All posts by Charles

Asia, Denver, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Plants, Travel

Distance and depth

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Saturday gratefuls: My son and his wife, moving into a house. Korea, far away across the waters of the Pacific. Alan and Tom. Diane. Leslie, composting. Marilyn and her grandson in Italy. Josh who grew the Cubensis. Memorial Day Weekend. The Indy 500. The Monaco Grand Prix. Shrimp and grits from Lucille’s. The Nuggets. Psilocybin. Mark and Dennis in Paonia. The Lodgepoles out my window, moved by a slight Wind, waving their Cones at me. Lightning and Thunder last night.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Flashes of Lightning

One brief shining: Yesterday afternoon around four pm the psilocybin peaked and the Aspens with their upturned Branches praised the Sun by producing small yellow green Leaflets while the Lodgepoles bowed their Branches in perpetual prayer, both worshipers of the Great Sol, giver of energy and heat, and I did the same by standing on my driveway feeling the light that had traveled millions and millions of miles warm me.

 

Korea is a long way away. 6,196 miles according to Travelmath. That is, as we would say in Indiana, a f’r piece. During my psilocybin experience yesterday afternoon I got hit with a deep wave of love for my son and his wife, then a sense of how far away they now are. Really far. I looked up driving distance on Travelmath and it said, complicated. You might even have to swim. True that.

The military produces these long distance relationships over and over again. This is my son’s second deployment to Korea. He’s also been in the Middle East several times. Not to mention all those years in Georgia. And that one year in Singapore. Then, Hawai’i.

Glad for Kakao and Zoom, e-mail. Even Facebook. Connecting us.

 

While I got the mail yesterday, I walked over to the Iris bed which I had expanded at Kate’s request. Her purple Irises have begun to emerge. Some of her ashes fed them on August 18th of 2021, which would have been her 77th birthday. Tears came unbidden as I remembered the purple garden I planted for her 65th. Psilocybin seems to lure emotions to the surface with the least of stimulations. I enjoyed that part of the experience a lot. Sadness does not block joy and Kate’s memory is a blessing, however it comes up.

 

Lucille’s Creole Cafe has three spots in Denver. Kate and I used to go down once in a while for beignets, cajun breakfasts. Alan and I went to the one on E. Evans. I had a huge cup of their cafe au lait and breakfast with poached eggs, red beans, and cheese grits. Ordered shrimp and grits to go. The Cafe itself is light and airy, filled with New Orleans jazz posters and memorabilia. Our waitress had on a t-shirt that read, Friends with Benedicts.

It was fun to drive down the hill on a bright blue Colorado Morning. Felt like I was going on a mini-vacation. Lucille’s added to that.

 

Taking Gabe to the Rockies game tomorrow. The all new spiffy New York Mets are playing.

 

 

Denver, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Mushrooms and friendships

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Friday gratefuls: That red robin bobbin outside my downstairs door. Conversations with two of my best buddies today, Tom and Alan. A sunny drive into Denver, down the hill and over to E. Evans Avenue, Lucille’s Creole Cafe. A Thunderstorm, then clearing. A gentle psilocybin trip, just waning. Growing old. Poetry about growing old. This house, Shadow Mountain Home.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mushrooms and friendships

One brief shining: Thanks to Tom who nailed my blog voice as what it is, what I hope it is, that is a conversation with you, me sitting next to you or across the table, talking about my day, showing mine and always hoping you’ll show me yours.

 

A wee late getting started. Like I usually write this about 6:30 am and it’s just now 6:30 pm. We’ve had Rains and Rains. Still cool up here at night, and only warmish during the days. Fine with me. Could hit the continue playing without pause button. Except. I do enjoy a few fiery Summer days. Maybe a weeks worth as we tail off toward autumn.

These days I fill with two main activities, reading and conversing with friends or family. Evenings some tv. More reading. Workouts, yes. But that’s maintenance, taking the car into the shop for routine service. Will be some more hiking now that surfaces are less slippery and the Air a bit warmer.

