Category Archives: Family

Family, Feelings, Friends, Travel

Hmmm…

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Sunday gratefuls: Tom. Friendship. My son and his wife’s parents, sisters, nieces and nephews. On zoom yesterday evening. Mark in the sands of Araby. Mary in Eau Claire. Diane in San Francisco. Alan in Denver. Marilyn in Cincinnati. Irv in King’s Valley. Israel. Korea. A bright blue, cool Colorado Morning atop Shadow Mountain. Jamie. Ellen and Dick. Luke and Leo. Kat at Aspen Perk’s.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Korean family

One brief shining: Zooming to Korea from Shadow Mountain my son’s wife’s family gathered in his and hers new apartment excited to talk to the American living in the Rocky Mountains his wife acting as translator while her father happily gesticulated, smiled and surprised me by asking me how old I was, 76 I said, 81 he said and I bowed to him and called him kangim (elder, I think. If I have that word right) much to the amusement of all.

 

My visit to Korea will have me deeper in a foreign culture than I have ever been. I’ve visited many but not stayed for long and never had the level of personal contact I will with Seoah’s family. I admire both Mary and Mark for their long term ex-pat experiences in Malyasia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Cambodia, and Saudi Arabia. It takes a certain level of inner flexibility and sensitivity to live life, your everyday life, in a culture not your own.

I feel twinned feelings of excitement and intimidation. Mostly around language. Yes, I’ve been studying Korean but I’ve been hit or miss on it recently. I’ve learned to read hangul, the Korean alphabet, and have several words, both nouns and verbs. Yes. But. Pronouncing it? Oh, my. Very far from my capacity right now. On the call yesterday I asked Seoah’s sisters if they would help me learn and they nodded yes. After laughing at my pronunciation of elder and dog. They apparently want to teach me the Gwangju accent. I think so I won’t be confused with one of those Seoul types.

There was though even on this call a real sense that this was my family, too. That I was part of them and they included me in their visit too. Maybe with the exception of Seoah’s mom. Not sure about her. She seems a little distant. But, that could also be me misreading her.

Murdoch went happily from nieces to nephews, chewing on a small pink baby slipper that Seoah’s niece purchased for him.

 

Tom and I had a quiet day yesterday. We both exhausted our selves on the Royal Gorge trip. We’re no longer the young men we used to be. By a decade at least.

 

Ruth and Gabe are off to North Carolina this morning. Flying into Charlotte, I believe. They’ll be there for two weeks, helping move Annie into assisted living. Jerry and Sarah have a beautiful rural compound near Belews Creek. Jerry, a painter and builder, has built many buildings on it including a stand alone wine cellar, what is now a guest cabin, and their home. Sarah has many gardens.

 

Colorado, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Mountains, Mussar, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Travel

A Thursday with Friends

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Friday gratefuls: Tom. Ellen and Dick. Hail. Again. Cool nights. Good sleeping. God is Here. Metaphor. Kathy. Luke. Vince. Gutters. Psilocybin. Flower. Weed. Red Rocks. The Bread Lounge. A Cuban. Evergreen. Gracie and Ann. CBE. High water on the fish ladder. Maxwell Creek running full.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friendship

One brief shining: Life in its fullness comes running at you, with you like a Mountain Stream after a heavy Rain, crashing over barriers, not allowing any obstacles, where necessary spreading out, then calmly, gently flowing into the placid waters of a great River, headed to the World Ocean.

 

Yesterday. A full day. Talking to Diane, always a pleasure. Catching up on family news. A favorite cousin for all of us moved into hospice. We’re all in the aging range. This group that used to play with each other at Thanksgiving, during family reunions at Riley Park, on the farm outside Morristown. Family in its longue dureé as Ginny, daughter of Diane’s sister, Kristen, gives birth to a new generation of the Keaton clan as have children of other cousins. We will wink out one by one, but the family will continue.

 

Over to the Bread Lounge to read a bit before Tom got here from DIA. Instead ran into Tal and Alan talking to each other. Alan in his  usual I’m here to assist you mode trying to figure out how he can help Tal’s new company, All in Ensemble.

Alan’s decided to let his beard grow back. I’m glad. It was odd seeing him clean shaven. He shaved for his art, as he says. A role in Zorro!, the musical.

