Category Archives: Friends

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Shadow Mountain

Enough

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Safety. May. Spring. The beauty of the Lodgepoles. The Aspens leafing out. BJ and Pammy.

Rene Good and Alex Pretti. Say their names,

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mac and cheese

 

Kavannah:  Zerizut.  Zest and Zeal. Enthusiasm. Risking a gray, homebound life. Need a push. Good for another week. Still at risk.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: I pull out mac and cheese. Plate it and warm it. Perhaps a frittata instead. No? A drumstick, blueberries and strawberries. Maybe. Having a refrigerator stocked with ready to eat food. Melissa, my visiting angel.

 

Visiting Angels. A palliative care nurse. A social worker. Melissa. Maddie. Used to be Rachel. My home team. They care about me and I appreciate it.

My friends at CBE. Visiting me. Giving me rides. Ruth coming up to cook for me. Tom and Paul’s visits. I’m a lucky guy. Family coming. Mary. Mark. Joe and Seoah. Ginny and Janice, chosen family.

Alone, but not lonely.

It may be, probably is, that these relationships are my purpose now. Staying in touch. Visits. Zoom calls. Enlivening and being enlivened. Seeing and being seen.

Perhaps this has always been true. I-Thou over the I-Its of career, striving.

Yes. If I-Thou extends to the wild realms, to dogs and cats, to the wonder of the light-eaters, then I say yes. More than skill. More than income. More than knowledge. More than status or power.

The simple, everyday magic of loving and being loved. A hug. A gift of a smile, a kind glance. The warmth of another’s hand. Bedrock for all of life.

 

 

Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Visits

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Friday gratefuls: Cold chicken. Asian dumplings. Mac and cheese. Paul, Sarah, Kate, Michael. The tire. Snow.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends from away

 

Kavannah:  Zerizut.  Zest and Zeal. Enthusiasm. Risking a gray, homebound life. Need a push.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Sarah came. Fourteen years since I saw her last. When she and Paul moved to Maine all those years ago. A delight. Kate and Michael, their young energy, committed. Targeted. Paul, my friend. Calling time on the visit. Next stop the Train Museum in Golden. For Max, the train obsessed.

 

Their visit came and went too fast. Politics. Women’s fractured bodily autonomy. By red or blue. The sweetness of old friends with whom fourteen years don’t matter. Right back where we were. Paul and I see each other more often, much more. These are friendships of long, long standing. Precious.

Kate did not get a chance to ask her question. What’s everybody reading? Always a fruitful one. I’ve picked this up from her. Next time.

Michael mentioned the Sherpa Restaurant in Boulder. Run by actual Himalayan sherpas. One of the film company principles–Michael works for a documentary filmmaker–had recently come back from Everest. One of the sherpas he had worked with on Everest was at work in the cafe.

Visits affirm the visitor and the visited. You are both worth the effort of seeing and being seen. No small thang.

Sleep less good last night. Though. No longer falling asleep when I write as I did not so long ago. Body still quiet. Regular food. Healing.

A main issue now: detraining. Major muscle loss. Not sure how or when or whether to address this. Will become more front of mind.

Had a kind note from Allison Theil. A fellow docent from the class of 2005. She says she reads Ancientrails everyday. Allison was/is a good friend. Buoys me up to hear from readers.

 

 

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain

Seeing Past Illness

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shadow. Paul, Sarah, Kate. Snow. Cool nights. Dr. Josy. Melissa. Sleep. Food. This nation. Our lives in it.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fruit

 

Kavannah:  Zerizut.  Zest and Zeal. Enthusiasm. Risking a gray, homebound life. Need a push.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: As sleep has improved, as my diet has gotten more varied, I can feel definite progress. My body feels better. Yet this journey has taken a lot out of me and full recovery will, I imagine, take months. Rehab, movement. More of each. Staying with sleep and diet.

 

I’ve been house bound for a while. Medical appointments the only exception. I can see how being a shut-in (not quite me, yet for the last few weeks…) might cripple a life. Unless friends and family visit, there’s no frisson, no healthy friction between my life and the lives of others.

