Category Archives: Friends

Friends, Health, Hermitage, Judaism, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History, World History

Good News

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: A good colonoscopy report. Tara. That catfish po’boy and beignets. Susan, my nurse. Luke, the doc. Propofol. Little pictures of the inside of my insides. A really long nap afterward. Sleeping in this morning, a bright one well underway at 7 am. Melting snow. Dark Sky communities. 5 in Colorado. The Milky Way. Our Galactic neighborhood. The Spiral Arm. Our street. The James Webb. Science. Community. The Humanities. A sad time.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: That Threshold, becoming more clear

 

Small polyp. Benign, Evans said. But. Sent to pathology anyhow. That propofol. A white solution injected into my iv. I watched as the fluid went in and woke up later back in the same small curtained off area I had left for the exam room. In between Evans had pumped CO2 in my intestines and run a scope up them looking for cancer. None. Good news. Also. You’ve graduated. No more colonoscopies. Yay! But. Can I still do the prep every once in a while, just for fun?

When I did wake up, I wanted to go back to sleep. I felt so good. So good. I go back to sleep. Charlie, are you ready? Huh? No, not yet. A bit more time went by. Charlie! Are you ready? Oh, uh, yeah. Getting up now. (I wasn’t.) Charlie. A frustrated gal. Ok, ok. Swing your legs over the edge of the bed. Ok, ok. How do you feel? Dizzy. Sleepy. But. I’ll get dressed. I promise. And so I did.

Tara, who took me, smiled when I came out. She took me to Nono’s and bought me a catfish po’boy and two beignets. Then home. A sweet woman and important in my life. I was at her house for a seder last week.

We discussed the history of Christianity. A bit fuzzy if your life orientation is Jewish. Also parenting. Jon, Vincent, Sofia. And, just. Life. You know.

Back home I ate my sandwich and the beignets. Watched TV. Took a three hour nap.

 

Now that Doug has finished, I can begin making decisions about where to put my art. Going to take my time. Not rush. Maybe get in some work on the loft, too. Clear off my art table. Maybe reshelve some books. Move files downstairs to the home office. Have Ana clean it when I get done. When I get the art figured out, I’ll get Vince to come over and hang everything.

I have a list of property management chores for him and as soon as it warms up I’ll get him started on those.

 

My journey into the dark and confusing reality of our current political situation continues. Why Liberalism Failed will help me crystallize my understanding. Without getting too far into Deneen’s argument right now I will say that he’s coming at liberalism as a political philosophy and not using the term as we do in the U.S. for party politics. In his broader argument most U.S. conservatives are liberals, too. That is, both parties (bracketing Trumpists and the new Far Right) support free enterprise, science as a way to gain dominion over nature, the autonomous individual, and government that derives its authority from the consent of those individuals.

Denver, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Mountains

Over the Mountains and through the Freeways to Alan’s new place

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Ruth. Sarah and Jerry. BJ and Schecky. Annie. The soft Light of early Morning. The calm Lodgepole standing by my window, its Cones hugged tight to needle covered Branches. Let the photosynthesis begin! Alan and his new home, home turf. He’s not in the Mountains anymore. Sam’s #3. Kep, my sweet boy. Kate, my sweet gal.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Trees

 

Drove down the hill. Left here at 8 am, just late enough to avoid rush hour. Followed Ruby’s wayfinding. Not the way I would have gone, but I thought, what the hell.

A blue shiny Colorado day. We get lots of them. My heart opened up as I did something unusual, going into the city early in the morning. That travelin’ gene kicked in. I could be doing this anytime I want. Headed in any direction. Toward Mexico. Toward Taos or Santa Fe. Toward Moab. For any length of time. Lock up the house. Hit the road. Plan to after this course of radiation quiets down.

Fun to be out of the usual habitat. Although. I don’t like city driving much anymore. I find difficult intersections overwhelming, too many vehicles, going too fast. And I don’t know the city well. Have to listen to Ruby. You know, sensory overload compared to Black Mountain and Brook Forest Drive.

Lucked out on Curtis Ave. One parking spot away from the intersection where Alan waited at Sam’s #3, a go to diner spot. An empty slot. Dove in. Fed the meter. With my Visa card. Crossed when the light’s little man showed up.

Alan waiting inside. Sam’s #3, there are several and they’re all named #3, has two loops of counter seating and several booths right along 14th Street. Looking out toward the Link building. Ironically, Alan’s old office building back when he worked for Century Link.

