Summer Woolly Mammoth Moon
Went to the Hearing Rehab Associates shop today for a hearing test, hearing aid cleaning and tune up. An old folks event. First order of business, shine a bright plastic wand in my ear and make my ear drum go owwiiee. Then, into the Scott Pruitt sound proof booth. I felt like I was right there at the EPA, protected from those damned environmentalists.
The booth has two outlets, but I only need one, for my right ear. My other ear goes along, because, what’s it gonna do, but it doesn’t have to participate. That stopped a long time ago. First words. Then, beeps. Finally, staticky sounds with the hearing aid on. Result? Hearing is in the same place as a year ago. Good news. The hearing aid needed some adjustment to clarify higher range sounds. A few clicks of a mouse and that was done.
I also checked in, as I do from time to time, to see what’s new for us single sided hearing loss folks. Since the left ear went dark when I was 38, 1975, last millennia, there’s not been a sufficient advance to make my situation better. “That’s one thing we can’t fix,” said Katie, the audiologist. She did give me information on a BAHA device, Bone Assisted Hearing Aid. Might look into it. Still, she seemed rather doubtful that it would do more than alert me to sound coming from the left. Nothing new.
Also, as long as I’m on health matters, I made an appointment with Lisa, my internist, for a back pain consult. I work out, with work outs from a personal trainer, and have done for a long, long time, but I still tweak my back. Tramadol helps. I’m in a bit of an odd spot since my kidney disease makes taking NSAIDS inadvisable. Don’t want to go to opoids and acetaminophen doesn’t always knock down severe pain. I hope she’ll give me a prescription since I don’t know when it’s going to happen.
Meanwhile, though it’s way cooler here than Denver, it’s still too freaking hot. OK. Rant over.
Spent most of yesterday on submissions. I revised School Spirit, taking 2.0 down to 2,700 words from 4,800, and submitted the revision to Mysterion. I developed a table in Word to track my submissions. It has these columns: submission, work, publisher, response, rejection, acceptance, contract, published. Later on today I’m going to begin revision of Superior Wolf, which I want to get out as soon as I can get it where I want it.
So, I’m facing my fear, not only that, I’m leaning into it, grabbing it by the scruff of the neck and saying, “Come on, now. Message received. Stop already.” This is partly mussar driven, the practice I wrote about on 
Publishers and editors and agents, even critics and readers, are not lions or hyenas on the veldt. The fear I’ve allowed to rule me for the past three decades however has believed them so. The shame then is a complicated emotion which recognizes the self-deception and self-protection. It knows I’ve chosen the critique of intimates, why hasn’t Charlie ever published, to the critique of possible readers. That’s embarrassing, but it’s where I’ve been for a long, long time.
I know that fear vitiates trust. If we’re afraid of another person’s motives, we’ll never get to know them well. If we’re afraid of public speaking, no one will hear us. If we’re afraid of our own motives, we’ll take few risks. In these cases, if we face the fear, listen to it, talk it down, choose to act differently, then we may find love, may discover that people want to know what we have to say, may open ourselves to the world’s rich opportunities.
With these elements identified lesson planning will be easier because content can be plucked from any of the columns to enhance a particular class. There’s another move in the process, integrating the b’nai mitzvah curriculum developed by a national organization called Moving Traditions with those classes for which Alan and I have to develop our own lesson plans. Once how we do that is decided and dates for the b’nai mitzvah classes show up on the calendar, we should be able to move fairly quickly to a plan for the year.
Lifted a case of 24 cans of wet dog food out of the box on Thursday. Kate happened to be there. The moment I straightened up, I said, “Fuck. I shouldn’t have done that.” I lifted it with my back slightly bent, not with my legs, but my arms. Friday and Saturday were walk around like a hunchback days. I know better, but it had a cardboard cap on it. I took that off and it was very light, just cardboard. Somehow my body took that as a cue that the canned dog food would be light, too, so I let my guard down. Better this morning, but geez. How old am I again?
