the bagel

Having inconsistent taste buds and salivary function, I take food very seriously these days.  I am always testing myself.  Will this salad dressing burn my tongue? Will this cracker get stuck in my throat? Will this pie taste funny?   Is the discomfort this food will create worth the pleasure (or nutrients, hah!) it will provide?  Will this banana finally taste like a banana again, or continue to taste like tasteless mush?   I ate many slices of Pizza on our recent NY trip...I was a little disappointed that both taste and swallow-ability were a bit compromised, but I still found the experience to be a joyful one.

Tonight, I had a large tomato from our garden and a Colorado peach for dinner. I ate them between clients, and I am sure I will eat something more when I get home around 7:30, as I have this voice that tells me I can't just eat a tomato and peach for a meal and be happy.   But they both tasted  really good and went down easily.   A victory.   The tomato did not burn...  and the taste was pretty close to how tomatoes and peaches are meant to taste. 

I want to lighten up about eating.  I want to accept the awkwardness of it with some humor.  I am simply where I am with it, and it is nice to not have any cares about calories and weight. And to be eating again, oh, how wonderful compared to the months I lived through a feeding tube or then, by drinking Ensure.  So when I ran across this whimsical poem, I liked it. By the way, I have a bagel every Saturday morning.  There is a definite cost, both in swallowing difficulty (degree of difficulty...8.5) and if it's overly toasted it can even scrape my tongue (isn't that odd?), but there is a fairly high pleasure factor, both in sentimental value and restored taste.

Truth be told, even compromised, eating is again an activity that ranks fairly high in things that are fun to do in my life.


The Bagel


David Ignatow


I stopped to pick up the bagel
rolling away in the wind,
annoyed with myself
for having dropped it
as if it were a portent.
Faster and faster it rolled,
with me running after it
bent low, gritting my teeth,
and I found myself doubled over
and rolling down the street
head over heels, one complete somersault
after another like a bagel
and strangely happy with myself.

my true silence belongs to God alone

that last post was too maudlin...I was triggered by a scrap of paper into a painful memory; why did I think I had to write it all out in public?  Forget it....

this is more important...

There is a silence that is a silence in the presence of God that is like no other silence. In this silence is a lifting. In this silence the heart becomes pure and light and full of love. Yeow...how can I thank God enough? 

Be still, my heart, and know.

carrying an hour

I've changed my mind about writing about cancer.  When I started this blog, I vowed to keep it "cancer-free" because my previous blog was "cancer-full."  But I must face it;  one doesn't spend the better part of a year dealing with throat cancer, treatment and recovery, and then just forget about it.  There are memories/thoughts/emotions  that run deep into the inner rooms that just keep crying to come out.  

So...I was cleaning out the shelf in my closet where I stack junk, mail, papers to put away, etc. and I came across a scrap of paper. I surmise from the writing that it was something I wrote during the middle of one of those very painful sleepless nights when I was taking narcotics, sleeping pills, anti-nausea meds., etc. and not sleeping at all, but rather spending my nights in a half awake zone of despair. It's my handwriting, but I have no memory of writing it.   I have very fuzzy memories of those nights.

How far I have come;  it's now 10 months post treatment, and reading what I wrote was like remembering a really bad dream one feels relieved to wake up from.

Here's what I wrote:

every night another new notebook another new notebook another new notebook another blank page. I wait. I wait. I toss out the old notebooks they don't matter anymore "got tired, read awhile, fell asleep, woke a time or two then heard the alarm ring, a little too soon."    toss them all out they are old they are someone else's life useless to me now. I wait.    Now I carry the hours of the night. I carry their weight each hour heavier than the last. I carry them all. I wait. I know the silence of 2AM and carry it to the silence of 3AM and on and on through the night I wait.   I hurt.  I wait.    I carry the hours.  While others sleep.  I wait. 

  

a lifetime has so many dangerous events... and some graceful moments

A life consists of an infinite number of small events.   Some are dangerous. Some filled with grace. I am nine, maybe ten years old in the car with my attorney father and he is taking me along with him to the city (New York) to watch him do some court-work. Perhaps he was saddled with babysitting for the day and took me to work with him.  My folks had already been separated for five years by then, and spending a weekday alone with my father was rather unusual.  It was just the two of us. I don't remember where my sisters were that day. We are sitting in traffic, stopped at a red light, and each of us is eating an apple. He finishes first and throws his apple core out the window, looping it back over the roof of his Cadillac and landing it in the gutter drain. A perfect shot. He smiled.  Perhaps it was luck, but I remember feeling very impressed.  At that moment, he could have turned around, taken me home and dropped me off and the day would have ended well.  But, of course,  the day continued...we arrived at the court house; he took me in and told me to sit on a wood bench in a deserted courtroom, while he consulted with his client.  I am a bit spooked to be sitting by myself in this large cold room.  Eventually, the judge enters and the proceedings begin. Nothing actually made any sense to me,  but I watched my father and tried to appear as if I were interested in every word spoken.  After it was over and his client left along with the few other random people that had entered  the courtroom he motioned me up to introduce me to the judge.  These were his words..."your Honor...this is a bad boy and he should be put in jail."   The judge, apparently playing along, said something to the effect of..."OK, Mr. Blum, we will lock him up and keep him in jail until he learns his lesson."    My father tells me to stay put, and walks out of the courtroom.   I am not sure what to think, but I believe there is a chance I am going to jail. I do not know what I did wrong. For a moment,  I am very scared.  I am unable to speak. I do not know what to do. I feel a crushing sensation. I can not bear to look up at the judge.  Seconds later (it seemed like a long time) he comes back in and asks if I am ready to go home.  I follow him out of the court room, speechless.