Gyros and eggs over easy, home fries. Alan, keeping kosher for passover, had chile rellenos and eggs. Home fries. First time I’d visited him in his new neighborhood. Denver calls this, clumsily I think, Upper DownTown.

We caught up. Radiation. My son. Probate. His daughter, Frannie. How much he likes the new digs. The new neighborhood. One block from the Denver Performing Art Center. Where the big blue Bear leans onto the window wall.

We walked the two blocks from Sam’s #3 to his building. A tall glass affair. Balconies. A fob for the door. Found the elevators. The tour. A floor with two concierge like employees who gather in packages from the post or Fedex or UPS. Who take other deliveries like dry cleaning and laundry. Out the door a heated pool, a hot tub, a shallow pool with foam recliners. On the other side barbecue grills. Three next to each other. Great views of the Mountains the downtown skyline. Inside again. The gym.  A good one, with free weights and exercise machines along with the usual treadmills and ellipticals. Empty at 10 am on a Friday.

Up to the Sky Club. Available only for those with units on the 34th floor and above. The penthouses. All. Marketing. The Sky Club on the 42nd and last floor. Pool table. A long dining table. Glass window walls with both Mountain and downtown scapes. Locked individual wine cupboards. Comfy chairs and sofas. Alan calls it a vertical cruise ship.

Then, down to his and Cheri’s place on the 38th floor. On entry a short hallway to the right goes to the laundry. The entry way opens out onto the kitchen, all appliances on a wall, an island across from them. The living/dining area showcases a view of Pike’s Peak seen past the Hyatt Regency, the Cash Register Building, and other hall marks of downtown Denver.

Master bedroom to the right. Cheri’s dance studio was immediately to the left after the entry. Alan’s office to the left. A good sized room made smaller with a loveseat facing the TV. A huge walk in closet. One in the master suite, too. Lots of storage.

Two balconettes. One off the living room and one off the master suite. Wide enough for a chair, long enough for three.

Considerably smaller than their old house in Genessee. Downsizing. What they wanted. Mostly what Cheri wanted was no threat of fire. No threat of losing house value if insurance companies turn against those of us in the W.U.I.

Frannie, home for passover, popped in with her friend Jenna. We all chatted for a while and I took my leave. Happy to leave the city for the mountains.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Holidays, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Oh. Huh.

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan. Doug. Nearly done. Snow melted. Low fire danger. Tara. Ofer. Jack. Adam. Cheka. Andrew. Savannah. Robbie. Arjean. Tara’s seder. The Cyberknife. The CT. Diane. Kim and Patty. Carmela. The medical physicist. Norbert, Tara’s dog who died suddenly. Julie and Sophia. Jayden. Safeway pickup. A blue Sky early morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cheka and Andrew

 

Patty, a sweet lady and the lead radiation therapy tech, told me yesterday, as I left the CT room zipping up my jacket. Have a good Easter. I smiled. Jolted. No I said in my head I’m more of a passover guy now.

A strange moment. My reaction, that of an outsider to a cultural norm assumed so easily it’s not checked, surprised me. I didn’t realized how far down the Jewish path I’d traveled in my heart. This was not intellectual, it was visceral. Nope, wrong holiday.

When I mentioned it to Tara last night at her seder, she nodded. Yes. And it doesn’t get easier. Sometimes you smile. Sometimes you say something. Sometimes you’re just frustrated.

Tablet Magazine is an online magazine for Jews. I read it off and on. Yesterday I took a quiz titled what kind of Jew are you? For a goof. With little variance from my truth, that I’m not Jewish, I answered the questions. Are most of your friends Jewish? Certainly here yes. Have you attended a Jewish function in the last week? Of course. Do you belong to a synagogue? I do. I came out an affiliated Jew. Huh.

Still don’t want to convert, but I may have already. I thought of the old ways of becoming a lawyer, a physician. You read the law, worked in a lawyer’s office until you grew proficient enough to set out on your own. Same with physicians. I may have read Judaism as I’ve attended mussar, gone to shivas, been part of one for Kate, have two Jewish grandchildren.

Certainly there’s a deep reality in me now that identifies with Jews. With Kate’s loved faith. With the people and the community I’ve come to know as a result.

Hope you have a good Easter. Unless you’re more of a passover sort.

