Monthly Archives: October 2014

Memories, Minnesota, Woolly Mammoths

Memories

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Fall                                                                                     Falling Leaves Moon

Tom Crane, Bill Schmidt, Scott Simpson, Mark Odegard and Frank Broderick and I gathered at the Black Forest for the Woolly Mammoth first Monday restaurant meeting. We had gone to the Black Forest regularly for many years, then, partly at my urging, had moved onto other cuisines and other locales. Now, though, as my time here has become limited I find myself wanting to return to familiar places.

The Whittier Neighborhood was the site of my year-long internship while in seminary-part at Bethlehem-Stewart Presbyterian (only two blocks west of the Black Forest on 26th) and part at South Central Ministry just across Lake Street from Whittier in the Longfellow Neighborhood. In 1976 the Presbyterian church ordained me to the ministry of word and sacrament at Bethlehem-Stewart, an ordination I held until 1996 when, in Phoenix, Arizona at the Unitarian-Universalist General Assembly, I entered the U-U ministry.

So a lot of person history intersects at the corner of 26th and Nicollet, where the Black Forest is. Not far from there toward the north and east three blocks, too, is the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. A nexus for me in many ways.

Frank’s back from Ireland, looking much better and feeling no pain in his legs. Tom’s hand has mostly healed. Mark and Elizabeth have decided to spend three months  or so in southern France, staring mid-January. Scott admitted he had spent time in his youth a mail-man substitute. And worked as a Lamplighter while sleeping in People’s Park in Vancouver, B.C. Bill Schmidt’s becoming Spinozified and finding this Dutch Jew a very compatible thinker.

On the drive home, a drive I’ve made more or less regularly from Minneapolis or St. Paul to Andover for the last 20 years, I realized that though I spent 20 years in the city and consider myself an urban guy, I’ve really only spent 20 years in cities. The other 47 years have been in smaller to medium sized towns or the far burbs. Interesting how a place can impress itself into our sense of who we are.

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

Speaking Against

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Fall                                                                                          Falling Leaves Moon

Psalm 90:10 (RSV)

10 The years of our life are threescore and ten,
    or even by reason of strength fourscore;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
    they are soon gone, and we fly away.

In the middle of reading this long article by Ezekiel J. Emanuel in the Atlantic, “Why I Hope to Die at 75.” The argument so far has a rationale based on increasing life being linked statistically with a longer period of disability and illness. Why suffer yourself and why suffer the costs to your family and society? Why not just die at 75? The Jews believe 3 score and ten is a full life and anything beyond that is bonus time, so from that perspective 75 is within one metrics range.

How you respond to this article is of interest to me, and I’ll reserve my final opinion until I’ve finished, but here is my first response.

Emanuel has a lot of information about these issues as Professor of Health Care Management and Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy in the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. I’ll stipulate his data. And, I’ll stipulate that all of us will have opinions on this issue whether well-informed or informed by anecdote alone or, more likely, some combination of the two.

What’s unusual, of course, is Emanuel’s bald claim that he has a limit in mind for his lifespan. The exercising, right-dieting, medically attuned crowd (put me squarely here) are what he calls The American Immortals. That is, a group of folks who want to believe in life everlasting, or at least life lasting as long as possible. This clever phrase says a lot about Emanuel, but is not so illuminating for its target group.

Here’s what I think is wrong with Emanuel’s position. He seems to have an instrumental view of human life, spending considerable time showing how creativity, cognition and overall productivity decline after peaking anywhere along a broad bell curve with its flattened top extending between 30 and 60. After 60, unless you are an outlier, (and he says American Immortals believe they are all, or will be, outliers) it’s a long slump toward vagueness and discomfort.

In other words, as I read him, Emanuel doesn’t want to go into the process of decline. He’d rather phase out before that all gets too far underway. He wants to be remembered as vital, productive, keen. So say we all. But. Life is about more than productivity, creativity, thinking.

It is also about loving, about following the journey where it leads, about mystery. The Great Wheel speaks in analogy about this exact matter, the journey from birth to maid to mother to crone, then across the veil. Or, from birth to youth to adulthood and the third phase. I suppose you could say Emanuel is a latter day Stoic. I can see him in his chair, slumped with his toga around, arms dangling, veins open. As for me, I’m following this ancientrail as far as it goes, not for immortality, not for more productivity, but for life itself.

It is, I think, too easy to make shibboleths of work, of peak performance, especially in American culture. What of the supper table around which sit mechanics and waitresses, toll-booth operators and farm hands? What of the holiday meal with its small table for the young ones, their parents and their parents eating together? What about the grandchild who still wants to hold grandpop’s hand, even though he’s infirm? Life is about more than work, more than vitality, even. Life is not individual only; life is also embeddedness in the lives of others.

