Category Archives: Judaism

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Mussar, Weather +Climate, Writing

It’s beginning to look a lot like…oh, wait. It’s almost May

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Spring (ha, ha) and the Mesa View Moon

Friday gratefuls: Grif. Second generation Coloradan, 4th generation Norwegian with cousins (distant) in Minnesota. Alan and the central coast wineries. Bivouac coffee’s espresso blend. The Bread Lounge and its multi-grain sourdough. Thursday mussar. Rebecca and Leslie. Kathy, another fellow traveler on the cancer journey. Campfire grill’s truffle mac and cheese.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Yet more Snow

One brief, shining moment: This challenge of Mark’s, to write more complex sentences, ones that glitter and shine on the page, perhaps sentences that belong more in novels written by really good writers, has stretched me, made me put writing in a new key, perhaps B sharp where my voice rarely strays above C.

 

Had that massage. Grif has a long, millennial hipster beard. Dark. A slightly dour expression. Sweaty palms when we shook on meeting. Perhaps not the most relaxing first sensation. A Norwegian. No kidding. Another one. I found a Norwegian in Colorado. Uff da. We have not yet discussed lutefisk. But, soon.

He’s a decent massagiynist. (I made that up. Can you tell?) I did not leave with that loopy about to melt into the floor feeling that I have after other massages, yet my body felt looser. This was, you may recall, a gift to myself after finishing radiation.

Decided to buy a five massage package, give Grif a boost. He seemed to need it. Going to try a different massage style next time. Neuromuscular. He asked me which of several types I wanted. I had no clue. My massage experience is limited. Not a Thai massage I said.

That’s a Bangkok story. Temple Wat Pho. That’s actually redudant since Wat means Temple. The day after I ruptured my Achilles tendon during a night time trip to a 7-11-I know, so mundane-I was in pain with what I thought was a sprained ankle. So, I thought. Get a massage. That could help me feel better all over. Right?

Nope. I paid $10 in bahts for a small Thai woman to attack me with multiple body parts. Elbows. Knees. Fingers. Shoulder. Oh, man. I don’t even remember if I felt better afterward.

 

Cheri, Alan’s wife, bought a trip to a California central coast winery at an auction to help the Colorado Ballet. In which Alan occasionally appears as an old guy with a white beard. When they need one.

They had a great time. It included a visit to the Victor Hugo winery, a boutique operation that produces only two wines, Quasi and Modo.

 

It was my first time back to Thursday mussar since January, maybe earlier. I’d attended on zoom some, but with Kep’s decline and the snow and other things, I hadn’t felt up to the drive. Two of the women, Leslie and Rebecca, both kissed me on the head! Not sure what that was about though it was clearly a sign of affection.

Kathy has stage four breast cancer. She’s had a mastectomy and 35 sessions of radiation. Sounds familiar to me. But the cancer won’t back down. She has scans every three months and blood work once a month. This last blood work had her tumor markers up. Not good.

But we both agreed our quality of life right now is good. That’s what matters. Cancer is a good teacher of what matters. Perhaps that’s its role in the larger culture, to strip away pretense and help us get down to the nub of life.

Perhaps.

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Travel, US History, Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths

I’ll report back

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Spring (ha) and the Mesa View Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Vince. Dave at Anytime Fitness. Jose with United Health Care. Creeping my way past balance billing. A foot or so of Snow. More coming down and more on the way. Go Colorado! Fill those aquifers, plump up that Snow pack. Tom and Amber. Warren’s new knee. Kep, my sweet boy. Spring ephemerals waiting. Here. Spontaneity. Like my boy suggested. Israel.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow

One brief, shining moment: Late spring Snow falling, falling, falling while the cracked Rock beneath my home drinks it in, filling up ready for the pump when summer dryness emerges, when the Grass turns brown, the Lodgepole Needles lose their lustre, and the Wild Neighbors come to the Mountain Streams hoping to find Water.

 

Signed up for the MAPS conference. Not cheap. Yet. It is. Because. Don’t have to fly to get there. Might check into a hotel for the three days. Just for fun. June. That’s big event one already prepared.

Plan to put down a deposit on the Israel trip next week. Want to wait a bit because of travel insurance. Gather a bit more information.

