Category Archives: Fourth Phase

Aging, Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Garden, Greenhouse, Health, Politics, US History, World History

Embarrassed to Admit

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: CBE. Men’s group. Carol. Paul. The Greenhouse. Door and windows framed in. Seed order from Seed Saver’s Exchange has arrived. Ordered garden tools. Shabbat. Shadow, the tender. Israel. Iran. Lebanon. Palestinians. Saudi Arabia. Mark in Al Kharj. Jordan. Syria. Egypt. Iraq. Kuwait. The Emirates. War. Peace. Morning darkness. Waning gibbous Greenhouse Moon.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cool Mountain Breeze

Week Kavannah: Bitachon. Confidence.  “A feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s abilities or qualities.”

One brief shining: In a world scarred by war and diminished by autocrats daily life goes on, trips to the grocery store, conversations with friends, feeding the dog, until of course it does not. Or, cannot.

 

My Seeds arrived. Heirloom varieties all. A nod to the Seed Saver’s among us, purchased from the Seed Saver’s Exchange near Decorah, Iowa. The Greenhouse will finish up next week. With the addition of soil to the three raised beds I will get started planting.

With Shadow by my side I’ll return to the Andover/Kate years of Dogs and Gardens. At least in part. No Bees this time. No Orchard. No Kate. Still. Co-creation. Tending the soil. Weeding, nurturing seedlings. Harvesting. Eating. The true transubstantiation.

Once again direct engagement with the Great Wheel’s blessings of Rain and Sun, Night and Day, growing season and fallow time.

When Nathan finishes, I’m going to have Rabbi Jamie and maybe some friends over to hang a mezuzah on its door, bless it. Artemis.

 

Living with pain: Embarrassed to admit it. Halle suggested setting my alarm for an hour. Then, get up and spend five minutes moving around. Embarrassed for three reasons: 1. Halle can’t be more than twenty-five. 2. I’ve read, know about this life hack. 3. It reveals how much I sit these days.

Even so. When the student is ready, the teacher arrives. Halle, in spite of her youth, is my teacher. I’ve been doing this hack for the last two days and it really helps. Keeps the hips and legs lubricated plus I get something done.

Just now I went outside and played the stop, drop, turn and move on game with Shadow. Called her a few times. Five minutes well spent.

Next five minutes I’ll make breakfast. Will take longer than five minutes but that’s fine. Perhaps after breakfast, I’ll read for an hour, then at the five minute break head up to the loft to continue my painting that I started a week ago.

All easy enough. Yet habit and mood have kept me in my chair for too long for too long.

 

Just a moment: We’ve passed out of the world hegemon era to one of regional conflicts. Russia trying to assert itself in the old Soviet Bloc. Israel attacking all of its Shia enemies. China advancing its navy into the South China Sea, claiming once and always Taiwan. The renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.

A world of regional powers rather than a global one (or, two) is unstable. Many flashpoints. Iran. Ukraine. Island chains near Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan.

 

Dogs, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Politics

It’s Survivable

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Friday gratefuls: Halle. P.T. Rain. Thunder. Overhead. Shadow. Her protection of her territory. The Greenhouse: door and windows framed in, rafters up. Nathan. Vince. The Jangs. Fatherhood. My son. Seoah. Israel. Iran. Red tie guy. Jim Butcher. Fully leafed Aspens. Lodgepole Pollen. Yellow, yellow, yellow.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fawns, calves, kits, cubs

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: Alert, front paws on the head of the bed, the danger detector Shadow looked out over the backyard, her lean muscled body ready, there: bark, bark, bark, bark, bark. 1:15 am

 

Dog journal: Shadow came inside. Her outside work done. The Doe had left the yard. She seemed happy to see me, to be back inside. Last night, as she has for previous nights, she crawled up on the bed, only to look out the window.

And what to her wandering eyes should appear. Lots of Trees and, another Mule Deer? Whatever it was, it needed warning. Get out of my yard. Right now. At least she was inside the tent barking out, rather than outside barking in.

Shadow.

 

Israel/Iran: Netanyahu survived a close vote in parliament. Next step? Bomb Iran. I understand the attack on Iran and its nuclear program. One nuclear weapon could take out Jerusalem.

I also understand that for the first time in several decades Hezbollah no longer threatens northern Israel as it once did. Hamas has suffered degradation in the forever war in Gaza. The Houthis have taken strikes from both the U.S. and Israel. This means that the Iranian proxy armies no longer have the punchback power they did a year ago.

