Category Archives: Feelings

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Gettin’ Real

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Great Sol yet again. All the Water falling down the Mountain toward Bear Creek. Reconstructionist Judaism. Irv and the Ancient Brothers. Taxes. Tom and his test. Ruth and her gift. Domo. I-70, experiencing Crash Week. David. Kristie. Learning Hebrew. Learning the Morning Service. Pushing on through to the other side. New tires Thursday.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Driving in the Mountains

One brief shining: Velveteen Rabbiting so many things: that Stickley couch with naps, the Stickley chair with books of all sorts, the living room with its Garden Path paint and Jerry’s painting, Joseph’s self-portrait, Ruby with every nick and scrape, Judaism with each Hebrew word and phrase I learn, Great Sol and my driveway, my lev each time I write a post or go see a friend, becoming, changing participating in the One.

 

“God is that aspect of reality which elicits from us the best that is in us and enables us to bear the worst that can befall us.” Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, Reconstructionist Prayerbook

 

Shadow Mountain. Rubbing it each time I drive up and down the hill, each time I get up in the Morning, say the Shema, touch the mezzuzah, cook a meal, read a book, see it whole from the Safeway parking lot. It is the literal foundation of my world. Its rocky, knobby forehead posed toward the West, its long flank running from my house all the way downhill to Hwy. 73, and then, too, toward the north and the Valley of Cub and Blue Creeks. Its broken Rock Aquifer holds Rain and Snow for the Lodgepoles, the Aspens, and my shower, dishwasher, toilets and sinks, and boiler. Shadow Mountain also lifts me up to 8,800 feet above sea level. Making Oxygen less available. How big it really is I do not know for it shades into Black and Conifer Mountains. Mountains, at least in the Front Range, do not live isolated lives, rather they brush against each others’ Valleys, Meadows and often join together below the surface, stand together in runs of Peaks and Valleys. Yes. It is Shadow Mountain Home.

Kate’s Creek and Valley: Also shabby from an abundance of love. Where I first dispersed some of Kate’s ashes, where I later distributed them all. A spot I’ve used for hiking for several years in all seasons. I know where the Strawberries and Raspberries and Wild Roses grow. Kate’s Creek Waters its banks. A White Pine grows straight and tall. Perhaps a ship’s mast in another century.

Congregation Beth Evergreen. Rubbing shoulders. Literally. Mussar. Evening Services. Outdoor performances. B’nei Mitzvahs. Classes of all sorts. So many years with Kate. She rubbed it, too. And is part of what has become real, alive for me there. Breakfasts and lunches.

The loft. Where I workout. Where I paint, store my books, most of them, read and used to write. Everyday for so many years until Kep’s illness. A place made real.

What, I wonder, are you Velveteen Rabbiting right now?

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Plants, Wild Neighbors

Life. Challenges to it.

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Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

General Sherman

Tuesday gratefuls: Sarah’s back home. Her visit. Ruth tonight at Domo. Kristie today for update on my recent labs. Meeting David to talk prostate cancer. Great Sol beaming. All those Wild Neighbor babies and young ones. Good workout yesterday. Good practice for my bar mitzvah: torah portion and service leading portions. Ordering a few things: new laptop, new laptop stand, a summer weight comforter. Giving on Colorado Jewish Giving Day.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Enough to share

One brief shining: Can you imagine General Sherman under attack, the largest single Tree in the world, 274.9 feet high, 102.6 feet circumference at ground level, height of first branch above the base, 130.0 feet, by Beetles, Bark-Beetles, possibly aided by the climate tragedy; more, can you imagine being a researcher for the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition climbing General Sherman this week, this great Wild Neighbor,  because “We really feel like it’s our duty as stewards to take a closer look.” I can.

Quote from Christy Brigham in a San Francisco Chronicle article by Kurtis Alexander, May 20, 2024. Courtesy of Diane.

