Category Archives: Family

Cinema and Television, Family, Great Work, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Weekend Stuff

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Summer                                                                      Park County Fair Moon

columbine Black Mtn DrWent to a delightful children’s movie, BFG, with the grandkids. A Spielberg film, it uses CGI as seamlessly as anything I’ve seen. This is a big-hearted movie with childish wonder spilling out all over the place. A Roald Dahl book. The story of an orphan who inadvertently sees a giant deploying dreams. He kidnaps her because she’s seen him. They develop a relationship, one threatened by other giants. Sweet and sad.

Ruth and Gabe were here overnight. Ruth and Jon worked on printmaking in the garage. He’s developing a body of work focused on found objects, metal objects crushed by traffic. He inks them up, then uses a press to transfer the ink to paper. Gabe and I talk because he likes to come up here in the loft and play.

penstemon
penstemon

The staining of the garage is underway. It will look good and last longer when this whole project finishes. The shed and decks, too.

Wandering the back yard now, looking at flowers that grow here with no help. I’m going to gather seeds, then reseed with them in the fall. We have two varieties of penstemon, wild flax, columbine, sulfur flower, indian paintbrush, daisies, shrub roses and a few I haven’t identified. Work with what already likes this soil and this microclimate. Encourage them.

Later in the fall we’ll plant lilacs and more shrub roses in the far back, perhaps some aspen. I want to plant some aspen out front, too.

 

 

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Feelings, Friends, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Fraught

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Summer                                                        Park County Fair Moon

rudbeckia ReynoldsFeeling the pressure of the divorce. So many tensors pulling this way and that. Jon and his understandable anxiety about his immediate and near term future. Kate’s tough position as mother, mother-in-law and grandma. Court hearings with deep consequences. The fate of Ruth and Gabe as their mother and father fight over them. The friable nature of our extended family as it goes through a wrenching alteration, one with permanent implications. Trying to stay centered and available. All difficult.

This is life at its most fraught, perhaps the only analogue being serious illness or an unexpected financial crisis. All of us become frayed, our best persons fighting to remain present, but often submerged in our collective anxiety. A good time for Mussar, the Jewish spiritual practice Kate and I have taken up through Congregation Beth Evergreen.

If there were a red flag warning for families, we’d have one on our flagpole right now.

Yet. The immersion in each others lives at increased intensity also has positive implications. We get to know each other better, perhaps most possible when the day-to-day gets set aside and we become more vulnerable, more accessible. If we listen to our inner life, we have a chance, too, to learn more about ourselves.

A friend going through a difficult period refers to it as graduate school for self-awareness, for learning what truly matters. Yes.

Family, Humanities, Our Land and Home, Politics

Law

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Summer                                                                 Park County Fair Moon

enver Court House Lobby
Denver Courthouse Lobby

All day yesterday two young men from Timberline Custom Painting power washed our two decks, the shed and the garage. They now look clean and bare, ready for the clear stain. The low humidity up here dries wood out, can crack and split it, so wood siding demands care just like a painted surface.

We got the bid back for the bathroom. Ouch. Need to get other bids, other ideas because the one we talked about with Bear Creek Design is more than it makes sense to spend. Part of the process.

The divorce and legal matters continue to roil up family life. Lawyers and courts and judges, decrees and orders. External power, again the state’s coercive authority, enters intimate areas, areas usually outside the pale of government interference. The capacity of the law to circumscribe behavior is chilling, inexorable when it comes down on you or ones you love. Yet, necessary. Common life, especially in a democracy, occurs among individuals with widely varying goals, ethical assumptions and moral positions. Conflict is inevitable and at times the conflict demands mediation, even arrest and imprisonment.

The law, made in assemblies of elected officials, too often reflects the biases and values of a majority, giving bare attention or actual suppression to those less well represented. Think sodomy laws, restrictive abortion regulations, voting measures like reading tests and i.d.’s, Native American reservations. The law is about power and like all things related to power subject to corruption.

 

Colorado, Family, Sport

Take Me Out

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Summer                                                                            Moon of the Summer Solstice

ballgame3Young Tyler, who helped me move slash, plays shortstop for the Conifer High School baseball team. He had to sell Rockies’ tickets as a fund-raiser, so I bought two tickets and took Jon to see the Rockies play the Arizona Diamondbacks.

