Monthly Archives: May 2024

Health

Considering Cancer. Ten years in.

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

 

Just got off the line with Kristie Kokenny, my P.A. oncologist. I started seeing her a month after Kate died. A bit over three  years now.

She’s ordering another PSMA scan. This is the one that uses the tracer that binds to a protein found to stick up out of 95% of prostate cancer cells. I was wrong about the cutoff for this PET scan. It’s between .2 and .5 PSA. Since my new PSA is .48, I’m a candidate.

It’s been a bit over a year since my last PET scan of this sort. If the scan is negative, a distinct possibly, we’ll continue monitoring my PSA and testosterone. No drugs.

In fact, and here’s an oddity, it’s possible my PSA could go down. The reason? The radiation I had on my spine last year. Irradiated cancer cells do not die immediately. Their DNA suffers damage from the radiation and they die over a period of two years. It’s possible some of my PSA comes from damaged cells not yet dead. Depending on the proportion of those to active cancer cells, it’s possible for a decrease. Not counting on it, but, hey…

Now that I understand what’s going on my anxiety titer (Kate’s phrase) has vanished altogether. It wasn’t high to begin with, though it was there.

I’m now in my tenth year of cancer and Kristie still says no matter we see on the imaging we can manage it. And I believe her. Trust your doctors and zip up. Kate to me on her death bed.

Though it’s never gone from my mind, how could it be, I’ve adapted and remained mostly calm by having treatments that work. I can’t say, as I hear some cancer patients say, that it has dramatically affected my understanding of life. Rather, it’s added a piece of luggage to the journey. Sometimes heavy, mostly light.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Plants, Wild Neighbors

Life. Challenges to it.

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Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

General Sherman

Tuesday gratefuls: Sarah’s back home. Her visit. Ruth tonight at Domo. Kristie today for update on my recent labs. Meeting David to talk prostate cancer. Great Sol beaming. All those Wild Neighbor babies and young ones. Good workout yesterday. Good practice for my bar mitzvah: torah portion and service leading portions. Ordering a few things: new laptop, new laptop stand, a summer weight comforter. Giving on Colorado Jewish Giving Day.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Enough to share

One brief shining: Can you imagine General Sherman under attack, the largest single Tree in the world, 274.9 feet high, 102.6 feet circumference at ground level, height of first branch above the base, 130.0 feet, by Beetles, Bark-Beetles, possibly aided by the climate tragedy; more, can you imagine being a researcher for the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition climbing General Sherman this week, this great Wild Neighbor,  because “We really feel like it’s our duty as stewards to take a closer look.” I can.

Quote from Christy Brigham in a San Francisco Chronicle article by Kurtis Alexander, May 20, 2024. Courtesy of Diane.

 

I feel suddenly protective of these Trees, this Tree. The Redwoods, too. And the Bristlecone Pines. Taller than three blue whales. I mean…

Gonna add the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition to my donation list. Just donated. What a good feeling. Loving sharing Kate and mine’s money with organizations living out our values. Southern Poverty Law Center. Wild Animal Sanctuary. Kabbalah Experience. CBE. ADL. The Land Institute. The Ancient Forests Society. Makes me happy.

No, we cannot make much of a difference, but we can add our names and our money to those spots of human activity where social justice, the Great Work, Judaism, the Land, and our Wild Neighbors get attention and progress forward.

Not sure why the heart connection with these Trees. Mostly Muir Woods, I guess. Standing next to, among. Shaded by. Overshadowed by. A wild amazement that such beings exist, life so strong and vital. Godliness found. Commitment to a location. Perseverance. Majesty. Silence. Love of place, of the Soil. Soul creation.

 

Today at 11 I talk with Kristie for the first time in a while. My PSA went up a bit, as I wrote before, and my testosterone down. PSA under 1.0 which is the point beyond which imaging can pick up metastases. So no P.E.T. scan. Still off the drugs with my drug holiday. Feeling a bit unsure, unsteady about cancer right now. Will be good to talk to Kristie and get her take, her advice about where we go from here. Back on the drugs, I’m sure. But when?

