Category Archives: Judaism

Judaism

The desiderata trap

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Summer and the Herme Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Meds. Marina Harris. Ana. A clean house. Converting. Reconstructing. Reimagining. Paganism. The whole World in our hands. Kwangju. Osan. Incheon. Seoul. Murdoch. Seoah. My son. Itaewon. The DMZ. History. Geological time. Mountains. Their time. Humans, our time. Great Sol. Sukkot. Tu B’shvat. Simcha Torah. Shavuot. Purim. Rosh Hashanah. Yom Kippur. Holidays. Holy Days. Ordinary Holy Days. Every day. Spacetime. Eternity. Now.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Torah

One brief shining: Using morning energy today I will rehang my Chinese painting bought in Beijing, fight down the ghost bill haunting my mail box since late last year, check on flight information for Korea, get copies made of house keys, unlock my phone, find out about using credit and debit cards while on the road but not until I pour milk in my big pyrex bowl, add oatmeal peanut butter butter sugar, cook it and pour in blueberries, drink coffee, and read about the Kwangju rebellion. First things first.

 

Tuesday is a utility day. No workout. I can focus on the desiderata of my life. In my gratefuls a bit back I talked about the desiderata trap. Here’s what I meant. There’s always a problem bill I want out of my hair, a repair I need to get done, finishing a project like Herme, going to plays or music or museums or zoos, figuring out how to get more money, better hair, a better figure, a new career, planning a trip. Things I need or want that take time. Require me to turn my attention from the now and toward the future. When one is done, another pops up. Like whack a mole. This is the trap. We never finish desiring, wanting, projecting need onto the go board of our life. To use another rodent metaphor the hamster wheel never stops turning.

What if we gave ourselves a day a week when desiderata were off the table. Nothing to accomplish. A time to reflect, read, enjoy family, friends, self. What if we had, say, a sabbath? A day to go deeper into the ordinary. No cooking. No work. No planning. Has always sounded good to me, but I’ve never put it into practice. A friend of Tom’s, a high powered business attorney, said to me, “I tell my clients I’m available 24/6.”

Part of my conversion will be about picking up certain Jewish rituals that I’ve only observed slightly or when Kate was alive. The sabbath is one I look forward to implementing. Not yet. I’m not ready, but I will be. Lighting the candles, saying the prayers, observing the full day, marking its end with the havdalah ritual. Learning how to slow way down. To break away from the desiderata. An anticipation of the time when everyday will be a sabbath day. When neither desiring nor wanting will have any place.

So, yes, I will change my life in certain ways. And I look forward to doing that.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home

Bonus Post on Paganism and Judaism

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Summer and the sliver Summer Moon Above

 

From the beginning of my turn toward paganism I identified it as an ur-religion. That is, one all of us could embrace even if we layered on top of it another tradition like Buddhism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism.

I’m still there. Why? My paganism locates the sacred, the holy, the divine in the stuff within me and around me. That is. The Lodgepole. Leo sleeping beside me on the rug. My lev. The Soil beneath me and the Rock beneath it and the core of the Earth beneath that. The Robin and the Magpie. The Fly and the Katydid. The Morel and the Candensis. The Worm and the Snake. The Stream flowing and the Pond resting. Beavers and Marmots. Mountain Lions and Bears. The Microbiome in my gut. The Mitochrondia in our Cells. Our Galaxy. Those Galaxies. Dark Matter. Multi-verse Worlds.

I believe this non-dogmatic, non-sectarian sort of paganism crucial to caring for our Planet as we go through the fiery apocalypse of Climate change. And, it is not in conflict in any way with my Judaism which insists on a unitary view of all things. All things contain a shard of ohr, or holy light, holy energy. All things.

I choose Judaism for my human and humane interactions. I choose paganism to undergird and focus attention on the World which holds us like a Bird’s nest holds fragile Eggs.

