Zen and the Darkness

Hello, darkness my old friend.

I’ve come to talk with you again.

I do not love the dark.

I love Simon and Garfunkel, and Sounds of Silence is to my mind one of the greatest songs ever written. But darkness is not my friend.

Decades ago the Muppet Babies sang about how good things happen in the dark (which sounds weirdly inappropriate now). I recently heard a podcast about embracing dark moments, but I do not love the dark, and as October marches towards November, the dark grows increasingly pervasive. I may have to talk with the dark again, but it is not generally a friendly conversation.

The physical dark oppresses me. Years ago when we remodeled our kitchen, I had the electrician install pendant lights, lights in the upper glass cabinets, a light over the sink, and recessed lights all through the rest of the ceiling. You could land a jet in my kitchen, it’s like a runway’s worth of lights.  On cloudy dark mornings I turn on EVERY LIGHT I CAN GET TO. My husband loses his mind, he likes the cavelike darkness, but I NEED THE LIGHT.

Last year I finally bought one of those light box things to try and help me deal with my increasingly challenged zen in the fall and winter months. I am not sure if shining super bright light into my pupils for 20-30 minutes a day is actually going to help my body produce more serotonin, but I figure it’s worth a try, even if I only get a placebo effect out of it.

I have little light up bottles and tea lights and big candles and fake candles that change color and decorative lights and LIGHTS GALORE. And still, I am ready to hide by about 7:38 these days. When I walk the dog in the morning now I need my “please don’t run me over!” blinking flashlight/lantern combo. IN THE MORNING. Ugh.

The physical darkness of these months is compounded by the darkness in society right now, the anger and fear and name calling and loathing that seem omnipresent. I am making a conscious (albeit not super successful) effort to stay OFF social media for more of the day, to not check the news except for BBC so I know what is going on in the world—even that is pretty dark, but it isn’t the slickly marketed darkness that the US News wallows in these days.  This kind of darkness weighs on my soul. A lot.

Our personal history of this time of year is pretty, dark, too. Maybe that contributes to some of my lack of focus, my feeling like I need to be super proactive to fight off the gloom? In November of 2004 my daughter epically failed her first chemo—something I could not even fathom, at the time.  This was supposed to work for 7 out of 10 kids. G was in the 3. We were devastated. In October of 2005 she ended chemo number 2 and found out that she had progression, and had to start the incredibly difficult season of chemo #3. Note to self, never scan on Halloween. December/January of that year were some of the darkest of our story, as G’s port broke and floated into her pulmonary artery, she developed cellulitis around the new port site, spent 10 days inpatient with infection/neutropenia (a first), and then had an MRI that indicated malignant transformation and a potential death sentence for our 7 year old.

No number of tea lights will take the edge off THAT.

December of 2011 is when everything started again, tumor progression, shunt surgery, a clinical trial. These months are DARK.

I just finished reading Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation, and he talks a lot about the dark, and about finding God there (or God finding us there…this book is so deep, I feel like I need to read it 18 more times before I can begin to scratch the surface of what Merton knew).  He also talks a lot about just BEING, not DOING.

Ugh. I am the worst at Being. Especially in these dark days. For me being turns into sleeping.

But really—in the moments of being, moments of light can be found. In being there for my kid who needs to talk…in being outside with my dog who needs to snoofle, just being in that moment, listening to the squirrels in the crunchy leaves and knowing they are squirrels and not giant bears of impending doom…in being in the moment as I make dinner, or work on some art, or sweep a floor, I can see some light in these moments.

And not to go all last century political on things, but if I can look around a little, if I can just try to set aside the reality of the dark for a moment, I can see a thousand points of light in the good people are doing, in the happy dog/owner reunion videos I keep watching, in the generosity of our neighbors when my kid goes door to door asking for donations for her Appalachia trip.  The prayers of friends for each other, the support people offer to those in need, the smile from a person at a store or a cheerful conversation with a gas station attendant—all of these are points of light.

That image of a thousand points of light is so timely. We can’t do a whole lot about the pervasive darkness—but we can all be points of light for each other—even today, even in the fraught climate of yikes that threatens to make our future impenetrably dark.

I am trying. Failing a LOT, but trying to be more a  point of light than another layer of darkness. My own darkness is pretty mighty, my resentment over injustices done to people I love, my frustration with mind blowing hypocrisy, my impatience with one of my children seeming to want to be on the tv show Hoarders.  My own darkness sticks like sap to so much of what I try to do, and I hate that.  I want to be a point of light.

I need to be at peace with the physical darkness around, and with our family’s own personal darkness associated with this time of year. Both of these will pass or HAVE passed, and I need to take hope in that. I do take hope in that. As for the dark in society—well, I just have to try harder every day to be a point of light. To share “the good things people need to hear”.  To create words/art/moments that bring light to people.  To make people laugh. To support friends and reach out and not just hide under my blankets until some theoretical spring.

