Dear Readers,
Welcome to a change in process. I will from time to time add fictional tableaus along with spiritual teachings. I will attempt to weave together the teachings with a story and a story with the teachings. When you see the Red Reticule image it is a signal of this mingling of the work in process.
The first story is from a novel in process titled, The Misery of Mrs. Geesky. It begins with a very short introductory synopsis followed by Chapter One.
Admittedly, this substack is long…take your time…it will be available for a bit longer time than usual.
It is about practice.
Introductory Synopsis
“I made them happier,” chants Rada Geesky, after each of her patient’s die with her at their bedside. She believes it, lives by it.
After Rada, at the age of five, kills her infant sister she is sent away to a residential school for disturbed children. To help her live with being a 5-year-old murderer, she taught herself the chant, “I made them happier.” This chant made it possible for her to put a life together as a dependable, insensitive, hospice chaplain.
The appalling sadness of her plight, although unusual, is more common than anyone might imagine.
“Repetition comes to those who believe their unforgettable wound is permanent.”
“It’s all make believe!” The old declare.
BEFORE CHAPTER ONE
Consider part of the first line of the Heart Sutra.
…when practicing deeply the perfection of wisdom, one perceives that all five heaps of form, feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness of ego are empty and is saved from all suffering and distress.
Consider the practice, the cause of suffering and being saved from suffering.
CHAPTER ONE
…when the spiritual life becomes known, all the pleasures are as nothing compared with the joy of that great self-realization, and so… ‘To the enlightened all (this) is misery’… Ernest Wood
Version 2023 July
The Old Story, Beforehand
Mrs. Geesky was once an infant. It was when she had no ideas in her mind. Some believed she still had no ideas, at least none worth listening to with any seriousness. This might explain why she shouted. But still, she once was a baby, the time in her life when everything was done for her. She does not remember it. Without memories, it was a myth. She makes it up with a shrug. It went something like, ‘they were happy, and they were happier because I was born.’ Early on she noticed that repeating something made things more believable, more real. To consummate the old story, she sometimes included another account.
It goes like this.
Mother told father she was going to have a baby. It was a surprise to him.
They laughed and smiled at one another but behind their smiling faces they were afraid. The fear was all about how they were going to take care of a baby when they were too happy with one another. A baby changes things between a man and a woman; makes them pretend to be grown-ups and to be careful when carrying the sack of potatoes. First, mother carried it inside her and then handed it off to others. Father seemed indifferent to it; much of the time he wanted to give it back to mother. It was a game, a hot potato game, where the last one to hold the hot potato lost the game.
Both Uncle Leo and Aunt Lucy were surprised, smiled, and pretended not to be afraid, but they were. The fear for them was a jealous fear because they were married for many years and had no babies. Aunt Lucy never had a bag of potatoes to hand off to Uncle Leo. But they never said anything, never once mentioned their fear; instead, they gave mother and father gifts.
Uncle Leo drove a truck between the states. When he heard a baby was coming, he’d bring home all sorts of gifts; for the most part he brought plastic toys wrapped in thin cellophane, the kind that hang on metal display stands in gas stations. Aunt Lucy was a good baker and she made cakes in all assorted sizes and shapes. ‘Cake,’ she would say, ‘is my favorite sweet.’ She said that in a happy, cheerful voice as if she were telling mother and father, she, too, was going to have a baby.
The heat during the summer was sweaty, muggy heat making everything sticky and uncomfortable. Mother was sick and the weight she gained made her legs swell and her face turn red and clammy. Father didn’t know how to help her, no one did, except Aunt Lucy suggested she put her feet up and have a cup of coffee with a slice of her cake. And since her suggestion was said in a cheerful happy tune mother was delighted to follow it. She told father Aunt Lucy knew about these things.
No one seemed to investigate any connections between the cake and the discomfort because they never wanted to mention any disadvantage of having a baby. Having a baby was somehow special; it was a gift from above. At least it was for mother and father, except I figured out it was the old fear and not a reverence of any kind that made them keep quiet. It was different than it appeared.