Together we talked about Tal’s character study class, about mutual friends and family. The Bread Lounge serves as the student union restaurant for Evergreen. Go there and you see folks you know.

After Alan left, Tal and I discussed my character Herme. He liked my idea of a one-act play to introduce the Rivers and Mountains Poets of China to Mountain audiences. He offered to help me in any way he can. He’s bringing an outline from a playwrighting class to our next Tuesday class. Who knows? Perhaps the Hooded Man will play up and down the spine of the Rocky Mountains. Could happen.

 

Tom got to the Bread Lounge after navigating an overly busy DIA filled with summer travelers. We ordered sandwiches, which came late so we had to pack them up and head over to mussar. Where we discussed the role of metaphor in our daily lives and the implications of metaphor for understanding what we might mean when we use the metaphor God. A good heart/mind conversation.

Following mussar Tom and I were hosted by Ellen and Dick Arnold, Rabbi Jamie’s parents. A wide ranging conversation which had as its focus the upcoming trip to Israel. Dick will be my roommate for the group part of the trip.

 

When we got back to Shadow Mountain, Vince was here mowing and weed whacking. In the rain. Vince is a good guy. Lucky to have him as my friend and property manager.

Tom and I were tired. We talked, then went to bed. Getting ready now for our trip this afternoon on the Royal Gorge Rail Road.

 

 

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

Hotel Shadow Mountain

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Beltane and the Herme Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Mary. Ruth. Gabe. A bright Sun shiny Day. 72 today. Three dry days in a row. Sarah and BJ coming in later today. The World. Cultures other than our own. Day off yesterday from Ancientrails. BJ and Sarah. On their way to Driggs, Idaho. In the U-Haul. With loads of books. Great workout. Great chocolate. Father’s day present from BJ and Sarah. 83 yesterday! After a month and a half of Rain and cooler Weather. Overcast this morning. Cooler again. Robin and Spacewranglers. Rebecca. Herme work today. Chores.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family

One brief shining: Oh, took Mary to the light rail in Lakewood in the morning on Sunday and the long way back through crowded Morrison and then the Bear Creek Canyon road which looks like a perfect setting for old fashioned Westerns, trying to find a place to eat breakfast but Sunday city tourists all over so passed through a crowded Kittredge and Evergeen back up the hill to Shadow Mountain Home and cracked open the frig because by that time hunger occupied my attention cooked ate napped and then began to wonder where BJ and Sarah were.

 

Charlie’s no-tel motel has shutdown for two days. Opening again on Thursday for a longer stay. Tom.

Here’s what happened. Mary misread her plane ticket as arriving at 11:59 am. Nope. pm. So she booked a hotel. Which told her when she arrived that they were overbooked. This very late at night. Obvy. They found another room for her, paid for a taxi and breakfast the next morning.

Ruth and Gabe had already planned to come up. Lucky. Because Mary’s hotel was not far from Galena Avenue where Ruth and Gabe live. On the second day of having her driver’s license Ruth picked up Mary and drove her up here. We all went out for breakfast at Primo’s and talked a lot. Ruth had to leave to make it back to work at Starbucks. She’s a barista now. Lots of positives with both Ruth and Gabe.

Mary and I spent the day talking. Catching up on her travels. Japan. Guru and Kuala Lumpur. Eau Claire. Her wonderful furnished apartment in an old factory.

Her trip to Indiana. All the cousin news. Age beginning to ravage the still close gaggle of Keaton cousins. Ikie Jones died a while back. The first cousin. Annette died this year, his youngest sister. Melinda, their remaining sibling now in a nursing home and refusing to eat. Lisa, the youngest Steffey of five, died also a few years back. A stroke. Her four siblings Kathy, Tanya, Carla, and Kenya all alive. Though Kathy couldn’t make the meetup in Muncie, Indiana due to arthritis. She’s the oldest of the five. Diane, the oldest of the Keaton sibs, was there on her used to be annual trip to Morristown for her school’s reunion and renewal of family/friend ties. Richard’s on the farm and Kristin is in Michigan. Both doing ok. Mary, Mark, and I round out the Keaton cousins. We’ve stayed in touch since childhood, sharing news and stories.