 

First radiation treatment yesterday. Cyberknife again. The same place where I had 35 sessions in 2019. Lone Tree. Anova Cancer Care. Chose The Band for my music. The Weight. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Up on Cripple Creek. Music to be radiated to. An atomic playlist.

Afterward I drove over to Sally Jobe and got another CT. This one to facilitate the planning on my T3 met.

When I left the room after my session, my images were still up on the computer screens. I asked Patty what they were. She showed me my hips, my femurs. A blue grid with small squares over lay the area just away from my left hip. On the grid were brown marks. The points the Cyberknife uses to follow the medical physicist’s plan.

I’m at the start of this journey, ending now on April 19th. Probably eight sessions in all. I don’t know what might occasion another session or two.

 

Doug has begun painting my bedroom. The final piece of his work. He may finish today. Furniture rearranging after. Then some time to take art out, find the right places for various pieces. After that some help to hang it.

 

Tara’s house, 6060 Kilimanjaro Road, accessed off Jungfrau Drive, overlooks Mt. Blue Sky (formerly Mt. Evans). A steep driveway that I would not want to have to plow or have plowed. But a beautiful location.

The seder began at 4 pm. I left at 8:30. Tara presided over a teaching seder. Being the former director of religious education at CBE. We retold the Exodus story. Learned the symbolism of the objects on the Seder plate. Dipped parsley in salt water and ate it. The tears of oppression. Put horseradish, maror, on matzah and tasted the bitterness of slavery.

Every year Jews not only celebrate, but relive the experience of the Exodus. The moment of their birth as a free people.

Powerful.

 

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends

Mountain Folk Get Dogs

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Tara. Passover. Chag sameach. Ruth’s bat mitzvah. Gabe and Benihana’s. Kep. A loved Dog. Kate, a loved wife. Shadow Mountain. A loved Mountain. Shadow Mountain home. A loved home. This place, the Rocky Mountains. Loved. This life. A loved life. My ancient, loved friends: Tom, Bill, Paul, Mark. Loved family. My son and his wife. Mary. Diane. Mark. Mountain friends. CBE friends. Finally. Understanding love and its permeation of all.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love, in all forms, for all things

 

Dogs and dying. I’ve often said that our culture doesn’t recognize the power and significance of a dog’s death. I’m wrong about that. At least in part.

At Jackie’s Aspen Roots. Kate’s hair stylist, now mine. Jackie is a good example of love in all its forms. Her place of work is a place of love. She loved Kate and now loves me.

Almost done when Jackie’s door bangs open. Maggie busted into the room. All waggy tail, tongue hanging out. Looking for people to greet. A big smile on her doggy face. A very happy, I’m so happy, aren’t you, dog.

My heart burst open with joy. Oh.

Maggie went up to Jackie, me, Ronda, the woman with color foils in her hair. Greeting. So glad to see you. And you. And you. And you.

This is my friend Connor, Jackie said. A young man, early thirties. Mountain handsome. A stone set in silver dangling from a silver chain. A trimmed beard. Slim and pleasant. His lady friend, tall and slender, beautiful. A red sash of hair on the right of an otherwise deep brunette head. Maggie returned to them. Happy to see them again after her circuit.

Jackie’s friends often show up. Bring her lunch. Drop by for a hug. To say hey. The ambience of Aspen Roots. I love going there. A lot.

I paid. Scheduled another visit 5 weeks out. As I began to leave, Jackie said, he had to put his dog down last week. Connor turned to me. So sorry, man. His genuineness touched my heart. His lady friend, the same. Maggie, of course, smiled.

Mountain folks get Dogs. How they are with us. What they mean.

Kep’s loss felt seen for what it was. A deep wound, the loss of a friend. Not an oh that’s too bad moment and the conversation shifts to the latest Trump debacle. No, the room there at Aspen Root’s knew. Saw. Felt. Love the Mountains.

When Jackie came over to give me a hug before I left, Maggie came over, stood on her hind legs, front paws out. Let me in. Let me in!

Yeah. She does that when we hug, too. Said the lady friend with the red bolt of hair.

As I left, I heard Jackie explaining how Rigel and Kepler had helped me during the two years after Kate’s death.

