Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Mountains, Politics

Dried Up

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The Harvest Moon

Labor Day gratefuls: Gabe up here. 47 degrees this morning. Seeing my son with Gabe yesterday evening. Zoom. The Ancient Brothers on poetry. Weakness. Sarcopenia. Coffee. Mac and Cheese with flayed, grilled Shrimp and Japanese mayo. Ode in Glacier Park.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Scrolling through pictures with Gabe

Kavanah: Love Ahava

One brief shining: Ruby pulled over to the side of Brook Forest Drive, Gabe got out, I did too, locked her, and we began a familiar hike up Kate’s Valley to its outlet at the Pond where I distributed Kate’s ashes; it took us a minute, we were so used to it being there, the Creek, Kate’s Creek, had dried up.

 

This bummed us out. Both of us. The Creek filled the Valley with the gentle sound of Water rushing over Rocks. It carried Kate’s ashes quickly away from the Pond, heading toward the Gulf of Mexico and the World Ocean. Plants thrived along its banks and it made Rocks slippery where we needed to cross. The Valley felt empty, deprived of its soul.

Partly because I’m not as strong as I used to be, mostly because we both felt it wasn’t worth the effort without the Creek, we turned back well before the Pond. A treasured friend had gone missing, a friend who gave music, the laughter of Water spilling over Rocks, a sense of vitality with its rapid flow.

The Creek’s Bed laid bare, the Rocks in it seemed ordinary, no longer mysterious beneath its surface. Further up we did find trickles of water, as if the Creek wanted to return, wanted to offer itself as it once had, but that Water died out, too.

I’ve gone up and down Kate’s Valley, along Kate’s Creek for five or six years. Never once was it dry. Until yesterday. Denver Parks has done Fire mitigation along its sides. Did something they did plug up its source? We didn’t get far enough back to hazard a guess.

Hard to describe how distressing this was. Left both of us sad. We’ve had Rain this summer, we’re not in drought conditions. A puzzle.

After, back at Shadow Mountain, I heated up the Mac and Cheese, divided the remains of the Shrimp entree from my visit to Luke’s. Gabe and I ate together.

 

Just a moment: How bout those former East Germans voting in a far right bloc? Talk about irony. They’ve gone from fascism to communism to democracy back to fascism.

Though I’m not sure what’s going to happen in the election here, a chance exists, a good chance, I believe, that we’ll turn away from far right populism and its odors of fascism, a movement giving off the stench of bigotry, hatred, and outright stupidity. The festering wounds of our Trump infected years.

I know. Even if we elect Kamala and Tim, there will still be stores selling red hats eager to promote a lost America that never was. There will still be people to purchase them. The flags won’t come off the pickup trucks. There’ll be one more shot at overturning the election. I hope the last.

But maybe, maybe we’ll turn the corner and drive like hell away from Mar-a-Lago.

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health

Coiled Around It In a Flash

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The Off to College Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Seoah. My son. Dawn. A milky gray blue Sky. 47 degrees. Leo and Luke. Lakewood. Autism. Cash on hand. The Beatles. Mary and Mark, their ex-pat lives. Mary between K.L. and Melbourne; Mark between humid, libertine Bangkok and arid, rule bound Saudi Arabia. Ode in Glacier, seeing, then drawing. Travel. Taipei. Seoul. Songtan. Taos. Santa Fe.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Celebrex

Kavanah:  KINDNESS חֶסֶד Chesed   Kindness, sharing, helpfulness  Fourth Sefirah = expansion & unboundedness; love & mercy; right hand pulling closer (opposite Gevurah/Strength) (טוּב-לֵב Tuv Lev: Good-heartedness, benevolence, charitableness)

One brief shining: At Luke’s in Lakewood yesterday I watched Sacha, his Ball Python, move around her aquarium home, forked tongue piercing the air as her sinuous moves carried over a Tree branch, dipped her nose into the water, then slipped around and behind a large rock, always the tongue out, sniffing the air; she’s hungry, Luke said, looking for the live rats I give her.