As Tom observed this morning, it has been an emotional week. Leslie’s funeral, Mark and Dennis’ visit. Found myself weary yesterday. After mussar ended, I came home and sort of did a laying in ceremony myself. Depleted. Today though talking with Tom, then driving down the hill for breakfast with Alan I felt energized.

 

Took my remaining five psilocybin capsules after my nap. There was a bright golden haze on the meadow. For a couple of hours thereafter. Some tears when I walked by the expanded Iris bed after retrieving my mail. A bit of soulful time gazing at this old wrinkled visage in the upstairs bathroom mirror. A peaceful and reinforcing two or three hours. This is who I am now. And I’m more than good with that.

Enough. See you tomorrow at the usual time.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Laying-In

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Leslie. Her laying-in. CBE. Steve and Jamie Bernstein. Rebecca. Joann. Tara. Irene. Rabbi Jamie. Mark and Dennis. Good conversation last night. Prostate cancer. Liver cancer. Breast cancer. Aging. Stents. Psilocybin. DMT. Bufo Frogs. Mescaline. The 60’s.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Human composting

One brief shining: Ode thinks my work needs on occasion more juice the trail of droplets not so easy to follow as the short sometimes terse words of my main voice and he’s not wrong but this kind of sentence takes more more of what I’m not sure but more and I do not always have more just what I say and that’s that and I write on.

 

Leslie’s funeral in addition to the usual kaddish and eulogizing by the Rabbi and memorilization by family and friends had on the title of the service a laying-in ceremony which sounded to me like something for babies you know putting one in the crib for the first time or beside the mother for nursing. Obviously not it. So what.

After the service had concluded and Leslie’s wonderful life had brought smiles and tears and laughter the two young attendants from Feldman’s mortuary went over to the pine box that held Leslie’s body and took off the top. Inside Leslie had a covering of silk on which those at the service poured wood chips and compost. The laying-in. Human composting.

Judy Sherman died of ovarian cancer earlier this year. She chose aquamation and had the liquid result poured around a special tree at Seven Stones Cemetery. Body disposal practices have begun to change and change dramatically. Two years ago I did what Kate wanted and had her body cremated. I’ll choose one of these alternatives. Not sure which. Research. The thing they have in common is less to no pollution.

I found the laying-in ceremony at the same time thoughtful and affecting. Given a paper cup we all dug around in sacks of the wood chips and compost for enough material to fill the cup. Moving to the Pine box we chose where we wanted to distribute the material. I chose what I imagined was her head. Each in turn passed the cup to the next person in line.

Instead of dust to dust which has an evanescence about it this felt more like earth to earth, a return to the Mother in the way of all animals and plants. It was typical Leslie. A pioneer and in a way that had a certain political edge but a gentle one.

I dressed up. Sport coat. Gray slacks. Blue shirt. Silk tie. Panama hat. First time in nine years. I knew Leslie and wanted to respect her life. Still felt weird. More like costuming. I remarked to Irene, the dream lady, that it came from a past life.

 

Dennis and Mark came last night around five. We talked about drugs and art and Mark’s road trip. The upcoming conference in Aspen. I’ll buy them breakfast this morning and send them on their to Paonia where both Dennis and his brother Terence are from. Also where the High Country News is published.

Good to have Mark here in the flesh. It’s been a while. Dennis is an unassuming guy, bright and like the rest of us hearing aided and surgically restored. In his case six stents thanks to a recent stint in the hospital.

Massage later this morning, then on to Mussar.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends

Feeling Silly

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Leo, back with his Dad. Luke. A good friend. Rabbi Jamie. His men’s group. Dick Arnold, my roommate on the Israel trip. Jamie’s dad. Ellen, Jamie’s mom, who said she’d be glad to share her husband with me. Mark and Dennis, coming tonight. I think. Rainy days and cool nights. My son and his wife moving into a house off base. Murdoch, too. A sickle Shadow Mountain Moon. Hey, how bout those Nuggets!

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Nuggets in the NBA finals. Finally.

