Monthly Archives: April 2015

Health

Notes From Another Liminal Space

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Spring                                       Mountain Spring Moon

Kate reassures me. Old age prostate cancer is slow, non-aggressive. The treatments work. And, it’s true that Mark and Dick and my Dad, the three men I know personally who’ve had it, were all successfully treated.

I am not afraid. Yet I have returned to a liminal space, no longer healthy, yet not in immediate danger. This is life with a possible dangerous disease. Once I know for certain, even then, I will still be in a liminal space between either disease and death or disease and health. The move prepared me, taught me how to live between worlds and it will serve me well now.

This is life with a difference, life when the end is no longer abstract, but lurking in a known spot.

I’ve thought about the human as apex predator. We take from the animal world and only in the rarest of circumstances does it take from us. Now the predators who hunt us often come from within: cells of our own body, virus replicating, bacteria with a warm, rich host. Or, externally, motor vehicles and other humans.

Ours is a privileged eco-system, that of the apex of the apex predators. Most things feed upward toward our open mouths.

The tiny and the cunning pose our greatest risk, attacking us at a scale so small that we have difficulty imagining it. Cells multiplying are a danger to me. And my own cells? How ironic.

 

Colorado, Mountains, Weather +Climate
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Spring                                         Mountain Spring Moon

Snow continues to fall. Straight down, like rain, not sideways as in many Minnesota storms. It gathers, soft and pillowy over stumps, rocks, steps, decks and driveways. This is wet, heavy snow and it weighs down the ponderosa branches.

In the Denver area many trees have already leafed out and the heavy snow will be hard on them. Up here though the aspen have no buds yet. The willows I mentioned the other day are in the valleys, not this high.

 

Health, Weather +Climate

Waiting

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Spring                                                                          Mountain Spring Moon

Word from my doc today on the PSA. 6.3. Put that together with the physical finding and my dad’s prostate cancer. The picture is becoming clearer. On the 27th I’ll have time with a urologist whose specialty is prostate cancer. My internist recommended him.

I have no particular image of where things will go from here. Lots more information to gather. But, the PSA number did knock me back on my heels for a bit. Better now.

Just finished arranging the removal of the tree that destroyed the grandkids playhouse.

Now we wait. The snow has fallen hard on and off since morning. The winter storm warning itself doesn’t begin until this evening. They’re still predicting 1-3 feet of snow with Conifer in the middle of the high impact zone.

We need the snow for the snowpack and to up the moisture levels in the forests. So, we’re looking forward to a reclusive day or two. Might mean I don’t make the first event of the Rodeo All-Stars which is tomorrow night, but the Saturday rodeos should be fine.

Feelings, Health, Weather +Climate
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Spring                                                              Mountain Spring Moon

The mountain spring moon is a sliver, 7% of full, close to a transition to new moon. And what do we have? A snowstorm that may produce 1-3 feet, that’s FEET, of snow. Based on what it’s doing right now that might be a low estimate since, according to the forecast, the snow has until tomorrow evening to fall.

And, in other news. I had a distracted day yesterday but today I’m back to normal. Slept fine both nights. Whatever comes, comes. Kate’s a great source of support.

 

Cooking, Travel

Laissez bon temps rouler

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Spring                                                    Mountain Spring Moon

Yesterday I discovered a restaurant in Littleton, Nono’s. It has the most authentic New Orlean’s cuisine I’ve tasted outside of New Orleans and Savannah.

Red beans and rice has been a dish I’ve loved since first encountering it in 1978.

After the red beans and rice I ordered two beignets, the signature dish of Cafe du Monde. Expectations low the smell of the hot, obviously just cooked dough made me adjust. They were wonderful. I did not order the cafe au lait made with chicory coffee, but I will the next time. The only thing missing was the water glass with beads of moisture on the outside. And the glass walls of Cafe du Monde.

 

Feelings, Health

Distraction

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Spring                                                     Mountain Spring Moon

Been distracted today. Not highly anxious, but finding it hard to focus. Which is not good for doing Latin. This will pass. I have an appointment with a urologist on April 27th and my new PSA numbers will come in today or tomorrow. More information.

Kate has said, long before I began hearing it everywhere, “It is what it is.” True. No amount of fretting will make the reality any different. Still. It is my reality and it is, at least potentially, my mortality.

I’m recording this more for myself, for later. A peg to measure reactions. Not unaffected, but not depressed, sad, worried. Distracted. The best word.

Aging, Beyond the Boundaries, Faith and Spirituality, Jefferson County, Mountains, Original Relation, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Lucky We Live the Mountains

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Spring                                                        Mountain Spring Moon

Lucky we live the mountains. Yes, Minnesota is a beautiful state, but the exurban chunk of it in which we lived and the areas in which I usually traveled, south toward Minneapolis, only occasionally reflected the wonder of the northern part of the state. There was the Mississippi, the lakes in the city, the green belt of parks. There was little Round Lake on Round Lake Blvd. That was about it. The rest of it, the beautiful part, including northern Anoka County with its high water table, marshy and wooded terrain, had to be sought out by driving.

Here the 3 mile drive home from highway 73 up Black Mountain Drive winds past a valley filled with grass and pine on the south side of which rises Conifer Mountain. To the north Shadow Mountain gradually pulls the road higher and higher, rocks jutting out, ponderosa and aspen dot the slopes and mule deer sometimes browse. Each morning when I go to the mailbox to retrieve the Denver Post Black Mountain is on my right, guarding the west and the eventual sunset.

