Category Archives: Fourth Phase

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.

 

 

 

Cooking, Denver, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Gabe at 15

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Spring and the Mesa View Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Gabe. Levi. Seyo. Benihana. My family of Ancient Brothers. Especially our brother, Tom, and his daughter Amber. Books. Magazines. Newspapers. The Atlantic. The New Yorker. MIT Technology Review. High Country News. Paonia. LBM’s. Psychonauts. BJ. Her political awareness. Radical days. Passionate nights. 5 inches of new Snow. Ice on the roads.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gabe at 15

One brief, shining moment: Three teenage boys giggling, sharing silly photos of each other on their phones, punches and smirks, cause he’s a little bitch said by one, celebrating Gabe’s 15th at Benihana, Gabe’s idea of fine dining, all while escorted by grandpa who it turns out was 15 in 1962.

 

That was yesterday evening. Gabe loves Benihana. The grill. The flash of the cooks. Who flip cut off shrimp tails into their caps and pockets. Clatter the cutlery on the huge grill, the hibachi. Cook with a certain flare but really with a weak imitation of knife work in an upscale kitchen. With ingredients purchased in bulk. And cooked to, well, let’s just say not perfection. Gabe loves the food, too.

Peeking inside the lives of teenage boys now, almost voyeurism. Three of them, one old guy. Safely ignored. Talking about friendship groups. Who’s cool, but mostly who’s not. Like Abraham who brought cookies to the teacher. Suck up. Who expected more but all he got was a thank you. Chick-fil-a. That’s where the white boys go for lunch. While the baseball boys chose a different spot.

Girls inhabited the fringes of the conversation. Still mysterious and unknowable. I tried, but she said we were friends. Yeah. I’m friends with so and so, too.

Mostly a lot of giggling, faux arm wrestling, looking at their phones, then passing them around. Shooting a closeup of somebody’s eye or hair line or ear. Texting that back to the one in the photo.

When I dropped Gabe off at his Galena street home, Jen’s house, he said, “That was fun, Grandpa. I love you.”

 

Got back to Shadow Mountain around 10. Late night for me. Especially considering I went to the Grateful Dead shabbat the night before for Kate’s yahrzeit. Today is busy, too, but daytime busy. Israel trip info at 1:30, then Dismantling Racism class starts at 3.

 

Looking forward to a quieter week. Putting all season tires back on Ruby on Tuesday. Just when we’re supposed to get our next snowstorm. It’s always a judgment call. Late April, early May. Usually a little overlap on both ends of winter. Good news is that early season and late season storms melt quickly.

 

The Ancient Brothers on reading. We read. A lot. Stacks of books. At a time. Magazines and newspaper. Some dead tree, some online. The Guardian. The Atlantic. MIT Technology Review. New Yorker. New York Times. Washington Post. A few of the books: A sampler of Meister Eckhart. Slouching Toward Utopia. Why Liberalism Failed. Talking to the Ground. The last CJ Box novel. Many, many more. Reading. I wonder if it’s an old person thing now.

Then I remember Ruth. Who reads. A lot. She once said to me, you’re the only person I know who reads more than me. Kate and Claire Strickland, Michael Banker. Also readers. Not dead yet.

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, Health, Politics

Ancora Imparo

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Spring and the Mesa View Moon

Friday gratefuls: The end of radiation. No more drives to Lone Tree. No more creepy Hal machine up close to my head. Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. Snow on its way. Cold night. Slept well. Kate’s yahrzeit. Recognized at the service tonight. Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. Erleada in the mail. Dreams. The dream group. Next Friday. Ready almost for the threshold. Gabe and the dog treats.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The end of radiation

One brief, shining moment: The intimate assassin took some hits over the last three weeks, suffering under high intensity radiation delivered through the Cyberknife aperture deep into my body, shriveling his forces, perhaps delivering the same death blow he sought for me.

 

Finit. For now. Maybe for good. But cancer has its devices and as Dr. Simpson admits we just don’t know all we need to know. I will not miss the drive to Lone Tree, a freeway adventure from start to finish. Lots of trucks. High speed Colorado pickups expressing their anxiety about life through rapid movement.

Not sure whether it was the radiation or the long drive or the constant reminder that I have cancer but this last three weeks wore me out. Slept 10 hours two nights ago and again last night. Plan to take today and the weekend as lower energy days. Though.

 

Gabe’s big birthday dinner is tomorrow tonight. I got a text from him this morning asking me to clean out some spilled dog treats in the back seat. He’s psyched up as we used to say. Going to Benihana with his friends. And his grandpa.

And. Kate’s yahrzeit is today. 30 Nisan. As the Jewish month of Spring phases into the month of light. I’ll go to the service tonight. Stand for the kaddish in honor of her.

