunglasses, but she knew people would recognize her, anyway. Still, she was excited to experience this journey on foot, which so far she had only undertaken in the rental car and Paula’s mother’s SUV. As she walked down the long driveway and into the shade of the uncleared forest, she thought about the tea kettle, and how upset she had been when she believed she would not find it. It occurred to her that she could have just heated water in one of the numerous pots she had found in the cabinets; that would have worked just as well.

That guy Fo is right, she thought: stupid to easy solutions.

Chapter 18:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2009/01/18-ordinary-meanings.html