Why get dressed? Shower? Follow a routine of rising and sitting down, sitting down and rising. Bed to chair to fridge to chair. Of course I have my zoom calls, friends and grandkids visiting. Melissa twice a week. I’m not all the way down that rabbit hole, but its existence looms closer now.

I pride myself on resilience. Take the hits. Timex. Keep on ticking. When my body kept signaling distress, when sleep seemed faraway, I found myself shrinking, diminished to a janky physical platform and an I can’t see beyond this mess version of my self.

With sleep and good food, as my body has quieted, I’ve begun to see past my illness induced narcissism. I can be grateful, very grateful, for the kindness and love I’ve experienced. Tara and Eleanor. Ginny, Janice, Annie, Luna. Melissa. Ruth. An old man, especially when ill, needs folks who see where he is. Ruth comes at least once a month, cooks for me, tells me, “You’re not old, you’re wise.” Bless her pea-pickin’ heart.

Time for breakfast. Melissa made frittatas.

Fourth Phase, Friends, Health

Less Whacked Out

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Snow. 7+ inches. The merry, snowy month of May. Shadow. Melissa. Fried chicken. Mashed potatoes.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Alan

 

Kavannah:  Zerizut.  Zest and Zeal. Enthusiasm. Risking a gray, homebound life. Need a push.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Sleeping better. Much better. Eating better, too. Feeling less whacked out. Still weak. Stamina poor. Slowly, slowly. Wish I knew what I was recovering from.

 

Another short one. Need to nap. Almost 10 am.

I’m pleased with Melissa. She’s a good cook. Quick, too.

Tara brought sandwiches, fruit salad, and rhubarb surprise. Most excellent.

Will see Paul, Sarah, and Kate on Thursday. BJ and Pammy over the weekend. Alan, Ginny and Janice, too.

Sleepy.

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health

Charlie’s Big Day

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Wednesday gratefuls: Diane. Shadow’s duvet nest. Relief. My phone returns. Tara’s big help. Fiber and protein. Groceries.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cease Fire

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut.  Shadow

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Some days. Yesterday. Tara picked up my phone from the Synagogue. Once again I am in thrall. She also picked up my grocery order and my meds. The Miralax chose yesterday to kick in. I couldn’t have walked to the pharmacy and back to the car without a problem.

 

Not often two week defining events get resolved on the same day. Constipation ended though stomach soreness has not. I can sleep. Get up from a chair without concern. A festival moment for the Moon of Liberation.

My body got relief from a pestering problem.

Also starts sending out messages. Buy the high fiber oatmeal. The seven grain bread. Move more. Sensible. Stuff I know. I order a clamshell of Kiwi fruit.

Yesterday afternoon I had to get my groceries. Couldn’t. Asked Tara. She agreed. Got my meds. My pick up order. When she got back, she put the groceries away. A good friend.

Using the creepily easy find my phone feature in Google, I saw a small, red upside down tear light up in Lakewood. Lakewood? Only took a moment. Luke’s apartment. Made sense since we had lunch together on Sunday and Luke drove.

Sure enough. When Luke looked in the Subaru, my phone was on the passenger’s side. Yay! He took it to Bagel Table, but had to leave it there. Indisposed as mentioned above, I couldn’t get it. Tara had a tutoring student at CBE on Tuesday. Worked well.

When she came with the phone, she also brought Eleanor. Shadow and Eleanor played hard while Tara left for Safeway. I stayed home, preserving my dignity.

The two burs in my side since Sunday a week a go. Got plucked. It was 8-10 days of silence. Once I got over my 21st century existential crisis–someone might need to talk to me!–I found my phone’s absence a relief.

Except when I thought, oh, I need to text Ruth. Look up characters in a movie. Calendar. Emails. You know. That stuff we do with these powerful small computers.

I’m lucky to have a friend like Tara. She says yes whenever possible and shows such joy when helping. That makes it easier to ask her. I’m learning how to navigate this weaker me.

Happy that between my friends and Miralax I could have a celebratory Tuesday.

An epidemic of loneliness.

