Category Archives: Mountains

Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Friends, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Up, down

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Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II

Thursday gratefuls: Kate’s slowly healing fingers. The bowl hot pads she’s making. Finding her in her sewing room. Yeah! Yeah! Seoah’s concern about what happens to us when she leaves. Rigel’s blood work. Good except for slightly elevated creatinine. Getting some of my workout in yesterday. New floods for the loft. LED. Blue skies smiling at me. Green Trees and Black Mountain. Shansin filled with love, canine and human. Two meat bundles from Tony’s bought before the oncoming crisis at slaughter houses. Ruby finally clean. Rigel back from her wobbly, painful Tuesday.

As states reopen, it is clear what will follow. Our numbers as a nation, for deaths, for infections, for carriers without symptoms, for increased division between the masked and the unmasked, will multiply. It’s the nature of infection, of putting a penny on one square of a chessboard, then two on the next, then four on the next. You know the result.

Whether or not Trump realizes this, he’s placing a huge, a mega-whopper wager, the worst wager, the worst bet of all time, that the economy will rise before his election chances sink under a sea of body bags. He’ll lose that bet, but not before thousands more die and the infection fills hospitals.

Instead of the United States, folks around the world will refer to us as Little Italy with a bigger problem. You may have heard, or even read, Fintan O’Toole’s column in the Irish Times, THE WORLD HAS LOVED, HATED AND ENVIED THE U.S. NOW, FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE PITY IT. If you haven’t, here’s the link to a copy of it.

I go up and down. Right now down. Can’t think too much about the armed protesters in Michigan, the willingness to choose the economy over sensible precautions. Puts me out of the now and into a tomorrow I find distressing to imagine. Stay up, Charlie, on Shadow Mountain. With your Family and Dogs. With the Trees and the Mountains. Read the Talmud. Exercise. Write. Play. Let tomorrow come in its own time and in the way it will come.

Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Health, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Talmud, Third Phase

To Rigel

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Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II

Tuesday gratefuls: Rigel, our amazing 11 year old. “She could pass for five,” said the vet at her physical yesterday. Cool mountain nights. Blue Colorado sky. Being home, having a home. Rocks piled up high, high, high. Streams racing to the leave the Mountain top, to carry its message to the sea.

Busy Tuesday morning. 7 am meeting of the Clan. Clan Keaton. We celebrate and continue my mom’s family. Right after I took Rigel back to the vet for another tooth removal. Cracked. She comes home in about an hour. High intensity workout. Read Talmud. Nap. The morning.

Kate goes in tomorrow morning to see the reconstructive surgeon who worked on her fingertips. The scars have mostly healed, but they hurt at the tips and her sensitivity there has not returned. She can sew, but with less dexterity.

A Mountain spring is here. The forest service moved our wildfire danger from low to moderate. There have already been two smaller fires in Conifer. Covid will impact fire response crews. Those fighting difficult fires are often bunked close together, share equipment, and dining space. Not to mention exhaustion, dehydration. Whatever the impact it will not be positive.

Another clue about spring. The fine yellow mist shaken from new Lodgepole pine cones has begun to spread on Mountain Winds. There’s a faint layer on my computer keyboard. Animacy is in the air.

Mark and Mary have finished their terms, but there’s a two week grade challenge window which keeps them at work. Grade challenge window? Geez. Education has changed, eh? Diane’s choral music class from San Francisco’s Community Education program has moved online. She seems resigned to eventually getting Covid. She tested negative in a community testing program last week. The clan wends its international way through this international pandemic.

Beyond the Boundaries, Coronavirus, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The Move, The West, Third Phase, Woolly Mammoths

Shansin. Again.

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Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II

Monday gratefuls: Shansin. Four Mule Deer Does in the yard this morning. Romertopf. The Chicken that gave its life for our meal. Potatoes. Onions. Carrots. Garlic. Sesame oil. Old friends: Tom, Bill, Mark, Paul. Poetry. Wine for Kate. Those who wear masks. Those who don’t. These Mountains. Their Trees. Their Water. Our Wild Neighbors.