 

I feel suddenly protective of these Trees, this Tree. The Redwoods, too. And the Bristlecone Pines. Taller than three blue whales. I mean…

Gonna add the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition to my donation list. Just donated. What a good feeling. Loving sharing Kate and mine’s money with organizations living out our values. Southern Poverty Law Center. Wild Animal Sanctuary. Kabbalah Experience. CBE. ADL. The Land Institute. The Ancient Forests Society. Makes me happy.

No, we cannot make much of a difference, but we can add our names and our money to those spots of human activity where social justice, the Great Work, Judaism, the Land, and our Wild Neighbors get attention and progress forward.

Not sure why the heart connection with these Trees. Mostly Muir Woods, I guess. Standing next to, among. Shaded by. Overshadowed by. A wild amazement that such beings exist, life so strong and vital. Godliness found. Commitment to a location. Perseverance. Majesty. Silence. Love of place, of the Soil. Soul creation.

 

Today at 11 I talk with Kristie for the first time in a while. My PSA went up a bit, as I wrote before, and my testosterone down. PSA under 1.0 which is the point beyond which imaging can pick up metastases. So no P.E.T. scan. Still off the drugs with my drug holiday. Feeling a bit unsure, unsteady about cancer right now. Will be good to talk to Kristie and get her take, her advice about where we go from here. Back on the drugs, I’m sure. But when?

Almost all of the time I’m ok with the cancer, letting it go on its way, taking the steps my doctors recommend. Living today. When I get a bit anxious about it, I’m not sure what’s going on. Like now. Hardly crippling, yet also there.

 

Have supper with my favorite (and only) granddaughter tonight at Domo. There I’ll give her the present from Kate and me. Enough cash to travel somewhere interesting before starting college. Also, some chocolate. I am so proud to be her grandpop. Glad for her that she was able to complete high school and graduate with her class. CU-Boulder this fall. Studio Arts. Her Dad and Grandma are proud.

 

 

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Travel

Donner Party Picnic Area

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Ruth. The class of 2024. Denver University. High School. Still high school. Sarah. My son. Seoah in pink. Helping with the Rice planting in Okgwa. Graduation ceremonies. Rites of passage. Alan. His new Beemer. Electric. Venturing into adulthood. Airmen and women. My son as uncle or para-father.  The USAF. Radar. Islands.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seeing and hearing my son

One brief shining: Stepped up to the cash register, ordered Bolognese Sour Dough Toast, a Lemonberry tart, a fancy pastry with a melted sugar halo, and a Cuban coffee, gathered in the number, 47, for the order and went back to the table in the Bread Lounge overlooking the Mountains west of Evergreen including the completely Snow covered Continental Divide.

 

Speaking of the Continental Divide. On my train ride to San Francisco the conductor, who came on speaker from time to time with historic or geographic points of interest, indicated the River flowing beside the train. The Colorado. I’d crossed it before on a long ago trip to Colorado from Phoenix, but never had a chance to really see it. Muddy with Spring runoff it flowed fast and full, a River of so many dreams. Las Vegas. Tucson. Phoenix. Even far away Los Angeles. Then. Wait it a minute. It’s going the wrong way. Jumped to the first time I crossed the Red River near Fargo. Same sensation.

What? Oh. The Continental Divide. This mud roiled river flowed west and south, toward the Baja, toward the great Pacific Ocean, not the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. Even though I got this intellectually my brain kept feeling tricked each time I looked at the Colorado. My limbic system was not sure what to do with this fundamental change. One it did not understand.

Another odd point of interest. The Donner Party Picnic Area in the Tahoe National Forest. I mean, they had to know what they were doing when they named that, right?

At midnight on the 28th of April I woke up and wandered down stairs. The train, the California Zephyr, had stopped, and I wondered where we were. There in the distance was Salt Lake City. The Mormon Tabernacle. The angel Moroni. Twinkling in the intermontane night. A cool breeze came in from the open door of my sleeper car.

