Samain Stent Moon
Finally. The stent goes in tomorrow. God, I hope it does what we want. The guy, Dr. Mulden, is the senior guy in the metro on this particular kind of work. Lucky to have him. She’ll be in the hospital tonight, maybe tomorrow night if they feel observation is necessary after the stent placement. Home by Saturday lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.
Please let this be the end of this 18 month saga. Let a new chapter of our Colorado life begin.
Samain Stent Moon
Kate’s once again on the 8th floor at Swedish, the general surgery floor. This, I imagine, in case she needs another bowel resection due to this most recent bleed. God, I hope not, but… I’m going in in an hour or so to see her, find out what we now know. Her hemoglobin level has been around 10.4 and she had had no new bleeds since the first one as of last night. Both good news. I hope we will get that stent in today or at the latest tomorrow.
I’m distracted and stressed, yes, but not dysfunctional. Ate a good dinner, slept well, put a little paint on my newest work. Fed the dogs, that sort of thing. Not dispirited. Hopeful. That the stent will go in well and solve her nausea and stomach cramping. That she’ll finally be able to gain some weight. Those two things would be wonderful holiday presents.
Tomorrow is the winter solstice. I haven’t gotten yet to the six new rituals I found in Lapham’s, but I will either later today or tomorrow. The dark, the long night, to me symbolizes healing, fecundity, a depth experience for the Self, a soulful journey. It’s what I need right now, a time out of time, time with the ancientrail that winds in and down, following the shamans toward the center of the earth, the center of the soul.
Samain Stent Moon
Damn it. Kate’s bleed has kicked up again. Literally the day after we got a date for her procedure, Jan. 2nd. I’m sure she’ll end up in the hospital again. Just what will happen there, I have no idea. I wish they’d place the stent now. Stop the cause. Then, heal the bleed. Then, send her home so we can fatten her up and get her started on cardio rehab, some resistance work.
This is dispiriting. Which is an interesting word. This news will try to push the spirit out of both of us, leaving us without ruach, without vital spirit.
No choice here but to go forward, do what comes next. Like Churchill famously said, “When you’re going through hell, keep on going.” Just so.
Samain Stent Moon
Well. The blitz worked. With e-mails and phone calls Kate and I hit several different buttons in the local medical establishment. Kate first called the interventional radiologists. Yes, the request for the procedure had gone in, nothing yet. No, they can’t push the insurance company. E-mail to Dr. Gidday, our internist. “Kate needs our help.” Phone call to the referral folks at New West Physicians. “We can’t see the specialists request. But let me take the information and have Desiree (Dr. Gidday’s nurse) get back to you.” With this person I pressed urgent, urgent, urgent. Several times. Later Kate got a call back with a positive signal. She contacts the radiologist today to set up at time for the stent placement. And may the congregation say, amen.
Samain Stent Moon
Kate seems to be getting worse. It takes less food to trigger an episode of nausea and cramping. We’re going to work the phones tomorrow. See if we can get this procedure scheduled soon. Sooner. Soonest.
We’re in a warm streak here. 50 yesterday. Not sure about snow totals but it’s been a light season for us so far. We need the snow for several reasons. Fire mitigation. Restore our wells. Beauty. Seasonal spirit. West of the divide though the snow’s been better than good. Many of the resorts like Breckenridge opened portions of their properties a month earlier than usual. Good for the economy. Also, good for the snow pack. 103% of average right now. Means so much downstream.
Impressed by our local King Sooper. I went yesterday morning. Most of the carts were in use, only 8 of the smaller ones remaining in the huge bay that holds them. The wait for a cashier was minimal. Got done and out. I enjoy grocery shopping, but I don’t enjoy waiting in long check out lines.
I bought a set of very cheap canvases, 5×8. Less than a dollar each. 10. I’ve painted all ten. I bought another set of cheap canvases, 8×10. I’ve painted one of those. Still color drunk. Working on the larger canvas was different than the smaller one. More expansive, yes, but also more room to fill. Tried to convey clouds. Not so well. Took out the turpentine and edited one cloud away.
What I want to do is to find organic, Western objects, like the strange clouds we have in the mountains, deer antlers, old fence posts, mountains and abstract them, somewhat like Georgia O’Keefe, but with the Rothko sensibility. Throw in a surrealistic touch like the carmine rectangle in a blue sky. Keep the colors simple, the shapes, too. I mean, a guy has to have a direction, right?
Today is work on reading birth charts day. I see Elisa on Tuesday. She’s going to help me with my own chart. Before that I meet with Alan to discuss the religious school curriculum we’ve been doing as early adopters for the national program, Moving Traditions. A mid-year evaluation is coming up and I’ll have to represent both of us. Might head over early and go to Red Herring art supplies where I picked up rice paper and a couple of sumi-e brushes.
Samain Stent Moon
Three of astrology’s major planets are visible early in the morning: Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter. Due to the tree line and Black Mountain I could only see Venus, the morning star. Beautiful.