On the day I was born father told mother ‘She’s an American.’ Mother was very tired and all she could do was shake her head and smile. Father turned to see the little rosy face and sweet pink head and repeated, ‘She’s an American. And we will call her Rada.’
Mother was a noble wife and let father name me even though mother did think all along that my name should be Vera. Mother never cared for arguments about what she thought was important because she had a sense father would not understand. She thought it was a weakness shared by all men. Intimacies between them were kept for the night when everyone was asleep.
Everyone needs an old story, beforehand. I noticed when mother and father sat in the dining room at the table, they told each other stories. It was after I was told I could leave the table. Father’s stories were about his work, what he called his ‘daily grind.’ It wasn’t until I was older, I found out his daily grind was selling houses to other people. Mother told stories about shopping and her boss who stood too close to her at work. She was a receptionist in a big insurance company.
I heard the stories while I sat on the floor on the other side of the swinging door to the dining room. I stayed very still and listened to them until I heard mother clink the forks and knives against the soiled plates. She always began to hum when she was clearing off the table after dinner, especially if she liked the story father told her. There were times when I heard everything they said, every word. Sometimes they snapped at each other like Uncle Leo’s old dog and sometimes they were quiet up until mother cleared the table by clinking a dish and a fork together. On those nights she did not hum. But anytime I heard the plates and spoons, I’d get up and run to my room. I was never caught.
During one of their snappish, quick-tempered stories I heard father yell. He shouted at mother and told her he was not happy with her news. Mother started crying and then everything went silent. No forks or spoon noise, no plates clinking, no stories and no words. Something was wrong but I didn’t figure it out until some months later.
“This is your baby sister,” father said holding a red-faced, red-haired baby under my nose.
“Where did she come from?”
Father didn’t answer the question; he took her and began to set her on my lap. I jumped up and ran into mother’s room and climbed into bed with her. She looked worse than father. I thought she was sick, and I began to cry and shake and pull her arm.
“Rada, Rada.” Mother said this in her you’re-getting-on-my-nerves voice. “What’s wrong?” she asked while she rolled over and pulled me to her chest. But she smelled sour like the smelly garbage in the pantry trash cans. With my face pushed against her breast I heard her mumble in her trying-to-recover voice, “Rada, did you meet your baby sister? Her name is Vera.” I opened my mouth and bit into her soft, wet nightgown and wouldn’t let go. Mother screamed for father, but I let go before he got there. I looked at her with my meanest look and asked again.
“Where did she come from?”
No one ever answered.
Mother and father told me over and over, “This is your baby sister.” Uncle Leo and Aunt Lucy looked at me as if they didn’t hear me when I’d ask them. They’d repeat, “She’s your baby sister.”
But I knew she was the reason mother cried and father yelled. It wasn’t just one night after dinner. I heard mother crying lots of times and father yelling in the middle of the night. When I saw the bag of potatoes and them playing the potato game, I knew she was the reason they stopped being too happy.
I lived in the two-flat with mother and father on the first floor until I was five years old, just about 50 years ago. I remember because I was going to go to kindergarten after my next birthday. Baby-sister never had a birthday party. It made them happy again.
I never found out where baby-sister came from. One day she was there and on another day she wasn’t. When she disappeared, I was sent away to school. I did everything I could to make them happy again. And the school told me over and over I’d be OK. The school made me OK.
Another old story, beforehand.
Everyone, at least everyone alive at the time, was in the middle of their lives --- eating and sleeping, going to bed, and getting up. Working and kissing and going out and coming back. Making plans for tomorrow. They were dreaming; a good deal of time was spent dreaming and talking about dreams.
Mrs. Geesky lived on the first floor of a two-flat with mother and father until she was five. Uncle Leo and Aunt Lucy lived above them. Aunt Lucy made the birthday cake with a plastic toy centerpiece brought home by Uncle Leo from a highway gas station. This was Mrs. Geesky’s last birthday party before she was sent away to school; the birthday party before Mrs. Geesky killed her baby sister.
Consider the practice, the cause of suffering and the end of suffering in your life. All five heaps are empty.
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