 

Asia, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Korea, Literature, Politics, US History, World History

Korea and Reading

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Sunday gratefuls: Leo. Lying here beside me. Luke out having fun. Books. Oh, did I mention books? Korean history. Seoah. Murdoch. My son. Working hard. Korean schools. American schools. Having a dog in the house. Korea. The Korean civil war. The armistice. Kim Il Sung. Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Un. Presidents in South Korea. Chaebol. Zaibatsu. Samsung. LCD. Hyundai. Different ways of organizing economies. And nations. Trump’s legal trouble. The House G.O.P. The Extremes. Showing us a path to nowhere.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Knowledge

One brief shining: Leo lies here on the green rug with Cypress Trees, I write this blog letting my fingertips move over my split keyboard, all while a bright blue Colorado Sky backdrops Black Mountain its Lodgepoles and Aspens, there is no sound except the slight click of the keys.

 

More reading in Cuming’s history of Korea. Two chapters on the Korean civil war. He believes we should have let them fight it out, burned out the divisions and reordered their culture. As we had to. As Vietnam had to. Instead we put in amber the tensions and conflicts present after the Japanese Occupation ended. If I read Cuming’s account correctly, the North would have won the civil war, probably easily without us. Even with our involvement they came close. Then Koreans themselves would have had to sort out a new political order. Instead we have my son and his colleagues still in country, maintaining a very fragile and often fraught peace.

It was a time of big power conflicts, especially the USSR and the US. The architects of the idea of containment Dean Rusk, George Kennan, and Paul Nitze influenced the U.S. role in the war. Containing the Soviets, not China.

Korea is more than you know. Much more than I knew.

 

Realizing I privilege reading over most other activities. If I’m on a topic, an enthusiasm, I’ll sometimes read for hours at a whack. For days on end. Cup of coffee at hand. Now with my reading glasses perched on my nose. When I get tired, as I did yesterday, I watched a TV program, a K-drama just to stay in the the mind-world and went back to Cuming’s afterward. I’m neither a fast nor slow reader, I adjust my pace to the material. If it’s difficult, I’m slower. In the middle, as history usually is, I go a bit faster. With fiction I gallop.

Right now, as you can tell, I’m on Korea. When I finish Cumings, I’ll start another, the Two Koreas. Though. I might go back and reread the earlier chapters in Cumings. His long synopsis of Korean history before the late 19th century fascinated me since it contained so much that was new. For me.

Also, I’m building a conversion library. I already have a lot of books on Judaism, but I’m going to organize the ones I need for my study and put them up here in the home office. Had to order others. Looking forward to that reading, too.

 

Asia, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism

The Hermit Kingdom

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Saturday gratefuls: Leo coming up for the night. Fruit salad. Sleep. Good sleep. Korean history. Changing my view of northern east Asia. First full draft of Herme complete. For the acting class. Going to work with it today. Finding my sweet spot with exercise, reading, eating out with friends. A full life. Brother Mark and his rental car. The trap of desiderata. Opening myself further. Living on Shadow Mountain. In my mostly finished home. All the Creeks, Streams, Rivulets, Ponds, Marshes of the Mountains

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Change

One brief shining: A therapist lives in my finger tips ready to take on any inner problem dice it up, spread it out on the page for consideration and evaluation then continue on through a resolution that often ripples through my lev in a way I can feel in my chest, the issue put in a new context, revealed as an old pattern, or tucked away behind my ear as a learning to keep close.

 

Went part way down the hill to Morrison. The Cow. Alan and I met there for breakfast. It was a Friday, but the damned place was so busy. We had to wait twenty minutes. The closest sort of Mountain town to Denver Morrison sits right next to the famous Red Rocks Amphitheater. Downtown has plenty of places to hoover up tourist cash. The Cow among them. Apparently the only breakfast place though. Which makes sense since Red Rocks Concerts are evening affairs.

Alan’s first question when I told him about my planned conversion? When’s your bar mitzvah? Hadn’t thought about that. Maybe around my birthday next year?