Checking out Kayak for Korea and Israel. Not too bad. Gonna spend some money on travel this year and next. Maybe as long as I’m able. Not having dogs frees me up. No leaving them behind. No kennel or house sitting fees.

 

I’m seeing the threshold more clearly now. Cancer managed. Fit. Healthy by the AARP definition: mobile, independent, cognitively sound. House painted and the art will get hung in May. Money available. Grief calm, never gone, but calm. No dogs. A chance to lean back into Korean and calculus. Write more. Love more. CBE. Ancientbrothers. Family. Live. A last, hopefully long chapter lies no longer ahead, but is present. Right now. I’m in it.

Want to celebrate this threshold. But how? Not sure yet. Considering.

 

Spent a long time on the phone yesterday. My very favorite thing. I’ve stamped out the $420 bill and the $5100 one has been elevated. Meaning the insurance company will deal with Centura Health. Not convinced it’s over yet. We’ll see.

I did learn that my insurance will pay for my gym fees at Anytime Fitness. Means I’ll join when I go over to checkout the machines today. Having that as a backup for my resistance work will make the difference I think.

 

After I finish Pogue’s Chosen Country, I plan to re-read Why Liberalism Failed. A rare thing for me. However I believe Deneen’s diagnosis of our woes makes sense on one level. That is, why many of our problems today turn on the question of individualism. And, I believe his explanation of the roots of those problems probably makes sense. That’s one reason I want to re-read it. History of ideas is a strength of mine and I can trace thought like he can.

Where I don’t believe I agree with him is on his understanding of liberty as the key. It feels too pat, too reductionistic. I’ll report back after round two.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Korea, Travel

Fitness, Psychedelics, and Travel

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Spring and the Mesa View Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: 1-2 feet of snow tonight. Canceled removal of my snow tires. Tom. Amber. Kate, always. Mark. Mary. Diane. My son and his wife. Movers next week. Ode’s challenge. MAPS conference in June. Getting right with those SOB’s over billing me. Today. Safeway pickup. Stinker’s milk. Anytime fitness. Israel. Korea. Getting out of town.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A big Spring Snow

One brief, shining moment: Mountains so vast as to be incomprehensible by the human, yet here’s a comparison realized as a fighter jet flies across the Colorado morning Sky, how much fuel, energy of the Sun captured by Plants and cooked by Mother Earth for millions of years, it takes to keep them from falling to Earth, defying gravity, while the Mountain, too, rises into the Sky and required only an initial push.

 

Good workout yesterday morning. Still not doing resistance work. Need to. Decided to contact Anytime Fitness. Idea. Start back to resistance work on machines. Not have to worry about form. Just the workout. A few months, then back to my own dumbbells, kettlebells, TRX.

Went over there. It’s only 10 minutes from home. Talked to Dave. An older guy, the manager. Friendly. They have a good setup. I can go over after my cardio, which I’ll still do here. Put in 20 minutes on the machines. Start fighting back. Sarcopenia. Chemo. Inertia. Going on Wednesday for run through on the machines. Might talk to a coach there to get an initial workout. Might not.

Who knows? I might like it well enough to keep it up. Or, I’ll circle back to my own. Whatever keeps me at it. That’s the goal. Cardio’s a lock. I need the resistance work to get back there, too.

 

After I talk to my buddy Tom, I’m going to call United Health Care and I’m not getting off the line until my ghost bills have given up the, well, ghost. $430. $5,100. That. I. Do. Not. Owe. But that keep showing up. Frustrating does not describe it.

 

I’m planning a busy Summer and Fall. Going to attend the MAPS conference here in Denver. What is MAPS? Why, it’s the multidisciplinary association for psychedelic studies. This is the perfect time for the conference in my own renewed journey.

Friend Luke comes Saturday with some home grown LBMs. Little brown mushrooms. Psilocybin. Don’t think we’ll do them. At least not right then, but I do plan to try microdosing. More important. He’s bringing his dog, Leo. I need some doggy time.

 

Late summer, when my son and daughter-in-law give me the signal, I’ll fly to Korea for a month. Visiting them, seeing the peninsula. Take the bullet train to Seoul and Gwangju. Tourist time in Seoul. See the DMZ. See her parents and family in and around Gwangju.

Then in November. The Middle East. Israel. A tour with CBE. Probably go a week or so ahead of the tour and travel on my own before that. Take in Jerusalem, wander. I’m ready to open out again, see the world. And it feels pretty good.