Almost all of the time I’m ok with the cancer, letting it go on its way, taking the steps my doctors recommend. Living today. When I get a bit anxious about it, I’m not sure what’s going on. Like now. Hardly crippling, yet also there.

 

Have supper with my favorite (and only) granddaughter tonight at Domo. There I’ll give her the present from Kate and me. Enough cash to travel somewhere interesting before starting college. Also, some chocolate. I am so proud to be her grandpop. Glad for her that she was able to complete high school and graduate with her class. CU-Boulder this fall. Studio Arts. Her Dad and Grandma are proud.

 

 

 

 

 

Commentary on the news, Great Wheel, Mountains, Plants, Politics, Wild Neighbors

Sex and babies!

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Beltane and the Shadow Moon

Monday gratefuls: Sarah. Healthy salad. BJ and Pamela. Ruth and Gabe. Pollen. Tree sex. Shadow Mountain. Working out. Staying strong. PSA. Testosterone. James Webb Telescope. Writing. Painting. Learning torah. Rabbi Rami  Shapiro. Rabbi Michael Strassfield. Rabbi Toba Spitzer. Breaking new ground.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Life, mystery and miracle, ordinary

One brief shining: The season of rampant sex in the Plant kingdom has begun, trees leading the way up here Elm, Juniper, Maple of which we have few, but when it comes time for the yellow dust to settle all round the house, to line the puddles when it Rains, to coat the furniture and make housekeeping hard, then it will have well and truly begun for us above 8,000 feet, and my windows will have to close so I can sleep.

 

This is also the time of birth. Wild Neighbor nurseries filled with Mule Deer Fawn, Elk Calves, Mountain Lion and Fox Kits, Black Bear Cubs. A lot of youngsters learning the way of things in the Mountains. Plenty of water for them right now with Streams still full and fast. Fresh young grass and new plant shoots. Prey, too, for the Predators as the cycle of life offers no free passes in the Arapaho National Forest.

Easy. Too easy to drive down the hill toward Evergreen, passing Maxwell Creek Trailhead, Cub Creek, Black Mountain, Shadow Mountain, Kate’s Creek and Valley and forget the busy and wonderful community of Wild Creatures living, thriving just out of sight. Their lives as palpable and momentous to them as ours are to us, as wonderful and fraught.

I found new grass! Good water! Let’s go back to the den. I want to play. Be careful. See, you hide here and wait. Where are my babies?

In short or long lives the gathering of molecules and atoms into sentient beings brings to our Planet joy and diversity and playfulness. As we all move through this world with eyes, bodies, feathers, fur, wings, legs, we participate in a bacchanal of sensory stimulation. Gaia showing herself to herself. Gaia celebrating the multiple inventions, mutations, and transformations she can engender. What a show.

 

Just a moment: Then of course there’s a helicopter crash in the foggy Elburz Mountains of northern Iran. There is, too, the International Criminal Court seeking warrants against Netanyahu and the Hamas leader Sinwar. Makes sense to me.

Here in our benighted republic the election of 2024 grinds on in its caricature of a Presidential election year. The good President reviled and unloved; the bad President on trial in many courts, still the nasty racist son-of-a-bitch he’s always been, yet somehow leading in the polls. I can only shake my head, then stop and put that same head in my hands.

That ship, the Dali, that took out the Francis Scott Key bridge has headed back to port.

Meanwhile war continues in the Ukraine and in the Gaza Strip.

I could go on, but you know, too. May you live in interesting times.

BTW*

 

 

The Phrase Finder website says: “‘May you live in interesting times’ is widely reported as being of ancient Chinese origin but is neither Chinese nor ancient, being recent and western.”

According to the site, the phrase was originally said by the American politician, Frederic R. Coudert, in 1939. He referred to a letter Sir Austen Chamberlain wrote to him in which he stated:

. . . by return mail he wrote to me and concluded as follows: “Many years ago, I learned from one of our diplomats in China that one of the principal Chinese curses heaped upon an enemy is ‘May you live in an interesting age.’”