 

Spent most of yesterday reading in a one volume history of Korea, Korea’s Place in the Sun by Bruce Cumings. I’m about halfway through and finding it fascinating. He focuses on contemporary Korea, but had to give an overview of earlier Korean history to put this time period in context. I’ve learned so many new things. How little I know about Asian history for one. I mean I knew I didn’t know much but the vast field of my ignorance has never been more obvious. It matters, too. Not my ignorance specifically but the general ignorance of Americans about Asia and its long, long history.

Up until the end of the nineteenth century Korea was the little brother to China. Korea’s king went to the Emperor of China for investiture and the two nations had cordial relationships, including significant trade. But. China took no role in Korea’s internal affairs nor its external affairs except to serve as a deterrent to outside invaders. Korea kept itself to itself, repelling foreigners with force. That’s how it came to have the title the Hermit Kingdom.

Did you know we had a military government in Korea from 1945 to 1948, immediately following the collapse of its Japanese occupation? Or, that the communists who were influential in the North were Russians, not Chinese? I didn’t. Only a hint of the insights and new facts I’ve gained.

Judaism

Conversion

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Friday gratefuls: Rabbi Jamie. Ann. Judaism. A ritual in Jerusalem. Mussar. God is Here. Metaphor. Constructing a life. Diane. Zoom. Sanctuary. The Ancient Brothers. Calming down. Learning. Reading. The lev. The tao. Chi. Chuang-tzu. Lao-tzu. Korea. Asia. My son and his wife. Taipei. The National Gallery. Art. A missing part of my life. Ruby. Her ongoingness. Kate, her memory a sweet blessing. Kep and Rigel, too.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Burning through everything but love

One brief shining: The morning here on Shadow Mountain the bright blue Sky, Great Sol warming Lodgepoles and Aspens, a Dog barks a few houses away, a can of Mineral Water nearby, my mind slows down, focuses, tells my fingers what to write.

 

Pushed the conversion boat away from the pier yesterday. Rabbi Jamie and I met. I’m going to do a ten session course of study with him and probably a 30 session course later in the year from the Rocky Mountain Rabbinical Association. I want a broader grounding in matters Jewish. I will however become a member of the tribe in Jerusalem.

Having already arranged a ritual of conversion for two others in Jerusalem Rabbi Jamie offered me a chance to participate in it. It has three parts. A rabbinic court consisting of three Reconstructionist Rabbi’s will interview me for a half an hour or so. If they approve, then a drop of blood is taken from the head of my penis! After that, immersion in a mikvah,  a ritual bath. After. I’m a Jew.

I will wear the kippah at services. When I go. Which is rarely because they’re at night. What I’m doing here is aligning my lev, my heart-mind, with my daily life. In my lev I converted a while ago. By that I mean I find the sacred manifest in the people among whom I live, and move, and have my becoming. Here in Colorado those people are Jews. I have a rabbi. And, a synagogue.

Not giving up my animism, my Great Wheel sensibilities, no. Adding to them a community, a people. And an ear to a 5,000 year old tradition focused on how to live a human, humane, and just life.

The tradition is that the Rabbi has to turn you away three times. Instead Rabbi Jamie has three reasons for not becoming a Jew and asks for a response to each of them. The first: other religions offer a reward after death. Judaism does not. So. Why go with Judaism? My response: Not sure about what happens after death, but I am sure it’s not a reward based moment. If there is a moment. The second: Anti-semitism. If you become a Jew, you step into the world of Jew hatred and become subject to it. My answer: I fight for those I love. Bring it on. The third: Anti-semitism from other Jews. Yes, converts will be treated differently by some. My response: That’s on them.

