(Join the club.)
I think her idea was she’d somehow come into her artistic self during that six-month recess. Which may have been too ambitous. Kelly was deeply afraid of failure. What if in the end she had nothing to show for her efforts but a painting or two or a shelf of unfired ceramic pots or a notebook of mediocre koan responses and haikus?
Her resentment toward me was palpable. I totally understood. There she was having a dark sabbatical-sabbath of the soul, and there I was, the housebound blob who bore witness. She was naked and vulnerable, hard-bodied and weary from too much desperation-yoga, waiting like a trembling innocent for the cosmos to provide order and direction — who wants to do that in front of the Pillsbury Couchboy? I became the court stenographer (I was already the jester) charged with meticulously keeping the minutes of her myriad creative miscarriages. Ideally, Kelly’s struggle was of the sort best played out on Walden Pond or in a converted Nova Scotian lighthouse. Or maybe one of those forest lookouts on Desolation Peak that Kerouac and Snyder used to favor. I stayed as far out of her way as humanly possible, even pulling a teenage disappearing act whenever she was home — we kept separate bedrooms for years — and she was home a lot. It only made things worse. To her, my conspicuous absence felt like a surveillance camera.
That isn’t to say we weren’t civil. We shared meals together — my wife believed dinner with place mats and cloth napkins was the last bastion of family life — and put up a unified front for Ryder as best we could. But subtle and not so subtle indications of household friction couldn’t be avoided. At table, she was spikey. She gossiped about friends and acquaintances, the anecdotes always featuring what the boyfriends and well-off husbands did for a living. X was a workaholic—“He spent three months researching conjoint therapists!”—and Y traveled to far-flung places yet always managed to bring his significant other. “He goes to Europe every month for business and takes her with him.” I listened, friendly and wide-eyed, with the dumb, vicarious smile of a freeloading younger brother fallen on hard times.
My only value was playing Mr. Mom, a role I happened to relish. Finally, something I didn’t have to apologize for. I just loved being Ryder’s dad. During holidays and school vacations we spent hours playing board games of our own invention, creating miniature worlds whose domains stretched from hardwood floor to backyard grass and beyond. We rented Cukor films and provided scatological commentary. I adored taking him for bacon and eggs at the local greasy spoon and he was thrilled when I allowed him a sip of coffee. Of course, I couldn’t resist dragging him to bookstores. The more rare a book was — the more expensive, the more exquisite — the greater his interest.
I look back now and see that time with him as an extraordinary blessing.
The result being that Kelly was free — to do, go, be whatever. I know that she used that opportunity to flush a few trysts from her system, consummate a few flirtations. But it wasn’t enough to be, Kelly needed to become. She got deeper into her practice. Went on retreats to gain esoteric knowledge from visiting tulkus. She was of dedicated service to the sangha, spearheading a fundraiser to repair the zendo’s leaky roof. She taught incarcerated women how to meditate and got certified in Ashtanga. Began chanting and singing — kirtan. (Everyone said, “That voice. Where did it come from?”) I watched her body continue to grow lithe, long, sculpted. Her yoga for underprivileged women class became so popular it was written up in The Chronicle. Ryder squealed with delight when he saw the above-the-fold photo of his mom.
But still, she languished. She complained that everything was busywork — everything a distraction. She thought she’d had lift-off from the lip of the void but there she was again. Then, in the middle of her leave, something shifted. A friend of hers from the Zen Center visited elementary schools, teaching Buddhist fundamentals to kids from Richmond, Larkspur, Millbrae, Palo Alto, San Rafael. He was a very sweet guy — Kelly had once introduced us at a Metta Hospice lecture — very hyper, very personable. His shtick was to make Buddhism accessible, to spread the dharma and make it fun. The gig he created for himself filled a niche. When Kelly asked if she could tag along, he was delighted.
She was captivated from Day One. She couldn’t believe how these kids were getting it. They were jacked up, dancing around and playing music, shouting “Impermanence Rocks!” and generally strutting their crazy kid-wisdom stuff. Toward the end of each class, her “dharmabud” led them in guided meditation, which they took to like ducks to water. They even got the concept of Nothingness and the death of the ego, sitting like little fortune cookies in perfect lotus position. The guy would play “Nothing Compares 2 U,” remember that? Well, Kelly just bawled like a baby. She said the experience put her in touch again with that feeling she’d almost forgotten, the joyful spirit of beginner’s mind. She got blown back to those early days of study and devotion, when the magnificent, irrefutable logic of the Four Noble Truths cracked open her head. (I always tell people in AA that once you work the Steps, move on to the Truths.) See, Buddhism’s like anything man puts his hand to; one day you wake up and everything’s turned to shit. The magic’s been replaced by cliques of assholes with policies, slogans and gibberish, empty rituals. I think Kelly might have been feeling some of that, the emptiness of it, the is-that-all-there-is-ness of her practice (though not in a good way), and the kids reset her clock. God bless the children. [sings] “God bless the child who’s got his own! Who’s got his own…”
Still, I wondered how this fellow managed to slip Buddhism into the curriculum. Wasn’t that a violation of church and state? As liberal as folks tend to be around this part of the country, you’d have to be naïve not to expect resistance from some of the parents, right? But Kelly said that Dharmabud was very careful not to push Buddhist doctrine, at least not directly. He wasn’t converting anyone. He just wanted to share the concept of compassion, to convey the preciousness of life. He covered his bases: meditation equaled nothing more than the traditionally vaunted “quiet time.” Probably his strongest message was how Mother Earth needed respect and taking care of. (I suppose a Republican might have a problem with that.) He made the Buddha into a generic but dignified cartoon character who carried the message.
The pediatric Magical Mystery Tour — which suited this Namaste-at-home dad just fine! — came along at the perfect time, giving my wife some much-needed juice. As the licensed in-house observer, I sensed the groundwork for something being laid. Suddenly, Kelly got very busy. (Which was great, in that she was no longer crawling up my ass on an hourly basis.) When she wasn’t “managing” the zendo, teaching yoga or doing her jail thing, she tagged along with Dharmabud, auditing his classes. She started missing our mandatory suppers and made up for it by “intensives” with Ryder just before bed. Whenever I stood by the door to listen, it was all bell, book and Buddhism. She even gave pop quizzes. It reminded me of those awful movies she used to watch over and over—Little Buddha and Kundun—starring the once and future Dalai Lama and his tutors.
I don’t want to sound bitchy. The truth is, she was completely devoted to our son. Things were chugging along famously until I learned that Kelly was keeping something from me — my codependent, beleaguered, overachieving wife had been tutoring at the women’s prison for months, and now was poised to continue the work.