Anytime we leave home, whether to go into Evergreen for our business meeting or into Denver to see the grandkids or south toward Littleton for medical care mountains and valleys, canyons and gulches grace the roadways. Small mountain streams run next to the roadways, swift and right now, often violent. Walls of sheer rock alternate with wooded mountainsides. Always the journey is up or down until we get past the foothills onto the beginning of the great plains where the Denver metroplex takes over.

This was my thought while driving home from the doctor yesterday. How short is a human life span. Not even a tick of the second hand to this rock. These mountains have been here for millions of years longer than the human species itself has existed. They will probably be here millions of years after we’re gone. What is one lifetime? What is a few years here or there? Compared to these. This was a comforting thought.

Art and Culture, Asia, Faith and Spirituality, Travel

Lucky We Live Hawai’i

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Spring                             Mountain Spring Moon

Several years ago Kate and I took advantage of an after conference package in Hawai’i. The conference itself was on Maui, Kaanapali Beach, but the package allowed a three day extension at the Mauna Kea Resort on the Big Island, Hawai’i.

The Mauna Kea is unusual for several reasons. First, its location was a gift to Laurance Rockefeller for taking the risk, in 1965, of starting the resort business on the Big Island. He chose a site with a beautiful crescent beach of white sand. Second, Rockefeller had it designed by famous modernist architects from Chicago, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

Rockefeller went on an art collecting trip along the Pacific Rim and brought back works he instructed the architects to use as the center pieces of their overall design. The result is a mixture of Hawai’ian island romance with clean simple lines and materials used honestly. It is a beautiful place, one of my favorites.

Interestingly, very close to the Mauna Kea is a heiau, a Hawai’ian temple built by the powerful King Kamehameha, and named Pu`ukohola. Pu’ukohola is dedicated to the war god Ku. It is a site where human sacrifices were made and was built when Kamehameha wanted to unify the islands under one monarch.

Just a bit on down the road is a small restaurant where Kate and I ate a modest lunch. I had a local favorite, spam fried rice, which was delicious. We talked with our waiter who said, about living in Hawai’i, “Lucky we live Hawai’i.” I heard it other times, but that afternoon, after breakfast overlooking the white sand beach, a late morning visit to the temple of Ku, the war god, and a tasty basic lunch it seemed very true.

When I hear the islands call, and I do from time to time, what always comes to mind is “Lucky we live Hawai’i.”

 

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Mountains, Original Relation, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

Pulses

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Spring                                               Mountain Spring Moon

Under the mountain spring moon various shades of green have slowly, slowly begun to appear. The ponderosa pines have been green all winter but they’ve greened up some. The first ground cover green to appear was the bearberry when the snow melted back. This evergreen ground cover was green all along, just hidden. A shaded patch of moss has gone from a muted pale green to emerald over the last couple of weeks. There are, too, even here at 8,800 feet, dandelions. Some grass, too. Crab grass for sure, another hardy perennial. Tufts of grass that look like prairie drop seed, but are not, I’m sure, remain their winter tan.

Too, the dogs have begun to sniff through the deck, smelling, I suppose, new rodents of some kind. Along with that has come Rigel digging. With the advent of warmer soil Rigel and Vega may begin creating holes in the rest of the yard as well. Another harbinger of spring.

Birds chirp happily around 5:30-5:45 am as the sun begins to rise.

Driving along Highway 78 (Shadow Mountain Drive, Black Mountain Drive (our segment) and Brook Forest Road) the only snow that remains is on the north side of the road or in shaded spots. A pond not far from our house still has ice, but the ice has a shallow layer of water over it. The mountain streams run, burble, ice now long melted and turned into stream. Willows along the streams look fire tipped as their branches turn a green gold. “Like dusted with gold,” Kate said.

The mountain spring is a slow arriver, coming in pulses, alternated with sometimes heavy snows. We have the potential, for example, for a huge snow storm Wednesday through Friday.

While on a drive Sunday, not far from our home, on top of a large outcropping of rock where the sun penetrated the trees, lay a fox, curled up and enjoying a quiet Sunday nap. The fox was a tan spot against the gray of the rock. Mule deer have begun to return as well, we see them at various places along the slopes and valleys. Kate just called and said, for example, that we have four deer in our front yard and “the dogs are levitating.” Sure enough, there they are, finding the green just as I have been.

Family, Our Land and Home

Playhouse Gone

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Spring                                                                 Mountain Spring Moon

Text message yesterday from a realtor handling a Saturday open house. A big tree blew over or just fell down and smashed the grandchildren’s playhouse. Kate had a lot of investment in the playhouse, fixing it up especially for Ruth and Gabe’s visits. Inside it had our old fireplace mantle, a small children’s table, a wicker and metal chair, an heirloom rocker, a crystal chandelier, a nice rug and electricity.

A piece of yesterday still owned by us was gone. And we had to deal with it. I put in an online claim to USAA and we’ve tried to reach them this morning, but no luck so far. The tree has to be removed from the immediate site and the remains of the playhouse will have to be disposed of. That’s something we’ll have to coordinate from here with the help of our realtor.

After time considering it, it came to me that the playhouse was the only object in Andover that had been devoted to the grandkids. It’s summary removal can be seen as elimination of our last family connection there. It’s as if a message were lit above the ruins: Now you have fully left this land. So I’m choosing to see it as a mark of our passage from Minnesota, a passage that will be complete when the house sells.