Morning Meditations

Posted on August 9, 2020 by John Swinburn

I did not announce the end of my sabbatical. It simply disappeared into a harsh, acidic vapor. Sabbaticals should bring rest and relaxation; my short attempt at escape morphed into a gritty recess on a dirty, dangerous playground. So I returned to a routine—altered though it has been by circumstances and a state of mind constantly on edge. Let me rephrase that; I haven’t returned to a routine as much as I have forced myself into a pattern that, heretofore, has been comfortable. Without a stencil to shape my days, I found myself floundering about. The brief periods in the morning when I write seem to bring at least a semblance of order to my thinking; if nothing more, they help me face unfamiliar days.

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After I wrote yesterday’s lament, I spoke to my wife during the  course of the day and exchanged some text messages. She said her situation improved considerably after the interactions I had with staff. The under-staffing issues seemed to have been rectified and she reported that she was receiving the level and kind of attention she thought appropriate. I hope that continues. We will talk today about questions I will ask of the administration when I connect with them (assuming that actually takes place) on Monday. In the fray, I seem to have overlooked that I have a CT scan scheduled for Monday morning, followed by a visit with my oncologist. I again hope the CT scan reveals nothing but good news.

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Last night brought a brief respite from what has seemed a long chaotic swirl. Neighbors invited me over to enjoy a drink and hors d’oeuvres on their deck; all properly masked and distanced. With a glass of 2018 Cuvée A Amrita (a sparkling white wine from Anne Amie Vineyards, located in the Willamette Valley, Oregon) we toasted my wife, wishing her good health. We enjoyed quite the spread: shrimp with cocktail sauce; grilled, cheese-stuffed peppers; spanokopita; and mixed nuts. And we talked politics (they share mine) and hummingbirds (they have at least six feeders hung around the perimeter of the covered deck) and various other subjects. Though it was only a short visit (under two hours), it gave me an opportunity to put a little distance between reality and my recent life experiences. But I wished, the entire time, that my wife could also have enjoyed the respite. She told me by text message, before I went next door, that she planned to watch a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie last night, so I should plan not to disturb her. 

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Today’s weather forecast reminds me that summer in central Arkansas behaves a little like a convection oven; wind circulates around a heat source, amplifying the effects of temperature. I had planned (hoped is a better term) to power wash the deck in another futile attempt to prepare to lay down another coat of paint. It’s time I give up on that fantasy and direct my attention toward finding a reliable contractor to finish the job. The energy I once had for that project has long since been spent. And I find myself worrying, whenever I am in a position that might make it difficult to hear my phone ring, that I might be missing an important call from my wife. Of course, I still haven’t trained myself adequately to always carry my cell phone with me, which exacerbates the worry. And she frequently calls on the land line, so I hate to leave the house lest I miss a call. All of this argues that I should find a contractor. Getting the deck finished, including getting new railing and replacing the screen in the screened-in porch, will take a load off my mind. I’ve been battling that project since the summer before my lung cancer diagnosis; it’s time to stop pretending I can do it myself and hire professionals.

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I came across a quote, attributed to Buddha, about which I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it seems wise and logical, but on the other I can interpret it as arrogant and egotistical. Like so many things in my mind, it occupies two competing dimensions:

Do not look for a sanctuary in anyone except your self.

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With that, I will end this later-than-usual morning meditation.

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Was It a Bad Choice?

Posted on August 8, 2020 by John Swinburn

My wife’s first evening in her new temporary home (a skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility) did not have a pleasant start. Once she was situated in her room, she did not see anyone for several hours, even after pressing her call button for more than three hours. She finally called me to ask me to look up a phone number and call the facility to tell them she needed assistance; she was not sure whether the call button worked.

So, I called. I was told the call button did, indeed work and that the nurse was going into her room at that very moment. I called my wife back and listened as the nurse spoke to my wife and took her vital signs. I overheard the conversation and made notes about it.

A few minutes later, I called the facility again and asked to speak to the person in charge. I was put on hold for a moment, then told that the nurse was speaking to a doctor, but I could hold. I chose to hold. The nurse who had been with my wife came on the line a few minutes later and I expressed my concern that it took three hours for my wife’s need for assistance to be acknowledged. She said she had been on the telephone with the head nurse about staffing. The nurse was apologetic, saying the shift she was on was seriously understaffed, in part because of “no-shows.” She went on to say the upcoming shift and the weekend shifts were much more fully staffed. I told her I wanted my concerns passed along to the facility administrator; the nurse (I’m not using her name here, but I know it) said she would tell Phyllis (the administrator) and would have her call me on Monday. She also said she would record my complaint for the record.

After having heard very positive comments about the facility, I am now extremely concerned that those comments may have been based on past experiences that are no longer valid. I am concerned that I have to closely monitor my wife’s treatment and the responses to her requests for assistance. The fact that I cannot to into the facility, physically, due to COVID-19 concerns makes my concerns doubly difficult.

This morning, I came across Medicare information that rated the facility where my wife is now; unlike other information I had found, this information, directly off of the Medicare website, ranked this facility as “Average” to “Much Below Average” in three of four important areas, with only one being “Average.” I feel helpless; I don’t know what I should do. I want to protect my wife, yet I don’t want to create more problems for her by interfering in ways that could inadvertently be harmful to her care.

I hope—so very, very deeply—the experience last evening was simply a “glitch,” an unfortunate circumstance that coincided with my wife’s admission. All I can do, I suppose, is wait to hear from my wife about her ongoing experiences, since I can’t even visit to witness for myself what is going on. Ach!

Posted in Family, Health, Love | 3 Comments

Trying Times

Posted on August 7, 2020 by John Swinburn

The past several weeks—approaching a month, now—have seemed impossibly long to me. That span of time must have seemed far longer for my wife. Since she tripped on July 14, she has been poked and prodded and exposed to X-rays and otherwise subjected to invasive and intrusive procedures more times than either of us could count. She has made two trips to the emergency room and has been admitted to the “regular” hospital twice. Between those hospital admissions, she was admitted to a “rehabilitation” hospital for a ten-day stretch. The day after her release from that hospital, she developed an enormous “blister” where fluid from her leg, injured in the fall, collected. That blister was drained during her second trip to the ER, when the medical staff also cut away the skin that had covered the blister, leaving a massive wound that must be treated as if it were a burn. Now, a tad over a week after she was admitted to the “regular” hospital a second time, she will be transferred to a skilled nursing facility for an stay of indeterminate length. The transfer could take place today or tomorrow or two days hence; she awaits the results of her second COVID-19 test within a month. At that facility, she will convalesce so she can return home, where I can care for her. Because of her weakness and severe edema (related to other health issues),  I cannot care for her until she regains her strength and the fluids her body is retaining are reduced.

With the exception of one day, when her sister visited her, I have been to the hospital to see her every day (due to COVID-19 precautions, patients can receive only one visitor per day) since her initial admission. But, in the skilled nursing facility, visitors are not permitted. Contact by phone, video calls, etc. is allowed, but no face-to-face contact. With adequate planning and scheduling, a visit that allows telephone communication while viewing one another through a window is permitted.

Even though both my wife and I are introverts, and she is considerably more private and introverted than I, the separation will be hard. I hope it is not as hard on her as I expect it to be on me. Forced separation by medical necessity is quite different from tolerated separation by work requirements; I know this because we once were separated, with very rare face-to-face encounters, for almost a year when I took a job that involved moving to another state for many months. This time, though, being unable to see her because of COVID-19 precautions (which are absolutely reasonable, in my opinion) is hard, even before it has begun.

Several people—friends and acquaintances and others—have generously offered help and support. Some have dropped food by the house and others have generously offered to deliver more. I’ve been invited to relax with neighbors, properly distanced and all wearing masks, to get my mind off “my trouble.” As truly wonderful as those expressions of support are (and I appreciate them far more than I could ever say), they cannot reduce the sense of impotence I feel. The only thing that will do that is her release back to my care.

My memories of having spent time in the hospital are of discomfort, fear, and boredom. In most cases, I was considerably younger than I am now. I think fear would play a greater part in the emotional brew today than when I was younger. The older we get, the greater the likelihood that hospitalization can be a preview to decline. I hope my wife is not feeling that right now, but I fear she is. And, as one of the world’s consummate introverts, she keeps whatever she feels bottled up inside. I rarely get a glimpse of it, so my compassion is for a presumed emotional state.

I’ve packed a suitcase for her, with clothes and toiletries, for my wife’s transfer to the skilled nursing facility. She has a few books she hasn’t opened yet during her already lengthy stay in the hospitals. I will deliver more to the nursing facility, which in turn will deliver them to her, when when she wants them. All I can do, I think, is to respond to her requests. Maybe I can deliver some flowers or plants or something else that might minimize the stress of being away from home.

I feel guilty for only assuming how she feels and only guessing what I might do to minimize the ongoing strain of hospital confinement. I should feel guilty. In forty years of marriage, I should have learned how to unearth her state of mind. I have not, though, so I have to continue to depend on suppositions and assumptions.

I suspect it will take a month or more for her to recover her strength enough to allow her to return home for me to care for her. If it happens sooner, I will be delighted. All I can do is wait and watch, from a distance, how she progresses. Maybe I can send her cards, so every day she has something new to read, a reminder that she’s on my mind. That might help spur her energy toward regaining her strength. It’s worth a try.

Posted in Family, Health, Love | 6 Comments

Prismatic Introspective Thinking

Posted on August 6, 2020 by John Swinburn

Everything exists along a spectrum. Light. Knowledge. Truth. Fear. Love. Right. Wrong. Hate. Extroversion. Introversion. Everything, even Certainty, is as flexible as a rubber band. And, like a rubber band, certainty can become brittle over time; it can snap when stretched toward what once was its zone of ease and comfort.

Like certainty, absolutes—if they exist—exist along a spectrum. That is to say reality is flexible. Reality is contextual. Reality is, in other words, an illusion defined by reflections in mirrors stationed to reveal different perspectives from different angles.

I write all of this as a preface to my epiphany: introspection, too, can be as shallow as a puddle after a passing rain shower or as deep as the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean. Though that incredibly broad spectrum of introspection might suggest self-knowledge runs from cursory to excruciatingly detailed, I suggest otherwise: introspection, regardless of depth, reveals deep truths. Those truths, though, are flexible and they bend like light. They are viewed—no matter how shallow or deep—through a contextual prism.