Despite this, it does not appear to actually come from China and is not clear to have existed before Sir Austen Chamberlain allegedly said it.

grammarpartyblog

 

 

General

Ruth

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Jen. Gabe. Sarah. Northfield Nighthawks, class of 2024. Ritchie Center. Pomp and Circumstance. Elgar. Mortarboards and gowns. Rituals. Rites of Passage. Alexandria High School, 1965. Nuggets v. Timberwolves. Battered Fish and chips. Bangers and mash. A perfect post graduation meal.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth, the graduate

One brief shining: Up from the gymnasium floor, above the first two tiers of smooth concrete seats, we found four in a row, sat down and waited through an excruciating band warmup, a practice presentation of the colors, other family and friends streaming up even higher past us, until Elgar’s piece* used for the inauguration of Edward VII, and the Northfield High School Class of 2024 began to file in, mortarboards turned to art projects with glitter and team symbols, their teen wearers torn in that liminal space between serious moment and unrestrained hilarity.

 

Yes. It happened. Ruth graduated! Sarah and I drove down, I chose to park faraway and Uber in. To save a lot of walking. In that sense it worked well. However, I did park faraway. Further than I thought. Yeah, sure, maps. Who needs a map? I knew where I was. And, I did. It just wasn’t close to Denver University. Oh, well.

The whole ceremony, once it began, ran right at two hours. Done pretty well. Things moved right along. It was one of thousands of high school graduations that day. Just one. But it was the one. The one that mattered for us. Ruth’s day.

We tried to locate her. Hard even though we knew she’d sit in the fourth row from the back and on the right side facing front. I mean, there were all those blue gowns and faces obscured by unfamiliar funny hats with tassels. Plus, just to give it another degree of difficulty the girl who sat next to her had the same curly hair. Oh. There she is. We waved. She didn’t see. How could she?

There were many speeches. A lot of flying high. A lot of you will succeed against any diversity, will persevere, will find your dream if you work hard and stay kind.

Then, Ruth crossed the stage: Ruth Elizabeth Olson. Her moment. Our moment. Diploma and Nighthawk metal feather in hand she went down the steps and back to her seat next to the curly haired girl and that was that. Well, in another 30 to 45 minutes.

Dinner after was at a British Pub themed fish and chips joint where Ruth and Gabe and I have eaten many times. Where we ran into more graduates, in particular Wilson, a former friend of Ruth’s from her Macauliffe days.

 

*BTW: Elgar’s composition

The title is taken from act 3, scene 3 of Shakespeare‘s Othello:

Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th’ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war![1]

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Travel

Donner Party Picnic Area

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Ruth. The class of 2024. Denver University. High School. Still high school. Sarah. My son. Seoah in pink. Helping with the Rice planting in Okgwa. Graduation ceremonies. Rites of passage. Alan. His new Beemer. Electric. Venturing into adulthood. Airmen and women. My son as uncle or para-father.  The USAF. Radar. Islands.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seeing and hearing my son

One brief shining: Stepped up to the cash register, ordered Bolognese Sour Dough Toast, a Lemonberry tart, a fancy pastry with a melted sugar halo, and a Cuban coffee, gathered in the number, 47, for the order and went back to the table in the Bread Lounge overlooking the Mountains west of Evergreen including the completely Snow covered Continental Divide.

 

Speaking of the Continental Divide. On my train ride to San Francisco the conductor, who came on speaker from time to time with historic or geographic points of interest, indicated the River flowing beside the train. The Colorado. I’d crossed it before on a long ago trip to Colorado from Phoenix, but never had a chance to really see it. Muddy with Spring runoff it flowed fast and full, a River of so many dreams. Las Vegas. Tucson. Phoenix. Even far away Los Angeles. Then. Wait it a minute. It’s going the wrong way. Jumped to the first time I crossed the Red River near Fargo. Same sensation.