 

Sacha, named after Sacha Mama, a Peruvian forest guardian deity, gets fed in a plastic bucket. Luke quickly throws in a live rat, about every two weeks. She’s coiled around it in a flash, he said. Sometimes the rat’s eyes bulge until it quit thrashing. Sacha releases the rat and feels it with her head until she determines where the head is and proceeds to consume it head first, moving it through her body as she goes into S-shaped constrictions to crush all of its bones. Takes her about two days to digest her meal. Gentle Luke. Primal Sacha. Nature red in tooth and scale.

 

Gabe’s coming up today. We’ll go searching for wild Raspberries along Kate’s Creek. Hope we find some since he loves eating wild fruit. Tomorrow we head over to UC-Boulder and pick up Ruth. We plan a sushi meal on the Pearl Street Mall in honor of Jon, who died two years ago on September 4th. It’s important that I celebrate with them since we’re Jon’s surviving family.

Afterward, I’ll take Gabe home to Galena Street in northeast Denver and hopefully drive home against returning Labor Day traffic. The Celebrex makes all of this possible with much less stress on my body. Which I very much appreciate.

 

Just a moment: Another surprising word about chronic pain. First, my shortness of breath has diminished. Not sure why though it might be that the fatigue caused by pain led my respiratory muscles to tire, too. Second, it’s not perfect, but I don’t need it to be. I still feel little jolts and tweaks in my hip. What’s different is that my back and core aren’t struggling to contain the pain, tightening and holding in awkward positions.

I’m still amazed at how much pain relief has done to help my quality of life. Only beginning to appreciate what it might mean if I can continue to use the Celebrex. We’ll check kidney and liver functions in a month and if they’re ok, every three months after. I may have to buy Cheryl, my phlebotomist, a cake. She says she’s gonna retire in January, but I hope not. She’s smooth as buttah.

 

Dreams

When Dreams May Come

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The Off to College Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Luke. Leo. Early Supper. Gabe and Ruth on Monday. Jon, dead two years on September 4th. Kate, always Kate. Kate’s Creek. Kate’s Valley. Wild Strawberries. Wild Raspberries. Cool, clear Water. A White Pine. A Douglas Fir. Pablo Casals. The cello. Pamela. BJ. Sarah. Great Sol. Zeus. Hera. Dionysus. Orpheus. Eurydice. Tiresias. Homer. Odysseus. Scylla. Charybdis. Circe. Transformations. Metamorphosis.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Transformation

Kavanah: Creativity  Yetziratiyut  similar to the Greek:  Κέφι – The spirit of joy, passion, and enthusiasm that overwhelms the soul, and requires release

One brief shining: Dreams slip into our lives during those times when, according to Jewish tradition, the neshamah-soul leaves the body for journeys of its own, not sure right now what dreams if the soul has gone its own way, but a few weeks ago I had a dark dream of a killer who stalked me and my friends, leaving death, dead bodies in his wake, a dream which yesterday I shared in my dream group with Irene, Irv, Marilyn, Sandy, and Clara and which I need to write myself into. Which I’m about to do.

 


 The killer had the look of the character from the radio show, the Shadow. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.” Floppy hat that covered his face, long dark cape. In the dream the Shadow character went everywhere; even when he didn’t seem to be nearby, I felt his presence. My first pass at this dream had a literal take. Cancer. Bringing death wherever he goes. A specter always with me, his shadowed presence blocking the light.

Dreams, Irene says, present psychic issues we need to address. They are not prophetic or literal, rather evocative and symbolic. So, if not a shadow who knows what cancer lurks in the hearts of men, what?

As the discussion grew richer and deeper, Irene asked what would happen if I turned and had a conversation with the Shadow figure rather than avoiding him. Oh, I said, I can write that. That’s what this is.

 

I turn, slowly, with some hesitation toward the figure slouching behind me: “Do you want to tell me something? Or, are you just a stalker?”

A gravelly voice spoke from beneath the hat’s broad brim, a face not visible: “Stalker? Yesss. I ssupose you could ssay.” His sibilance was less like a snake’s, more like a child’s bothersome lisp. “But only because you keep moving away. Not really sstalking. Waiting. I’ve been waiting.”

I tried to see under the hat brim. Not successful. “Waiting for what?”

