Category Archives: Aging

Aging, Woolly Mammoths

Minute Men

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We sat, the four of us, old and getting older by the minute men, at a round table just like the one from Arthur’s court, poorly lit but filled with food and drink. (water)  The conversation ranged from a recent retiree wondering if he should be working on what he should do next or should he wait until the summer thinking deadline (self-imposed) had passed to the possible toxic effects of too much boron in the soil.

(Caspar David Friedrich, Stages of Life, 1835)

The herd goes its separate ways, especially in the summer months, so our monthly restaurant meetings are sometimes sparsely attended.  This one had Scott, Bill, Warren and me to carry on the conversation, now exceeding 25 years in length about our lives, our feelings, what’s showing up for us right now.

Aging, Art and Culture, Faith and Spirituality, Feelings, Health, Music, Woolly Mammoths

It Won’t Be Long Now

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Beltane                                                                        Early Growth Moon

A poignant and salient answer to how to live the third phase came from an 18 year old Minnesotan, Zach Sobiech, who died yesterday of bone cancer.  Not much of a conversationalist or a letter writer, Zach’s Mom told him he needed to do something, something that would let people know he was here and leave them memories of him.  Diagnosed with osteosarcoma when he was 14, the cancer did not prevent him from writing and singing songs of his own.

He became an internet viral celebrity with the song, Clouds, downloaded over 3 million times.

Those of us in the third phase understand the challenge Zach faced.  Death was no longer an abstraction, but a certain visitor.  As he says in this song, it won’t be long now.  Oh, we may have 20 years or 30 years, compared to his 4, but the link is the moment when you come to know this life ends.  For good and for ever.

(Alphonse Osbert – Les chants de la nuit.)

How did he respond?  He dug into the riches of his Self, shrugged off the self-pity and depression, and turned those feelings into art.  This is the best and healthiest way to greet the coming of the Sickle Bearer.  Find out who you are.  Find out what best expresses your journey, the ancientrail that has been, is, your life.  Then open up that expression, put it outside yourself for the rest of us to learn from, to cherish, to embrace.  Because it won’t be long now.

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Health

Walking Upright in the World

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Spring                                                                         Planting Moon

Let me describe, before it gets away from me, submerged in the always been, how exciting and uplifting it was to realize I was walking across the floor at Carlson Toyota.  Just walking.  Putting one foot in front of the other.  No flinching, no torquing to keep things stable.  Just. Walking.

When we return to normalcy after a period of illness or trauma, there is a transition period, a time of grace if we take it, which can offer us a reminder about the wonder of the every day.  To walk across a floor with no pain, to walk as one is used to doing.  So powerful.

In fact, I took as my motto Walking Upright in the World reflecting back on the fact that I had to relearn to walk at the age of 2 and honoring that 2 year old guy for the gift of a normal, usually unregarded capacity to do that.

So much of what we do is really a wonder.  Take grasping and holding.  Typing on a keyboard.  Lifting objects from the ground to over our heads.  Breathing.  Yes, think about breathing.  Only to inhale is not enough to sustain life.

Sitting.  Standing.  Eating.  All wonders, wonders often, perhaps usually, revealed only when they disappear from our repertoire either temporally or permanently.

So take a moment today and celebrate the walk.  The jump.  The high five.  The low bow.

Congratulations!

Aging, Feelings, Third Phase

Ruts and Graves

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Spring                                                                            Planting Moon

 

The only difference between a grave and rut are the dimensions.  Oh?  At least when you’re in a rut you can still breathe.  Breathing means hope.  Nothing definite, for sure, but hope.

This cliche points at a perceived truth, that being stuck in sameness is a living death.  And you can certainly how that might be true.  Work at a convenience store, come home, warm up a tv dinner, grab a beer, fall asleep in the recliner.  Get up and do it again.

Or drive into the city, park the expensive car in the expensive parking slot ride the elevator up to a posh office, direct, command, leave and drive the expensive car home to the expensive house.  Get up and do it again.

Sure.  That can mean a restricted, narrowed way of greeting this vast opportunity called life.  But.  People like me find certain routines soothing, they pave the way for creative activity, for hard concentration.  Routines allow the needs to be taken care of.  That way the non-routine acts of writing, scholarship, thinking, close looking and reading can happen on their own rhythms.

