• Story’s Worth Telling

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Yule and the Samain Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: A Mountain Morning in Winter. Rich and Doncye. Brother Mark. Mary. A new Kindle. Hanukah presents. Jacquie Lawson Edwardian Advent Calendar. December cold and Snow. Magpies. Canadian Jays. Abert’s Squirrels. Red Squirrels.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow Flakes falling on Shadow Mountain

    Kavannah: Ahavah (love) and Bimah (understanding) Understanding, differentiation, deep insight; from בּוּן to split, pierce/penetrate; also בֵּין between

    One brief shining: I roll out the mat, kneel down in a posture not unlike a Muslim at prayer and do the push-ups I can do, then skull crushers with weights brought down near my ears, those silly calf raises, 15 goblet squats, bicep curls, wall angels, incline pushups, my upper body/lower body day.

     

    Fun with chatbotgpt. NB: I asked for skullcrushers which are done with dumbbells and got this guy. Part of the fun.

    BTW: If you’re new to Ancientrails, I want to explain. When I capitalize a noun like Rock or Mountain or Lodgepole or Mule Deer, I’m following a commitment I made after reading Braiding Sweetgrass. In Potawatomi everything considered alive gets capitalized out of respect. I’m not totally consistent, but I try to be.

    When I went into see Rabbi Jamie about feeling meh, he mentioned two things. One, getting back to making art. He means sumi-e which I did for a long ago Kabbalah class. I also paint. Both sort of. However I turned up the heat in the loft and intend to start again. It brings joy.

    Second he mentioned a website Storyworth. For those of you age peers who read this, it’s worth a look if you have kids or grandkids. Storyworth sends out a weekly prompt, you write in their software in response to them. My first two prompts were: How did you get your first job? and What was your father like when you were a child?

    At some point, I’m not sure when, you’ve written your story. It’s then printed and bound and shipped to you. Price determined by how many books you want. I’m getting four. Ruth, Gabe. Joe. Myself. A neat service. I’m having fun with it and it counts as getting back to writing.

    I’ve also begun writing my project of essays, ideas on observing each of the 8 Celtic holidays. Pretty far along on Yule.

     

    Just a moment: Still, like many of you, I imagine, marveling at the choices for cabinet leadership our new President, same as the old President has offered up so far. Sure, Gaetz got gone as fast as he deserved, but Hegseth remains in play. Kennedy, too. And Gabbard. Patel. Many of these vie to replace the old chestnut about the fox guarding the henhouse. Now: Patel guiding the FBI. That old drunk at DOD. Vax denier heads health and human services. Combine these choices with long red tie guy’s volatile, chaotic, grudge based style of, what? Can we call it governing? Sorta drains the meaning out of that word. The point is: matches. Gasoline. All over D.C. for four years. Four years.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Family Fourth Phase Great Wheel Health Holidays Memories Politics Writing

  • The Dead Live On In Memory

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Snow. Ruth. Gabe’s poetry. Boulder. CU. The Village Diner. Its Village Virgins punchcards. Ben and Jerry’s on Pearl Street. Only short walking distances. Resistance work. Feeling stronger. Jon and his children. Rich and Doncye.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Poetry, messages from the lev

    Kavannah: Perseverance

    One brief shining: As we passed Rebecca’s Herbs and Ointments, headed toward our ice cream tradition as Ruth calls it, the wind began to howl, and the cold blasted through my layers and caused both of us to hold our unsnapped and unzippered coats close, hurrying along while my back, as the pace increased, declared itself, stop stop it said. We hurried on.

     

     

    Having done what I can for my back, physical therapy, lidocaine patches, and now Celebrex and the occasional tramadol, I put its complaints in the category of life as it is. Yes, it limits my mobility. No, it will not kill me. Unless of course the Celebrex does. This is me, now. At 77.

    Another wonderful two hours plus with Ruth, eating at the Village Diner, one of those places students and professors flock to for the literal greasy spoons and great coffee. It wears its worn and chipped table tops, its random displays of CU-Boulder memorabilia, its fry cook behind the long counter with those stools you know, with the pride of a beloved spot rubbed real by hungry students and teachers of physics and philosophy.

