Category Archives: Memories

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Jefferson County, Korea, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Plants, Travel, Weather +Climate, World History

Softball, Korea News

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Friday gratefuls: Labor Day weekend. My son has Friday and Monday off. The Minnesota State Fair. A not so faded remnant of the Lughnasa festivals of the old Gaeltacht. A Minnesota Fall. Brilliant colors, blue Waters, trips up North. A Rocky Mountain Fall. Aspens gold against Lodgepole Green on Black Mountain. Clear cool Skies. A Korean Fall. Will find out.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seasons

One brief shining: My son came home last night in a bright t-shirt with Aladdin 02 on the back and a Cobra on the front his left arm bruised at the bicep after he threw a pitch and a hard hit soft ball came right back to him full of joy at playing and having an injury.

 

My son plays on his squadron’s soft ball team. The Cobra signifies their squadron. His first time up a few weeks ago he hit a homer. Now he’s hooked for the season. He’s an athlete, has been since middle school. Cross country in the fall. Ski racing in the winter and track in the spring. High school. He also raced on the UofM’s ski team.

He and Seoah both have the athletic gene, now expressed most often in workouts and golf every weekend. Makes dad glad. Ha. Good for health and for their marriage.

 

Used the apartment’s gym again yesterday. Feel better already. More limber and a regular dose of endorphins. The same three buff middle-aged Korean women were in the weight room. Seemed like chatting had as much to do with their reason for being there as the weight machines.

Noticed, again, that I tilt to the left. Scoliosis. Polio. Beginning to have some soreness in my right hip and lower back. Not often, not always. Usually after a lot of time on my feet.

Still not sure how it will affect my stamina when I get into serious sight-seeing. May be limited to mornings. Maybe less than that. Or, maybe rest at intervals will be enough. I’m sure to find out this weekend since we’re going to Seoul for the first time.

 

Big news here. War games held for both North and South Korea. Every year a war game called Freedom Shield unites South Korean and U.S. militaries in a display of force designed as a response to a hypothetical North Korean invasion. Such exercises enhance the ability of two command structures to blend when faced with actual conflict.

North Korea launched an unsuccessful spy satellite last Wednesday in response. Then two more short range ballistic missiles this week. Today North Korea announced military exercises simulating the occupation of all of South Korea. Tit for tat.

This annual saber rattling makes both sides a bit nervous, jumpy. My son has had some extra work as a result.

On the streets of Songtan this causes no reaction whatsoever as near I can tell. The taxis pick up passengers. Folks go into the coffee shops. Buy meals in restaurants. It’s not that people don’t care. All Koreans want unification. Just not through military means. It’s more that the specter of war hangs so heavy here that it has become a backdrop to daily life. Not ignored, but not engaged daily.

Sort of like having cancer it just occurred to me. You can’t pretend it’s not there. And, yes, it could kill you. But, if it occupies your heart/mind all the time  you give up life. Which doesn’t make sense. So  you make an uneasy peace and go on about your day.

Family, Korea, Memories, Travel

A Birthday Party

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Seoah’s mom and her 70th birthday party. In Gwangju. Her dad, a sweet guy. Her two sisters and her brother. Outback Steakhouse. The three hour drive from Songtan to her small village outside Okgwa. Highway rest stops along the way. The verdant, overgrown Mountains. The Rivers. Those grave sites high on the Mountain sites. Seoah’s memories. Swimming in the River. Playing in the Mountains. School. My son’s careful, steady driving.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Being able to translate the Hangul (mostly)

One brief shining: My poor jet lagged body kept me in a purple haze for most of the trip to Seoah’s parents I saw the passing countryside, the blue tiled roofs, the goofy speed signs with a mannequin policeman, listened to Seoah’s commentary, but not much made it past the veil.

 

We arrived in Okgwa after a long and congested trip on various Korean highways. Her brother had built her parents a brand new home, mostly concrete, stylish inside with an all white interior, polished floors, marble kitchen surfaces, in room mini-splits, and designed lighting. Kate and I saw the old house so I could see the contrast. Huge.

Four bedrooms so the family could stay for holidays or just because. One bedroom was the one he always uses when he visits. He lives in Osan as do Joe and Seoah. Knowing I was recently arrived and an elder, he gave up that room to me and slept last night on the floor with two of Seoah’s nephews. Not as onerous as it might sound since sleeping on the floor is still common in Korea. Joe, Seoah, and Murdoch found their room.