I’m continuing my experiments with oil painting, getting more experience, wondering about all the tricks and tools of the trade. Making it up as I go along right now. Playing. Yes, I’m playing with two shiny new disciplines right now, oil painting and astrology. When I use that word, playing, and it is accurate, what always comes to mind is Magister Ludi, the Master of the Game, by Herman Hesse. (also called the Glassbead Game) This was Hesse’s last novel and is different from the other, shorter works with which you might be familiar like Siddartha, Steppenwolf, Demian, Journey to the East. [just discovered Clifford Jordan has an album called Glass Bead Games. Listening to it right now on Amazon music.]
Astrology continues to challenge my metaphysics, continues to make me wonder about the randomness and meaninglessness of life and everything. Not sure where I’m headed with it yet, but I know a hell of lot more than I did a month ago. Elisa and I are going to get together again and she’ll walk me through reading my birth chart. She’s also going to do a second session at CBE, something I’ve arranged. Trying to remember Tarnas, “Skepticism is a tool, not an end in itself.”
The oil painting. So far I’m imitating, at least in a way, Rothko. Although. I did see some cloud formations that I tried to recreate, or at least evoke. Not in my power yet. Though what I produced I liked for what it was.
I worked with the yellow from one of the more expensive tubes of color. The first time I used any of them. It was like buttercream icing. So sensuous. Beautiful. Color has me captivated me right now. Not sure how to work with it in terms of producing images, but that almost doesn’t matter. Look at that palette. I’d frame it. Just for the colors.
Interesting bit at the Adult Ed meeting for CBE yesterday. Debra said to me, “You should be an honorary Jew!” A couple of others, “He is!” A long while ago one of the Chinese docents said to me, “You are like the Chinese.” I consider these some of the highest compliments possible.
On the Kate front. Waiting. For some insurance bureaucrat to tick a box, yes or no. Thought about this yesterday. One of the critiques of socialism in general and socialized medicine in particular is the bureaucratic morass of government programs. Well, capitalist bureaucracies are the same. They just serve a different master, profit.
Samain Stent Moon
Jon, Ruth, and Gabe came up Saturday evening. The Instapot proved capable of turning a rump roast into a more tender cut of meat. Using a pressure cooker at elevation makes a lot of sense. Almost of all the roast plus potatoes, carrots and parsnip disappeared down mostly functional gastro-intestinal tracts. The gi tract with difficulty got help from Maryjane. (Grandma took 3 hits on a prerolled joint.) That went well.
We passed out Hanukkah gifts, lit the candles, said the prayers, then Ruth, Kate, and I sat around the table and talked while the candles burned down. Ruth has a piercing plan. When she’s 13, she’s adding a third stud to both ears, then, when she’s 14, a nose stud. After that? Lots of body parts available. Why? I don’t really know. I’m going to ask her next time she’s up.
Jon and Ruth took off early Sunday morning for A-basin. Good powder there. Snow in the mountains has been good, but across the divide to the east, where we are, much less so. So much less so that Denver is about to have its 12th year of under 30 inches. 2 of those 12 will be last year and this one unless a big storm arrives before Jan. 1. Not in the forecasts right now. 1/6 of the driest snow years in all weather records for Denver in the last two years!
Gabe made pinch hitter pizzas for lunch. This from a recipe in a Hanukkah gift, Boys Can Cook! The pizzas were on English muffin slices with red sauce, soppressata slices, and cheese. Not bad.
After a nap we drove over to Evergreen High School for a Jazzy Yule holiday concert by the Evergreen Chorale. My friend Alan Rubin sings in the chorale and is on the board of Ovation West, the company that includes the Evergreen Chorale and Ovation West Musical Theater. The quality of both the chorale and the theater are good, high for amateur performing arts with skilled musicians and talented actors.
The first half of the concert took me by surprise. Alan had told me that the first half was music from Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts songbook, but I had expected something more beboppy, more holiday jingly. Uh-huh. This was serious music, jazzy with a little bebop in there, but music with an edge, especially the last piece, “Freedom.” I’ve included a full you-tube video of a performance of it below. If you have time, and like complex choral pieces, you may find it interesting. I found it compelling, a work of art that challenges what that word means in the American context, today in particular.
In Kate news we’re going to press for a date for Kate’s procedure. Wanting to get on with it for obvious reasons.
Samain Stent Moon
Mercury retrograde. Elisa said this would be a time when I would remember my dreams. I have recalled some, definitely more than usual. I’d also reassess my life, letting new things in, chucking the no longer useful.
Well. Over the last month plus I’ve read a lot, and I mean a lot even for me, on astrology. Letting it in. Gradually. Still. Those color field paintings by Rothko that I’ve always admired. Doing it myself, learning oil paints, what to do with oily rags, how to glaze, mixing colors, thinking and seeing in color. Last night I did my first instant pot meal with a rump roast, potatoes and carrots for Jon, Ruth, Gabe, and Kate. I’m also gestating a new style (for me) novel, a novel of ideas that will focus on the great crisis of our age, creating a synthesis between the ensouled primal universe and the disenchanted universe of the enlightenment.