    During the week and after the noon rush, Ruth and I had a two person booth beside a west facing window, my hearing not the issue she assured me it would be had we come only a bit earlier. I wore my dancing Bears hat in honor of Jon’s birthday.

    He was a true Deadhead, loading up whatever vehicle he owned at the time and heading out to follow the band. On one trip Kate and I loaned him Bucky, of Buck and Iris. Buck rode in the front seat of the pickup truck with Jon, happy to see more of the world than our back yard.

    Ruth received calls from Jon’s closest friends: Max, Thomas, and Patty. Gabe wrote poetry. Jon was not forgotten. And will not be.

     

    Just a moment: Luigi Mangione? Straight outta Mario Brothers. And, apparently, the wealthy upper crust of Maryland. Didn’t see that one coming. I stand by what I wrote the other day. No to murder. Yes to a wholesale revamping of our broken, broken healthcare system. Come on RFK. Your time to shine.

    Being caught in a McDonald’s. How absolutely dead center American can you get?

     

    Can you imagine Syria. A ruthless dynasty toppled. A palace ransacked. Secret prisons opened. A rebel army that knows fighting now in charge. Governing is a distinctly different skill. Who can predict?

    Israel continuing its version of the forever war bombing Assad’s military assets. Not letting them fall into the hands of terrorists they said. Maybe. Or maybe they’re governed even more by hubris. Thinking they can bomb their way to a new Middle East. It will not be so.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Family Fourth Phase Health Politics World History

  • The Times They Are A Changin’

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Paul. Joanne. Vietnamese food. A long lunch. Snow. Ruth. Thai food and ice cream. Finals week. Remember finals? Alan on the Tasman Sea. Shadow Mountain Home. Warm. Mini-splits. Solar panels. Electricity. Quantum computing. The future accelerating back toward us.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fresh Snow

    Kavannah: Love (ahavah)

    One brief shining: Driving in the Mountains after a Snowfall has an adventure around every curve, forty years of Minnesota Winters making me alert to tiny movements in the tires, relaxing if they slip, recovering easily, Blizzaks gripping, gripping, living in the moment because the situation requires it.

     

    As an old man driving in the Mountains in the Winter, I’m grateful for the wonderful teacher I had. Minnesota Winters. Where the Snow is not so much compared to my Colorado home, but it stays and gets slick. I am familiar with the movements of a car on Winter roads. Not to say I haven’t had my moments. I have. But always on Ice. And even then, not panicking, staying away from the brake and the accelerator pedal. Gently, gently.

    The Mountains after a new Snow have slopes of flocked Lodgepoles, their Aspen colleagues looking cold and skeletal without their leaves. A beautiful transformation that we get to see often in the changeable weather of Colorado. Snow. Sun. Snow. Snow. Sun and blue Skies. A different sort of Winter from Minnesota. Less brutal. More episodic in its dramatic weather. Much, much more Snow.

    If it were not for the threat of Wildfire, Shadow Mountain would be an ideal home. In the midst of beauty in all seasons, cool Nights, dark Skies, silence, Wild Neighbors, and Rock, so much Rock, cold Streams. The gift of Wildness at every juncture. Reminders of the ongoingness of Mother Earth everywhere. Which in turn remind me of the temporariness of my own Life. No American immortals up here.

    Today is Jon’s birthday, he would have been 56. I’m going over to Boulder to have lunch with Ruth. She’s come a long, long way since he died two and a half years ago. Now a college freshman, living on her own for the first time. Loving her classes, learning. Facing down fears and the anti-Semitic tonality of so many college campuses right now.

    She still misses “her person” and has rough moments, sometimes sobbing and despondent. But I can see her resilience take hold now, acknowledging the feelings, managing her response. Bouncing back. Grief is a journey and one that never completely ends.

     

    Just a moment: How bout those Syrian rebels? Striking when no one expected it. Shifting, yet again, the volatile stew of Middle Eastern nations. How will their ascendance change the politics of the Middle East? At least one thing sticks out to me, the rebels are Sunni and therefore not disposed to support Iran, Hezbollah, or Hamas. Probably not keen on Israel either, of course.

    Not to mention. Turkey is part of the Middle East, too. Look north from Turkey’s northern shores and nothing but the Black Sea separates you from the Ukraine.