One brief shining: Women attractive alluring still tried match.com last night felt icky seeing all these ladies of a certain age out there hoping for somebody perhaps anybody male still alive and able to drive a strong voyeur feeling coupled with my natural tentativeness when it comes to new relationships what would I be getting myself in for do I really want to break up with my new life?

 

Oh, boy. Should I try dating? Match.com. I don’t know. When I looked at the pictures, read a few things the women on there had written. Got tired. Thinking of all the work necessary to meet someone new. Vet them in the ways we do. Be vetted in the ways they do. Seemed, what? Hard. Like, well, work. Not to mention the prostate cancer gift of impotency. Though there is that drug holiday coming up. Still.

The point though. I am beginning to look at women again. You know, the male gaze. And I do miss having an intimate partner someone to laugh with, plan things with, check decisions with, sleep next to me in the bed. Kate’s memory of course would be a touchstone. Is that fair to someone new? No. Would happen anyway. I don’t know. Just don’t know.

I’ve met a couple of women in the last couple of weeks that I know I would want to try dating, seeing, whatever it is we do these days. One is a vibration and acoustics engineer. I mentioned her. Beautiful, thoughtful. Also maybe late 30’s. Another, a psychologist really rang my chimes one whom I will do a guided psilocybin journey with when we can get it scheduled. Maybe 50. 25 to 40 years as a gap feels like too much to me. But my beginner feelings about both of them have made me curious about someone closer to my age. Even 60 might work. I think.

Oh, I feel silly. Yet I think feeling silly is a good place to start. Suggests playfulness, joy. That frisson between members of the opposite sex. Life itself.

 

Rabbi Jamie will bring me up to his men’s group as a possible member. That would be great. I miss the Woolly meetings, folks I knew and could see locally. The Ancient Brothers continue the Woolly experience and profoundly. But I can’t see any of them here for lunch or a casual afternoon.

 

On the Ancient Brothers zoom last week I said more than productivity or achievement I’m looking to deepen relationships live more in the connected world not expand my web of friendships and family necessarily but spend more time cultivating the relationships I already have. Be a hermit when I’m home, a close friend and ally when I’m out with another.

 

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Judaism, Mountains, Mussar

Well. That Sucks.

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Leo. Marilyn and Irv. Heidi and Rider. Primo’s. Kep, his ashes and paw print. Another beautiful day in the Mountain hood. Rabbi Jamie talking about ritual. Rebecca. Ode and Dennis. Luke picking up Leo. Blood draw for PSA and testosterone. A good workout. Resting heart rate down to 61. Weight at 145. 5.5 inches tall, down from 5′ 7″. 76. Being alive.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Heidi

One brief shining: Picked up Kep’s ashes yesterday the receptionist remembered them all she said Rigel was a star as her voice broke when I came back to the car Leo wagged his tail happy to see me in my hand a bag with cloth cord handles, a bamboo box in a blue cloth sack and a small box with silver that held the imprint of Kep’s paw.

 

When the doctor blurted out Leslie’s diagnosis including that she had less than a month to live, she said, well. That sucks. I won’t be going to Poland. You had to know Leslie but it was in character and a solid way, imho, to meet the guy in black with the sickle. Acknowledgement. No bargaining. Reality. A bit of humor.

Her service is tomorrow. I’ll be there. And at her shiva tomorrow evening. How we do it.

 

Left 15 minutes early this morning for an appointment with Rabbi Jamie. Why? Downtown Evergreen is a must see now thanks to a summer long detour away from the lake. On Sunday it took me twenty minutes to get from my side of Evergreen to the synagogue side. Today. No trouble at all so I ended up 15 minutes early rather than 20 minutes late. Sunday was with tourists. Today not so much.

