Category: Nonfiction

Categories
Nonfiction

Why I Never Went Camping.

I have never gone camping.

During my short stint in Girl Scouts[1], my parents never allowed me to go on troop camping trips. During our family vacations to national parks, we always stayed in a motel in an outlying town. Though we loved the outdoors, we always slept indoors.

Now that I’m well into adulthood, I’m Too Old to go camping. Despite the pressures of living on the West Coast (the Best Coast!) and REI’s endless advertising efforts, I’m convinced my camping window has closed.

People wonder why. I usually quip, “My parents didn’t immigrate to the US so their only child would sleep outside!”

Both of my parents were born in China, but moved to Taiwan before their first birthdays. Their parents were able to get out of China before the Communists took over. In Taiwan they lived under a military dictatorship. Everyone was poor.

No one had plumbing in their homes. It was up to the sons to bring buckets of water from the town well back home. Balance was essential when using the outhouses. Meat was a luxury and served only on special occasions.

One of my grandmothers did not have the opportunity to attend any school.[2] She only started to learn how to read Chinese after she got married. Her husband was a teacher.

My mother attended school, but society expected her to be a beautiful and dutiful mother.

The educational opportunities in the United States exceeded the imaginations of both women. My grandmother was illiterate. My mother got an associate’s degree. I became a physician.

Such was the promise of the United States.

Only after my dad moved to Seattle did I learn about one of his favorite songs, Abraham, Martin And John, by Dion. Released in 1968, this song was a tribute to Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy. Dion mourned, “[They] freed a lot of people but it seems the good they die young.”

The result of the 2016 Presidential election was dispiriting for my father. The man who would become the 45th (and 47th) President was unlike Abraham, Martin, and John.

My parents didn’t immigrate to the United States for this sh!t. What drew them to the United States were the ideals of democracy, justice, and freedom.

Didn’t you love

The things that they stood for

Didn’t they try to

Find some good

For you and me

“They don’t make music like that anymore,” my dad lamented when he introduced me to Dion’s song. The music changed; the nation changed.

We write, rally, and protest to denounce the federal government’s cruel and unjust actions. We recognize the humanity in our friends and neighbors, even as the government fails to do the same. We advocate for people in our various and overlapping communities.

We also write, rally, and protest to honor the people who came before us. Our immigrant parents recognized the value of democracy, justice, and freedom. These were abstract ideas that existed only within the confines of their imaginations. In the United States these worthy ideals promised to manifest in three dimensions. They strived and worked so what seemed possible to them could be real for us.

(Thanks, Dad. I miss you.)

[1] I’m not sure why my mom enrolled me in Girl Scouts. I suspect she had two reasons: (1) Because I didn’t have siblings, she wanted me to have more friends. (2) This seemed like a very American activity. The pressure to assimilate was great. I eventually asked to drop out of Girl Scouts. Disappointed, she asked why. “I don’t fit in,” I said. At the time I could not articulate why I felt uncomfortable: All the other girls were white.

[2] I never got to meet this grandmother, as she died when my dad was only 21 years old. Despite her inability to read, she apparently picked up languages with ease. What she lacked in literacy, she made up for in emotional and social intelligence.

Categories
Consult-Liaison Nonfiction

Learning from Those Who Hear Voices.

When we learn that someone hears voices, we may assume that this person must be “crazy.” Some people who hear voices have a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Others hear voices because of past trauma or profound depression. Despite their symptoms, many of them cultivate peaceful lives. Their ways of coping can teach the rest of us something about cultivating sanity during times of cruelty and injustice.

When people share with me that they hear voices, I aim to ask as soon as possible, “If the voices suddenly disappeared and never came back, would you miss them?”

A small number of people pause before answering, “Yes.” They want to hear the voices of their parents, friends, and other loved ones again. Sometimes they don’t recognize the voices, but the things they say are hilarious.

Most people, though, offer an emphatic “no!” What they hear are constant attacks on their character (“you’re not worthy of love”), frightening instructions (“go punch that woman”), or unwanted chatter (play-by-play commentary of their lives). In desperate bids to shut the voices up, some people resort to stuffing their ears with cotton, screaming back, or drinking alcohol to drown them out. Sometimes they attempt suicide because they can’t tolerate the torment any longer.