Dark shoulders shuddered. Was he laughing? “Waiting for you. To stop.” A slight turn into the light and his face, lined, wrinkled, and bearded came into partial view. Seemed familiar somehow.

“Oh,” I said, reaching for the hat brim and before his hand could reach mine, grabbed hold, and flipped it off his head. A sigh, not a gasp. “You.”

“Yes,” he said, a crooked grin on his gray bearded face, “You.”

A moment of quiet, an aha creeping from toes up to my head. “You’re me. I’m you.”

“Just so.” He took off the cape to reveal a Vermont Flannel shirt, an LL Bean blue fleece over its red-blue plaid, that black forever belt purchased at a Renaissance fair years ago in Minnesota, Levi’s, and Keene’s. “Just so.”

“Give me a moment, please.” I went still. Confronted by a specter neither from beyond nor from story, but from within. A Shadow Mountain shadow. I gathered myself. (Just now. Since I’m learning all this this as I write.) “O.K. I’m listening. Not avoiding.”

His eyes twinkled and the gray beard moved up toward them as he (I) smiled. “Thank you. This will be brief. Though it could be long.

A while ago you moved to Colorado with the intent of carrying your Minnesota life with you. Become a docent at the Denver Art Museum (DAM), join ranks with the Colorado Sierra Club while seeing the grandkids more often and learning to live a Mountain, Western life. You did the same, if you recall, when you moved, reluctantly, to Andover. Though then you did stay more connected to your urban, political, and cultural life. At least at first.

Here in Colorado the disruption of the old urban politics and intensive cultural life became complete. DAM was no MIA and trips down the hill were more onerous even than those from Andover to Minneapolis. The Sierra Club back then was not in vibrant shape and your work, legislative work, would have required even more trips down the hill. Then came cancer. After that Kate’s illness, Jon’s divorce, Vega’s death, then Gertie’s, then Kate’s and a little over a year later, Jon’s, then Rigel’s and Kepler’s. All the while surgery, radiation, castrating drugs to lower testosterone. Surveillance and blood draws. Also the immersive qualities of Mountain life, reinforced by the discovery of Congregation Beth Evergreen.

The result? A life buffeted by chance, by death and disease, bolstered by Wild Neighbors, Mountains and Streams, Jewish life, life with Kate in a place where she felt every day was a vacation. A wild Water ride, a raft that has spat you out on the shore of 2024 with Ruth in college, you a Jew, grieving become memory and gratitude, no dogs, lots of friends and family, but nearly drowned more than once, exhilarated, panicked, grateful to be alive. Maybe a bit woozy because it got going pretty fast there for a while.”

“Well,” I nodded, “When you put it like that.”

“Yes.” He gave me a kind smile, “And I do put it like that.”

“That’s it?”

“For now. There is more to the story. Here’s the question I’d like you to consider. Now that you’ve landed, how and who do you want to be in this always changing world?”

 

 

 

 

 

Memories, Minnesota, Politics, US History

The Flyover

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The Off to College Moon

Friday gratefuls: Dreams. Irene. Mnsaves. 529’s. Cash. Sue Bradshaw. Great Sol. My Lodgepole Companion. The sweetness of life. Alan and Joanne. Tom. Joy. Diane. Indiana. Morristown. Alexandria. Muncie. Ball State. Wabash. The liberal arts. Ruth and the UC-Boulder library. Coach Prime. Finding a jeweler for my Pearl. Whippets. Irish Wolfhounds. Sight hounds. Wolf-dogs.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The lessons of pain

Kavanah: HOLINESS קְדֻשָּׁה Kedusha   Holiness, dedication, specialness   (רוּחָנִי Ruchani: spiritual, cognitive function = intuitive/abstract)  On this one I part company with tradition. I do not consider these antonyms poles of this midot. [גוּפָנִי Gufani: physical, earthly; literally “bodily/fleshly”; cognitive function = sensory/concrete] [חִלוֹנִי Chiloni, Common, worldly, secular] I specifically seek-and find-the holy, the sacred in the physical, the earthly, the body. In the ordinary and the common.