At 5:40 we drove to Gwangu, about 30 minutes away, and found the Outback Steak House. A much different experience than in the U.S. It had high stairs on both sides leading to an entrance on a balcony. Seoah’s oldest sister showed me the way.

The sisters had a clever idea. In a cake shaped object with decorations there was a card. When Seoah’s mom took out the card to read it, it caused a ribbon of 5000 Won notes to pull out. $1,500 worth. Her grandchildren gathered around her, her husband read the card to her, and behind the two of them was banner with an early picture of them as a couple and congratulatory statements.

The original plan was for all to go to a karaoke place. OMG! Someone said no. Instead we all drove back to the new house and had an after party. Seoah’s youngest sister, her husband, and her three kids stayed the night. In the morning Seoah’s mom made a traditional Korean breakfast for all. Tofu soup. Rice. Bulgogi. Kimchi. Bean sprouts. Egg pancakes. Quail eggs and mushrooms. Delicious.

The drive back. Much less eventful. We got back. Tired. But with another family memory in place.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Memories

A letter to Kate on her 79th

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Friday gratefuls: Kate’s 79th birthday. The Trail to Cold Mountain. A good dress rehearsal. A late night. Seeing Seoah and my son on Zoom. Getting closer to leaving this popstand. On a jetplane. With passport in hand. Sleeping in. Ann. The poems on parchment. The drinking gourd. My costume(s). Ruth. Seeing her today. Taking Ancientrails on the road. Korean history. Seoah studying American history. Her mom’s 70th birthday, two days after I get there. In Gwangju. Steak House. Luke and Vince. Leo.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Writing, again. Still.

One brief shining: Put on my linen medieval shirt and pants, collected my poems on parchment from Ann, picked up my walking stick, got a glass of water (filling in for the drinking gourd that I forgot), proceeded with: I’m going to tell you this story in the best way I can and reeled off a mistake free performance. Yes!

 

Kate.

You would be 79 today. Closing in on the big 80. Wanted to catch you up on some recent happenings.

I’m a playwright! A short play, about 20 minutes. The Trail to Cold Mountain. Performing it tomorrow night at CBE. The amphitheater if the weather permits.

Also, I’m converting. Yes, after 32 years with you and 8 with CBE, I realized your people are my people, too. Rabbi Jamie’s excited for me. We’re studying Judaism together. 10 sessions. But before I finish my conversion will take place. In Jerusalem! On Samain! How bout that.

I’ve become even more integrated into CBE. Joan and Alan are both in my acting class and will be performing Saturday night, too. I see Marilyn and Irv every couple of weeks, Alan once a week. I’ve become good friends with Rebecca Martin, too. Mussar remains my primary contact with the congregation although I’m considering going to regular services now that my energy is better.

Cancer. Yep, still with me. As you know. But I’m off the meds as of Wednesday and hoping for clear sailing for some length of time. A tiny chance I’m cured. If you have any pull with the cosmic powers, see if somebody could yank a lever on my behalf. Eigner is retiring. His wife died a couple of years ago and changed his perspective. I’ll see him for a last visit on November 20th.

Ruth’s still struggling. I’ll see her in the hospital today. Going to take her a bagel with caviar from Rosenbergs. Stanley Market. Gabe’s doing well. I think. Playing guitar, taking theater. He may express the Olson performing gene. We saw Oppenheimer last week and we’ll go to the last Rockie’s game of the season on Oct. 1st when I get back from Korea. They’re playing the Twins.

Oh. I’m going to Korea on Wednesday. Then, Israel on Oct. 25th. A week on my own then the CBE group trip. Excited about both of these. Joe’s a Lieutenant Colonel now. Can you believe it? Remember him stomping up and down the steps at my Irvine Park Place in ski boots?

Of course you walk through all these moments with me. Sometimes I stand at the kitchen window, look out at your Iris garden, and feel your head on my shoulder. Driving back up the hill from Evergreen I reach over on occasion and hold your hand. Your memory is a blessing for me and so many others. Not to say at all that I’m wallowing. Just that I loved you, I love you, and I will love you.

 

Judaism, Memories, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

The Last Journey

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Ruth struggling again. Still. Gabe and the last Rockies game of the season. Marilyn and Irv. A pale blue Sky. A cool night, but warmer weather coming. Kristie today. Robbie Robertson of The Band. Levon Holmes. Bob Dylan. Coltrane. Parker. Bach. Mozart. Hayden. The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Sarah and BJ. Kate, always Kate. Jon, a memory. My son, Seoah, and Murdoch.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Studying

One brief shining: Rolled my chair to the built-in desk, turned on the study lamp, took out the sheet of questions for my first class with Rabbi Jamie, this one on Jewish Identity, began to read from Art Green’s Radical Judaism, Joseph Telushkin’s Jewish Literacy, and George Robinson’s Essential Judaism and noticed how much I still enjoy studying, writing answers, thinking deeply.

