Yearly Archives: 2023

Art and Culture, Colorado, Commentary on the news, Cooking, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Tea, Travel

Dushanbe Tea House

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Winter and the Valentine Moon

Monday gratefuls: A good night’s sleep. Cool temps. Light Snow keeping things fresh. Mike and Kate. Dushanbe Tea House. Lapsang Souchong sausage. The brewing tea at altitude dilemma. Central Asia. Boulder. A drive. Ode in Rarotan. DAVA fund raiser for the kids. California. Now another mass shooting. See that adjective? Another. C’mon. Relationships. Friendships.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Travel

 

What fun. Brunch at the Dushanbe Tea House with Mike Banker and Kate Strickland. On so many levels. First, the drive. Getting down the hill, yet driving very close to the Hogbacks that mark the beginnings of the Laramide Orogeny. The Flatirons, too. Sheets of Rock thrust up.  Going past the Rocky Flats Site. Then down into Boulder. As the wags like to say, 25 square miles surrounded by reality.

On the way into Boulder on 93 you pass a big campus with NOAA, National Weather Service, and an experimental laboratory for the Dept of Commerce. Further on is the CU Boulder planetarium where I’ve taken Ruth many times. Before downtown by about a block is the Tea House.

When I got there, I parked and saw a large crowd outside. 45 minute wait. I was a little early so I put my name for a table for three and went to sit at the bar. Ordered silver needle white Tea. Mike and Kate showed up as I poured my first cup. They ordered Darjeeling, Kate in memory of her trip to Darjeeling before her time in Japan, and Matcha, Mike likes the Japanese Tea Ceremony.

The second level. The wonderful coffered ceilings, all ceramic, a riot of colors. Plants in the center of the large open seating area. A crowd, young for the most part, Boulder’s a college town. The Tea. I should say, the Teas. A thick bound book has five pages with different Teas listed front and back. You can buy Tea there, too. Loose and in satchels for ease of use. When your small white teapot comes, the waiter places a tiny three minute hour glass down with it and tells you how to long to let your choice steep. Three minutes for the white Teas.

The third level. The brunch menu. I had the Swiss Raclette. Eggs in a dish of melted fondue cheese with small chunks of ham and Yukon gold Potatoes. Toast on the side. Kate ordered a side of lapsang souchong sausage so we could taste it. Delicious. Mike had the lapsang souchong flavored bulgogi! And Kate had the Indian Dosa. An exotic menu. Great tastes to go with wonderful Teas.

The fourth and most important level. Being with Kate and Mike. A bright young couple. Kate engaged in the Great Work, creating a sustainable presence for human beings on this planet, Mike now at work with a documentary film company that had him most recently in Kyiv. The table conversation was witty, wide ranging, and fun. I told them how much I appreciated spending time with folks their age. Most of my friends are further along in the aging process. Ahem.

We agreed to meet again in Evergreen. Sometime soon. I felt they genuinely enjoyed hanging out with me. Honored.

 

DAVA. The annual Aurora art teachers art show is this week. They’re having a fund raiser for Ruth and Gabe. This is the first year Jon won’t have any work in the show. I’ve been to the show many times over the years. The art teachers have donated art for sale, the proceeds going to the kids. I’m going with Jen, Ruth and Gabe.

 

My buddy Ode is on Roatan, an Island off the coast of Honduras. Continuing healing for his new knee. Enjoying the sun.

 

Last. How bout those mass shootings, eh? They just keep on coming like the Blue Light specials at the old K-Mart stores. When I opened the NYT yesterday and saw that, my heart shriveled. Again. Another. Then my mind went to the good guys with guns. Like the one here in Aurora who shot a perpetrator only to be killed by police. With their guns. Guns. For god’s sake. Can’t we see the problem is the damned guns?

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Korea, Mathematics, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

The Great Wheel turns for us all

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Winter and my 76th Valentine Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Alan. The Campfire. Snow. Dribs and drabs keeping the Mountains white. Going out today. Adventure! Watching women’s soccer on HBO. Motorsports Magazine. Road and Track. Bomani Jones. Going to Savannah and Charleston with Imani Perry. Doctor Who. New Amsterdam. Collard Greens and Kielbasa. With a tangerine chaser. The nudger. Lao Tze. Chuang-tzu.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends

 

Color me confused. Looked at my credit card statement. After all the heavy breathing, my charge from McKesson pharmacy for the orgovyx was $135. Not sure if it’s a mistake or not. They told me $896 on the phone. With Erleada yet to come. This whole damned thing. Who needs this $*!#?