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism

Made me feel good

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Spring and the Mesa View Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Gabe, now 15. Earth Day. Kate Strickland, now 40. Her old man, Paul. Now 76. Tom and Amber. My son and his wife. Luke and Leo. LBMs. Little brown mushrooms. The Grateful Dead shabbat. Kate’s yahrzeit. Her candle still burning. Ginnie and Ellen. Ripple in Still Water. Another excellent workout. Radiation in the rearview. Snow and a cold night. Good sleeping.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kate, my once and future wife

One brief, shining moment: Tears, the outer sign of inward longing, surfaced when it came time for the kaddish, the mourner’s prayer, Ripple in Still Water played during the Grateful Dead shabbat had ended and Rabbi Jamie read the list of deaths and then the list of yahrzeits, holding my breath until he read the very last name, Kate Olson. Oh.

 

Before I left for CBE yesterday evening, I lit a 24 hour memorial candle for Kate. It burns still. This is her yahrzeit. Her second.

Ginnie sat next to me last night. She’s a nurse I met online during a Kabbalah Experience class on astrology. Ginnie and her partner took the class together. She comes to the CBE services because she has an MFA in performance art, including opera. As a singer she loves the services. Was glad to have her next to me.

The Rabbi and music director of B’nai Havurah, the only Denver reconstructionist congregation, joined Rabbi Jamie and the CBE band which includes harmonica, bass, and drums. Sometimes piano, but not last night.

The Grateful Dead shabbat is a popular musical service and happened to fall on Kate’s yahrzeit. Appropriate since Jon was a Deadhead, a camp follower who had a large cache of concert tapes, a treasure Ruth has kept.

When Ripple in Still Water played, the lyrics came on the screen. My tears began when I read these:

There is a road, no simple highwayBetween the dawn and the dark of nightAnd if you go, no one may followThat path is for your steps alone

She left two years ago and I could not follow for that path was for her steps alone.

The kaddish prayer and the recognition of recent deaths and yahrzeits make sure that mourners do not go through their grief alone. Shiva takes the community into the home of the mourner, traditionally for seven nights. These are deeply compassionate features of Judaism and have helped me a lot during my own mourning and grief. Jews are not awkward when talking about death. They show up, initiate help. Follow through.

The drive home last night, one Kate and I made together many, many times, saddened me. I cried again, missing her in the seat next to me, commenting on the service, life, politics.

Oddly, and I imagine this is the point of yahrzeits, the tears and the sadness made me feel good. I’m still connected to her in a deep and everlasting way. These feelings honor our love.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Memories

A Companion of the Soul

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Tom and Talking Story. Diane and Clan Keaton. Last of the left hip lymph node radiations. #7 today. T3. Kate Strickland’s birthday on the same day as Gabe’s. 40 and 15. Very different life moments. April 22. My dad and my brother Mark’s birthday are in April, too, as well as Ruth’s. Prostate cancer. Treatments. Doctors. Insurance. Hospitals. The yetzer hara and the yetzer hatov. Counting the Omer. Luke and Leo. Psilocybin. THC

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Goya

One brief, shining moment: Kate’s death coming on a new Moon, as the old one gave way, went dark, and the new one lay in the shadows, her new world also shadowed but waiting to fill out, wax, become full.

 

The Jewish calendar, a lunar one, preserves the moon phase of a death date, remembered each year as the yahrzeit. So each year as the month of Nisan ends and the month of Iyar begins Congregation Beth Evergreen and our family will celebrate Kate’s life and memory. This Friday. Nisan is the Jewish month of Spring, when Pesach falls.

Iyar is a variant of ohr, or divine light, the shards of divinity that splintered to all the Universe after the tzim-tzum happened. Tzim-tzum is a kabbalistic term for a sacred withdrawal so there could be space for a universe. When ohr flooded back into the space created by the contraction, the vessels to hold it were too weak. And shattered sending out shards of ohr which became part of everything in the universe. Or the realm of Malchut.

I’m belaboring this because it gives me a new way to see Kate’s yahrzeit. She died on a new moon, while the moon began to wax. As that happens, the calendar ticks over to Iyar, the month of ohr. So the waxing moon’s power joined with sacred light as Kate’s soul left her body. If there is a propitious moment for a journey into the unknown, this would have to be one of them.