A final step for me before death. Anchoring myself to a people. Not an isolate, a member of a tribe. Though living alone in relative seclusion. As I want.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Woolly Mammoths

A bit more on conversion

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Monday gratefuls: Out of thin Air. The Ancient Brothers on the elemental. A good nap. Nights growing longer. Living in the temperate zone. Allergens. Itchy eyes, runny nose.  Peripheral vision. Vision. Taste. Hearing. Touch. Smell. Building our own personal reality. Rabbi Jamie. Dick. Tara and Arjan. The many folds and valleys, neurons and synapses of our brains. The wonder of the whole nervous system. Cancer. Prostate Cancer.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The mind-heart. The lev

One brief shining: This morning the Lodgepoles exude health needles green bearing new green cones alongside older light brown ones shooting into the blue Sky with puffy white Cumulus drifting through and Black Mountain’s gentle presence not far away my home world.

 

The Ancient Brothers talked through the four elements: air, earth, fire, and water. A week for each. Five different perspectives on each element. Paul, the careful researcher. Mark, the personal with a creative twist. Bill, often the religious or poetic. Tom, literary and scientific, poetic. Myself, the personal with a religious twist. Our differences are what make these Sunday mornings. Same topic through different lenses. All valid. All interesting. All enriching. A lesson here about the nature of the human community. We need you to show up as you. You’re the only one who can.

 

Also a clue here about my reason for converting. In the Word to Deed class Jamie gave this past Saturday we discussed the Ma Tovu, a prayer said upon entering a synagogue or other house of worship:

How lovely are your tents, O Jacob; your encampments, O Israel!
As for me, through Your abundant grace,
I enter your house to worship with awe in Your sacred place.
O Lord, I love the House where you dwell, and the place where your glory tabernacles.
I shall prostrate myself and bow; I shall kneel before the Lord my Maker.
To You, Eternal One, goes my prayer: may this be a time of your favor.
In Your abundant love, O God, answer me with the Truth of Your salvation.    Wikipedia

While discussing the first three verses, I offered a slightly different reading than the others. Jacob represents the individual, Israel the collective. Or, said another way, the personal and the communal. As for me I take as the individual who, through the abundant grace of a collective or community (Your in this case referring back to the first line) enters with awe into a place made sacred by the community itself. This made me think of why I love CBE, the sacred nature of the connections I’ve made there. I now had a horizontal rather than a vertical view of sacred community. Not infused with holiness from above or without, but created from within the magic and mystery of human connection, human relationship.

To go on. O Lord I read as a Self, a Soul. The rest is an inner prayer. I love this body and this community in which I dwell. The place where glory tabernacles. I am a humble member of this community which makes me who I am. To you, the Eternal soul/Self, I pray, hoping this is a time of your favor. In the abundant love I feel in this community I find the truth of your salvation. [salvation=healing, wholeness]

As Bill said yesterday morning when I recounted some of this, he said, that’s what makes the Woolly’s special. And, it is. We find the sacred, the mysterious, and the grace filled not in some dogmatic prison but in the everydayness of our lives. With the people we come to love, with the people we come to trust with our most intimate selves. And with the places that give us the same feelings.

So converting is not really about a religion per se, it’s making a claim about who my people are. I have at least three religions by this count: Judaism, The Woolly’s/Ancient Brothers, and my family.

 

 

 

Art and Culture, Asia, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Kabbalah

Calligraphy and OMG channel

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Sunday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Air. Thin air. Earth. Wind. And Fire. Elemental, my dear Watson. Sherlock Holmes. Perry Mason. Hercule Poirot. Daiglish. Mystery. Mysteries. Books. The written word. The spoken word. Acting. Herme. Han Shan. Whitman. Rilke. Rumi. Oliver. Harrison. Lee Child. CJ Box. Richard Powers. Idris Elba. Ethan Hawke. K-dramas. The lev, the mind-heart. The Moon. The  Sun. Our Home.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Writers

One brief shining: A Mountain morning blue Sky above Black Mountain curving behind the Lodgepoles in my Yard a cup of coffee and water on the desk my fingers dancing on the keyboard not only an extension of the curves and folds of my brain but of my lev saying things before I think them reading what I have written to know what I’m saying the joy of writing.