 

I’m feeling proud of myself this morning. I did go through all of the boxes in the Kate dining room. Took out some, left most. When Robin comes on Tuesday, she’ll be able to load those directly into her and Michelle’s vehicles, take them to recycling. Should be time left over for the pruning I’ve done in the new upstairs office. Might even get to that walk-in closet before they come. Yes, sir. Moving things along.

Also my Korean’s improving. At least on Duolingo. When I see Seoah next, that will be a good test. Now I’m saying very, very low level learning. For speaking. Better for reading and understanding. Very low level. But still a long ways from zero. I’m picking up the occasional words on K-dramas now. No sentences yet. Amazing myself. I am working at it daily. I know both math and languages require daily work.

Hangul makes it harder. Obv. I need to go back and refresh the Hangul that came at the start. Though. The repetition has me recognizing more and more. Not sure of the pedagogy. Am I learning the Hangul through repetition? I am, yes, but is that the plan? I don’t know. Verbs? Not so much. A little exposure that I’m not sure I understand.

 

Yes, this new moon will be the 76th to preside over my birthday on Valentine’s Day. Wowzer. Closer to 80 than 70. Odd. As I’m sure everyone who hits this marker feels. Life keeps offering surprises, joys, love. I’m good for another decade anyhow. Psychologically. Physically? We’ll have to see.

It will feel strange to cross the line, if I do, past Kate’s age at her death. 76 years and nine months. October of this year for me. As it felt strange to turn 47, the age my mother was when she died.

Not sure if I mentioned here coming across Kate’s couple of pages description of our dogs. Made me cry a bit. Her handwriting. Her thoughts on the page. Our shared love of the many, many dogs we both knew and cared for. She’s gone, but her memory is for a blessing. As my Jewish friends say. Her second yahrzeit comes this April. Hard. Two years gone.

Still alone but not lonely. Me. Knowing now the Great Wheel does turn even for those we love, and for ourselves. The consolation of Deer Creek Canyon. Yes.

Weather +Climate

this. that.

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Friday gratefuls: Kep in the Snow. His good appetite, his nudges. Thursday Mussar. Empathy for my situation, anger over our broken health care system. David Lieberman. Rabbi Jamie. Minnesota’s very, very Snowy year. Diane. The Rains of California. Reading Shaw. Salmon and white Bean stew. Peruvian Chicken. Going through my past. Cooking. Ramen. With additions. Pharmaceutical companies. Their drugs. Alan and his plays. One acts.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Living

 

An odd week so far. I’ve only left the house once. Seen nobody except Mark, the mailman. In the flesh. On zoom Diane and the Thursday Mussar group. The Origins of North America class. Otherwise. No one. Talked to the McKesson folks, a nurse from Kristen Gonzalez’s office, and David Lieberman. I can tell it’s been odd. Wouldn’t want every week to go this way, but with zoom I’ve gotten my sociability needs met. Good exercise, sleep. Lots of progress on pruning. Will talk to Tom in a few minutes.

Mary leaves Kobe, Japan in a few weeks, heading back to the wilds of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. From the subtropics to the frigid Upper Midwest. Mark remains in Oklahoma City, maybe about to become a US Postal Service employee. May it be so.

 

Korean study going well. I’ve learned over two hundred nouns and can now translate sentences with help. It’s gotten harder. The lessons taking longer, but I can see the progress. Satisfying.

Calculus lags behind a bit. I moved my work on it upstairs to my new office, but I have not gotten that space finished yet. As a result, I’m not using it as much. I will get back to it.

Same with How to Become a Pagan. When I get the new space finished, work on it will pick up.

 

Did you know the term Atmospheric River before this Winter? Not sure I did. Its effects have made it a household world in plague ridden California. Wildfires. Floods. Or, Summer and Winter. Diane has gotten back to jogging up to her hill, but she says it remains slumped. Too many sites like it for public works to contend with. Also, Tom sent a note that this is Minnesota’s fourth Snowiest Winter ever.

