Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Aging, Family, Feelings, Friends, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Open the Gates

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Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II

Sunday gratefuls: Loft closer to reorganized. Much closer. Bright Sun. Blue, blue Sky. Black Mountain tall and proud. Remythologizing. Dave. Deb. Cancer, showing us, as does the coronavirus, what really matters. The view of lodgepole pines out our bedroom window. The sweetness of my relationship with Kate. “We won the lottery when we married each other.” Kate, just before going to sleep last night.” Yep. Mario and Elizabeth, a good team, he said in a recent e-mail.

Cancer. On Dave’s, personal trainer Dave, Caringbridge site this morning. A second entry by Deb. Heartbreaking. He’s losing cognitive function. A physical therapist friend came up to their house (on the western side of Black Mountain) and helped him get out for a walk. There were pictures. He had the biggest smile on his face. The entry included this line: “We probably won’t have Dave around for Christmas.”

I’m 73, diagnosed when I was 69. Hard, but hardly unexpected. Dave can’t be much more than 50. Glioblastoma has a median survival rate of 15/16 months. Dave’s had this aggressive brain cancer for over five years. He lived his life fully in that time, including completing a a 15 mile race in the high mountains of British Columbia only two years ago. “You keep fighting,” he said, “I want to live.”

It’s not a race any of us can win. Life. You keep fighting. You want to live. You won’t.

Cancer and the coronavirus as teachers. Family and friends have gathered around Dave. His girls are home. There’s a Puppy in the house, Lucy, playing with their Dog, Flannigan. (love that name, btw) Walking. Seeing the blue Rocky Mountain Sky. The precious value of our mind. The fragility and vulnerability of us all. Humans and Dogs. Bears and Mountain Lions. Mice and Pine Martens. Moose and Elk. All us Mammals. Life, that wonderful, inexplicable gift we’ve all been given.

Don’t hide. Don’t dig moats. Don’t build fenestrated walls and towers. Lower the drawbridge. Please.

Coronavirus, Family, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Tension

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Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II

Thursday gratefuls: Living in interesting times. Rain in the forecast. Kate’s reading the Talmud, too. Breakfast on zoom with Alan this morning. The fifth covenant. Ode’s starry night, which showed up this morning. The dogs pushing me to get outta bed, come on Dad. Kate poking me. Good sleep. Dandelions, good food for bees. Greening in the pastures and meadows and roadsides and creeksides.

We’ve been under lockdown here since March 25th. That’s all of April and now, for Kate and me, half of May. Our lives have not changed too much, at least our daily lives here on the mountain. I still pickup groceries as I have for a year or so. We don’t go out. We haven’t gone out much in the last two years. I see friends and family on Zoom. That’s increased, but also preceded the lockdown. Doctor visits have decreased, thank god. Every time we go to the doctor or for any other errand we mask, used hand sanitizer after. That’s a change.

I understand the desire of workers and small business owners to return to earning money. Our economy leaves so many on a paycheck to paycheck existence. Small businesses have economic struggles in the best of economies. I understand the pentup energy in kids and adults used to being outside, with friends, outta the house. There is no shame in wanting to be active, see family, go to work. That’s life.

Which is the point, though. Life itself sometimes places difficult demands upon us. This is one of those times. Death puts a distinct end to work, to being active, seeing family and friends. For all ages. Which means that this virus creates tension between health and wealth. Where is the balance point? No one knows.

It would be good if all those gun-toting defenders of the Constitution, maskless and defiant toward those tyrants trying to keep them alive, were right. That the virus would recognize their urgency, their sense of betrayal. That a long burst from a family assault rifle would kill it. That will not be true. Will the lesson of a second wave of deaths be enough to silence them? No. Their spinmeisters already have a script. We’ll hear it soon.