I don’t get back as often as Mary who has made heroic efforts to stay in touch with family, traveling thousands of  miles and crossing oceans each year to do so. Props to her. Due to the travel mix up her visit here was only Saturday.

 

BJ and Sarah had planned to make Denver around 1 pm on Sunday. Missed it by a couple of hours, then spent time loading Merton’s photographs into the U-Haul they’re taking turns driving from NYC to Driggs. In it is 90% of BJ and Schecky’s worldly belongings, mostly books. Huh. I know that routine.

We had a couple of snafu’s before we finally connected around 7 pm in the King Sooper’s parking lot. They left their truck there, Sarah bought some food, and we drove back to Shadow Mountain.

Sarah put together a salad, steamed asparagus, and set that out with some sushi rolls. A fine meal. We caught up on Johnson news. BJ and Sarah both saw me through the two weeks of Kate’s final hospitalization and death. She was their big sister.

The three of us went to the Conifer Cafe in the middle of the next morning for breakfast before they saddled up the U-Haul for the penultimate leg of their journey to Idaho. This is a big, big move for BJ and Schecky. They have lived in the same rent controlled rooms in the Beacon Hotel on Broadway since they were both students at Julliard. Well over 50 years. They’re letting go of the apartment and moving lock stock violin and cello to rural Idaho.

 

I drove back home to Shadow Mountain and took a nap.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase

Fathers

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Beltane and the Summer Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Mary. BJ and Sarah. Ruth and Gabe. Ivory and Ruby. Dependable transportation. Up the hill, down the hill. Rapid Transit Denver. Brown Machne Yehuda hotel, Jerusalem. Sadot hotel, Tel Aviv. My son’s and daughter-in-law’s big apartment. Murdoch. Korea. Israel. Water. Ode and the mushroom spores. Luke and Leo.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Wide World

One brief shining: To have a brother and a sister in far away places like Hafr, Saudi Arabia and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia extends my life into other cultures at an intimate, everyday level as does a son and daughter-in-law in Korea and  trips for myself to Korea and to Israel, we are many we are one.

 

Fathers. Yes. We all have one so… Even if it is a Hallmark moment it’s a legitimate celebration. Unless you think the oh so ordinary, so mundane fact of biology is ho hum. But it’s not. Not really. Yes, we all have fathers. But none of us have the same fathers. Not even siblings. Each relationship between father and child has its own unique stamp created by gender, timing in the child’s life and the father’s life, timing in the zeitgeist, location on Earth, cultural and linguistic and genetic peculiarities.

My father Curtis and I for example. Dad’s own father, Elmo, led a chaotic here and gone again sort of life finally disappearing into the wilds of 1920’s California, leaving Dad and his siblings in the care of Jennie Spitler, his mom, and Dr. Jonas Spitler, his grandfather. Not great training for the role.

Dad went to Oklahoma State University and graduated with a degree in journalism, his profession for his lifetime. After brief jobs in Duncan and Watonga, Oklahoma, the family-Dad, Mom, and me-moved to Alexandria, Indiana where he remained for the rest of his life.

He stayed true to his family. Always providing. Always working. Not following Elmo’s scoundrel pattern. Props to him. He also followed the strict upbringing he had under his grandfather, a country doctor and farmer within the German heritage. In that sense the Spitler side of our family with Hessian mercenary soldiers as its starting point in revolutionary America influenced us much more than the Welsh and Irish Ellises.

That strict Germanic sensibility fell afoul of the 1960’s for both of us. He was for me a distant father emotionally unavailable and only mildly engaged in my life until the death of our mother at my age 17. Then we stumbled through an uneasy closeness occasioned by mom’s disappearance from our lives. It was not well done on either one of our parts.

We parted abruptly in 1968 when he demanded I cut my hair and I said no. And he said cut your hair or leave. And I left. Both of us stubborn and unyielding.

I wish now that we had healed that rupture in our lives but we never really did. I saw him from time to time, but we never established an adult father and son relationship.

He wrote well, worked hard, and hung in there for all of us. Given his particular circumstances a difficult but real advance generationally. Props to him again.