At a time of frustration and anxiety Shansin, our home which honors the Korean Mountain Spirit, and Shansin Himself, have gifted me a token of peace. At 5:30 this morning I went out for the newspaper, as I have hundreds of times since we moved here in 2014. A Mule Deer Doe looked up at me from the yard. Good morning, I said. She looked at me, her huge ears standing out from her beautiful face, alert.

Somewhat further away three of her Sisters ate, too. Good morning. Good morning. They each looked at me and continued eating. As I walked along the driveway to the mailbox, they continued eating, occasionally looking up as I moved by them. I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you’re enjoying the grass.

Paper in hand, the latest coronavirus news buzzing off its front page, I walked back to the house, to Shansin with Shansin. They all grazed, content. I was part of their morning, They were part of mine. Neighbors on Shadow Mountain.

Yes, we belong here. Together. Whatever might be elsewhere, we belong here. Our lives continue in mutuality with those others who live among us. Fox. Cougar. Bear. Elk. Moose. Pine Marten. Canada Jay. Magpie. Raven. Crow. Spider. Mouse. Vole. We are all under the protection of Shansin.

At crucial moments in our Mountain time Shansin has sent his angels, his messengers. That first day here on Samain of 2014 when the three Mule Deer Bucks and I met in the back. The first day of radiation therapy when two Elk Bucks jumped our fence and stayed a day and a night eating dandelions. This morning, when my patience and emotional reserve had frayed, left me feeling beleaguered.

It may be the apocalypse(s). It may be. But here on Shadow Mountain I am part of something that will survive. That will flourish in spite of and in part because of them.

This is what the end times look like up here. A newspaper in its tube. Four Mule Deer grazing on our land. A cool Mountain morning underway.

Colorado, Coronavirus, Family, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Shaken, Not Stirred

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Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II

Saturday gratefuls: The Fog. Dr. Gustave. Christine, optical technician. Good pressures. Cataracts and Cataract surgery. Getting gas. Freddie’s delicious Steak burgers. Air conditioning in ruby. Hungarian goulash by Seoah. Friends at CBE. Home. Shadow Mountain. The Mountains. Down the Hill.

Not sure how to talk about this. It’s unpleasant, but I need to put out there the profound dis-ease I felt yesterday. A twice canceled appointment with my ophthalmologist, Dr. Gustave, found me the only car in the Corneal Consultants parking lot. Check-in was by cell phone as was word that they were ready to see me. After locking ruby I walked into the building to find myself the only patient there. Most of the spaces inside, including the waiting area, were dark. It felt like exploring an abandoned structure.

Christine and I greeted each other through our masks, mine a ks94 mailed to us from Korea by Seoah’s Sister and Brother-in-law. We walked past empty exam rooms, the retina camera and visual field equipment room.

We’ll be in here. Any issues with your vision? Yes. My hearing is affecting my vision. When I watch television, I use closed captions, but they’re getting blurry. Also, why are my eyes turning blue?

Dr. Gustave a bit later. We’ll be taking those cataracts out as soon as elective surgeries are authorized again. It wasn’t my glasses? No. Morgan Freeman has the same condition with his eye color. Is it pathological? No. A part of aging for you.

The whole experience there was unsettling. Christine told me they would wipe down the exam room with clorox after I left. That made me feel strange. It was wise, yes, but still.

There were further errands to run. I needed to get some cash, so I went to a Wells Fargo branch that I know has a drive-through. This drive through is closed. Huh? O.K. I put the Korean mask back on, slipped a glove on my right hand, and went into the lobby prepared to face actual people. But from a safe distance. Closed. This branch has been closed for a month said guy coming downstairs from his office above the bank. Well. Damn.

