Category Archives: Mountains

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Health, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Rambling

December 29, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Cold Moon

When I worked for the church, the days between Christmas and New Years were an enforced break. No church wanted Presbytery executives in that time frame, everyone was coming down from the Advent, Christmas Eve, Christmas push. I took to using the time for research, usually on one topic. In those days it was organizational development, urban politics, a political issue coming to prominence, matters related directly, in some way, to my work.

This might be a way to use this enforced down time. Until the knee pain goes away and I’ve returned to a more normal routine, I could use the time to research a given topic. Not sure what yet, but something will occur to me.

Realized the other day that I’ve gone from an office halfway underground in Andover to a second story loft on a mountain. The Andover house was a walkout. The basement was open to the outside on two sides and built into the earth in front. Here on Shadow Mountain I look out at Black Mountain to the west and can see the sunsets. In Andover I saw sunrises.

Weary of the whole pain, stiffness thing. I know it’s part of the healing process. I know it’s going to recede and eventually vanish. Yet yesterday it got to me. Too damned long with a painful knee, reminded of its presence at every step, every sitting and rising. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t get comfortable sitting or lying. Next morning now and I got some sleep last night so feeling better.

Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Not Snowed

December 28, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Winter New (Cold) Moon

Though our Shadow Mountain winter has had little snow so far, west of the continental divide has had substantial storms. Snowpack is at 115% of normal. Important for us in Colorado and nine other states. These storms have also put snow on ski resort runs, already late in their opening.

Jon and Ruth skied A-Basin yesterday. She wore a new winter coat received the night before for Hanukkah. Jon fell and whacked his head, torqued his neck, but fortunately no concussion, no broken bones. They both remarked on the high winds up slope. “They take the fun right out of it.”

The snow here will continue melting under moderately warm upcoming weather. No big snowstorms in the forecast either. So far, very slow.

I drove for the first time a couple of days ago. Weaned off the narcotics. Felt good. Trouble sleeping. Still have aches in the knee, can’t figure out a good drug regimen. Of course, I had trouble sleeping pre-op, too. I might be returning to my usual sleep challenged life.

Family, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Park County, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Weird about the cold

December 18, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Samain Moon of the Winter Solstice

We’re in the cool zone here. Zero right now. Coloradans are weird about the cold. When the temps head toward single digits, they break out the down coats and head for the King Sooper to stock up. They do the same when there’s much snow in the forecast, too. Kate and I just shake our heads. Silly Coloradans. Spend a winter in Minnesota.

Jon went to A-basin yesterday but due to the closing of Loveland Pass he drove all the way to Fairplay, over Hoosier Pass, through Breckenridge then backroads. A long drive, but beautiful. Fair Play is the county seat of Park County, all of which is South Park. South Park inspired the adult cartoon.

I see my internist tomorrow. She wants to check out my 02 levels and my use of narcotics. Healing faster now.

From the land of high mountains, blue skies and abundant ski and bicycle racks.

Family, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Third Phase

Getting a Knee

December 4, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Samain Moon of the Winter Solsticed

Friends. I last posted on Thursday, thinking I’d be back by Saturday. Didn’t make it. By the time I got home yesterday, about 2:30 pm or so, I was way too knackered to even type the least bit of a post.

So, here I am on Sunday afternoon, after a nap. The sky is clear; the air cool. I’ve had a shower and brushed my teeth twice. And, BTW, I have a new knee. On Thursday Kate and I sat in the Orthocolorado lobby waiting for a nurse to introduce us to the mysteries of surgery in this place. Eventually, Mac came out to get me. Mac was a fifties, early sixties woman with high hair and a casual manner.

She collected my answers to the first of what she assured me were redundant questions. She was right. Yes. 2/12/1947. Yes. Charles Buckman-Ellis. It was also true that it was the left knee. Sure, put your initial right here. Later on Dr. Pagel came in and told me about the anaesthesia. Spinal. Conscious sedation. Fine with me. Better than fine really. Less risk. Dr. Peace dropped by, too. He initialed the knee. Very collegiate.

Then, they hit me with the versid and the next moment I was in room #366, new knee in place, smiles all around. I had just played a totally unconscious role in several peoples’ workday and recalled nothing of it. The sky had begun to bruise. My surgery was at 11 am and it was now 5 to 5:30pm.

My nurses and CNA’s were delightful. We discussed pain using the familiar 1-10 scale. My pain seemed to hang around 3 or 4 for much of the evening and night. It was a liberating experience to have my pain well controlled. In the early morning hours of Saturday, between the shift transition, my pain got up and strolled around a bit. It hit 7 or 8 and my new nurse, Stacy, was late getting to me, so I suffered for the early afternoon.

Later on though, when Amy from the night before came on duty (12 hour shift) we worked together to see the pain reduced. I’m still basically taking that pain regimen. It includes dialudid, long acting morphine and occasional doses of acetaminophen. It’s effective for pain reduction, but not so hot for linear thought.

