in the maelstrom

My wife came home from New Jersey yesterday. She looked as taut and tender as a rug burn.

Yesterday was the day when her mother, Mary, had been brought home from the hospital. Mary is in her late 80's, has a tumor on her lungs and is given three months to live. Some of her seven children live near at hand and it is somehow better to be at home ... at home in the maelstrom.

What do you say when there is nothing to say? How do you escape when there is no way to escape and yet escape thunders in the mind, bright as lightning? How do you ease the exhaustion that refuses to be eased? How do you end this ceaseless shredding of assumption and cohesiveness and love?

Why Zen Buddhists should bother creating a curriculum of koans when the koans are everywhere and always as plain as the nose on your face beats the hell out of me.

Oh well, everyone has their excuses.

My mother once wrote a tale called, "Mr. Death and the Red-Headed Woman." I wonder why the personification of death is so frequently male. Is it because men are stupider and less caring and less nurturing than women? When it comes to caring and nurturing, who could be more caring and nurturing than Mrs. or Ms. Death? My mother is too old to be bothered with such questions, but that doesn't mean I can't ask them.