Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon
A sort of archaeology in reverse series of photos:
- Category Archives Shadow Mountain
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“I’m Getting Fat!”
Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon
Wednesday gratefuls: Radical Roots of Religion. Shadow. Her voice. Her presence. Natalie. Her injured Dogs. Nathan. The Greenhouse. Halle. Her grandfather. Judith. All Jews. Anti-Semites. Cousin Donald. Back and leg pain. Cancer results. Beltane. Summer. Lughnasa. The Shema. Being comfortable with who I am and what I have.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Halle
Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good) “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1
One brief shining: Nathan constructs the Greenhouse with care, offering to design a Japanese style door, working with only a few tools and a small stepladder, headphones on listening to podcasts about science, his focus intense.
An example The Greenhouse: The frame of the Greenhouse went up yesterday. A skeleton in four by fours and two by fours, all wood burned in the way of shou sugi ban. When construction finishes Nathan will coat all of the shou sugi ban wood with clear lacquer.
Made a seed order on Sunday with Seed Saver’s Exchange, my first in a decade. Fun to go through the online catalogue, looking for the varieties chatgpt recommended for 8800 feet. I didn’t have an AI companion the last time I gardened.
Nathan says he will do all the labor with the soil for free to make up for the delay in construction. He will also give me some Tomato transplants. He’s a good guy, wanting to do right by me. Even though it was FedEx that delayed the shipping on the plastic foundation pavers. Sound business on his part.
Found Zuni Signs on Monday. Evergreen. Will have them make my Artemis sign once the Greenhouse is complete. A link between Andover and Kate.
While talking to Nathan yesterday, I heard, “Charlie!” My neighbor, Jude. Recently retired from his welding business. “I’m getting fat.” Oh, yes indeed. His white t-shirt ballooned out with a substantial gut. “I have a bicycle. I look at it every once a while.” He laughs.
He asked me if I was building something. I said no he is, pointing to Nathan. “Are you paying for it, Charlie.” Yes. “Well, then you’re building it.”
Rigel and a bull Elk in our back a day before my first radiation treatment. Wild Neighbors: Had several Elk come by yesterday in the utility easement. Though they didn’t come in the yard, a large Mule Deer Doe did later in the day. My Dandelion crop attracts ungulates. They come for the Dandelions and stay for the Grass.
In 2019, on June 6th, I started my thirty-five sessions of ineffective radiation. On that day, before I left for Lone Tree, three Elk Bucks jumped the fence and dined for a day and a half on Dandelions and Grass. They came back every year until last year. The Does I saw earlier were the first Elk I’d seen up here for a couple of years. I see them often in Evergreen.
(BTW: Just now Shadow tried to herd the Mule Deer Doe. The Doe looked at her, did not move. I called Shadow and she came. Mule Deer and especially Elk can kill a Dog.)
In the Garden Andover Kate: I stopped by Kate’s Valley to see if her Creek had Water. Very pleased to see it running full. Early last fall it had gone dry. Made me sad.
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A Dog. A Family.
Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon
Monday gratefuls: Less back pain. Morning darkness. A Shadow next to me when I woke up. Tara and Eleanor. Alan. Ginny and Janice. Luke. My son. Seoah. The Jangs. Colorado. The Rockies. The Shaggy Sheep. Guanella Pass. Georgetown. Georgetown Loop Rail Road. Pikes Peak Cog Railway. A world class location.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family
Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good) “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1
One brief shining: The Rocky Mountains rise in Southern Colorado, extending north well into Canada, a spinal column for the American West, filled with Mountains and Valleys, hotsprings and wild neighbors, remnants of indigenous peoples, ski towns and mining towns, rugged wilderness, high Mountain Lakes, and Glaciers all near to my home here on Shadow Mountain.
Dog Journal: Woke up this morning to find Shadow curled up next to my head. Don’t know when she got up there, but it made my heart go pit a pat. Another bit of good news in a half year that has needed some.
The whole Shadow experience has been an exercise in humility. There were times when I didn’t think I could handle her. That I’d made a mistake. Perhaps been unethical. Adopting a puppy at 78? With cancer and a bad back. What was I thinking?
Yet now. Now that she played all afternoon with Tara’s Eleanor. Now that twice unbidden she has chosen to sleep in my bed. Now that she’s close to accepting the leash. Now. So sweet.
The ethical question. Competing goods. Little Shadow needed a home where she could be loved. I needed a companion, or at least badly wanted one.
