Sabbatical in … Milwaukee to Vancouver to …

After Teri died in 2011, several close friends suggested that I take a sabbatical to grieve and recover.  What a rejuvenating suggestion at the time!  Alas, one impossible to pursue as I became the conscripted 22/7 caretaker for my 91 year old father, beginning his long march into aging dementia.  Then after he passed, I organized his memorials and stewarded his academic papers, remaining books and art as he wanted.  Another added effort on top of work.   

So, my sabbatical began this year, known otherwise as retirement.  People asked often how it was going.  I couldn’t respond as it was too early to know and I had no established routines.  Now I do.  I sleep in and awaken environmentally to traffic rhythms outside my window, no longer the alarm!  I begin with 8 Qi Gong exercises gleaned from Margaret an artist friend of my parents, the Ba Duan Jin that addresses specific health issues including hypertension.  I drink cocoa bean tea an superdrink steeped in antioxidants.  (Harvard/NIH invited me to be a 7 year participant to study its anticancer and antiheart disease effects.)  I remain on the Portfolio diet with more plant based proteins (oatmeal, almonds), little dairy, meat and red and white, less refined sugar.  I drink P’u er (fermented in Yunnan Province) tea for its digestive benefits.  I continue to exercise 7 days a week, Chen Tai Chi, biking or spinning, running, restarted swimming this year, yoga.  More on Tai Chi later.

I read the disheartening real news but try to maintain a precarious equanimity as events devolve.  I answer e-mails, the personal ones with delight.  A moving letter arrived from a former patient who survived a liver transplant at age one and invited me to her wedding.  Made my month!  Although I don’t see patients, I still do academic work.  This year, I have given a surprising number of invited talks including ones at Johns Hopkins, Harvard and Beijing Children’s Hospital.  And several to APAMSA groups at Stanford, UCLA, UW-Madison and here.  This will certainly decline so I enjoy it, while it continues.  I review manuscripts, write letters for promotion and edit for UpToDate the most used online clinical reference textbook.  I’m about to launch a part-time 2^nd opinion teleconsultation for long distance patients with cyclic vomiting syndrome.  However, without a trusted assistant, I am:  secretary, transcriptionist, travel agent, telephone interface and bottle washer.  I appear to have an unquenchable thirst for words despite 36 books so far including tomes on Alexander Hamilton, the Beatles, and The Gene.  With the assistance of a Chinese art historian and a Chinese reading friend from Taiwan, I just completed reviewing and shipping 13 large boxes of my father's academic papers and slides to Taiwan National University and three boxes of his books to Arizona State University.  With further help, I am getting his art cataloged, organized, stored, insured.  And I see Rachel, John, Jack and Naomi, Ben and Theresa, Steve, Memee … with regularity. 

Ah, Vancouver (Oh, Canada) for two months!

It has become an essential, healing haven for me.  It began with Teri and I visiting my parents during summers, then accompanying my father after my mother passed, then three times my father and I, and finally the last three years by myself.  I switched from Yang-style (soft) Tai Chi studied in Milwaukee to Chen (original form, more martial) Tai Chi there.  The Sifu (master) Paul Tam (a national champion of Southern Fist) is a student of the highest rated Tai Chi expert in China Chen Zhenglai also a direct descendent of the founder of Tai Chi.  What I began as a hobbyist five years ago, has progressed to aficionado and now dedicated pupil.  This summer I trained two hours every day – my boot camp –and just completed learning the core 74 form old frame I (Lao Jia Yi Lu).  This year I really noticed the benefits.  Lost weight, built muscle.  Improved balance, increased energy, enhanced flexibility.  But some costs.  Due to the crouch (horse stance), my quads are continually sore.  Last year an overuse injury of knees and this year torn right hip adductors. 

Life in Vancouver with its temperate dry sunny days, screenless (bugless) windows, scenic sea and mountains in a single view (with a touch of retained snow caps) and endless excellent Asian cuisine – is otherwise simple for me.  I don’t have to cook as Chinese comfort food (dumplings, bing zi) abound.  Sans car, I bike everywhere.  I study Mandarin with a tutor for four hours a week.  I go out to museums, openings and eat with friends.  For the first time, I participated in a Tai Chi performance at the Taiwan festival.  The grand kids came to tear around an indoor water park, an indoor kids city and an outdoor park with zip line and 30 foot tower slide.  Steve my best buddy transformed me into a Vancouver tourist and ferried us to Victoria and Butchart Gardens.  For the first time, I put up paintings on the barren walls, converting it from temporary abode to colorful pied-à-terre.  And, I made a decision to expand my father’s contemporary abstract ink theme and purchased some new paintings this year.  A serendipitous encounter lead me to an editor of a contemporary Chinese art magazine who will advise me.

Now returned to Milwaukee just in time to resume my annual fall meeting journeys.  I am auditing a graduate seminar on Neolithic development and early Chinese bronzes at UW-Milwaukee.  I am teaching/practicing Chen Tai Chi to/with a Chinese American trainer. 

So how am I doing?

Brimming with stimulation, words, exercise, travel and even work … on slow time, no longer frenetic.  I notice that I don’t get upset – as I used to overreact and catastrophize – when traffic builds up, can’t find parking, and things don’t unfold as I meticulously planned …  Still improving this self, body and mind.  I’ve maintained my new weight (11% lower) for 22 months and feel quite empowered at this ripe age that I can remold and rejuvenate my somatic self.  I’m establishing new physical skills and muscle memory.  I’m listening to my body.  I’m learning about Chinese art and many other miscellany while keeping active in my pediatric gastroenterology field.  So bottom line, more energy, more positivity, more peace, more mindfulness and openness to new experiences.  So yes, after six years, I’ve finally come up for air and the sabbatical is rejuvenating.

As James Brown belted out “I feel good”.