 

 

Calligraphy. An art almost unknown to Americans, even more so to millenials who have famously not been taught cursive writing. When Kate, my son, and I went to China, I remember we went to a national museum in Beijing. I was excited because I had always found Chinese art compelling. Disappointed. The exhibits were all calligraphy. Mostly long sheets of rice paper [made from mulberry leaves] with the squiggles and wiggles of Chinese cursive ideograms. Unintelligible. It took a while for me to realize the power of what I’d seen. How I wish now I could return to that exhibit.

Oddly, many at CBE remember me for a project during one Kabbalah class focused on the Hebrew alphabet. Using sumi-e brushes and black ink from Japan I drew many of the Hebrew characters in a flowing cursive, put a small verse beside them, then signed with my chop I purchased when in Beijing. The small red mark of my name contrasted with the black of the aleph and bet and vav and nuns. I set up tables and had everyone try the experience of using sumi-e brushes.

Mark Odegard sent me an image of a Han Shan, Cold Mountain, poem he had done by a Chinese calligrapher. What a beauty. Made me want to own a nice piece of calligraphy for my home. Searching for one.

 

Had a bad time Friday evening and Saturday morning. I let the worm of anemia enter my omg channel. Usually I get diagnostics back from my blood work the next day on Quest Diagnostics. The result of the latest round of blood draws, taken Thursday, has not been posted. I think some maintenance issue on the Quest website. However, it left me wondering about anemia with no helpful information to counteract speculation. Internal bleeding? Probably not, although not to be ruled out. Low iron or vitamin B? The blood tests will show. So I went to the logical place next: leukemia. I have cancer already, why not two kinds rather than one? With no data my mind went down that road pretty easily.

Here’s the thing. I’m not afraid to die, but I’d prefer later thank you very much. Still. Could be now? Right? I’m ok with that, yes, but again, not my preference. I went over the legacy such as it is. My writing. Friendships and family. This stand and that for justice. Perhaps a few original ideas not well developed. Got sadder as I thought. The evening was chilly, rainy. Gloomy. Outside mirroring inside.

Took me a bit of time to right the ship. Not long but not before I’d had a persistent gnawing angst for a few hours. Didn’t disturb my sleep however.

Faith and Spirituality, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism

How bout that

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Saturday gratefuls: Pavilion L at Denver Health. Travel Clinic. Those two nurses. Typhoid vaccine. Immunocompromised. Joe Mama’s. Alan. Driving down the hill. A cool but clear day so far. Rain yesterday. Rabbi Jamie’s 18th anniversary. The potluck. Ice Cream from Liks. Seeing Sally, Ann, Ellen, Dick, Alan, Cheri, Helen, Rich, Kim, Rich’s mother, Irene, Elizabeth, Susan. A community. My community. An informal conversion. Me. Crossing the Threshold. A ritual. Herme, a one man show. Anemia. Weariness.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Alan and me

One brief shining: Yesterday in a ten foot wide breakfast place Joe Mama’s Alan and I managed a feat worthy of an updated Buster Keaton sketch wherein I arrive early and take a seat at a two-topper right ear against the wall and back to the door order coffee looking at the menu until I decide to text Alan thinking he’s found the place as hard to locate as I did only to discover a text had come in from him saying the same huh so I turn around as Alan gets up from the table behind me where he’s been sitting for ten minutes having just read my text. Oh.

 

Still laughing about that one. Once a month I drive down the hill and go to breakfast with Alan somewhere in the west Denver metro. This time it was Joe Mama’s. A clever name. I missed it twice. It’s situated between Celebrity Tattoos and The Glass Pipe Shop in a tiny strip mall on busy Colfax. My deaf left ear to noise, my right ear protected by a wall sound comes to me much more clearly, with or without hearing aids. So my back to the  door since the two-tops were only on the right side as you enter. Alan missed me when he came in and we sat like teenagers across the table from each other texting unaware of the other’s presence. Funny.

 

Finished a session with Rabbi Jamie on Jewish prayer. Can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I am. I’m gonna convert. Or, join up. Or, whatever. It wasn’t so much about this session as it was a journey of the heart, a long one. A really long one.