What? Oh. The Continental Divide. This mud roiled river flowed west and south, toward the Baja, toward the great Pacific Ocean, not the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. Even though I got this intellectually my brain kept feeling tricked each time I looked at the Colorado. My limbic system was not sure what to do with this fundamental change. One it did not understand.

Another odd point of interest. The Donner Party Picnic Area in the Tahoe National Forest. I mean, they had to know what they were doing when they named that, right?

At midnight on the 28th of April I woke up and wandered down stairs. The train, the California Zephyr, had stopped, and I wondered where we were. There in the distance was Salt Lake City. The Mormon Tabernacle. The angel Moroni. Twinkling in the intermontane night. A cool breeze came in from the open door of my sleeper car.

 

Just a moment: Alan, yesterday, said rather than being in a long Pause that I had moved into the inner Charlie. A student. A scholar. A friend. Living alone and loving it. Hmm. I think both are true. I have privileged my introverted, scholarly side, no doubt. And, as he pointed out, he and I have taken many acting classes together. So I was engaged. True. However, it’s also true that my life has had mostly external guide rails in spite of that. In the last year especially Jewish immersion, mikveh, sure, but Jewish home life, too, for example. Shabbat. The Shema. The mezzuzahs. And the classes with Jamie.

The Pause is a time of collecting experience, integrating it, letting it change me. Then, living the change. I feel like I’m moving toward that moment. Perhaps this year.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Memories, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Cookin’

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Friday gratefuls: Irv. Tom. The Ancient Brothers. Rabbi Jamie. The hidden me. Great Sol ablaze in morning glory. Kate, always Kate. Her Creek and her Valley. Kep, my sweet boy. The Redwoods. Bechira points. A long Pause. This Jewish life. Tara. Luke. Rebecca. Ginny and Janice. Back among my peeps. Alan and Joan this morning. Friendships. Music.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: a Pause

One brief shining: Driving down the hill toward Evergreen, Black Mountain Drive becomes Brook Forest Drive, a couple of miles after what used to be the Brook Forest Inn a shallow cutout, good for maybe two or three vehicles, provides parking for a short Valley with a small Mountain Stream carving its way through, White Pines and Ponderosas, Wild Rose and Wild Strawberry and Wild Raspberry grown along its banks and up the steep Valley sides, this is Kate’s Creek running through Kate’s Valley, where her last physical remains began their journey to the World Ocean.

 

Yesterday was session ten of ten conversion sessions with Rabbi Jamie. I will miss these. My Rabbi. There’s a phrase I would not have expected to come out of my mouth. Ever. Yet now I can’t imagine life without Rabbi Jamie in it. He’s a backstop. A validator. A friend. A guide.

He opened me up again yesterday. I shared my guilt. Jewish guilt? About being a hermit by preference these days. Not wanting to engage politically. Or in any way really that’s not personal. As he often does, he went to what appeared to be tangent.

“I researched creativity a couple of years ago. Prepping for a Kabbalah Experience class. I learned then that a creative block, or Pause, can be long. And you never know how long.”

I had used a string of phrases: Not over, Not finished, Not complete, Not done to describe how I felt about my life. While affirming my joy at being alone within a crowd of friends.

Slowly. Oh. I see. Kate’s illness intensifying in mid-2019. Her long, slow decline. Covid. Her death. Grief. Going this way into redecorating the house, that way into moving to Hawai’i, over there to empty the house of stuff, adjusting to my son and Seoah living so far away, taking the plunge into the mikveh and my year of living Jewishly. The trip to Korea and my back’s emergence as a limit. Feeling overtaken, if not overwhelmed, by all the learning, the focus required for conversion and my bar mitzvah. The trip to San Francisco.

Like a caterpillar in its chrysalis, an imaginal self reorganizes for renewal, reemergence. Its container the years of a   whole life-lived experience, vital nutrient for a transformed nefesh. This paused version of me lives day to day. Happy. Joyful. Yet unfocused. Unlike the Great Southern Brood I have no 13 year clock ticking; the timing is uncertain. This Pause. A moment. Now five years or so in length.