It may mean nothing. It may mean something. Today, for me, it gives some solace as I contemplate not only her death, but also her life. Kate did not allow the fallow lands of sexism to subdue her intelligence and her manual skills. She marched into those desiccated lands with the power of Spring, sacred light shining from every pore, pushing against the masculinist assumptions that pervaded medicine. And I loved her so much for it.

She had her pain, yes, she certainly did. But she did not allow that to stop her either. Not her mother’s withering menace nor her father’s lack of boundaries. We carry our pain with us, a satchel of parental and cultural abuses, each of us. How we carry it determines our life path.

God, I miss her. She was my hand to hold, my heart joined to her heart, our paths walked together. I miss her.

And yet. My life continues. I live it with her as a companion of the soul.

Judaism, Kabbalah

The Omer

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Easter. Passover. A cool night. Kepler, my sweet boy. Kate, her yahrzeit this Friday. Probate. Some ways through. Snow falling on Lodgepoles. Though not this morning. A Mountain morning feeling its way toward the light. Alan. The Bread Lounge. Counting the omer. Rabbi Jamie, a teacher. The Evergreen Market. Southern Fried Catfish. Broccoli salad.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gettin’ Old

 

And now for something completely different. Counting the Omer is a first fruits practice that celebrates the beginning of the barley harvest. In this way it is similar to the Celtic Lughnasa which celebrates the first corn (wheat in Britain) harvest on August 1st. Counting the Omer starts during passover and proceeds until Shavuot 50 days later.

I like this practice, though I find it hard to follow, because it adds a thoughtful intention to each day, an intention that helps carry us away from the slavery of culture and history toward the promised land. What promised land, you might ask? Well. What promised land do you need?

I also like this practice because it is, as are many Jewish holidays, rooted in Mother Earth and her changes.

 

Counting the Omer*

“And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: you must count until the day after the seventh week—fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to יהוה.” Leviticus 23:15-16

This is a spiritual reenactment of the Hebrew slaves journey of out Egypt, out of slavery toward the promised land. As Rabbi Jamie explains it:

“Over the course of the seven weeks between the holidays of Passover
and Shavuot, we are invited to recount the steps of our ancestors. As the first
three uncountable stars appear on the second night of Passover, we count each
day of a journey from the shores of the Sea of Reeds, newly freed from the
constraints of enslavement under Pharaoh’s reign, to the revelatory peaks of
Mount Sinai. We number the days and weeks to revisit a path that took us from
a narrow and harrowing escape to a knowing and holy expansion of awareness
and mission. From Mitzraim [Egypt] we were forced out by plagues, and
decrees. At Sinai, we stood and freely choose a collective destiny.

“It is easier to take the people out of slavery than to take the slavery out of
the people,” it has been said. Mussar is a discipline devoted to shedding a
‘slavery mentality,’ increasing the human capacity to freely choose how we act,
even how we think and feel.”

Each night, the beginning of the Jewish day, a prayer is said and the omer for that day is counted. Traditionally the counting of the Omer (and naming a
measurable attribute to practice) happens as soon as possible after the stars
appear in the night sky, and is preceded by the following blessing: “Blessed are you O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us by his commandments and commanded us concerning the count of the Omer.

Today is day ten, which is one week and three days of the Omer.

Day 10. Association with sages. Sign up for a class. Attend a class. Read a
book or article by a scholar or writer that you respect – and one you don’t.
Organize a book club. Remember as you go through the day, that one who is
wise “learns from everyone.” Consider everyone you meet a teacher sent by the
universe just for you, and you will always be in the company of the sages…and
be counted among the wise.

This thought for the 10th day of the Omer comes from Rabbi Jamie’s fitting of the whole counting of the Omer into a kabbalistic frame.

*An omer is a unit of measure. On the second day of Passover, in the days of the Temple, an omer of barley was cut down and brought to the Temple as an offering. This grain offering was referred to as the Omer. Judaism 101

 

One brief, shining moment: The inner way has many paths, some shrouded in darkness, some pressing against the heart to be felt, others pressing against the mind to be understood.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Judaism, Mussar, Shadow Mountain

Round Three

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Spring and the Kepler Moon

Thursday gratefuls: MVP. Tara. Marilyn. Susan. Jamie. Rich. Ron. Bitachon, trust. Kate’s memory, a blessing in all ways. Cooler today. Snow. Good workout. Furball Cleaning. Ana and friend.  A clean house. The new colors. That threshold. Coming closer. Irv. Adoptable dogs. Radiation #3. Joy. Simcha. Embracing joy. Living joyfully.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Eudaimonia

 

Hit the treadmill for 65 minutes. 101 total minutes of exercise with the 2 minutes for every intense minute calculation. Felt good. Coffee and albuterol, oatmeal and peanut butter on board before hand.

