Does Ivan Ilych live a “real” life?

The Mohave Desert

by cheri block

Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych is worth the read. In my paper, How to Live a Real Life, I evaluate Judge Ilych’s life (which is really a death)  and his death (which is really a life).

Here is a piece of the paper. Note, I have removed page references for smoother reading.

The Short Happy Life of Ivan Ilych*

The cluster of Russian lawyers possibly afflicted with the same maladies as Ivan Ilych, living self-centered and distracted lives directed toward social position and its accouterments, learns without surprise that Ivan Ilych has died. “What was really was the matter with him?”  one of them inquires. It is this question and the answer to it that reveal the meaning of the story. What was the matter with Ivan Ilych?  What killed him? Was it a floating kidney? His vermiform appendix? He seemed like a regular guy:  busy and productive, engaged in work, home improvement, and bridge games. Middle son in a family of disappointment, he rose above his station, albeit securing his fortune by social connection. He marries, father children, dances, and entertains. He is leading a life, but is it real?

The last three days of Ilych’s life, from his self-crucifixion of screaming pain to the light of his resurrection, may explain the expression on his coffin face characterized as “…a reproach and a warning to the living”. The warning concerns we who may also find ourselves wrestling with the specter of death, looking for that light that may never shine. As time grows short for Ivan Ilych, his insistence that he control the circumstances of his own death stalls the possibility for a last-minute reprieve. This stance he justifies “…by his conviction that his life had been a good one”.  And then it happens.  A suffocating “force” hits Ilych in the chest—we can guess in his heart—at the same time his son approaches his father’s deathbed. Ilych actualizes with his son’s kiss, his legacy who now may change from one who had “…the look in the eyes …of boys who are not pure minded” to one who will embrace a real life. With that kiss, Ilych pops through “the black sack of death”  into the light of the spiritual realm.

We can overlay my criteria on the rest of the story.  In the radiance of this light, Tolstoy beams new life into Ilych’s dis-eased body: he becomes reflective in this light, asking himself, “ What is the right thing?” He stops screaming to listen. The reflection continues. He asks for forgiveness although the words jumble. The meaningless complexity of his life, symbolized by the pink cretonnes and squeaky pouffes in his home, by the depth of his spiritual chasm, and by the sterility of his passionless marriage, is “…reduced to its simplest form [sic]”, ironically the exact method he used as a judge, by “…eliminating all considerations irrelevant to the legal aspect of the case…” . This complexity is simplified at his death. “ How good and how simple!”  he observes and dies two hours later. Based on my criteria, Ivan Ilych managed at death to become real. He reflects, he listens, he simplifies, he allows intimacy, and in doing so, he may have set his son free. Death forces him to let go and fully accept his own mortality.

Was Ilych’s actualization complete? Not quite. He died a vain man. What ultimately killed him physically—the internal damage done by his falling into a window knob while hanging curtains in his house designed and furnished to impress—is not nearly as poisonous as the toxicity of his vacuous spiritual life, his recognition of his “real” life, one through which “…the poison did not weaken but penetrated more and more into his whole being”.

The peasant Gerasim, symbol of simplicity and spirituality, is the antidote to the poison, the mensch who presided at Judge Ilych’s death.

• With thanks to Ernest Hemingway, for his amazing story, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.

How to live a real life

by cheri block sabraw

For the first forty years of my life, I operated on automatic. Whatever needed to be accomplished, I did. Serious problems–financial ruin, death, divorce, betrayal, disease–only occurred in the rich literature I was teaching to my high school students and in the lives of other people.

I began to reflect about the meaning of life when lung cancer forced my father to drop out of the earthly life experience, but even then, I was busy, so I jumped back into my English saddle and cantered on my rocking horse facing the wall. I continued to produce, to meet the needs of others before my own, to base my worth on my work and my appearance.

About five years ago, my handsome husband took a new exciting job far from our home, at the same time I was hitting menopause. I began worrying about how I looked, dressed, and appeared to him and to others. Thoughts that had never entered my mind, did. For the very first time, I realized that I was aging and would look different from the person that others had been attracted to for my figure, my face, and my enthusiasm. What would be left of the essential Cheri if her face looks old, her figure sags a bit, and her enthusiasm wanes on occasion? Would I still be attractive in a different way?

All of these questions terrified me.

Then my mother moved to town and had two strokes within one year, leaving her a changed person. My mother is alive but is not the same person I knew. This grief I shared but didn’t fully process.

Joe died last year and with his death, I lost a husky male friend who could help me understand what older men might be experiencing themselves. Our conversations were rich with authenticity.

My friends, many of them, moved away.

All of these events forced me into a deep contemplation.

Deep contemplation at the Rancho is possible because of the silence here.

I stopped talking so much and started listening to my inner voice.

I stopped jumping through every hoop in a childish need for approval.

I stopped trying to control the comings and goings of my family members.

I  stopped cheerleading (after 40 years of it).

I started thinking of important things in life that had nothing to do with me, my happiness, my appearance, and my ego.

Then, I enrolled in a class at Stanford that helped me integrate many of these feelings into one paper entitled How to Live a Real Life.  I got an A on that paper but it wouldn’t have mattered if I had gotten a B+.  

