Towards Life

I went on my first early morning meditation walk in three days this morning, choosing the street called "Terremoto" (Earthquake) and some of its side alleys. As I walked along, I mulled on the friend who is visiting us. In 1977, when I met her, she was the girlfriend of one of my housemates in a group home I shared in Vancouver, B.C. We met when we began chatting one evening, only a day after I had returned to Canada from my father's home, where I had been for six weeks since my mother died. All she had been told was that the upstairs bedroom was occupied by an American who was away. No one had told her the circumstances. I was deeply disappointed that no one had deemed it important enough to explain my absence. But my hurt feelings were extinguished by her interest, her concern, her questions. That evening we ended up sitting on the shaggy rug in the house bathroom talking until 3:00 a.m. And thus was our friendship born.

Fast forward thirty years. For the last three years, she has been severely depressed. She has suffered through a harrowing series of medications, dosages, psychiatrists, hospital stays, electroshock treatment, and more, seeking a solution. Nothing has helped; she still suffers from acute and severe depression. At one point she overdosed but did not succeed at ending her life. She woke up deeply disappointed.

It has been a long journey for Barry and me, too, waking up to the severity of her depression. It is difficult to explain the jumble of feelings that co-reside within me about her situation. Some moments I accept that she probably will kill herself one day, and maybe that's better than waking up (as she does now), morning after morning dreading the long hours and wishing she could sleep forever. Other moments--like yesterday, when I heard her laughing, or watching her swill a cold beer after a long hike--I argue with her in my mind, saying, "See? You do too like life! Prove it to me that you don't!" Still other times, I feel an unbearable sadness at the emptiness that seems to fill her, an emptiness I cannot, no matter how much I wish I could, lift.

We were thrilled that she made it down to Guanajuato. None of us, herself included, was sure she would make it, so deep is her inertia.

So there I was this morning, on my meditation walk/sit, walking down Terremoto, watching the way the street curved, admiring the newly painted red/orange church, catching the sun just emerging from the hills, puzzling over the aquaducts below and where they were located. I watched a young mother as she wheeled her stroller along a steep incline, then carefully tilted the stroller backwards to negotiate a few steps. A man balanced in his arms a large wicker basket of baked goods. A woman in her bathrobe swept the area in front of her doorstep. A white-haired, delicate-framed woman passing the red church made the sign of the cross.

Later, I sat high on the steps of the large square of the Alhondiga museum for the meditation portion of my walk. I watched a train of young people below me jogging around the square. "Uno!" called the coach. "Uno!" they cried in unison. "Dos!" "Dos! "Tres!" "Tres!" "Cuatro!" "Cuatro!" "Uno, dos, tres, cuatro!" A man, dressed in a navy suit, strode briskly down the steps and crossed the square, just missing the joggers.

Life, I thought. I spelled it out in my mind: L, I, F, E. Everyone is expressing life. Ordinary scenes of life. Tears came to my eyes.

After a few more minutes, I got up off the stone step and headed in the direction of home. I passed a road worker adjusting the roadblocks of a street being repaved, a shopkeeper opening her door for the day's business, a guy walking his motorscooter along the sidewalk. Even the taxis cruising by seemed full of positive purpose, taking people to their meetings, destinations, connections, callings. Simple purposeful actions affirming life.

Everyone moving along their life's trajectory. I affirm life, I thought. That we have life, that life is at all, this is good. That I am life, and have life, this too is good.