    In the immortal words of Bob Dylan: the time they are a changin’.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Asia Boulder Family Mountains Politics Shadow Mountain World History

  • Meal Time

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Rich and Doncye. That 529. Captive money. Jon’s 56th birthday tomorrow. Lunch with Ruth in Boulder. Lunch with Joanne today. Dinner at Evoke 1923 with Veronica on Sunday. Our year anniversary for our conversion. By the lunar calendar. Birthday brunch with Luke yesterday at Sassafras.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Regular workouts. Feeling stronger.

    Kavannah: Persistence and Joy

    One brief shining: Sassafras has a Cajun inspired menu and tables distributed throughout the rooms of two old Victorian homes connected to each other; when Luke came we ordered beignets with the usual heavy load of powdered sugar, then fried green tomatoes Benedict for him, grits and Shrimp for me, a nod to his southern roots and his 33rd birthday. We took a short walk afterward in this hipster neighborhood of Victorian and brick homes.

     

    chatbot at my prompt. in the style of Botticelli

    Beginning to find a calling in breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Eating out with friends. Keeps me fed, enhances and sustains relationships. Conversation over food, another hominid in the veldt experience. As old as humanity itself. Odd way to live, I guess, solitary and happy, yet also punctuated with laughter and deep talk. Visiting breakfast and lunch spots, fancier places for dinner. Adds 3-D moments to my zoom talks with other friends and family.

    When I think about it, not too different from the way I worked while I did organizing out of my Minneapolis West Bank (Mississippi, not Jordan) office. I would meet people for breakfast and lunch, eat, discuss plans, get things started or nurture ongoing work relationships. One big difference: no agenda these days other than showing up, seeing and being seen.

     

    chatbot image

    Yin/Yang. Masculine and feminine. Man and woman. Gender fluidity. Animus and anima. Queer and straight. Non-binary. Trans. Thinking about all of these lately. Wondering how they intersect, influence each other. Not going to tread too far into these Waters, but I do find the animus/anima, yin/yang, masculine/feminine polarities provocative.

    On the MMPI, which I took many times while in seminary, I always spiked the M/F scale. Here’s the summary of a high scores potential meaning for a man:

    • May indicate interests and behaviors that are traditionally considered feminine (e.g., interest in the arts, sensitivity, or gentleness).
    • Possibly challenges or discomfort with traditional male roles.

    In times past this scale often identified such high scorers as either actually or potentially homosexual. Wrong. It did and does signal the influence of animus and anima, yin and yang energies in a person. In my case it correctly identifies what Kate called my androgynous personality. A straight male heavily inflected with anima. Probably the deep influence of Mom in my life. Not an unusual finding for men in the ministry, in helping professions.

    I also scored high on the 4 scale for psychopathic deviation. This represented my unwillingness to conform to social norms and my ongoing political struggle with a racist, sexist, homophobic, classist culture. This was an unusual finding for men in the ministry, but it sure fit my personality. And, still does.

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health

  • Livin’ in a small town

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Cold nights. Tramadol and Celebrex. Jackie. Her friends. Studying Torah with Rabbi Jamie. Sisyphus. Zeus. Hades. Holy Wells. The Elk Bull in the Rain. Seeing the sacred where you are. Beth-el. Cairns. Wrestling with the angel. Israel. Jacob.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Celebrating Luke’s birthday

    Kavannah: Joy (simcha) and Enthusiasm (zerizutz)

    One brief shining: Walked into Aspen Roots yesterday, Jackie had another customer’s hair folded into aluminum foil squares-hair coloring-and a man with a bald head, dressed casually in jeans and new shoes, a blue shirt not tucked in, everything neat, sat in Ronda’s chair facing his wife as Jackie worked her hair stylist magic.

     

    Jackie called me on Wednesday and said she needed to reschedule. A funeral. The two in her shop yesterday had also attended the funeral. Of all of us, Jean said, I didn’t think he’d be the first to go. Jackie and Dave nodded. What followed was the usual funeral chatter. Who was the blonde with him? Oh. Him? He has issues, said Dave, I love him but he has issues. Did you know his brother Jim? No. I knew of Jim, but never met him.