Circumstances—also known as context—often dictate the degree to which any given motivator in one’s life takes control. Now, imagine that the spectra of all the influences on one’s life imitate the spectrum of light; all the colors from white to black. If one pauses long enough to carefully examine the spectra involved in that motivator (e.g., knowledge, truth, fear, love, etc.), the imagined colors constitute a constantly changing kaleidoscope twirling at high speed. Every influence contributes to that psychedelic rainbow. Certain colors, though, assume supremacy; purples or yellows or reds or greens assert themselves. Their context, the circumstances surrounding them, gives them greater influence than the other colors. But only within the context of all the other colors bouncing off the prism’s faces. So, too, is it with introspection.

Willful introspection sometimes fails to reflect reality; it hits the surface of a prism covered with an opaque layer. So, reality gives way to an illusion that may or may not have any bearing on reality. But that illusion may influence one’s perceptions of other aspects of reality. And so begins an utterly artificial examination that reveals only distortions. Valid introspection takes place only through unplanned response to one’s reactions to circumstance. It is that unrehearsed, unplanned, unintentional response that carries one along the full spectrum of introspection. All the way from the shallow puddle to the Challenger Deep. Every point along that spectrum holds a mirror that reflects reality at that instant, from the surface to the most deeply hidden core. Some of the images in those mirrors are innocuous. Some are flattering. Some are disturbing. And some are so terrifying the mind collapses, replacing images with darkness.

Every other influence—Knowledge. Truth. Fear. Love. Right. Wrong. Hate. Extroversion. Certainty, etc.—functions in the same way. And every one of them is influenced in some way by the rest of them. The complexity of the environment in which introversion attempts to conduct its task of self-knowledge is daunting. Our minds are too elaborately convoluted for us to ever know ourselves. Introversion sometimes seems a useless tool that solves nothing, yet reveals more questions and greater uncertainty.

All of this convoluted stream of consciousness drivel about introspection is ego-driven and oriented to self. The impossibility of understanding one’s self should be enough to short-circuit the mind, causing synapses to spark and sizzle as the current exceeds their capacity to carry it. And it is enough. But we add to the confused mental meltdown our attempts to understand others’ similarly complex and convoluted minds. Our efforts to understand other people are colored by our assumptions about them and about ourselves. Our conclusions about others’ motives, reasons, or intentions rely on interpretations of reality through clouded prisms.

None of this leads me to any insights. Only to confusion and a sense that it’s just as pointless to try to understand myself as to understand others. The only unbending reality is that my attempts at both will always fail. My efforts will yield unreliable results. Therefore, any actions I take based on the results of my attempts might as well be taken at random, without attempting to “know” anything. This is how prismatic introspective thinking ends up; a mass of words wadded into a ball and covered with glue and wax in a futile effort to make them stick together in some fashion.

 

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Circumstances

Posted on July 29, 2020 by John Swinburn

Circumstances can kick a person in the gut incredibly hard. The thing is, it’s sometimes impossible to know whether circumstances are simply taunting you or, instead, are attempting to prepare you for a merciless beating that will leave you bruised, broken, bloodied, and screaming for the pain to cease. Either way, though, the gut punch takes one’s breath away and instantly re-frames the world as one knew it until that moment.

Those moments, those ferocious gut punches, reveal far more about one’s humanity than anything else could. And when those revelations expose flaws much, much deeper than surface blemishes, a person can’t help but question his value; his worth as a human being comes into question.

Nothing can quickly “fix” the images that fill one’s mind after a series of gut punches illustrate them in vivid color. Soul-searching is the only tool available to heal the wound, if indeed it can be repaired. And soul-searching takes a lot of time.

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Hoodlum. Lawbreaker. Deviant. Hooligan. Scofflaw. Criminal.

Posted on July 29, 2020 by John Swinburn

Yesterday would just as well have been left in the calendar to rot. It began early, as rotten days often do, but went south from there. At 10:45 a.m., as I was on the way home from grocery shopping, checking the mail, and buying discounted wine (Tuesday is the day for that), I was ticketed for driving 41 in a 25 MPH zone. I have no idea what that will cost me; it’s possible the penalty for 16 MPH over the limit is crucifixion or a date with the guillotine. The officer did not know. He also did not seem to know that he wrote me the ticket in the morning; the ticket notation said “10:45 p.m.” But the description of conditions at the time of the infraction said “clear” and “daylight.” It’s never daylight in Arkansas as 10:45 p.m. Frankly, I question what else he might have gotten wrong. I was speeding, there’s no doubt, but I sensed I was going 35 or so. I could have been going 41, but I rather doubt it. And the ticket, which has a spot to indicate how the officer determined the offending speed, was left blank where it could have indicated the measurement was by “radar” or “pacing.” Perhaps I should challenge the ticket. But if I did, I might be targeted by our local police; they might consider me a troublemaker. Yet I hate to think what this might do to my insurance. The fact that I haven’t been issued a traffic citation of any kind since I was much younger and taller should count in my favor. But it probably won’t.

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This morning (by noon, they say; I should be there waiting by 10 a.m.), my wife will be discharged from the rehabilitation hospital. I’m looking forward to it; having her home will be great. On the other, I don’t know how much support and physical assistance she will need and I am doubtful I have sufficient physical strength to provide physical assistance. Although she will have periodic home healthcare provided by nurse(s?), it will be infrequent and of limited duration. Time will tell, as I always say when I am perplexed and unsure of myself and the world around me.

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Speaking of rot. Today began, in earnest, when I awoke at 2:45 a.m. I remained awake for most of the ensuing three hours, though I did not get out of bed until three hours had passed. I know I slept at least a wink during that time, though, because I had an unfortunate dream involving a mystery shopping industry issue that occurred at the same time as a repair was being done to a house I apparently occupied. The repair was hideously ugly and unprofessional; I was hideously ugly and unprofessional in my interaction with the person who did the work, a person I know well. Dreams always intrigue me; I will forever wonder whether they carry messages to our conscious selves, messages I can never quite understand. And what does my lack of understanding convey about my personality and/or intellect?

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As I look out my window, I can see ample evidence that a creature (perhaps an armadillo? a skunk? a mole? a family of moles?) has been routing about in the thick layer of leaves on the forest floor. I wonder, what disturbs the leaves so thoroughly that they appear to have been roughed up by a forest fighter?  I may have a children’s story forming in my brain, a story that would explain what occurs each night to displace the smooth bed of leaves: the wooded areas hereabouts are home to forest mermaids. These mermaids do not swim in the ocean. They swim through the sea of leaves created when the leaves fall from the hardwood trees every Autumn. The swirls along the forest floor are created when they swish their tails to propel them along. This is just a budding idea; it is far from finished. I have to determine their motives for swishing through the forest. I must understand the conflict in their story, as well as how the conflict will be resolved. Nonsense! The “rules” of writing that require story arcs and the like were created by people who need structure to keep their thoughts within the bounds of sanity. I need no such rules; madness is a perfectly acceptable state of mind for me. At least that’s what I would like to believe.

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My coffee has cooled and so has my passion for finger exercise. I shall rest my phalanges now.

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Journeys by Chance

Posted on July 28, 2020 by John Swinburn

Wikipedia says this about Corb Lund:

Corb Lund is a Canadian Western and Country singer-songwriter from Taber, Alberta, Canada. He has released nine albums, three of which are certified gold. Lund tours regularly in Canada, the United States and Australia, and has received several awards in Canada and abroad.

I have no idea how old or young he is; the paragraph above summarizes almost all I know about him.  One other thing I know about him is that he produced an album entitled Agricultural Tragic that includes a song entitled Old Men.  Even though country and western music is not among my favorites, Corb Lund’s brand of music in that genre appeals to me. At least what I’ve heard appeals to me.

It’s rare for me to pay any attention, beyond their music, to recording artists. Their personal lives simply hold no interest for me; I guess I assume I will never know them personally, so their biographical details are irrelevant. That having been said, I was a little curious about just who this Corb Lund guy is (which I how I found the Wikipedia entry), so I did a bit of digging. I learned that he is from Taber, Alberta, Canada. Taber is a very small town about fifty miles north of the U.S./Canada border, north-northwest of Great Falls, Montana. Its population of roughly 8,100 is employed primarily in agriculture. Again according to Wikipedia:

The Town of Taber gained notoriety when it adopted [in March, 2015] a bylaw on February 23, 2015 that granted the police and bylaw officials the authority to levy fines for controversial actions including swearing, public assembly, spitting and applying graffiti on one’s own private property. The bylaw also implemented a curfew.

As one might expect, the bylaw was challenged as unconstitutional, violating freedoms of expression and association protected under Section Two of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I do not know whether the challenges had enough traction to be upheld. The fact that the governing body of the town saw fit to pass such a law seems utterly bizarre, until one digs a little deeper into the rationale for it.

According to a May 16, 2016 article in the Calgary Herald, “Southern Alberta is home to thousands of Mennonites who’ve emigrated from Mexico in recent decades and settled in Taber and nearby hamlets and villages, including Enchant, Barnwell and Grassy Lake.” The article goes on to say that Mennonite young (mostly male) gather on Sunday, after a week of hard work, following church in the Walmart parking lot on the edge of town to socialize. Some of the Mennonites (and others, apparently) claim the law was aimed at curbing those gatherings that some people in the area found disturbing.

The 2016 census (Canadian) reported that 43 percent of the residents of the town of Taber report that German is their mother tongue and Mennonite was the most frequently reported religion among townspeople.  The Calgary Herald article goes on to say, “The gatherings are simple. Some sit on the backs of their pickup trucks, while others light cigarettes, look at cellphones and talk in English and Low German as families trickle into the shopping centre.”

I make a number of assumptions about the culture of small towns in the U.S. I assume the populations of small towns are, by and large, fundamentally conservative. I assume small towns have deep, if not direct, connections with agriculture. I assume people who live in small towns are more likely to be bigoted than their more worldly big-city counterparts. I wish I could erase these biases from my brain, but I cannot seem to get them to disappear; I encounter too much evidence that supports them. Even when I come across progressive/liberal people in small towns, people who are open-minded and tolerant, I assume those folks are aberrations.  More bigotry. Those biases apply to small towns in the U.S.

I make an entirely different set of assumptions about Canadian small towns. I assume their populations are largely liberal, well-educated, tolerant; but also connected in some way to agriculture. Anecdotal data suggests those biases and assumptions are misplaced, though. While Canadian small towns may (or may not) be more liberal than their U.S. counterparts, they are not necessarily progressive in the sense that my mind has heretofore decided them to be. It’s wishful thinking, I believe. I want to believe all manner of positive things about Canada because I have found so many legitimate reasons to believe so many other positive things about Canada. Biases and bigotry work in odd ways. They may be based in part on facts and experience, but they transform personal interpretations of experience into evidence in support of perspectives that have no real basis in reality.