However, many people find ways to manage the voices. They learn that increases in stress—hunger, not enough sleep, drug use—make the voices louder and meaner. While grieving the death of a loved one, the voices are noticeably overwhelming. More stability brings more symptom relief.

People who hear voices often have multiple healthful strategies to manage their voices. They’ve tried things and made discoveries. So when I ask, “What do you do now so the voices bother you less?”, they reply:

  • “I put on headphones and listen to music.”
  • “I put on headphones and sing so people think I’m listening to music.”
  • “I call my family or friends.”
  • “I go outside for a long walk and look at trees.”
  • “I go to church and pray to God to make them go away.”
  • “I find people to talk to.”
  • “I go to the library and look at maps.”
  • “I fix bikes with my friends.”

(And, for some people, “Take medicine.”)

While doing these activities, the voices may not go away completely. However, they quiet down enough to be ignored. They are small acts of defiance against despair. Any respite gives them some peace of mind. Furthermore, these activities are self-reinforcing: They improve the quality of their lives in other ways, so they learn to incorporate these activities into their daily routines.

You may not think this post about people hearing voices has anything to offer you. But, if you are seeking more peace of mind right now from things that seem out of your control, we can learn from our friends and neighbors who hear voices.

They, like you, largely do not want to cause problems for themselves or other people. The voices distress them, but they don’t give up in their pursuit for peace and sanity. Instead of waiting for someone else to make the world feel sane, they create their own quiet.

Persisting in the face of adversity reinforces our dignity as people. Maintaining our sanity is a form of resistance. Continuing to do good and refusing to do harm, even just within the limits of the six-foot radius that surrounds each of us, is an act of courage.

Categories
Nonfiction

A Guessing Game.

To keep the watermelon from rolling off the platform, I placed the bag holding it between my ankles. My fingers tapped words of grief into my phone while I waited at the International District/Chinatown light rail station. Around ten of us were waiting for the next train.

“Ni hao?” A male voice was asking me this tentative question. My head tilted up; who was talking to me? He waved at me, a smile on his lips.

“Ni hao?” he asked again, taking a few steps towards me. Without waiting a beat, he continued, “Are you Chinese? Am I right? Wait, let me guess: Filipino.”

Reader, my mind was worn and my body was weary. How should I have responded?

I look East Asian because, yes, I am Chinese American. That is something I cannot and do not wish to change.

I didn’t want to talk with him or anyone else. My heart was heavy with sadness.

He was also talking at me. Did he actually want to have a conversation? or simply the satisfaction of winning a guessing game?

My eyes remain fixed on his while I did the calculations. If I answer this stranger’s question, he will probably continue to talk. If I respond with snark, he might get mad. (That he wasn’t giving me the space to speak warned me that he might be impulsive. If he genuinely wanted to know my ethnicity, he could have asked me directly. In English.) Either way, we’d both be contributing to an interaction, something I didn’t want.

So, I said nothing, tilted my head back down at my phone, and resumed my text conversation with myself.

Reader, what do you think his reaction was?

“No, no,” he said, coming closer to me. “You’re wearing yellow sneakers and I’m yellow, too, I’m Filipino.”

I kept my eyes fixed on my phone and continued creating words, letter by letter.

“Oh, come on,” he whined, still approaching. “Don’t withhold from me!”

I started a new paragraph on my phone: a guy on the platform just started talking to me, greeted me with a “ni hao”

“You’re a BITCH!” he shouted. My peripheral vision spied that he was standing to my right, less than an arm’s length away.

Reader, what should I have done?

There were other people on the platform. A petite woman, who also appeared East Asian, was standing about six feet away from me to my left. She kept her eyes on her phone. There was also a handful of people on the opposite platform.

Pigeons fluttered between the rafters. Tiny feathers floated down onto the track.

don’t look up

he could hit you he’s close

don’t move

stay

“Fuck you,” he snarled.

Then, he started walking away. A few steps in he turned back and screamed, “FAGGOT!” He sauntered down the platform.

The only visible movement from my body was in my fingers: explained that it was the yellow I was wearing and he was yellow, too. When I continued to ignore him, he started calling me names

When the train arrived, I looked up. I got into a traincar and leaned against the opposite doors. He got into the same traincar and sat down about ten feet from me.

When the train started moving, he made small talk with people wearing jerseys for the visiting baseball team. He greeted them in English. They talked about the visiting team’s city. He told them to have a good time.

Was that really the same person?

I got off the train. He exited the train, too.