Gabe and Kate came to pick me yesterday since Jon and Ruth were skiing. Once back home we had to get home oxygen set up because narcotics suppress the lung functions. I went straight to bed and slept on my stomach.

I’ll get back to you later, maybe this evening, maybe tomorrow morning.

Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Mountains, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Science

Orion Over Black Mountain

November 20, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Samain Thanksgiving Moon

nyctophilia Earlier in the fall when I got up to feed the dogs Orion stood over our fence between the house and the garage, in the southern sky. Still in the southern sky he has moved on since then until he now resides over Black Mountain, several degrees further west. As he moves, he serves, as many constellations do, as a celestial clock of the Great Wheel. The further west he goes, the deeper into winter we are. Weather doesn’t always synch up with his movement any more, but that’s our fault, not his.

Orion and the mountains are permanent (well, on a human life scale anyhow) reminders of the brevity and true context of any human life. Some might not find that reassuring, but I do. Rabbi Tarfon’s succinct injunction: “It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it.” fits. During the lifetime of any of us we may not see an important work to completion, say, in our generation, the curtailing of carbon emissions; but, if we see as ourselves as participants in a relay race, we don’t have to run the final lap. We just have to run as hard as we can while on our lap, then hand off the baton.

Deer Creek Canyon and Orion will continue as the race is run. They represent, and are, the material context in which we live out our life, the larger frame within which our individual efforts come to rest.

To put this reassurance to work is to remember that on a geologic or cosmic time frame Donald Trump will come and go like the flicker of a flame. This does not mean that what he does while here is unimportant or insignificant. It is neither; but, it is fleeting. We have time to counter him if we act, if we don’t cripple ourselves by despair. As the famous English conservative Edmund Burke said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Cooking, Dogs, Family, Great Wheel, Great Work, Health, Holidays, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, Weather +Climate, Writing

Life does, in fact, go on

November 15, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Samain Thanksgiving Moon

In spite of the political upheaval life, as it always does, continues, mostly in its old grooves. Here on Shadow Mountain for example the divorce process has entered its waning days. Final orders will be issued late this month though the outline for them, largely fair and equitable is already known. Jon’s anxiety level has receded. Good and heartening to see.

We had Asplundh tree service here on Friday and Monday clearing out the tree cover from the power line easement. I spoke with the workers, current day lumberjacks operating outside the timber industry.

“That’s hard work,” I said.

“Yes, but it’s honest. No shortcuts.” replied the bearded young man in charge of the crew. He’s right about that.

The utility bills from IREA, Intermountain Rural Electric Association, have been, since May, $10, a line fee that supports such work as the Asplundh team. The electricity we use has been produced by our solar panels.

I continue to write, now upwards of 63,000 words (I was a little too early when I said I’d reached 60,000 last week.).

Kate and I are becoming more and more a part of Congregation Beth Evergreen. It’s an interesting experience for me. I’m a participant, not a leader. I like it, being part of a community but not being responsible for it. I can help in modest ways and that feels appropriate to me for right now. That may change though with the political work that is brewing.

It’s dry, no snow. According to the weather services, this could reach a record snowless period for Denver. We’ve had a little snow on Shadow Mountain, but only two instances, rare. This, plus the winds and the low humidity, means the potential fire situation here remains at an elevated risk.

This morning at 10 I have my pre-op physical for my December 1st total knee replacement. The pain in the knee worsens, it seems, by the day. That’s good, I tell Kate, because it’ll feel so much better after the new knee. I’m grateful there’s something that can be done about it.

And, improbably, it will be Thanksgiving next week. There is no hint of over the river and through the woods weather to stimulate that Thanksgiving feeling. We may get a storm on Thursday. That would help.

We’re going to smoke a small turkey. Annie will be here from Waconia, Jon and the grandkids. Unlike the nation we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving on Wednesday because the grandkids go to their mom’s for Thanksgiving this year. Under the new divorce terms holidays alternate and this year is Jen’s Thanksgiving. It will be good once again to have family (and dogs) underfoot during the holiday.

Just realized in all the election fun I’ve allowed holiseason to get started without any remarks. Look for that to change as we head into the most holiday rich season of the year.

Dogs, Family, Holidays, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Pumpkins. Gone.

October 31, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Samain Thanksgiving Moon

Kate’s note to the grandkids yesterday:

Grandpop and Gertie and Kepler are up in the loft.

Grandma and Rigel are in bed.

The elk ate the pumpkins.

Blueberry muffins are on the stove.

The pumpkins got carved with much spilling of pumpkin seeds. Ruthie’s was silly and well done, Gabe’s slashing and minimalist. Overnight elk and mule deer found them. Were delighted. Only tops and one tooth grooved side of pumpkin flesh remained when we got up.

The mountains are filled with wild cousins ready to take advantage of a slight misstep. Bears will take out your garbage. Mountain lions will eat your dog. Elk and mule deer will dine on the Halloween pumpkins. And the alyssum. And the iris leaves. Scissor tailed flycatchers snap up the seeds of mature flowering plants.