However. Shadow will live into her teens most likely. I don’t know how much time I’ve got, but I imagine it’s less than that. Cattle dogs bond to one person. Also, her energy level far, far exceeds my own. Does she get enough stimulation here?
It was not, all in all, a perfect decision. It may have been, may be a selfish decision. I hope our mutual journey towards and with each other will compensate. Most relationships are imperfect in some way. I do have that codicil in my will that ensures her care in a new home if that becomes necessary.
The Jangs: The plane tickets have been purchased. An air BnB booked. Plans for excursions being tossed about. Between August 1st and 7th Seoah’s mom and dad, her brother, her sister and her husband, and their two kids will join my son and Seoah on a trip to the Colorado Rockies.
The air BnB is in Evergreen. I haven’t seen it. My son and Seoah chose it. I’m looking forward to their visit especially since I haven’t seen my son since his promotion or in person since February.
Also, I’ve been to the Jang’s home in Okgwa twice. Returning the favor is a family thing. I’m happy to help make it happen.
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Live Until You Die
Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon
Wednesday gratefuls: My son. Shadow. Natalie. Mary. Guru. Seoah. Ruth. US Air Force. US Navy. US Army. US Marines. Warriors. Korea. Ruth in Seoul. Jamie and the radical roots of religion. My back. Lawn furniture. Nathan. The Greenhouse build. Living, not dying. Nothing hard is easy.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Plants
Week Kavannah: Zerizut for p.t. and resistance
One brief shining: Learning from Natalie as she explains reading a dog’s mind and feelings, head to the left or right, processing, as is walking away, not stubborn, figuring things out, wait, panting as a sign of worry, consent to hug or pet when Shadow comes up to me and stays or leaps up on my legs while I’m sitting down, two species, 15,000 years of partnership, much better understood by the one with the smaller brain.
A lot going on here on Shadow Mountain. A series of dog training moments, an hour or so, with Natalie. Nathan getting my greenhouse foundation ready, treating the Wood at his place for Shou Sugi Ban, delivering things he’ll need for his work. Two Kabbalah Experience classes nearing their end. Two hip MRI tomorrow. Keeping track of my son’s promotion and his visitors. Ruth in Korea. Receiving the money for the Jang family visit in August. Spring. Rains and Thunder.Live until I die remains my mantra. Moving into tomorrow not as one less day, but as a time to anticipate, to savor, to enjoy. Natalie made an offhand comment, for example, about my needing outdoor furniture to enjoy my backyard. Oh? Well, duh. Looking through online catalogues. Probably go look in person somewhere.
This is, you see, my life. Not the anteroom for my death. No matter what’s going on. Not even if I ever need to move into hospice. Learning. Loving. Growing spiritually. Right. Up. To. The. End.
Dog journal: Natalie has skills. She’s deeply read and connected with other trainers in online chatgroups. She’s dedicated to positive training. No shock collars. No harshness. Rather. Learning the heart and mind of dogs. Applying that in problem situations to recognize, then shape behaviors.
An example. Using feeding time to increase trust with Shadow. Feeding her from my hand makes her associate me with her food. “It’s all about the grub,” Natalie says. The walk, drop a treat behind, change direction game gives Shadow the choice to follow me. At some point she’ll just follow me. Working next on getting her to come inside voluntarily and like it. Walking on a leash.
I recognize and admire Ana’s house cleaning, Natalie’s training, and Nathan’s careful work.
A lot of dystopians imagine a world where A.I. puts humans out of work, yet makes enough cash available for a no work life. This will be awful, directionless, purposeless.
No. I don’t believe it. I believe the essence of the human experience lies in relating to each other, to animals near and far, in growing our own food at some level. In painting. Sculpture. Dog training. Construction. Cooking. Conversation. The joys of retirement.
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Nothing Hard Is Easy
Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II
Friday gratefuls: Morning prayers. The Siddur. Bird song. Shadow running, running, running. Halle. Physical therapy. Kylie, my pain doc. Nerve ablations and Sprint. Sciatica. Ruby still with her Snowshoes on. Diane. The Jangs in August. Ruth in Korea.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kate, always Kate
Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut. for P.T. and resistance.
One brief shining: Brief time with Halle yesterday, my back pain flare made her not want to push me; following her later in the day a visit to Kylie, my pain doc, in which we added her hip MRI to Buphati’s which means I’ll get both hips done on the 29th.