One brief shining: Long ago my journey veered away from any notion of transcendence, of anything spiritual that took me away from my body, from my deep interconnection, even interpenetration with the world as I experience it daily; the Celts taught me that yes there is an Otherworld, but that it does not distract from, rather it enhances the holiness of Animals, Plants, Water, Fire, Air, Mother Earth so that this world and that world meet, in my case often through the wonder of my own body or the gentle swaying of the branches of my Lodgepole Companion or the fawn, already losing her spots who dines in my backyard.

 

 

Since Tim Walz’s nomination for Vice President on Kamala Harris’s ticket, the Midwest is having a moment. Having lived in the Midwest from the age of one and a half through sixty-eight, I’d say I qualify as a Midwesterner. I now have both the experience of those sixty plus years and the kind of clarity that ten years and nine hundred miles distance provide, having lived in the Rocky Mountain West since late 2014.

Here are the states I consider Midwestern: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan-the Upper Midwest and Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio-the lower Midwest. The U.S. government includes Missouri, North and South Dakota, and Kansas, but they fall, in my thinking, in another category. Perhaps the Plains States. My criteria is neither demographic nor geographic, rather it is what I felt was the Midwest all the time I lived there.

Though raised and schooled through undergraduate work in Indiana, the Lower Midwest, I spent my adult life after college in the Upper Midwest, first Wisconsin, then Minnesota. The distinctions between Lower and Upper are real, yet so are the shared realities.

I find these stereotypical “finds” by those writing about the Midwest at least mildly insulting. Hotdish. So, casseroles. So what. Found in church basements and kitchen tables all across the U.S. Friendliness. Maybe more a surface congeniality rather than the surface grumpiness of New England? Both conceal a wariness about strangers I find usual rather than unusual. There’s a wholesomeness in the Midwest. Check out any Midwestern high school, bar scene, the back pages of a big city’s free newspaper. Look at this silly article and see other stereotypes like Midwesterner’s say jeet (?), have never worn a proper Halloween costume, and wedding photos are taken in fields. Come on, guys.

My Midwest has a distinct and often apposite combination of heavy industry and agriculture. Beans and corns vie with Detroit, Akron, Gary. Both have taken heavy hits over the last part of the last century and into this one. The Rust Belt. Corporate farming. My Midwest has Chicago as its big city though Cincinnati and Cleveland, Detroit, and the Twin Cities are also major urban areas. My Midwest does have an emphasis on county fairs and state fairs that does mark it out, primarily due to the strong agricultural sector in all these states. My Midwest may have been more religious once, but that has changed rapidly in past decades.

My Midwest shares with other regions systemic ills like racism, sexism, classism. Witness George Floyd, for example.

Not sure how much further I want to go with this today. Thought it would be more fun to write, but it kind of brought me down. Why? Don’t know.

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Mountains, Politics

Got it now

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The Off to College Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Diane. Ruth in Willville. Taking college classes. Eating dorm food. Gabe, coming up this weekend. My son and Seoah, a year ago yesterday in Songtan. Travel. Celebrex will help. Affirming life. Not waiting on death. Greeting Great Sol. The new fan in my bedroom. Keeping me cool. Electric blankets. Eyes. The occipital lobe. Frontal cortex. Amygdala. Hippocampus. Gray matter. White matter. Limbic system. Sloshing around in our skulls.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mark’s new job!

Kavanah:  PEACE  שָׁלוֹם Shalom   Peace, quietness, wholeness (קוֹר רוּחַ Kor Ruach: Calm, composure, literally a “cool spirit”) [בֶּהָלָה Behala, beh-ha-LAH: Fear, alarm, panic]

One brief shining: The blue Sky silhouettes the gentle curve of Black Mountain, its stony bulk covered by green Lodgepoles and clonal colonies of Aspen, at ten thousand feet it rises another twelve hundred feet above my home here on the top of Shadow Mountain, yet does not lord it over us, rather graces us with a neighborly, oh, there’s another Mountain feeling.

 

Sometimes I read more into what people say than they intend. I’m not the only one, I’m pretty sure. Let me give you an example. In conversation with my long time and dear friend Tom he made a casual comment about my application to get a Whippet puppy. “That’s a life affirming choice.”