At Freddy’s Steak Burger I waited in a very long line, maybe 15 cars, to get a double bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate shake. A treat I’d looked forward to when I knew I would be visiting this bank. They’re close by each other. A Chick Fil’a up the street had employees outside, helping drive-up customers. Freddy’s did not.

Unease had begun to set in when I walked through the darkened halls of Corneal Consultants. It got amplified by the absence of other patients, by the clorox comment, by the face shield worn by Dr. Gustave. The closed bank. The very long line at Freddy’s. The also closed car wash where I got gas. The dysfunctional car wash I tried next further down Hwy 470. I wanted to get home.

Getting into the mountains usually calms me, but this time unwelcome anxiety had seeped in, jangled my nerves. I felt better on 285, headed toward Conifer, but not ok. I mailed some bills in Aspen Park.

At home I recounted this trip to Kate. I felt unsafe, I told her. People weren’t wearing masks. The step back from stay at home orders meant there were a lot more people out, cars on the road. All the signals of the contagion. Dark exam rooms. A closed bank. Where, btw, our safety deposit box is. The car washes. The long line at Freddy’s.

It left me, I said, a bit shaken. Dis-eased. I’m so glad to be home. It’s safe here. I don’t want to go out again.

When I heard myself say that, and when I realized I meant it, I felt old and frail. Which of course jacked everything else up a little higher.

It’s the next morning now. I’ve had some sleep. I’m aware how much my home means to me. How important it is to have this shelter right now. Yet, I still feel the dark penumbra of the virus corona. It has changed my world and I don’t like the feeling of threat that has come with it.

Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Health, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

So Lucky

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Spring and Corona Lunacy II

Friday gratefuls: New tricks for an old dog. Appreciative inquiry. Kate on the board, planning for the next five years. Kate sewing. Kate smiling. Kate. Seoah and her sadness. The coronavirus, what has it done for you today? My life’s quieter, less strained. Got me into spring organizing for the loft. Has laid bare the true fault lines in our country: economic and racial inequity, the emissions which poison us and are overheating our planet, yet another wave of know nothingism. The virus is only a medical crisis and it will pass.

This morning about 5 am I came awake as I usually do around that time. The electric blanket warmed me, the cold night air streamed from my open window. Rigel was asleep, her head between mine and Kate’s, her long body stretched out. Kep curled up at the end of the bend. Kate was asleep, too. I laid there for about a half hour, feeling so lucky. So lucky.

About 5:30 Kep jumped on me, as he does every morning, eager and happy, pressing down, saying hello, good morning, let’s get up! Rigel, a very heavy sleeper, lifted her head. Oh, no. Not now. Let me sleep a little longer. Come on, Rigel, time for breakfast, let’s get up, big girl! Her head sinks back to the bed. Nope. Not right now.

Rigel! Get up. Time for breakfast. She slowly rises and shakes herself, standing on Kate’s legs. All right, all right. I’m coming. I let the two of them out by the downstairs door. They run off, their bladders full, like mine. We’re all just mammals, doing what us warm blooded animals do after waking.

The early morning goes on. Let them back inside. The clink of food in dog bowls. Treats. Kep goes back down to sleep with Kate. Rigel stays in the sewing room. I get the paper, put it at Kate’s place. Pour some cold coffee into the big Santa Claus mug, grab my phone. On the way out of the house and up to the loft I turn on Kate’s upstairs oxygen, make sure the canula is around the newel post nearest the downstairs.

There’s a light coating of snow. I felt it during the night on my head. That open window. A bit of ice on the stairs up to the loft. Careful with my feet, that hard-earned Minnesota knowledge of how to walk on slippery surfaces.

It’s around 6 when I open the door, switch on the lights. Things are in a bit of disarray, more so than usual that is, because I’m rearranging furniture. Yesterday and the day before I moved my computer to a different spot. It had been in the same one for almost five years. Books related to Judaism going on a freshly cleaned off bookshelf. Reading chairs now with their backs to the window overlooking Black Mountain and Black Mountain Drive.

