TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: …really bad body ache [inaudible] So that comes and goes. My throat’s been hurting for a while and so it’s been hard to sleep because I start to feel really bad at night. But I’ve kept it at bay so [inaudible] Thanks for asking.
THERAPIST: Sure. I hope it goes away.
CLIENT: People don’t stay home when they’re sick, like me. There were all these really sick people [inaudible] the last couple of weeks. (pause) How are you? [1:17]
THERAPIST: [inaudible] infectious disease. [inaudible]
CLIENT: There are two camps.
THERAPIST: [inaudible]
CLIENT: There’s the people who are really paranoid about everything because they know how much can grow on everything, and then there’s the camp of well, every [inaudible] can support microbial growth. There’s really nothing we can do, that sort of [inaudible] But yes, we know way too much about transmission of disease to not stay home when we’re sick. [2:04] (pause) I can sort of feel my room buzzing a little bit still from yesterday. (pause) How are you? [4:07]
THERAPIST: I’m fine.
CLIENT: So yesterday I made the cookies.
THERAPIST: I was going to say thanks again for the cookies.
CLIENT: You were about to say that?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Oh, [inaudible] and [inaudible] cookie. I made the cookies for Danielle, who is my meditation teacher [inaudible] meditation teacher. She’s not my private teacher. I don’t have one. But she taught this class [inaudible] last January and she’s teaching the same class this January, and I’m taking it again. And then sometimes she’ll come in and teach other stuff or just be around. And she was the beginner drop in teacher on Tuesday, which I haven’t been to in months, but it’s so great because it’s just a nice way to practice in lots of different styles in an hour. [5:44] It sort of feels refreshing to be led once in a while. So I went on Tuesday, mostly because she was going to be there. I like her; she’s really funny. She’s this petite, loud, Los Angeles, Jewish woman, and she’s gay. And she is just so fun. She’s so positive and she’s very bubbly. She’s one of those people where if you first meet her not in the context of meditation, probably have a hard time imagining her sitting still. []. It feels like that’s taking off. So anyway, Danielle, on Tuesday, was telling somebody after the class… somebody casually was like how are you, and she said my dad died. She was like oh, well, I’m not… it’s been pretty bad, pretty rough time. My dad died on December 23 and my mom’s dying in my house right now. Today, tomorrow or this week she’s going to die. And she’d just got finished teaching this beginner meditation class. 90 people show up to this thing. She was so herself. [7:38] I wouldn’t have been able to tell that anything was really hard in her life. But I don’t know, looking back on the class, maybe. So I was there when she told him this and I was very, very deeply moved or something. So I said thank you, Danielle, and I’m sorry. And she said thanks, so good to see you. How are you doing? I don’t think I’ve really seen her since the end of January. And I didn’t know that she knew me. But I did make a painting for her when she officially left to start the [] thing [inaudible] interact with her [inaudible] So I was like oh, I’m great, thanks. [8:59] And then I left. And I… that was on Tuesday, and I was so, I don’t know, something got lodged right in here. I’m so touched that… not really touched, I think it stirred something up that she could be going through so much and still show up and still be very present and still be able to feel a lot of pain. It was clear as soon as she started talking about it that it was completely at the surface and raw, and she wasn’t denying it or at the center to run from it at all. [10:02] So I had a hard time burying [ph?] what it did to me to sort of. Yeah, it’s like whoa. So I made her cookies and on Thursday this work my [inaudible] work job through the job [ph?] class set [ph?] for the first time this year. And so I brought the cookies but I didn’t give them to her at the beginning because there’s a long sitting at the beginning. So right before… so normally we wouldn’t talk but she started talking. There was only five people this year. There were 40 people last year in the class [inaudible] class. And she started talking and she said well, this is a totally weird… this is how she said it. She was like a totally weird time for me. Yeah, I won’t really get into it at this moment. I probably will a little bit more later this evening but… because it’s on my mind. So I’m wrapping it into lots of things that I say. My dad died on this day and my mom’s in a hospital bed in my living room with hospice with everyone at home, and she’s probably going to die really soon. She’s probably going to die today or tomorrow. [11:46] So I have to keep my cell phone on. She’s like this whole thing is building up to this apology that her cell phone is going to be on during the sitting. She’s like so I’m really sorry. It’s just a totally weird, wacky, crazy time. It’s been very… it’s been remarkable and very rich and sort of just… she painted this whole spectrum about I have to keep my cell phone on; sorry. So of course we’re like anything you need, including, sort of… some of what I was feeling was like why are you here Danielle? And it became clear that… so she explained a little bit. I think she was sensing that all of us wanted to sort of rid her of her obligation to show up. She was saying things like if I have to leave we’ll figure out some way to make up the time. [13:00] It was really sweet. So she was like I’m so happy for the chance to sit today. I’m really looking forward to that. And I’m getting my mom some time without me because a total classic with the leaving [ph?] is that sometimes they tend to go… they tend to want to go without you. I think she was the primary caretaker. I think there are other children involved but she was like so I’m just giving her her space, and we’ll just see what happens. So we sit for about 35 minutes and her phone… her text noise comes… rings three times. The first time all of us are like… and she didn’t check it. She checked her phone at the third one and it’s not clear what happened, but she continued with the sit and with the class. [14:07] And she did wrap in death and dying and how once [ph?] remarkable it has been for her but also how it is perhaps the most… the one thing that actually connects all of us, or connects all of us in this very, very sort of no getting around it way. Everybody has to go through it. So the class was lovely. It was not really much about her parents so we could… I could tell that it was very, very loud and confusing, painful in her mind. So class ended and, I don’t know, three