I live alone, largely relying on myself day-to-day. When trouble comes, I count on an inner-circle of friends and family.

Alone.
Yet surrounded.
By love.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends

Who do you love?

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Monday gratefuls: Luke, assistant professor of Chemistry. Jamie. Spring. Walking. Moving. Samantha. RMCC.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Leo

 

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut. The eyes of Shadow. The rough bark of the lodgepole.

Tarot: Five of Vessels, Ecstasy. “…seek and surrender to the cosmic life force.” Accepting, embracing the power of life, even in hard circumstances.

One brief shining: Eating out with Luke. Our long relationship adds another memory over tandoori chicken and mango lassi.

 

Once every month or so Luke comes up to do his laundry. The machines in his apartment complex are cranky, expensive. I love that he comes. A chance to catch up. Eat a meal together.

When Leo comes in the house, Shadow sniffs under the door, tail wagging at propeller speed. Then she twirls around for a couple of turns. When Leo comes through the door, she races over to him, smiling, play bowing.

They go outside for a turn in the big yard, Shadow bouncy and running, Leo walking stiffly. At 13, he’s slower. His joints ache as he tries a couple of runs with the youngster.

Luke had let his hair grow for two years. It came over his shoulder. Before he came up here, he had it all braided, then cut off. He grew it out for a charity that makes wigs for children with hair loss. He showed me a picture of the braids in his hand.

Teaching becomes him. Nobody tells him how to teach. He’s teaching a field he knows well.

He stands straighter, speaks more confidently. He’s created chai-chi–tai-chi taught from within a kabbalist framework.

He also told me yesterday he loves when I tell him I love him. “Not many men do that,” he said. When did we become so closed?

Luke turns 35 this year. Veronica, my mikveh buddy, is late twenties. Ruth turns 20 this year, Gabe 18. At 79 I cherish these relationships.

I turned 34 (Luke’s current age) in 1981. The year Joseph was born and our adoption of him finalized. When I turned 20, I was, like Ruth, still in college. 1967.

The great chain of becoming.  Charlie to Joseph, to Luke, to Ruth. No blood. Still, we love.

When Kate died, I lost my best friend, my lover, my wife. What to do with that love? The love that flourished with Wolfhounds and Whippets, with working in the garden together, cruising around Latin America. Where does that love go? It doesn’t die with her.

Love as many as you can.
As often as you can.
Anywhere you can.

Feeding the dogs. Eating Indian food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cancer, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain

Push Cancer Back

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Thursday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Tara and Eleanor. Marshdale Burgers. Ana. No winter winter. Shadow and the puzzle.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Women

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

Tarot: #11, The Woodward. Cancer requires an unflinching acceptance of hard truths. Not easy.

 

One brief shining: Disturbing news. PSA went way up. Surprised everybody. Especially me. Bupathi says we’re so close to the trial, maybe April 8th for first treatment, that it makes sense to go forward. I hope actinium is a wonder drug.

The trial has three arms. It matters, a lot, which arm I get assigned to.

Randomization. An ugly word. Happens probably tomorrow. That’s when I’ll know. Or soon after.

A high PSA with multiple new metastases. Not a place I want to be. But. It’s where I am. I’m in need of something to slow down this latest run.

An ornery beast, this cancer of mine. Hiding, biding its time. When a treatment fails, it leaps out with a roar. As oncologist Kristie said, “This disease will run its course.”

I want my PSA lower, much lower. I want my cancer pushed back. If I can get a year, a year plus before having to change protocols, I’ll feel good. May not happen. I fear a minimal response.

My weariness peaked last week.  How do I get through this? I’m not alone.

 

Yesterday. An accidental confluence. Ana came first: dusting, vacuuming, cleaning sinks and toilets. Tara came second, bearing cheeseburgers from Marshdale Burgers. Tater tots, too. Dr. Josy came, too. She had dog poop removal equipment.

Ana has been cleaning my house since before Kate died.

Tara I’ve known for over ten years. She brings her black Doodle, Eleanor, over to the house for a Shadow play date. While the dogs play, we talk.