 

Now it’s getting personal. Judaism, that is. No longer following the thought pathways the ancientrails of the Talmud and the Torah as an outsider, a camp follower. Reading about Jewish identity as one who will wear the kippah. Makes a big difference. Who is a Jew? What is common among all forms of Judaism? How does Israel define a Jew for the aliyah, the right of return?

This is my third, and last, venture into the inner life of a distinctive religious community. Seminary at United Theological Seminary in New Brighton, Minnesota gave me four solid years of church history, biblical studies, ethics, homiletics, pastoral care, and a bit of Hebrew and Greek. Much later, in the early 90’s I did a self-study course in Unitarian-Universalism that took two years. This doesn’t count the four years I spent earning my Doctor of Ministry degree from McCormick Seminary in Chicago.

In both of these earlier excursions I was not wholly engaged. All during my work as a Presbyterian minister, I felt apart from the main congregational life of the denomination. Because I was. My ministry was political and only became involved with congregations near its end when I worked as an organizational consultant for congregations in the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area. The UU time was a regression, an attempt to retain my ministerial role by switching to a less theologically restrictive community. In the end I found the UU movement too diffuse in its religiosity. And learned, again, that the role of minister did not fit me.

Conversion to Judaism is different. This is something I want. As Joan Greenberg said, it just feels natural. No real dogma to cleave to. So many Jews identify as atheists or agnostics. Yet, a rich and old tradition of considering life’s most difficult questions. How do we live a human and a humane life? How do we connect with the call of the natural world, as Art Green puts it in his wonderful book, Radical Judaism?

Kate found this path when she was 30. She led me to it. And my friendships at CBE have made it real. Here’s a secret wish I’ll put right out here in print. If it turns out I’m wrong and there is a heaven, I certainly want to be in the Jewish section where Kate is.

Family, Feelings, Hawai'i, Memories, Travel

Fire and Memories

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Friday gratefuls: Mussar. Rebecca. Parkside. Morning chill. Pre-travel excitement/apprehension. Prostate Cancer. Kathy. Diane. Sally. All with cancer, too. Not statistics but people I know. And see often. Judy and Leslie. Kate, always Kate. Their memories are a blessing. Jon, a memory. Ruth and Gabe. Maui. Then and now. Hawai’i. Korea. Israel. Travel.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Travel

One brief shining: An outdoor table metal, an orange umbrella, Sun cooled by a Mountain breeze, coffee and a glass of Water with ice cubes, a table filled with folks in their twenties loud in the way of good friends enjoying each other, and my sandwich, a Reuben, while I talked with my friend Rebecca, a good morning.

 

Maui. So many memories. Kate had to talk me into going with her to Maui the first time. I had visions of a cheesy place with bobble-headed hula dancers, fake culture, and too many tourists. No thanks. Still, we were just married and I thought, well. At least it’s with Kate. She didn’t have to convince me the second time. While other folks played on the beach, I hiked in the interior where there was no one. Kate had her classes during the day and I drove our convertible rental car to the Iao Needle, up Haleakala, on the one lane road around west Maui. Or, I would hike into Lahaina from the hotel, have mahi-mahi and eggs for breakfast, go sit under the banyan tree.

In the evenings Kate and I would go to Mama’s Fish House or to a spot in Lahaina for an evening meal. We both loved a good meal overlooking the ocean, being with each other. Never dull. Never nothing to say. I miss her and now I miss Lahaina, that long time tourist town which was also a link to Royal Hawai’i as well as a provisioning location for whalers and traders plying the Pacific. A lot of pleasant hours wandering in and out of its art galleries, its yes cheesy tourist shops, having a shave ice, or sitting on a bench near the ocean.

On our first trip I got a permission slip from the sugar company that owned the land and hiked up to the Lahaina L, a large letter standing for Lahainaluna High School. Lahainaluna means overlooking Lahaina. I wandered up 2000 foot Mt. Ball, found the letter, and got lost coming back down. Hot and sweaty and covered in red dust I finally got back to the Westin. Oh, so good that shower.