Let me add that the comments I’ve made thus far about small towns, the populations of small towns, the philosophical leanings of people in small towns (whether Canadian or in the U.S.), etc. are based more on a flash of personal assessments than on facts. I cannot seem to stop myself from making assumptions, even after considering that they may be based on inaccurate interpretations of slanted information. While that flaw is one I wish would dissolve into a mist of regret, at least it might offer a cautionary encouragement to look for evidence of unwarranted assumptions in my thinking.

So, how has it come to pass that a post that began as a contemplation on a Canadian country-western music artist turned into a musing about bias and bigotry with respect to my feelings about a small Albertan town? That’s just the way my mind works. Or doesn’t work; the rust may prohibit linear thoughts from taking hold.

A few more things about Taber, Alberta. It claims to be, or is called, the corn capital of Canada. There’s a cenotaph in the center of downtown Taber. And there’s a place called the Aquafun Centre that features a 200-foot water slide, a sauna, a steam room, and more. I would not have thought a small town would have such an entertainment feature. That’s not my bias speaking; it’s my assumption (perhaps faulty) about the size of population necessary to support such a venue. And it’s my assumption, based on virtually no knowledge of the area surrounding Taber, that the area has an extremely low population density. Why do I think that? I don’t know. I just do. Or I did.

It’s my understanding that Corb Lund still spends his time on the family farm outside Taber when he’s not touring Canada, the U.S. southwest, Australia, and Europe. By the way, how do I know of Corb Lund? I heard one of his songs, Old Men, on Sirius XM radio several times as I drove to and from CHI Rehabilitation Hospital to visit my wife. It’s intriguing, to me, how chance experiences can trigger mental journeys like the one I’ve just documented.

I just heard from my wife. She is awake and waiting to have breakfast and take a shower. I should do the same.

Posted in Culture, Demographics, Music | 5 Comments

Future Present Imperfect

Posted on July 27, 2020 by John Swinburn

At some point in the future, I hope a significant majority of humankind simultaneously will come to realize the futility of conquest. They will once again understand, as our ancient ancestors probably did, that serenity depends in part on leaving others alone and being left alone.

Not long ago, I read that the dictum live and let live is a “concise idiom of humane mutuality.” It’s such a simple expression of acceptance, non-judgmental tolerance, and—on some fundamental level—respect. The concept has been expressed over the millinnea through philosophy and religion. In what culture is there not a core belief in the idea that we should treat others the way we wish to be treated?

Norman Rockwell, the famous painter, addressed the issue when explaining the idea that prompted him to paint The Golden Rule” a painting depicting a representative tapestry of people who follow all the world’s prominent religions.  Here is what he said about the painting that would become the cover of the April 1, 1961 edition of the Saturday Evening Post:

I’d been reading up on comparative religion. The thing is that all major religions have the Golden Rule in Common. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ Not always the same words but the same meaning.

Conquest, on the other hand, rejects the ways in which others live their lives; it is judgmental, intolerant, and disrespectful. In the U.S., we have molded and shaped and nurtured a culture that is individualistic and materialistic, promoting competition far more than cooperation. Competition is anathema to cooperation; it is central to conquest. Competition rewards judgmental behavior and punishes tolerance of individual and cultural differences. The fact that the U.S. has grown into a superpower explains, in part, how individualism and competition and conquest have spread worldwide; others emulate “strength” when “strength” conveys a sense of power and prestige. Ego usurps the more deserving appreciation of compassion.

If the realization, that conquest is futile, is ever to come to pass, embracing the concepts of “live and let live” and the Golden Rule must occur first for individuals. Individuals, after all, are necessary components of societies and cultures. But it is so much easier to wax philosophical about “humane mutuality” than to practice it. Our own stubborn egos, coupled with fears that we will be at a disadvantage to others who do not embrace it, work against its practice.

Those of us who, like me, speak passionately in support of the Golden Rule (give it whatever name you like) but whose behaviors are at odds with it are, at the core, hypocrites. Apologists for us hypocrites suggest none of us are perfect; all of us are works in progress.  I wonder, then, will the work ever be done? Or will we use that convenient excuse to justify our perpetual failings? Do you see what I did with the words I just wrote? I abandoned the Golden Rule and its “live and let live” corollary in favor of using words as cudgels, attempting to beat and shame into submission people, including myself, who do not behave as I say they should.

Circular reasoning with an unhealthy dose of judgment and intolerance. I began by saying humankind “will once again understand, as our ancient ancestors probably did, that serenity depends in part on leaving others alone and being left alone.” I wonder, will that ever come to pass?

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The Elusion of Sleep

Posted on July 26, 2020 by John Swinburn

I’ve been awake since shortly after 2 a.m., courtesy (I assume) of food that did not agree with me. It’s nearing 3 a.m. now and I’m laying odds against the likelihood that I’ll be able to get back to sleep. Odds are pretty high I won’t be able to sleep if I keep typing. Maybe I won’t type long.

When I woke up, I could not breathe through my nose; not a bit. That has improved during the last 45 minutes or so, but I think I’d pass out from oxygen starvation if I were to depend entirely on breathing through my nose; my mouth serves another purpose besides food processing and speech. I don’t know why my body seems so intent on demonstrating that it controls my physical comfort; or, I should say, discomfort.

A few hours ago, I finished watching the third and final season of Wanted, an Australian television drama series. I won’t go into the plot, mostly because it is utterly improbable, but I will say it is action-packed, mindless entertainment. And I like one of the two main leads, Rebecca Gibney, a New Zealand native who, along with her husband, created the series. One of the aspects of the series I liked most was the fact that I was able to sit and watch it without thinking. It required no effort on my part. None whatsoever. In that sense, it was a little like settling in with a little whiskey or wine or a mind-numbing pill. Just sit and let someone else take control of your mind for a while; yeah, that’s it. But when the action became a little too absurdly improbable, I was able to take a break, stretch, and notice that every joint in my body aches from, presumably, arthritis.  Who knew mindless Australian television would accentuate evidence of one’s advanced age?

I took a break from writing. I listened to my church’s Insight service, in which a member of the church read Brother Eagle, Sister Sky, the story of Chief Seattle’s speech to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in response to Washington’s desire to buy the land where Chief Seattle’s people lived. It’s a moving story, and it is a story about which all of us whose lives are based on imperialist expansion should be ashamed. We cannot change the past, but with sufficient will, we can change the future and make inroads toward redemption. But I doubt we will; this morning, I doubt we have the collective will to repair the damage our cultures have wrought over centuries.

Sleep often eludes me. That is punishment, I guess, for the thoughts that travel through my head during my waking hours. When I want to leave those thoughts and rest, the universe chastises me by forcing those very thoughts to sear into my brain like a hot branding iron. The elusion of sleep. Until arguing with WordPress that “elusion” is, indeed, a legitimate word, I did not realize it truly was. Elusion versus illusion. Their sounds are too close for comfort. Sleep is an illusion, too. It is a hologram of wakefulness.

Maybe I will try again to sleep. My stomach seems to have calmed a bit, so perhaps I can rest. I will try.

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Night Walker

Posted on July 25, 2020 by John Swinburn

Earlier this year, in one of my stream-of-consciousness blathers, I mentioned the idea of mounting a television to a treadmill, enabling me to watch an odd mix of television series and made-for-Netflix movies while getting some exercise. If I did this at night, as well as during the day, I could do a lot of walking. My mind has been massaging that idea for six or seven months.

First, I will create a character who does precisely what I have contemplated doing. He will walk only at night, in the wee hours, when almost everyone else in this part of the world is asleep in bed. While the sleepers dream, my character watches television and walks. He walks through the desert. He walks the Appalachian Trail. He walks north from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Fort Frances, Ontario and continues his northward trek through Ontario to Vermilion Bay. He walks through Colorado and Utah and Arizona and New Mexico. He takes these long walks while watching Scandinavian crime series and Spanish murder mysteries and British dramas. On rare occasion, he switches to HGTV to watch shows about building and outfitting tiny houses. Regardless of where he walks, he avoids densely populated areas. Even when in the Twin Cities, he skirts the edges, keeping his distance from crowds and heavy traffic.

My character will be modeled after the me who could have been. I will make considerable adjustments to his personality and appearance, portraying a character readers might admire and appreciate. He will live his values, rather than simply clinging to them mentally while wishing he could embed them in his behavior and thoughts. He is complex, but simple. He is broken, but repairable. His walks, of course, will be imaginary; no one travels the Appalachian Trail on a treadmill. But in his mind’s eye, he will see every vista and every tree root he would encounter on the actual 2200-mile trek. And he would experience every footstep of the 464 miles between St. Paul and Vermilion Bay. He’ll stop for breakfast at the Comfort Table Bakery, where he will enjoy an egg and sausage calzone. His exploration of the Chihuahuan Desert will feel absolutely real as he wanders south from El Paso, through Ciudad Juárez, and into the realm of dreams. He will stop for a time in Delicias, which was officially designated a municipality on January 7, 1935. Time stands still in some places around Delicias; my character will find those places on his walk. He will explore the Museo del Desierto Chihuahuense for a look at the past and he will stop briefly at the Parque Acuatico El Paraiso for a look at the immediate future; the future before water is so precious no one can justify a water-based entertainment park.

His walks through Colorado and Utah and New Mexico and Arizona will amount to a farewell tour, an opportunity to say goodbye to another dream world that cannot survive the onslaught of tomorrow after tomorrow after tomorrow. He will contemplate the words of Georgia O’Keefe when she said, in response to a question about why her paintings of flowers were so large, “so they will be noticed.” Tears will fall as he muses about Georgia O’Keefe; just like the tears that accompany his long, expansive stare into the past as he watches an old Mexican great, great grandmother, older than the sky, make her last batch of tortillas, in her time-worn hut on the outskirts of Delicias.

My character does not yet have a name. The names I’ve given to my alter egos heretofore do not fit this night walker. He may never get a name, because the act of naming him could ruin the mysticism of his journey. I purposely chose not to make that word—journey—plural because his nightly wanderings consist of one long single expedition that’s broken into segments. “Broken into segments.” That’s fitting. Shattered might be a better descriptor. His journey emerged from a shattered life, a life lived too close to the fringes to be “normal” but too far from the fringes to be “bohemian.”He was like a malformed supplemental piece of a paperboard jigsaw puzzle; carved from a piece of petrified mesquite long after the puzzle was manufactured and shipped. That hard puzzle piece was dropped on a concrete floor; broken and swept into a corner and forgotten.