Yes, I get all that. But what about a year from now? Two years? Ten? Israel has become an aggressor state, no longer acting only in its own defense. The Arab states will remember. Will plan. Will fight back. Perhaps not now, but later? It’s a certainty.

Better to have brokered peace deals with the Emirates, the Sauds, Jordan, the new regime in Syria, maybe even Egypt.

Now the way forward lies littered with bomb craters, terror attacks, regional tensions remaining high. This is not a victory. It’s a powerful statement, yes, but only one statement in a centuries long dispute. The only way out is peace.

 

Just a moment: I asked Halle, my p.t. therapist, if she would miss the Mountains. She leaves for Dallas in August.

Her smile lit up, “I sure will. But if I want to preserve my tax status I have to leave for four or five months. I’ll be back in January for snowboarding!” Something about choosing a tax home and the rules for traveling nurses, physical therapists.

Halle’s parents were up here last weekend. That’s when she found out about her grandfather’s prostate cancer. He’s in his mid-eighties. Most likely they won’t treat him.

I told her to tell him two things: it’s survivable and he has lots of company.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Greenhouse, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors

“I’m Getting Fat!”

Leave a comment

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.

 

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health

A Splendid Beltane So Far

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Alan. Diane. Tom. Paul. Jamie. Luke and Leo. Tara. Halle. Natalie. Shadow, my Shadow. Kate, always Kate. Morning darkness. Great Sol and the Dawn. Mother Earth. Beltane, the growing season underway. My uprooted Lodgepole. Still leaning. Morrison Inn. Bear Creek Canyon. Kittredge. Evergreen. Conifer.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow

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: Parking becoming expensive in  our little Mountain towns like Morrison and Evergreen, even street parking now five dollars an hour in Evergreen, two fifty in Morrison, fine for the Denver touristas, I suppose, but pricey for those of us for whom these quaint places are where we shop and dine during the week.

 

Dog journal: Once again I woke up and Shadow had curled up next to me sometime in the night. We’re moving at a quicker pace now, Shadow and me. Still matters to resolve, but so much more positive. Thanks, Natalie

 

Oh: My back and leg pain seems to have calmed down to some extent. Could have been, in part, stress about the cancer/pain nexus. Not sure. Driving still exacerbates my left side sciatica. So much so that even short drives now wear me out.

Hope the SPRINT device can knock that one out. As with Shadow, better, but not there yet.

 

Cancer: Feeling as light about this as I have in a year. Last year, when Kristie transferred my care to Dr. Bupathi, she also set me up with a radiology oncologist, Dr. Lincoln. When seeing him, he said I was hormone resistant. That’s the downhill slope of Stage 4 prostate cancer.

I left that visit shaken, since he said any radiation he would do would have no real purpose.

Then, Kristie told me that she didn’t diagnose hormone resistance unless the PSA went up on two drugs, not just one. The visit in which I would learn my PSA while on both Erleada and Orgovyx, Bupathi’s lab screwed up and didn’t have a result. Sent me down a rabbit hole of uncertainty. Took a while to get back to level.

Then, Bupathi wanted the MRI of my hip and the new PET scan. Put me right back down the rabbit hole.

Now though, with those imaging tests behind me and with positive results I feel like I’m in as good a place as I can be. A long bout of uncertainty which coincided with the Shadow experience, also stressful for me.

Add in back and leg pain. First six months of 2025 not joyful. The SPRINT device, if it works, will relieve the primary focus of my days: chronic pain.

Shadow has begun to soften, to let go of her trauma induced fears. Soon, maybe as soon as today, we’ll have her on a leash.

Cancer. Back and leg pain. Shadow. All in or moving toward marked improvement. All in the same week. Odd. But appreciated. I’m recognizing the good here.

Nathan laid in the greenhouse foundation yesterday and starts construction of the frame today. June’s shaping up to be a good month all round.

Oh, and my two classes. New story class finished last week. Radical Roots of Religion finishes tomorrow.

What will l do with the new energy? Paint. Write. Hike a bit. Read more. Reconsider travel to Korea if the SPRINT device works.

Asia, Colorado, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Travel

A Dog. A Family.