of the people trickled out, and then two, me and another woman, stayed a little bit behind and started to chat with Danielle. [15:45] And I didn’t really want to give her the cookies and I didn’t really want to talk about them. I just… I wanted to give them to her but I just… I didn’t want it to be a thing. So I just said I was very, very moved. I had been very moved hearing about what you’ve been going through and it’s been very powerful that you have showed up and that you can smile and suffer the way you are; and it’s clear that you are. And she’s Danielle so she was like oh my God, that is so sweet. She put down all her bags. She’s like kind of this bag lady, put down all her bags and gave me this huge hug. And then two minutes later we’re walking down the steps, everybody’s putting on their shoes. Two minutes later her sister calls. Danielle picks up the phone, is she dead, and her sister’s like yeah, she’s dead. And Danielle says I knew it. She went during the sitting. I don’t know why I didn’t call her then. She’s like I felt it. I felt her go. You could see on her face… I could see it. Her whole body, everything seized up and everything… also, everything was just flowing through really, really fast and it was sort of like she was putting on her shoes and sort of like had to deal with the bags and had to deal with us. And she was so open about everything. There’s nothing… it seemed like there was… I could feel her practice for… her whole life is sort of the same practice, and I could feel being part of it and I could feel… I could sort of see the potential in such a practice in making… in helping open to even the greatest losses and taking it… being very, very present with it. [18:49] So she said a couple of words about how kind of deep it is to be with the two of us in that moment and if we wouldn’t mind, could we please hug. So I held on to her very, very, very tight for a while. And then she was like I’ve got to skedaddle, I’ve got to say goodbye before hospice takes her away. And I was like okay, would you like any company in the car? Would you like anything? Her sister’s like are you okay to drive and she’s like yeah, I’m okay. [19:56] And she was like no, no, thank you, thank you, thank you so much. I’m going to be okay. And then she left. (pause) I didn’t feel what was happening was foreign. I didn’t feel on the outside. I didn’t feel how is she doing this. While I was very moved that it was all happening, and it affected me a lot, it was sort of like yeah, I could see how the state is a natural extension of what I’ve started, the path that I’ve started on. [23:35] And it’s pretty incredible that (pause) that’s true, that it was one thing to sort of know about something; it’s another thing to directly see it or directly feel it. (pause) What somebody’s practice sort of being their landlife [ph?] or their being… they being interchangeable, no separation. And without sort of suppressing any of this wonderful, quirky, and individual personality traits that everybody has. [25:09]
THERAPIST: This is my impression of those kind of teachers, is [inaudible] a remarkable way they can show you things.
CLIENT: Yeah. She showed me so much. (pause) Isn’t that crazy? She died and I was like Danielle (pause) Danielle started to mutter a little bit, like I knew she didn’t want to die in front of me, or I knew that she would choose to die when I left tonight. She knows that I love her very much. [26:31] (pause) Have you had to work through something really, really, really bad [inaudible] show up here… work? (pause)
THERAPIST: [inaudible] it is you’re kind of in awe of how she could share such a close, intimate, in a way life changing moment, with you and the other people in the class whom she doesn’t know very well and is kind, of by role, in a sort of very different relationship with. [31:00] And (pause) yeah, I mean I guess that’s sort of a [inaudible]
CLIENT: I’m in awe in a way… in a sameness way not in a difference way. What’s so moving about it is how much I can see myself already having some of those pieces and how beautiful it is to see somebody who’s sort of been at it, and for much longer, and also just who she is as her special, individual, unique self. [32:34] There are similar things here with the aweness and the role, the roles. But I’ve been… it comes up for me once in a while. It’s not just coming up as a result of Danielle, but it is why I asked it today. But it’s come up. [33:43]
THERAPIST: You mean you’ve had that question before.
CLIENT: Yeah. I think I’ve had that question, or I think I have an association about Chester Reeves, [ph?] who’s the family friend of Jeremy’s family. Emily and Chester [inaudible]. And it’s the brownie recipe, Emily’s brownies.
THERAPIST: And he’s a therapist?
CLIENT: Chester’s a therapist. Emily is sort of not really in that role but they’re both social workers. So I have a lot of… I sort of have a lot of associations about them here. They’re a family and they’re, I don’t know, sort of Los Angeles Jewish lineage. They have two daughters. And just the way Chester is and the way you are. [35:13] So Chester went into a very, very, very deep depression pretty soon after his mother died, which was maybe a year or two ago. Maybe two years ago. And that made a huge impression on me. It was maybe a full year before our wedding. And that has stayed with me, though I feel like I have a lot more access to it now, and it’s less foreign and it’s more, again, like I… it’s more of an awe sameness than difference now. Before it was like I couldn’t comprehend what he was… what it meant to be depressed in a debilitating way and what it meant to show up for work. So I think about you sometimes. I sometimes just have a sort of fantasy about that with you, one of those negative sort of sad fantasies but also with some awe. I wonder if you’re going through something, or if you had. [37:02]
THERAPIST: Seems to be related, also, to your… sometimes I think you feel pretty deeply that in a way my keeping it from you if I was is wrong.
CLIENT: Right, because…
THERAPIST: I mean look at Danielle.
CLIENT: Danielle didn’t keep it from me. She wanted to hug me.
THERAPIST: And it was her… not keeping it from you was partly a reflection of what she’s capable of. And what was helpful [ph?] to you. And I imagine you have a sense that, not like her, but that I could do something in that direction. [38:33] And if I don’t it’s like [inaudible] (pause) And I think it’s probably limiting myself and limiting you and me. [inaudible] (pause) My sense is that my doing that also causes you grief. [42:45]
CLIENT: Yeah, it’s really hurtful. [ph?]
THERAPIST: I imagine, also, it feels like a tremendous loss.
CLIENT: It’s too sad.
THERAPIST: [inaudible]
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