Friends, Health, Jefferson County, Memories, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

That Bastard

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Beltane and Corona Lunacy II

Saturday gratefuls: Dave and Deb at On the Move Fitness. Cancer. That bastard cancer, remaking so many of us. The coronavirus, remaking us all. Zaidy’s deli. My reuben, Seoah’s cod and bacon sandwich. Yes. That’s right. The drive in to Cherry Creek (posh neighborhood in Denver where Zaidy’s is). The ice and snow that greeted me yesterday morning. 25 degrees. Rigel back on the bed. Her meds working. Jon, Ruth, Gabe coming up tomorrow for Mother’s Day. First visit in two months.

Sad, sad news from Deb and Dave. A while back they had to choose between more radiation and decreased cognition. They chose to stop the radiation and go with chemo. Increasing fatigue took them to an MRI last Sunday. His tumor is back. There are no more treatments. They will get hospice care as needed starting next week.

Both of them have been my personal trainer and I’ve gotten to know them pretty well in that way. They encourage, train, correct, provide new workouts. I went to them after physical therapy for my knee replacement. That was early 2017. Every six weeks or so since they’ve created new workouts for me, trained me in them. Then, I go home and follow the new routine.

Dave and I have talked about our cancer. His was glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. He’s outlived the longest survival projections by a year or so, probably due to his extreme fitness and will to live. Mine, the old man’s cancer, the slow one. We both got news of a recurrence at about the same time a year ago.

Recurrences are scary. Yes, the first diagnosis is, too, but recurrence has a different flavor, a sour, bitter taste. Whatever we’ve done hasn’t worked and it’s back. Run a marathon, do well, then discover you have another 26 miles to go. With an assassin running behind you. While you’re already exhausted.

Tom’s friend, also a Dave, died a couple of weeks ago. Cancer. My friend Judy started her second round of chemo. Ovarian cancer. Leslie, another friend, has had three recurrences of breast cancer.

There are brave words to be said, sure. Sturdy thoughts and hopes. Yes. This morning though, after reading Deb’s e-mail about Dave, I’m teary, sad. A bit distraught. Not all of that’s about Dave.

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.

Kabbalah, Letters, Literature, Myth and Story, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Not a vice

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Spring and the Corona Lunacy II

Thursday gratefuls: Overcast early morning. Kate, progress. Seoah and I at the grocery store. The clan that gathers on Tuesday mornings. That cool night. The howls. The coronavirus. Reshaping our lives, our history. Other plagues that teach us how to live with this one. History. Eduardo and Holly. Jude. Zeus and Boo. Even the new pine cones, still green on the Lodgepole branches. Pine pollen, tree sex about to get underway.

Gathering information. It eats up my time. Right now I have 30 tabs open in Firefox. Each tab is either an article or a video or an image I want to both read and collect. Most of them are from this morning.

Evernote is my enabler since it will save whatever I want. There are thousands of articles, youtube videos awaiting me there. And, I go back to them. I can find that article I remember from a couple of years ago. Or, all the notes on translating Ovid I took in 2013.

Now that I’m writing about it I look around my bookshelves and see the same inclination. Then, there’s that horizontal file cabinet and all the file-tubs on metal shelves. Travel souvenirs, small sculpture, a collection of snowglobes, art on the walls, stacked against the bookshelves. Some made by me.

Kate found this perfect space where my collections and I can be together with a view of Black Mountain and the Lodgepole Pines. I can sit inside my own mind, both its external and internal manifestations.

Started out writing this as a negative, a confessional piece about this vice I have for collecting. As I wrote, I thought, no, not a vice, just my way of being in the world.

On the Kabbalah zoom yesterday Jamie changed his name to I Am cloaked in a Jamie. When I saw that, I changed mine to Student masque. These are both instances of the Kabbalistic understanding of masks. We put on and take off masks all day, all life, perhaps all eternity long. Life is a mask for the elements held together in the shape of you. Your body is a mask for your neshama, your soul.