He meant, I now believe: “That’s a life affirming choice.” I heard: I’m relieved you’ve finally made a life affirming choice after several weeks focused on death or disability. Which, of course, reflects my immersion, partial, yes, but tangible nonetheless, in matters cancerous over the last few weeks.

Since, in fact, that day after my bar mitzvah, when he and Paul listened in on my telehealth visit with Kristie. I try, and most of the time believe I succeed, in living a balanced life when it comes to cancer. That is, I acknowledge its existence, keep up with my blood draws, doctor visits, take my meds. Do what’s needed, what I can do. After that let it lie as a complex fact of my existence, not really at the level of consciousness most of the time.

Over the time since my PSA went up during my drug holiday, sooner than Kristie expected, I’ve been up and down, a shortened life span, wrestling the lesser demons in my body, mostly in an unhappy stew of uncertainty about where things stood. I felt Tom had ridden through my cover and seen the other side. Now, he may have. But in this instance he was not talking about that, but instead he was giving me a thumbs up for doggy possibilities. Sorry, Tom. Got it now.

 

Just a Moment: The asshole snuck above the fold with his usual gauchity, douchebagness. Doing politics in Arlington Cemetery. Flouting military rules designed to prevent it. I suppose this falls under the there’s no such thing as bad publicity rule. I’m so, so tired of him, of his disregard for decency, for the rule of law, for his support of white supremacists, his misogyny, his overall creepiness. So tired.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Woolly Mammoths

Heirs

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The Off to College Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Tom. Diane. Brother Mark’s Bangkok walks. Water Monitors. Cattle Egrets. Wild Neighbors in urban areas. Rebecca leaving for India and the Buddhist nunnery. Joanne. Her new book with two Buddhist therapists. Pain. Cranking it down without addiction. Whippets. Sight Hounds. And those who love and breed them. Dogs. Oh, OK. Dogs again.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sight Hounds

Kavannah:  Friendship  אַחֲוָה Achava (חֲבֵרוּת Chaverut: Partnership, camaraderie) (אַחְדוּת Achdut: Unity, solidarity, togetherness)

One brief shining: A few decades ago, maybe 4, a group of middle-aged men who knew each other somewhat well ate dinner together in an Indian restaurant in Minneapolis, joined by two other men who did not know each other, but had slight acquaintance with one or two of the others; might have been a poker night or a get together to watch the Vikings lose another big game, instead it was the beginning of 40 year plus bonds of friendship among the Woolly Mammoths, who surprisingly still live up to their motto: We’re not extinct yet.

Wegman’s

Keep forgetting to post this. If you wanted to mail drugs worth $800 for a thirty day supply, how would you package them? Wegman’s is a compounding specialty pharmacy. Inside this colorful wrap sat my first doses of this round of Erleada. Clever, eh? And it gives the healthy message Ms. Thurston gave me in the first grade: Charles Paul, eat your vegetables. A twofer. Fun with cancer!

 

Had a session with my folks at Bond and Devick, financial advisors, RJ now for over thirty five years. They keep Kate’s IRA rollover steady. When the market goes up, you go up a little; when the market goes down, you go down a little. We’ve been with them since Penny Bond formed her firm, then hired RJ later on as her first employee. RJ just stepped down as owner/President, but keeps client contact and portfolio work. The IRA churns out what a 19th century British novel would refer to as a stipend and a nice one at that. With my Presbyterian pension and Social Security, I have more than adequate monthly cash. And. I will leave a tidy sum to my heirs: Ruth and Gabe, Seoah and my son. My heirs? That’s a weird phrase to write out loud.

The corpus has indeed gone up a little, down a little, always growing a bit but staying in the same basic range. Kate, always Kate, left me better off than she found me in so many ways, not the least financially. A shame that she didn’t get to enjoy the money she earned for longer. Thankfully, we had long ago passed the mark of mine and hers. We were together in all ways, no barriers between us. When she died, so did a part of me. A part now, in the way of the Soil, fertile ground for my new life after her death.

I suppose, come to consider it, that is the point of having heirs.