Sunday I’ll be at the synagogue from 1:30 to 4:30. 1:30 is an informational meeting about a trip to Israel in October. At 3 pm I have the first Dismantling Racism class.

Maybe I’ll extend those lower energy days into the next week, come to think of it.

 

James Pogue’s book Chosen Country covers most of the recent rebellions in the West, starting with Clive Bundy’s against BLM restrictions on cattle grazing on  BLM lands. He has a chapter on a miner’s stand against BLM’s finding of noncompliance for his gold mine and cabin. Security organized by the Oath Keepers and III percenters. The book’s focus is the Malheur occupation in Oregon.

After reading Jeff Sharlet’s Undertow, Imami Perry’s South to America, Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve, Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed, Matthew Rose’s  A World After Liberalism, Wes Jackson’s Becoming Native to This Place and dipping into Stephen Wolfer’s The Case for Christian Nationalism, Vibrant Matter by Joan Bennet, Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott, I’m beginning to get a clearer picture of the roiling currents muddying the waters in the U.S. right now. Not ready yet to talk much about what I’m learning, some of it’s still organizing itself in my mind.

I know this much. There is no easy political fix for any of this. Though I do see some possible alliances that might bring folks together in very strange bedfellow ways. More on this to come as I keep reading. Talking.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health

Reminders

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Spring and the Mesa View Moon

Thursday gratefuls: #8 and last radiation session. Diane. Tom. The Ancient Brothers. Kat, who’s reading the book. Kate, my sweet soul companion. Jon, a memory. Breezy. A bit of sway in the Lodgepoles, the Aspen Buds red at Branch tips, waving to their neighbors. Sun bright. Sky blue. Clouds white and fluffy. Resting heart rate down to 63 bpm. Good sleep. Luke, who has the psilocybin. Leo, his dog. Kep, of blessed, sweet memory. Breakfast out. A treat.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Simcha

One brief, shining moment: Simcha-a Hebrew word that always reminds me of the Lion King or Tarzan comic books- means joy, said to be by the sages a spiritual obligation and I wonder how that can be, then how sublime always seeking and finding the wonderful, the awesome, the delightful within and without, what a marvelous way to live!

 

Yesterday I spoke the truth, but it was maybe not the best thing to say. At Anova for #7 radiation. A guy came out in the blue drawstring pants. A slight belly, a round mellow face, taller than me. They’re ready for you. I have to drink more water. Ah. I remember that. How far along? 34  out of 35. But you’ve had this before and you’re back? Yes, it doesn’t always work.

Ooops. This guy’s there with his wife, both wearing Toronto Blue Jay fan shirts. She’s a beauty. Smiling, gray hair. A sort of woman that appeals to me. No makeup. Supporting her guy.

I went on back. Ordered up Patsy Cline. Laid down with the red laser markers converging near my chin as she comes on: I’ve got your class ring that showed you care, and it still looks the same as when you gave it dear, but I’ve got your class ring and she’s got you.

Robocop/Cyberknife/Dalek lurches into position, the apertures click open, click closed. I’m thinking what can I say that will make that less dispiriting.

A lady I don’t know comes back and tells me to wait while she lowers the table. They lift you up as the priests did the omer and lambs in the Second Temple.

On my way out the Toronto Blue Jay is on his feet, ready to become the next one on the altar. Many sacrifices this day.

Hey, dude. I didn’t mean to bum you out. Pointing at myself I said, somebody has to be on the thin end of the bell curve. You’ll fatten up the middle. He and his beautiful wife laughed. Maybe just a bit too much. Did I just reinforce what I’d said? Don’t know. Out of my control. But I did what I needed to.

As these radiation sessions come to an end for me, I realize they’ve taken an emotional toll as well as a physical one. They have been, for three weeks, a reminder that I’m wrestling with what I called earlier the intimate assassin, an assassin that has already breached the castle gate, and waits inside for its moment.

Usually I have these reminders every three months, when I have blood drawn and then visit Kristie or Dr. E. I’ll be glad to go back to that schedule.

 

 

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.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain

Attacked

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: The Cyberknife. Kim and Patti. Ruby. Going for radiation trips again. Ivory, now at home with Ruth. Good sleep. A Mountain Morning, Sun, blue Sky, alert Lodgepoles. Black Mountain. And its ski runs. Marilyn and Irv, brunch at 10. Radiation #6 today. Good workout. That Landice treadmill. Hiking. Burning Bear Creek Trail. An excellent resting heart rate. Perry Mason on HBO Max. James Pogue’s Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: This Day, this Wild and Precious Day. The only one we’ve got.

