Pet loss

Do I want to see tomorrow?

Posted on by SomatiCat

I lost my anchor.

My dog was my tether to reality, to this life. He was undeniably real. He lived entirely in the moment. When I woke in the middle of the night, lost in the vast nothingness—confusion and darkness pressing in—I would reach out and place my hand on him. He was warm, solid, breathing. Alive. And in his version of reality, if he was alive, then so was I. I felt safe in the world he held for me. It was as if I were drifting in a night ocean of existential anxiety, and he was my life raft.

With his passing, I lost my favorite version of reality.

I don’t have to protect anyone. I don’t have to take care of anyone. I don’t have anyone to come home to. I don’t have to worry about losing him anymore.

What remains is my own version of reality.

Every morning, I wake up and start my routine. I make coffee, brush my teeth, check emails. I function well. I smile. I chat with neighbors. I act normal. But I am not here. I’m floating an inch above the ground, like a plastic bag caught in the wind, weightless and directionless.

Once in a while, I do feel real. On a recent trip, I went to a shooting range and practiced pistol shooting for the first time. In that moment, I was completely focused. The weight of the gun in my hands, the shock waves reverberating through my body, the hot shells grazing my skin—burning, tangible—I felt alive. For that brief moment, the act of shooting was my anchor. (Don’t worry, I won’t shoot any living being, including myself.)

Then I came home, and my fragmented reality returned.

Fortunately, I can hold it together. I don’t have the affliction my cousin does—the one that warps reality beyond repair. I can pretend. I can fit in. I just don’t feel alive.

So I go to the gym. I work out on one of those torture machines. The intense contraction in my quads pulls me back into my body, back into the present.

Do I want to see tomorrow?

I don’t know.

But I want to be here now. In my body.

Is it how normal people are feeling?

Posted on by SomatiCat

I sent my beloved dog across the rainbow bridge one month ago, and I’ve been depressed ever since. I still cry and feel his absence deeply. The sharp pain and heaviness in my chest have lessened, but they’re still there.

I go out every day—talking to neighbors, having lunch with friends, attending events I’m invited to, and spending hours at the gym. I’ve been working out daily.

Without the need to walk my 80+ pound dog three times a day, I suddenly have more uninterrupted time. I’ve been channeling that into my writing project, which is progressing well.

I also have two trips planned, something that would’ve been impossible when I was caring for a 13-year-old large dog. I’m doing everything I can to avoid spending days in bed, mindlessly watching Netflix all day and night. I’ve been there before. I know how it happens, and I know how to prevent it.

At the same time, multiple changes have happened in my life—not particularly happy ones.

From the outside, I probably look fine. I’m functioning well. But I’m not okay. I don’t feel alive.

Even when I laugh, enjoy conversations with friends, or run on a treadmill for an hour, I feel… hollow. Like a cow, grazing mindlessly on grass, waiting to be slaughtered, unaware of its fate.

And I ask myself: Am I depressed? Or is this just how most people feel, going through the motions of everyday life?

On Facebook, everyone presents their happy, vibrant lives. But are they really alive, or do they just think they are?

As the old Chinese parable says: Am I a monk dreaming of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of being a monk?

Mindfulness of Hannibal

Posted on by SomatiCat

I’ve learned mindfulness of eating from Hannibal Lecter.

I have been an omnivore for the most of my life.  I am still.  Once in a while I cut out certain food following the fad diet of the day, but never followed through. I have vegan friends.  I also have Paleo friends.   I don’t mind what they eat or don’t eat, so long as they don’t force me how they eat.

freshrabbitWhen my dog passed, I stopped eating meat.  It was my mourning.   I never consider dogs and cats as meat.  They are individuals with names.  If a dog is an individual, then what about a cow?   What about rabbits?   On Saturdays In Union Square green market, rabbit meat is sold.  Across the street in Petco, pet rabbits adoption event is going on.  Where does the line between friends (some call them pets) and food lie?