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health

Pain and Suffering

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The Off to College Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: RJ. Michele. Bond and Devick. Penny. Kate, always Kate. Ruth in college. Great workout yesterday. Terry. Rebecca. Joanne. Ginny and Janice. Whippets. Emma and Bridgit. Hilo and Kona. Buck and Iris. Dogs. Great Sol. Celebrex. Pain tamped down. Kamala’s bounce. May it grow. New electric blanket. Mary’s birthday across the International Date Line. Happy Birthday, Mary.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sisters

Kavanah: UNDERSTANDING בִּינָה Bina:  Understanding, differentiation, deep insight; from בּוּן to split, pierce/penetrate; also בֵּין between.  Third Sefirah = Left brain (opposite Chochmah/Wisdom)  (תְבוּנָה Tevunah: Comprehension, analytical thought, reason & intellect)

One brief shining: Take one a day with food it says on the pill bottle, a small white capsule, generic Celebrex, and so, compliant and dutiful, I take mine with breakfast as I read about Kamala and Tim, about Israel and Hamas, about Ukraine’s invasion of Russia, all outer battles dealing with the pain of conflicting values and unyielding desires for power, while in my blood stream this Cox-2 inhibitor acts to reduce the inner pain of spinal stenosis, pinched nerves, in my lower back.

 

Long ago, a young medical student who had become my friend told me he believed doctors should treat pain, but never suffering. Steve Miles went on to become a well know medical ethicist, and his words have stayed with me down the decades. Treating suffering meant treating it medicinally, with narcotics or other addictive substances. As the oxy epidemic hit, ironically, it would be the treatments for pain that caused the suffering.

Suffering is the province of religion and psychoanalysis, self-knowledge and self-care. Not medicines. At the time psychotropic drugs were often more problem than cure. Some still are and the issue is still fraught. As I hope it always will be. We need caution when crossing the line between medicine and the inner world of the psyche.

Granddaughter Ruth and stepson Jon are, together, paradigmatic. Ruth has struggled and fought for a sane life without maintenance psychotropics. She’s currently using none and is in her best mental health of the last decade. Jon self-medicated his psychic pain. And died as a result. The balance between the bodymind and its from the outside aids for health remains a form of art as much as science. Perhaps a matter for religion at its best, kindest, and broadest.

Who are we? What brings us joy and love? How do we know the path that leads to a full and rich life? The ancientrail right for you? On my own path I stumbled long ago after my mother’s death sent my Self on an underworld journey maintained and sustained by alcohol. It took years of analysis to find my way back to the light. Not psychotropics, but deep self-understanding, self-forgiveness.

This week I’m on a different path. Back to Steve and the treatment of pain. I thought since my back pain wasn’t constant it wasn’t chronic. Sue thought I’d feel better if she could treat the pain. I reluctantly agreed. Celebrex carries heavy potential side effects and I’d said no to this kind of intervention before.

In the three days I’ve taken it I’ve learned some things about pain. I didn’t realize the degree to which I’d adjusted and adapted my daily to ease my pain. More and more sitting. Lying down. Not lifting. Doing household chores slowly, resting often. Sometimes deferring them. And here’s an odd piece. As I adapted to the pain, I did not think it was chronic because I could make it fade. That was the pain managing my life for me. Huh. This in spite of regular exercise, physical therapy.

With the Celebrex on board I can bend down without wincing, turn corners without tweaking my back, go upstairs with ease, get out of chairs without groaning. It’s seductive. I feel more and more as I used to in my body. That is a wondrous thing. Yet the dangers it poses are real. Again, more blood draws to check liver and kidney functions. Taking prilosec to guard against intestinal bleeding. I may not be able to sustain its use. But, I might, too. It’s nonaddictive, why I chose it, on second thought, over tramadol.

I’ve dealt with my suffering. Perhaps now its time to let physicians treat my pain.