Leave a comment

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.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics

Recognize the Good. And, the Bad

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Shadow, eater of window cranks. My son and his first week in his new job. Seoah working on the family farm. Guess who’s coming to America: the Jangs! Aug. 1-7. The Morning Service. SPRINT.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Canes

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: Days of needed rest after a couple of weeks in this machine, then another, seeing this doctor, then another, driving with a left hip that would rather complain than be helpful, days of leaning into positive news, good news, feeling relief, joy, satisfaction, shabbat for sure, these days of awe.

 

Pain/Cancer coda: In the day after my news I owned a conflation I’d made. A putting together, even though conjectural, of my back and hip pain and my cancer. Natural since my oncologist wanted the MRI to see if I had new cancer in my hips.

However. It also meant that with each twinge of pain from my back and legs a secondary specter emerged. My cancer had spread, gone to the bone, and I was in for a long, slow miserable death. I didn’t believe this. But I couldn’t not believe it either.

I know correlation is not causation, but sometimes, when the pain comes from the same region where my cancer originated, for example, it’s hard to suspend a conclusion, to not skip right ahead to the obvious.

Now that I know this is not the case, thanks to the imaging, I feel much lighter, as if I have life ahead of me rather than endurance and suffering. Facts, contrary to the current political zeitgeist, can set us free.

Thank you for listening over these last few weeks.

 

Just a moment: Crushing Latinos and allies protesting draconian immigration enforcement. Using the National Guard under a law allowing the President to deploy them to quell rebellion.

Here’s a direct quote from an NYT article:

“Mr. Trump’s directive said, “To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”” NYT

Read that again. If a protest blocks a street, diverts traffic, or should, say, walk on both lanes of a bridge outside Selma, Alabama that can be considered an act of rebellion.

This is not a President enforcing Civil Rights laws; no, this is a President holding the fire hose with Bull O’Connor, standing on the steps of the Alabama capital with George Wallace, holding an axe handle with Lester Maddox.

This is the same as using faux actions against anti-Semitism to punish East Coast Universities.

Orwell called it double-speak. It is real and may be coming to a town or an issue near you.

 

Here’s another quote from the same pages of the NYT: “Southern Baptists plan to vote this week on acting to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage 10 years ago this month.” NYT

Jesus Christ. WWJD. Come on. Let’s explore that great commandment: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Of course, what’s on display here really is a group of folks who cannot love themselves due to all the guilt wanting to take love from people who don’t feel guilty for who they are. Put that in your DEI pipe.

 

 

 

 

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Mussar, Wild Neighbors

Grading Life on the U curve

1 Comment

Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Diane. Shadow. On the bed. Ethical concerns about her. Back and leg pain. SPRINT. MRI. PET scan. Kylie. Ruth in Alaska. Gabe reading. Mary in Seoul. Guru in K.L. Mark in Al Kharj. His summer school job. Shadow Mountain Rain. Cool night. Halle. Good at her job.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Natalie

Week Kavannah: Wholeness and Peacefulness. Schleimut. Not in spite of but with pain

One brief shining: Shadow I call not even seeing her Shepherd’s lantern white tipped tail and she comes, full speed, mouth open in a wide smile, her legs barely touching the ground. Good girl.

 

Unrelenting stories of pain and suffering. Not material designed to keep readers coming back. Let’s engage shleimut today and find our wholeness and peace with it, but without focusing on it.

Our lives, all of our lives, experience sine waves of calm, anxiety, gracious acceptance, and tense rejection of circumstances. There is no stable mood. We travel in a bath of feelings, some felt, some repressed, all having their moment to stand with our consciousness, color the terrain.

Natalie says scent adds color to a dog’s world. In the same way feelings add color to our inner lives. Give it snap and rustle. Pop. No such thing as a bad feeling. Only a poor response to it. Also like the weather. No such thing as bad weather. Just inadequate gear.

On the U curve we sink toward middle years of career stress, family complexity, striving, only to rise toward death with acceptance of our limitations, our inability to change the past, a broader understanding of joy, and what constitutes shleimut for us.

A wonderful thing. Good news for the human spirit. Perhaps a long and strong message to all ages.

What is the message? That life’s purpose does not lie at the office. That family can and does heal, provide a backstop. That friends and companion animals matter. That the world is trustworthy. That pain and illness are always temporary.

 

As we learn these messages on our upward journey toward death our end gains context, breadth and depth. We move forward through aging with short intakes of breath as we realize our family loves us. Our friends complete us. That life’s purpose is found in living, not in dogma or ideology. That death is valuable, not awful.