After waiting for him to board the escalator, I remained far behind him and watched him leave the station. Unsure of what to do next, I again chose stillness: I loitered in the station for over five minutes before I fell into the shadows directly behind a group of people around my age.

He had disappeared into the city crowds.

Part of the reason why I ask my colleagues, regardless of credential, to call me “Maria” instead “Dr. Yang” is because of events like this. Outside of the work setting my status automatically regresses towards the mean. People like this shouting man reveal just how low some think my status should be.

Like elsewhere in the country, events continue to occur in Seattle that show how much contempt some people have for Asians. The esteemed Wing Luke Museum was recently vandalized. The man who smashed multiple windows with a sledgehammer offered this explanation for his actions: “The Chinese are responsible for all this, they’ve ruined my life. … That’s why I came to Chinatown.” I don’t know who this person is, though descriptions of his speech suggest that he may have psychiatric symptoms. That offers no consolation. (I don’t think the use of racial slurs in of itself reflects mental illness.)

This isn’t the first time that someone has given me unwanted attention because of my ethnicity. (Presumably this was more about my gender, though this event nicely illustrates intersectionality). It won’t be the last time, either.

I don’t think of myself as a victim. What has changed, though, is that I walk through the world with greater vigilance. When I initially took up running, I did so to improve my aerobic fitness. These days, I want to maintain the ability to run a 5K so I can run away for self-preservation.

I think it is mostly luck that the shouting man did not strike me. Had he hit me, I would have been injured. I don’t feel great about my decision that day to remain rooted and still while ignoring him. However, I also believe that any other choice I could have made to limit our interaction would have had a similar result.

I don’t owe anyone my attention, just as no one owes me theirs.

But, such is the creeping toxicity of racism: You don’t actually know when you should be worried, so you always worry.

Categories
Lessons Nonfiction

Thanks, Speedy Old Man.

When I lived in New York, my then boyfriend and I ran races with the New York Road Runners. Boyfriend was a much faster runner than me, but, given the literal thousands of other runners in each race, there were always people faster than him… including an elderly man.

One of the people who consistently finished ahead of Boyfriend was a man who was 30 years older than him! We’ll call this person Speedy Old Man. Sometimes Boyfriend was quick enough to finish seconds behind Speedy (Old Man), so we eventually learned what he looked like. (To be fair, this wasn’t hard: The wrinkles in Speedy’s skin and his thinning white hair exposed his geriatric status.) Speedy became both a target and an inspiration: Could Boyfriend outrun Speedy this time? (No.) Or next time? (No.)

We automatically started checking Speedy’s race times after looking up our own. Speedy ran a lot of races! He was nearly always the fastest person in his age group! (Can you believe that he had competitors???) What a marvel: Speedy was prolific, persistent, and a paragon of successful aging.

In addition to leaving us in the dust, he left us feeling inspired.

Boyfriend became Husband, and then we moved out of New York. Despite living on opposite coasts, we still thought of Speedy whenever the New York City Marathon made the news or when the YouTube algorithm introduced us to elderly athletes.

We recently watched elite international runners race the rainy New York City 5th Avenue Mile. (The winner of the men’s race finished the mile in less than 3 minutes and 48 seconds!) This made us wonder about Speedy: Was he still running? (Was he still alive?)

The New York Road Runners race archive revealed that his last race was in early 2020. He was in his mid-80s! His age group ranged from 80 to 99 years old; he placed 3rd at a pace of about 12 minutes per mile! Incredible.

But what happened? There have been races since early 2020, but many other things had happened since then. Was he still running? (Was he still alive?)

After some sleuthing, I found his e-mail address and, pushing my reluctance aside, pressed send after writing this note:

My name is Maria Yang and I live in Seattle, Washington. I am writing to thank you for inspiring my husband and me.

We’ve never met, but my husband and I have “known” you since 2008 or so. At that time, he and I lived in New York City and routinely ran in NYRR races. My then boyfriend and now husband was consistently impressed / playfully irked that you consistently beat him in NYRR races, given the 30+ years of difference in age. 

Since then, both in New York and since moving to Seattle, we have periodically thought of you. We enjoyed the idea that you were still running and inspiring people of all ages with your running and speed.