So freeing. So liberating. As Rabbi Shapiro said (I think.), “It’s all about freedom.”

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase

From the Veldt

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Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

Thursday gratefuls: Diane. Irv. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Tom. Ancient Brothers. PSA. Cancer. Black Mountain. My Lodgepole companion. That Mule Deer Doe who comes into my back yard. Rain. Low Fire risk. Home insurance. Shadow Mountain home. Bonobos. New clothes for Spring. Alan and Joan. Rabbi Jamie. Tara. Mussar. Yetzer hara. Yetzer hatov.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Great Sol

One brief shining: Dusk fell, a magenta Sky filled the Lodgepoles in the back yard, wait, what’s that, a man walking across my fenced and gated yard, no, oh, I see, the white rump of that Mule Deer Doe who’s taken refuge here the last couple of days, what a relief and a joy.

 

Got a lesson in the inner emergency alert system. When I first saw that Doe, the light of a quickly falling dusk made her front blend into the background. Her white rump looked like a man’s shirt. My brain: this is not a test. Alert. Alert. Not a test. My body went into heightened awareness. Defcon 2. Then. Stand down. Stand down. Not a man. Repeat, not a man. A Mule Deer Doe.

How different the presence of this sweet Animal from the apparent threat of a stranger. Made me aware of how important context is. How much information my brain processes in the background all the time. My backyard empty. Doesn’t register except as a familiar tableaux. Movement. Wait.

Time of day: dusk. Season: late Spring. All gates closed. Fence intact. What is it? A white object moving across from right to left heading toward the far back. A man? A potential danger. Look just a bit longer. Make sure. Ah. There’s her head now. The two different conclusions. Both based on a filter taking into account the truths of that moment. What a man would mean at dusk, having opened a gate or jumped the fence. What a gentle Animal who had been there earlier in the day and yesterday, too, meant.

I was not only pressed into the moment, but certain sensory data lit up my defensive self. This was instinct, yes, but instinct informed by long experience of this particular environment, this particular time of day, this season. All screened, weighed, and taken into account in a flash. My limbic system. Our limbic system. A heritage of our days on the veldt. When the ability to take quick, decisive action meant life or death.

Always interesting to directly experience a function of the brain usually operating in the deep background. Makes me aware of how complex we are, how amazing the human brain is, how we skim the surface in daily life.

Also makes me reflect on the past couple of months when a dark scrim added itself to my emotional regulation. Made things difficult, made me feel vaguely threatened. By my upcoming bar mitzvah. By cancer. By aches and pains. By existential angst. What was my limbic system up to? Did I need to reassess things? Pay attention in ways I had ignored? Or did I just need a refresh, a reboot?

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Memories, Travel

Back

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. San Francisco. Waymo. Ruby. Kate, her Creek and Valley. Ruth, the graduate. Gabe. Jen. Sarah. Mia. Mia’s mother. Kep. His yahrzeit last month. A foggy cap on Black Mountain. Blue Sky above. Must be cloudy to the east. Great Sol. Muted. See’s chocolate. Michael Strassfield. His 3rd Jewish catalog. Mary in Melbourne. Guru.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fog

One brief shining: This morning Fog creeps down Black Mountain obscuring its view from my window, the Lodgepoles have a mysterious, shrouded, yet also illuminated look, the interplay of Great Sol and the dewpoint, which my in-home scientist, Kate, explained to me so I understood.

 

Kate was so quick with math, with scientific knowledge, and medical knowledge of course. She could explain difficult ideas so I could understand them. I miss that part of our relationship. Along with many others. She was also my cooking consultant. My cribbage partner. Traveling companion. Garden planning and maintaining co-worker. Dog lover. Bee work assistant. Grandparent and parent. Most of all, a soulmate whose life meant as much to me as my own.