Rabbi Jamie and I discussed a ritual for crossing the threshold.  A mezuzah hanging will be part of it. Something also about being an elder and a male. We’ll discuss it over time. October 8th at ten am. He told me of a delightful ritual in Nepal. Apparently at 7 a boy becomes a man expected to participate in family and village life in a positive way. That phase lasts for 70 years. Then at 77, the man becomes a child again. On his 77th birthday the man leads a parade through the town where everyone greets him, blesses him. I like that idea, too. We’re going to discuss a late life ritual for men as well for my own situation.

Also his dad may go on the Israel trip and we could room together. Save us both $1,100. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

 

After breakfast with Rebecca. Rebecca teaches ESL at a nunnery in northern India, one related to the Tibetan Buddhist diaspora. She’s 80 and travels there once a year for four months or so, living in the same quarters as the nuns. We sat outside at the Parkside in lovely 67 degree and sunny weather Colorado dogs and their humans coming back and forth through the tables.

Rebecca believes Leslie got a good result with a healthy life up till two weeks before her death. Probably right about that.

Life in the Mountains. And death.

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Politics

Regression

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Monday gratefuls: Gabe and Seo. Aspen Perks. Twist and Shout. Denver. My circuitous route to it courtesy of my GPS. Denver East. High school freshmen. Ruth. A senior in one week. Sounding good. Working two jobs, Starbucks and Rocketfizz. Mia. Leslie, may her memory be for a blessing. Regression? Organizing. Mark and Dennis in Aspen at the Psychedelic Symposium. Then coming here. Leo, quite a good boy. Israel. Korea. Ecuador. Seeing the world again. Mark teaching nurses in Saudi Arabia. Mary winding down the semester in Eau Claire. My son and his wife, their first days back in Korea.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth’s voice last night when we talked

One brief shining: A modern horror story in one long sentence would be my friend Leslie going into the hospital for a hepatitis workup, coming out with a diagnosis of liver cancer that had metastasized, returning home not to continue her interesting life as a docent at the Denver Art Museum and a retired city planner and a long time member of CBE but to hospice cared for by her daughter Megan and dying yesterday in her sleep, winking out of her world and our world with little more than a week gone by from her visit to the hospital.

 

The world is too much with us late and soon. Until suddenly it isn’t. Leslie’s death shocked our mussar group and CBE as a whole. So fast. And from a seemingly healthy state. Ye know not the day nor the hour. If she follows Jewish custom, the chevra kadisha committee from CBE will sit with her body around the clock for the three days before her burial. Jews believe the soul doesn’t leave the body for three days after death. A pine box and a grave follow. Shiva for the family. These days, as with Kate, often only one or two days rather than the traditional seven.

Don’t know Leslie’s age, but she was a rough contemporary.

 

Spent the morning and early afternoon with Seo and Gabe. Breakfast at Aspen Perks. A drive into Denver to go to the Twist and Shout vinyl record store. Gabe picked up Dark Side of the Moon. Dropped them off at their homes and went back to Shadow Mountain for a brief, thirty minute lie down, then over to CBE for the last of Dismantling Racism classes. At which we discussed next steps. An odd feeling came over me as this discussion went on. I found myself pulling back, listening to the ideas thrown back and forth, no one settling on a direction, a plan. My inner organizer winced, felt tired.

As I drove home, I wondered if this might be a regressive activity for me. I had one before when I tried to reenter the ministry as a UU clergy. Spent a long time getting through the process, then to an internship in Unity at St. Paul. Kate said it was a mistake. I couldn’t see it. Then I made the very stupid decision to say yes to a job there as their minister of development. Again Kate said it was a mistake. It was. About as far from what I’m good at as I can imagine. I resigned, finally, to everyone’s relief.

Regressions find us wanting to go back, pick up something we left behind, something that was unfinished. These feelings made me return to the Marginalian to pick up this paragraph, a summary of Karen Horney’s thoughts in her last book.* The organizer is one of those Russian nesting dolls that lives now deep within me. Followed by the writer, Kate’s husband, the dog lover, the horticulturist, the cook, the docent, the Coloradan, the mourner and the griever, the Grandpa, the camp follower Jew, the Hermit on Shadow Mountain, the lover of deepening relationships, the traveler. He’s of the past, still loved and appreciated, held in a position of honor among my past selves, but really not me anymore. He likes to feel he could still flex his muscles, stand in front of a group of strangers and call out from them a course of action that would give them at least a partial remedy to the pains of their lives.