So, I’ve created the outline of my character. Now what? I think I’ve answered that question. Drop the outline onto a concrete floor, where it will be shattered and swept into a corner. One day, I may retrieve the broken shards and attempt to piece him back together. Or not. Either way, though, for what purpose? Almost all the characters I’ve created in my mind have a common thread; they are broken. And they share another commonality; in spite of their flaws, they are worth salvation. Not in a theological sense; more like secular redemption. That is, their lives have value despite their faults; regardless of their very visible (or sometimes completely hidden) blemishes, at their core they are good, decent, worthy human beings.  But that may be wishful thinking. The stories have to be written, and completed, to know that to be true. Or not.

Maybe I should just force the issue and buy a damn treadmill. It’s not like I haven’t been looking, though. I just can’t find one for a reasonable price. And where would I put it? I have expectations of a treadmill. It must be a very  high quality product, equipped with at least some of the more important and useful technological gadgetry. And it should run as quietly as possible. Enough about treadmills. This began as an outline of a story. It has turned into something else; something that does not resemble the outline of a story.

There’s light in the sky. Light from the sun, hidden by a haze of low clouds or high fog. The distant hills behind the house are not visible; I trust they are still there, but I have no proof of that. Everything outside the realm of my vision could have disappeared overnight. The leaves on the trees are almost still, but occasionally they move, just slightly, suggesting a very light breeze is blowing. I just saw a man walk down the street for his morning exercise, the exercise I want to get on a treadmill. If I were still in Dallas, I would be out walking, I think. But the inclines here are too steep for my lungs to take; I should take my friend’s advice and drive to a flat place where I can walk. Maybe drive to Dallas? That’s too far and would require too much gas. Maybe a walk to the Chihuahuan desert is in order. But probably not. It’s daylight. My walking is meant for the wee hours, when no one else is out walking.

Posted in Philosophy, Writing | Leave a comment

Icelandic Diversion

Posted on July 24, 2020 by John Swinburn

I am sitting in my wife’s room in the rehabilitation hospital while she is off undergoing therapy of one kind or another. A short while ago, after she was wheeled away for her two back-to-back sessions, I wandered through the BBC website and found an intriguing video about Icelanders’ “free spirit.” Actually, the video was about Icelanders’ attachment to swimming and swimming pools, but someone in the video suggested a connection with free-spiritedness.

The fact that people must strip down to being “almost naked,” as one character said, equalizes people. Near nudity (but not really…their swim suits cover more of their bodies than most of the ones we see in this country) does not permit assertions of status; even cell phones must be left out of the pool area.

One of the people interviewed for the story suggested that swimming pools are almost required in Icelandic communities. I’ll try to remember her words: “In small communities, you have a church, a museum, and a swimming pool.” In context, that suggests that swimming pools equate to Ray Oldenburg’s “third places.” I definitely can buy that. It’s not just swimming pools, either. It’s hot tubs that provide the hot contrast to the cold ocean swim (or simply to the cold air).

Though I’ve never been an aficionado of hot tubs, I think I could become one if I were an Icelander. We had a nice hot tub years ago, when we lived in Arlington (TX). I spent quite a bit of time in that hot, restorative water. I suspect that hot tub (or any other one, for that matter) would do wonders for my tight neck and shoulder muscles. But strong and willing hands would be more likely to loosen this damn tightness, both in my muscles and in my mind.

For some odd reason, I keep drifting, as if I could fall asleep as I type these words. “As if,” like hell. I have fallen asleep within the past two paragraphs. So I’d better stop before my head hits the keyboard.

Posted in Nudity | 3 Comments

I Can’t Write this Morning

Posted on July 24, 2020 by John Swinburn

I can’t write this morning.  Writing suddenly seems a luxury, a shameful waste in the face of real necessity. My mood will change, I’m sure. I am fortunate, in that it always does. But maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe the escape of writing is an unearned respite from the real world.  Enough of this. I can’t write this morning.

Posted in Emotion, Writing | Leave a comment

Demands and Tension

Posted on July 23, 2020 by John Swinburn

One more week. That’s what the rehab hospital is saying. My wife will be there one more week before she is discharged, assuming she is ready for discharge then. The idea, they say, is for her to be as self-sufficient upon discharge as she was before entering the hospital. That will depend in large part, I think, on her medications and the extent to which their dosages, etc. have been properly adjusted. I’ve seen little evidence that doctors have spent any time with her; not even reviewing her charts. That upsets me; I expect physicians to actually see patients, face-to-face, and to ask questions and make personal observations, rather than rely on recorded observations of others who may or may not have engaged in sufficient personal assessments. And even that arms-length interaction seems to be missing.

I do not know, though, what questions I should ask, what demands I should make, what I should do to ensure my wife is treated as more than just another in a long line of patients. She is not just another patient; she is a crucially important patient, a patient as important as any a hospital staff can possibly encounter. I just don’t know how to make that point. I don’t know how to insist that she be given extremely focused, precise, caring attention; not artificial attention prescribed by protocol or quota.

I have been in hospital settings before, and I’ve always judged people who demand more attention than I think reasonable.  As if I knew what was reasonable. As if I had even a bloody clue what was reasonable. But I felt comfortable judging people who wanted personalized attention beyond what I thought was sufficient. I always gave the healthcare professionals the benefits of the doubt; patients and their loved ones, I assumed, were panic-stricken and overly-demanding.  That assumption no longer squares with me; I was among the pricks who failed to deliver sufficient compassion where it should have been delivered. I thought patients and their advocates were over-reacting or were arrogant in their demands for more attention than they were being given. Now I understand, far better than before, how fear and concern and hope all conspire to make patients and their advocates seem unreasonable. I understand, too, that the appearance of irrationality is a fractured reality that does not encompass the real world of fear and concern and hope.

It’s not that I think her care is lacking. It’s that I want her care to be more intense, more personal, and I want those who care for her to acknowledge that she has been under the care of a cardiologist whose prescribed care seems to have been thrown out the window. Perhaps I’ll call her cardiologist today and insist on talking to him. Maybe I’ll do that.

I will not visit her today. Instead, her sister will go see her. I suspect that will be a welcome change of pace for my wife. I will devote my time today to other responsibilities and obligations. Among them will be a call to the “case manager” who discussed with us after-care. I did not write notes about our conversation, like I should have done, so I am not sure of what she told us about when to select a home-health service; I don’t recall how long we should expect assistance, what they can do, and a host of other matters I should know. My notes are inadequate; it’s as if I wrote my notes in an abbreviated foreign language I never mastered in high school. I wish I could record the call and have someone else transcribe it.

This single-minded focus on matters over which I have little direct control is not particularly helpful. If I had a magical little pill that would loosen the grip around my own neck I would take it; maybe two. I can feel the tension, especially in my neck; it’s as if I flexed my muscles too intensely and cannot un-flex them. I suppose that’s why massage is so popular; it releases the physical strain and transforms anxiety into a byproduct of stress that washes away with the strain. At least that’s how I perceive it at the moment.

One’s perspective changes as the day progresses. This morning, the rain and thunder and lightning combine to form tight balls of anxiety in the air. I can hear the raindrops hitting the windows and I can hear the sounds of water surging through the rain gutters, then the constant drip, drip, drip of water pelting aluminum downspouts. When the rain clouds blow away, as they surely will, my perspective will change. The sun, or at the very least its light, will begin to fill the sky. The rain and thunder and lightning will become memories that no longer matter because they will no longer manipulate the way I see the world outside my window.

But maybe I’m wrong about that; I just turned out all the lights and gazed out into the darkness that is just barely beginning to transform into a dim glow. The glow is, I think, sunlight filtered through thick fog and heavy clouds and light rain and blowing mist. Maybe that’s what this day will bring; just more of the same. Perhaps my perspective will remain fixed on a grey blanket of unpleasantly warm, humid air. My forecasts are notoriously inaccurate; when I predict rain, the drought begins and when I expect the drought, epic floods wash away centuries of topsoil. If that were true, the expectations would simply need to be adjusted to reflect reality; then, the predictions would be precise and correct. It is, after all, just a matter of perspective. Or, more precisely, a matter of interpretation of what one sees and feels and senses.

If rain and thunder washed away muscle tension, I would gladly dance on the deck this morning. The base of my neck feels like it is made of a massive cable, the kind used to support bridge structures; twisted strands of thick steel braided into rope impossibly heavy and unbending. Perhaps by being overly dramatic about the tension in my neck I can bring myself to laugh at my own silliness, thereby releasing at least a little of the tension. It hasn’t worked so far. Maybe I need to go full-on Shakespearean, or take on the attributes of daytime soap operas, pretending the weight of the world is on my shoulders. I don’t like daytime soap operas, though, so it would be hypocritical of me to adopt the style of their writers. Actually, I do not know what daytime soap operas are like these days. Maybe they have changed since I was a kid. I remember viewing them then, when my mother watched them from time to time. I did not like them then. I suspect they’re still the same; overly-dramatic, formulaic swill that for reasons unknown sometimes appealed to intelligent people like my mother. Am I drifting? Yes, apparently I am. I have not only drifted to the edges of the channel in which I’ve been floating, I have gone aground on a sand bar and made my way up the steep banks into the thick, snake-infested forest through which the stream flows. I think I’ll stop writing and prepare something to eat; something so distant from typical breakfast food it will confound me into thinking I am having dinner in another country.

And that’s it.

Posted in Anger | 3 Comments

Sounds and Music and Other Mental Rabbit Warrens

Posted on July 22, 2020 by John Swinburn

I forced myself to stay in bed for some time, hoping I would go back to sleep. Eventually, though, I gave up around 4:30.  The thing that kept me awake was the whistling noise with every inhalation and exhalation. That happens sometimes. No matter how much I clear my throat, no matter what I do, the whistling continues. It sounds loud to me, but I gather from past conversations with my wife that it’s essentially inaudible except to me. “It’s all in my head” is actually true in this case. Maybe in every case involving me.

I remember writing before about seeking quiet and being unable to find it. The buzz of light bulbs, the hum of the refrigerator, the whirring of the HVAC unit, the creaking of the floor under my feet, wind pressure causing windows to make barely audible sounds when they flex…and on and on. I find it impossible to experience silence. Even my heartbeat causes an audible “thump-THUMP” in my ears. But, as much as I desire silence, I think I would find deafness an awful experience. When I think of deafness, I see in my mind’s eye a video—without sound—of a building’s implosion; the experience is utterly incomplete without hearing the roar of the explosives and the rumble of the building’s demise.