Family, Minnesota

Alexandria in the 50s

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon (waning crescent)

Saturday gratefuls: Ruth. Her driver’s license! Gabe. Mary on her way. Mark in Hafr. Mom. Dad. Alexandria. Growing up in a small town. The 1950s. Sputnik. John Glenn. Elon Musk. Heavylifter. Tesla. The genius. And the car. Alan. Tom. The Parkside. The Royal Gorge Railroad. Canon City. BJ and Sarah. Their truck. Moving West. BJ and Schecky. Violins and cellos. Classical music. Jazz.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family

One brief shining: Mom brought to memory by Mark’s questions about her dead now 59 years so long ago yet I remember her red lipstick, her smile, her embrace and the kindness she brought into any room a woman of her time with a 1940’s hairdo, a stay-at-home mom whose cooking was memorable, who took each of us as special and unique, who volunteered at church, whom everyone in town knew as Trudy or Tudy.

 

A different time. When life felt slower. Alexandria in the 1950s and the early 1960s. Jobs were good. 3 shifts at Delco Remy and Guide Lamp gave the southern diaspora who populated Alexandria jobs that paid well. The Alexandria Times-Tribune where Dad worked  came out 5 days a week with an extra big Thursday edition to carry the grocery ads for the upcoming weekend.

We lived first in an apartment building on Lincoln, then a small house on Monroe, and finally the bigger house on Canal. 419 N. Canal. From my age 12. 1959. Mary had come seven years before and we needed more space.

On Harrison Street, our main street, there were two grocery stores, Coxes and Krogers, two dime stores, Danner’s and Murphy’s, Broyle’s furniture, Guilkey’s shoe repair and newsstand, Fermen’s women’s store, Bailey’s drugstore, and a P.N. Hirsch Department store. Further down was the Town Theater one of two movie theaters, the Bakery, Mahony’s shoe store and Baumgartner’s Men’s Shop. A bar, too, whose name escapes me now. Always a source of mystery since kids weren’t allowed in there. A barber shop. A tailors on a side street. As was a bowling alley with pin spotters.

Lots of churches. Alexandria First Methodist. The Baptist Church. The Roman Catholic Church. The Church of the Nazerene. Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. The Church of God-Anderson, Indiana. You were known in town by which church you attended. We were members of Alexandria First Methodist and had our spot on the right side of the sanctuary under the huge stained glass window of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Kneeling, hands on a large rock. My best friend, Ed Schmidt, went to the Catholic church. Also a source of mystery.

Life focused on church, school, and work. And on certain holidays, patriotism. The big Decoration Day parade for example. The tanks would come out from the local National Guard Armory and pit the asphalt softened by summer heat with tread marks. The color guard insisted on wearing the shirts that fit them back then. Not so much at this point. Firetrucks. Police cars. Young women doing the wave from the backs of convertibles.

Vital and personal 1950s small town life had an innocence about it that sheltered us kids from the currents affecting the world outside. We went to school, played with our friends, came home and ate supper, watched TV, went to bed. Rinse and repeat. It was good.

 

 

 

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

Verdant

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Friday gratefuls: Mary on her way. Ruth getting her driver’s license. Coming up here tomorrow. Possibly bringing Mary. And Gabe. Cool, Rainy Nights continue. Mussar. God is Here. Monotheism. Boo. Animism and polytheism. Yay. Marilyn and Irv. Good friends. Ribeye steak. Potatoes. Mushrooms. Mixed Vegetables. Peaches. Verdant. The Mountains in June. Unusual and beautiful.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Green

One brief shining: When I look out my window to the back, I see wet Lodgepoles, red bark standing out against green Bunch Grass pocked with yellow Dandelions, Kate’s Lilacs growing taller, the gray white Aspen with its chartreuse Leaves, Rocky Soil damp with the Rains, but no Elk Bulls, no Mule Deer, an occasional Rabbit and Chipmunk.

 

In the eight and a half years I’ve been up here on Shadow Mountain the Mountains have never been so green. The Mountain Meadows have Grass in abundance, a buffet for our Wild Neighbors after a difficult, painful Winter. I’ve noticed for the first time that the chartreuse Leaves of the Aspen light up the Lodgepoles in Spring (or, Summer, not sure which is which) as they do in their gold clothing in the Fall. We’ve had cool, Rainy weather since late April. Not what other folks have experienced, I know. Glad for us though.