Mama’s Fish House, the second most reserved restaurant in the U.S. I celebrated my 60th and my 65th birthdays there since Kate’s continuing medical education events were always mid-February. On the menu is the name of the fisherman who caught that day the fish you were eating that night. While you eat you can watch the wind surfers on the bay. Hawai’i and Kate. Maui and Kate. We went so many times, so many. And loved each one. And each other.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mussar

Old skills

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Friday gratefuls: Janet. Her name is Janet. Mussar. Leading a discussion. Metaphor and the sacred. Thinking. Feeling. Lev. Luke and Ann. Ian. Carol. Gracie and Leo. Sarah and Elizabeth. Judaism. Reconstructionist. Finding religion again with no reservations. Hallelujah. Conversion in Jerusalem. Prostate Cancer. Irv. Marilyn now home. Tara in Europe. The Trail to Cold Mountain. Final edits. Now it’s a script for me to learn.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leading

One brief shining: In a far away state at a time now long ago I used to sit down often at a table or stand in front of a room knowing my job was to take a conversation with those present through difficult terrain, perhaps deciding how to take on unemployment or a recalcitrant landlord or an obdurate city hall or one of the many corporations that wanted to reach into people’s lives and take away their agency, then make a turn from conversation to action. Oh how I loved it.

 

Yesterday for an hour and a half. I led the mussar group through the most difficult terrain of all, those things that matter to our interior, to our souls. I’d forgotten how satisfying it is to do that. I avoid leadership roles these days. Saying no rather than yes. Saying been there. But as a substitute for the Rabbi. A one time thing. I said yes.

I miss it. Reading the pulse of a group, guiding in a gentle way or a forceful way depending on the need of the moment, offering my own thoughts lightly or not at all or for the purpose of digging further into the topic. Yesterday’s topic was the purpose of metaphor and the application of that purpose to language we use about God. Also, strangely and powerfully, the question: What is God for? A lot to be said on this. We spent a fun hour and half doing just that.

Perhaps I could find these moments a bit more often. I don’t want to chair a committee. Nope. But I sure did enjoy the time yesterday. Though. I did fuzz up Janet’s name. Conflated her with Marilyn who sat beside her. Because the group has three Marilyns and Janet’s name, for some reason, skipped my mind. Don’t you love that phrase, skipped my mind? Janet danced away from available attention, played hopscotch in another corner just out of reach.

She came up to me afterwards and said, “My name is Janet, Charlie.” Oh. Oops. Ian, a visitor from California gave me a fist bump.  He’s my age. Luke came up and gave me a big hug. There was a buzz in the room, the conversation spilling over past the end of the meeting.

On my way out to the car Ginny came up to me and asked if I was converting. Yes, I said. Could I talk to you about it sometime? Ginny’s an Arkansas farm girl turned opera singer then stage actor then nurse. I told her I’d love to. Maybe the Blackbird? Which is in Kittredge where she lives with her partner.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Memories

Subdued

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Acting class. Abby, her passion. Alan, his commitment to stretching himself with Lear. Joan for her brilliance and breadth of knowledge. Rebecca trying comedy rather than drama. Tal, a wonderful teacher. Cold Mountain. The Chinese scholar and Mountain recluse. Follower of the Tao and the Buddha. Poetry. Kristie. Drug holiday. Money in the bank for my airline tickets. A rich and satisfying life. Eudaimoniac. That planet in the night Sky as I drove home. More Rain. 39 this morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Acting

One brief shining: Standing up there in front a sheaf of Cold Mountain’s poems in my hand I began to read, to inhabit this long ago Chinese hermit who wandered his Mountain, slept in a Cave, and wrote poetry that still shocks the heart, watching as his words landed, jarring the acting class as they had me the first time I read them.

 

An odd moment that affected me the whole evening. I chose to go to Sushi Win for a meal before acting class. Kate and I went there often when she was still able to get out and about. When she wasn’t, I would go pickup spring rolls for her. The best anywhere in her opinion. And mine, too.

When I got in and ordered, the music was from my high school days. The classics the young Vietnamese guy behind the counter said when I thanked him for playing them for my meal. He hadn’t of course played them for me.

I sat down and looked out the window at the Mountainscape. Remembered I sat here one evening in 2015 and called Kate to tell her I’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer. I don’t remember where she was, but she wasn’t at home. I also remembered the photograph now hung on the wall leading to the guest room. Kate smiling with her arm around my shoulder. Seated across from us Joe and Seoah, her arm around his shoulder. At Sushi Win, too.

Reading during this meal-two spring rolls and the Sushi Win special roll, hot tea-Regime Change by Patrick Deneen, the author of Why Liberalism Failed. Still much I don’t find compelling or with which I actively disagree, but his arguments do limn a major fracture in our nation. And suggest some core uncomfortable truths about our current reality. The biggest one with which I agree so far is our abandonment of the working class.