+++

Today, after my early appointment to record the video introduction for next Sunday’s Insight program, I will return home to shed the uncomfortable jacket and slacks, etc. that I feel obligated to wear for the filming. Until yesterday afternoon, I was planning to go directly to the rehab hospital after filming to visit my wife. However, her therapy sessions are such that my visit would be interrupted shortly after I arrived. She is scheduled for an early session, before breakfast, then another one that would interrupt my visit, were I to go, then two more sessions after lunch. So, I will go visit around 3; that will give me just two hours with her before visiting hours end.  I’ll be interested to see what the schedule is for tomorrow and days following. Yesterday, we learned that the therapists are aiming to discharge her a week from today, if she progresses as expected. Thereafter, they will arrange for home health care for a period of 30 days; or maybe it’s 60. We shall see what actually transpires.

+++

The U.S. has ordered the closure of the Chinese embassy in Houston, ostensibly over hackers attempting to steal research about COVID-19 vaccines. China may, indeed, have engaged in such behavior. Unfortunately, I have come to distrust the U.S. government even more than I distrust the Chinese government. Beijing alleges the U.S. confiscated and opened Chinese diplomatic mail pouches during the past several months, which would be a violation of the Vienna Convention to which both countries are party. Two of the most powerful countries on Earth engaging in such high-stakes political squabbling makes me very angry; if I had absolute, magical power, I would bring every senior level representative of both governments to their knees; what I would do to them afterward is as yet unknown. It would not be pretty, though.

I wonder whether China’s state media is as obnoxious as the defacto state media in the U.S. (i.e., Fox News)? Does China’s state media encourage its citizens to distrust and to loathe U.S. citizens the way Fox News attempts to mold our response to Chinese? I used to think relations between nations would improve dramatically if relationships were managed not by the government but by average, everyday “folks.” No more. In the U.S., too damn many people are raving nationalists who claim patriotism but, in fact, have the blood of imperialist tyrants coursing through their veins. I suspect the same is true of many of the citizens of other countries. What have we humans become? We are capable of compassion and generosity and love beyond measure, yet we choose instead to mock, to value the accumulation of wealth over building relationships, and to hate others who do not share our culture, our heritage, or our skin color.

My mind is on a roller-coaster this morning. It’s enough to make me want to get off the damn thing and walk to the ends of the Earth, someplace I can find a society that hasn’t been infected with rampant capitalism and selfishness. I suppose that wish makes me selfish, though. Ach!

+++

The train of thought that led to the paragraphs above was interrupted by a brief phone call to my wife, followed by showering and shaving and getting dressed so I can look modestly presentable for the filming. Clearly, I have gained a lot of weight. My “presentable” trousers barely button. My coat is tight. I need, desperately, to change my eating habits and my sedentary lifestyle. The latter, especially, will be hard to do, considering how damn hard it is for me to walk up the slope of my driveway; I’m out of breath by the time I get back to the front door. I have let this happen. I let the removal of the right lower lobe of my lung give me an excuse for becoming far too sedentary. Now, I’m afraid, I may not be able to regain my stamina. I could kick myself, repeatedly, for my lethargic lifestyle.

+++

“Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?” Those lyrics from The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, by Gordon Lightfoot, are on my mind this morning. Every time I hear or think about those lyrics, sadness wells up in me; it’s as if Pavlov trained my eyes to tear up and glisten each time he played the music or made me remember the song. There are other pieces of music whose lyrics do that to me: Dimming of the Day does that, but only when I hear it performed; the words on a page or screen don’t have the same power as when I hear the words to the tune sung by Djanko, Fjeld, and Anderson or Bonnie Rait or Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Oh, there are more, but my fingers need a break and I need to head to church soon. My fingers will exercise again, sometime, later.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Swerving into Philosophy

Posted on July 21, 2020 by John Swinburn

I woke up late this morning, sometime around 6:45. The fact that I was awakened in the middle of the night probably contributed to my late rising. Or maybe I was just tired and needed more sleep than normal. Whatever the reason, I woke up in daylight, an unusual and disconcerting experience; I feel like I’ve missed a significant chunk of the day when I sleep late. I don’t like it.

My wife’s therapy sessions will take up the majority of the morning today, so I will wait to go to the rehab hospital to see her until after noon. Then, she has another session during the mid-afternoon, so I suspect I’ll head home early. On the one hand, I’m glad that they are piling on the therapy; on the other, it infringes on my time with her. And I don’t want them to overdo it.

I got a text from my wife around 5:30 this morning, before I was awake, in which she told me she had just been weighed. They weigh her every morning, which is part of the process of monitoring the status of fluid retention connected with her congestive heart failure. The CHF is not new. She has had it since she was in college; but it apparently has gotten worse lately and, therefore, she must be more closely monitored. Changes in weight, especially weight gain, are among the concerns that may warrant changes in treatment. I really wish her cardiologist were involved in treatment decisions, but I was assured by the rehabilitation doctor yesterday that a team of physicians is involved and they take into account all aspects of patients’ health, including details assessments of cardiac issues, etc., etc. They had damn sure better pay close attention and take into account her cardiologist’s assessments.

My sleep last night was awash in dreams I cannot remember with sufficient clarity to make any sense of them. The one element I vaguely remember is that I was advised by someone to sleep on my side for several hours, then to sleep on my other side. I think I recall additional fragments, but I’m not sure whether they were part of my dream or interpretive add-ons delivered by my brain as I tried to make sense of the situation. One’s brain is odd, isn’t it? It volunteers counterfeit context when context goes missing, and then conceals fabrications by interweaving them with reality. Or, in the case of dreams, artificial reality. That’s so very strange; meshing two versions of “reality” manufactured in the mind—crafted from fantasy and context—to form yet another alternative reality. I wonder if that bizarre sensation is anything like the experience of ingesting hallucinogenic mushrooms? I don’t think I’m going to find out anytime soon.

Tomorrow morning, I am scheduled to record the introduction to the Insight service that will be posted Sunday as a video on the church website. Last night, before I went to bed, I wrote the ceremonial words associated with lighting the chalice; I found no chalice-lighting words, written and spoken by someone else, on the UUA website that quite fit the situation. I wanted something that spoke to UUA heritage (the theme of the months of summer for the church) and to the content to be delivered by the Insight speaker: the words of Chief Seattle when invited to sell his tribe’s land to the United States.  I think I succeeded in writing something that acknowledges both. I hope I did. These are the words I plan to speak for the video introduction, unless I change my mind between now and then:

As we light this chalice, may it inspire in us
a thirst to strengthen our commitments to
one another and to our Unitarian Universalist faith and
heritage, to heal the wounds of both past and present, and to create a future fueled with love.

As I consider the fact that I am involved in this church ritual, I am once again surprised at myself. A few short years ago, and all the years before that, I would have scoffed at the idea that I would be involved with any church in any way. Yet, today, I am more than casually involved in a church. I sit on its board. I chair a committee involved in long range planning. I sit on a committee that plans programs that would, in normal times, be held in the sanctuary (but now are recorded for video “broadcast”). And more. All of this since joining a church on June 3, 2018; just  a tad more than two years ago. I joined a church? What? Four years before that, I attended the same church for the first time: June 1, 2014. Prior to that, I had not been in a church, except for special occasions like weddings, since I was an atheist child coerced (basically) into attending Sunday school.

I should not be surprised, though. A few weeks ago, I (again, for the umpteenth time) searched my blog for instances in which I mentioned either church or religion or otherwise addressed philosophical matters that mirror the moralities often promoted (but not necessarily practiced) by churches.  I found many, many instances in which I expressed an interest in and even support of the philosophies of religions. I also expressed frustration with their insistence on divinity as reality and with their hypocrisy and with what I considered their bizarre rituals. Yet even in the face of those frustrations, I always noted a seed of possibility. I wished I could find a fellowship (I loathed the term “church”, which I associated with hypocrisy and inflexible religious dogma) that focused on humanity, compassion, and other attributes I felt were central to living a life that mattered.

Writing a blog has helped me record my evolution as a human being. It has, inadvertently, enabled me to capture how I have changed in my viewpoints about many subjects, including religion. I have mellowed, morphing from a rather strident, mocking atheist into a much more tolerant, understanding atheist. But even my atheism has changed. Though I remain thoroughly convinced that there is no divine God in the traditional sense, I now consider the possibility that many people who say they believe in God do not necessarily believe in a supreme being. Instead, they define God in ways that I did not, heretofore, understand (and may not, still). They do not necessarily define God as a being with intent, but as a manifestation of the majesty of everything around us. I might be able to get behind that concept, though I don’t think I’ll ever call the awe-inspiring “everything” as God.

Someone suggested to me not too long ago that I should present “my UU journey,” which gives members of the congregation an opportunity to explore and explain how they came to be involved in Unitarian Universalism. At the time, I laughed it off. But since then, I have decided that, if I were to do that, I have an enormous volume of “stuff” I’ve written that essentially documents how I came to be a “card-carrying” member of UUVC. So, I may one day write a brief synopsis of the intellectual evolution that led me from being a shrieking atheist to someone more tolerant, understanding, and in some cases appreciative of religion and how it can positively influence the lives of people who want and need it. I’ve also come to the understanding that “church” is not limited to the buildings in which religious services are held. “Church” embodies the collective engagement of people who share some core commonalities. A church is more a community than an edifice. That fact once again came home to me during this last week, when several members of that community rushed to offer support and assistance when they learned my wife was in the hospital. Their offers sprang from them automatically because of the kinds of people they are. That, alone, expresses the powerful humanity that resides in church, as least in this church.

Once again, I drifted out of the lane I was in, then swerved sharply into a completely different one. I don’t know quite how I drifted from my wife’s hospital/rehab stay to my dreams to my history of religious skepticism into my “spiritual transmogrification.” But I did it, nonetheless. But, now, it’s almost 9 o’clock. I should shower, shave, and otherwise get presentable. And breakfast wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.

Posted in Church, Dreams, Religion, Secular morality | 6 Comments

The Week Begins

Posted on July 20, 2020 by John Swinburn

They stuck in my mind many, many years ago. I’m referring to the lyrics of a Leonard Cohen song, Famous Blue Raincoat. I think of those lyrics every time I find myself awake at four in the morning, which unfortunately is not all that rare. I never stay
awake until four in the morning, but it is not uncommon for me to be awake at four in the morning. Like this morning.

It’s four in the morning, the end of December
I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better
New York is cold, but I like where I’m living
There’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening

The lyrics of the song have no bearing on anything in my life, other than the fact that I’m awake at four in the morning. It’s the middle of July, not the end of December. And I’m not in New York. And so forth. But, still, the lyrics speak to me for some odd reason. They speak of loneliness in the midst of noise and activity. They conjure a sense of ennui, but with a disjointed definition that embraces a range of emotions that do not belong together. That phrase so often defines my state of mind: “a range of emotions that do not belong together.”