When my order of five banker’s boxes get here, I’m going to store all my object files from my docent days in them, take the boxes downstairs to the garage. Never used them. The plastic bins they’re in now will receive the two million words of Ancientrails printed out last fall. The pages will have cardboard year separators like a comic book store. That will free up the desk which Kate used for study during medical school. It will go parallel to the art cart and on the rug. On it will go my painting and sumi-e supplies, freeing up the whole surface of the art cart for painting, working with ink.

The manuscript of Jennie’s Dead is on the round table next to the computer, partially edited, awaiting more work. It’s only now, in retrospect, that I can see through the cloud that settled over me, a fog hiding the creative impulse, the simple joys.

So lucky.

Coronavirus, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, US History

HOWL

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Spring and the Corona Lunacy

Tuesday gratefuls: All those protesters, Corona Lunacy in full bloom. Seoah shopping at Safeway. The vast amounts of creative energy flowing into peak TV. Game of Thrones. The earlier rising of the sun. Kep and Rigel, still on the 4:30 am clock. Now 5:30. Cool air. Books. Books. The coronavirus, cutting right through the veneer of civilization in the U.S. Friends. You know who you are.

Howling. 8:00 p.m. Go outside. Howl. Continue until it fades. Since early in the lock down neighbors throughout Conifer: Kings Valley, Aspen Park, Evergreen Meadows, up here on Shadow, Conifer, and Black Mountains, we go out at 8 and howl. Doesn’t last long, two minutes, three minutes, but the sound is authentic enough to get Rigel’s attention.

Started out in support of the medical personnel. Now, though. I’m here. I’m here. Still alive. Still ok. This is us. Like the old ladies in the Italian city who threw open their windows and sang into the plague. But this is the mountains, not the land of opera. So, we howl.

Reminded me. A night several years ago in January, north of Ely, on a lonely road leading into the forest. I stood with the eight other students and howled into the night. The wolves answered us. This was a week long educational program put on by the International Wolf Center.

Howling is about solidarity, about personal presence, about territory. It’s also a bit silly up here, and fun.

Coronavirus, Family, Friends, GeekWorld, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

High Tech, High Touch

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Spring and the Corona Luna

Friday gratefuls: Kate on coming to bed last night, “I’m super tired.” She stayed for the whole virtual board meeting and long range planning session. The snow. About a foot of new whiteness. Black Mountain white against blue. Cold weather. Good sleeping. Unorthodox on Netflix. Good high intensity workout yesterday.

The Third Wave. Alvin Toffler. 1980. He said in it, high tech, high touch. That stuck with me. What he meant was, the more we use high technology, and it’s gotten higher and higher since 1980, the more we will want in the flesh interactions with others. We’re living through dramatic proof of his prescience.

Zoom. Went from 10 million users to 200 million over the first weeks of stay at home orders. Virtual seder. Online mussar class. The clan gathering: Mary, Mark, Diane. Old friends: Mark, Tom, Paul, Bill. About to arrange a gathering for the Johnson sisters. Kabbalah class. All zoom. Woollies, too.

The sessions with fewer folks work better for me than the larger ones. The seder was meaningful and Rabbi Jamie used breakout rooms to help, but it still felt distant. Although, the same number of people at round tables at Mt. Vernon Country Club would have been distant, too. Yet not. Bodies are important. Just their presence is reassuring. 53 people

Mussar has fifteen. It works well, but I wonder how well it would work if we didn’t already know each other. The Kabbalah class works, but I preferred the one day I drove into the Kabbalah Experience space. Since I didn’t know these folks at the beginning, I rarely knew the context for their remarks.

The best are the Clan gathering and the Old Friends. But, again. These are folks I know well, over periods of many years. The Woolly sessions lie somewhere between these two and the others.

They are way better than nothing. I will stipulate that. I can see facial expressions, some body language, and it keeps us in touch with each others lives. All good.