It’s odd, seeing my cancer and its stage 4 realities written about on the front pages of the NYT and the Washington Post. From many perspectives. Each situation, each person’s cancer has its own individual path. I am neither Biden nor Scott Adams. Yet we share this: in Stage 4 our cancer is incurable.
Unless we die of something else first, prostate cancer will, as Kristie, my urological oncologist, said, run its course. Which means it will kill us. We can opt for dignity in dying in Colorado and if mine proceeds to its end point, I’ll consider that if the pain becomes too much.
A hospice nurse wrote an op ed about her Dad’s prostate cancer. She spoke gently. About physicians often wanting to go on, on beyond a life with no quality to a life continued because more treatments, more scans are available. About how hospice offers another alternative. About a peaceful death versus one strung out by procedures and medicine. I’m inclined to her way, yet how to know when that moment comes?
My life has purpose, meaning. I’m a family man with siblings, a son and daughter-in-law, grandkids, a dog, friends, a community. I’m a spiritual seeker with writing I want to do about Judaism, about a tactile spirituality. I enjoy a good book, a good movie, good food. I have a home I love and feel comfortable in. I’m embedded in the Rocky Mountains with wild neighbors. Not at all ready to sign off.
However. This next two weeks I have a long MRI on my hips and a PET scan. Then a visit with my oncologist to see if further therapies make sense in light of the findings. I had a visit with my pain doc to try to gain a handle on my back.
I’m in the scans and imaging, let’s try this phase of both prostate cancer and back pain. It gets old, tiring in and of itself. Arranging rides. Appointments. New meds and procedures. New doctors.
Having all these news articles has made me think a lot about my own situation, as you can tell. More than I would on my own.
Another wrinkle rises up with the back pain. As it aggravates me, it reduces my resilience. Which means I have to sort out moods created by pain from moods created by cancer. So I can be clear about what’s affecting my judgment.
Nothing hard is easy.
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The Great Work
Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II
Monday gratefuls: Stevinson’s Toyota. Snow and rain. Now 8 or 9″. All moisture accepted and appreciated. My son. Shadow, the regresser. Her 15 minutes on the treat (shh. Leash.). Common Ground. Heal the soil. The Great Work: create a sustainable presence for humans on Mother Earth.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain and Snow
Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut.
One brief shining: A cold rain has fallen; on its cool breath came a good night’s sleep, up at 5 am with a lick of Shadow’s tongue, a deep whine, unusual for her, so I moved as creaky quick as possible to get her outside.
The coming Snow. Leaving her Snow shoes on. Ruby will still get her 60,000 mile service with all fluids replaced. Means I will sit. Wait. Not easy, but necessary. Keep Ruby on the road. She’s already been built. I’ve gotten at least 250,000 miles on the Toyota’s I’ve driven. Probably my last car. Now seven years old.A devil’s bargain I didn’t know I made back in 1963 when I got my first driver’s license. A carbon footprint, cabrón. All those years on the road. Helping send carbon up, up, up. Insulate Mother Earth.
The freedom of driving carrying such a high cost, higher even than Dead Man’s Curve or Teen Angel. Back then car wrecks were the worst we could imagine. Now: each car a tiny Chicxulub meteor. Death by a thousand infernal combustion engines.
Kate used to talk about an adrenal squeeze. Saw in my USPS advance notice I had a letter from Traveler’s Insurance, carrier for my home, auto, and personal liability. Stamped on the outside of the envelope: IMPORTANT INSURANCE INFORMATION.
Was it my turn to scramble for another carrier? The envelope didn’t show up that day. I checked online. Found nothing. It came the next day.
Conditional renewal. I have to accept a $5,000 deductible for Hail and Wind damage. Well, all right. I can do that. I’d read that insurers for Colorado homes see our hail threat as much more dire than Wildfire. Here’s proof.
Just a moment: Do all people deserve due process? I don’t know, said our President. It might mean, he went on, one million, two million, three million trials. What was that oath again?
Perhaps he thought then, right at that moment. What if I could be Pope? Hey, let’s get AI to see how I’d look. Tone deaf doesn’t even begin to describe that. It’s the religious equivalent of saying if you’re famous you can grab them by the pussy.
On a more upbeat note. I watched, at Tom’s suggestion, Common Ground. A documentary on Prime Video. I felt tears well up often at the savage rending of our most important resource: top soil.Joy with the clips of regenerative farmers growing corn in fields with legume cover crops. With the 7,000 acre farm in Williamsport, Indiana. Disturbing the soil with cattle grazing, mimicking the buffalo. Turning a profit by not feeding Monsanto, Bayer, John Deere. Lower input costs. Higher return on investment. This is the way.