Just after I began to write this post, my wife responded to a text message I sent to her last night. So I responded to her response. And I suggested she call me, if she was of a mind to. She was and she did. We chatted for a few minutes. I learned she was channel surfing, trying to find something of consequence instead of the paid-programming hawking make-up. The staff had been in her room to do cleaning (in the middle of the night!); since they were there and had awakened her, she asked for assistance getting to the bathroom (she is not permitted to get out of bed without assistance, because she is so weak and because she is at hazard for a fall). So, being awakened in the middle of the night happened to be good fortune. Our call ended with my reminder to her that I would be back in again later this morning to bring her clothes, her mechanical pencil (a companion she requires when playing Sudoku, which is a frequent endeavor for her).

I never remember how to spell Sudoku, so I looked it up. I found this sentence describing the game:

The name “sudoku” is abbreviated from the Japanese suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru, which means “the numbers (or digits) must remain single.”

Hmm. Who knew?

I am tired, but I am awake and I sense there’s little point in trying to get back to sleep. My mind is not especially sharp this morning, which probably is reflected in my writing. But that’s true of my writing, in general, as it skitters from one topic to another, never stopping long enough to delve deeply into any one subject. My thought processes are like the rock I sling horizontally along the surface of a pond. My thoughts skim the surface for a moment, jump in the air, and repeat the process until, at some point, they sink like the rock I’ve thrown.

My thoughts are like my interests: broad (or is it wide?) and shallow. If I could explore all the ideas that cross my mind, but examine them deeply, I would be a far more intelligent man. Instead, I know very little about many things. And my interests run in parallel; nothing interests me sufficiently to warrant becoming even remotely “expert” in anything. A jack of all trades, master of none, as the saying goes.

I am hungry. Now that the clock is telling me it’s closing in on five in the morning (only twenty minutes to go), I feel less embarrassment that food is on my mind. I’m thinking I’ll mix some of the beans I made the other day (pinto beans, chunks of ham, jalapeños, onions, chile powder, cumin) with the canned tomatoes I left in the refrigerator several days ago. That concoction will form a thick bean and tomato soup/stew of sorts; add some Yucateca Black Label salsa habanero and I’ll have a magical, tasty breakfast. Well, it will do, anyway.

Before I eat, though, I feel a need to write something consequential. That may take too long, though, so I’ll settle for whatever spills from my fingers.

It’s always too late to be the person you wish you had been when you should have been the person you wished you were.  In other words, regret will always follow you if you behave in ways that you will regret. You can never un-do the things you did; you can never un-say the things you said; you can never un-be, the person you wish you had not been. Put another way, all the water under the bridge eventually reaches a dam, creating a stagnant pool. The solution is to go forward, being the person you wanted to be and saying the things you will be happy to have said and doing the things of which you will always be proud. That will give you the strength you need to breach the dam. Even so, though, your past will cling to you until there’s no more you to which to cling.

None of the preceding paragraph makes particularly good sense in the absence of the thoughts that prompted it; that will remain the case, inasmuch as those thoughts will remain locked in my head, where they should stay.

Enough early morning drivel. I will make my odd breakfast, take a shower, and begin to attack the day. My wife wants me with her at the rehab hospital, so I will go there after visiting hours begin. Once there, I can leave and return only once; the policies prohibit multiple in-and-out visits. So, I will spend the vast majority of my day there, leaving only when visiting hours end at 5:00 p.m. I wish I knew the schedule of her physical therapy; that could impact plans for my visit. But she does not yet have the schedule, so I will have to wing it.  As I said, even early morning drivel.

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Concerns

Posted on July 19, 2020 by John Swinburn

Concerns. They’re also called burdens. Or worries. Or apprehensions. Uneasiness. Misgivings. Lots of synonyms for concerns. I allow myself to have more than my share. I admire people who can let those bothersome emotions slide off of them like water off oil-cloth. Envy may be the better word. I don’t know that I hold them in admiration.

I understand why people take drugs. It’s not always to relieve pain. It’s not pain they’re trying to mask, it’s a constant tightness that grips them with just enough force to make breathing difficult. It’s an ongoing sense of anxiety, a feeling that peril is just around the next bend. That life, itself, is a menace.  But then, in the blink of an eye, it can disappear. I think meditation might help, although I wonder if meditation might actually accentuate the feeling of danger. Maybe that’s why people something eschew meditation and opt for medication, instead. I’m afraid I would take far too much, far too soon.

+++

Solitude is not the same when the house is empty. Even though my solitude changed when my wife began waking much earlier than usual, that change was nothing compared to the solitude I have now that she’s in the hospital for physical rehabilitation. I much prefer solitude when I know she is in another room in the house. This solitude without her presence is stark and brittle. It would be different if she were simply away visiting friends.  I know that to be true, from experience. But the fact that she’s in the hospital changes the face of solitude. It’s an empty, aching, lonely solitude. I can’t wait until she’s back home.

+++

I spent time early this morning viewing the Sunday sermon by our church minister. It struck a nerve with me, one that has been exposed for a while. That is, what are we doing to live our expressed philosophies, outside our own heads? In other words, are we just talking a good game of liberal theology, or are we going to do something to change the world into the kind of place we believe it should be? His sermon did not answer the question, of course, but he put it squarely in front of us. Anyone who views the video will understand the challenge, I think. And it’s not just “us” as the collective; it’s “us” as individuals. What am I, personally, going to do? That question merits serious consideration. It forces me to look beyond the privilege of being happy that I am able to engage with like-minded people.  It’s a challenge I’ve felt for as long as I can remember; but for as long as I can remember, I haven’t done much with it. Will I do something with it now that it’s on my mind in a different way? Time will tell.

+++

Everyone is fragile in one way or another. Each one of us is like a piece of delicate crystal, laced with millions of invisible imperfections. That web of tiny blemishes—I hate to call them flaws—subjects us to all manner of damage, simply by exposure to the jarring events of everyday life. We live in constant danger of everything from minor cracking to explosive shattering.

I remember seeing a disturbing scene on television, in which someone on a subway platform accidentally jostled another passenger, who fell between an oncoming train and the platform. The passenger survived the incident seemingly intact, but he was stuck between the train and the platform. Eventually, viewers learned of the passenger’s mortal injuries. The pressure of the train on his body against the platform prevented him from bleeding out from his internal injuries, but when the train car was tilted away from his body, the man’s internal injuries cause massive hemorrhaging and he died. All that from an accidental jostle on a subway platform. It was fiction, but fiction is simply reality reordered to fit a story; it’s the bottle hurled into the ocean, the one in which the message is found on a distant shore.

Fiction can remind us how delicate and brittle we are. The world around us, too, can prompt us to remember that the crystalline perfection of our lives can crack or shatter in an instant. We may be crystal or we may be fabric; the fabric of our well-ordered lives can snag , rip, or tear, or come completely unraveled. Whether made of dense crytal or flexible cloth, our lives can transform from supremacy to chaos in an instant.

I remember a stanza from a poem I wrote several years ago; it makes me consider how the fabric of our lives, even when it tears, can become comfortably embracing:

We scuffed our emotions against sharp
sentimental objects so many times they
shredded into strings like worn cotton,
as soft and ephemeral as clouds.

+++

So many things cloud my mind this morning. They have turned what could have been a bright, sunny day into a cold, foggy, wet walk along a desolate pier. It will change. I will walk into the dry sunlight. But, in the interim, I will skirt the water’s edge, hoping I don’t slip on wet seaweed that clings to the wooden boardwalk, spilling into the choppy waters below. I can swim. But do I want to?

+++

Formica. It’s a brand name, but it has become a generic term for a laminate applied to a substrate. The process by which a trademarked product becomes generic is called genericization. Another brand name for the same type of product is Wilsonart. I suspect Wilsonart has invested energy and, perhaps, money into murdering the genericization of Formica. In that sense, I would say Wilsonart is not so much a competitor to Formica, but an ally. But I may be wrong.

There was a time when Formica was the preferred countertop material. It is attracting (depending on one’s perspective), durable, and relatively easy to install. Plus, it’s far cheaper than many of its more upscale competitors. I used to view Formica as cheap crap. I much preferred granite. But, when I got granite, I realized how much more practical Formica is. Granite has been turned into status-stone. The same is true with quartz and stone substitutes like crushed quartz embedded in other materials. Pricey, attractive (perhaps), but less practical than Formica. If I were to build a house today, I suspect I would use Formica in some places; maybe I’d use quartz and quartz-like materials in others. But not granite. And I’d fee snobbish and overly-privileged to use quartz. Odd, the transformations we go through as we age. We ripen into wiser beings with slightly sour outlooks on even sweet vistas.

+++

So far today, I’ve taken care of the hummingbird feeder, watered the plants on the deck, showered, shaved, washed a load of towels, and written meandering stream-of-consciousness drivel. I’m listening to the “Spa” stream from Amazon Music; it is not doing what I hoped. It is not calming me, putting me in a state of serenity. In fact, it’s beginning to annoy me. Soon, I’ll either tell Alexa to play something else or to be quiet. Or I’ll pounce on her with a heavy rubber mallet and will pound her so she’ll never play another note from a flute again. Back to the towels. I think they’re almost ready for the dryer.

After the towels are done, I’ll head in to Hot Springs to visit my wife at the physical rehab center.

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Friday Evening Roundup

Posted on July 17, 2020 by John Swinburn

I delivered Janine to CHI Rehabilitation Hospital (AKA Encompass) this afternoon about 6:15 p.m. It took all day for the process of referral to CHI to play out, I guess. By the time she was formally discharged (the paperwork said 2:48 p.m., but the reality said close to 6:00 p.m.), the van transportation that normally would have taken her was no longer available (the driver gets off at 5) and the other option (aside from our own vehicle) would have been an ambulance. Janine preferred that I drive her, so I did.

She hadn’t eaten at the hospital, so I was supposed to tell the Encompass greeting staff she needed to have food. I forgot. So, as I was a mile or two away, when I remembered, I called to tell them I was supposed to let them know. They claimed they already knew.

Several minutes later, as I left the north/east section of Hot Springs on Highway 7, Janine called me. I picked up, but the call disconnected. This happened a few times. Finally, I got through to her and started talking over some odd background noise. She said, “John, shut up.” I said, “What?”

\She repeated it. Maybe twice. I stopped talking. I listened as I continued to drive. I continued hearing the odd noises and indistinct voices; a few “crashes
and sounds like pieces of tableware banging against one another. This went on for several minutes. During those minutes, I began to have strange and awful thoughts: “What if she is being abused by staff?” “What if telling me to shut up was a signal that something is wrong?” I turned around and headed back, all the while hearing this odd cacophony of noise from the phone. I broke several speed limits on the way back, taking the freeway instead of driving through town. When I reached the place, I went to the call box on the front door and said I had dropped my wife off a short while earlier, but had been unable to reach her by phone and was worried. The response was that visiting hours were over.