All the Mountain Streams would have diminished by this time in a normal June, yet they remain full. Not raging like they did at the end of May but still sending heavy amounts of Water over their Rocks and Falls. Flooding down the hill at several locations though not as bad as 2012.

 

I could, I know, spend the rest of my life following Mountain roads, visiting New Mexico, Utah and northern Arizona. There is so much to see so close to me. Places people come from all over the world to see. The many national parks in Utah, the four corners area, Rocky Mountain National Park, Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, Santa Fe, Taos, Dinosaur National Monument. Too many to point out. And perhaps I will spend a year focused on doing just that. But not this year. This year and at least part of the next I’m going overseas, seeing new parts of the World. Yay!

 

The travelers coming to Shadow Mountain Home have changed schedules. Mary will be here tomorrow in the morning. BJ and Sarah won’t arrive until Sunday at the earliest. Mary leaves Sunday morning. Ruth will pick up Mary from her hotel near the airport after her midnight arrival. Ruth has her driver’s license! She’ll be coming up in her car. Ivory, our old Rav4. Which has no air conditioning. A good year for her to get used to it. A new era has begun. Ruth can drive on her own.

 

Going over to Kittredge for breakfast with Alan. The Blackbird Cafe. In a place where an old favorite restaurant used to be. First time. Summer or its early Springlike equivalent makes driving so much easier up here. I need these times with my friends.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Memories

Subdued

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Acting class. Abby, her passion. Alan, his commitment to stretching himself with Lear. Joan for her brilliance and breadth of knowledge. Rebecca trying comedy rather than drama. Tal, a wonderful teacher. Cold Mountain. The Chinese scholar and Mountain recluse. Follower of the Tao and the Buddha. Poetry. Kristie. Drug holiday. Money in the bank for my airline tickets. A rich and satisfying life. Eudaimoniac. That planet in the night Sky as I drove home. More Rain. 39 this morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Acting

One brief shining: Standing up there in front a sheaf of Cold Mountain’s poems in my hand I began to read, to inhabit this long ago Chinese hermit who wandered his Mountain, slept in a Cave, and wrote poetry that still shocks the heart, watching as his words landed, jarring the acting class as they had me the first time I read them.

 

An odd moment that affected me the whole evening. I chose to go to Sushi Win for a meal before acting class. Kate and I went there often when she was still able to get out and about. When she wasn’t, I would go pickup spring rolls for her. The best anywhere in her opinion. And mine, too.

When I got in and ordered, the music was from my high school days. The classics the young Vietnamese guy behind the counter said when I thanked him for playing them for my meal. He hadn’t of course played them for me.

I sat down and looked out the window at the Mountainscape. Remembered I sat here one evening in 2015 and called Kate to tell her I’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer. I don’t remember where she was, but she wasn’t at home. I also remembered the photograph now hung on the wall leading to the guest room. Kate smiling with her arm around my shoulder. Seated across from us Joe and Seoah, her arm around his shoulder. At Sushi Win, too.

Reading during this meal-two spring rolls and the Sushi Win special roll, hot tea-Regime Change by Patrick Deneen, the author of Why Liberalism Failed. Still much I don’t find compelling or with which I actively disagree, but his arguments do limn a major fracture in our nation. And suggest some core uncomfortable truths about our current reality. The biggest one with which I agree so far is our abandonment of the working class.

Drove over to the synagogue. Greeted Tal. Sat down to wait for the others to come since I was the first student there. The CBE social hall. Folding chairs in a semi-circle with their backs to the window wall. Outside the amphitheater built during the pandemic. Alan came in and touched my shoulder. Abby and her mother. Joan. No Lid this evening. Car trouble. Rebecca swept in commenting about fire mitigation, raking pine needles. Marilyn and Debra came late.

At one point Alan leaned over and said to me you’re not very talkative tonight. Oh. I wasn’t. Subdued. Realized then that the memories at Sushi Win had turned me inward. Toward Kate. Toward long ago high school years. I hadn’t noticed. Still a bit subdued this morning.