 

Just sent this note to Jamie:
Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I want to go through the conversion process. Not so much to convert, I believe I’ve already done that in my heart, but to get more of the shared language of Judaism. That way I can appreciate the opportunities at CBE much more.

Been on my mind for a while, but the recent work with metaphor and this morning’s work with the prayers has opened a way in for me at the human, non-metaphysical level I hadn’t felt before.
Said I was done with joining things. Well, I was. Now, I’m not.

 

Let me give you a brief synopsis of the journey: As an anthropology student, I had an assignment to visit a synagogue and write it up from an anthropological perspective. It felt very foreign to me. Somewhat foreboding. At the same time I was dating a Jewish girl and met her parents. He was a jeweler, but very well read in philosophy which was also my major at the time. That really impressed me.

After my first philosophy class at Wabash demolished Christian proofs for the existence of God, I exited the Christian faith and became an existentialist vis a vis Camus.

You know already, most of you, about my seminary and ministry experience focused, I now know, on the God as judge metaphor. God judged our society and found it wanting when it came to caring for the poor, the other, the downtrodden. So did I. So do I.

I was a Christian. Yes, I was. But the glue that held me there was weak from a theological perspective. Justice has other roots than the New Testament demands for loving the neighbor. So when I felt the need to leave, it was not a difficult change. Especially since I’d found Kate and she me.

At the time I found Kate I was also dating Caroline Levy and had a connection, never acted on, with Ellen Sue Stern. All three Jews. I had also made a vow to myself during college that I would not seek spiritual guidance outside the Western tradition. Why? Because culture is so powerful I believed we could only reach profound understanding with Western inflected religious tradition.

I mostly followed that. No Buddhism. No Hinduism. Well, almost none. Taoism however did exert a pull on me. And remains an integral part of my essentially animist approach to finding the sacred.

Then Kate and I moved to Shadow Mountain and because of her earlier conversion found Congregation Beth Evergreen. I became an embedded pagan over the last eight years first as Kate’s husband and then on my own right. I was happy with that until this morning. Now I want to move all the way inside the miskhan, the sacred temple that is the Jewish people.

I’ve probably known I would do this since Patty told me Have a nice Easter and unbidden rose within me no, I’m a Passover guy. That was my clue that I’d converted in my heart already.

So I’m gonna do it. Yes, I surprised myself here. Happy to do so. Consistency as my evergreen buddy Ralph Emerson says is the hobgoblin of small minds.

 

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Holidays, Judaism, Korea, Politics, Travel, US History

Happy Birthday to the good ole U.S.A.

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Tuesday gratefuls: Acting class tonight. First half of Israel trip paid for. Herme introduction rewritten. Parchment paper ordered. No Fireworks up here. Good for Dogs. Fire. Air. Thin air, melting into thin air. My feet and toes. Holding me up since 1947. My ankles and calves and thighs. Mobility. My pelvis, butt, penis and testicles. Sitting, twisting, elimination. No joy at this point in my life. My thorax. Holding important stuff in. My arms and fingers. Dexterity for all my needs. My shoulders and neck. Supporting my head. My head, mouth, nose, ears, and eyes. Eating, hearing (sort of), seeing, smelling, taking in oxygen, a case for my brain. All these years forgot to be grateful for that which is closest.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My body

One brief shining: Can you imagine the evolution of the eye or the slow changes necessary to create a thumb perhaps you are the one who can follow the path from our One-Celled ancestors to a beating heart maybe you grasp the folding and intricate interlacing of brain matter neurons synapses the marvel of language as it first sat on the first tongue to express a thought through sound oh this everyday miracle our body ourselves our home for life.

 

I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, a real live nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the Fourth of July. Today is Seoah’s Yankee Doodle birthday. What a great birthday for a naturalized U.S. citizen. Seoah and my son. Ruth and Gabe. My immediate family. Mark in Saudi Arabia. Mary to return to Malaysia and South East Asia. They are my hope for this country. Them specifically and what they represent.