“I know, but I am concerned that I have been unable to reach my wife and I want to be sure she is okay.” She put me on hold.

A moment later, Janine came on the phone. She assured me she was fine. I asked her to confirm that she was really fine by telling the name of my nephew. She gave me the right name, so I was confident all really was well. I turned around and drove home.

When I returned home, I had two messages from friends from church, offering support and assistance if we need it. The outpouring of support from people near and far has been heartwarming in the extreme.

I spoke to Janine later, at home, when she called from the facility’s phone. The problem was, apparently, just a matter of poor cell service. Plus, she had been unable to disconnect the call. I listened to 26 minutes of odd noises because I was worried she was being abused. After the fact, of course, I came to my senses. Abuse might take place in nursing homes, but I have not heard of such things happening in dedicated residential physical therapy facilities. But, God, I was scared to death for her before I came to my senses.

We do not know how long she might need to stay. The nurse at the hospital said the shortest stay she knew of was four days and the longest fourteen days. At least that’s a range to ponder.

Until Janine returns home in substantially better condition than she left, and until we know and agree to a plan for continuing her rehabilitation after returning home, I will be in worry mode. I know worry does not good; but at least it puts me in a state of readiness to act if things don’t seem right.

I’ll go up again tomorrow (I wasn’t even able to go inside to see her room because visiting hours were over). And maybe I’ll learn more about what to expect.

For tonight, drinking a gin & tonic by myself will be on the agenda. If it concerns anyone that I’m drinking alone, I’m not; I’m having conversations, in my head, with a lot of people.

 

 

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More News

Posted on July 16, 2020 by John Swinburn

The only significant matter to report is this: the hospital seems to be leaning toward releasing Janine to a residential rehabilitation facility, where she can get ongoing care and rehabilitation physical therapy. But that will depend on several issues, including:

  1. What the PT assesssment undertaken this afternoon reveals;
  2. The availability of residential beds (Good Sam, her first choice, does not have a bed and will not for at least a week); and
  3. The acceptance of a recommendation for inpatient rehab from both the “receiving” center (where she would go) and Medicare.

Because Good Sam is unavailable, she selected Encompass (formerly CHI Rehabilitation). Now, we’ll wait and see whether she will be accepted and authorized and, if so, when this will take place and for how long.

It’s possible the PT department will recommend home health care, instead; I hope not, in that I think she would get far better treatment in a facility designed for it.

Time will tell. I hope not too much time.

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Where Decency Thrives and Compassion Flourishes

Posted on July 16, 2020 by John Swinburn

A friend left a comment here recently, suggesting that some countries’ cultures have a gentler view of the world than ours. That is so true. Our culture evolved from hard-nosed individualism, shedding compassion along the way as if the desire to be helpful in the face of others’ suffering was a weakness. The culture in this country and too many others elevates individualism and views selfishness as a characteristic to be sought after. Concern for the greater good is frowned on in many ways in these cultures. The idea that our collective concerns should guide us to a greater extent than our lust for individual achievement seems, to me, to be a sickness. Individualism cultivates disdain for the greater society from which the individual emerges. It’s an odd expression of self-indulgence that borders on matricide; and we have grown into a culture that promotes and applauds it.

I’ve written before of the struggle between individualism and community. My thoughts on the struggle continue to evolve, but I think these words from a post three years ago still apply: “Individualism is self-responsibility taken a step too far, a step beyond non-reliance into selfishness and penurious thrift.” Two years later, I was more strident in my assessment: “I believe the legend of the rugged individualist should be allowed to die or, if it won’t go quietly, be killed. ”

Perhaps the fact that my longing for a gentler world-view embraces a certain form of violence against a different one is odd. But I don’t necessarily think so. It’s much like the concept that tolerance must have limits; endless tolerance enables the breeding of intolerance, which is intolerable. Similarly, individualism must have limits; endless individualism promotes the unraveling of civil society, which also is intolerable. The delicate aspect of the equation is found in defining the points beyond which grey areas morph into brilliant red lines that cannot be crossed.

On one end of the spectrum, a utopian social order exists in which concerns for the collective take precedence over individual desire. At the other end of the spectrum, a dystopian nightmare exists in which individual desires always triumph over the needs of the collective. Of course, I realize there may be some who would disagree with my characterization of extreme individualism as a dystopian nightmare. It’s a matter of perspective. Ultimately, it’s a matter of whose perspective will win in an evolutionary timescale. I won’t be here to witness it, unless Trump steals another election. In that case, my argument about a dystopian nightmare will have been horribly and irrevocably proven.

Such are my thoughts on this Thursday morning. My pondering about individualism versus concerns for the greater good are only half-hearted this morning. I wish I knew more about my wife’s condition. I wish I could escape the nightmare of COVID-19 and Trumpism and a world on fire, fleeing with my wife to a magical land where a pervasive sense of collective goodwill is in the air. Canada is the closest place where that dream, as distant and unreachable as it may be, might have a chance of survival. Maybe we can go there after she gets out of the hospital. Or maybe we can just embrace a society in which decency thrives and compassion flourishes.

Posted in Compassion, Health, Kindness, Philosophy, Selfishness | 1 Comment

Update

Posted on July 15, 2020 by John Swinburn

I’m tired, so this will be brief.

Janine was moved out of ICU this afternoon to a regular room on the floor below. A while after the move, though, her blood pressure dropped precipitously, so the nurse said she may need to be moved back because she would need far more intense scrutiny and monitoring than would be possible on a regular patient floor. However, her blood pressure improved and he said she should be fine to stay where she is.

The hospitalist came by around 11 a.m. and said he was concerned about blood pressure, anemia, lethargy, and her leg, though her leg was not the major issue (though it bears close watching). He said he wanted to continue a dopamine drip and wanted to give her two units of blood; both should help boost blood pressure and the blood should begin to address the anemia and, therefore, the lethargy. Because something (I do not recall what) was increasing her blood sugar level, he decided to give her insulin, as well. The rest of the day was spent as usual in the hospital: blood draws, injections, medications, regular checks of vital signs, etc.

Janine ordered lunch and ate the partial breast of an old, tough chicken that looked to me like it had been starved to death. She also had salad and chocolate pudding. I ate nothing because I did not bring anything with me and they did not offer anything. It’s not like I’ll starve simply by missing a meal or a month’s worth of meals.

After the room move, a nurse (new to the job) suggested I call and order dinner for Janine and ask for one for me. I did. The meal service happily agreed to a meal for Janine, but the guy said he was afraid he could not give me one, as much as he’d like to. He seemed genuinely sorry he could not feed me.

I left sometime around 6:45. Since then, I’ve eaten and spoken to a couple of folks on the phone. My sister-in-law, good person that she is, took care while I was out by taking a box from Green Chef into the house (and refrigerating/freezing what needed those treatments) after it was delivered, along with a new modem.

I may know more, but I don’t recall what it is. It sounds to me like the doctors are planning on keeping Janine for another day or two, at least. We shall see.

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Relief

Posted on July 15, 2020 by John Swinburn

Yesterday was impossibly long, beginning when I went to sleep after midnight, awoke at 3:30, and then played out during a day that stretched out almost to midnight again.

My wife’s sister helped me get my wife to the nearby urgent care clinic, where the medical professionals judged their facility incapable of doing much for her swollen, purple leg that she injured when she tripped and fell on the hardwood floor. They suggested I take her to the emergency room at CHI St. Vincent Hospital in Hot Springs, which I did. We arrived at 10:30 a.m.; I left at 7:45 p.m., when they were readying my wife for transfer to the ICU, where a room had been assigned. They opted for the ICU because the hospitalist, Dr. Osborne, wanted to put her on a dopamine drip; apparently, that can be administered only in an ICU, for some reason.

During the course of the day in the ER, the doctors and nurses drew blood, took urine samples, X-rayed her leg, chest, and arm., fed her intravenous fluids, and administered various monitoring tests (e.g., EKG, blood pressure, respiration rate, heart rate, etc., etc.). While my wife’s blood pressure is historically low, yesterday it was extremely low, which was of concern to the medical professionals. Very early on, the nurses vocalized about the “rash” on my wife’s arms, upper chest, belly, and back; they called it petechiae (pronounced puh·TEE·kee·uh or puh·TEE·kee·ee, depending on where you look). The little red dots are caused, according to online sources I found, by intradermal hemorrhaging (bleeding into the skin) and may be attributable to any number of things including liver issues, use of anticoagulant drugs (like some my wife takes), and various other root causes. I found it interesting that, in a few seconds, these ER nurses diagnosed the “rash,” while the APRN at the dermatology clinic my wife had visited had no idea what they were. Maybe the ER nurses were wrong; I suspect we’ll know by the time my wife is released to return home (in a day or two, I suspect). Another diagnosis came during the afternoon; she has a urinary tract infection, which might be contributing to her weakness and some other symptoms she had displayed. For me, those findings alone justified spending some time in the hospital, versus getting piecemeal feedback from various doctors who may or may not be talking to one another.

On the way home last night, I received a text message that two items we had ordered from Best Buy had been delivered: a 43-inch television and a sound bar. I was surprised that two pieces of moderately pricey electronic equipment would have been left without even a signature as proof of delivery, but when I pulled into the driveway, there were two big boxes (with photos of their contents splashed all over the packaging) waiting at the front door. I hauled them inside and decided to leave them for setup another time. I was ravenous (I hadn’t eaten all day), so I fed on various foods in the refrigerator, finishing off a few remaining hot dogs and some Canadian bacon and munching on some raw cauliflower and drinking the two remaining cans of Dirt Surfer IPA beer. And then I did a couple of loads of laundry.

My wife called me last night, just before 11. During the course of our conversation, it became clear to me that she thought she had just awakened after sleeping until almost 11 in the morning. I told her she had slept no more than just under three hours, at most.  She mentioned a few things she wants me to bring to her. I was glad she was situated in her room and was being looked after by medical professionals instead of by me.

I watched a little television, beginning to watch an Australian TV series called Wanted. I was too tired to follow the action, so I finally went to bed just after midnight. I woke up almost seven hours later; I guess I needed that extra time in bed after a fairly stressful, sleep-deprived period.

More people I know than I thought read this blog, it seems. Several people reached out to me between the time I published the most recent post and yesterday afternoon. I can’t adequately express how extremely grateful I feel to have heard from people who wanted me to know they are available to me if I need help.