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is it bad?
Ancients,What are your favorite ways to waste time.When I am on task I get a lot done. When I waste time, it clears my mind of all the things I need to accomplish. Wasting time on the internet, reading a good trash crime/detective book, taking a long mid-day nap, staring out the window at birds, all these things keep me from the task at hand. But is it bad, or a needed outlet?
A few resources below. The etymology of productive, waste, and sloth.
I offer them because Ode’s theme rests in a labyrinth of Protestant work ethic hedge rows. There was a time, now long past, when productivity mattered to me. When I made pound cakes in the bakery. When I moved eight-hundred pound bales of cotton underwear cutouts for rag-cutting. When I had to have something to show for my work in the West Bank Ministry. When I wrote 1,000 words a day.
Andover found me active, working at many different tasks. Amending soil. Planting Vegetables. Caring for our Fruit Trees. Inspecting the Bee hives. Feeding and Watering the Dogs. Cooking. Yet I never felt a need to be productive. I worked at this, then that. Doing what was needed.
Even my writing took on this patina. I did it as an act of self-giving, an expression of my love for the imagination. Since moving to Colorado, I extended this approach to fire mitigation, caring for Kate, being with friends and family.
Now in what I count as my fourth phase, with a terminal illness, retirement in the past, I find myself leaning into relationships, to reading and watching TV, learning with my friends at CBE. Caring for Shadow.
Not to say that the productivity demon doesn’t raise its hoary head now and then. It does. Yet I see it for what it is. Old pathways, deep ruts from past eras. No longer what I need now. Or, desire.
produce(v.)early 15c., producen, “develop, proceed, extend, lengthen out,” from Latin producere “lead or bring forth, draw out,” figuratively “to promote, empower; stretch out, extend,” from pro “before, forth” (from PIE root *per- (1) “forward,” hence “in front of, before, forth”) + ducere “to bring, lead” (from PIE root *deuk- “to lead”).The sense of “bring into being or existence” is from late 15c. That of “put (a play) on stage” is from 1580s. Of animals or plants, “generate, bear, bring forth, give birth to,” 1520s. The meaning “cause, effect, or bring about by mental or physical labor” is from 1630s. In political economy, “create value; bring goods, manufactures, etc. into a state in which they will command a price,” by 1827. Related: Produced; producing. waste(v.)
c. 1200, wasten, “devastate, ravage, ruin,” from Anglo-French and Old North French waster “to waste, squander, spoil, ruin” (Old French gaster; Modern French gâter), altered (by influence of Frankish *wostjan) from Latin vastare “lay waste,” from vastus “empty, desolate.” This is reconstructed in Watkins to be from a suffixed form of PIE root *eue- “to leave, abandon, give out.” Related: wasted; wasting.The Germanic word also existed in Old English as westan “to lay waste, ravage.” Spanish gastar, Italian guastare also are from Germanic.The intransitive meaning “lose strength or health; pine; weaken or be gradually consumed” is attested from c. 1300; the sense of “squander, spend or consume uselessly, expend without adequate return” is recorded from mid-14c.; the colloquial meaning “to kill” is from 1964. To waste time “act to no purpose” is from mid-14c. Waste not, want not is attested from 1778.