One brief, shining moment: The Lodgepoles this morning put their best Bark forward, Branches swooped down as always, drinking in the true food, the only food, the radiation that feeds us all wrought in the massive fusion furnace of our not too close, not too faraway Star.

 

Continuing a theme from my Robot Overlords post. Radiation #5 was the first of three targeting my thoracic vertebrae. My third.

It creeped me out. The beak of the Cyberknife’s head, fitted with a camera like aperture that opens and closes with clicking sounds, hovered the whole time near my chin. Aiming beams of radiation from 50 different positions determined by Dr. Simpson and the medical physicist.

Irrational, yes. I felt under attack. Not to the point that I felt actual fear, but it was too close to my head. As long as the beams got aimed at my abdomen, well. I had 35 sessions of experience with that. We protect our heads from harm, both a learned and instinctive response to perceived dangers. Remember duck and cover? Putting hands over your head in case of nuclear radiation from a bomb. See.

Also, I could watch the aperture open and close. What its leaves held back was radiation that spilled in the wrong spot would do me harm. So close to my head.

After a bit of that I closed my eyes and listened to Bob Dylan. Who added this to the mix in my mind:

How does it feel, how does it feel?To be on your own, with no direction homeLike a complete unknown, like a rolling stone

Triggered a moment of self-pity. Yeah. On my own here. Like a complete unknown. Just me and the Cyberknife clicking away. How does it feel? How does it feel?

Self-pity. I prefer self-empathy. Chesed for myself. So with loving kindness I ratcheted myself back from the clicking of the Cyberknife, the feeling of mild dread, and recalled this. I do have a direction home. Back up the hill. To Shadow Mountain and Shadow Mountain Home.

I’m not on my own. I’m being walked home by so many, so many. Family and friends. Wild neighbors. Lodgepole Pines. Aspen. Black Mountain. The Sun. Orion. All those Dogs of blessed memory. This ancientrail we all walk together winds further up the hill until we reach the cloudy summit and disappear into the fine, dark realms. Realms we know not at all because they begin where this world ends.

Oh. BTW. On the way home on Hwy 470 a jet black Escalade passed me. I thought it was a hearse. In big gold Gothic letters on its back window though was this: FUCK CANCER.

 

Aging, Feelings, Fourth Phase

Aging

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Spring and Kepler’s Moon

Monday gratefuls: Gabe and his birthday retinue. My son and his wife. Getting ready to move. Getting old and being old. Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen. Kep, my sweet boy. Freedom to travel. Someday soon. The Ancientbrothers. Our church. Evergreen Market. Stuffed Bell Peppers. Broccoli salad. Bread Lounge Sourdough. Radiation #5 today. CJ Box, one more book.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Acceptance

Caveat to this post. I write from a place of white privilege, of male privilege, of financial stability, and also from a beautiful home in a beautiful place. So take this as the thoughts of an older guy happily situated. And glad that he is.

 

A few thoughts about getting old. 76 is NOT the new 56 or 66 or whatever. 76 is the age I am now. And, how it feels to be 76 is how I feel right now. What I mean is. If I feel strong and capable. If I feel playful. If I feel ready to live each day fully. If I feel tired and sick. If I feel engaged with life. Then that’s how 76 feels for me. Not putting this on anyone else. But I don’t honor my own path if I try to convince myself that not only I do feel like 60, but that this age is the equivalent of how I felt at 60. No. I am who I am at each moment in my life both regardless of and because of my age.

I do not feel like I’m 25 inside. I feel like I’m 76. I also recognize what people mean when they say they’ve felt the same age for a long time. There is a certain agelessness to the Self. But for me rather than tether that feeling to a younger age I acknowledge the Self as an aspect of me, perhaps my soul, that senses both the lived moment and the possibility of eternity.

I want younger folks to know that being old is glorious. A time for reaping the harvest of years. That each age we are is glorious, but old age has a release from the harsh demands of work and ambition as well as a release from the illusion of immortality. This gives life in old age a richness and texture very different from earlier life periods. Its relative brevity focuses us, or can focus us, on the beauty of each experienced moment. The never to be repeated moment that the Japanese tea ceremony calls ichi go, ichi e. Once in a lifetime.

This visit with a friend. That meal with loved family. The hike today. The Sunrise. The colors of Dawn and Dusk. The greeting of a Dog. Even the illness of a wife or a beloved pet. Once in a lifetime. And so, so precious because of that.

This journey, this ancientrail of life. It does not need massaging with the oils of youth. When young, blaze along the trail. When middle aged work and love your children. When old savor the day. And the fact of living. No matter your age or circumstance.

 

One brief, shining moment: I rocked back in my chair holding that book, the one this week that shook my world, made me see our lives in a way as different from what I believed as the hare is from the tortoise.