 

Still moving through South to America. Here’s the kind of lens I now have as a result. I started watching the new Elvis movie with Austin Butler. If you’ve seen it, I think he does a great job as Elvis and Tom Hanks certainly gives Colonel Parker a distinctive character. The movie makes clear the impact Beale Street in Memphis had on Elvis, right down to his signature grind.

Here’s the thing. Perry made me realize that what Elvis really did was make money out of the moves of Black performers he came to know on Beale Street. The same quality of musician, singing the same quality of music, with the same sort of performing charisma already had careers. In Black establishments. They couldn’t cross over into the popular music market where the big money was. Elvis could. And did.

This is the same lens you can find on HBO Max’s Game Theory with Bomani Jones. He’s worth a watch if you get that streaming service.

 

 

 

Dogs, Memories, Plants, Politics, Travel, US History

Stolen Work, Stolen Land

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Kate Strickland and Michael Banker. Seeing them on Sunday. Dushanbe Tea House in Boulder. Diane this morning. Tom tomorrow. Tom Tomorrow! Alan on Saturday. Mussar today. Fresh white Snow. Kep, the sleeper. His sleeping sounds. Sudbury Impact Crater. Ejecta all the way to Gunflint Lake in Minnesota. Subduction. Nickel. Copper. Platinum. Paladium. Zircon. Uranium. Colorado Plateau. Placer deposits of uranium. Manitoulin Island. The Georgian Bay. The Chi-cheemaun.

Thursday gratefuls: Life in all is wonder

 

Getting a distinct Canada jones. This Origins of North America course has rekindled memories of Stratford, Ontario, taking the Chi-cheemaun ferry to Manitoulin Island. Also my trips circumnavigating Lake Superior. I’ve always loved Canada. Every since our first family trip there and I saw those road signs with the crown on them. And those Fords that looked like Fords but had a different name: Meteor. That moment on Lake Huron in Ipperwash Provincial Park. One with the Lake and the Sunseen.

Now I see this is land stolen from the Chippewa Band of Kettle and Stony Point. This story about the sniper killing of band member Dudley George in 1995. Maybe the spirit of the Anishinabe inhabited me that day.

And so back to Imani (faith) Perry and her South to America. In her chapter on the Soul of the South she talks a lot about the Black Belt, a geological region that runs through Alabama, Mississippi, parts of other Southern states which was especially good for growing cotton. The term also has a broader definition: “Political analysts and historians continue to use the term Black Belt to designate some 200 counties in the South from Virginia to Texas that have a history of majority African American population and cotton production.” wiki

The Black Belt and the Chippewa’s struggle over Ipperwash are of a piece. They are land used by White governmental and economic structures enforcing white supremacy over those deemed lesser. This is why Perry says to understand the U.S. we have to go to the South. Because slavery informed the founding documents of our nation and because the wealth of the early United States had its base in cotton production and trade. These two facts go together. The wealth of the Southern states allowed them to have an outsized voice in the negotiations creating our nation.

That would mean that originalism is ipso facto racist. It says we have to interpret only the words of the constitution and use the plain meaning of those words as laid down by the founders. Well, hey. The three-fifths clause. The electoral college. Senators two from each state. That means the Extremes are not only hard right conservatives but also standard bearers for white supremacy. Wonder how Clarence feels about that.

February is Black history month. Would be a good time to read some DuBois, maybe some Richard Wright, Imani Perry, Frederick Douglas. Margaret Walker. Toni Morrison. Maya Angelou. James Baldwin. Langston Hughes.

Back to that Canada thing though. Think I’m gonna plan a trip. True North Shore of Lake Superior, over to the Georgian Bay, cross the bay going South, Head to Stratford for some good theater. Anybody wanna come?

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Literature, Politics, US History, World History

Books and the dumb side of Politics

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Kate and our IRA. Enough money to keep me alive. Another new knee. Warren. Ode. Now Stefan. Age and its attendant insults. Medicine and its remedies for them. Rich’s new class. Looks fun. The Muddy Buck. Old Evergreen. The Evergreen Hotel, long gone.  Evergreen. A mighty fine Mountain town. Living in the Mountains. The silence of a Shadow Mountain Night. Sleeping. Kep, the dogged. Solving problems. Accepting reality.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Silent Night, Holy Night. Every Night

 

All that. Money stuff. Doctor and pharmaceutical stuff. Put to bed for now. Moving on. Occupied me for two days straight. Gotta have stuff to do when you old.