Yesterday, in addition to bringing lunch, Tara brought in my canned water and put it in the fridge. Then, she unloaded my dishwasher. She also brought soup.

Dr. Josy scooped up all of Shadow’s poop deposited after the dog run went into effect. She also walked the perimeter of my fence, finding two trouble spots. Which Tara volunteered Arjean to fix.

Key elements of my resilience.

Love
An empty dishwasher.
A clean dog run.

Dogs, Friends, Shadow Mountain

Paw to the Leg

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Tuesday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Audrey. Shadow’s ear. Marilyn and Irv. Kate, always Kate. Joy. Ahava. Good friends. New friends.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Prairie Grasses

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

Tarot: eight of bows, hearthfire.  Tend to the fires I have already lit.

One brief shining: Shadow of the morning. Vitality. Tail wagging. Ready. A day, take any day, dawn to the first three stars in the sky. My day starts long before the sun appears and ends near dusk. Shadow time.

 

Early mornings belong to Shadow and me. Quiet, sheltered. No cars hissing by on Black Mountain Drive. No barking dogs. Writing into the void of a blank screen. Telling myself a story.

Shadow has breakfast, goes outside. Comes inside sometimes  with no invitation. On her own volition. For Shadow though. It’s not usual. Reluctance. A while ago. Occasional refusal. After boarding school? No refusals.

Later. Breakfast with Marilyn and Irv. Primo’s, our usual spot, suddenly closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Aspen Perks.

Aspen Perks used to be packed in the mornings. Not now. Empty booths, chairs. I hope it’s a seasonal thing. None of the three local breakfast spots have gourmet pretensions.

Back home around eleven-thirty. The neck brace helped. Some. Very far from ideal.

Shadow would occupy the afternoon. She had been scooting her head, ear to the floor. Oh. I know this. Ear infection. I texted Dr. Josy. Whom I missed seeing after her frequent visits during care for Shadow’s cut right leg.

She came with her daughter Audrey. Before she examined Shadow, she asked about my health. The clinical trial. She understands the medical side. Healing.

After weighing Shadow, 36 pounds, Audrey held her down while Dr. Josy got out the otoscope. Right ear. A bit of wax. Nothing remarkable. Left ear. A ruptured tympanic membrane and some foreign body lodged deep in the ear canal. Not an ear infection.

Dr. Josy took Shadow home with her. Sedation required to clear the object from her ear.

After Dr. Josy left, the house went still. No Shadow. No paw requesting my attention. Rubber tires rest where she left them. I felt alone.

This morning, as I write, the house still feels empty. I miss Shadow coming over, sitting in front of my chair, staring at me. Her expressive face serious. Understand me, human.

Communication. We humans use words, too. They’re our paw to the leg. Marilyn and I dissected the latest on the Iran war. Our paw to the leg for each other. Debated the comparative venality of Trump and Netanyahu. Over breakfast. Confirming, again, our friendship with our presence. With our shared political views.

The life of March 22nd. Shadow. Writing and revising. Our morning. Time with friends. Time with Dr. Josy and Audrey.

Shadow away.
Missing her.
An empty house.

Fourth Phase, Friends

Elder

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Sunday gratefuls: A Saturday morning with Ruth. Bacon. Strawberries. Bananas. Shadow, who loves Ruth. Our poor, benighted nation.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Granddaughters

 

Kavannah: Groundedness. Yesod.    Yesod is about establishing oneself in reality, refusing to rely on comfortable illusions.

Tarot: King of Arrows, Kingfisher.   The Kingfisher dives with precision. Cut away what is unnecessary to find the truth. Edit. Revise. Edit. Revise

One brief shining: Young people in old men’s lives. Granddaughter Ruth. Mikveh buddy Veronica. Friend Luke. Links to a future I will not see. Connections to a contemporary world I do not know. As I link them to a past before their births.

 

Granddaughter Ruth in tears. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this!” She looked into her future: heated, politically unstable, education expenses stretching through medical school

“What would you do if they told you you had to come back in the office or else?” Veronica, “I’d quit.”

Luke. His art. His music. His conversion. An assistant professor of Chemistry. “Chemistry is about transformation.”