We share this space. Or, they share it with us. Either way, we’re in it together.

Health, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Shadow Mountain Journal

October 25, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Hunter Moon

tumblr_mla7p2roxc1r7xatro1_500 Pain. Can make you tired. Can make it difficult to focus. Just plain hurts. My left knee has gone from bad to very bad. Trying various meds as a way to make it from now until January. Some success. Pain is a peculiar phenomenon, so assertive, so real; yet totally individual. Inaccessible to another. A message that, once sent, it would be nice to be able to turn off.

Superior Wolf continues to grow. 50,000 words. Writing is so much damned fun. Interesting to see a story unfold from the tips of my fingers, words and ideas following one another, no idea where they’re coming from. Doesn’t seem probable, but it happens. Everyday. Odd.

The aspens stand unclothed, their skirts dropped by the big winds we had last week. I’m glad they’re here. Realized yesterday that bare deciduous trees are a marker of fall for me, being a Midwest boy. We’re in that time between the falling of the leaves and the coming of the snow, a time with a skeletal aesthetic, when a senescence aesthetic with browns, tans, ochres in various shades colors the mountain meadows, an arid aesthetic with little rain, little snow, mountain streams at their low ebb. Samain, next Monday, is the holiday of this transition time, a holiday of the veil between this world and the Other World thinned. The growing season is well over, the season of harvest is ending. The fallow time comes next.

Kate went to Simchat Torah at Beth Evergreen last night. This holiday marks both the end of Sukkot and the annual end of reading through the Torah. I chose not to go because it involves dancing and lots of standing. The congregation holds the Torah scroll at various points, symbolizing the year’s readings and the Torah’s ability to link the congregation together.

The rabbi, in this case Jamie, goes around and tells each person which portion of the Torah they hold. Kate had the story of Jacob and the angel at the Jabbok Ford. Probably my current favorite Biblical passage. I like the notion of struggle, of wrestling through the night, with the sacred. I like the suggestion that such a struggle can change your identity, give you a new name and a new purpose. tumblr_lc65dk9dw41qcu8ix

Family, Friends, GeekWorld, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate, Writing

The Unexpected. Snow.

October 19, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Hunter Moon

Didn’t expect snow this morning, but there it was, white in the yard. The season is trying to push toward winter, but has a bad case of reticence.

lycaon-becomes-a-wolf I’ve been working on the second chapter of Superior Wolf. It got plenty of critiques, valid ones, in my writing group, so I decided to rewrite it. I believe version 2.0 will be better.

Kathleen Donahue. Died. I met Kathleen, really, on facebook, though she was from Alexandria, my hometown. She was seven years younger than me, meaning she was in 6th grade when I graduated from high school. She moved to California long ago, got involved in the music business writing lyrics, suffered through two violent attacks and had an iconoclastic personality.

About six months ago she posted that an unexpected finding during a visit to the doctor had uncovered stage 4 lung cancer. They gave her about six months to live. I’m surprised how much her death affected me. Social media has its rightful critics, but for the purpose of staying in touch with old friends and faraway family, for the opportunity to renew or begin acquaintances with people with whom there is some connection already, they offer a possibility unavailable when I was younger.

And with that opportunity comes the chance for grief.

Kate and I did the drive into Denver yesterday. A long way for nosepads for a pair of glasses and to have some Mac repair guys wave their hand over her Ipad. They made it all better. There are things you can’t accomplish in the mountains, these are two of them.

Jon’s in a much better place. If things remain as they are, he will get most of what he wants in the divorce’s final orders, due November 28th. It’s gratifying to see that his strategy of taking responsibility, being open to negotiation and trying to avoid stirring things up in this delicate pre-final orders stage is working.

Jefferson County, Mountains, Third Phase, Weather +Climate, Writing

Where’s the Beef? Evergreen.

October 18, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Hunter Moon

beefed-up Big winds, gusts up to 40 mph, some as high as 60. Those golden leaves on the aspens? Mostly gone. Now their winter nakedness. The season has advanced, though the climate warmed air has remained unseasonable.

In to Evergreen last night for the second meeting of the Evergreen Writer’s Group. The comments on my submissions were very helpful. This is a group of fantasy writers for the most part, folks who understand the challenges and possibilities of the genre. They will make me a better writer.

Before the group I went to the Vienna Beef shop in downtown Evergreen for an Italian beef. The guy who owns the shop makes Italian beefs with that straight from State Street taste. Best I’ve ever had outside Chicago. He said the president of Vienna Beef has been in his place twice this year. “Not sure why he was in Evergreen, but he loved my place.”

I’m at about 48,000 words now on Superior Wolf. There will be some drastic changes to material I’ve already written, but that’s usual, at least for me. The story continues to unfurl, whether lodged in a Platonic ideal that I’m accessing via woo-woo, or simply contained already in the beating hearts of its characters. Creativity is weird.

Vienna Beef place (far right) in downtown Evergreen