 

Just a moment: Alan, yesterday, said rather than being in a long Pause that I had moved into the inner Charlie. A student. A scholar. A friend. Living alone and loving it. Hmm. I think both are true. I have privileged my introverted, scholarly side, no doubt. And, as he pointed out, he and I have taken many acting classes together. So I was engaged. True. However, it’s also true that my life has had mostly external guide rails in spite of that. In the last year especially Jewish immersion, mikveh, sure, but Jewish home life, too, for example. Shabbat. The Shema. The mezzuzahs. And the classes with Jamie.

The Pause is a time of collecting experience, integrating it, letting it change me. Then, living the change. I feel like I’m moving toward that moment. Perhaps this year.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Memories, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Cookin’

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Friday gratefuls: Irv. Tom. The Ancient Brothers. Rabbi Jamie. The hidden me. Great Sol ablaze in morning glory. Kate, always Kate. Her Creek and her Valley. Kep, my sweet boy. The Redwoods. Bechira points. A long Pause. This Jewish life. Tara. Luke. Rebecca. Ginny and Janice. Back among my peeps. Alan and Joan this morning. Friendships. Music.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: a Pause

One brief shining: Driving down the hill toward Evergreen, Black Mountain Drive becomes Brook Forest Drive, a couple of miles after what used to be the Brook Forest Inn a shallow cutout, good for maybe two or three vehicles, provides parking for a short Valley with a small Mountain Stream carving its way through, White Pines and Ponderosas, Wild Rose and Wild Strawberry and Wild Raspberry grown along its banks and up the steep Valley sides, this is Kate’s Creek running through Kate’s Valley, where her last physical remains began their journey to the World Ocean.

 

Yesterday was session ten of ten conversion sessions with Rabbi Jamie. I will miss these. My Rabbi. There’s a phrase I would not have expected to come out of my mouth. Ever. Yet now I can’t imagine life without Rabbi Jamie in it. He’s a backstop. A validator. A friend. A guide.

He opened me up again yesterday. I shared my guilt. Jewish guilt? About being a hermit by preference these days. Not wanting to engage politically. Or in any way really that’s not personal. As he often does, he went to what appeared to be tangent.

“I researched creativity a couple of years ago. Prepping for a Kabbalah Experience class. I learned then that a creative block, or Pause, can be long. And you never know how long.”

I had used a string of phrases: Not over, Not finished, Not complete, Not done to describe how I felt about my life. While affirming my joy at being alone within a crowd of friends.

Slowly. Oh. I see. Kate’s illness intensifying in mid-2019. Her long, slow decline. Covid. Her death. Grief. Going this way into redecorating the house, that way into moving to Hawai’i, over there to empty the house of stuff, adjusting to my son and Seoah living so far away, taking the plunge into the mikveh and my year of living Jewishly. The trip to Korea and my back’s emergence as a limit. Feeling overtaken, if not overwhelmed, by all the learning, the focus required for conversion and my bar mitzvah. The trip to San Francisco.

Like a caterpillar in its chrysalis, an imaginal self reorganizes for renewal, reemergence. Its container the years of a   whole life-lived experience, vital nutrient for a transformed nefesh. This paused version of me lives day to day. Happy. Joyful. Yet unfocused. Unlike the Great Southern Brood I have no 13 year clock ticking; the timing is uncertain. This Pause. A moment. Now five years or so in length.

So freeing. So liberating. As Rabbi Shapiro said (I think.), “It’s all about freedom.”

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase

From the Veldt

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Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

Thursday gratefuls: Diane. Irv. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Tom. Ancient Brothers. PSA. Cancer. Black Mountain. My Lodgepole companion. That Mule Deer Doe who comes into my back yard. Rain. Low Fire risk. Home insurance. Shadow Mountain home. Bonobos. New clothes for Spring. Alan and Joan. Rabbi Jamie. Tara. Mussar. Yetzer hara. Yetzer hatov.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Great Sol

One brief shining: Dusk fell, a magenta Sky filled the Lodgepoles in the back yard, wait, what’s that, a man walking across my fenced and gated yard, no, oh, I see, the white rump of that Mule Deer Doe who’s taken refuge here the last couple of days, what a relief and a joy.