It felt very American to park, climb out of the underground lot to follow Dads and sons with baseball mitts, intense fans with jerseys of their favorite players, young couples holding hands and pass on-street vendors with cheap coolers filled with bottled water.

The brick facade of Coors Field has a retro feel. Oddly, this twenty-one year old baseball field is the third oldest in the National League.

ballgame4

Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack. A contemporary fillip added to the experience is the presence of metal scanners, uniformed security personnel and small plastic holders for phone and keys. Jihad and the great American past time.

The promenade behind the lower level seats is spacious, dotted with kiosks and vendors:  extreme hotdogs, Denver cheesesteak, Nathan’s kosher hot dogs, Diamond Drygoods, the Smokehouse, Gyros. A man walks past with a mutton-chop beard and a pale purple Rockies’ jersey open over a white t-shirt, its tails almost below his khaki shorts. The smell of funnel cake, roast Elk brats, popcorn blend with the view toward the green, green grass of home…and second and third.

ballgame

Jon came by train, the new rail line to DIA runs near his house and goes in the other direction to the Union Depot near Coors Field. A foot-long hot dog and a Denver cheesesteak later the game was underway.

Baseball is a bit slow for my taste, but the total experience, the people watching and the traditional bits like grounds preparation, the first pitch, people streaming in and out, up and down, the sun setting is worth it once in awhile.

ballgame with Jon

 

 

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Chevra Kadisha

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Summer                                                          Moon of the Summer Solstice

Mother's DayKate’s meeting with Rabbi Jamie of Congregation Beth Evergreen today. A joining up meeting. This is an ancientrail she began to walk a long time ago, converting at Temple Israel under Rabbi Max Shapiro. She felt at home within the Jewish tradition. The power of feeling at home, that this place is my place, these people are my people, may be the most significant feeling we ever have. Why? Because it locates us, puts us in context, gives us a base.

Last night we attended a learning session for the chevra kadisha, a burial society that guards a person’s body from the minute they die to the point of burial. They also wash the corpse, may wrap it in a traditional shroud. They do all this anonymously.

We watched the movie, Taking Chance, about the process and journey of caring for the body of pfc. James Phelps from his death in Iraq to his burial in Wyoming. Though focused on military ritual, it apparently conveyed much of the Jewish attitude toward honoring the dead and caring for the corpse in a respectful and dignified way.

Jewish tradition and the Jewish faith cannot be separated. This is a thousands year old culture that has survived many dislocations, much persecution and yet retained its link to the very distant past. Rabbi Jamie said the origin of the guarding of the body was quite literal, coming from a time when wild animals might approach a corpse as scavengers. Obviously a long time ago. But the respect and care that began in this practical way has been transmuted in the alchemy of time into a spiritual practice.

This is not my way; but it is a way, one with depth. I look forward to learning more about this ancient faith and walking with Kate along her path.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Mussar

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Beltane                                                                      Moon of the Summer Solstice

The Evergreen Rodeo closed the streets of this mountain town this morning, but Kate and I managed to slip in just after it was over. We went to Beth Evergreen, a Reconstructionist Jewish congregation located just off Highway 74 on the way out of town toward I-70.

Kate’s serious about joining and I’m serious about supporting her. It’s about time I began meeting some new friends here. I’ll not go to membership with her, I’m past joining. At least I think I am. But I’ll attend, help out.

There was an interesting piece of today’s two hours that showcased what Beth Evergreen has to offer. Mussar. Here’s a short piece:

“By this time I had already come to see myself as a soul. That’s one of the first things any student of Mussar needs to understand and acknowledge, deeply and clearly. Each of us is a soul. Mostly we have been told that we “have” a soul, but that’s not the same thing. To have a soul would indicate that we are primarily an ego or a personality that in some way “possesses” a soul.

The first step on the path of Mussar is to unlearn that linguistic misconception and to realize that our essence is the soul and that all aspects of ego and personality flow from that essence. At its core, the soul is pure, but habits, tendencies and imbalances often obscure some of that inner light.”

It looks interesting and requires no theological perspective. There will be more on all of this as we move forward.