While I exercised, Ana and her friend cleaned the house. It needed it. The last of Kep’s hair. The leftover from Doug’s painting. Ruth, Gabe, and Mia’s visit. Plus it had been three and a half weeks since it was last cleaned. Feels so good to have a clean house. A clean house with a fresh look. Mental health. Moving forward, over that threshold.

 

MVP last night. The topic, the middot, was bitachon, trust. I said that I trust everyone. To be who they are. Realized I need to modify that. I trust everyone to be who I know them to be. I can’t truly know another’s essence. But I can know how I experience them. In the moment and over time.

This means I have varying levels of trust, many of them. None blind. All based on experience, not hope. If you tend to show up late, I know that. If you do what you say, I know that. If you anger easily, I know that. If you steal things, I hide what’s valuable to me. Either emotions or goods.

We all agreed we had trouble, for various reasons, keeping our mouths shut about others. Not that we gossip, but that some circumstances arise. Ones where we start sharing things about others that aren’t ours to tell. Not necessarily secrets or negative things. Just things that belong to others. One person gave the example of a neighbor asking about a divorce. She found herself offering more detail than she needed. Wanting to keep the friend. That sort of thing.

So our mutual practice for this month is. Value the vault. Keep what we know to ourselves. Allow others to tell their own stories. If they want to.

 

Round three of radiation on my left hip lymph node today. Though the radiation itself is both invisible and non-tactile at my sensory level it’s still powerful. Find myself sleeping longer and harder. Fatigue, not awful, but there. The thing about radiation is that its side effects can show up a year, two years later. And I won’t know for sure whether it killed my two mets until later this year when I have a P.E.T. scan. An odd form of therapy. You can’t feel it and you can’t tell if it worked until sometime after. Glad it’s available though.

Next week we get started on my T3 thoracic vertebrae. This is the one where the possible side effects become dire. Including, but not limited to, paralysis. After several conversations with docs, I decided the risk made sense. There is a chance, albeit a small chance, that if we kill these two mets I could be cured. Wouldn’t that be something?

Not counting on that. But I will extend my time off Erleada and Orgovyx when I go on a drug holiday later this year.

Neil Young for music today.

 

Friends, Health, Hermitage, Judaism, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History, World History

Good News

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: A good colonoscopy report. Tara. That catfish po’boy and beignets. Susan, my nurse. Luke, the doc. Propofol. Little pictures of the inside of my insides. A really long nap afterward. Sleeping in this morning, a bright one well underway at 7 am. Melting snow. Dark Sky communities. 5 in Colorado. The Milky Way. Our Galactic neighborhood. The Spiral Arm. Our street. The James Webb. Science. Community. The Humanities. A sad time.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: That Threshold, becoming more clear

 

Small polyp. Benign, Evans said. But. Sent to pathology anyhow. That propofol. A white solution injected into my iv. I watched as the fluid went in and woke up later back in the same small curtained off area I had left for the exam room. In between Evans had pumped CO2 in my intestines and run a scope up them looking for cancer. None. Good news. Also. You’ve graduated. No more colonoscopies. Yay! But. Can I still do the prep every once in a while, just for fun?

When I did wake up, I wanted to go back to sleep. I felt so good. So good. I go back to sleep. Charlie, are you ready? Huh? No, not yet. A bit more time went by. Charlie! Are you ready? Oh, uh, yeah. Getting up now. (I wasn’t.) Charlie. A frustrated gal. Ok, ok. Swing your legs over the edge of the bed. Ok, ok. How do you feel? Dizzy. Sleepy. But. I’ll get dressed. I promise. And so I did.

Tara, who took me, smiled when I came out. She took me to Nono’s and bought me a catfish po’boy and two beignets. Then home. A sweet woman and important in my life. I was at her house for a seder last week.