 

 

Colorado, Our Land and Home, The Move, The West

Chain Saws

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Fall                                                                                          Falling Leaves Moon

And the sound of chain saws was heard on the land. The landscaping work has begun. A bobcat, pulled by a truck filled with mulch sits just ahead of a white pick-up with an enclosed trailer. The dogs announce, over and over again, that there are strangers here. Strangers here. Strangers here.

The steady rate of work toward Colorado goes on. We’ve been at this now since late April. It can feel like we’ve always been moving. Always will be moving. But an end exists and it’s much closer now than it was when we first decided to give the whole process two years. As we grabbed hold of this project, various aspects of it have conspired to make moving early next year the best plan.

Though not eager to leave Minnesota, we are eager to start establishing a new life in the mountains. We’ve lived here over well over 40 years, both of us, and our Western life will take time to flourish, just as this one did.

We will have the grandkids, Jon and Jen, and Barb (Tennessee grandma) to help us ease in. Kate says there’s a top 10 quilt shop (in the U.S.) within 40 miles of Idaho Springs so that will give her a place to make new friends. The Sierra Club and other environmental advocacy groups are strong in Colorado, as are certain brands of progressive politics, so I’ll have some places to meet new people, too.

But none of this until after the landscaping is done.

 

Dogs, Family, Garden

Finished

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Fall                                                                                Falling Leaves Moon

While Kate and Anne worked in the perennial garden, I moved things: the aluminum siding, hoses, plant supports, saws, garden art all into the garage for disposal or eventual packing. We’ve pretty much cleaned up and picked up the outside. With Dehn’s landscaping tomorrow, we can put finished to it for the foreseeable future.

The dogs enjoyed having us outside all day. They’re worn out and sound asleep, snoring away. So is Kate. Me, more of a night owl, not so much.

Family, Garden, Our Land and Home, Weather +Climate

A Family Effort

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Fall                                                                                Falling Leaves Moon

IMAG0651Now all but the leeks and egg plants and peppers are done. The egg plants and peppers are trying to get one egg plant (in the case of the egg plant) and a few peppers (in the instance of the peppers) finished before the killing frost. They might make it, maybe not. The leeks I decided to leave in until the day of the chicken leek pie baking, probably Thursday.

Anne and Kate worked hard all day, trimming up the perennial beds and finally weeding the vegetable beds. I can throw down the broadcast tomorrow.

In the mid-40’s all day the weather was perfect. My gardens would look wonderful if vegetables grew well in the 40’s and 50’s. Working outside in those temperatures energizes me. Even though I’m tired now, I feel good about the day. If I’d worked the same length of time in even the mid-70’s with high humidity, I’d not gotten half as much done. I’m a northern guy.

Kate and I look forward to telling our new Colorado neighbors that we came to the Rockies for the milder winters.

Dogs, Garden

Fall Clean Up

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Fall                                                                                Falling Leaves Moon

Raspberries ripe, canes bending. Last of the collard greens, the sweet inner leaves. A few beets, a few carrots. With the exception of the raspberries and the leeks the garden is now harvested. Our final harvest almost complete.

IMAG0686

Built a fire, burning whole logs about 2.5 feet long and thick as a tree trunk. Wrangled the bent up aluminum siding away from the honey house. Rigel went through it on her way to the wee rabbits who live under the honey house.

(Rigel, happy after another task completed.)

Anne took down the electric fence, put up to deter Rigel. Tomorrow Dehn’s landscaping will fill in the holes Rigel began, then manipulated her sister to help go deeper. A lot of this work comes down to the eagerness with which Rigel applies herself to what she sees as her doggy duty. Find things underground. Jump the fence in pursuit of prey. Move anything else that gets in the way. You have to admire her doggedness. Ha. But the results? Not so much.

A perfect cool blue day.

Garden, Great Wheel, Our Land and Home, Science

Blood Moon Risin’

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Fall                                                                                   Falling Leaves Moon

 

Add blood moon to the adjectives in front of the Falling Leaves Moon for October 8. These lunar eclipses reflect light from sunrise and sunset giving the moon a russet color. Blends in well with the changing leaves. On my weather station I notice a small symbol I’ve not seen for awhile. A snowflake. Means it could snow.

We’re going to make use of the cooler weather with a work outside day today and perhaps a couple of other days this week. First task, start a fire in the firepit so the laborers can warm themselves. Then, the harvest. After that move old aluminum siding to the garage for recycling. Yes, this is stoop labor.

Gotta get out there.

Colorado, The Move

For Whom the Bell Curves (i found this phrase at a website of the same name.)

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Fall                                                                                    Falling Leaves Moon

A bit more cleaning up, decluttering, then a walk through to agree on work we’re going to do tomorrow when Kate’s sister Anne comes up.  This is outside work, harvesting the last of the vegetables, cleaning up the beds and putting down the broadcast fertilizer. There’s pruning and hose retrieving, wheel barrows and garden art to come in for the move.

Dehn’s landscaping comes on Monday at 8 a.m. to do front yard work. This is for curb appeal for the most part.