 

Reading two new books. Stunners. The first South To America by Imani Perry. A professor of African Studies at Princeton. A delicate, hard fisted, beautiful intelligent travelogue of her journey to her home state of Alabama. She begins at Harpers Ferry with thoughts on John Brown, Confederate reenactors, an unexpected conversation with one who volunteers at a store that’s part of the historic Harpers Ferry.

She writes about race and racism in a way that enfolds and  unfolds its complexity. An example. Her feelings of tenderness toward the exploited coal miners of Appalachia. All of them. Then an observation about how even in the mines Blacks had the filthiest most dangerous jobs. Lived on the fringes of white poverty.

I’m still early in the book. Virginia. Trenchant and profound observations about Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. Both owned slaves. Both believed it was wrong. But lust overcame Jefferson and ambition overcame Patrick Henry. They kept their slaves.

 

The second. The Good Life. By Robert Waldinger and Marc Shultz. Director and Assistant Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. Longest running longitudinal study of human development in the world. Its message. Develop and keep good relationships. Intimate ones. Friendship. Family. Even strangers. Well written, clear. Helpful. Reinforcing.

In that spirit I have breakfast with Alan this morning at the Parkside Cafe in Evergreen. The newer part of Evergreen. For locals. Tourists sneak in on occasion, too. Near the Bread Lounge. Often has folks I know.

Rebecca Martin should be back from India and we can resume our breakfasts. Luke and I have our lunches. Diane and Tom. The Ancient Brothers. MVP. Mussar on Thursday. Staying connected. Rich again in two weeks. Knowing and being known. Seeing and being seen. The human, the primate, way. Love in its many forms.

 

How about those classified files at the Bidens? Ooops. There goes a second term. So. Damned. Stupid. And right now? He’s overperformed. Rich and I agreed. Then stepped right on his well you know. And hard. Without necessity. Come on, man!

Takes the stage away from that lying George Santos. The Long Island prevaricator.

How bout those Bolsanorans? I mean. Guys. He fled the country. To Florida. On an A-1 visa reserved for heads of state. He left Brazil before he left office. Trump went to Florida, too. Lots of parallels, eh? Trump and his like are cancers in the body politic of many countries. As 1st graders used to say, He’s copying!

All for now.

 

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Mussar

Salvage. Catastrophic.

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Friday gratefuls: The Assistance Fund. Bridgette. Urology Associates. Bond and Devick. Rich. Muddy Buck. Cancer. Bureaucracy. Government and private. Kep the unsteady. Jon, a memory and a hurdle. David, his father. Shirley, his step-mother. Jen. Friends. The staff of life. Coming home to the Mountains. Curvy roads. Snow. Lodgpepole and Aspens. Black Mountain. Climbing Shadow Mountain on Shadow Mountain Drive. The pregnant Mule Deer Doe that crossed my path on the way to Evergreen this morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: the pregnant Mule Deer Doe, life in its wonder

 

Well. Somewhat better news. Still. So. I pay the full copays this month, around $3,000. That tips me over into catastrophic drug coverage. My portion goes to 5% or about $850 a month. Right now that’s the best deal I can get.

However. The Assistance Fund might pick me up again sometime during the year. If they do, they’ll backdate my account and repay me for all my expenses. Fingers crossed on this one. I’m on a long wait phone line right now to discover how my situation looks.

This is the problem with charity and philanthropy. Haven’t been on this end of it before. If things change or the funder decides on different priorities, no appeal, and as in this instance no notice. Just gone. We can’t count on the wealthiest among us to share our values or recognize our needs. That’s what government is for.

Erleada and Orgovyx. Salvage therapy. This charming term refers to all therapies given after the hope of a cure falls away. After the prostatectomy and the radiation failed to cure me, I landed in salvage land. In order to get my salvage therapy cost down I have to get into catastrophic coverage in my insurance plan.

Had to get an urgent cash infusion to cover the first month’s copay. Paying that should do the trick to put me in a drug cost catastrophe. If my position on the waitlist ends up getting funded, I’ll be made whole. No promises. No way of knowing. Just pay and wait.