 

Got a lesson in the inner emergency alert system. When I first saw that Doe, the light of a quickly falling dusk made her front blend into the background. Her white rump looked like a man’s shirt. My brain: this is not a test. Alert. Alert. Not a test. My body went into heightened awareness. Defcon 2. Then. Stand down. Stand down. Not a man. Repeat, not a man. A Mule Deer Doe.

How different the presence of this sweet Animal from the apparent threat of a stranger. Made me aware of how important context is. How much information my brain processes in the background all the time. My backyard empty. Doesn’t register except as a familiar tableaux. Movement. Wait.

Time of day: dusk. Season: late Spring. All gates closed. Fence intact. What is it? A white object moving across from right to left heading toward the far back. A man? A potential danger. Look just a bit longer. Make sure. Ah. There’s her head now. The two different conclusions. Both based on a filter taking into account the truths of that moment. What a man would mean at dusk, having opened a gate or jumped the fence. What a gentle Animal who had been there earlier in the day and yesterday, too, meant.

I was not only pressed into the moment, but certain sensory data lit up my defensive self. This was instinct, yes, but instinct informed by long experience of this particular environment, this particular time of day, this season. All screened, weighed, and taken into account in a flash. My limbic system. Our limbic system. A heritage of our days on the veldt. When the ability to take quick, decisive action meant life or death.

Always interesting to directly experience a function of the brain usually operating in the deep background. Makes me aware of how complex we are, how amazing the human brain is, how we skim the surface in daily life.

Also makes me reflect on the past couple of months when a dark scrim added itself to my emotional regulation. Made things difficult, made me feel vaguely threatened. By my upcoming bar mitzvah. By cancer. By aches and pains. By existential angst. What was my limbic system up to? Did I need to reassess things? Pay attention in ways I had ignored? Or did I just need a refresh, a reboot?

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Memories, Travel

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. San Francisco. Waymo. Ruby. Kate, her Creek and Valley. Ruth, the graduate. Gabe. Jen. Sarah. Mia. Mia’s mother. Kep. His yahrzeit last month. A foggy cap on Black Mountain. Blue Sky above. Must be cloudy to the east. Great Sol. Muted. See’s chocolate. Michael Strassfield. His 3rd Jewish catalog. Mary in Melbourne. Guru.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fog

One brief shining: This morning Fog creeps down Black Mountain obscuring its view from my window, the Lodgepoles have a mysterious, shrouded, yet also illuminated look, the interplay of Great Sol and the dewpoint, which my in-home scientist, Kate, explained to me so I understood.

 

Kate was so quick with math, with scientific knowledge, and medical knowledge of course. She could explain difficult ideas so I could understand them. I miss that part of our relationship. Along with many others. She was also my cooking consultant. My cribbage partner. Traveling companion. Garden planning and maintaining co-worker. Dog lover. Bee work assistant. Grandparent and parent. Most of all, a soulmate whose life meant as much to me as my own.

In this photograph, taken in Songtan, Kate’s continuing her three years of work on a counted cross-stitch I bought for her in Washington, D.C. It says Love is Enough. Hangs in my lower level now. Also had t-shirts made with a print of it for her birthday celebration the year she died. An amazing woman on so many levels.

 

Weird, looking back over the last two or three months. It’s like there was a shroud over my sense of self. I felt overwhelmed by the work for my conversion and bar mitzvah. Enough that I had real anxiety about it. Something I’m free of most of the time these days. I also reached into my bag of oh what a bad boy am I memories and ongoing concerns. Especially health and aging wise. Nope. You’re no longer able to take care of the house. Of feeding yourself. Too lazy. Too weak. Too inattentive. The back. Ouch. I’ll never travel again. That food poisoning. Showed how weak I am. Cancer. PSA blood draw yesterday. Probably mets everywhere. I’m in my tenth year after all.