We discussed the history of Christianity. A bit fuzzy if your life orientation is Jewish. Also parenting. Jon, Vincent, Sofia. And, just. Life. You know.

Back home I ate my sandwich and the beignets. Watched TV. Took a three hour nap.

 

Now that Doug has finished, I can begin making decisions about where to put my art. Going to take my time. Not rush. Maybe get in some work on the loft, too. Clear off my art table. Maybe reshelve some books. Move files downstairs to the home office. Have Ana clean it when I get done. When I get the art figured out, I’ll get Vince to come over and hang everything.

I have a list of property management chores for him and as soon as it warms up I’ll get him started on those.

 

My journey into the dark and confusing reality of our current political situation continues. Why Liberalism Failed will help me crystallize my understanding. Without getting too far into Deneen’s argument right now I will say that he’s coming at liberalism as a political philosophy and not using the term as we do in the U.S. for party politics. In his broader argument most U.S. conservatives are liberals, too. That is, both parties (bracketing Trumpists and the new Far Right) support free enterprise, science as a way to gain dominion over nature, the autonomous individual, and government that derives its authority from the consent of those individuals.

Denver, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Mountains

Over the Mountains and through the Freeways to Alan’s new place

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Ruth. Sarah and Jerry. BJ and Schecky. Annie. The soft Light of early Morning. The calm Lodgepole standing by my window, its Cones hugged tight to needle covered Branches. Let the photosynthesis begin! Alan and his new home, home turf. He’s not in the Mountains anymore. Sam’s #3. Kep, my sweet boy. Kate, my sweet gal.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Trees

 

Drove down the hill. Left here at 8 am, just late enough to avoid rush hour. Followed Ruby’s wayfinding. Not the way I would have gone, but I thought, what the hell.

A blue shiny Colorado day. We get lots of them. My heart opened up as I did something unusual, going into the city early in the morning. That travelin’ gene kicked in. I could be doing this anytime I want. Headed in any direction. Toward Mexico. Toward Taos or Santa Fe. Toward Moab. For any length of time. Lock up the house. Hit the road. Plan to after this course of radiation quiets down.

Fun to be out of the usual habitat. Although. I don’t like city driving much anymore. I find difficult intersections overwhelming, too many vehicles, going too fast. And I don’t know the city well. Have to listen to Ruby. You know, sensory overload compared to Black Mountain and Brook Forest Drive.

Lucked out on Curtis Ave. One parking spot away from the intersection where Alan waited at Sam’s #3, a go to diner spot. An empty slot. Dove in. Fed the meter. With my Visa card. Crossed when the light’s little man showed up.

Alan waiting inside. Sam’s #3, there are several and they’re all named #3, has two loops of counter seating and several booths right along 14th Street. Looking out toward the Link building. Ironically, Alan’s old office building back when he worked for Century Link.

Gyros and eggs over easy, home fries. Alan, keeping kosher for passover, had chile rellenos and eggs. Home fries. First time I’d visited him in his new neighborhood. Denver calls this, clumsily I think, Upper DownTown.

We caught up. Radiation. My son. Probate. His daughter, Frannie. How much he likes the new digs. The new neighborhood. One block from the Denver Performing Art Center. Where the big blue Bear leans onto the window wall.

We walked the two blocks from Sam’s #3 to his building. A tall glass affair. Balconies. A fob for the door. Found the elevators. The tour. A floor with two concierge like employees who gather in packages from the post or Fedex or UPS. Who take other deliveries like dry cleaning and laundry. Out the door a heated pool, a hot tub, a shallow pool with foam recliners. On the other side barbecue grills. Three next to each other. Great views of the Mountains the downtown skyline. Inside again. The gym.  A good one, with free weights and exercise machines along with the usual treadmills and ellipticals. Empty at 10 am on a Friday.

Up to the Sky Club. Available only for those with units on the 34th floor and above. The penthouses. All. Marketing. The Sky Club on the 42nd and last floor. Pool table. A long dining table. Glass window walls with both Mountain and downtown scapes. Locked individual wine cupboards. Comfy chairs and sofas. Alan calls it a vertical cruise ship.

Then, down to his and Cheri’s place on the 38th floor. On entry a short hallway to the right goes to the laundry. The entry way opens out onto the kitchen, all appliances on a wall, an island across from them. The living/dining area showcases a view of Pike’s Peak seen past the Hyatt Regency, the Cash Register Building, and other hall marks of downtown Denver.