Love the Mountains. Yes.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Guns and Poses

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Jackie. Patty. Carmela. Cyberknife. Dr. Simpson. Mary voting. And winning. Wisconsin Supreme Court. The late season wet Snow on the Lodgepoles. More than predicted. Doug. Starting on the lower level. Mark in Hafir Al Batim. Settling in during a slow period at the University, Ramadan. Kep. Kate, always Kate. Gabe and Benihana. His 15th. Ruth, now 17 + a day.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Black Mountain white

 

Doug came. I had to move upstairs to the third level, my new home office. He’s painting the lower level. I can still sleep down there for now.

It’s a lot to have somebody working on your home for this long. Constant disruptions. Some mild. Like clearing the common room surfaces. Others not. Getting the dining room cleared. Another person working in the house. Doug’s easy. Friendly. Competent. Even so.

I chose this. I know. And I like the result already. Good thing, eh? I’ll like it even better when the arts rehung. Not yet. Not for a good while yet.

After that one more round with Robin and Michele. Then I’m going to let things be for a good long while. Enjoy the house. The Mountain.

 

Kep’s death does open the door to travel for me. I no longer have to worry about someone else coming in while he’s in decline. Chose to not do that.

There is a Southern saying. When the last dog dies. Now I feel the love and pang in that. Also the release. Thinking about some day trips once the weather turns away from Winter. Maybe longer trips. Around the state, the region.

The first time in over thirty years that I’ve had no one to come home to. And the first time in a few years when I’ve had no one to care for except myself. An odd feeling. Untethered. A bit floaty. Is this real life if no other life depends on me? Suppose I’ll get used to it, but right now I feel, what, almost irresponsible.

 

Look at the Wisconsin Supreme Court election map. It’s a tale, again, of rural and urban except for the southern tier of the state. Because I lived in Wisconsin, I happen to know that southern tier accepted immigrants, especially from Bismarck’s Germany. They were socialists and anti-draft. Bismarck had instituted the first draft which prompted a wave of emigration. Their political legacy lives on. Wisconsin politics, like Colorado, are complicated.

Mad City = Boulder. Milwaukee = Denver. Southern tier of Wisconsin = Front Range and the wider Denver Metro. Wisconsin’s Lake Superior counties = Aspen, Vail, Copper Ridge, Breckenridge

There’s a populist streak in both states though Colorado has more of the Western libertarian, leave me alone ethos.

These maps, with the counties filled in by dominant party (or, inclination), tell one more tale. At least. The story of how difficult a slow civil war (Sharlet), an American Divorce (Marjorie Taylor Greene), RAHOWA (White supremacists) would be. Cities against outlying rural areas. Villages against villages. Neighbors against neighbors. Within one state.

This would not be the simple geography of The civil war. No. It would be the geography of a chess board or a go board.

It would also be the gunned against the largely ungunned. Though of course how many of the armed would fight? Hard to know.

Any such civil war (an oxymoron I just realized) would probably end like a pandemic. When we tired of it and quit.

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Politics

Important Folks

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Spring and the Kepler Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Bill’s cartoon. Snow. Kep. Ruth and Mia. Gabe. Doug. Alan. Individualism. Community. Fear and loathing in New York. The Orange one gets a perp walk. Ruth’s 17 today! Shadow Mountain. Black Mountain. Lodgepoles. Mule Deer. Elk. All the wild neighbors. Cold morning. Garden Path. A fresh look on the main level. Coming soon to the lower level.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow whirling around the Lodgepoles

 

Doug came yesterday to finish up the main level. We talked for a bit. Told him about Kep. He surprised me by reaching out and giving me a hug. A sweet guy. Spoke about pets. He and his wife Judy had Jack. Dead ten years now and they still call for him sometimes when they come home. He told me about Moses, his Capuchin Monkey. Doug was 15. Had to build a cage for him that took up half his room. Monkeys are difficult pets. Escape a lot. Wreck things. He shook his head at his younger self.

Doug’s about my size with dark hair and silver tufts over his ears. He speaks quietly, almost a mumble. I can’t understand him at all without my hearing aid. He’s fit, works quickly but patiently. Came up here in 1981 and has been self employed the whole time. Quite a feat considering the lack of housing back then. Think he said he was late 60’s.

Two new folks in my life. Doug and Doug. Doug Doverspike. Won’t see either of them much, I imagine, but they live in Conifer. Got a nice note from Dr. Doverspike after Kep’s death. Appreciated him and his care. I wasn’t alone for Kep’s final weeks and Kep did not suffer.