Gosh. Gee whiz. How am I able to get up in the morning?

Then, much like the Fog slowly burning off Black Mountain as I write, the shroud faded away and I found myself back. Exercising. Confident about my daily life. My Torah portion down. Learning parts of the Morning Service that I can offer as my contribution on June 12th. Reaching back out from myself toward others.

Another thing. My trip now has a golden memory. Gone are the stretches where my back taught me its lessons. Gone is the lingering emotional and physical residue of the food poisoning. Left in their place are time at the Asian Museum. The Redwoods. Japantown. Buying chocolate at See’s. Laughing and eating with Diane. Meals at Sears Fine Food and nights at the Chancellor Hotel.

Why did this change occur? I think it was the trip. I needed a break from the seriousness that had become life. I needed some fun. A lesson in there. I’m pretty sure.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Memories

This time for Ruth

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Sky. Earth. Mountain. Stream. Deer. Dog. Elk. Moose. Bear. Mountain Lion. Fire. River. Lake. North. South. East. West. Life. Rock. Rain. Snow. The elementals. Joy. Sadness. Grief. Mourning. Feelin’ Good. Contemplative. Peaceful. Calm. Anxious. One. Echad. Bees. Honey. Kate. The Journey. Ancientrails. Writing. Living.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Awakening

One brief shining: Each morning I wake up under the Sky, my home resting on Shadow Mountain not far from the headwaters of Maxwell Creek which flows full and strong right now, joining in this new life all those who will pray at least once during the day to whatever Gods may be that Fire will once again withhold itself from the Forest, leaving us to cook breakfast and wash our floors.

 

Age 9

Let me tell you. It was 1965, another century, another millennia. May. The end of high school. For me. 59 years later it’s May. The end of high school. This time for Ruth. Who I held as a baby. Who declared to me at age 3, on a shuttle bus to the Stock Show, that, “I want my mommy!” One whose entire life, like her Uncle’s, my son, I have seen reach this point. This time for Ruth.

This Saturday. At Denver University stadium. The Northfield High School class of 2024. She will be there engowned and under a mortar board as so many of us have done so many times. Taking what may be in some ways the biggest step away of her young life, from public education, from childhood, from home.

Do you remember? The eagerness. The fear. The ancientrail of adult life stretching out before you, unknown for the most part. So wanted. Yet so uncertain. Would I be good enough? Strong enough? Enough? Yearning to break free from the known constraints of childhood. To live into the arms of your Self and its future.

Sure, there’s a path ahead for some of us. College. That factory job. Apprenticeship. But it is a path so far untrodden, so far innocent of our effort, our strength, our resolve.

Ruth’s feet. Her art. Her hopes. Her memories of her dad. Of her struggles. That backpack filled with the detritus of divorce, death, anguish. Heavy on her back. Her path. She goes off to college carrying that backpack, perhaps at times slumped over because of its weight, at other points, hopefully more and more often as time goes on, buoyed up by her ability to have weathered its burden and chosen life.

Her grandma. Her dad. Her dead. Will walk with her. Will receive her diploma, too. Will smile and their hearts will swell with pride. As will her mom’s. Mine. Most important of all, her own.

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Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Memories, Travel

Oh, the Times We Had

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Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

Monday gratefuls: Great Sol now lighting us up earlier and earlier. My Lodgepole Companion happy, Needles up, swaying a bit in Mountain Breezes. Inner weather. Internet returns. Learning about halakah, how to live a Jewish life. Learning my Torah portion. Learning how to pronounce parts of the morning service. Ancora imparo. Ichigo-iche.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Exercise

One brief shining: Years ago in the casino on the Amsterdamm, somewhere between New York City and Ft. Lauderdale, I got on a winning streak, blackjack, a game which I played every afternoon five days a week as long as I carried newspapers in Alexandria, thousands of hands, this time in honor of Merton’s brother, Kate’s uncle who had died just before we left on this post-retirement cruise around Latin America, dedicating any winnings to a charity he would have approved, not much, maybe $150, still, and the folks crowded around me, brushed my back, wanted my luck which was more leavened by skill than in most gambling.