    One task of grieving and funerals is reordering the social structure of a group. Acknowledging the loss of a member of the group, remembering their story. Seeing people, perhaps even family members who live at a distance, either geographically or relationally. Recalling how things were. And in the process redefining how things will be now without the deceased.

    When it was my turn in the chair, Jackie schedules me sandwiched between the  application of coloring and its slow baking in time, I had a chance to chat with Dave. He had retired two weeks ago from a fire department in Highland Hills. I asked him how it was going. Oh, he said, not well. When I offered that he couldn’t expect to get retirement in two weeks, his wife, now sitting in a chair festooned with aluminum foil, said, I did! We all laughed.

    When Jackie began her work on my beard and hair, I asked about the guy who died. He just had to clean the gutters, she sighed. Fell off the ladder and landed on his head. I felt so sad. What a way to go. She leaned into me and said, Don’t climb on ladders. I assured her I wouldn’t. They scare me now. I even gave away my chain saw.

    As I left Jackie gave me a big hug and Dave jumped up from his chair, shook my hand, “Good to meet you, Charlie.” Enthusiasm and Joy at Aspen Roots. Life in a small community. I love it.

     

    Just a moment: Earlier that morning I signed onto the Bagel Table, which had to be online because Rabbi Jamie didn’t feel well. There were 12 of us, 13 including Jamie. We had a spirited and deep conversation about struggle, about family-the parsha was about Jacob’s ladder and his long negotiations with his father-in-law Laban, the nature of God or divinity. I loved it. It was fun and profound. Luke and Ginny were on.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Fourth Phase Friends Judaism Torah

  • See

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Rabbi Jamie. Ginny and Janice. Luke and Leo. Torah. Aviva Zornberg. Art Green. Rami Shapiro. My Lodgepole Companion and their Companions. My son. Shabbat. Bereshit. Brother Mark in Bangkok. Mary in Oz. All Dogs. That Buck.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Perception

    Kavannah: Joy and Enthusiasm (zerizut)

    One brief shining: What’s that, over there by the neighbors, my eyes caught movement in the Lodgepoles, Branches moving, but no Wind, wait, wait, wait, oh, yes, there he is, that eight point Mule Deer Buck, the one whose photograph I posted; he comes often, always majestic, proud.

     

    Often I am reminded of our hominid ancestors, how their life on the veldt trained them to pick up on the slightest motion, the smallest movements of Grass, twitches in Leaves. A something out of sight, almost, at the very periphery of our vision. My ancestral brain lights up as it did yesterday when I saw a disturbance, not in the force, but in the Lodgepoles next to my neighbors.

    First check. Are other Branches moving? Could be Wind. No. No Wind. What then? Nothing was visible. It was moderately high up from the ground. Maybe a neighbor? No. The movement seemed to press forward without stopping and a human would have been scratched, bothered, maybe hurt. Wait.

    I stood there at my kitchen window. A spot where Kate and I still look out to our front on occasion. As we used to when she was alive. She would have wanted to see this. I waited and in his slow, purposeful way the Buck emerged, his rack having caused the Lodgepole Branches to sway. This is his Land, his Mountain. And he displayed that with each careful, but not hesitant step he took. Unlike the Does that come he did not scan his environment often, confident in his years and his weapons.

    Thanks again, Kate, for finding this spot on Shadow Mountain. In the Rocky Mountains and the Arapaho National Forest. Kate, always Kate.

     

    Just a moment: Following the Korean weirdness with less detachment than the usual American. Daughter-in-law Seoah has expressed her contempt for the current President, Yun Suk Yeol, comparing him to long red tie guy. She’s not alone among her compatriots as can be seen in the many photographs from Seoul featuring protesters in the streets.

    Also my son works alongside Korean military personnel. They’re not ones likely to get called out to enforce martial law, but they are under the overall command of the South Korean President.

    Yun survived his impeachment vote, but only just. His political power is gone. Will be interesting to see what happens next.

