Chicago's Ebert

We are not preoccupied with death, our paean to yesterday's Iron Lady notwithstanding. This year, we move into that last phase of our existence we previously labeled as the "celebration of our finitude". We turn 68 on our gracious journey unto death, and on a chosen timeline until 2031 when we make 86, we shall allow the eulogy in our Requiem and the singing of a final Te Deum when our cremated remains is cast to the wind and water currents of the terrestrial realm.

In the 70-80s, we lived off and on in Chicago' Uptown where American film making started before it headed to smoggy Los Angeles, so we became familiar with the lively film critiquing of Siskel and Ebert. In 1999, Gene Siskel at 53 succumbed to a fatal surgery in his fight against cancer.

This week, at 70, Roger Ebert followed after struggling with thyroid cancer, and a few days before his death, he had his thumbs up on existence (as quoted in John Cock's Journey Reflection dialogue): … “While not without its flaws, life, from birth to death, is a masterwork, and an uplifting journey that both touches the heart and challenges the mind… At times brutally sad, yet surprisingly funny, and always completely honest, I wholeheartedly recommend existence. If you haven’t experienced it yet, then what are you waiting for? It is not to be missed.”

Ross Mason, M.S., wrote of cancer awareness and prevention in yesterday's ST, and we certainly would not discourage any gains in knowledge and wisdom over one of human's thoroughly debilitating conditions. But it is in the doing that passes the test of the pudding, and Mason weighs in heavily on the area of prevention, particularly in paying attention to fructose intake. Not unlike our comments over our two ASD-diagnosed kids in another awareness focus this month, we can also stay focused on the forest and miss paying attention to the individual trees. (To remind myself not to be captive solely within the conceptual periphery, I light four candles on my ledge to lift into consciousness the journey of four specific individuals of my acquaintance living graciously with their condition.)

This is where Ebert's quote came to fore. And it has to do with paying attention to the limits and possibilities of life, metaphors I picked up while hanging out with the folks associated with the Institute of Cultural Affairs in Chicago. (Not to worry, this is not a theological discourse!)

But first, words on the "PA¥ing" attention metaphor, so heavily laden with commercial overtones. I teach business oral English to Chinese University students and since "listening" is an encouraged skill, thoroughly forgotten by a generation who grew up with the cell phone and are merrily yakking away, I use "paying attention" as another code term to heeding "human consciousness" with the four levels of awareness of sense experience, expressed feelings, articulated thoughts, and formulated plans. Skewing the monetary allusion of 'pay', I say, "we shall pLay attention with our consciousness," advising that the L should not be read as the British Pound!

Playing attention is then focused on real limits and possibilities. But first, we leave our mianzi, face, outside the classroom door. The subject of oral English discourse is on real life, not the facade we build to manipulate social relationships. This is easier said than done with the Chinese culturally inured to disdain talking about one's self, more so, at being brutally honest about it. So I make fun of it. My face in the University is to be a lao shi, teacher, with all the status and expected demeanor appertaining to the role.

"But I leave that face outside the door," I add, "and inside, I become Hemingwei (the name students started calling when the school wrote 'Hemi' for 'Jaime') shen jing ping (literally, 'crazy', both in its laughable and vile sense)." That's when I get both the giggles and the bewildered looks. It also opens up a level of honesty in the room.

National Geographic posters grace my walls, from Chinese images to the far-flung edge of the Universe. I then draw the taiji of the old pugua (yin-yang within the 8 trigrams) on the board and focus first on the two dots on the swirling teardrops. On the empty one, I point to a Hubble image of a huge expanse and say that before the universe, "I am not even a pixel in the HDTV of life." On the solid dot, I point to images of 56 ethnic groups and artifacts like those in the Forbidden City, and add: "but at conception, you were the 200-millionth sperm that made it, your parents gave you a name that grounds you in geography, and in 2013, you are Chinese, one of every five creatures in today's planet earth. You are somebody, with power and immense possibilities, if you so choose."

I then end with three Cs (you can tell, I play with words) that I use to relate life's story. CAUSE is the common one, a determined existence, either by genetics, history, and/or geography. Then there is CHANCE at either the mahjong tables, the stock market, and/or with the incense at the altar. The last is CHOICE, which is what they have holding in their hands when they come to class as they encounter the several decades they have chosen to live Ebert's recommended existence.

Cancer is not a foe. It is in our time a human condition, the occasion when we can play attention to living the reality of our lives.

j'aime la vie

Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all,

Celebrate!