A thirty second event in a lifetime.   A single small teasing.  Forgotten by everyone involved with the exception of one 9 year old boy.   

A tiny bit of fear lodging itself in a psyche,
to be carried along for a lifetime.

but there was also that beautiful toss of the apple core...

I'm trying to remember the gentle way he flicked his wrist, the finesse of the toss
and the slight hint of a smile as it rolled into the drain.

good shot, Dad.

birthday adventure #1 - my silent retreat

I promised myself that I would celebrate 12 birthdays this year, after being too sick to celebrate my birthday last year, and missing out on Thanksgiving dinner (my Thanksgiving...pouring an extra can of Ensure through the  feeding tube in my stomach.)  That's all the rationalization I needed to justify my decision to celebrate 12 birthday adventures this year.

So I had my first adventure August 5.   I got up early, hit the road around 7AM, had an egg McMuffin and coffee on the way out of town, passed a small town farmer's market where I bought a loaf of Zuchini bread, (which I nibbled on for the next 24 hours), and arrived at the Monastery around 9:00.  A beautiful place, with a pond, a path, a chapel, meeting rooms for meditation, a dining room with wonderful fresh food, and small but adequate sleeping rooms. No TV's, no radio's, no cell phone coverage, no sounds but the crickets, birds and breeze.  

my day at the monastery...

I spent most of the day in silent reflection and meditation, and spent one hour in conversation with one of the monks...Father Thomas.  Thursday evening I went to night prayers with the eight or so monks there, and I was the only guest.  The whole day was refreshing to me, and I felt very much the presence of God in my silence.  It was very peaceful... I had a few moments of overwhelming gratitude for it all...my life, my cancer, my healing, my Lord.  I needed it.   A wonderful way to start my year of birthday adventures.  Not only that, but during the morning there was a brief conference of priests being held in one of the meeting rooms.  At lunch, one of the priests was celebrating a birthday and the cook prepared a birthday cake for the group of priests.  I sat as far as possible from the table of priests so as to maintain my silence and quiet as much as possible...one of the priests brought a piece of birthday cake over to me.  (my idea for having 12 birthday adventures included having a piece of "birthday" cake on every adventure...so...well...let's just say...thank you, God for seeing to such a small, but pleasant detail). The priests left early afternoon, and it seemed I had the place to myself the rest of the day.  After afternoon meditation and the night prayer service (not being Catholic, I was a bit out of place with the logistics and liturgy, but the monks were very gracious to show me the way through the prayer book and hymnal... it was a meaningful prayer service). Later I spent nearly two hours in the small library reading the Bible and reading some from a volume of writings of the desert fathers...  I was completely alone in the library with a comfortable chair and lots of interesting books.  Nice.

I got up around 6:00AM on Friday, and gave myself enough time to stop for a "proper" breakfast on my way back to Lincoln...there is something celebratory about having a big breakfast on the road...it feels so...indulgent.  I like Egg McMuffins...but a full plate of eggs, hash browns, bacon, toast and coffee just after the sun comes up is so delightful!  On my way back to Lincoln on Friday morning I stopped at a truck stop for such a  breakfast.  The truck stop was a full 60 miles from home. I have stopped there about 15 times over the past decade when traveling.  It's been over a year since my last visit... the same farmers were at the same table talking about the same subjects that they talked about every other time I have been there.  And I tell the truth...when I sat down, the waitress knew me by name, and asked if I wanted my usual order.      IT"S BEEN OVER A  YEAR since my last visit.  She told me she'd worked there 38 years, and she's only got 10 more years before she can retire.   And...as always...the hash browns and eggs were piping hot, tasted great, and I drank enough coffee to float home.  Mmmmm.   

Back to my day at the monastery...

Of course, I didn't need to go to a monastery to meet with God... but it does something special for the experience to be in a place built and dedicated solely to prayer and retreat. Think about listening to a symphony orchestra playing Beethoven in a gym vs. a regal symphony hall.   You may hear the music in either place, but there's a difference that goes beyond just the acoustics...  There is.  

  

be careful with this - it's not for everyone

Lisa Gerrard.  If you have never heard her sing, be careful. This video is not for everyone.  It packs too big an emotional wallop for the faint of heart. I can barely listen to it myself, and if I am not careful, I wind up disconnecting from life as I know it.  Don't worry about the language, she is not singing in a language that can be understood. There is a technical name for this... idioglossia...rumor has it that she developed her own language at age 12...and this is the language used in this song. The quality of the video is poor, but her amazing voice shines through it.  Oh, her voice really is quite amazing.

So...I warned you...be careful. If you are not ready for this...sit down , take a few deep breaths,  crank it up and give yourself a  minute to recover after it's over.

an easy grace

go sailing, today... sail through the day with an easy grace. What a challenge!

Listen to Ted Kooser read one of his poems. Hearing him read a poem of his is like a sweet tasty dessert after a satisfying meal. What a wonderful way he has of expressing simple, yet profound bite size moments of our experiences and observations.  One idea expressed in this poem is the poet's desire to move through his life with "...an easy grace."

He's got it! He visited the same hell of throat cancer and subsequent treatment eleven years ago that I did this past year, and had the kindness to encourage me through my painful journey with e-mails in which he suggested some ways for me to endure and get through it. Without fail, as I read his periodic communications of encouragement and concern, I was uplifted. He's got an easy grace about him, that shows through his poetry and his presence, doesn't he?  A grace that is born in gentleness and thoughtfulness. An attitude of grace.


You know, today I had the thought that I've been given the life I've been meant for... and this realization felt like an invitation to a banquet which was laid out right in front of me. I think I'll sail awhile on that thought...being present to all it's beauty with an easy grace.