Seoah, a Korean by birth and a citizen of Korea until two years ago. She married my son, a Bengali by birth. Both now naturalized citizens of the U.S.A. My son serving this country in the military. Both abroad, in Korea, protecting not only the U.S.A. but much of Asia as well. This is, in these two people, the most fundamental promise of America. That you can come here from wherever you were born, no matter the circumstances, and become a citizen, a full-fledged participant in the colorful tapestry of American life.

Or consider Ruth and Gabe. On their mother’s side Jewish, their grandfather a Romanian Jew from Bucharest and their grandmother of an immigrant Jewish family as well. Third generation. On their father’s side Norwegian ancestry four generations removed from Bergen. They are also both Gen Z, the most politically aware generation since the Boomers. They will need to be with the crushing weight of adaptation to climate change they will have to carry.

Mary and Mark. The expat life. Being American on foreign soil. Contributing to the lives and welfare of Saudis, Thais, Malaysians, Japanese, and Singaporeans. Representing the American ideal of a world known for its inclusion rather than its chauvinism. Representing our country to other cultures. Being the good American rather than the ugly American.

How can I not be hopeful when I can see in my own family the very America I hold so close and dear. Especially on this day.

 

Acting, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Mountains

Too Much Chocolate and Brain Fog

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Saturday gratefuls: Han Shan. His poetry. Shadow Mountain. The green green Mountains of home. China’s Mountains. Korea’s Mountains. Mt. Fuji. The sect in Japan that worships Mountains. The Mule Deer Doe eating Grass and Dandelions in my back last night. Joan and Alan. The Bread Lounge. Evergreen. The everlasting construction along its Lake. All detours, everywhere. Tom’s old fashioned thank you note.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Joan’s house and property

One brief shining: Never had French toast like that six Texas toast sized slices stuffed with Nutella and chocolate small drops of chocolate on the top and syrup even syrup it was the chef’s choice for stuffed French toast and oh my I ate about a third and gave up turned it back over full.

 

Yeah. Alan and I had breakfast at the Bread Lounge and I ordered the stuffed French toast. Not gonna do that again. Thought I wanted something sweet as a counterpoint to my usual savory breakfasts with Eggs and chicken fried steak or bacon or tamales, a few too many potatoes. Maybe hot sauce.

We got caught up on this and that. CBE news. His life in the vertical cruise ship as he calls his apartment complex in central downtown Denver. Many puns later, he can’t stop, we left with a bag of pastries for Joan’s.

I’d never been to Joan’s house before though I’ve heard often about its daunting driveway. Which I thought was not so bad. Not curvy, not even that long compared to others. Anyhow her house sits on the crest of 27 acres of prime Colorado Mountain real estate looking west toward Evergreen, Mt. Blue Sky (formerly Mt. Evans), Mt. Berrigan and beyond. It’s a lovely and special location.

Her home is a beauty, too. All polished woods and black rafters, black painted wood here and there for contrast. Plate glass windows with the view toward Evergreen. A perfect house for a writer. I think Joan’s on her 18th or 19th published novel now.

Her husband Albert died last year at 96. Not sure exactly but 68 years of marriage. Somewhere in that range. We talk about grief from time to time before acting class begins. Yesterday she asked me brain fog.

I’ve only come to realize now, two and a half years after Kate’s death, I told her, how much brain fog I’d had. And that’s an exact metaphor. When it began to lift, I could see life again. With clarity. Before there was always a scrim, one I was not aware was there until it began to lift.

Jon gave the best metaphor for it. Recovering from the fog of grief mimics the slow rebounding of the North American Continent from the last Ice Age. It’s still underway, measurable especially in the Canadian tundra.

When Alan and I left, Joan told me she was going to mail me one of those rocks over there. She pointed to a rock wall she or Albert had built near her front door. It was what, she said, I had lifted from her mind. I reached back for her hand and gave it a squeeze.