Family, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Travel, US History

Small Town Life

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Mark deep in the sands of the Arabian Peninsula. Mary coming here on June 16th. Korea. My son’s new apartment. Huge. Working on details for Israel pre-tour. A gray Sky. An El Nino on its way. Better weather for us here in the Mountains. Acting class. My monologue. Hunting for restaurants in Jerusalem. Traveling. An Ellis family trait. Marina Harris. Ana. Furball Cleaning. Taking myself out for breakfast. Aspen Perks. Reading Birchers. Finished Fever in the Heartland. Reading One Thousand Nights and the Mahabarata. Took a break from Korean, back to it today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: This year in Jerusalem.

One brief shining moment: Gray skies put a shroud over Black Mountain and the bowed Branches of the Lodgepoles seem subdued this weather so different from June of years past when hot dry Winds raced across Shadow Mountain drying out the Grasses and the Needles of the Lodgepoles pushing Smokey the Bear to move his pointing paw into the high or extreme Fire danger positions now we Mountain dwellers can relax a bit as his paw remains where it has been since Winter-on low.

 

Taking a break here. Off to Aspen Perks with Birchers.

Met Murphy and Pete again. I slid into the booth with them. Murphy’s a South Carolina transplant as of four years ago. A handyman, but obviously well educated. He’s got a New England accent, slight, but as he said his wife reminds him he was lucky enough to marry a Southern gal. She’s a horse trainer currently back in South Carolina working with horses they still own. They sold their property but kept some horses. Near a little town just across from Augusta, Georgia in South Carolina.

Pete’s around my age, maybe a bit older. He’s a native Coloradan. Born in Denver. A happy right winger to Murphy’s gregarious lefty. Just before we got up to go I said my son was in the military. Pete had indicated he was, too. Yeah I said I was an anti-Vietnam war protester and my boy goes in the military. Pretty sure I saw Pete wince but he was headed up to pay and we were all leaving. Some stories remain fraught. Will have to have that conversation with Pete next time.

Nice to make a random connection up here. Like with Kat. Whom all three of us agreed is a top of the line waitress. She warned me, while they could hear, that these two are dangerous. Small town life.

 

Almost getting ready to spend real money on the Israel trip. I’ll go 6 days early. Explore Jerusalem on my own and take a before the tour starts trip to Petra with others who want that as a side journey. First step is an airline ticket. Then travel insurance. After that the two installments for the group tour.

 

Saw the new apartment near Osan. 4 bedrooms. Looks even bigger with little to no furniture in it. My daughter in law sent me a video. Murdoch followed her often showing up in the shots.

 

With Birchers and Fever in the Heart Land I’m beginning to get a great historical perspective on the odd and fraught political moment in which we find ourselves. A clear lesson is that there is no underestimating the darkness of the human heart when it fills with fear and narrows its intake valves.

 

Acting, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Health, Hermitage, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Sport, Weather +Climate

Life in its brilliance and in its everdayness

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: My passport. The post office. Kristie today. Acting class tonight. The Heat and the Nuggets. The Monaco Grand Prix. Max Verstappen. Fernando Alonso. Esteban Oco. My son and his wife. Fever in the Heart Land. Thanks, Ode. A quiet, restorative Memorial Day. A good workout. Korea on the schedule. Israel getting closer to dialed in. Ecuador still in the planning phase. All the poems coming in from the Ancient Brothers. Ritual ideas.  Acting class tonight. Diane in Indiana.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Great Sol, lighting up a Shadow Mountain Morning

One brief shining: Or, the Great Soul, Sol, source of light, source of power, source and sustainer of life itself why shouldn’t the Human soul, the Animal soul, the Plant soul, the Mountain soul be like their progenitor brilliant, a source of sustenance and warmth, a source of chi, a source of energy, yet every so often eclipsed by the turning of our inner lives, still there yes, waiting only for what Jews call teshuvah, a return to the ohr, the light of the sacred within us and to our sacred path, this orbit around our true God.

 

Got to get going, pick up my passport from its safe spot at the Ken Caryl branch of Wells Fargo. Safety deposit box. In case of fire, down the hill. Going to eat breakfast out, come home and try to take down the last outstanding bill, then talk to Kristie, my oncology P.A.

