Break Fast

After seven days, I wondered what my first real meal might be/The beer and bran cereal last night doesn't really count/It was the breakfast buffett at the Pescano del Sol/Except that I had chicken instead of eggs/and felt the protein coursing through my veins/and yogurt, granola and mang0 (or papaya, I can never rememeber which is which)/and two pancakes for desert (so much for giving up white flour.

The masseuse from Maui

The masseuse from Maui/doesn't like it much in Santa Fe/She's always cold/Been here a few months/had a gallery this winter/took in a st.john's student to help pay the rent/a chinese girl who'd been done wrong by some young Western bad boy/and was freaking out/stayed on her computer all day/asked the masseuse why she wasn't married or didn't have a kid/not in the cards this life, she said/had plenty of others before and after/so there's no rush

The form of life

"The principle thing in life is its form. That which loses its form, ends itself, and its the same with our everyday existence."

--Chekov, Three Sisters

Day 1

Well, I wake up this morning with no sense of where I am going to go, only that I will be gone for the next three weeks.I've already delayed my leaving a day, since I vowed to be out by April 1st. From somewhere it comes into my head that I am not ready to make any decision and decide to get an room by the airport for tonight. Realizing I would not be able to make a decision of which hotel, since it took all my energy just to come to this, I just go on hotwire and pick a 2 1/2 star hotel for $55, although with tax it ends up being close to $70. I decided I need to go on a hike first and so I start driving on I-10 and decide I am going to go to Picahcio Peak, which I've never climbed (and in fact am not even sure you can climb), but after driving for a while I realize it' s a lot farther than I thought, and when I see a sign for Saguaro National Park, I decide to go there instead, although I am not sure where exactly it will take me but hope it leads to a part of the park I know. In fact, I find a visitor center and a hike I did not know about, and so although it is hot, over ninety degrees, I have a nice hike. At the airport hotel, I am still considering the possibility for flights leaving the country. Indeed, that was one of the reason I got a hotel near the airport. I can't get out to Thailand until Tuesday but I could stay there until then. I could, however, leave for Cancun tomorrow for around five hundred dollars. Instead, I come up with the idea that I am going to do a purge or cleanse up in Santa fe, and start doing a google search and find a place that actually sells a ten day cleanse and I persuade myself that I will do this and now I only need to find a place to stay. At night, I go to the casino with the idea that I will see if I can play some Texas hold em. While waiting to get in a game I throw twenty bucks in a slot, and just as I am about to lose it all, I wint $200. Most I've ever won on a slot. I get in the poker game and winf fifty bucks in that, although I was up probably about $150 at one point. All in all, not a bad day. But what's next?

Been a while

Well, it's been a while since I posted. The health situation with my father has been taking up most of my energy these past six weeks and caused me to put my plans on hold. It started with an anomoly on an exam for a totally unrelated matter. And now, after countless doctor visits including to three separate vascular surgeons, the result is that he has an lagre abdominal aortic aneruysm that for all intents and purposes is inoperable. The standard way to do this procedure would be to cut into the abdomen. But the doctors all agree that there is a good chance he would not survive the operation given his age and condition. Many AAA's can be treated endovascularly, by going in through the leg. But given the location of his aneurysm, the fact that it is attached itself to the kidney arteries, this is not possible. So now it is just a matter of time for it to burst. The thing is, it could be tomorrow, next month, next year or in five years. But in all likelihood, this is the thing that will kill him. And there is nothing that can be done in a non-surgical mode to treat it. So there is a case to be made that he might have been better off not knowing. In any case, this has pretty much consumed my energy this past month and a half--a saga that came to an end yesterday with a final verdict from one of the best vascular surgeons in the country.

Well, at least all of this kept me out of an earthquake. Before we started down this path I had actually booked a ticket to be in Japan for the month of March but cancelled it when this medical situation hit, so I missed out on being there for the earthquake. Having been fifty miles from the epicenter for the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, I was not sorry to miss it. I am not sure what my next move will be, but with this last verdict by the doctor at least some things are cleared up. Still awaiting a verdict in another case, but that's a long story I will tell at some point. For now, I have a half marathon to run this Sunday. More later

Syncronicity

I think this would qualify as a case of Jungian synchronicity. I've already mentioned (I think) that I picked up a copy of The Third Chapter by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot in one of my random bookstore browsing visits. The idea of the book--that there is a third chapter after one has completed a career and before retirment that many adults are actively pursuing--seemed to speak to my own condition. Indeed, I wish I had picked up the book a couple of years ago. This seems precisely what I am trying to do, put together a third chapter.

In any case, a woman that the author mentions is the anthropoligist and daughter of Margaret Mead, Mary Bateson. Just this weekend I listened to a program on Wisconsin Public Radio because I came across the information that it featured someone who had written a blurb for my book. And while I was downloading this podcast, I noticed another podcast in the series was titled something like "living longer, living better." So I downloaded that as well and lo and behold, the guest of this podcast i--Mary Bateson.

So here is a quote from Bateson in the book, The Third Chapter, as well as a rather lengthy but I think important introduction to the quote:

There may also be a need to rethink and rvise the ways in which people move through--and in and out of--work much earlier in their careers. Perhaps the practice of crossing the boundaries of work and rest, the habit of navigating transitions, and trying on new roles and personas, should be established earelier, allowing people to become familiar with, and adept at, reinventin themselves. Bateson suggests a kind of prophylactic attention to both continuity and discontinuity in life, a need for experiences of reflection that anticipat and help prepare for the Third Chapter:

"One way to go for both effective planning and for intellectual vitality, is to look at the years of adulthood well before standard retirement age and invent ways to build in a break, like a sabbatical leave, making it a norm rather than the exception...For some, such a break might become a transition to a differnt sphere of endeavor, public service, perhaps, or the full-time exploration of an avocation. But for many such a break may be simply a refreshment of mind and spirit, energy and creativity to be carried back to the existing career. . . Without such a break, adulthood has simply become too long except in a profession with a great deal of build in learning and diversity. Far too many adults burn out and then plod through their later years, prevented by institutions and financial structures from making new beginnings. We need to puncuate a way to end and begin chapters, to break up the run-on-sentences of the same-old-same-old."

All I can say is that these words truly speak to me. One might argue that academia is a profession taht does allow for "built in learning and diversity," and for many that might be the case. All I know is that I had run my course in that career. Indeed, I still think that except for someone who has had a life before coming to academia five year break at some point would be exactly the thing that is called for. But that's neither here nor there. It is time to me to look toward the other alternatives of either full time pursuit of avocation (writing) or another career (?).

If I could just get off of this LA freeway

Reason for silence. Some very bad stuff happened in LA that I am simply not ready to talk about. Back in Tucson.