Spring Recovery Moon
Picked up sister-in-law BJ at DIA yesterday. She’s an experienced traveler with a single roll-on bag and bright blue, hard-shelled case which carries her violin. It goes everywhere with her, including in to Sushi Win for lunch. “Cold is not good for it. Changes in humidity.” She’s the concert master for the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, so the blue, hard-shelled case carries her means of earning a living.
We talked about the arts over lunch. Interestingly, her s.o. Schecky Ballentyne, a student of the cello great, Leonard Rose, and a teacher of the cello as well as an international soloist, thinks a renaissance of the arts gestates among millennials. A while back when he taught his students could count on getting jobs as professional musicians. More recently his students have gone on other careers instead. Medicine. Scholarship. Computer programming. But. They keep up the instrument, have chamber music evenings with other part time players, and keep their art alive. Schecky believes these folks will create an artistic renewal when they become more settled in their lives. May it be so.
Shecky and a pianist with whom he often works, Hiroko Sasaki, have a performance scheduled at the Merkin Hall in NYC. May 24. Here’s the info in case you’re in the Big Apple over that time:
In the 20 years spanned by the music in this evening’s performance, Beethoven revolutionized music and single-handedly created the modern cello sonata. By juxtaposing works from each major period of his life, Ballantyne and Sasaki highlight this composer’s unique musical and spiritual development. For an even more immersive experience, please join Emmy nominee George Marriner Maull, well-known for his PBS and radio specials about music, for a pre-concert lecture at 6:30 in the balcony lobby.
Artists
Scott Ballentyne, cello
Hiroko Sasaki, piano
Program
Pre-concert Lecture: The Music of Beethoven by George Maull at 6:30
BEETHOVEN – Sonata Op. 5 #2 in G minor (1796)
BEETHOVEN – Sonata Op. 69 in A Major (1807/1808)
BEETHOVEN – Sonata Op. 102 #2 in D Major (1815)
Another 5 inches plus of snow here over night. Temperatures cooled down after the overheated week we had. This is powder though so it was easy to shovel the deck. Still snowing and in the teens.
Sandy, our house cleaner, came yesterday. She cleaned the loft, especially the bathroom after the unseating and resealing of the toilet. Always nice to get this space cleaned, about every other time she comes.
Kate continues to gain weight, do her ot/pt which gives her more strength and stamina. The hi-resolution CT next Tuesday should complete the diagnostic work of this whole ordeal. It will identify or rule out any lung disease. Then we’ll know whether she can go ahead with the j-tube placement. If Gupta, the pulmonologist, gives her the ok, that could happen fairly quickly.
All three dogs love the snow. Rigel and Gertie both go into the drifts nose first, come up shaking their heads, then do it again. Rigel hunts the rabbits that live under the deck and the shed, but she’s never caught one here, as far as I know. Back in Andover, every once in a while. Kep likes to wander in the snow, his black and white body moving in and out of the drifts as he investigates. He’s usually the last one back inside. His genes, after all, hail from the Akita prefecture in Japan, famous for its mountains and snow.
First workout today here in my loft gym for almost two months. If it’s anything like Thursday, I’m gonna need some help to get back downstairs. My quads are still complaining from that session.
In the way of Colorado this snow will be gone by Monday. 44 that day. Right now though it’s beautiful, falling gently on the lodgepoles, the naked aspen, our solar panels. Traction law is in effect. If you have bad tires and cause an accident or obstruct traffic, a big fine. Spring and winter will alternate with each other, probably all through April, perhaps even into May. Heavy snows, then 50 degree + days. Normal for us.
When you read the literature, it’s clear that exercise is not only beneficial, but necessary for good health, especially as we age. I didn’t start until my late 30’s and it took me a while to get regular at it. Now it feels weird to me if I don’t get in my workouts on a regular basis. The last two months were an anomaly and one I didn’t like.
Go now, the illness has ended. Feeling 95%. Still something in my lungs, not much. So seven weeks after the molasses filled drive back from Denver, I feel able. Still got workouts and stamina to increase, but I enjoy that. Imagine me doing a little dance on the balcony of the loft, a dance of thanksgiving for a strong constitution and a return to the unremarkable state of health.
Remember the Producers? Zero Mostel? In it was the classic hit, “It’s Springtime for Hitler”. Well, it’s springtime in the Rockies and all of Colorado. Here’s another pirouette for great comedies and a plié with arm extended for the beauty of Black Mountain.
And, yes, in that state now, I feel resurrected, reborn, renewed. A little shaky perhaps but that fits such a state doesn’t it? What’s next? Not in the quotidian sense I mentioned above, but what’s next in the sense of “
Head. Mostly clear. Lungs. Mostly clear. I’m beginning to feel the illness bidding me goodbye. So long, it was good to know ya. Nah, it wasn’t. And don’t come back, please.
I really don’t want to confuse Kate’s journey right now, especially since we see the same doc, so I may wait a bit, be sure the flight of respiratory illness I sampled over the last two months has actually ended. In time I would like to know if anything in my lungs compromises my breathing. It’s certainly possible. I smoked for 13 years. Not proud of it, but I did. I also worked in a couple of high particulate matter jobs in my younger days, cutting rags at a paper mill and moving completed asbestos ceiling tiles to pallets. And, Dad had severe asthma, using an inhaler virtually his whole life.
What impedes breathing, impedes life itself. Impedes the spirit of all life that dwells within us. Like health breathing is unremarkable to most of us until its ease experiences an interruption. Water boarding, or extreme interrogation (not torture as our CIA likes to say), is horrific because it emulates drowning. Our body has reflexes built in, the diving reflex, for example, that protect us in the case of sudden immersion in water. This means that our DNA carries a history of dangers to our breathing.
A breathing issue is not, then, solely the province of pulmonology. It is also the province of theology broadly understood. Theology, for me, is the way you identify, organize, and deal with matters of ultimate importance. Life itself is, of course, a matter of ultimate importance to an individual; therefore, life and how it is for us at any particular point is a directly theological matter. Breath, the spirit of life that fills our lungs, provides our cells with oxygen so that they can carry out the physiological functions that are life in the body, is also of ultimate importance.
A visit to the pulmonologist. Dr. Gupta, looked very medical in blue scrubs, said Kate’s pulmonary function test wasn’t helpful. He didn’t say why, “Looks like a bad test.” He postponed the j-tube surgery yet again, instead ordering a hi-resolution ct scan. This will look for evidence of interstitial lung disease, in particular inflammation or scarring. It will also help them identify the cause of any lung disease, which, in the case of interstitial lung disease, is critical to its treatment though I don’t recall why. Short version. Another week before we know anything definite. Kate says she feels suspended.