Due to this problem I got kicked off McKesson Pharmaceutical’s account list. Result: Doc has to represcribe. Which means probably Monday at the earliest. Then a shipment has to get here. Good thing Urology Associates fronted me some samples. I should be able to cover the gap between the time all of this gets processed and a new shipment comes to my door.

 

Had a great breakfast with Rich this morning. He’s teaching a new course on applied philosophy and the Constitution at the School of Mines. Here’s a link to his syllabus. A smart guy. Obv. Also my lawyer. Estate planning and Jon’s probate.

We click intellectually and decided to meet more often. Maybe every two weeks.

Breakfast at the Muddy Buck in the tourist part of Evergreen. On our way out Rich greeted a guy he told me was a movie star from Evergreen. A former Seal who had a role in the movie Act of Valor. It might have been his story. I forget right now. A mammoth guy with lots of tattoos. and a Yeti t-shirt on.

 

Feelings, Health, Mussar

What? Anger.

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Thursday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Cancer. Co-pays. High anxiety. Workouts. Kep the unsteady. Oh, man. Fear. Box breathing. Numbness. Rock. Deer Creek Canyon. Its consolation. Kate’s holy Valley. Kate’s creek. Need her today. Big Pharma. Big problems. Shadow Mountain. The Hermitage. Herme. Jon, a memory. Ruth. Gabe, the Legomaniac. Northfield High.

Sparks of joy and awe: The Sun

Correction: Ruth’s school has allowed her to make up her work in the two classes I mentioned. Glad for that.

 

Big news today. Yikes! Just got off the phone with McKesson pharmacy. Source of Orgovyx and Erleada, my two prostate cancer drugs. The Assistance fund has exhausted its money for prostate cancer. Oh? Your co-pays are now $800 a month for the Orgovyx and $2,000 a month for the Erleada. What?! The. Hell.

Had a shipment supposed to arrive today. I have two Orgovyx left. A bit more Erleada. Maybe a week. McKesson has faxed my doc forms for me to be added to the pharmaceutical company’s assistance plan. In this instance then the company will dispense my drugs.

This causes me some anxiety. Managing it with box breathing. By calling my doc. By writing this. Still. Stunned. Unsure. Uncertain what will come.

So many cancer patients have the same trouble. Fighting a terminal disease and insurance and big pharma. There is something wrong with this at a root level. Can you help me? Yes. But it’s gonna cost you. What if I can’t pay? Well. Buh bye then.

Not surprised. Not really. That this has happened right now. Today. Yes. But that there would come a kink in the system. No. A sad commentary on the state of medicine in our wealthy, wealthy country. Wonder if Bezos or Musk could shoot me a check?

This will occupy my day until it’s sorted. If it can be.

 

Anger. MVP last night. Some thought anger comes from fear. We agreed it rises up. I admit I don’t understand emotions. How and why they come. But they sure do. My anxiety above has an obvious trigger. Glad I’ve spent a lot of time on how to cope with anxiety. Anger though?

Before I went to sleep I came up with this idea. Anger comes when something or someone assaults my values. Then. Thinking as an anthropologist. What adaptive advantage does anger hold? Might be like joking behavior. Who and what you laugh at can identify the cultures or subcultures to which you belong. If you’re a Swede, you might make Norwegian or Finnish jokes. If you’re a Northerner. Jokes about Southerners. Southerners. About Yankees. So on.

It could be the same with anger. Those things which make you angry can identify the culture or subculture to which you belong. If seeing the Confederate flag flown from a pickup truck bed makes you boil? Probably a liberal Northerner. Obama in the Whitehouse. Probably a white supremacist. If you believe your spouse has belittled you and you get angry? The underlying value is self-worth. A challenge to it.

If you took a community and recorded every instance of anger for a week, I think you could identify the various solidarity groups in the community with ease. Shared values = shared anger. And anger means those values have been belittled or scorned.

A passing thought.