 

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Politics

Eternal True Love

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The Off to College Moon

Monday gratefuls: UC Boulder. Willville. Dushanbe Teahouse. The Flatirons. Starting out on her own, Ruth. The liberal arts. Studio arts. Philosophy. Political science. 50 degrees. Good sleeping. Dogs. Whippets. Home. The temperature differential of altitude. 31 degrees yesterday! 84-51. College. Learning. For its own sake. Hillel. The sweetness of seeing a girl grow into a young woman.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Boulder

Kavanah: BEAUTY  תִפאֶרֶת Tiferet  Beauty, harmony, balance. Sixth Sefirah: Reconciliation, synthesis, integration; the Heart (between Chesed & Gevurah)

One brief shining: Ruth sat across the small metal table from me, eagerness and doubt flowing through her like Boulder Creek which ran beside us, advice from her uncle, struggling with her mom, excited for a U.S. political history class and her first class in her major studio arts the next day, and ordered genmaicha, a tea approved by the Tokugawa Shogun, its history recounted to her by me, showing that first burst of undergraduate sophistication. She hoped. Oh, the places she’ll go.

Took the first step to get a Whippet. Well, first two steps. I applied to adopt a Whippet/Australian Cattledog mix and sent an e-mail to Horsetooth Whippets. Sent this with slight modifications to both of them:

“My wife died three years ago. Over the years we had 6 Whippets and 9 Irish Wolfhounds plus two IW/Coyote Hound mixes. Sighthounds appealed to us with their independent, yet loving manner.

Rigel, my last hound, died a year ago. I’m 77 and not strong enough to care for another big dog. But I have plenty of energy and love for a Whippet sized dog, plus obvious long familiarity with dogs. I speak dog.

You may wonder about my age. I do, too, sometimes. I have two friends who are willing to sign a document as a friendly home if I die or become incapable of caring for a dog. I also have a codicil in my will gifting $10,000 to whomever takes over care of any animal living with me when I die.

I miss the warmth and love that comes from having a canine companion.

My wife and I always acquired litter mates. 3 x 2. For companionship. We found that made for a better doggy world for them. I’m open to purchasing two.”
Partly a recognition of my more limited mobility. I won’t be traveling as much. And my related but different homebodiness. Mostly though. I miss having a dog. I am alone, but not lonely. That’s true as far as it goes and describes a state of becoming that satisfies me. Especially with all of my friends. Yet having a dog to care for, a dog that would care for me back, to have again eternal true love as is normal between a dog and their human companion would enrich my life. And, hey, I’m all for enrichment.
Just a moment: Soon, maybe this week, the grind toward November begins. Harris still with momentum. 45 still off the front page or below the fold. (below the first screen?) His campaign has staggered away from Biden’s abdication, flummoxed it seems. Won’t last. However he can pull it off the orange one will, like the bad penny, turn up again. It’s still a close, close race. No certainty to either side.
Sure, Kamala is ahead in national polls. But we’ve learned to our frustration that winning the so-called popular vote is too often insufficient. The electoral college is, as we used to say in the 60’s, where it’s at. That’s why her leads in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin matter more. Go, blue.
Family, Feelings

A Dog? & UC

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The Off to College Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Ginny. Janice. Flannel. Cool mornings with a hint of the wheat harvest in Nebraska, the Aspen leaves beginning to consider gold to celebrate the season, Wild Neighbors readying themselves for mating. Heat no longer dominate. At least for now. That .4 PSA, may it go lower and yet lower, ye unto undetectable. Laughter. Joy.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ginny and Janice

Kavanah: LOVE אַהֲבָה Ahava   Love, affection, intimacy; from אהב to bring/give to another

One brief shining: Joanne and Alan both came forward, smiled a smile of relief after our breakfast when I got the news of my lowering PSA, asked for hugs and got them there in front of the Parkside as Debbie watched with her kind Whippet eyes, her graceful black and white body alert but comfortable with her human companion nearby, tender times in fractions of minutes.

 

Kona

Have a hankering, maybe even a yearning for a Whippet now. After I met Debbie, from Cheyenne, Wyoming, her human said, Buck and Iris, Emma and Bridget, Hilo and Kona each came to mind. Their muscled, athletic bodies. Their love of the chase. Of running for the sheer joy of it. Of introverted Emma walking out to the end of the fallen Cottonwood, surveying our yard from its height. Of fleet Hilo looking back at me as she took off away from the fence she’d just mastered. Of Buck with a squirrel in his mouth, confused. What do I do with this? Delicate Iris. Strong Bridget and Kona.