But. I miss the actual flesh. Don’t want it to sound weird, but the embodied person is different from the virtual one. If we ever get holograms in wide use, I imagine it will be the same. We’re pack animals, like dogs, and an important part of the pack experience is physical presence.

As a temporary measure, the chance to interact even on screen is wonderful. It alleviates the worst part of physical distancing, staying at home: feeling shut in. Over time though I would miss the chance for casual moments off from the group, for hugs, for shaking hands.

Even though only yesterday I wrote about a personal stay at home order for a year, I find regular time with other folks, especially those I know and love, important. Like most introverts I find interaction with others draining, so I have limits. Not getting close to them these days.

Coronavirus, Family, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Plants, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History, Weather +Climate, World History

A Pagan’s Way

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Spring and the Corona Luna

Wednesday gratefuls: Ed Smith. His hands. Kate’s new feeding tube. Getting there on the leaks. Slowly. Glacially. But, getting there. Seoah’s concern, love for Kate. Her helpfulness. Rigel and Kep, always. Masks. Gloves. Those who hope the coronavirus will lead us to rethink society. Among them me. Mountain Waste Removal. Mt. Evan’s Home Health Care. The snow pack above average.

The spirit of 2019. An urgent doctor visit yesterday. The balloon that holds Kate’s feeding tube in place collapsed. Back to the surgeon. He put in a new, slightly larger tube and said anytime Kate had trouble to come see him. This was our first urgent visit since Bloody January though it was the norm in 2019. The gaps between visits are longer. May they continue and lengthen.

Since we went to a medical building I put on mask and gloves. Kate had a mask. These were the smaller masks, but Seoah’s sister’s husband found 50 NS95 masks for us. Just because. Her sister mailed 8 of them to us yesterday. The Korean government allows 8 a month to be sent out and then only to family. She’ll keep sending them as long as the crisis and her supply continue.

Can you feel the irony here? The world hegemon is getting medical supplies from South Korea. It’s a sixth of our size. And, can you feel the love? Family. Across oceans and cultures.

Hard to be sure but I think the newly administered Lupron, my third, has weakened me some. I had a tough time on my workout Monday. I had a two hour nap yesterday, then slept an hour or so long last night. We’ll see about my workout today. The hotflashs have been somewhat more frequent. Life in the chemo lane.

Been reading the book Braiding Sweetgrass. It’s the first book in the Rocky Mountain Land Library’s book club. Robin Wall Kimmerer is the author, a botanist and a member of the Potawatomi nation. Kate Strickland worked, I believe as an intern, at Milkweed Editions when they were publishing this book and got to know Ms. Kimmerer well. It’s a compilation of short think pieces, not quite essays, closer to memoir.

In the human narrative class with Rabbi Jamie we’re reading the last section of Art Green’s book, Israel. In it Green talks about the relationship between a people and the land. In wondering what I could learn from this chapter, I decided I would focus on how a people, all people, relate to the land.

That brought to mind both the Rocky Mountain Land Library and its unusual mission and my episodic work on reimagining, reconstructing faith. Increasingly this reenvisioning has come to focus on how to articulate my pagan way, not as the way, but as a way, one that might guide more folks back to the literal source all life, the sacred marriage between the sun and mother earth. And, in so doing, spur them protect our mother, or, more accurately, protect a space for humankind here.

I decided to read the four books in the Land Library Book club over the time of the Israel kabbalah class, which runs into June. I added a couple of other books I have, the Lunar Tao and Becoming Native to This Place.

A chapter in an often imagined book about my pagan way will be my presentation for the class. It’s tentatively titled, Becoming Native to This Place. Something to do while the world sinks into itself.

Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Jefferson County, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

We Are At Home

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Spring and the full Corona Luna

Tuesday gratefuls: A good workout. All the delivery people: USPS, UPS, Fedex. Again, and still, all the service workers, warehouse workers, truck drivers, doctors, nurses, governors and mayors who’ve chosen to confront life under the pandemic. And, again, the coronavirus for unveiling the lies we tell ourselves to preserve our status, our pollution, our failed economic systems. Seoah, who cleans and cooks and smiles and laughs and orders from Lululemon.