Today we watched the NYC Fifth Avenue Mile race on YouTube, which made us think of you again. We looked up your results on the NYRR results page (sorry that this is creepy behavior; we also found your e-mail address here) and were amazed with your results from your races in 2019 and 2020. We hope that we ourselves will still be running and racing when we are in our 80s. 

We hope that you and yours remain healthy and well. Thank you for offering a valuable perspective on successful aging and for the inspiration you offer to runners of all ages and abilities. Your influence is transcontinental! 

No automated e-mail bounced back to tell me that the address no longer existed. I released any expectations of a response–I just wanted to thank him.

I squeaked when I saw Speedy’s name in my mailbox. Two days had passed and he had sent a response!

Maria: Thank you for your email. Although I can no longer run, I do aerobics and strength training as much as I can. I believe that this has really helped me in my life. My last race was a 5K [in early] 2020. Although I was in the last corral and finished behind almost everyone else, I really enjoyed doing it. Speedy Old Man

He wasn’t running, but he was still alive! And was willing to respond to a stranger on the internet!

I immediately forwarded this to Husband and, when we saw each other later that day, we beamed. What a gift.

One of the later reactions I had to Speedy’s e-mail was sadness and anger. I don’t know why he can no longer run, but it seems likely that the pandemic was a contributor. Maybe he got infected with Covid in 2020. Maybe he became ill with something else and couldn’t access medical care because of the pandemic. Maybe, like one of my beloved family members, he became deconditioned and his mobility drastically declined.

The pandemic has taken so much from so many people.

I learned this lesson upon the death of my mother, though the pandemic reinforced it: If you want to thank someone, don’t hesitate. Thank them as soon as you can. Tell them what they mean to you, what they did that you appreciate, how they have made your life better. Time is short. If you wait, you may never again have the chance to offer the gift of your attention and thanks.

Thanks, Speedy Old Man.

Categories
Homelessness Nonfiction Policy Public health psychiatry

Age and Vulnerability.

She was unprepared: One woolen blanket was wrapped around her shoulders. The other one was spread out so she did not have to sit directly on the ivy and weeds crawling across the hillside. A nylon sheet was rumpled by her side. Behind her was a pushcart that held a thin roll of garbage bags and a small empty cardboard box. There was no tent or sleeping bag. Though there were other people higher on the hillside, there was no one within earshot.

Most of the pages in her notebook were blank. The pen ink was bright turquoise; her penmanship was small and neat.

Small metal studs adorned her ears and a chunky chain was around her slender neck. Her hair was dyed an unnatural color and showed no signs of fading. The only hints that revealed that was not brand new to the hillside were the dust on her fashionable sneakers and the dirt that was collecting underneath her short fingernails. She also said that her phone had run out of charge.

She is not yet 20 years old.

I don’t expect that they are still alive, though I still think of them even when I’m not visiting New York City.

I met her when she was in her mid-60s. She never told us where she slept, though we reliably found her at the ferry terminal. Her fingers moved the needle and thread with ease to close the hole in her sock. She kept spools of thread in a plastic container that sat on the bundle of clothes she packed into her pushcart. Despite our best efforts for over two years, she never accepted housing: “The aliens will exterminate me if I go inside.”

I met him when he was in his 70s, or so we thought. No one knew his birthdate; he never shared this information. He buried himself between mounds of full trashbags or folded himself into cardboard boxes lining the curb. On the few occasions he spoke, the thinness of his voice—sometimes so faint that it seemed that only wisps of his speech reached my ears—betrayed his age.

Back here in Seattle, as elsewhere, there are people in their 70s and 80s who live outside or in shelters.

People under the age of 25 who are on their own and homeless are called “unaccompanied youth”. They are “considered vulnerable due to their age”. These unaccompanied youth make up about 5% of the homeless population in the US.

As the US population ages, people who are homeless are also aging. A study of homeless people in California found that 47% of all homeless adults are 50 years of age or older. Even more alarming, nearly half of all homeless people over 50 years of age first became homeless after they turned 50 years old!

Why do we consider “extremes” of age (though being in your late teens or your 70s is not actually “extreme”) as a factor that contributes to vulnerability when homeless? If you’re a 51 year-old man and you don’t know where you’re going to sleep tonight, doesn’t the variable of not knowing where you’re going to sleep tonight automatically make you vulnerable? Sure, you may have the size and mass to successfully defend yourself if someone attacks you or the ability to endure nighttime temperatures, but is that really where we’ve set the bar for vulnerability?