Little Hilo, the smallest of them all, nestled under my armpit each afternoon for our naps. Sweet, kind dogs. No meanness in them. Small enough that I could manage them. So torn about getting a Dog or Dogs. Yes. No. Yes. No. Could I even be granted Dogs? At 77.

Leaning into the idea right now.

 

Just a moment:  On Baseline Road, across a heavily protected bicycle lane, I turned into the neighborhood known as Willville. In one of its newest towers, 700 students, sits Ruth’s first floor room with three freshmen residents: Ruth, Rayne, and Atoshoka. Ruth has a loft bed while the other two sleep on floor level beds. The room, from a picture Ruth showed me, is narrow, barely big enough for one imho. There several other towers. Willville houses thousands of UC Boulder students. It requires a bike or bus ride or walk to get to the main campus.

I took her to the Dushanbe Tearoom, a gift to Boulder from its sister city of the same name as the Teahouse, the capital of Tajikistan. She ordered genmaicha and I had a white silver needle tea. We sat outside near a branch of Boulder Creek, very narrow, up which Catherine, our waitress, said a scuba diver swam a week or so ago. Odd, even for a college town.

Ruth’s eager to get to work. She sees herself as academically inclined and I agree. She’s at the university for knowledge and training in studio arts. Not an MBA. Not an engineering or science degree, but a BFA.

Oh, the first days of college life when the world and life opens wider and wider. Of course there’ll be bumps and scrapes, why wouldn’t there be? But they’re part of the broader education.

So exciting for her. And for me.

Health, Politics

What happens now?

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The Off to College Moon

Friday gratefuls: Ginny. Janice. Friends. Healing. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. A cool Mountain morning. Fall in the Sky as Great Sol’s angle changes. Elk Bulls clashing, ready for the rut. Bears a month or so away from hyperphagia. Mountain Streams at their shallowest points. Crowds from Denver, pre-Labor Day, at Upper and Lower Maxwell Falls. Story. Lake Evergreen. Paddleboarders. Kayakers. Canoeists. The Otherworld after the Jeffco 73 turnoff on Brook Forest Drive. My home world.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seasonal change

Kavanah:  Serenity    Menucha

One brief shining: Sitting at an outdoor table at the Parkside with Alan and Joanne when a buzzing in my ear directs me to my phone, Evergreen Medical calling; Hello, Josh; Charlie, your PSA is .4; a bit of whiplash because it did not post on my Labcorps account and it had surprisingly and most thankfully gone down rather than up taking me out of the shortened life span version of my cancer.

 

Later in the day when I spoke with my son he said I looked more relaxed, healthy. Oh. Well. Could I have been more worried than I thought? It takes a worried man to sing the worried song. After all.

My chest had opened up, my head sat straighter on my shoulders. Ironically, knowledge taking back me to a welcome uncertainty about my future. No longer time limited, at least not with suggested parameters. Ye know not the day nor the hour. Back to that. Well, yes.

Why serenity has topped my intentions for the last week and still does today. The residue of the Pearl along with the blood draw on Tuesday made me stand in love on one foot and trying to absorb a sooner than imagined death on the other foot. Not a recipe for inner calm.

In this August 24 life I have passed through the waters guarded by Scylla and Charybdis, lashed to the mast of my trireme with wax blocking my ears. Removing the wax an act of bravery itself, but necessary. No wonder I looked healthier.

 

Just a moment: What happens now? The buzz after Biden’s abdication and the week of the Democratic National Convention has shaken the race, put the orange one on his back foot. May he stay there. Though. Suspect he won’t. His usual blend of bluster and anger and white grievance commingled with not well crafted outright lies will push him back to the headlines. At least for some of the time.

The question. Will he seem the smaller, meaner, unserious man that he really is or the norm-breaking, would be strongman idolized by so many who feel cheated out of their American dream? I hope Harris-Walz can keep the sad man behind blue eyes theme going. Frame the orange one as a pathetic loser not focused on freedom or liberty but on self-aggrandizement and bonus points for his billionaire buddies. If they can accomplish this, I don’t know how, then I believe they will be sworn in next January 20th while the red hatters (mad hatters?) foam and froth.