I’ve succeeded in reducing $14,000 worth of medical bills to $240. A victory although one I shouldn’t have had to win. One refractory $429 bill. Turned over for collection. Nope. Have disputed it, am disputing it, will dispute it until they back down. Could tell you the story, but trust me it’s only about one hand not knowing what the other one is doing.

A day of life chores. You know the kind. They come up like whack a mole. As you finish off one round of them, another few arise. By 76 you’ve seen them come and go, talking of Michelangelo. Even the most persistent and troublesome of them get dealt with, fade into the blob of things past no longer necessary to consider. I wear my trousers rolled while whacking each mole.

 

I’m loving the Sunshine, the blue Sky, the warmth of approaching Summer. Thought  yesterday though. Would I love the summer without the backdrop of winter? Could I tell the good without the bad? Would I know beauty without the ugly? I know we wouldn’t need a word for justice without injustice. Rasputin belonged to a Russian sect that believed the more you sinned the more God was able to bestow grace upon you. That’s the sort of rationalization that makes for a strange life.

 

Nuggets versus the Heat. I’m excited. Might try to find a tv package that will let me watch the NBA finals. I love basketball. And F1. Watched the whole Monaco Grand Prix yesterday. Wow. That Max Verstappen. Is. A. Monster.

 

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hermitage, Judaism, Korea, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History, World History

Introversion. Remembering.

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Indy 500. The Monaco Grand Prix. Grandsons. Granddaughters. Kate, missing her this Memorial Day. May be for those fallen in war, yes, but I take it too for those fallen from that most terminal of diseases: life. A second bright blue Sky in a row. The thirst quenched Lodgepoles green and healthy. Aspens beginning to Leaf out. The Iris emerging from the Soil. Kate’s Lilacs have bud’s. Korea. A high apartment. Moving day for my son and his wife. Baseball, America’s game, like basketball, now played all over the world. Neither though as big as soccer.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gabe, his sweet smile

One brief shining: Sometimes I doubt my introversion since I enjoy being with people, talking, listening, laughing, learning then I have a week like last week Dismantling Racism, lunch with Marilyn and Irv and Heidi, dogsitting Leo, getting Kep’s remains, Rabbi Jamie, then Rebecca, Leslie’s funeral, Ode and Dennis that night, a missed massage due to traffic delays in Evergreen, mussar, breakfast with Alan in Denver, three hard workouts, and then baseball with Gabe even with some down time interspersed the emotional intensity of last week drained my social battery, left me with no charge and I thought oh I see yes you introverted guy.

 

Glad to have a full day here on Shadow Mountain with nothing to do. Saturday the same helped but baseball wore me out all over again. The driving. All the people. Those hard seats. Dealing with parking. Yeah. Fun, sure. But also. Oh, my.

Days with nothing on the calendar shine for me. I can work on Ancientrails, cook for myself, maybe do some chores. Read. Watch a movie. Hike. I’ve begun too putting these on my calendar: go anywhere days. Also days with nothing in them but days I can get up in the morning and drive to Gunnison, see the Black Canyon. Stay overnight somewhere if I want. Short trips, beginning to see Colorado. None yet but coming up this summer.

Today has these elements: breakfast, workout. Watch the Monaco Grand Prix on F1 TV. Recorded. Make some lunch or not. Dinner if not. Start reading Fever in the Heartland. Thanks, Ode. Get outside some.

 

A word about Memorial Day. Imagine all the graves, all over the world. The dead from wars of all kinds. Colonial wars. Wars for land, for slaves, for God and country, blood and soil. Wars of liberation. Wars between Kings, between countries, between tribes. Economic wars where the winners scoop up all the wealth and leave hardly any for the gleaners who work in filling station convenience stores, bag groceries, run the cash register at Walmart, Petsmart, Subway. We speak here of lives cut short, lives worn down death coming from exhaustion and depression.

Dennis Ice. Richard Lawson. Others from my high school killed in Vietnam. So. Damned. Senseless. Those WW I and II veterans who lie in Europe in the fields of Normandy, in the Argonne Forest, along the Maginot line, in Germany and Italy and northern Africa. The victims of the Holocaust. Also memorialized here this day.

We remember of course to acknowledge sacrifice, yes, but can we also remember to learn? I hope so.