Then on Wednesday the realtor’s and the stager come. Once we settle on what we need to do inside, we’ll figure out when to do it, probably as late as possible, then find someone.

We’re definitely on the downward slope of the curve, but even as we near the bottom there are still many tasks that remain. It’s important now to recall all we’ve done to get to this point. And how daunting the move would look if we had done nothing.

This illustration shows the true nature of the task. The darker orange curve represents packing, arranging details like a second mortgage and movers, all those things that are Minnesota focused and aimed at getting our portable items from here to Colorado. That’s the curve on which we’ve reached the downward slope.

The lighter orange curve represents finding a new home in Colorado, moving in, getting our life altogether shifted from Minnesota to Colorado: buying, updating and moving into a new home, health insurance, driver’s license, estate plan plus all the smaller things like identifying a car dealership, a pharmacy, a grocery store, utilities. On that curve we’ve barely begun to climb the upward slope.

My guess is that the time it takes to extricate ourselves from Andover will match the amount of time it will take us to get the new life begun. How long it will take to have a new, Colorado life? Years, I imagine.

 

 

 

Colorado, Our Land and Home, The Move

Surreal

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Fall                                                                                  Falling Leaves Moon

Kate said this morning that she had surreal moments with the move. Me, too. We both work along, packing, getting other matters taken care of but the move itself feels unreal, as if a mirage. Why did I pack all of my books in boxes? Why did she clear out the guest room, let all the bedroom furniture be carted away? We’re going to do all this and still be living here.

The present, with its weight of 20 years, has far more heft than an imagined place in the mountains, far across the plains. Impossible to see, even in the mind’s eye. So there is only this illusion, this planned, hoped for thing over against the 20 winters, the 20 growing seasons, the 20 birthdays and anniversaries. Against the bringing in of groceries, of feeding the dogs, of doing laundry and writing novels. All here. In this place. Where we still are.

Though I’ve said before that the move makes me feel both here and there, here has more power, the now has more power, than the not yet, the there. Which is good. I want to be here until I’m not, just as I want to live until I die.

Yet we have to have the not yet to pull us forward, to give meaning to those stacks of boxes, the plastic bins, the discarded furniture, all the work we’re having done. Without the not yet our actions, though still surreal, would also be mad. Just as without death, it seems to me, life would lose its uniqueness and become merely being.

We cannot outwait the move. That is, we cannot do nothing and expect to end up living in Colorado next year. No, we have to take action now, find our Conestoga, pack up the hoop skirts, the anvil and plow. Get the oxen ready.

And so we are. But I imagine those pioneers probably looked at the wagon and felt as we do. We’re still here in Pennsylvania or Ohio or Virginia and though we’ve got our goods packed and ready to load, we remain here. As we always have. And always will.

Until wood on wood begins to creak and cry out, until the whip cracks over broad shoulders and with a lurch the wagon is no longer still, until then, we live here.

 

Latin, Memories, Myth and Story, Translating De Bello Gallico, Translating Metamorphoses, World History

Regret, like resistance to the Borg, is futile. In all ways but one.

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Fall                                                                                Falling Leaves Moon

Not sure why, but today I told Greg, my Latin tutor, why I was doing this. Or, maybe I’ve told him before and don’t remember, but I don’t think so. (Of course, by definition, how would I know?)

The story begins with my traipsing off to college, already doubting my Christian faith for a number of reasons, not the least of which was what I perceived as a holding back by my native Methodism of (to me at that point) elegant proofs for the existence of God. I got them from the local Catholic priest. I didn’t know that he re-iterating Aquinas.

It was not far into my first history of philosophy class that we dismantled each one, piece by piece. Oh. My.

Philosophy set my mind on fire week after week. I signed up for Logic in the second semester and the second history of philosophy segment. Even though I left Wabash I had already earned half a philosophy major’s worth of credits in my freshman year.

All this excitement led me quickly to the conclusion that I wanted to be able to read German, so I could pursue Kant, Hegel and Heidegger in their native language. So, I signed up for German, too. From my point of view it was a disaster. I struggled in every aspect of it and was faced with getting a D at the end of the second semester. That was not going to happen, so I dropped it.

A youthful decision, one I regret. It took me 45 years to get back to a language; but, I decided I wanted to challenge myself, see if my conclusion, defensively drawn in 1966, that I could not learn a language, was in fact true. It was not true.

Now I have a deeper regret, that I didn’t pursue German further and that I didn’t do Latin and Greek while in college, too. The classics and art history seem to be my natural intellectual terrain, but I never took a course in either one. Regrets are pointless, of course, the retrospective both wallowing in a past now gone and not retrievable, but I believe there is one good thing about them.

They can be a goad to action now, or future action. That is, we don’t have to repeat the actions we regret. We can change our life’s trajectory. So, I intend to spend the third phase of my life, as long as body and mind hold together, pursuing the classics and art history, doing as much writing about both as I can.