Master bedroom to the right. Cheri’s dance studio was immediately to the left after the entry. Alan’s office to the left. A good sized room made smaller with a loveseat facing the TV. A huge walk in closet. One in the master suite, too. Lots of storage.

Two balconettes. One off the living room and one off the master suite. Wide enough for a chair, long enough for three.

Considerably smaller than their old house in Genessee. Downsizing. What they wanted. Mostly what Cheri wanted was no threat of fire. No threat of losing house value if insurance companies turn against those of us in the W.U.I.

Frannie, home for passover, popped in with her friend Jenna. We all chatted for a while and I took my leave. Happy to leave the city for the mountains.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Holidays, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Oh. Huh.

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan. Doug. Nearly done. Snow melted. Low fire danger. Tara. Ofer. Jack. Adam. Cheka. Andrew. Savannah. Robbie. Arjean. Tara’s seder. The Cyberknife. The CT. Diane. Kim and Patty. Carmela. The medical physicist. Norbert, Tara’s dog who died suddenly. Julie and Sophia. Jayden. Safeway pickup. A blue Sky early morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cheka and Andrew

 

Patty, a sweet lady and the lead radiation therapy tech, told me yesterday, as I left the CT room zipping up my jacket. Have a good Easter. I smiled. Jolted. No I said in my head I’m more of a passover guy now.

A strange moment. My reaction, that of an outsider to a cultural norm assumed so easily it’s not checked, surprised me. I didn’t realized how far down the Jewish path I’d traveled in my heart. This was not intellectual, it was visceral. Nope, wrong holiday.

When I mentioned it to Tara last night at her seder, she nodded. Yes. And it doesn’t get easier. Sometimes you smile. Sometimes you say something. Sometimes you’re just frustrated.

Tablet Magazine is an online magazine for Jews. I read it off and on. Yesterday I took a quiz titled what kind of Jew are you? For a goof. With little variance from my truth, that I’m not Jewish, I answered the questions. Are most of your friends Jewish? Certainly here yes. Have you attended a Jewish function in the last week? Of course. Do you belong to a synagogue? I do. I came out an affiliated Jew. Huh.

Still don’t want to convert, but I may have already. I thought of the old ways of becoming a lawyer, a physician. You read the law, worked in a lawyer’s office until you grew proficient enough to set out on your own. Same with physicians. I may have read Judaism as I’ve attended mussar, gone to shivas, been part of one for Kate, have two Jewish grandchildren.

Certainly there’s a deep reality in me now that identifies with Jews. With Kate’s loved faith. With the people and the community I’ve come to know as a result.

Hope you have a good Easter. Unless you’re more of a passover sort.

 

First radiation treatment yesterday. Cyberknife again. The same place where I had 35 sessions in 2019. Lone Tree. Anova Cancer Care. Chose The Band for my music. The Weight. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Up on Cripple Creek. Music to be radiated to. An atomic playlist.

Afterward I drove over to Sally Jobe and got another CT. This one to facilitate the planning on my T3 met.

When I left the room after my session, my images were still up on the computer screens. I asked Patty what they were. She showed me my hips, my femurs. A blue grid with small squares over lay the area just away from my left hip. On the grid were brown marks. The points the Cyberknife uses to follow the medical physicist’s plan.

I’m at the start of this journey, ending now on April 19th. Probably eight sessions in all. I don’t know what might occasion another session or two.

 

Doug has begun painting my bedroom. The final piece of his work. He may finish today. Furniture rearranging after. Then some time to take art out, find the right places for various pieces. After that some help to hang it.

 

Tara’s house, 6060 Kilimanjaro Road, accessed off Jungfrau Drive, overlooks Mt. Blue Sky (formerly Mt. Evans). A steep driveway that I would not want to have to plow or have plowed. But a beautiful location.

The seder began at 4 pm. I left at 8:30. Tara presided over a teaching seder. Being the former director of religious education at CBE. We retold the Exodus story. Learned the symbolism of the objects on the Seder plate. Dipped parsley in salt water and ate it. The tears of oppression. Put horseradish, maror, on matzah and tasted the bitterness of slavery.

Every year Jews not only celebrate, but relive the experience of the Exodus. The moment of their birth as a free people.

Powerful.