 

Family

Nothing Easy

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Beltane                                                           Moon of the Summer Solstice

Ah. The divorce has moved on to more sane grounds. Looks like Jon and Jen may be able to work out their differences. There’s nothing easy about divorce, having done it twice. It involves pain and rupture, the death of love, moving, lawyers, the legal system. Kids have no power and get confused, angry. Just like the adults only worse.

No truly amicable path leads out of a marriage. But. When the two former lovers and friends can agree on something more than their mutual pain, like the ongoing well-being of their children, or the need for both to leave the marriage intact and able to pursue a new life, then sensible decisions can get made. Lives zippered together can slowly separate, ease out of the old and into the new.

I can see this process beginning to unfold for Jon and Jen, Ruth and Gabe. It makes me glad, for a long, acrimonious struggle enervates everyone involved and makes the next phase of life even more difficult than it needs to be. Still a long time ahead for this family, but I’m hopeful now.

Dogs, Family, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Soon, Back to the Marathons

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Beltane                                                                     Moon of the Summer Solstice

Kate at work yellowIt’s Sunday. We’ll head out in a bit for our business meeting, going somewhere nearby for breakfast. This is a routine, weekly. These meetings where we discuss money matters, calendar, upcoming projects, how we’re doing are an important part of our marriage. They prevent issues that could divide us or surprise us from sneaking into our lives. In a sense they’re the board meeting for our marriage in its quasi-corporate aspect, but more than that they are a commitment to open discussion, to mutual decision making, to the sort of hard headed pragmatism I believe many people around the world see in American culture. Thanks to Ruth Hayden.

The sprint that started after we got back from Asia with Vega’s sudden, fatal illness, then the copyright infringement legal problem and the subsequent expunging of images from Ancientrails, followed by three weeks or so of fire mitigation is nearly over. Cleaning out the garage and organizing it, clearing off the swedish shelving in the house and getting the china cabinet upstairs into the guest room will be the last of it. Then I will get back to Latin, to Jennie’s Dead and Superior Wolf, and reimagining faith. That is, I’ll get back to working on them in the mornings.

 

Family, Jefferson County, Shadow Mountain

When the Lights Went Out on Shadow Mountain

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Beltane                                                                               Moon of the Summer Solstice

Power line runs among these trees
Power line runs among these trees

Today is the power outage, scheduled to begin in half an hour. A damaged Xcel transmission line has to get repaired. Pinecam.com has been abuzz. Bad IREA folks for not posting a map of the affected area.

Weird phenomenon. Because folks who got the letters or phone calls from IREA knew about the outage two or so weeks ago they posted about it on Pinecam. Then, those who had not gotten letters or phone calls began to worry that they, too, were affected and had not been told. This went from suspicion to certainty with demands to do it on another date or at night. At night?

Turns out IREA had not posted a map so crooks couldn’t use it as a reference for break-ins. And, no letter or no call, no outage. Oh. Everybody calmed down.

solar panels 11 22 middayApparently, at least according to Seth who installs solar panels, when the grid goes down, the solar does not pick up the slack. Just why I’m not sure, but I’m waiting for the  event to find out. Nothing like an empirical test. Anyhow, since we have a generator, we should be fine, but it’s not been used since Patrick worked on it back in January or so. A test for it, too. Maybe.

Meanwhile Tyler is coming today to finish removing the slash, not much left. When he’s done with that, he and I will stack all the logs bucked for Seth and Hannah into short piles so those two can get them easily. That will mark the end of this phase of fire mitigation. There are other matters, but they will wait awhile. I’m tired of the lumberjack life right now. Literally. Tired to the bone from it.

NFS SignRuth and Gabe come up last night. We have them through Friday afternoon. This is our first time with them since the divorce news. We’re very glad to see them and will provide a point of stability and love. A hard time for kids since they need to sort all this stuff out, too.

Some hiking for Ruth and me, a trip to Dinosaur Ridge, then a picnic at Red Rock Ampitheater today or tomorrow. Gabe had a bad bleed a couple of weeks ago and his physical therapist told him no running or jumping until July! He’s 8. That’s a tough restriction. The problem is that if this bleed gets exacerbated and recurs it can become a continuing problem. For life. High stakes for a young child.

Well, fourteen minutes to lights out. I’ll let you know.