So—let’s do it. Let me know ways you know to be a point of light.  How can we collectively shine together…to paraphrase, to be a light in the darkness,  that the darkness shall not overcome?

Our first fundraiser for the Children's Tumor Foundation was

in 2006, just after the terrible MRI of January. The years of support

from so many people shines on for us as a point of light, a little candle in the darkness.

Jersey Lament

from Tuesday, 10/30

I type by the light of 2 battery “accent lights” from a 6 pack I got at Costco on Saturday, my back vaguely warmed by the sea of candles lighting the rest of my first floor. I cannot even upload this post, since we are without power, like most of New Jersey, and without power, I have no wireless internet…but I still have some computer battery left…so here I am.


Hurricane Sandy was, for us here on my street, a big storm punctuated by four hours of Really Scary --think 40 foot willow tree bending sideways in my yard as we heard pieces of our house peeling off. We lost power about 8 p.m. on October 29, just after the storm made landfall far to the south of us, near our beloved Cape May…where my onco kid conquered her exertion anxiety and climbed all 199 steps of the famous lighthouse just this past June. Within an hour of the power loss the winds picked up, the air sounded like a freight train even from the safety of our candlelit living room. From our somewhat protected back deck we could see the sky lighting up as transformers and wires danced explosively. The sound of it was something I have never really experienced before….


And we are miles and miles from the nearest coastline.
This morning I was afraid to look out the window…but in the breezy stillness and light rain I could see that the willow, while maimed once again, was still standing. We lost 2 gutters and 3 pieces of metal trim literally peeled off the roofline of our house (the longest twisted piece of metal is about 7 feet long)…but aside from that, and a carpet of branches, we were remarkably unscathed. Our entire neighborhood was remarkably unscathed, one dead tree had fallen in the space between 2 neighbors’ houses, but that was about it.


The three gourds someone lined up on our deck railing remained in a neat row this morning.

We are so lucky.

My spouse went out in search of coffee and a real bathroom (we have well water, so no power=no water, and only late this afternoon a neighbor with a generator hooked us up to their well so we can at least flush toilets and wash hands), and saw the extent of the damage near us…trees down everywhere. Wires down everywhere. Houses hidden by fallen trees. Poles and wires tangled and blocking roads. It’s a mess. We found out that a good friend who lives about a ½ mile away had significant damage to their home and property. My work (a school) had 14 trees down on the campus, and the streets around it are impassable because of downed utility poles. Friends around the country were texting me, but I could hardly get my texts to go out, the networks are overloaded here or something…

And then we managed to find some radio coverage of what was going on…

Our poor New Jersey got flattened.

Being disconnected from information NOW is so frustrating, so deeply frustrating. See, Jersey is a really small state. Freakishly small. So when news reports talk about Hoboken or Jersey City, we remember when we went to dinner there…or a reporter stands on a windy beach in Point Pleasant, my youngest remembers when Daddy got to chaperone her class trip to the aquarium there…or the camera pans to Atlantic City, I think of the fun I had with my sisters on my 40th birthday trip there, or how I went there with a friend on my first grown up vacation when I was barely 21. Seaside Heights? My first NF Endurance race. Lavallette? Where my parents vacation every summer. Newark? Great time at a Devils game, or where my girls got to see Taylor Swift in concert. Hey, that reporter is right by where we did the Polar Plunge for Camp Sunshine last February!


Jersey is small. If somewhere is on the news, unless it’s the far southwestern portion (that’s a tad less accessible to northern Jersey folks), we’ve been there, and generally had fun there, or we have friends who live there, or a neighbor works there….

Sigh. Sandy threw a smackdown on our neighborhood, both locally and our little state.

Getting specks of information, not being able to get cell phones to connect, not seeing what is going on…knowing that all of our favorite places are not just struggling but likely obliterated…it’s appalling and frustrating and scary.


I know we are tough here, it’s what Jersey is famous for, in some respects, that “fugghedaboudit” attitude that is so easily parodied. But under that, just like under any tough shell, is a deep love for this crazy little state. We accept being the punchline of jokes because we know the truth about the gems that lie just beyond the famous Turnpike. We know that we have invented all sorts of unique and impressive forms of corruption here, of double dealing, of stupid laws, of personality stereotypes, of insane home prices and cost of living, of food (ok, our food is awesome)…but beyond ALL of that ridiculousness, we love this place.


I know I will cry when I finally see the pictures, the pictures of this state I love, this state I call home. I don’t have it in me (in the dark of my powerless house) to burst into inspirational song about triumph over adversity…this one hurts. It does. The scope of this is so huge, and our state is so small, it’s our home, every corner of it is kind of in our backyard.

But we are Jersey proud. And we will get through this, even if it seems sooooooo clichéd to say that right now. So Sandy…we know you threw your best at us, and you knocked us down, and yeah, you flattened us…but are we going to just lick our wounds and hide in the Meadowlands with Jimmy Hoffa somewhere?

Fugghedaboudit.