The texts arrived in succession "Mom! I got a ticket", "I got a ticket." It was 9 pm where I was which meant it was midnight where she was. I saw the three dots lining up on my phone as she was trying to say more and in those few seconds, my mind came up with golden, speeding, concert, flight - a neat little Connections group: __ tickets. None of those turned out to be correct. She gave up on her phone's autocorrect and called me instead with panic in her voice. She had found a tick on her leg!
The "she" is our soon-to-be 19 year old who is a rising Sophomore in a college 2500 miles away, on her first summer research stint. I knew next to nothing about ticks other than they can cause Lyme's disease, and I didn't even know what Lyme's disease was. But when she said that she will be right back as she tried to figure out the safest way to remove the said tick, my mind started racing again - tick, Lyme's disease, debilitating sickness - all in the matter of a few seconds. With help from a few friends she managed to remove the creature, trapped it in a jar as instructed, washed the leg with soap and water and cleaned the area with rubbing alcohol. She then called us back and said she will see a doctor tomorrow just to be safe and that was that - Good night!
For the next hour I went on a maddening, surfing trip on the Internet. By the time I was done, I could differentiate dog ticks from deer ticks, had identified from the hazy pic she sent me that it belonged to the dog variety, there was no Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in her state, the County's numbers for Lyme's was still very low and she had it on her leg only for a few hours, so she should be OK, fingers crossed.
I woke up after a bit of disturbed sleep last night and I thought about my meditation practice and all the lectures I listen to about mindfulness and the teachings of Vedanta and realized that none of them came to my help at a moment like this. While I was calm on the outside, my mind was racing and while I was aware of the phenomenon I found it hard to calm it down. As a rational person I knew there was nothing for me to do, she had done all the right things and now we just have to wait to see what the doctor says.
"Expect Nothing" was the advice given to the famous writer Peter Matthiessen by his Zen master before he left for the Himalayas on a 1973 trip looking for Blue Sheep and the Snow Leopard. It was a grueling journey, filled with difficulties - the terrain tough, weather brutal, and the governments not cooperative, to say the least. During the journey Matthiessen had numerous moments of realization, some even transcendent and all of that is beautifully captured in his book The Snow Leopard. But anyone who has read the book knows that the eponymous creature only revealed its footprints and scat to the author. At one point his fellow traveler the famous naturalist George Schaller says "Isn't that something? To be delighted with a pile of crap?" Matthiessen was able to accept that. He writes, "and in the not-seeing, I am content. I think I must be disappointed, having come so far, and yet I do not feel that way. I am disappointed, and also I am not disappointed. That the snow leopard is, that it is here, that its frosty eyes watch us from the mountain - that is enough."
These last couple of months, I have had my own Snow Leopard moments. I have been going to my local state preserve to observe a beautiful Peregrine Falcon family. The first time this season, I went in April with my niece who was visiting. I had charged ahead looking for the birds as I wanted to show her these beauties, while she came at her own relaxed pace with my husband. They were not to be seen and as I turned back disappointed, I saw her looking up and she asked me, "Is that the bird you are looking for?" and sure enough she had spotted the nest and the falcon! The next time I went in May with my daughter and by this time the chicks had hatched. There were 3 we could see and we even saw the mother kill a snowy egret, prepare the meal in a different part of the cliff and bring it over to her eager, hungry chicks and feed them. Since then I went back multiple times as I wanted to see the chicks fledge and train with their parents. But no luck. Each time, I let Matthiessen talk to me in my mind "that the peregrine falcons are, that they are here, that their dark marked eyes watch us from the cliffs - that is enough."
This morning I was waiting for my daughter to call after she saw the doctor and instead of sitting around and waiting my husband and I decided to hike the preserve. I expected nothing and assumed the falcons must be away by now and so I didn't even carry my binoculars with me. We were at the top of the cliffs taking in the Pacific Ocean when suddenly I hear the call and sure enough I saw one fly overhead and land at a distant cliff. I have a hard time localizing sound as my left ear is practically useless so my husband turned me around and said that he heard the sound from the other side too - there was number 2 calling. And before we knew it, two falcons flew by so closely that we could see their eyes and their patches so clearly. If we put our hands out we could have touched them. We both ducked by reflex. Soon a third bird joined these two and I saw one drop something for the other two to catch. I have only seen this behavior where the parents teach the young ones to hunt in TV documentaries. We were both so stunned that we just stood still, we didn't reach for our phones. We stood there long after the birds had flown, just grateful and joyful to have witnessed that.
I was telling my husband how I could practice mindfulness in these matters but not when it came to our daughter and her tick situation. How could I get swept away in so many thoughts! In The Snow Leopard, Matthiessen narrates an incident with his porters and Sherpas. One of them was carrying his dry clothes and sleeping bag and was refusing help in crossing an ice bridge. Matthiessen gets angry because if the porter falls Matthiessen will have a very cold night ahead of him. But his mood turns "when the brave Dawa, attempting to catch Jang-bu's pack, hurled across a stream dropped it ineptly into the water. Wonderfully Jang-bu laughed aloud, as did Dawa and Phu-Tsering, although it meant wet clothes and a wet sleeping bag for the head Sherpa. That happy-go-lucky spirit, that acceptance which is not fatalism but a deep trust in life made me ashamed." Matthiessen himself is frustrated when he realizes that despite the transformative journey that he had undertaken he was still beset by ego, emotions, irritations, what he calls as "the aching gap between what I know and what I am."
Can I ever get to Jang-bu's state, especially when it concerned my child? Her experience with ticks took her to an urgent care with the help of a friend who is a godsend; she adulted her way out of her situation calmly and this was one more experience that demonstrated her independence and clear thinking with no contributions from me. Forget Jang-bu, I am no where near Matthiessen and his level of practice, so if even he could feel this aching gap I consoled myself saying I should give myself credit for only being worried for an hour or two, recognizing I had nothing to offer at this time, and figuring out ways to calm myself down - which included a hike this morning. Matthiessen writes "The teaching offered us by Lama Tupjuk with the snow leopard watching from the rocks and the Crystal Mountain flying on the sky, was not, as I had thought that day, the enlightened wisdom of one man but a splendid utterance of the divine in all mankind."
What was that teaching?
Of course I enjoy this life! It's wonderful! Especially when I have no choice!
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