Anoka County, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hermitage, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Good memories

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Good Life. Helen and Scott Nearing. Kate and mine’s version. Garden catalogues. The Bees. Their Superorganism. The Squirrel that used to steal our Honeycrisp Apples. Gertie standing on my electric fence. Those first Shoots in the Spring. Grape anemones. Daffodils. Crocus. The eagerness to get out there. Plant something. Reluctantly waiting for May 15, the last frost. The Woods in Winter. That Opossum that visited me one Winter Solstice.

Sparks of joy and awe: Horticulture

 

Happy and fulfilling memories. The Andover years. Kate and I working as a team in the Vegetable Garden. I handled the Orchard, the Bees, and the Flower beds, but the ongoing work of the growing season in the Garden. A mutual task. Harvesting Honey. Also mutual.

Kate earning money allowed me to work in the Gardens and in the Woods during the day. If I had worked full-time, we couldn’t have had as much. With writing I could take a break and plant. Cut wood. Tend to the Bees. We both felt the division of labor worked well.

We did have a housecleaner. Cooking and shopping were also my responsibilities. It was a good life. And a level of physical effort we did not want to continue after we both got older. Moving to Colorado came at the right time in our lives. Out here we had the grandkids, CBE, the Mountains. Travel. Also a good life, one suited better to our energy.

As I said in the Ancient Brothers yesterday, even the years of Kate’s decline were good years. Sure there was anguish, pain, frustration, anxiety. But we had three solid years of working closely together again to keep her healthy and alive. In her last year I would apply lotion to her arms and legs because they would get very dry. A lot of touching. Not the rosy glow of forgotten difficulty, rather the difficulty was the point. The connection. As our many hours in the garden had been all those years ago.

 

The same with these years after her death. Two in April. The adjustments, the adaptations. The work on the house. They have been the necessary domestic duties that kept me grounded. As did caring for Rigel and Kep as they cared for me.

Even the cancer. Not fighting it. Learning to live with it. With the now much reduced stamina occasioned by androgen deprivation therapy. Going slower. Doing things in slower increments. Resting more. Also a good life.

Yes, I may recognize the benefits later. Sometimes in the moment. But, I do find them. More and more the realizations of the good life I’m living come to me daily. As a result, I’m calmer, more accepting.

Blessed be.

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Health, Hermitage, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Mussar, Plants, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Writing

Dutiful

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Breakfast with Jen, Ruth, Gabe, Barb. Driving back up the hill. F1. The MIA. The Walker. The docent program. My many years there with good friends and art. Acting class. Creativity class. Origins of North America. Finding the volume of a Mountain. Korean. Pruning moving forward. Interior painting, early February. Probate. Still moving. slow. ly. The Good Life. Scott and Helen Nearing. Eudaimonia. Kristen Gonzalez. Psoriasis. Mark and the USPS. Mary in Kobe. Ancient Brothers.

Sparks of joy and awe: Eudaimonia

 

Human flourishing. Eudaimonia. Satisfaction. More important than happiness. Duty is just another word for cultural norms received and accepted. Obligations. On the other hand. Imposed. Why do we do what we do?

Assessing the life that is neither heroic nor mediocre. Since that’s where most of us end up. No need to measure ourselves against the ends of the bell curve. No need to measure ourselves. But can we be at peace with a life without comparisons?

As for me, I choose eudaimonia. Flourishing. Satisfaction. And, yes. Duty plays a role. Family. Sacrifice. Friends too. Being there. Wherever love is, there is duty. To be honest. Sincere. Kind. Helpful. To support the best for the other. Right down to the end. And by implication to support the best for yourself. Also, duty. The unexamined life is not worth living. Yes. A duty to yourself to know thyself. And to thy own known Self be true.

 

What’s interesting for me right now is how much a sense of duty has played in my life. Oh, no! The original oppositional defiant guy admitting to a sense of duty. I who even rebel against my superego. You can’t make me!!! Yes, duty.

A minor yet significant example. As a convinced feminist of the Betty Friedan/Simone de Beauvoir second wave. At the age of 26. In seminary. Went to the Rice Street Clinic late on a Winter afternoon. A scalpel I felt on the first cut slashed my vas deferens on both sides. Shutting down sperm from my testicles. Being responsible for my own contraception.

Another. One I’ve mentioned before. Fits here. No. I don’t want a Johns-Manville full scholarship to college. Managing people in a large corporation is not me. Will never be me. High school.