     

    Also following the continuing uproar over Brian Thompson’s murder and the virulence toward the whole health care system it has unleashed. Heather Cox Richardson’s post of December 5th placed the shooting in a long historical context which included this paragraph:

    “Today provided a snapshot of American society that echoed a similar moment on January 6, 1872, when Edward D. Stokes shot railroad baron James Fisk Jr. as he descended the staircase of New York’s Grand Central Hotel. The quarrel was over Fisk’s mistress, Josie, who had taken up with the handsome Stokes, but the murder instantly provoked a popular condemnation of the ties between big business and government.” Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, December 6th, 2024

    Once again, I condemn the taking of a human life. Yet. I also hope that a cleansing movement might arise from this shooting, a total restructuring of our oh so broken health care system. So many lives end too soon, come to debilitation because our health care system lacks transparency, empathy, and rationality. And again, I remind us that violence does not only come from a gun. It can also come from a letter in the mail, we have denied this procedure, that medication.


    📂This entry was posted in Asia Family Health Mountains Plants Politics Shadow Mountain US History

  • What Have We Got To Lose?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Rabbi Jamie. Making art. Friends. Ichi-go, Ichi-e. Health insurance. The failure of capitalism. Failing institutions in the U.S. 45/47 already tripping over his long red tie. Plants. Plant intelligence. Consciousness. Materialism. How shall the twain meet? Scrabbling off a 2-D life. With a little help from my friends.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Making art

    Kavannah: Joy (simcha)

    One brief shining: Sitting at the end of the long table between Gordon and Ellen, I reinforced for myself, yet again, the over the top value of my Phonak hearing aid, having forgotten it in its charging cradle back home, voices from mere feet away arrived muffled, testing my puzzle solving skills and reminding me, too, of how socially distancing bad hearing can be.

     

     

    The murder of Brian Thompson of Maple Grove, Minnesota. Yes, United Health Care, formerly known as Group Health, a colossus in American health insurance, has its roots and headquarters in my former home state of Minnesota. My AARP Advantage health plan is a United Health Care product. I have experience with it as a user, an insured, and as a source of news from time to time when I was in Minnesota, often about how much the executives made in salary and bonuses.

    Dr. William McGuire, former CEO of UHC, donated $10 million for Gold Medal Park near the Guthrie Theater. He also owns, in retirement, the Minnesota soccer club, the Minnesota United. A billionaire.

    How much of that money is literal blood money? Money “earned” as “profits” by holding back coverage to plump up the quarterly P&L. In 2016 I was denied an axumin scan that would have accurately targeted the location of my resurgent cancer. Experimental, UHC said. That meant I entered 35 sessions of radiation with the powerful beam aimed at the area, the prostate fossa, or bed, statistically most likely to harbor active cancer cells. That wasn’t where they were.

    After a prostatectomy and 35 sessions of radiation, if prostate cancer returns, it is incurable. Where I am now. Since 2019. Would a more targeted bout of radiation cured mine? I don’t know, of course, but I was not given the chance to find out. And, it was my last hope for a cure. Yes, I do carry some anger about that.

    With what the NYT described as a Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry exploding across social media, it occurred to me that we might see in that vitriol a clue to Trump’s victory. A toxic stew of anger about health care, inflation at the grocery store checkout and the gas pump stirred into a broth of white supremacy, anti-semitism, homophobia and misogyny. A generalized and deep upset with the way things are.

    Institutional distrust sweeps in there, too, not just for the health care “system.” The church. Higher education. C suite salaries compared to those in their employee.

    I can imagine a person saying, this is too much. Harris sounds like the old boss; Trump sounds like a different boss. What have we got to lose?


    📂This entry was posted in Health Politics US History

  • Some (like me) might call it murder

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Rich Levine. Irv and Paul. Zoom. Dandelion. Ruth. Gabe. My Lodgepole Companion. Tom’s note. Paul’s 78th. Life. This December 5th, 2024 life. Dilating Aorta. Living high. Happy Camper. Evergreen. Beth Evergreen. Mussar. Rabbi Jamie.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kippur

    Kavannah: Perseverance and love (ahavah)

    One brief shining: Old friends can remind us of who we are when we forget-as we all do from time to time-as two friends recently did for me; “…your greatest teaching is your deeply personal sense of wonder and curiosity.”; and, when asking to go to my next oncology appointment with me: “You don’t have to go alone.” Oh.

     

    If you were given the job of decorating the sitting room for Cardiology Now, where I went for my echocardiogram on Monday, would you choose this? Somebody did. It’s the only art there, a heart made by skeletal fingers. I mean, come on guys. A little respect.