 

Ruth. 17. Wow. So many stories and memories. Her on a bus with me, riding to the National Western Stockshow. I want my mommy! Oh. Well. We can call her. That made it ok. Her pouty face while we rode on the Georgetown RR. The whistle was too loud. Ruth with the astronaut Buzz Aldrin (I think) at Wings Over the Rockies. Visits to the Planetarium in Boulder. Her trying on silly hats. Our Christmas Eve outing in Colorado Springs which included getting our nails done at a fancy nail place. Her phone call. Dad is dead. Her hug last Friday. A childhood now beginning to fade into young adulthood.

 

The orange one. His perp walk. The least significant of his crimes. IMO. Still. Indicted. And a former President. Will probably solidify his base for the 2024 campaign. Make them more and more invested in his victory. Clean out the deep state that would do such a thing to God’s agent.

Still reading Undertow, beginning to feel the strands pulling at the fabric of our nation, threatening to unravel. To paraphrase the orange one, decent people on all sides. Some so full of disinformation that their minds suffer from bloat. No contrary facts allowed. Many. Undertow shows how much of the tension has religious roots even if not all of the actors are strictly speaking religious. That is, part of the evangelical right. Still working on this.

 

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Literature, Myth and Story, Shadow Mountain, Sport

Mythic

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Spring and Kep’s Moon

Monday gratefuls: Kep. His life and mine together. Diane’s sweet e-mail. Tom’s call. Ruth and Gabe and Mia. The days after. Learning to be alone. Max Verstappen. The Australian Grandprix. My son and his wife. Reading Undertow. Dark Sky by CJ Box. Furball Cleaning. Marina Harris. Ana. Cook’s Venture. Regenerative agriculture. Wild Alaska. Safeway. Stinker’s.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Being alone, yet accompanied

 

The Ancient Brothers on myths that shaped our lives. Aboriginal song lines. Dream time. Animal archetypes and totems.* Jesus. The American myth. The Velveteen Rabbit. The Celtic Faery Faith. Ragnarok. We each had a myth that had shaped our lives. Of course more than one, but these worked on and in our lives. In deep ways.

As a young boy, Ode said, his Jesus walked on water. Rose from the dead. Fed the five thousand. A mythic life reaching deep into a boy’s heart and imagination. Tom talked about Animals as bearers of archetypal power. Which  reminds me of the Breston quote below. Bill retold the story of the Velveteen Rabbit. Love makes us real. Aussie Paul, raised in Texas but on stories of Aboriginal life, made the song lines and Dream Time real. Before this creation and after it passes away there will be the Dream Time. I talked about how the Celtic Faery Faith reshaped my spirituality and led me away from Christianity. Going down and in, rather than up and out. A rich morning, one filled with wonder and awe. Our church.

 

Afterward I watched a thirty minute recap of the Australian Grandprix. Listened to the post race analysis. A crazy race with 3 restarts. Verstappen won again in the Red Bull car. Sergio Perez, his teammate, worked his way up to 5th from 20th. Lewis Hamilton, 7 time world champion, finished second, and Fernando Alonso, 2 time world champion, finished third for the third race in a row. There was speculation that Red Bull could run the table this year, win all the Grandprixs. Whether it happens or not, that speculation tells you about the dominance of the Red Bull cars so far this 2023 season.

 

Cut up boxes for the trash. Finished sorting all of our dog stuff. Donation and throw away. Rearranged furniture in the common room. Did a Safeway pickup. Talked with my son and his wife. Weekend things.

 

Radiation approved. Finally. Start tomorrow. Not daily. Continues through the third week of April. That lymph node by my left hip and the T3 vertebrae metastases.

 

Tomorrow Ruth turns 17! A dancing queen. So happy to see her stable and present. She has been such an important part of my life for all of those years. Even more so of course since we moved to Colorado in 2014. Gabe, too. 15 on Earth Day, the 22nd of this month.

We celebrate life even in the midst of death. Like Max’s birth so soon after Kate died. A bit of her soul to him. Ruth and Gabe have seen a lot of death over the last two years. Their Grandma, their Dad. Rigel. Sollie. Kepler. We have sustained each other. As family. And this month we celebrate their young lives. In this moment. The only one we ever have.

