Navigating Uncertainty with Cynthia Marie Hoffman [by Nin Andrews]

Life is suffering is the first of the Buddhist Noble Truths. The fourth Noble truth—there is a path that leads to the end of suffering. I thought about that a lot the last month when trying to find that fourth path. Suffering might not be the right word—maybe I should simply say, worrying. All I wanted was to stop my mind from going into orbit. But into orbit it spun faster and faster . . .  Really, it was just a crazy month, I tell myself now. A month that started with a doctor suggesting I might have cancer but ended with good news: benign--my new favorite word in the English dictionary. 

It was also a month of friends and siblings telling me how to cope with suffering. People so freely offer advice and insights. I divided them into four categories: the denialists, the realists, the dreamers, and the analysts. The denialists insist they won’t get sick. And you won’t either. No need to go the doctor or worry about medical tests. (I have a friend with stage four breast cancer who insists the diagnosis is incorrect.) The realists see the human body as a car that needs annual tune-ups, replacement parts, engine work, and admit that the future depends on what model you are lucky or unlucky enough to be driving, or what terrain you have driven over. The dreamers believe we choose our own illnesses. Even cancers. It’s all part of a divine plan. The analysts tell me there’s a reason for sicknesses. If I have breast cancer, for example, it means I have an unresolved issue with my mother.

In trying to navigate this new territory, I picked up the book, Exploding Head, by Cynthia Marie Hoffman—clearly my head was exploding.  Hoffman writes beautifully about living inside a mind that has its own scary narratives that will not be hushed. I found it comforting to read a book by someone with thoughts as wild as my own.  

Uncertainty

You will only be cured of the uncertainty about your own death after you die, so what good does it do? Tonight, the rabbits run in the wet grass, white tails bobbing like lifeboats on turbulent seas. You are invited to sit with uncertainty. Sit in this porch chair in need of paint by the prickly weeds fattening in the garden. Everywhere, the great unknown is murmuring. Today, walking barefoot through the yard, you found tufts of fur, a curl of entrails from which a single red berry had tumbled. You tried opening a door for the ghosts to shuttle through, but they held tight to the shadows. You always blocked your ears, anyway, humming like the child you still are against the truth you refuse to hear. You cannot go on flinching at each small thing. See how the rabbits ride the current, trimming the sails of their ears to the wind. Surely the dead had a good last meal. Surely that berry broke a bright tang against her teeth.

Dark Matter

Anything not cold is not fear. That is the rule of the night. Blanket pulled tight against your lips, warm kiss of armor. There are various densities of dark, a shadow inside a shadow. You never see the knife, but you know it’s there. Nor the man, but you wait for him. The forest leans over the house. You dare not move, but your mind moves, hardening shadow into muscle, bone to a barrel of steel. For many years, you lie immobile. If the shadow is a thought, why can’t you unthink it? On windy nights, the old trees inch toward the window.

Comments

[Mary Morris]

Nin Andrews, you always amaze me!