    Got news back from my echo already. Aortic artery dilation has apparently increased. My doc has made an appointment for me at a cardiac/thoracic surgeon to consult. Guess this is a test of my personal GPS after writing about the feeling of enough only yesterday. Who needs all this?

    A worry? I don’t want to go into the hospital, have surgery at 77, possibly need rehab. Kate’s journey informs my own in this case. Each time she went into the hospital she took a step or two further down the stairs leading to death. Don’t want to start that journey.

    Unless, of course, I have to. The question is how much dilation is actually dangerous? Am I at that point? Or, is watching and waiting the best strategy. TBD. This I know is true. Aortic dissection=bad. A situation as Kate used to say: “incompatible with life.”

    If it needs doing, I suppose I’ll do it. Stay tuned.

     

    Breakfast this morning with Rich. A good friend. A sweet man with a big heart. Mostly catching up, but I did hand off to him transferring Ruth and Gabe’s 529 money. And I asked him about another pot of money that could be available for them. Business.

    We also discussed, as you might expect, the hard problem of materialism v. idealism. Rich is a philosophophile. As am I. Not too many folks you can go down that particular rabbit hole with.

    A privilege and an honor to know him and count him as a friend.

     

    Just a moment: The murder of the United Health Care executive. Caveat: I say no to murder no matter the instigation.

    However the two bullet casings with deny and delay reminded me of a long ago lesson in seminary about forms of violence. A decision to deny and delay treatment can be the bureaucratic equivalent of murder. Please note: I’m not saying it’s like murder; I’m saying it’s exactly murder. That is, if an insurer denies or delays treatment for a member of its plan and that denial or delay results in their death, that’s murder.

    Perhaps beginning to investigate and prosecute insurance malpractice with criminal charges as the goal might push matters in a, shall we say, healthy direction?

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Friends Health

  • Blah. Bah.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Rich Levine. Small Estate Affidavit. The arcane lore of the law. The law itself. Making and enforcing laws. Judges. Lawyers. Police. Detectives. Canon law. Bishops. Diocese. Bishop Joe Strickland. Life in spite of. A good life in spite of. Seed-Keeping. Soil. Roots and Rhizomes. The Light-Eaters. Zöe.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Boulder

    Kavannah: Perseverance and love (ahavah)

    One brief shining: As I drive down the hill, and everything is down the hill from my home on Shadow Mountain, the lights have gone up, pushing that holiseason instinct to brave the advancing darkness by illuminating it, brilliant tiny bulbs of all colors strung along eaves, up a forty-foot Colorado Spruce, on wires from a tall pole to form a tree of lights, we are still here they say, look at what we can do.

     

    I have only one thing that carries a weight for me. You might think prostate cancer, but no. That’s not it. It’s transferring the money from Kate’s 529 accounts for Ruth and Gabe to my own. I want to start giving Ruth money. Since last August. My formophobia notwithstanding I have dutifully sent off three packets of declarations, forms, and certificates. Still no joy.

    Dealing with it makes me tense, jaw tightens. Teeth clench. My emotional resilience plummets. Not good for problem solving. Especially over the phone, to call center employees. Some who can do this, but not that. Those who can do that are not available and will call me back. Right.

    Reached out to Bond and Devick, my financial planners, since they’re in Minnesota and it’s a Minnesota program. They helped me. Sort of. Going to see Rich tomorrow. If I can, I’m going to hand it to him and ask him to finish this for me. I want it off my back.

     

    Going to see Rabbi Jamie tomorrow after mussar. Twice in the past month I’ve encountered a barrier within that I didn’t know existed. I believe my flat affect stems from its grip on me. The barrier is enough.

    My first encounter with it was on my second visit to my medical oncologist, Dr. Buphati. I’d gone to that meeting expecting clarity about the status of my advanced prostate cancer. When I discovered they did not have my PSA results, drawn in their office three weeks before, I hit the barrier.

    As if a train of cars, each one carrying a different emotional cost levied over the whole of my nine year plus cancer experience piled up, each one pushing against the other with the force of inertia gained over time and distance.

    Over most of those nine plus years I’ve tried to deal straight up with the news about this change or that, move on to the next step, treading that fine line between being informed and responsible as a patient and trusting my doctors as Kate asked me to do. Sure, I’ve had times when fear overcame me, uncertainty pushed me to my knees, but each time I got back up. In this moment, at that visit I could not get back up.