Once we embrace these learnings we can take in the various insults our body suffers and know them for what they are.

 

Fourth Phase, Health

Not the Monk’s Simplicity? Or, is it?

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Jamie. Radical roots of religion. Shadow. Rain. Chilly night again. Wind. Natalie. MVP. Hip and back pain. Shirley Waste. Buddy Ode on Youtube. Halle, the traveling physical therapist. A sweet gal. Tara. Ruth in Alaska. The Commander. Seoah. Murdoch. Mary and Mark. Diane.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: PET Scan

Week Kavannah: Wholeness and Peacefulness. Shleimut. Integrating pain into my daily life. Accepting it all and being grateful for it.

One brief shining: Once more into the metal and plastic breach, my son, to see what can’t be seen with the eyes of nature, this time positronic emission tomography enhanced with a radio isotope that binds to prostate cancer cells flowing through my circulatory system as I lay on the moving bed, pushed slowly through the donut, too warm, yet handling it.

 

Cancer and back pain: I know. A steady drumbeat. This pain. That scan. This doc. That one. This last two weeks has been…oh, how do you say it? A bit much.

I’m not alone. Friends seeing docs a lot, too. Cardiologists. Nephrologists. Oncologists. Pain docs. Life in the retired lane replaces work with hospitals, medical clinics. Imaging with and without contrast. Expensive drugs.

Friday morning should reveal the latest. Do I have more metastases? If so where are they? In my hip? Am I qualified now for the SPRINT device? Telehealth.

Current observation. Chronic pain, which most of us will never know, clouds each day, marks a path filled with things, formerly done with ease, rendered literally out of reach.

It reaches into even the quiet places, tires us out, makes us want to live very simply. No unnecessary, triggering movements. No unnecessary upsets. Things like water in a dog’s bowl. Taking the trash out to the street. Standing and cooking. Each one a calculation of desire versus pain. This is not the monk’s simplicity. Or, is it? Maybe the lesson here is paring down life to its necessities. Doing less, with less. Maybe pain has a spiritual lesson about shleimut, wholeness and peacefulness. Or, maybe it’s just pain.

Wore my Los Alamos t-shirt purchased for my 35 sessions of radiation. Danger Radioactive Material with the familiar three yellow hash marks and the circle in the middle. Waited for 50 minutes with the lights turned down low as the 68Ga-PSMA-11 tracer wound its way through my blood system hunting for the PSMA protein.

Laid down. Covered up. Over the next twenty minutes moved slowly through the machine. Palm trees in the ceiling tiles at both openings. Sending me to Hawai’i and my days with my son and Seoah there.

The hour long drive to the PET Scan clinic another exercise in pain management. Singing out loud helps. I don’t look forward to drives of almost any length. Sciatica makes each time in the car a bit of the inquisition with not even its twisted purpose as a rationale.

This has been a difficult couple of weeks. Too much pain. Too much medical scrutiny. Too many unresolved questions.

There have been highlights. Shadow and our hugs, her happiness. Tara driving me to the open-sided MRI. Natalie’s careful, expert work. Nathan’s getting things ready. Rereading the Dresden Files novels. Morning prayers. Rain to dampen the Forests and swell the Creeks.

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Humanities

Oh, It Lifts

1 Comment

Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: The Morning Service. Our God, life of all the worlds who makes firm a person’s step. Jamie. Tara. Natalie. Caroline. Shadow. The Greenhouse. Nathan. Alan in Las Vegas. Rich in P.R. MVP next week. Morning darkness, then dawn. Then Great Sol in a blue Colorado Sky. Yet more Rain. Spine Ranch Fusion. Tandoori Chicken. Gulab Jamun. CuTO salad and Garlic naan.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A Clear Day

Week Kavannah: Wholeness and Peacefulness. Shleimut. Integrating pain into my daily life.

One brief shining: Natalie, skilled and kind dog trainer, goes on youtube to find out how to do her own brakework, when she has engine trouble; she also mentioned cutting a notch in my dying tree so it could fall over on its own, and knows the work of Minnesotan David Mech on wolves.

 

Dog journal: If you live in a bookish world, surrounded by bookish people, it’s easy to forget or ignore other intelligences. Like BJ, Pamela, and Sarah who used string instruments to reveal theirs. Or. Natalie’s treat bag, her experience with many dogs. Or Nathan’s carpentry and his aesthetic sense. Or Caroline’s empathy.