I’ve written a post here when I did not think I would. I’m off to take out the trash, make breakfast, and take a shower, not necessarily in that order.  So begins another day. I will be the sole visitor to my wife’s bedside a little later (she can have only one visitor per day while in ICU, and I have asserted that it will be me). I’m feeling much better about everything than I did yesterday at this time. And that, my friends, is an enormous relief.

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Ill-Equipped to Help

Posted on July 14, 2020 by John Swinburn

I’m going to reveal something personal that I would rather keep private, but circumstances argue I should not keep the situation to myself. If for no other reason, I need to let some people who might happen upon this post know why I may be “out of pocket” for a while.

My wife, who has had all manner of problems with weakness in her legs of late, has experienced more and more restrictions on her mobility lately. The doctors are not sharing much valuable information that might explain the causes, nor the cures (or treatments that might improve the situation). Today, at my insistence, my wife called and left a message with her cardiologist’s office, asking several questions. Late this afternoon, the cardiologist’s office called back. I picked up the phone and took it to my wife. As my wife was heading toward her office with the phone in hand, and before she had the chance to start speaking to the staffer, she tripped and fell face down onto the hardwood floor. In the process she split her lip. I quickly told the caller my wife had fallen and I needed to call for help. I hung up the phone.

I really could not get  her up off the floor without help, so I called 911. A couple of EMTs showed up ten or fifteen minutes after my call and helped my wife to her feet, then to a chair. They gave her a quick once-over and said she was okay.

A little later, though, my wife’s left knee swelled considerably. And it was bruised, badly. I had to help her move around the house; she could not get up from the toilet without assistance. She could not get up from the couch without help. We put ice packs on her knee and her leg. Maybe they’re helping. Maybe not.

The bottom line is this: I want to take my wife to the nearest clinic in the morning to have her injuries checked out. The questions for her cardiologist (and/or her primary care doctor) have not been answered. I want to know why my wife’s mobility is so poor; why she cannot get up out of a chair without help; why the edema in her legs and ankles is so pronounced and why lasix seems to do little to address the problem. And lots more questions.

I’m concerned that I may not be physically capable of looking out after her; if she were to fall again, I would not be able to get her off the floor, so I would have to call 911. It’s not just that, either. It’s mobility around the house. Everyday living that may require more physical capacity than I have. I wonder whether she needs to be treated in a rehab center, where she might be given therapy to regain the use of her leg muscles and where her badly bruised and swollen knee could be properly treated.

I probably am among the world’s least capable caregivers. And I recognize that at precisely the time I need to be among the most capable. I may be out of sight for a while. I may be learning, by necessity, how to be the person I should have been all along.

More when I know it and when I have both the time and the energy to record it. It’s just after midnight now. I feel inept and tired and frightened, all in the same breath. Goddamn it! I should be better equipped to deal with emergencies than I am. I’ve never been good at dealing with crises. It’s one of a myriad of flaws that I’m finally coming to recognize in my old age.

 

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State of Mind

Posted on July 13, 2020 by John Swinburn

For a brief while this morning, the outdoor temperature will be tolerable. At the moment, according to my computer and according to my thermometer, the air temperature is 72F. I can vouch for that; I went outside earlier, where I found the air moderately cool but quite humid and deathly still.

While I watered my grown-from-seed tomato plants, I heard something shuffling through the leaves below the deck, so I stopped my chore to take a look. I expected to see a deer but, instead, saw a very large armadillo scurrying along. It disappeared from view for a moment, under a thick clump of weedy shrubs, but it reappeared in an instant, traveling at the same pace in the same direction. The creature looked like it was in a hurry, but its speed was quite slow, as if its short legs could muster only enough energy to propel it forward only so fast and no faster. Despite its slow-motion scramble, it disappeared from view into the forest in a matter of thirty seconds or so. I wander where it was going in such a leisurely rush?

I mentioned the grown-from-seed tomatoes. I doubt I’ll get many tomatoes, perhaps none will endure to maturity. I have not taken the trouble to stake the plants, nor to tie them to cages that would keep them upright, so several of the plants look drunk, leaning toward the deck with their stems akimbo. Despite that, though, several of the plants have very small tomatoes attempting to survive. I mentioned yesterday to my wife that all of the little tomatoes are shaped liked little thumbs. That’s odd, inasmuch as the tomatoes from which I collected the seeds were, to the best of my recollection, “normal” in shape; that is, they were little globes.

I believe the tomatoes from which the seeds came were imported from Canada. I tend to look at the little stickers attached to vegetables I buy from the grocery store; I’m curious as to their lineage. My memory tells me I gathered seeds from Canadian tomatoes. That makes sense, in that I am a serious Canadaphile. I would have worshiped seeds from Canadian tomatoes, hoping I could create a tiny piece of the nation right here on my back deck. The thumb-shape, though, cannot be explained by the origin of the seeds. I have no way of knowing the explanation; it will remain a mystery.

Canada’s tomato crop yields significant rewards for Canadian farmers, thanks to their southern neighbors’ insatiable appetite for tomatoes. Canadian tomato exports, almost all grown in huge greenhouses, are world-famous, at least to me. And now I have my own miniature tomato forest growing on my back deck, twenty feet above the mixed pine and hardwood forest floor. If I were to name my tomato farm, I think I’d call it Hudson. Hudson just sounds Canadian, doesn’t it? Well of course it does! I hope Hudson survives and delivers to me a crop of succulent Canadian-bred tomatoes. But I wonder whether the beastly heat of Arkansas is just too much for Hudson tomatoes? Perhaps I should have moved to Wisconsin, instead? Yes, I think so. I should have moved to that state, so I could be closer to Canada. Maybe even Canada itself? Swoon! Oh,  yes, I could have actually become Canadian. Life would have been so much sweeter as a proud Canadian. A maple leaf tattoo would have looked better on me in Canada, too. I can’t have a maple leaf tattoo in Arkansas; Republican nationalists would have me skewered with spears for such a transgression.

Even the English language is more mellifluous in Canada. The Oxford English Dictionary, which calls itself the definitive record of the English language, would agree, I think. Just ask; it will tell you.

Back to the tomatoes. I am anxious for the little thumb-shaped tomatoes to ripen so I can evaluate their flavor. Will they taste like Canadian tomatoes? Will they make Canadian noises when I bite into them? Will my disposition improve when I eat them? So many questions, but very few answers.

If I were Canadian, my indiscretions would be forgiven. Arkansans tend not to forgive indiscretions. Torrid love affairs are punished by hanging in Arkansas. In Canada, it’s just a slap on the wrist and a sharp word or two. Not that I’ve had torrid love affairs in Arkansas. Yet. But if I lived in Canada, oh the excitement I might have experienced! I would be younger, were I to live in Canada. People just tend toward youth there, even in old age. I think it’s the tomatoes. Canadian tomatoes add years to one’s life and they subtract years already lived. Canadian tomatoes improve one’s vocabulary, too.

There should be a word in the English language that means “a yearning for a gentler nationality that yields a more fulfilling life experience.” If there were such a word, the Thesaurus would suggest synonyms like Strathcona, maple, and neighbourhood.

My mind takes me such strange places. From armadillos to tomatoes to the prairies of Alberta. I am ready for a road trip to Canada. I think I’ll have to make it alone, though. I am crazy enough to do it, but not persuasive enough to lure anyone to come along for the ride.

Time to return to the harsh reality that is Arkansas in July. And to think, I could have been in Canada all this time.

Posted in Just Thinking | 2 Comments

When Life and Death Were Simple

Posted on July 12, 2020 by John Swinburn

In my mind, I picture an ancient cave-dweller, a man in his early twenties. During the time he lived, the average lifespan of humans was only twenty-six. The rare thirty-year-old or rarer forty-year-old were considered extraordinary. And they were. They managed, somehow, to escape the diseases and infections that came from living in the face of Nature and the danger Nature presented.

But my man has managed to live into his early twenties with almost no serious injuries or illnesses. He lives in a protected cave on the sea-coast, where food is plentiful. His diet consists of an assortment of plants and the bounty of the sea: clams, fish, crabs, shrimp, scallops, mussels, and various other sea creatures. It is a healthy diet, though he does not think of it that way; to him, it is merely sustenance.

One morning, I see the man bring in from the water several blue crabs. He puts them in a shallow pit filled with glowing embers and weighs them down with rocks. After a few minutes, he pulls the cooked crabs from the fire, rinses the ash from their shells, and crack them open. He picks out large chunks of meat from the broken shells and eats it. This is not an unusual sight; he follows a similar routine most mornings.

But this morning, something is different. Soon after he swallows the last bit of crab meat, his face begins to swell and turn red.  He struggles to breathe. He stands up, looking frightened and confused, and pulls at the skin on his neck. He pants and sweats and shakes his head fiercely, as if doing so might cast off whatever demon has his throat and his breath in its clutches. It does not work. In a matter of seconds, his energy is sapped; he sits on a rock, trying to breathe; his trachea is so swollen air cannot reach his lungs. Suddenly, he stands up erect. He puts one foot in front of his body, but it cannot hold him. He collapses. After a minute or two of tremors and seizures, he stops attempting to breathe. His body goes limp. He is dead.

No one witnesses this tragedy. No one but I. And I can do nothing because I see it from the distance of a thousand miles and tens of thousands of years. I cannot send anything to counter his anaphylaxis. I could not foresee it, nor could he. He developed a deadly allergy to a protein he had eaten hundreds, maybe even thousands, of times before. The protein in crab meat suddenly, and without provocation, turned against him. The man’s death in his early twenties contributed to the short average lifespan of his brethren.

The man’s mate, a woman roughly his age or a little older, will find his body in a short while. Returning to their cave near the water, after taking a bath in a cool stream nearby, she will see his body on the sand. She will go to him and attempt to revive him, but her efforts will be futile. She will sit on a rock and cry for a long time. Eventually, her tears will dry and she will do what must be done. She will fashion a sled from palm fronds, vines, and tree branches. She will roll the man’s body onto the sled and pull the sled along the beach about a mile. There, she will dig a hole in the sand, where she will deposit his body. She will cover it with sand and put the sled on top of the mound. Distance and sand will protect her from the odors as his body decomposes. She will return to the cave and seek out food. For that’s what she must do to survive for at least a while longer.

The woman may live to be forty. Or she may suffer the same fate at her mate. She may one day discover that shrimp, too, or mussels or clams can bring on anaphylaxis. But she will never know what killed her mate. She will have no way to “connect the dots.” His death was, to her, simply an unfortunate experience with no known cause. She may find another mate or another mate may find her. She may wither away or be swept away by a ferocious storm. We have no way of knowing.

I know only that I have lost sight of her. My mind’s eye has gone blind.

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