He was good at what he did and his work satisfied the me of my thirties and early forties in a profound way. Making a substantial difference for at least a few people for a particular moment in time. Some differences still at work like the Jobs Now Coalition, The Minnesota Council on Non-Profits, The Metropolitan Interfaith Coalition for Affordable Housing, many businesses and affordable housing units on the West Bank in Minneapolis. And many others in fact.

But his time is past. Not sure where that leaves me now. More investigation required. Fortunately, the future of CBE’s antiracism efforts do not depend on me.

 

 

*The measure of growth is not how much we have changed, but how harmoniously we have integrated our changes with all the selves we have been — those vessels of personhood stacked within the current self like Russian nesting dolls, not to be outgrown but to be tenderly incorporated. True growth is immensely difficult precisely because it requires befriending the parts of ourselves we have rejected or forgotten — what James Baldwin so memorably called “the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are”; it requires shedding all the inauthentic personae we have put on in the course of life under the forces of convention and compulsion; it requires living amicably with who we have been in order to fully live into who we can be.

Art and Culture, Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Mountains, Mussar, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Memory

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Leo. Luke. Leslie. Her daughter, Megan. Jamie Bernstein. Ellen Arnold. Leo’s bone. Rain. Good Rain, drought go away Rain. The flooded out Italian Grand Prix. My son, his wife, and Murdoch. Residents of Korea. A new Day, a turned Earth revealing a brilliant Sun in a clear blue Colorado Sky. A cool night. Good for sleeping. That $60 bill from Centura.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Black Mountain

One brief shining: August 3rd bone scan long billed to me at $5,000 or so now reduced to $60 which I paid yesterday May 20th after the uneven teeth of the bureaucrats of AARP Insecure, Optum Care, and Centura meshed, moving the whole process to a different gear one that recognized the contractual obligations that left me free of responsibility a mere ten months after the initial attempt to wring thousands out of my bank account.

 

Leo lies on my rug up here in my home office. Chewing on a meaty marrow rich bone his dad left with me. A happy dog. Luke’s in New York at a cousin’s wedding upstate. Leo came Thursday night and will be here through Tuesday. It’s a delight to have a furry presence in the house. And, like a grandchild, one that will go home after a few days.

Speaking of grandchildren. Gabe’s coming up today with his buddy Seo. When I take him home we’ll stop at Twist and Shout a vinyl record store on Colfax. My grandchild insisting on going back to a technology I left behind long ago. One of the inevitable ironies of aging I guess.

 

While Robin and Michele hung my art, I got breakfast at Aspen Perks. After I drove over to Bailey. A Happy Camper run. It was a Rainy, Foggy morning the Mountains capped with Clouds and Mist, sometimes obscured altogether. On these rare mornings I often feel like I’m in the Smokies, not the Rockies. Expect to see signs for boiled peanuts, old race cars put out to literal pasture, a stars and bars flying from a local flagpole. Nope. Conifer Ranch. Rural electric co-op headquarters. I’m on 285 South which runs not to Asheville, North Carolina, but Santa Fe, New Mexico. Passing through the Platte River Valley.

Weather can transport me far away. Another for instance. A humid, not too cool early morning reminds me of Hawai’i where I often got up at 5:00 am to get my exercise in before the heat of the day. When the rains pounded down the other day and thunder roared directly overhead, I was back in Andover glad the weather was watering my vegetables, the orchard, the flowers. The Great Wheel turns and returns. The seasons flowing out from each other round and round, the cycle of life.

 

Leslie’s sudden plunge into hospice has stayed on my mind. I posted this on April 28th.

“It was my first time back to Thursday mussar since January, maybe earlier. I’d attended on zoom some, but with Kep’s decline and the snow and other things, I hadn’t felt up to the drive. Two of the women, Leslie and Rebecca, both kissed me on the head! Not sure what that was about though it was clearly a sign of affection.”