So I just stopped eating the four-legged out of respect to my late four-legged partner of 14 years.  I didn’t specified the term.  I simply chose to go back to the indigenous diet of my old country and see how it would go.  As a Buddhist country, eating four-legged animals was spoken of as taboo.  Fish, fowl, and properly hunted game meat were allowed.

My first “oops” happened when I ordered turkey club sandwich.  It had bacon bits.

Since it was not for religious or medical reason but my personal choice, I didn’t avoid bacon bits.  Wasting the life already given up for the sake of respecting a dog’s life didn’t make sense.

Before my dog’s death, when I went to a diner, I would order “Burger with fries,” or “Philly Cheesesteak”  without thinking much about what I put in my body.  Switching to turkey burger or just salad didn’t work.  Chef’s salad contains processed meat.

This experiment turned out to be a good exercise of mindfulness practice.

Every time I eat, I have to stop and be aware of exactly what I am going to put in my mouth.   I have to be aware what is important for me and why. Then I have to make a fully conscious choice.   I am to be fully responsible for the consequence of my choice.

When I visited my mom in my old country, I forgot to tell her my current diet restriction.  Anyway, special diet as a personal choice is not well-respected in the culture where people experienced starvation a couple generations ago.

In the 2002 film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding,  Toula’s boyfriend Ian is vegetarian.  She tells her mom that Ian doesn’t eat meat.  Her Greek mom understands and says, “Then eat lamb.”

My mom served  “good” beef for dinner.   I knew what it meant to her.   When the country and we were poor, keeping her children well fed was her mission.  Beef was expensive and reserved for special occasions.   So what should I do?   What is my choice?  Do I tell her that I won’t eat meat because my mutt died?  The old woman with a bad hip walked all the way to the butcher shop to buy the gourmet meat.  I didn’t say anything, ate the beef and appreciated it.  It was my choice.

Through this exercise, I’ve learned to be aware of the lives I consume to live.  BLT is not BLT anymore.  A Four-legged creature was killed to feed us.  It is a life taken and given to us.

Ossobuco

I was watching Hannibal (NBC TV show by Bryan Fuller), and one scene hit me.  I will never see Ossobuco in the same way again.  Hannibal was preparing the “meat” for Ossobuco, cutting a leg (it did not belong to four-legged creatures). It was not the scene of cutting a human leg that upset me.  It was the realization that Ossobuco was made of a cow’s leg that shocked me.  I had never thought of a cow’s life taken when I enjoyed Ossobuco.

OSSOBUCO IS PEOPLE #HANNIBALpic.twitter.com/QmJFMtSERW

“I’m very careful about what I put into my body. Which means I end up preparing most meals myself.”  Hannibal says to Will.

I’ve learned mindfulness of eating from Hannibal Lecter.

Dogs Keep a Promise

Posted on by SomatiCat

DogskeepaPromise

Last night I talked a woman through putting her unconscious dog to sleep.  She is somebody I constantly bumped into in Central Park when I took my dog for a weekend morning off leash walk, a doggy friend, not a human friend.  We never saw each other without dogs.  My dog passed about a year ago.  Since then, I haven’t seen her.   That’s how it works.  People with dogs and people without dogs occupy separate worlds in the city.

She was one of those people who lived for their dogs, who won’t leave their dog alone more than a couple of hours.  One of us who don’t trust people, but trust dogs.  One of us who learn what love feels like for the first time through our dogs.

Her dog had a cancer surgery and came back home O.K.  Then suddenly the dog collapsed and lost consciousness.

I’ve been there.  My dog had a brain tumor and one day suddenly collapsed at the ripe age of 14.

She knew there are no options but one.  She just needed confirmation from somebody else.  She had already spent 10 hours in the hospital waiting for her dog to regain consciousness.

Most of time, we know what we should do, and still sometimes we need to convince ourselves to do.  We get  trapped in the fear of should have, could have, might have.  What we need is somebody who hear what we can’t say and mirror it back.

She said she wanted to follow her dog.  I told her I felt the same way. But then after one year I still feel my dog’s love saturating my life on a nice spring day.

Dogs keep a promise a person can’t.
–Dr. Bloom.
A quote from Hannibal by Bryan Fuller