These three I know well. Ruth, my granddaughter. Veronica, with whom I converted. Later, we became b’nai mitzvahs together. Luke: art, love of the Beatles, his quick scientific mind.

All Jews. Two converts and Ruth, born to a Jewish mother.

Ruth turning 20 this April. Leaving childhood. I’ve known her longest. Since infancy. At 3 I took her to the National Western Stock Show. On the bus to get there, she turned to me, her eyes flooding with tears, “I want my mommie.” A reassuring call.

I took her to museums: Colorado History. Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Wings over the Rockies. To the planetarium in Boulder. To eat sushi.

Yesterday she came up here. To make me French toast and bacon with strawberries and bananas. To talk. To tell me the story of how she met David. How she took his hand. A sweet story. An old story. Yet always new.

No longer 3.

Veronica and I were going to have our conversion in Jerusalem. Submerge in an ancient mikveh.  However. October 7, 2023. Israel goes to war.

We had our immersions in a modern mikveh off Alameda in Denver. On Shavuoth of 2024 we read our torah portions, Veronica fluently, me not. Gave our d’var torahs. Led a small bit of the service. Bar mitzvah. Bat mitzvah.

Luke, for a time executive director of the synagogue. Not a great job for him. We became friends. A couple of difficult years after Beth Evergreen. He comes to Shadow Mountain to do laundry while Leo plays with Shadow.

Chemistry has transformed him. Confident, eager. Loved by his students. So happy to see this.

No Sun City. No adults only living situations. No going to the home. Staying in my home. Having a vital social life. Including these three.

This is how I remain alone, but not lonely.

How I can be a steady, stable point for these three. Young adults finding their spot. Living into themselves.

May it continue to be so.

 

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Korea, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Travel, US History

Is it time to go?

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Tuesday and the Moon of Tides

Monday gratefuls: Tara and Eleanor. Arjean. Costa Rica. Iran. U.S. Israel. Gaza. Lebanon. War and peace. Mark in Hafar.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tara

Kavannah: Shleimut. My lev, calm. Clinical trial decision made. Living into the next.

Tarot: Knight of Vessels, Eel. My spirit, strong. My decisions, made. Old, not dead.

One brief shining: While I sit in peace on Shadow Mountain, Shadow gnaws a toy, asks for breakfast. Mary roasts in summer heat. Joe and Seoah shiver in a cold Korea. Everyone seems further away.

 

A conversation U.S. Jews. Is it time to leave? Is this a Weimar moment after Adolf took power? Friends Marilyn and Irv looked at land in Costa Rica. Decided not to go. Irv said he loved the mountains. Too old to leave.

Tara and Arjean. Have hired a property manager. Are cleaning out 27 years of stuff.  Move to Costa Rica sometime in June. Stay in AirBnBs as they scout for a place to settle. A year or so experiment.

Two times when I almost left the continental U.S. 1969. Got the call for my draft physical. To Indianapolis with all of my money and all my possessions. (not much) Would have moved to Canada like my old friend Mike Hines.

Turns out psoriasis worsens when wearing wool and in hot, humid climates. Army uniforms. Wool. Vietnam.

As I left the place where I’d had my physical, a serious man told me: “You cannot enlist in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, or the Marines.” I asked him, “Are you sure?” When he said yes, I said, “Thank god.”

Second time. After Kate died. Joe and Seoah. Planned then to retire after Korea and move back to Hawai’i. Cleared out the house and garage. Researched places on Oahu where Kepler and I could live. Checked out synagogues. Studied my budget.

Jon died. I couldn’t leave Ruth and Gabe.

My sister and my brother, Mary and Mark. Long time expats.  Mary now in Melbourne and Mark teaching ESL to young Arab men. Joe and Seoah: Hawai’i, Singapore, and Korea. Nine years

State Department urges Americans to leave the Middle East. Mark stays. Hafar has no military targets. He lives among the Saudi citizens. Not in an Aramco US compound. An old Saudi hand at this point.

I’m the stay at home of a far flung family.

When is it time to leave?

 

For me. Not yet.