The snow is melting. We’ve had bright sun shiny days. Jeffco put the entire county on stage 1 fire restrictions indefinitely. It’s unusual for that restriction to come this early, with much snow still to come. Not good news.

What would happen right now if we had a major disaster, like a wildfire? It would up end our life here and create a turmoil wherever we had to go. Or, an earthquake in California. A hurricane hitting Florida or New Orleans. Tornadoes in the south. Disasters during an ongoing disaster. Are we ready for these? They will happen.

We’ve flagged off our housecleaner for the second time. We’ve continued to pay her though, as we will pay our hair stylist. These are one woman businesses. They are our contract employees so we’re supporting them. How long? Don’t know.

Seoah cleans so we’re ok. And the hair? Somebody said a couple of weeks ago that we were only three weeks from knowing everybody’s true hair color. Shaggy’s been my look most of my life. Another couple of months is NBD.

Another zoom time this morning with Clan Keaton. Linking the far flung Ellises and our first cousin, Diane. Mark sent me a clip from the Arab News announcing a 24 hour curfew in Riyadh. Residents can only go out between 6am and 3pm for food and medicine. Today begins a month long lockdown in Singapore with somewhat looser restrictions. San Francisco’s been shelter in place for longer than most.

All this physical distancing and social distancing has begun to work. How much it will flatten the curve and what happens when it ends are still uncertain. Like our lives.

Aging, Coronavirus, Family, Friends, Health, Mountains, Myth and Story, News of the Strange, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Woolly Mammoths

Mystery

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Spring and the Corona Luna

Saturday gratefuls: Nurse Michele from Mt. Evan’s Hospice and Home Health Care. A night without leaking for Kate!!! A new protocol for her feeding tube. Masks. Personas. No, masks, soft cloth masks. No, it’s all masks. Even our body. Mystery. The peaks of the mountains. Cirrus clouds racing high above them. Lodgepoles with hoarfrost. Woolly’s on Zoom.

Zoom. Zoom. Zoom. Talk about mysteries. How does this really work? I mean, seeing old friends, family members who are far away. Maine, Saudi Arabia, Singapore. Shorewood. Anoka County. Downtown Minneapolis. While up here on Shadow Mountain. Talking to them. They hear me and respond. I see facial expressions, room settings. All on zoom settings. Wow.

The O.E.D. Mystery. Definition #1: hidden from human knowledge or understanding; impossible or difficult to explain, solve, discover; obscure origin, nature, or purpose.

A psychonaut. This friend. He’s done psychedelics. He’s done ayahuasca, the shaman’s drug from the rain forest. Living in mystery, living into mystery, life’s mystery. What’s behind door number 3? Is there a wizard in oz or just a traveling salesman pulling levers and pushing buttons? He’s stayed level, working, drawing, imagining. Pushing himself, his art, his words as he ages. A beautiful thing to see. Inspirational.

Speaking of beautiful things. Michele, the Mt. Evan’s home health care nurse came yesterday. She showed us how to clean Kate’s tube feeding site with warm, soapy water and sterile pads. How to apply a zinc oxide cream below the disc. How to cut a gauze bandage to fit under the disc and one to fit over it. Since that time, around 11 yesterday, Kate’s been leak free. Hallelujah. Really.

A guy I knew at CBE, Howard, had a brain hemorrhage this week. And, died. Echoes of mom, that week in October. I spoke with him at Purim, the last time I was at CBE. Nothing apparently wrong then. No TIA evidence. Just normal Howard, talking about his wife’s leukemia and their tennis doubles. They played competitively even though she was in treatment. The cancer took her a while ago. It’s not only Covid-19 out there. It’s cancer and brain bleeds and feeding tubes, too.

My point here is not a gloomy one. It’s just that life, and death, goes on unrelated to the viral victory march. And will continue.