The student is a mask I wear, one I love. I put it on often, when I climb the stairs to this loft, it’s most often the student whose feet carry me. Other masks? Husband. Father. Friend. Nature lover. Pagan. Leftist. Advocate. Grandpop. Museum goer. Traveler. Abandoned boy. Dog companion. Fearful boy. Writer. Reviser. Gardener. Bee keeper. Scholar. Futurist.

The student loves to learn, to know. He is open, taking in new things, organizing them, saving them for future reference. He’s critical, too, as he has been taught, weighing evidence, comparing sources, looking for holes in the argument or how to shore up the argument.

Not a vice, just a mask.

Cooking, Dogs, Family, Kabbalah, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Soul

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Spring and the Corona Lunacy II

Wednesday gratefuls: Garbage men and women. King Sooper pick up today. Tony’s meat bundles that I collect on May 4th. Kate’s problem solving with her sewing machine. Rigel climbing up on the bed and plopping down right between us. Her head on my pillow. The cool night. Balmy days. The pine pollen to come. The coronavirus. What has it revealed today?

In dog news. Rigel tried for a daily record, scoring three loft treats in one day. Last night I brought Mark’s stimulus check up to the loft for safe keeping. I rarely go upstairs after supper, but Rigel was there, going for a third treat, a triple dip she rarely accomplishes. As house meany, I didn’t let her in the loft. She doesn’t know how expensive those treats are. All rabbit dog treats are not cheap.

Seoah gave us a reprise of her wonderful Swedish meatballs. Not even Ikea or the Swedish Institute in Minneapolis does a better meatball. These are really, really good. May have eaten a couple too many.

We still have snow in the backyard. Less and less everyday, but a yard cleanup is getting necessary. Like Minnesota, when the snow melts, detritus slowly sinks toward the ground. When I looked out the back window this morning, I saw an orange leg with green feet. Part of a dismembered dog toy. We see now what the dogs managed to smuggle outside during our winter snows.

Today in Kabbalah we’ll discuss soul. A tough topic. Bound up with centuries, even millennia of freight. I’ve begun using the word again in the last year after decades of setting it aside as too gnostic, too three-story universe, too weird. In the moment I believe soul refers to the whole of you, the best you, your buddha nature. With Art Green I believe soul represents the link between what seems to be the individual and the one. How all that works, I still don’t know.

Art has a nice piece on it. He shares my misgivings and also puts the afterlife aside as an unknown. The soul is God’s breath which gives us life. The last breath before we die returns to the one and afterward we offer up our elements to the elements. My paraphrase.

Commentary on the news, Dreams, Health, Our Land and Home, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Slow to Wake

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Spring and Corona Lunacy II

Monday gratefuls: Sweet potato pizza. No, really. Seoah found it on a Korean youtube cooking channel. Kate’s good days. Sleep. Lots of it. Bernard Cornwall and the TV adaptation of his Saxon novels: The Last Kingdom. The blue sky. The sun. Black Mountain. Cogency.

Sleep. Until 6:45. Usually up at 5:30 (or, 4:30 in the true time). Dreaming, unwilling to rise. Even though Kep jumped on me. Rigel barked. Kate poked me. Couldn’t. Get. Up. Finally. Still not awake. Writing anyhow.

Don’t know what to say next.

Check on the idiot. Who spent seven hours tweeting, retweeting. On Sunday. A nod to his evangelical sycophants? Not sure about that, but I am sure, after having read a Washington Post article that this guy is decompensating. He seems scared, isolated, unsure of what to do next. Imagine the prison a high profile, powerful job like President could be if you no longer felt you could do it. Instead of anger I’m beginning to feel sorry for DJT. Out of his depth, no tools. Months more in office with a crisis like no other roiling the waters.

If you love him, let him go. How his followers, his base base, should act toward him now.

Got further on reorganizing the loft. A periodic task which, when complete, energizes me. Will finish this week if the banker boxes come.

Of course, I have to wake up first. Soon. I hope. Things to do, but no places to go.