 

 

 

* “We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”  ― Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain

Fears and Regrets

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Spring and Kep’s Moon

Sunday gratefuls: My son and his wife. Murdoch. A loving conversation about Kep yesterday. Diane’s kind e-mail. Kep. Gone into the mystery. A day of cleaning up after Ruth, Gabe, Mia. Kep. Punctuated by rest and the occasional TV show. Picking up groceries at Safeway. Grief. Mourning. Again. Still. Housecleaners coming this week. Alan today at the Bread Lounge. Dogs. Caring about animals.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kep and his consolation

 

I have some regrets. About fearing Kate’s corpse. About not being there when she died. About not being able to stay with Kep, or any of our dogs. These are regrets that do not haunt me, or at least not much. But they are real. And they reveal a fear around death that, as I’ve said before, I don’t understand. The fear is about the moment of death, not death itself. Or, maybe better, the moment of surety about death. As it happens.

When I was in vet’s office, in the special room where euthanasia is performed, I reach to pet Kep. Dr. Doverspike came in the room with two syringes. I froze. And said out loud, I don’t know what to do! Anguished. I needed to stay with him and yet I couldn’t. Left me torn between responsibility and a deeper love. A love that could not bear to see him die. Oh. So. Hard.

Ruth made it ok. She said she was filling in for Grandma. And she was. Kep had the comfort of a familiar and loved human. Just as Kate did with Sarah. Proxies for my presence. My love never in question, but at that moment putting me in excruciating pain.

Facing our fears is best. I’ve read that. And mostly I believe it. If fear rules our lives, we cease to live our lives. Rather we pinball away from this job interview and this possible relationship and those oh so critical moments in the lives of ones we love. Yet I also believe that there is an ok-ness to allowing a loved other, like Ruth, like Sarah to face your fear for you. The love held between us helps us through. They know I care. They express my love for me.

As near as I can tell, these moments are the only ones where I’ve chosen, or allowed, proxies for my deepest feelings. I face my fears otherwise. Most of the time.

A fear I had after Kep’s death. Coming home to an empty house for the first time in over thirty years. No Kate. No dogs. Just me. I needed to to go in and so I did. Turned out ok.

In fact it was memories surfacing as I drove up Shadow Mountain that were harder. Kep waiting at the back door for me. Tail wagging. Or, later lying down at the back door waiting. His paw prints in the snow. Once I opened the door and walked in, I was home. My place of refuge.

Of course his presence was everywhere. His collar. Leashes. His hair from a blown coat. His food. His food bowls. His medicine. His beds. I cleaned those up yesterday, readying some for donation, some I threw away. Not to be rid of him or his memory, but to start anew. I did the same thing with Kate’s stuff. Yet she’s still here. Everywhere. As are Vega, Gertie, Rigel, and Kep. This is their home, too. And will be as long as I am the carrier of their memories.

As I write, my current form of therapy, I realize that my absence at the death beds of those I love changes nothing about how much I love and love them. I do not dismiss, do not shun memories. I open myself to them. Remembering Kate in the garden. Or in the bed with her feeding tube. Kep running the fences. Lying with his head on my feet. Gertie sleeping next to me. Rigel and Kep, too.

Neither however do I wallow in them. If I need to cry, I cry. If I laugh, I laugh. They are components of who I am now. The bearer of these lives still living.

 

Denver, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Talking Story

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Spring and the Garden Path Moon

Monday gratefuls: Kep. Not sure how he’s doing. The Ancient Brothers. Luke. My son. Cold nights. Good for sleeping. Snow showers. The Swerve. An education about the Renaissance. Trump. In a rut. And, possibly a jail cell. The far right. Undertow by Jeff Sharlet. Hamnet, recommended by Kate. Painting continues today? Mia and Ruth, best friends coming up on Wednesday. Gabe, too. Teenagers in the house. For three days.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: LBMs

 

The Ancient Brothers told a story. Mark suggested it. He started, spoke for a bit, then passed the story to me. I passed to Tom, Tom to Paul, and Paul to Bill. The story telling brought out another facet of each of us, one not previously visible. The improv persona. Each of us had a different style and it was obvious. One more cerebral. Another more interior monologue. Another on advancing the plot. Bet we’d be better at it if we did it more. Fun.

Mark’s in a veteran’s writer’s group that focuses on story telling. Where he got the idea. Reminded me of the even more difficult drinking game played in Wales where one person starts a poem and the next person adds a stanza, then the next.