I like the bowl of fruit, some cottage cheese and a tomato in the morning, reading the paper, having some tea, then heading downstairs to start work.  I suppose you could call that a rut, the food boring, the repetition bland, I find it nourishing and centering.  You say cereal, I have tomato.

My opinion?  Pick your routines and habits carefully, make sure they support the things you do that matter the most, not the other around.  Then reinforce them as much as you can.  If you’re like me, that is.

Aging, Dogs, Family, Music

Jazz Noir

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Spring                                                                        Planting Moon

“Creativity is the social act of the solitary person.”  William Butler Yeats

Reading the book about introverts, Quiet, will help you see why.  Even if you’re not an introvert, reading this book is a good introduction to the world of those of us who prefer alone time, find crowds and parties taxing, would like time to mull over decisions.

Part of what was so stressful for me with the Kona situation and the back pain was that I had to go to the vet with her three days in a row, meaning I increased my regular interaction with outsiders by multiples.  That tires me out.  Even on a good day.

Right now Kate’s upstairs doing the cross-word and watching the dogs, the back pain is much better this morning, probably the result of the prednisone and I’m down here in the study getting ready to get back to work.

 

We have a jazz weekend planned with Craig Taborn at the Walker tonight and Jazz Noir at the Artist’s Quarter on Sunday night.  Taborn is a Golden Valley kid who has made a big name for himself as a jazz pianist and an ensemble player flavored by Miles Davis in his Bitches Brew phase.   Jazz Noir is a radio play being broadcast live at the 8 pm hour over KBEM.

“For those who long for “the grand old days” of radio, Jazz88 has answered the call. Jazz Noir is a new original radio series complete with live radio actors and jazz ensemble in front of a studio audience, just like in the days of radio’s infancy.

(Avon–Latisha White)

Jazz88’s first episode is an original drama, Charles & Avon, that will be performed, recorded and broadcast in front of a live audience from the Artists’ Quarter in downtown Saint Paul on Sunday, April 28, with shows at 5 and 8 p.m. The 8 p.m. performance will be broadcast live on 88.5 FM.”

Aging, Health, Third Phase

Ah. He said.

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Spring                                                                       Planting Moon

I apologize for the long series of posts on my back and my shoulder and my angst.  In part they come because this blog has replaced my long habit of keeping written journals, so you get what happens, if you’re a reader here.

In part they come because they track my progress (regress?  slide?  decline?) into the later years when the body repairs itself less quickly.  In part they come, mostly they come, because they are what is foremost to me at the moment.

Still, I know such posts can turn off readers who also suffer from their aches and pains, their own flurries of difficult to handle matters, their own angst.  All I can say is that this an ancientrail, too, one followed by so many, most, maybe, probably by all.  So it is not about me I write, but us inflected at the moment by an Oklahoma born, Indiana raised, Minnesota preferred man and his 66 year old body.

Though my back feels somewhat better I am now weary, tired from the last week plus, probably allowing myself to be tired because Kate’s on her way home.  Now I will be able to  focus on recovering, not recovering, reinjuring and managing.  Looking forward to it.

Aging, Dogs, Health

In Other Medical News

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Spring                                                                                   Planting Moon

Knobby is now knobless.  She ate well last night and this morning. went outside on the leash, front and back, has a spark in her eye.  All good to see, especially the day after a significant procedure.

In other medical news I feel small signs of improvement in the back.  Not enough to hop back on the treadmill, but some.  My in house doc prescribed prednisone for four days, a course I started yesterday.  And, of course, the tincture of time.

I feel less woozy today, less out of it.  That feels really good.  Along with the sun, Kona’s improvement and my back’s, that’s enough to push the needle back into the good headed toward joyful segment of the dial.

A fun trip into the ophthalmologist, then a quiet afternoon and evening.  Sounds perfect to me.

 

Aging, Dogs, Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Cancer in the morning, the numinous in the afternoon

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Spring                                                                                 Planting Moon

Got up with the sun this morning, needing to pick up Kona between 7:00 and 7:30 am in Blaine.  Having the sun out and being up early both put my mood into high in spite of the significant cash outlay for Kona’s needed care.

Imagine my surprise when I looked at the weather report.  6-8 inches of new snow.  Tonight!  Then, maybe 70 by the weekend.  OMG!