Sloth
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Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (1624) by Abraham Bloemaert, Walters Art Museum Sloth refers to many related ideas, dating from antiquity and including mental, spiritual, pathological, and physical states.[29] It may be defined as absence of interest or habitual disinclination to exertion.[30]
In his Summa Theologica, Saint Thomas Aquinas defined sloth as “sorrow about spiritual good”.[28]
The scope of sloth is wide.[29] Spiritually, acedia first referred to an affliction attending religious persons, especially monks, wherein they became indifferent to their duties and obligations to God. Mentally, acedia has a number of distinctive components; the most important of these is affectlessness, a lack of any feeling about self or other, a mind-state that gives rise to boredom, rancor, apathy, and a passive inert or sluggish mentation. Physically, acedia is fundamentally associated with a cessation of motion and an indifference to work; it finds expression in laziness, idleness, and indolence.[29]
Sloth includes ceasing to utilize the seven gifts of grace given by the Holy Spirit (Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Piety, Fortitude, and Fear of the Lord); such disregard may lead to the slowing of spiritual progress towards eternal life, the neglect of manifold duties of charity towards the neighbor, and animosity towards those who love God.[18]
Unlike the other seven deadly sins, which are sins of committing immorality, sloth is a sin of omitting responsibilities. It may arise from any of the other capital vices; for example, a son may omit his duty to his father through anger. The state and habit of sloth is a mortal sin, while the habit of the soul tending towards the last mortal state of sloth is not mortal in and of itself except under certain circumstances.[18]
Emotionally, and cognitively, the evil of acedia finds expression in a lack of any feeling for the world, for the people in it, or for the self. Acedia takes form as an alienation of the sentient self first from the world and then from itself. The most profound versions of this condition are found in a withdrawal from all forms of participation in or care for others or oneself, but a lesser yet more noisome element was also noted by theologians. Gregory the Great asserted that, “from tristitia, there arise malice, rancour, cowardice, [and] despair”. Chaucer also dealt with this attribute of acedia, counting the characteristics of the sin to include despair, somnolence, idleness, tardiness, negligence, laziness, and wrawnesse, the last variously translated as “anger” or better as “peevishness”. For Chaucer, human’s sin consists of languishing and holding back, refusing to undertake works of goodness because, they tell themselves, the circumstances surrounding the establishment of good are too grievous and too difficult to suffer. Acedia in Chaucer’s view is thus the enemy of every source and motive for work.[31]
Sloth subverts the livelihood of the body, taking no care for its day-to-day provisions, and slows down the mind, halting its attention to matters of great importance. Sloth hinders the man in his righteous undertakings and thus becomes a terrible source of human’s undoing.[31]
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Living. Not dying.
Spring and the Wu Wei Moon
Thursday gratefuls: Shadow. Her kindness. Amy. Her understanding. Cookunity. Colorado Coop and Garden. The Greenhouse. Gardening again.
Korea. Malaysia. Australasia. Wisconsin. Saudi Arabia. The Bay. First Light. 10,000 Lakes. The Rocky Mountain Front Range. Where my people live.Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Greenhouse
Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.
One brief shining: Nathan and I wandered in my back yard, his app that shows Great Sol’s illumination searching for a good spot to plant my greenhouse, until we neared a spot close to the shed, that was it with decent morning Sun and an hours worth of afternoon Sun more than anywhere else.
That picture is not quite what I’m getting. Mine will have an outdoor raised bed on either side and shutters that move themselves as the greenhouse heats up and cools down. It will also have an electric heater for Winter and a drip irrigation system inside and out.
This guy Nathan, a Conifer native, started his business Colorado Coop and Garden to give folks like me an opportunity to grow things up here. Working a garden at ground level is long past for me. But Nathan can build the raised beds at a height where my back is not an issue.Guess I’m regressing here in some ways. A Dog. A small Garden. Andover in miniature. The greenhouse will have a sign: Artemis Gardens. Artemis Honey was Kate and mine’s name for our bee operation.
I’m loving my classes at Kabbalah Experience. Reaching deep into the purpose of religion and Judaism in particular. Reimagining the story of Adam and Eve. My life, my Jewish life and my Shadow Mountain life, have begun to resonate. Learning and living an adventure in fourth phase purpose.
No matter what the near term future holds for my health I will not succumb to despair or bleakness. As I’ve often said, I want to live until I die. This life, I’m coming to realize, is me doing just that.
If I were a bit more spry, I’d add a chicken coop and a couple of bee hives, but both require more flexibility than I can muster.
I’m at my best when I’m active outside with Mother Earth and inside with a Dog, books, and new learning. All that leavened with the sort of intimate relationships I’ve developed both here and in Minnesota and with my far flung family.
That’s living in the face of autocracy and cruelty. I will not attenuate my life. Neither for the dark winds blowing through our country and world, nor for that dark friend of us all, death.
Just a moment: Did you read Thomas Friedman’s article: I’ve Never Been More Afraid for My Countries Future? His words, served up with a healthy dish of Scandinavian influenced St. Louis Park Judaism, ring more than true to me. They have the voice of prophecy.
We are in trouble. No doubt. Trouble from which extrication will require decades, I imagine. If not longer. Yet. I plan to grow heirloom vegetables year round on Shadow Mountain. To have mah Dog Shadow with me in the Greenhouse.
I also plan to write and think about the sacred, the one, the wholeness of which we are part and in which we live, die, love. I will not cheapen my life with bitterness, rather I will eat salads, read, play with Shadow and dine with friends, talk to my friends and family near and far.