I’m going to post the criteria I included in that paper before I post a few selections from it.

Criteria for living a real life: A cumulative list

1.  Reflect.  We must be willing to examine the truth about our lives and to change, if necessary.
2.   Listen. We talk and interrupt. We miss messages sent from the self, from other human beings, and from Life (God, Divine Mind, Higher Power, The River).
3.     Simplify. We must be willing to clean out clutter from the external self—things and obligations, for example—that contribute to the preoccupation and distraction that camouflage the present moment.
4.    Move away from vanity. Modern culture worships youth, skin, breasts, hair, and clothing. While looking our best contributes to self-esteem, making physical appearance more important than spiritual and moral development is self-destructive.
5.     Let go of control. We can control very little in our lives. This realization and practice removes some of the stumbling blocks to being authentic such as anger, narcissism, and fear.
6.     Set others free. Although a by-product of #5, choosing to set our spouses, children, siblings, parents, and friends free from our controlling thoughts releases both the captive and captor.
7.      Accept loss. As we age, we lose people we love. Some of us lose parts of our lives that we naively hoped would last forever: physical health, sexual attractiveness, professional acknowledgement, personal freedom, and intellectual acuity.
8.      Practice intimacy. When we love and share our thoughts and fears, we create connection, that which we desire the most.
9.      Be better than you really are. We are imperfect but we can transcend this imperfection, if for only a moment.
10.   Become a Mensch. If we practice the first nine criteria, we will be able to devote our time to other people and their needs. We will be righteous, unselfish and honorable. Our nature will be to think of others before self.

If you would like to add or amend any of the criteria, let me know. I’m open.

Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is perhaps one of the greatest plays ever written. I cried unabashedly when I read it as a high schooler and could never teach it without breaking down several times (this became an urban legend at the high school where I taught…).

It captures the essence of my list.

May your holidays be introspective. The cold winter is a perfect time to do this.

Lowfat or nonfat Yoga

by cheri block

I wore a sleeveless dress to a holiday affair last night.

For that newfound freedom, I thank yoga.

I’ve become the most obnoxious kind of convert, telling everyone, including Joanie, the Chinese owner of USA Cleaners, about the benefits of yoga.

 Hi Cheri, how are you today? she asks.

Oh, I am just terrific, thanks Joanie, I reply.

I pull seven shirts out of the Judge’s laundry bag and do the counting for her. One, two, three..oh by the way Joanie, have you ever taken yoga?

I did when Froggies Yogurt was next door, Cheri. I like yogurt,  she answers but laments,  too bad the greedy landlords wouldn’t lower the rent in such a bad economy. Now we have no yogurt shop. You were smart to sell your business and get out of here!  Her sweet almond-shaped eyes take on a sharp look and I mirror her expression.

No, Joanie, not yogurt. Yo-gah. Yoga! (Richard was right…I’ll never retire from teaching.)

Joanie repeats after me.

Yo-gah! Oh!!! she laughs and her almond-shaped eyes widen. Her eyebrows arch with the humor of the moment.

I proceed to proselytize.

Her business partner, Jackie, comes in. She has been practicing Tai Chi, as she does every morning, outside the laundry door.

Hi Cheri, how are you? Jackie asks. Did you ever find those shiny buttons you were looking for?

No, I haven’t located those buttons, but I was just telling Joanie about yoga, I reply.

Jackie agrees. Oh, I know. It’s so sad they closed. Those landlords are so greedy.

My last hour of teaching

by Mrs. Sabraw

In about an hour, I will walk into a small classroom. Eight students will be (eagerly) waiting for me.

“Good Afternoon, everyone!” I will say.

“Good Afternoon, Mrs. Sabraw,” they will perfunctorily respond.

And the lesson will commence, but not before checking in with everyone for a “status report.”

“How are things going with your lives?” I’ll ask. “Anything come up in your regular English classes that you would like to share? What are you reading this week? Have any writing assignments been returned?

“OK, The Pearl, No” most will say, too shy or lazy to engage.

“On the emotion-o-meter, are you happy, angry, bored, sad, or tired?” I will ask, folding my arms into a meter and raising one elbow as it registers.

“Tired!!!” will be the unanimous cry, my elbow will almost dislocate,  and off we go to a final quiz on subject-verb agreement and pronoun usage.

I am 61 years old but strangely feel 41. The lines in my face tell a different story. Today is my last hour of doing what I love: teach, teach, teach.

In 1971, I walked into American High School in Fremont, California at the age of 21, ready to teach English. Joe Tranchina was my principal. I put my long hair in a bun and wore a shapeless dress.

I looked twelve, so the English Department had assigned me to freshmen English.

My knees knocking behind the desk, I called roll for the first time as a real teacher. Last name, then first name.

When I scrolled down to the M’s, I said,

“Marrymee, Mark?”

That wisecracking Mark Marrymee was waiting for this moment like a big-game hunter out for a gazelle.

“Sure, he said, but aren’t you already married?” The class roared. This was a practiced dialogue, like a Knock Knock joke.