Less than a month ago. Cancer. As I said.

 

 

 

 

Art and Culture, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Memories, Mussar, Shadow Mountain

A Bastard

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Friday gratefuls: Rain. Leo. Luke. Robin and Michele. Hanging art. Shadow Mountain. Black Mountain which I cannot see. Fog. Rain drops on Lodgepine Needles.  Walking outside with Leo in the rain. Thatching in Japan and in England. Crafts as history, as DNA of a culture. Korea. Israel. Ecuador. Travel. Mark, the Teacher. Mary, the Teacher of Teachers. The Middle East. The Far East. South America. Cultures and their diverse answers to the human questions of meaning, eating, reproducing, governing. Leslie. Cancer. Charlie H. Charlie B-E. Karen. Judy, may her memory be for a blessing. Kep and all the dogs taken by cancer.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Duchenne Smile

One brief shining: Cancer a bastard an intimate assassin who lies in wait hidden somewhere in spots too difficult to see like a sniper on a rooftop or an umbrella spiked with polonium or that ring with a small latch which carries poison to put in the cup of an unsuspecting dinner guest, an impolite guest within my body, within the body of many others, including Leslie who went in thinking hepatitis and came out in hospice care for metastasized liver cancer. As I said. A bastard.

 

Leslie went to the doctor, then to the hospital for a hepatitis workup. Nope. Liver cancer, metastasized. Instead of going home with medication she went home to hospice. As I said.

Had an 8:30 am call with my radiation oncologist. No immediate after effects. Check with us in a year. A continuing story. As with Charlie H. and Karen. So, so many others. Not an isolated experience. At all.

 

More art hanging happening today. More to come. Reflected on the reasons for art in a home. Not only beauty. Maybe not even primarily beauty. Memory. That poster of the French island Charon. Given to Kate and me as a present by the owner of the laundromat where we did our wash in Paris. The somewhat treacly but also beautiful in its way painting of the sea turtle. Kate’s aesthetic and her totem animal. That dancing prophet in the blue robe with the big beard. A symbol of what the Presbytery thought of me. A gift when I retired. The Hermit neon. How I felt in the months after Kate died. Those stone sculptures. Bought in Siem Reap. Made by Cambodians learning the ancient art on display in the temples of Angkor Wat. The wooden plaque with a Moose, a Bear, and a Beaver. A gift for Kate’s 75th.

Jerry’s paintings the two large scale semi-impressionist works of landscape in on near Bellews Creek, N.C. are beautiful and make a huge splash on the walls. Even there. Painted by Kate’s sister’s husband. For her town home. Moved after that to our first home together on Edgcumbe Road in St. Paul onto our 20 year home in Andover and finally making the trek to Shadow Mountain.

And all those works of Jon. Beautiful in their abstract way. Even more now. A testament to the rebellious and innovative print maker he was.

Of course memories. Photographs. Yes. Those too. Art. So important in my life. Maybe in yours, too.

Health, Politics

Denial is not only a river in Egypt

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Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Rain. A gray Sky. Wet Lodgepole Needles. A driveway slick with Rain. Kate, always Kate. Her memory, a blessing. Jon, a memory. Gabe and Seo coming up this weekend. Leo, coming today for a long visit. My son and his wife. Murdoch. Safely in Korea. This Henry Miller chair. Pixels. Computer chips. Keyboards. Screens. Speakers and cameras. Zoom. Diane. Israel trip is on.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Travel gettin’ real

One brief shining: Read an article about insurance companies increasing denials for claims including a job title denial nurse and I looked over at my denied claims for my radiation thinking how long can this uncertainty go on looking at the trajectory of my life, damning the American I don’t even know what to call it but health care system is not it.

 

Generally I sleep well. Last night though. Those damned insurance companies. Well, to be specific, Travelers and AARP Secure Advantage. Discovered I’d missed a significant increase in my home insurance. Went from $4,500 to $5,500. Came last October in the midst of the turmoil over Jon’s death. Guess I didn’t read it. Learned about it when my mortgage payments went up. Wildfire related.