    Though I left after that visit with a feeling of doom and sadness overwhelming me, I drove home without incident and did right myself later in the day.

    For some reason I cannot recall the second time right now. Not the trigger that is. But the feeling? Oh, yes. Here’s a different metaphor. Have you ever worked in or been in a factory where they had heavy doors attached to a counterweight with a chunk of lead in the cable holding the door open? If there’s a fire, the lead melts and the counterweights engage pulling the door closed to protect whatever lies beyond it.

    That sort of feeling. As if what has gone before has been so much, that my feelings slammed my inner world shut. Trapping those feelings that threatened to engulf me.

    It doesn’t surprise me that these moments have come to visit. The last ten years have held more tough times than I can recall. Yet I feel I’ve learned how to navigate the grief and the fear neither ignoring nor denying it, while not being captive to it either. In spite of that I have had death, divorce, and disease as my constant companions over the last ten years. I have not forgotten that. I don’t dwell on it, but the memories and the feelings remain stored within me.

    When I stepped into this new period of uncertainty about my prostate cancer, right after my bar mitzvah ironically, I’ve gone up and down. Sometimes steady. Sometimes not. The most current manifestation of these feelings has been a flat affect, not down, not up. Blah. Unmotivated. Slow. Tired. Very much like acedia.

    The door to my inner world slammed shut. Bottling up my exuberance and joy.

    I don’t like living blah. My life means more to me.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Feelings Fourth Phase Health Judaism

  • Heartseen

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Shadow Mountain by my buddy 4o

    Tuesday gratefuls: My son and Seoah. Skiing. Here and in Korea. Shadow Mountain in the style of Hokusai. Chatbotgpt4o. Handy. Memories of my son. Of him and Jon. Kate, always Kate. Ruth. Gabe. NYT. Washington Post. Ground News. Hamas. Hezbollah. Iran. Israel. Ukraine. North Korea. China.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son and Seoah here for my birthday

    Kavannah: Perseverance and love

    One brief shining: My body on the gurney, lying on my left side facing Lynne who held a sonar wand which she glopped up with lubricant, cold as it hit my bare chest, and suddenly there, right there on the screen, a peek inside my beating heart, valves, vessels, blood flowing shown by red and blue pixel clouds that looked like a weather map. Oh. Amazing.

     

    Another echocardiogram. Primary purpose? Check out my aorta. Which has a slight problem, so slight that I can’t remember what it is. An enlarged aorta. Looked it up. Dr. Rubenstein wanted this echo a year after my visit to him. If the mild enlargement has not changed, we’ll cross it off my problem list. Glad to do that.

    Still comes with the full echo though. So I get one more look at my heart as it works. If you’ve never had one, I find them amazing. There on the sonar screen my heart valves opened and closed. Lynne took various measurements with the click of a mouse while I watched.

    Before echocardiograms? Not sure. Asked chatbot. Stethoscopes. Thumping the chest. Pulse checks. EKG’s. Chest X-Rays. Those sort of things. But nothing that could see the heart at work, measure the chambers and the blood flow. Much less accurate. Thank you, technology.

    Went to Noodles on the way home and picked up some Korean noodles for dinner.

     

    Today I’m going to try one more time to finish the transfer of Ruth’s 529 from Kate’s account to a new one in my name. This process has had several iterations and involves starting over again with each new phone call to adjust to their needs. So frustrating.

     

    My new rhythm works for me. Getting more writing done. Regular exercise and reading. What I needed to lift me out of the flats.

     

    Just a moment: Hadn’t considered Trump’s vindictive streak and his nominee to run the FBI, Kash Patel. After reading Heather Richardson’s commentary on the exposure Hunter faced given both of those, I not only understand Joe’s decision, I would have made it myself.

    Interesting point about RFK and his appointment to run HHS. People don’t trust our medical care system, so they’re ok with anyone who promises to shake things up. I understand this. It’s a confusing, messy, expensive bureaucracy that often doesn’t seem to have health or the patient as its top priority.

    RFK would not be my choice to lead the charge, but that someone should? Oh, yeah.

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Family Health Politics Writing