In this photograph, taken in Songtan, Kate’s continuing her three years of work on a counted cross-stitch I bought for her in Washington, D.C. It says Love is Enough. Hangs in my lower level now. Also had t-shirts made with a print of it for her birthday celebration the year she died. An amazing woman on so many levels.

 

Weird, looking back over the last two or three months. It’s like there was a shroud over my sense of self. I felt overwhelmed by the work for my conversion and bar mitzvah. Enough that I had real anxiety about it. Something I’m free of most of the time these days. I also reached into my bag of oh what a bad boy am I memories and ongoing concerns. Especially health and aging wise. Nope. You’re no longer able to take care of the house. Of feeding yourself. Too lazy. Too weak. Too inattentive. The back. Ouch. I’ll never travel again. That food poisoning. Showed how weak I am. Cancer. PSA blood draw yesterday. Probably mets everywhere. I’m in my tenth year after all.

Gosh. Gee whiz. How am I able to get up in the morning?

Then, much like the Fog slowly burning off Black Mountain as I write, the shroud faded away and I found myself back. Exercising. Confident about my daily life. My Torah portion down. Learning parts of the Morning Service that I can offer as my contribution on June 12th. Reaching back out from myself toward others.

Another thing. My trip now has a golden memory. Gone are the stretches where my back taught me its lessons. Gone is the lingering emotional and physical residue of the food poisoning. Left in their place are time at the Asian Museum. The Redwoods. Japantown. Buying chocolate at See’s. Laughing and eating with Diane. Meals at Sears Fine Food and nights at the Chancellor Hotel.

Why did this change occur? I think it was the trip. I needed a break from the seriousness that had become life. I needed some fun. A lesson in there. I’m pretty sure.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Memories

This time for Ruth

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Sky. Earth. Mountain. Stream. Deer. Dog. Elk. Moose. Bear. Mountain Lion. Fire. River. Lake. North. South. East. West. Life. Rock. Rain. Snow. The elementals. Joy. Sadness. Grief. Mourning. Feelin’ Good. Contemplative. Peaceful. Calm. Anxious. One. Echad. Bees. Honey. Kate. The Journey. Ancientrails. Writing. Living.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Awakening

One brief shining: Each morning I wake up under the Sky, my home resting on Shadow Mountain not far from the headwaters of Maxwell Creek which flows full and strong right now, joining in this new life all those who will pray at least once during the day to whatever Gods may be that Fire will once again withhold itself from the Forest, leaving us to cook breakfast and wash our floors.

 

Age 9

Let me tell you. It was 1965, another century, another millennia. May. The end of high school. For me. 59 years later it’s May. The end of high school. This time for Ruth. Who I held as a baby. Who declared to me at age 3, on a shuttle bus to the Stock Show, that, “I want my mommy!” One whose entire life, like her Uncle’s, my son, I have seen reach this point. This time for Ruth.

This Saturday. At Denver University stadium. The Northfield High School class of 2024. She will be there engowned and under a mortar board as so many of us have done so many times. Taking what may be in some ways the biggest step away of her young life, from public education, from childhood, from home.

Do you remember? The eagerness. The fear. The ancientrail of adult life stretching out before you, unknown for the most part. So wanted. Yet so uncertain. Would I be good enough? Strong enough? Enough? Yearning to break free from the known constraints of childhood. To live into the arms of your Self and its future.

Sure, there’s a path ahead for some of us. College. That factory job. Apprenticeship. But it is a path so far untrodden, so far innocent of our effort, our strength, our resolve.

Ruth’s feet. Her art. Her hopes. Her memories of her dad. Of her struggles. That backpack filled with the detritus of divorce, death, anguish. Heavy on her back. Her path. She goes off to college carrying that backpack, perhaps at times slumped over because of its weight, at other points, hopefully more and more often as time goes on, buoyed up by her ability to have weathered its burden and chosen life.

Her grandma. Her dad. Her dead. Will walk with her. Will receive her diploma, too. Will smile and their hearts will swell with pride. As will her mom’s. Mine. Most important of all, her own.

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