AARP so called Secure Advantage sent me a nice note denying payment for my radiation. I called Urology Associates billing and Nick, bless his heart, said I was not responsible for any denied payments. Good. But. This article in yesterday’s Washington Post: Denials of Insurance Claims Are Rising-And Getting Weirder caught my attention because I read it the same day I got the note from Insecure advantage. This one is on top of the already existing hassle with Centura Health over my bone scan last August. $5,200.

What I crave is predictability. Cancer and how to treat it creates enough chaos. I don’t need to add to that wondering if my treatments will get paid for. The system is not understandable. My doctors advise me as to the best course of treatment. I follow their advice. Another layer of surveillance by me? To see if insurance company rules have been followed? But which ones? For whom? It’s. Just. Too. Fucking. Complicated.

Even though I’m not liable for the denied claims it injects a wondering about future treatments. If Insecure Advantage keeps refusing to pay, will my providers stop caring for me? Dr. Simpson, my radiation oncologist, recommended I switch back to original Medicare when the enrollment season opens up in October. He said it would be easier.

I need to compare Insecure Advantage with original Medicare. I have a good insurance agent whom I’m going to talk to. We’ll see what comes of that.

This is, I suppose, whining. But I’m not alone. No sirree. Read that WP article. Our health should not be captive to bean counters trying to maximize profits at the expense of our well-being. Should not be. However. It is.

If you read that article, you’ll find embedded in it observations about algorithms and AI being used to deny claims with no human in the stream of accountability. Welcome, my dear readers. To the future.

 

Acting, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends

Radical Otherness

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Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Tal of the light and the morning dew. Acting. Finding a character. The Explorer archetype. The Fool. The Hermit.  The Window. Art hung. More donations taken. Robin and Michele. A blue Sky Sunlit Lodgepole and Aspen Mountain Morning. Maxwell Creek. Cub Creek. Kate’s Creek. Bear Creek. Shadow Brook. All full and roaring, muddy. Black Mountain, a gentle curve against the western Sky. Shadow Mountain beneath me. The night Sky. The Atlantic Ocean. The Bay of Fundy. Robbitson, Maine.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The repetition exercise from Meisner

One brief shining: Acting requires living truthfully in an imaginary situation according to Stanford Meisner Tal says which made me wonder with the sensory mediation of reality with which we all experience each other and the world if living in what we each insist on calling reality does not require the same.

 

Read a fascinating article in the New York Times by a couples therapist. Two things stood out for me. The first, which was her main point, is the apparent degree to which the language and conceptual frames of the me-too movement and the Black Lives Matter movement has come to inform how couples see each other. Men and women both have a greater sensitivity to the impact of sexuality on even day to day interactions, at work as well at home. Mixed race couples and couples of color have begun to voice the reality of the daily toll racism takes on their lives and how it can impact their relationships. This is, in my mind, one of the greater positives to come out of both of these movements. When we can begin to alter not only the conversation between each other in intimate relationships, but within our selves, we have the potential for lasting change.

However. That was not the most significant part of the article for me. Orna Gurlick, the author of the article, says the biggest challenge in couples therapy is accepting the radical otherness of your partner. Oh. Yeah. What a thing to say in the context of therapy. And therapy in an intimate relationship, the ones where we know each other better than any other. Or so we like to think.

We are tiny universes, distinctive and self-motivating. Tal last night took us through the 5 questions of acting. Who are you? When and where are you?  What do you want, what gives you meaning? How do you get what you want? What will you do if you get it or don’t get it? The intent of the five questions is to help actors understand that their character must be understood in as fully complicated a way as our own Selves.

Radical otherness sits as close as the chair at the breakfast table or lies next to you in bed. That notion humbles me and excites me. There are aliens among us and we are one, too. At our best we live truthfully in the imaginary situation we create with all the other aliens in our lives. Something to ponder.