Tom had an interesting thought. What if, instead of artificial intelligence, we sought artificial consciousness? What would we be after then? What would it look like? Sound like? The idea has taken up residence. Not sure where to go with it, but the notion intrigues me.

 

Luke came over at 2. I’d taken a nap and got up at 2. Woops. He didn’t leave though. I found him.

I started a fire. We talked for a couple of hours. He’s started a new job with Judaism Your Way. Learning a new software program for handling contacts for this innovative model. No fees. No dues. No building. Three rabbis and a large staff. They’re holding a Passover Seder at the Denver Botanical Gardens. Last year they had 8,650 folks present or online. An interesting place to work.

Intentionally very inclusive. Luke and and the Executive Director, who is not Jewish, are gay. Judaism Your Way was the first Jewish organization in Denver to have a presence at the Pride Parade.

Luke’s still having a tough time after having resigned from CBE. His job at Judaism Your Way is only part time so he has financial tensions. He’s a super bright, artistic, sensitive soul. Glad he sees me as a friend.

 

I imagine Doug will be back today to continue the Garden Pathing of my walls. Excited. Getting the inside, especially the main level, painted and the art hung will make Shadow Mountain home a more welcoming and inviting place. For guests and for me.

After lunch with Mike and Kate Saturday I went to Pangaea Carpets at the Evergreen Design Center. Picked out a Nepalese carpet, 5×7, for my upstairs home office. It needed warming up and its own feel. This one has Cypress Trees and is in greens that compliment the new main level look.

Not sure whether Doug will have time right now to do the downstairs level. I hope so.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends

Eros. Agape. Philia. Storge.

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Spring and the Painted Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Mike and Kate. Campfire Grill. Ruby on the Mountain roads. Pastrami. Truffled Mac and Cheese. Luke coming up today. My son and his wife. BJ and Schecky. Gettin’ hitched. Kep the early riser. Sleeping in after that. Myth. Ovid. Artemis. Lycaon. Philemon and Baucus. Lucretius. The Nature of Things. Metamorphosis. The Arabian Nights. CJ Box. Richard Powers.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Ancient Brothers

 

On the nature of love. Eros. Of course. I remember. Though prostate cancer long ago canceled out experience. Agape. Reserved for a person better than me most of the time, but still a destination, part of the long journey.

Philia though, affection among friends, friendship. Sustains me now. Whether it be the Ancient Brothers with our decades of memories or members of CBE or Kat, the Aspen Perk’s waitress. Mike and Kate. Luke. High school and college classmates. Even Kristie, my oncology PA, and Dr. Gonzalez, my PCP. Affection rules these relationships.

Here I would also add my wild neighbors, the Lodgepoles and Aspens, Shadow Mountain, Black Mountain, Maxwell and Bear Creeks. All that is around me in its wildness.

Love is a many layered reality. I discovered just today that there is yet another Greek word for love, storge, which means love and affection especially of parents and children. I’ll put that into this post, too. Not only for my son and his wife, Jon, Ruth, and Gabe, but for cousins like Diane whom I’ve known almost my whole life, Mary and Mark, each dog I’ve had the privilege to share my life with, and each person who might experience me as a mentor.

Storge also sustains me and helps me see my role as a sustainer of others. Realizing our importance to others is sometimes difficult as self-abnegation is often taught to us as a substitute for true humility. I’ve struggled with this over the years as you might have, too. But of late I’ve come to see that I add something valuable to the relationships I’m in and if that’s the case it probably means I am someone valuable. In my own unique way. As you are yourself, unknown reader.

How important it is to reach out and keep these relationships alive and vital. I find myself saying now to various folks, as I did to Mike and Kate yesterday, it’s your turn to send up a smoke signal. Don’t know how that entered my mind, but I’ve liked it because it points to the mutuality of relationships. After meeting with others after they’ve given me the honor of an invitation, I say, I’ll send up the next smoke signal.

I’ve had trouble realizing that mutuality requires me as well as the other. I’ve often thought of myself as interchangeable with others and if I don’t nurture a relationship that the person will get what they need elsewhere. Which is, of course, partly true and necessary to know. Yet. I also have to recognize myself as one of a kind, a person who brings to a relationship what only I can bring. In other words I have to see my own part in a relationship as important, as important as what the other/others bring.

Better learned late than never.