Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Veronica. Saigon Landing. Tonight. Pain doc. SPRINT PNS. Steroid injections soon. Pain. Weariness. Good mornings. Fatigued afternoons. Waning evenings. Shadow bouncing and running. AI 2027. AI. A world beyond our imagining not far away. A world so far away we cannot imagine. The early universe.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Pain relief

Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

One brief shining: Hobbled by back pain I moved slowly toward the steps, up and in to the Mountain Pain Center building, doors an obstacle, walking an obstacle, fuck this, I thought, damned back, afterward over to nearby Tony’s Market for an Italian Sub and then home, my day finished around 11 am.

 

When the Ancients gathered on Sunday, I had asked for each person to tell us how they see themselves. Speaking for myself I said I was weary. Back pain limiting my mobility, my stamina. Causing inertia to set in earlier and earlier. Wrassling with prostate cancer, now for eleven years. Also, the week of Kate’s death four years ago.

Not depressed. Tired of it all. Just tired.

I see myself as a small town boy who has gone through many transformations. Student. Protester. Draft resister. Husband. Husband. Husband. Alcoholic. Rag cutter. Seminary student. Worker with the developmentally challenged. Manager. Organizer. Dad. Gardener. Bee Keeper. Dog lover. Writer. Grandpa. Friend. Docent. Actor. Woolly Mammoth. Doctoral student. Mountain dweller. Caregiver. Jew. Old man. Shadowed. Cancer patient. World traveler. Brother. And others I’m not remembering right now.

I see myself as confident, secure in who and what I am. A good friend, a devoted husband, companion to Shadow. An intelligent man, seeking always the hidden, the obscured, the sacred. Creative. Curious. A family man to the bone.

I also see the dark places within me. The man who is afraid of pain. The man who is shy, reticent in social situations. The man who would rather stay home, read, watch TV than interact with the world. The angry man who, though modified a lot over the years, remains. Impatient with stupidity, cupidity, rudeness, injustice. The man who wishes for something, some sort of recognition, yet also does not care about it. The man who judges too quickly and often not on the side of merit.

There is also the man of whimsy, of folderol. The man who laughs easily and often. Who sees the irony of life and smiles at it. The man who looks deep into the eyes of the Mule Deer, the Elk, Shadow and sees fellow travelers on this ancientrail of life.

I see myself, too, as accomplished. That my life has had, has, purpose and meaning. That I have made a difference, small differences in the large sweep of history, yes, but differences none the less.

I see myself now as a man in the fourth phase of his life. Beyond retirement. With an illness that could be terminal. Death as the next big event. There is a liberation in this phase, a freedom from worry, a sense of wrapping it up.