The rest of my 40 year career is filled with stories like that.

This is it. ( Unless Stanford begs for my services….tee hee)

Thank you for the privilege of guiding so many wonderful human beings on their road to authenticity.

Joe and Siddhartha

by cheri block

Had his lungs and heart held out for just six more months, Joe would have been eighty years old today. His presence in my life was like a bonfire that burned for forty-five years with an endless supply of fuel.  A brilliant philosopher and literary critic, a bombastic Sicilian, my tutor, at times my surrogate father, my weekly lunch date and my friend, Joe died last year while waiting for the ambulance in the black of night on the Ides of March. And it is no coincidence that I would be called from my memories of him today to attend class tonight for the purpose of discussing Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha.  Joe was my Vasudeva. From him, over the course of four decades and from among the many pieces of wisdom I absorbed, two stand out as mantras for living in the present: Qué Será, Será and Baby, I don’t do nostalgia.

They segue right into the story of  Siddhartha. “Ceasing to fight against one’s destiny” is one of the most powerful sentences in the novel and it naturally comes at the end. By the time we have witnessed Siddhartha’s journey (which reminds me, oddly, of a year in the life of a high school junior), we expect a fusion of all things.  But are all things one? Am I part of the creek that runs through our Rancho? And more importantly, do I have a destiny? I have an obligation to be a steward of our little creek and mighty oaks, but I am not part of them. My destiny is largely what I make it. I will not sit by the creek bank and wait for destiny to come to me. Was Siddhartha an enlightened one? Or was he just a fella from the upper class looking for a feel-good philosophy to explain away his past actions?

Мой Девятый Класс Йоги ( My Ninth Yoga Class)

by cheri block

In the yoga studio last Tuesday evening, I moved to a new location—the front row.

My mindset went like this: I must displace the large Czech women who like to dominate that front row.

My strategy will be simple: arrive earlier than they  and unroll my green mat directly in front of the teacher. Upon arrival, they may be so engrossed in discussing Mosel glass and Pilsner Urquell  that they will not notice the coup of one about to happen.

My tactics will be sneaky: unfurl my mat and stake out my territory. Then,  close my eyes and begin limbering up, pretending to be lost in the State of Flexibility. Down, my spine bends to my thighs: up, my arms stretch in a salute to my toes. Sweeping to the east, my salute continues. I am not thinking about the Czech Republic, about the old Czechoslovakia, about tall handsome young men and large breasted (from the beer) Czech women.

The door to the Om Studio opens without warning.

They arrive in a dominant way. In a yoga studio, dominance can be asserted by talking too loudly or laughing or taking the names of the yoga sutras in vain or discussing whether a Lara Bar is more flavorful than a Clif Bar.  This they did. In Czech, of course.

I continued my meditation but in truth, I unsoftened my eyes to glimpse their march into my space.

They were not deterred by the castle my body had become, as they infiltrated  the territory they had staked out eight weeks ago.

In a power play, they flanked me, boxing me in between them.

And then they began their talk, in Czech of course.

“Кто она думает, что она? (Who does she think she is?) questioned the big one, looking at me like an East German backstroker in the next lane.

“Она – маленький человек, легко над которым доминируют,” (She is a small person, easily dominated), answered her friend.

I closed my eyes and focused on my breath, inhaling while making space for my lungs and then exhaling while shrinking my waist to my navel.

Then, listening to them solve the problems of the yoga studio in their language, it hit me.

“В следующий раз, сделайте, поскольку мы сделали в 1947: движение в ее место. Конечно ее циновка станет серой, (Next time, do as we did in 1947: move into her space. Surely her mat will turn gray)” the older one asserted.

Olga and Irina are not Czech! They are Russian.

The Meaning of Life: Can we find it in great literature?

by cheri block sabraw

Last year, I visited the marvelous San Francisco Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.  Along with a shockingly gorgeous white crocodile and a room full of butterflies, was a human skull time line, illustrating the changes in the evolutionary development of the human brain. I stopped at one of the  small skulls of early man and wondered what types of concerns this person might have had about his life. Survival, I thought and moved on.

In modern culture,  we don’t usually worry  about being attacked and eaten by wolves. The wild animals that gnaw on our bones at night while we sleep are usually those same ones that haunt those of us who crave meaning.  Is there meaning to our lives? And if so, what is it?

I’ve written before about finding the meaning of life in Nature, but since I have been enrolled in Scotty McLennan’s course at Stanford this quarter, The Meaning of Life: Spiritual and Moral Inquiry Through Literature , I am now revisiting much of the literature I have taught through the years, searching for meaning beyond the obvious.

What is the meaning of life?

First, it is hard to find meaning if you talk too much and listen too little.

Meaning cannot be found in distraction (your iPhone, stupid).

Meaning has nothing to do with mirrors, but reflection may get you there.

Meaning has little to do with you, but others may help you find it.

Literature introduces us to characters like you and me, characters such as Hester Prynne, Willy Loman, and even the giant caterpillar, Gregor Samsa. What can we learn from them about the meaning of life?

I’ll be writing about some of these characters over the next several months and look forward to your thoughts about the meaning of life.