Drove over to the synagogue. Greeted Tal. Sat down to wait for the others to come since I was the first student there. The CBE social hall. Folding chairs in a semi-circle with their backs to the window wall. Outside the amphitheater built during the pandemic. Alan came in and touched my shoulder. Abby and her mother. Joan. No Lid this evening. Car trouble. Rebecca swept in commenting about fire mitigation, raking pine needles. Marilyn and Debra came late.

At one point Alan leaned over and said to me you’re not very talkative tonight. Oh. I wasn’t. Subdued. Realized then that the memories at Sushi Win had turned me inward. Toward Kate. Toward long ago high school years. I hadn’t noticed. Still a bit subdued this morning.

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, 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.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Fungi, Hawai'i, Health, Judaism, Korea, Memories, Mussar, Sport, Writing

Stretched again. By love, by injustice.

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Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

Monday gratefuls: Josh. Rebecca. Marilyn and Rabbi Jamie. Beltane. May Day. The merry, merry month of May. Cubensis. Anger at injustice. Baku Grandprix. Sergio Perez. Charles Leclerc. Mountain Streams running fast and full. My son and his wife. No furniture. Aloha to Hawai’i. Workout today. Richard Powers.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: F1

One brief, shining moment: Those F1 cars, slim and downforced, all speed and bones, threw themselves around the street circuit in Baku, two hundred miles per hour past twelfth century city walls and the eighth century Maiden Tower, marrying, at least for two hours, the ancient history of Azerbaijan with the manic movement of twenty-first century high technology.

 

Quite a day yesterday. My first dose of psilocybin in about fifty years. A microdose. Floating. Peaceful. Glad to be alive and on the Mountain. Cubensis. Capsules from Josh. Delivered by Luke. Short lived, maybe two hours. The first step toward a psychedelic senior life. Feels right.

 

The Ancient Brothers wrote letters to their future selves and their past selves. Here are mine:

At 90

Hey, old man. I mean. Wow, dude. Look at you.

What? You’re 5’ 2” now? Sorry. I know. This spine, eh? How did you live so long?

Fish and chicken. Some pork. Lotsa veggies and fruit. Exercise. Good friends. With warm hearts.

I get that. That sounds like now. You know at our age, 76.

Well. There you go. Stay on the path. It’s working.

 

At 67

Guy, I wish I could prepare you for the next eight years. But I can’t. They’re gonna be tough. Rock bottom, knock the bottle over, don’t win any prizes hard.

Love. Death. Harsh illness. Family upset. All of that until you’re the only one left standing. With cancer.

And yet. Live into them, live into it all. As you face each one, your life will change. Pivot. Deepen. Grow sadder and yet more stable, too.

I love you and that gets you through, on the path.

 

Talked with my son and his wife. Their house is bare. Only the furniture that will go into storage is left. The nomadic life of a military career. Each time I see them I love them more, as if love can expand and expand, not only filling the vessel it inhabits but enlarging the vessel, pressing it into new, better shapes, shapes brighter, more luminous than the ones that came before. May this continue. A real blessing.

 

Watched the Baku Grand Prix on F1 TV. Slowly gaining a better understanding of race strategy, how drivers adapt to different tracks, how their cars get tuned for the specific challenges of the day. These F1 drivers are unicorns like all elite athletes. Reflexes and courage. Competitive. Glad to have this diversion, a hobby, I guess.

 

Later in the day Dismantling Racism at CBE. Oh, so hard. Even deciding how to talk with each other about it. One person spoke with some force and came up with what I think is the most succinct way of understanding anti-Black racism in our country I’ve ever heard.

We Jews, he said, left Egypt, left our oppressor behind. But Blacks in the U.S. have never had an Exodus moment, they have never left their oppressor behind and their enslavement follows them down to this day. Wow.

He went on to wonder what life would have been like for the Hebrews if they had been freed from slavery, yet never left Egypt. Also an interesting, very interesting question.

Which, come to think of it, makes me wonder how many instances in world history there are of whole peoples being subjugated as slaves.

Not sure where this class is going. It’s a new model, one that tries to use the wisdom of mussar for the inner work necessary to fight our own racism. My sense is that writers of the curriculum have underestimated the learning required to understand racism, first, then mussar, second, then meld the two into something that aids the actual dismantling of this peculiar institution.

I’m in it though, all the way. Trying to merge this round of struggle against racism with the reading I’m doing about the far right. Stretching. Yet again.