Ouch. I got this note back:
Then, I paused. Wait. This is the moment I wanted. Lean into the shame and embarrassment, see what it means. Why do I feel that way? So many reasons. Personal competence. A big risk taken with no results. Kate’s been so supportive of my writing. Most of all though it’s my work, being rejected. And it feels bad.
Not sure here all of a sudden. It was shame that I felt when I read this note. Didn’t realize it, name it until I began writing this. Why though? Why shame? Perhaps it’s from that old, underlying conundrum, am I living up to my potential? Who’s to say? Perhaps it’s wanting to be seen as a creative person, a writer of books, yet secretly suspecting that I’m not worthy of those identifiers. Perhaps it’s as simple as failing and being ashamed of failing?
What I do know, for sure, is that this shame, a hot desire to hide, to cover myself, to flee works against me, is not for me, in any way. And I could identify that paradox in another, in Kate or one of the Woollys, or a friend at Beth Evergreen. I would have compassion for it, yet also have a tough love move against it. It’s not who you are, it’s an attack on yourself from within. Perhaps we could call it Shaitan, the Devil because it is evil to push yourself down or to push another person down. Why? Because living is all we have and shame makes us shrink from life.
At the Mussar Vaad Practice group we all come up with a practice for the coming month, a practice based on that month’s middah or character trait. Each month the congregation has a middah of the month. Emunah, or faith was the middah last month. My practice focused on sharpening doubt, a practice that made me feel more alive, more grounded in faith as a necessary human act.
That same fear is the one I faced after the Durango trip, writing 
I’m embarrassed to write this, ashamed I’ve been so fearful, yet I have been both embarrassed and ashamed for most of the most of the time I’ve been writing. Now is not different. The only way I can make it different is by finding publishers and agents and getting my work to them.
Sixth dead tree down. All limbed, the slash moved to the road, and Elk Creek Fire Department notified. They have a new program this year. We put slash within 5 feet of the road and in 5 foot or so piles. They’ll come by and chip it. This is not a small deal since the last slash chipping I had done cost $600. Sometime in the next few days I’ll cut all six of them into fireplace sized chunks and stack them.
A friend wrote about my life here in Colorado. He is, he said, intentionally simplifying, trying to have fewer obligations, yet I’m taking care of dogs, doing more work around the house, cutting down trees and teaching at Beth Evergreen. Now I happen to know that this same guy, who is older than I am, recently completed a show in which he made posters of all the bridges across the Mississippi in the Twin Cities. He has also found a patron who loves his art, so he’s producing larger art works across various media. Not exactly slowing down in that sense. Life in the old lane does force us to make choices about how to use the energy and time we have, but so does every other phase of life. Now though we know ourselves better so we can get more bang for the time and energy.
Here’s my situation. I have my chronic illnesses, collected along the way. I don’t hear worth a damn, have stage III kidney disease (stable), glaucoma, high blood pressure, an anxiety disorder (which, frankly, is much, much improved), arthritis in various spots. A repaired achilles tendon and a titanium left knee make my legs not what they were. All these are facts. If you ask me, I’ll tell you, though, that my health is excellent. None of this drags me down, either physically or emotionally.
Kate bustled around yesterday in short bursts and defeated the nausea demon by not taking her diclofenac in the morning. Or at least we think that was it. She’s engaged in an experiment right now to test whether the diclofenac might be a major contributor. Problem is that the diclofenac covers her arthritis pain and without it she’s in pain. Difficult and complicated.
Why are we so reluctant to recognize that racism, sexism, homelessness, income inequality, white fear are the result of decisions we’ve made collectively and individually? I think the answer lies in ideas Arthur Brooks identifies as the bedrocks of conservative thought. Below is a portion of that article, 
But, to sacralize that unique reality, “…conservatives have always placed tremendous emphasis on the sacred space where individuals are formed.” says Brooks, serves to deny its perniciousness, its damning of so many to lives of desperation, marginalized from both economic and cultural blessings. Once we emerge in the era, the family, the town or neighborhood or rural place, the religious or areligious space gifted to us, the nation of our birth, once we are over being thrown into circumstances beyond our volition, we gain the power of choice.