Had Kona over at the vets by 9:40 am where I got the good news that her heart murmur has disappeared and the bad news that her tumor was cancerous.  Kate was in the room from Denver, Colorado via Verizon wireless and my Droid phone.  We discussed the options with Roger and decided to go ahead, as I wrote below, to have it removed.

Back home.  Nap.  A long nap since my back, unconvinced by the meds and the rests I’d taken, continued to ouch.  A lot.  Couldn’t take the best meds because I had to drive out to Stillwater, then into St. Paul and home after that.

Stillwater was the bee pickup.  My two pound package of Italian hygienics are now buzzing on top of the dryer in the basement.  I sprayed them with sugar water, will do so again before bed, once more in the morning, then again just before I hive them around 6 pm tomorrow.  That way they have full tummies when hived and are less likely to go adventuring. Which would serve no good purpose right now anyhow.  I had planned to hive them tonight, but the snow.  Comes down hard and wet right now.

St. Paul was to see John Desteian, my longtime Jungian analyst, I started to see him in 1986 or ’87 and saw him for a long time after my divorce from Raeone.  I’ve seen him off and on over the years, last in 2006.

I want to see what I’m trying to tell myself through my dreams of loss and being lost.  As I imagined, we headed in the general direction of faith, though not retrieving a lost faith so much as redefining faith, Reimagining Faith, in light of the pagan, existentialist, flat-earth metaphysics of my current world view.

As always, John asked the good questions.  Pointed me, this time, toward an essay by Heidegger called “The Last God” and understanding the essence of the numinous.  I’ll have a month to ponder that since my next appointment is on May 23rd.  He’s been a useful, valued guide and Jung my chief spiritual adviser.  Sounds like that run will continue.

Back home to an oxycodone, spraying the bees with the sugar water, crating the dogs and relaxing.  Quite the day.  Cancer in the morning, the numinous in the afternoon.  A lesson there.

Oh.  Had a vicarious feeling of pride when I learned John now runs an international training institute for Jungian analysts based in Zurich, the Mecca and Jerusalem of Jungian thought.  Here’s the link.

 

 

 

Aging, Dogs, Health, Third Phase

Help!

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Spring                                                                             Planting Moon

Kona will have her tumor removed tomorrow.  Roger Barr, our vet, says it is cancerous, which surprised me because she’s been so sturdy and active in spite of the tumor.  A chest x-ray though showed no metastases, a good thing.  We’ve opted to remove though the emergency vet bill and the removal costs will debulk our capital reserves.  Which means we’ll have to find a way to build them back up again.

After our appointment with Dr. Barr, I tried to lift Kona up into the Rav4.  Usually, no problem.  I can lift her 40 pounds. However.  Last week I wrenched my back cleaning out the bee hives in readiness for the new package, which I will pick up today.  As I struggled with what would have been an easy task, a woman came along and asked me if I needed help, “Yes.  I do.”

Between us we got Kona up on the blanket in the back.

“Her and me, we’re doing it together.” I said, nodding toward Kona, “Thanks.”

“Bless you,” she said.

I recount this conversation because it reminded me of a third phase thought.  A thought important for an all men’s group like the Woollies.  We must learn how to recognize when we need help, how to ask for it and how to graciously receive it.  It’s not easy for me to ask for help and I imagine many of us are the same.  As we age, infirmity and illness will increase the probability, the likelihood that we will need the help of others.  Fellow Woollies.  Family.  Other friends.  Medical professionals and home health care assistants.

Aging, Retirement, Third Phase, Woolly Mammoths

Third Phase: Woolly Report

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Spring                                                                          Planting Moon

Kate reports in from Denver that 8″ of snow has fallen there with more on the way.

Woollies tonight at chez Schmidt.  A great beef stew, salad and pre dinner conversation.

We discussed the retreat, a topic often fraught with indecision and uncertainty.  We buzzed around some important areas for us all, among them:  elders (what does it mean and what does it mean for us?), the third phase (what are the Woollies in this new and substantially different aspect of our lives?), the differing realities of aging for men and women (wives and the relationship, how it might change), death (as Regina’s death brought right up close, this is a time when mortality is even more of a companion than before.  What does this suggest for how we live?).

In essence we agreed that since these topics are on our minds and hearts, present to us right now, that we will talk about them during the retreat without need of particular structure.  Some offered to bring movies, others suggested art galleries and other outings.

Sitting on the rocks by the lake seemed to have a part in everyone’s plan.