 

Oh the times we had. Seeing Europe by Eurail. The Sistine Chapel. Red checkered tablecloths in Vienna. The Botticelli’s in the Uffizi. The Grand Canal from the rail terminal. That first view of the Pacific when entering the lobby of the Mauna Kea. Dinner at Mama’s Fish House. Going twice through the Panama Canal. Harvesting honey. Swatting off bees as we ran the honey harvester. Kate in her bandana, trowel in hand, Ninja Weeder! Quiet evenings with the dogs around the fire pit. Doing our laundry in Paris. Seeing heather and tartan making in Inverness. Cooking together. Holding hands.

We went to Greece and Turkey, Korea and Singapore, most of the way around Latin America, enjoying each other, laughing and having frustrating moments. We worked together as a team, making Andover a spot better than it was when we got there. A place fruitful with Apple Trees, Cherry Trees, Plums, Pears, and Currants. A sweet place with hives of Honeybees working hard. A place filled with fresh Vegetables and beautiful Flowers all season long. A place we nurtured that nurtured us back.

We cared for, played with, and cried over so many Dogs. Over Jon and Joe. Over Mark that one year. And finally we uprooted it all and carried the festival of our life to Shadow Mountain. Where life became merged with Mountains, Wild Neighbors, Judaism, and the grandkids. Yes, she’s been dead for three years. But neither gone nor forgotten.

 

Just a moment: After the food poisoning and for much of last week, I fell into a slump. I mentioned this when I talked about how my psyche can suffer when my body feels bad. After some self therapy, literally, after the nausea fading not even into memory but away, after reengaging the bar mitzvah work yet to be done and prepping for my final conversion session with Rabbi Jamie, my strong self has returned. Able. Caring. Dedicated. At work and at play. Wish I had a way to alert myself when I head off the rails since the self I condemn then is in fact the same self I now applaud.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Plants, Travel

Awe

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Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

Shabbat gratefuls: Kate’s yahrzeit. Lighting the yahrzeit candle. Frost on the Lodgepole’s at Black Mountain’s peak. May 15 in Minnesota. Planting ok then, in days past. Self-care. Nuggets win in Minneapolis. Coastal Redwoods. Sequoias. Bristlecone Pine. Douglas Fir. White Pine. Fraser Pine. Ponderosa Pine. Kate’s Creek. Maxwell running full. Bear Creek.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kate

Songtan, 2016

One brief shining: The boardwalk felt soft, welcoming as morning Sunshine filtered onto it through the Forest, its planks took shade and sun alike, filling it with gentle magic while not revealing the wonders rising only feet from its sides, where the Coastal Redwoods, which can reach over 300 feet toward the sky, with trunks requiring many hands for a complete hug, soared up from the Valley soil with grace, power.

 

Awe. Wonder. Amazement. In my belated but so appreciated first contact with these giants of the Forest. Each one with the presence of a meditating Buddha. Still, rooted to their place, focused on their wooden dreams. Diane told me of the efforts firefighters went through to save the Sequoias, putting aluminum fire resistant blankets around their bases to protect them. I would help. The majesty of these Trees made me want to weep with joy. That we share the Earth with such entities.

This is a possible outcome of travel. Transport to a place unexpected, even unimagined. Oh, I had an inner picture, an expectation about how it would be to see these Trees. Nothing prepared me for the sight of them. The unique and powerful sense of self they project. Wild neighbors are so precious because they show us the limits of artifice, of bending the world to our will. Wild neighbors are natural Taoists, accepting the world as it comes, adapting to its changes.

Of course, I’m most familiar with Lodgepole Pines, Aspen, Mule Deer, Elk, Black Bears, Foxes, Mountain Lions yet the Coastal Redwood and its near relative the Sequoia are my wild neighbors, too. Just further away. How bare, spiritually, would be my world without them. Can you imagine? A world with no Wild Neighbors?