Once convinced of Vietnam’s sturdiness as a nation, one that had held back China for over 3,000 years. No. I will not fight, nor support that war.

After reading a convincing study about the future job prospects for Ph.D.’s. No to graduate school.

Family. Staying in the fire with Jon. Ruth. Gabe. Kate in later life. Mark. Yet also. Cut your hair or leave! Leaving.

These may not at first reading seem like duty. But they are. A duty to myself, to my own understanding of how to be present in the world.

When I realized Ruth and Gabe needed us in Colorado. Broaching the idea of a move. Kate on board. Following through.

Those two and a half acres in Andover. Leaving them better than when we bought them. How? Working it out with Kate over the years. Together. Staying the course with the full cycle of responsibilities throughout the year. Each year.

And, dogs. Living into their lives. With them from puppyhood to death. Oh. Sweet duty. Painful duty. Life realized in full.

Aging, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Shadow Mountain

Like a book end

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Earth trivia. Perihelion today.* Also, happy birthday Isaac Newton! Who discovered calculus and wrote the Principia Mathematica. An alchemist, too. Kristen Gonzalez. My favorite doctor ever. Aside, of course, from Kate. Evergreen, my Mountain town. Low T. The Valley between Shadow Mountain and Hwy. 73. Mule Deer. Fog on Black Mountain yesterday. Korean. Rational, real, natural, and imaginary numbers. Geez. DNR. Yes. Approaching 76. Colonoscopies.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A straight forward doctor, Kristen

 

Annual physical. Kristen. Kind and wise. Thorough. Practical. Do you have an Advance Directive? Yes. If we could put it in your chart. One more place for it. Are you DNR? Well, if I’m fragile and decrepit, yes. Like I am now? No. This is only for if you die. If we bring you back, we break ribs and you end up in the ICU on a ventilator. After that you are fragile and decrepit. This is not what I wanted you’ll be thinking. I advised my own parents the same way. Ah. I see. Well. DNR then. Straight, this Kristen.

Colonoscopy. When I had one last? Before I moved here. Well. You’re at the cutoff. Your choice. Can I think about it? Of course.

She referred me to a vascular specialist for my left foot which seems to have problematic blood flow.

Nothing new. But the conversation about death and the colonoscopy. If we think you’re going to live a long time, we’d stretch that to 85. The colonoscopy recommendation. Oh. Later. Huh. That means.

A new, more realistic sense of my life span. Though not changed in length. Just the inner awareness. I’m guessing now somewhere between 85 and 90. Which was Dad’s. He died at 89. Trick now is maintaining health span as long as possible. Which I’m doing by managing my prostate cancer, exercising, eating a healthier diet, staying calm, remaining in close contact with friends and family, having a dog. Most you can do. Which is enough. Need an emergency contact. Maybe Rich?

Interesting feeling. Like a book end. Yes, a date out there somewhere. Ten, fifteen years from now. Buh, bye. At first. Huh? A time sort of certain? That seems, oh I don’t know. So sudden? Yeah. So sudden it’s taken me 75 years to get to this point. Ha. Will welcome death when it comes. Until then, I welcome life and all its wonders. Including you, dear reader.

 

Will see Ruth on Saturday. Breakfast at Jen’s. The whole remaining gang. Jen, Ruth, Gabe, Barb. Barb is Jen’s mother. Talked to Ruth for only a moment but her voice was strong. Excited to be back  home. To start school. I’m excited to see her.

 

Kep has gone out and returned on his own since his stuckness the other day. I’m giving him intermittent reinforcement. Treats. When he comes back. That seems to have encouraged him to find his way home before he exhausts himself. Also warmer weather for a while reduced the Snow depth. I want the joy of wandering in the Snow for him.

 

Seeing Marilyn and Irv today for brunch at Aspen Perks. Always a pleasure. Looking forward to the chicken fried steak and eggs.

 

 

For 2023, our closest point to the sun comes this morning for us in North America (16 UTC  on January 4). It’s our annual perihelion, from the Greek roots peri meaning near and helios meaning sun. In early January, we’re about 3% closer to the sun – roughly 3 million miles (5 million km) – than we are during Earth’s aphelion (farthest point) in early July. That’s in contrast to our average distance of about 93 million miles (150 million km). Read about perihelion today.  earthskynews