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Passing on Passover? The Jangs.
Spring and the Wu Wei Moon
Sunday gratefuls: Second day of Passover. Kate, always Kate. Shadow the toy mover. Her zooming in the back yard. Liberation. Freedom to choose. Egypt. The many Egypts we are heir to. Tara. Arjan. Robbie and Deb. Sandy and Mark. Eleanor. Kilimanjaro. Jungfrau. Black Mountain. Shadow Mountain. A Mountain night.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Liberation
Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.
One brief shining: The Haggadah had wine stains; the seder plate had a kiwi because we can; we dipped the parsley into salt water, tears for the suffering of the slaves, of all oppressed people, spread dots of wine or in my case grape juice for each plague, retelling each part of the passover story as if we were there, as our story.
Talmud Torah in the morning. (Torah study) A focus on the maggid, the telling of the passover story in the Haggadah. Complete with midrash, interpretation and expansion.
Later, around 4, over to Kilimanjaro Drive. Tara’s house. Steep driveway with cars parked at various spots along the way. All the way up to the top where I found a spot in front of a Tesla.
Thirty minutes before I had almost chosen not to go. Coming home in the dark. General inertia. A long standing aversion to parties. But this was Passover. At Tara’s. I’d be happy once I got there.
So I went to the liquor store, picked up a bottle of mid-range red wine and drove past Evergreen Meadows and past Evergreen Funeral Home where both Jon and Kate lay after death, down curvy N. Turkey Creek Road to the Mountains and roads leading to her house.
And I was happy to be there. Until we sat down to the table. Then the noise level, the angle of the voices, the general clash and clamor of a meal with eighteen other people. I began to recede. Off in my own quiet room of acoustical challenge. Nodding and smiling. Trying to keep up. Too often failing.
Now having to rethink even Passover, at least in people’s homes. Where it means the most. Where my friends want me. Where I want to be. The congregational Passover has round tables, more distance among the guests. Kate and I usually attended. I may need to go to it just so I can hear.
Talked to my son and Seoah on Friday night. Murdoch’s getting crate training. Seoah’s running, happy. We talked about Kate, her death, her wonderful life.
My son and I discussed details for the Jang family visit this summer. Money is, as you can imagine, an issue. 5 adults and two children. Seoah’s Mom and Dad, her brother, her sister and her two kids. Airfare, lodging, transportation. Food. That’s what we’re working out now. Need to make some decisions soon because Air BnB’s begin to fill up for the summer in this time frame.
Will be the trip of a lifetime for the Jang’s. The U.S. The Rocky Mountains. Deepening connections with my son’s side of the family. Myself, Ruth, Gabe.
Stay tuned.
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Neighbors Helping Neighbors
Spring and the Snow Moon
Wanted to capture this while fresh. Drove into Leetsdale Ave near Cherry Creek in Denver. Right at the boundary of the largest Jewish community in Colorado. But I wasn’t there for religious reasons, I needed an MRI of my lumbar spine and Open-Sided MRI has its clinic there.
After time in an iron lung, which I do not remember, my body will not let my head be confined. At all. Ever. Traditional MRI’s therefore are out. Long metal tube, human insert. Face inches from the tube’s top. Nope.
So. Open-Sided. Though. When the sled slid under the projection of the magnetic circle, I looked up, found metal inches from my face. “I can’t do this.”
Chris pulled me back out. How about if you look to the side. I tilted my head to the left and there an opening appeared. But I was already scared. “I’m not sure.”
“I’ll get Audra and she can sit with you.”
A measure of serendipity. I’d talked to Audra on the phone Monday and discovered she had moved to Conifer last October. She had a quick wit and kindness in her voice. We agreed to swap stories of best spots to eat when I got there. A charming woman in her late 30’s, early 40’s I found her delightful at check-in, too.
Audra came in and held my hand for the entire 20 minutes of the exam. At first, still nervous, I looked her in the eyes and she pressed her thumb against my left hand which she held in her right.
After a while the odd noises of the MRI, which sounded like House music, and her comfort helped me relax. I closed my eyes.
A long twenty minutes. But, when it was done, I collected my disc with the scan on it, went out to the front desk and thanked Audra, back at her computer, again. She put my chai necklace back on.
I thought, decided to go ahead. “My wife died four years ago. That was the longest I’ve been touched since then. Regardless of the help I needed with the MRI, I wanted to say thanks for that, too.”
A sweet moment.