 

Just a moment: Been thinking about the purpose of universities. Came up with three to start with: 1. Collect, curate, and conserve the deposit of human culture. Imagine and execute ways to keep it available to generations yet unborn.  2. Foster a culture of critical thought. 3. Provide those moratorium years for each generation where life becomes exploration and adventure.

What other purposes underlie this grand social experiment?

 

It took me until yesterday to get my Mountain legs back. To once again be here, in my life. Some psychic pain over the last few days occasioned in the main by back stress + food poisoning. When my body’s not right, it’s easy to spiral, confusing a wounded body with a wounded soul. I became febrile, fragile. Old. In need of assisted living. Foolish for living this long alone, high in the Mountains. My judgment compromised by a younger self’s commitment to the Rockies.

Yet this morning, as I feel my way into shabbat, my new Jew soul smiles. You’re where you belong, Yisrael. And not too old. Not yet.

Art and Culture, Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Travel

Backing Away

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Beltane and the Moon of Liberation

Monday gratefuls: Shadow Mountain Home. My pillow. My bed. The Rockies. Living in the Front Range. Amtrak. Garrett. Sleeping car attendant. Travel. Diane. San Francisco. Muir Woods. The Japanese Tea Garden. That early transitional Rothko at the De Young. The Thinker at the Legion of Honor. Ukiyo-e prints. Japan town. Bernal Hill. The Mission. 12 Lucky.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Homecoming

One brief shining: Found my key under the chair arm where I left it for Ana, opened the door, and came home for the first time in eight days, medieval French music played quietly downstairs, a power outage and generator start having turned it on, rolled the Travelpro over to the ottoman and used it like a hotel luggage rack so I could get at what I needed, my meds and the Lidocaine patch, went downstairs and using the remote turned off the music, sinking into my chair. Ah.

 

Don’t like saying it out loud. Admitting it to myself. However. Traveling has changed for me. Probably permanently. I had all the usual delights in San Francisco. Seeing Diane on her home turf, her home on 12 Lucky, her jogging route up to Bernal Hill, and the small town like neighborhood commercial area which includes Wise Son’s Deli and an $8 haircut. Visiting amazing places like Muir Woods and the Japanese Tea Garden. Seeing great work by artists old-like Hokusai and Rodin-and new like Lee Mingwei’s Rituals of Care. Being driven by a native up one lane, yet inexplicably two way streets angled like steep Mountain roads. Seeing Earthquake shacks, lived in today, but built as temporary housing for the victims of 1906.

Diane and I visited Japantown, drove through the beautiful Presidio, and I bought some new clothes not far from the Chancellor Hotel across Union Square. Bonobo’s on Grant Street. I would make the journey again (well, probably not, but you get the feeling) just to see the Redwoods. So stunning. So magnificent. So alive. These beings remind me that life’s boundaries are much looser than our often blinkered day-to-day allows us to see.

And yet. At the start of each day I felt good. Walked over to Sears Fine Foods for breakfast. Met Diane. We went here or there, the Asian Art Museum, the De Young, Muir Woods. After walking any distance or, even harder, standing in one place, hello-museums!, my back would signal me through hip pain, sometimes even neck pain. Not long after I walked bent over, neck awry. Even with the lidocaine patch, the stretches, the very occasional NSAID. Gonna make one more pass through the medical system. See if there’s stuff I’m missing, could use. If not, and I’m not expecting anything, my traveling days have changed.

I can go for a couple to three hours of sight seeing, after transportation which has its own ouches.  Then. Back to the hotel for the day. I’m done. Either I go somewhere and stay a while or it won’t make sense to go. At my son’s in Korea I can stay in their apartment when I need to rest. I’ll get over there next year for his taking command ritual, maybe stay a couple of months. Might cough and faint in dismay but I might buy a business class ticket so I can arrive more or less uninjured.