I’m so grateful to have found others with intelligences that complement my journey, make it richer, easier, more full. Transactional relationships at first, yes, all. During and after, at least more than casual acquaintances. Shared worlds. Recognition of the other’s value.

Shadow and I continue to hug. She zooms and smiles outside, a happy young puppy. Natalie has changed our life together from one of cautious wariness to companionship. Natalie also got a leash on her and walked with her yesterday.

The next unsolved problem? Thresholds. So she’ll come inside and let me close the door. Preferable when it’s cold.

 

Cancer: Had my first therapy session with Caroline Merz, a Princeton and Washington University (her Ph.D.) trained psychologist. She specializes in geriatrics and cancer.

This was our first session and it was a listening session for her as she heard my “unique life story and how aging and illness have affected me.”

It surprised me, but I felt teary almost the whole way through. At a couple of points I did cry and later I cried (after the session was over) about Rigel, now long dead. Chewy, the pet food folks, sent me a rock with a rainbow and Rigel’s name on it.

I’m alone but not lonely. Yes, true. I’m neither afraid of cancer or death. True. However, since Kate’s death and in spite of my friends and family, I carry the psychic burden of responding to loss and pain and disease mostly alone. I can and do carry it.

There is, however, a price. Hard to describe. A sort of Atlas thing where it rests on my shoulders, bearing down, not pushing me to the ground, not making me depressed, but always there, a weighty presence.

The tears are about this, I know. A response to even the momentary sharing of the burden. Oh, it lifts. The relief wells up and expresses itself through release.

Reverend Doctor Israel Herme Harari

Denver, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health

Treatment

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan’s birthday. Shadow and her hugs. Tara and her friendship. Ativan. Open-sided MRI. Denver. Pain docs. Oncologists. Back and leg pain. Cancer. Rain. Cool morning. Tara’s Volt. Greenhouse underway. Nathan. Natalie. Shadow Mountain Home. Cookunity.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow

Week Kavannah: Zerizut for p.t. and resistance.

One brief shining: Once again into the not-so-welcoming maw of an open-sided MRI machine, this time fortified with 1 mg of Ativan and Tara’s hand, the same stocky tech; the pounding began as Lorentz forces pulsed through the machine, investigating, in a deep way, the tissues and bone of my hips.

 

Cancer and backpain: Second round. First round in March for my lumbar spine. This round checking for metastases in my hip joint and providing information for placement of the SPRINTS nerve stimulator, the next move for back and leg pain.

Metastases would be bad news, requiring some change in my treatment protocols. My gut tells me that’s not what this is, but important to know. And if that’s not it, I can turn to care of my back pain, continuing my usual treatments for cancer.

That would mean more attention to physical therapy, resistance, and cardio work. I need to do that anyhow of course. My reluctance has become a pattern, a habit. Not a good one. How to fix it?

Perhaps my participation in the Sloan-Kettering cancer counseling trial will help. I think some of my reluctance to get back to my former regular exercise habits lies in a what’s the point attitude? Gonna die anyhow. I do not approve of this attitude at a conscious level yet my inactions points to assent to it at a deeper level in my psyche.

I start this trial today at 1pm. A local therapist and I will have the first of 8 full sessions. I don’t recall the intervals right now.

Comes at a good time for me. Been wondering about the inner adaptations I’ve made. Most of them helpful, adaptive, some not. Seems normal.

 

Friends: Tara came on time in the Saltzman Volt. I gathered up my two Ativan tablets, my wallet for taking care of the co-pay, and my fleece for the cool Mountain mid-day.

We drove off, leaving Ruby at home since driving her on Ativan would not be good. For her. For me. For other drivers. At the Hogbacks, where the High Plains meet the Front Range I popped the first tablet. Waited. Nothing much happening so I popped the second one well before we reached Denver.

Tara and I talked about kids, hers and mine, grandkids, mine. About back and neck pain. She has both. About mussar. CBE. About traveling. Tara’s a world traveler, often solo. Her next big trip is to Namibia. African Wildlife and a world class beach.

Tara and I are especially close. She tutored me on Hebrew for my bar mitzvah. I’ve gone to her house twice for passover and several other times. She brought Eleanor, her puppy, over to play with Shadow. I’ve known Tara since Kate and mine’s first night at CBE.