You might say, oh, the power of suggestion. Could be a bit, I suppose. But recalling dreams when I haven’t been is big for me. Years of Jungian analysis, you know. Running toward something like astrology is a definite change in mindset. And, oil painting? I mean, come on.
It’s a fertile time for me in spite of (or, because of?) the upset with Kate. We’ve never been closer. Jon’s shift toward acceptance and moving on makes me glad. Ruth and I have a growing, deepening relationship. We’re going to paint together over her winter break. She comes to me with new books she’s reading, new art she’s making, her life at school. Gabe runs up and gives me a hug right away when he sees me. Rigel runs through the yard like a canine modern dancer, flexing her muscles, a smile on her face.
Holiseason underlies and inflects all of this, creating moments of reflection and quiet, reinforcing attention to the Great Wheel. Feeling as positive about life as I have in a long, long time.
In the conversation last week at mussar vaad practice group, MVP, Tara said to me, “Maybe you’re just self actualized.” Not in jest. And you know, I think she might be right. Not enlightened. Not nirvana bound, not karmaless, but easy with myself, easy with others. Doing those things that make my heart sing. Loving and being loved. Setting aside the past, living today, knowing tomorrow will be as it is. Feels like the journey as destination. Whoa. Can’t believe I wrote that. Still, feels right to me.
Samain Thanksgiving Moon
Into On the Move Fitness for a new workout: side lunges on the TRX, oblique isometrics with bands, a twisting shoulder press, planks, stepups with weight, push ups from an exercise ball, crunches on an exercise ball.
I always feel so much better when I exercise routinely. Long ago I decided regular exercise was a matter of identity. Am I an exerciser, or not? Once I decided I was an exerciser I’ve been able to maintain regular exercise. When I fall away after a chaotic schedule or a long trip, I remind myself, I’m an exerciser. Then I start again.
Working on color field paintings. Finding myself looking, seeing, in a whole different way. For example when Kate and I were on our way to the radiologist Wednesday as dawn broke, I saw the color bands in the sky as inspiration for painting. Began wondering how to mix paints to get that color, how to arrange those colors on a canvas. Yesterday at On the Move I noticed a droopy face in the wood grains of a bathroom door. Oh, I could do that! While I did my cardio I wondered about the deep blue wall. Could I just cut a rectangle out of the sheet rock, frame it and call it found art?
My friends Stefan and Lonnie have devoted the last three years to a traditional painting education. The atelier in Florence where they’ve studied makes the usual atelier argument that representational painting is real painting, the sharp turn taken by Cezanne, Monet, Van Gogh and later DuChamp, ManRay, Bacon, Pollock, Rothko a mistake.
I’ve always felt that an argument over “true” art is doomed at the beginning. I’m more a DuChampian, art is what an artist makes. That means, at least to me, that the color field painters, the pop artists, the abstract painters, fluxus folks, are making art. It also means that those still creating representational art are making art. Why fight?
My interest, at least right now, is in color, just color, arranging it on a flat surface in a pleasing or provocative or evocative way. I intend to make abstract works inspired by nature. The shape and color and texture of mountains at different times of day. The sky at sunrise and sunset. The night sky, especially moons. Streams. Faces in wooden doors. Clouds. I’ve noticed for a long while that even the most Rococo flourishes are often direct copies of natural forms. Not sure where this will take me, but I’m really enjoying the enhanced seeing, the thoughts about color, the mix of brushes and paints and palette knives.
Samain Thanksgiving Moon
What a remarkable turn things have taken here. After many -oscopies, endo, upper, lower, colon, small bowel follow through, a HIDA test, nuclear med search for bleeding, bowel surgery and even more doctor visits, finally, finally. A consensus. The superior mesenteric artery has sufficient stenosis, severe, to cause Kate’s symptoms. And, there’s a stent for that.
Maybe in two weeks time we’ll drive again to Swedish hospital, check Kate in, and Dr. Mulden, assisted by Dr. Kooy, will thread a catheter up her femoral artery, follow the branching to the superior mesenteric, take a right turn, then where the narrowing is deploy a mesh stent, opening up the blood flow. Sounds straight forward until you consider the size and delicacy of everything involved. Can you imagine pushing, very gently, a long wire through a very small pipe with soft walls? Turning where needed into even smaller pipes and at the right time releasing a small device, leaving it behind to cure? I can’t.
We drove to the radial imaging offices in the far east of the southern Metro. As we went, our appointment was at 7:30, the sky put on a magnificent display. Red clouds, lenticular clouds stacked like pagodas, bands of umber, ocher, pale yellow all backgrounded by blue-black sky. We both kept pointing, exclaiming. Aurora is a goddess of hope and newness, a fresh slate, a beginning. Just what we got. She has my devotion today.
Yesterday was a hair day with Kate getting her usual dye and Michelle Williams cut, me a close beard trim, eyebrows and hair. Wax on the stray hairs that pop up on our ears as we age. Jackie, the cosmetologist, is a sweetheart, a friend. We both looked our best for the interventional radiologists.
Found myself hesitant yesterday, tired, low energy. Canceled my time to get a new workout and stayed home. It was a good choice.