To Will One Thing

BEING AWARE

Above my desk is pinned a piece of printed paper:

“Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing”,

wrote Søren Kierkegaard.

I printed and stuck it up there because each time I have looked at that idea I would feel it resonate deeper into me than is describable. I can understand that this thought is the foundation of being human; certainly the fundamental truth of Christianity, and of so many more that have a variety of names or else fall under the title of ‘being spiritual but not religious’.

I had put the sheet of paper up there a couple of days ago after reading his book again; I look at it when my mind is searching for something. And I looked at it as I left to go to the hospital this morning where I had a couple of appointments. I looked at it as I came home tired and in pain; orders for various tests and follow-up visits in my pocket, having heard stark medical facts–much aware of my mortality. My heart is acting up again, like the spoiled child who doesn’t like anything on his plate.

It is good to be reminded that the days are limited because their value is increased by their limited number.

The special nature of being human is that we are both finite even as we can know the infinite; that Purity of Heart which comes of Willing One Thing. The tension between these two is the excitement of being alive, an excitement that never becomes tiresome or out of fashion. I am someone who has a cantankerous organ that will limit how long I am here–at the same time I am beyond that, in a place that supersedes time and pain.

I don’t know how much this idea means to you who are reading it, perhaps nothing. I know that I felt obliged to write it, to dwell on this special aspect of being human.

Surprise 2

I had intended writing about my recent heart failure adventure more than that first chapter “Surprise”; for some reason my several attempts just wouldn’t get off the ground, it was as if I had put everything I knew into that first one, there was nothing more to say; that the attitude of rationally handling the situation was said and shouldn’t be belabored.

This morning as I was taking off the electrodes that have been monitoring my heart for the last couple of days it came to me what was blocking my writing; I had been avoiding being scared, perhaps denying that I was frightened. It was that handling the situation was right at the time, that allowing the screaming heebie jeebies to fly around unchecked wouldn’t have helped what was going on either at the hospital or the first week alone at home. There had been a good chance that I could have stroked-out; there was a reason that all of those scans for clots was ordered, that the four times a day blood samples were taken, that the monitor had been on my chest for almost two weeks continuously.

Last week I was talking with a guy who had been in a situation where he couldn’t move or talk for two days, he was aware of everything going on but was unable to respond; to me that would be what it would be like to have a stroke, or one possibility. Strokes frighten me: the inability to respond, to indicate, to act and yet still be aware is horrible. That I had a high chance of a stroke for a while is a different fear than death, death has no content, it would be a brief experience before zero. Being in a stroke would mean not typing whatever I want onto this screen and then blurting to the web-ether.

So as I was in the shower, washing the adhesive from the electrodes off of my chest I let that horrible fear scream and fly around the room, felt the aloneness of not being able to do anything while yet aware of everything. This was the time to let that gremlin out to exasperate and then to evaporate.

There will be other threads of existential emotion that come from the experience, this is just the first; and each will be allowed its minute or two of power.

Surprise

I want to describe a recent surprise when a person goes to his internist with what he thinks is the onset of asthma–and leaves the hospital eleven days later because he has heart failure and has just spent an amount that could buy a new Rolls Royce convertible.

The first time that a sentence that has one’s name as subject, heartfailure as verb is a very special time in one’s life; I wanted to reject what I was hearing, to think of someone else who is getting that news—but it was and is me.

There are a number of dramatic scenes in being treated for a heart ailment, and there is a lot of waiting for doctors, for technicians, for medicines to do their work, for the body to change what it is about. The most dramatic is when they stopped my heart, twice, and shocked it back to life in hopes of bringing it into sync; my pressure dropped to 77/62 and temperature to 94°, they were selling tickets to witness this in my hospital room. And there were a handful of other interesting events that centered around me and my defective heart.

I am going to cut this short now, with hopes of returning to it with details later, because I have been postponing the posting too long. What I want to pass along from all of this is that whatever was going on and being done somehow became one step removed; that even though I was usually conscious and aware of everything, could speak or listen—it wasn’t that important, nor was it that interesting other than in a technical way. I don’t know if it was just the mindfulness trainingor a step along the way to maturity (a la Jane Loevinger); but I had other things to focus on.

Focus is not the right word here either because there isn’t objects or specifics that one is concerned with, it is the act of not being concerned, of letting other people and nature do what they had to do while I attended to being human, being just myself. It was a wonderful experience, a good experience, a most human and conscious experience.

This is it for now.

Men and Pain

Three men that I see on a regular basis complain of being in pain, they are known for their pain: The first has cluster headaches, the second had polio that left him with a malformed leg, the third injured his back in an accident. These are not guys that I have sought out in order to make a point, I suppose that all of my life I have known men who have been in pain of one sort or another, often it was me who had the pain. As I was going through my clinic course at the Chronic Pain Management Clinic of the RIC I made a point of letting each of them know what was going on with me, much as I did by posting messages to this site in case that someone might benefit.

Today was my last visit to the clinic, the follow-up visit to check if anything further needs to be done for my fibromyalgia and knee pain. There wasn’t much to talk about with Dr. R. because my pain is absent, and when it does threaten to reappear I know that it is because I have not been doing the exercises recommended to me–all in all this has been a successful thing to do.

Since we had a few minutes I mentioned my frustration that the three men I know who might benefit in a large way from the clinic would not be coming over–they refuse. What the hell can I say about men who choose to remain in severe pain than explore what has been a success for me? It is not that they disagree, they have known what I was doing throughout the five weeks I went there, it is not that they deny that they have to use opiates and in one case surgery in search of alleviation, they just turn away from actively helping themselves. She nodded in agreement and told me that it was a sad but common story.

This story is not meant to be objective, nor is it meant to be free from sexism; it is somehow a symptom of something else, something to do with being responsible.

I am going to write this while I still feel the frustration from their ignorance, while I feel confusion that some will not explore possibilities to feel better, I want the temperature of emotion to help shape this post.

To decide to feel better, to decide to be in a better place than present is something that is open to everyone in one way or another; whether it be depression, joint pain, a relationship problem or a pain in the ass there can always be the decision to feel better, to manage, to understand, to reduce, to eliminate whatever it is that hurts. It only takes the courage to seek an alternative or to ask for help, and to seek it again if the answer isn’t immediate.

Again, this is not as well thought out or written as it would be if I let it incubate, but sometimes a little emotion is appropriate.

Why write?

I have not felt the urge to put anything down here recently, for no reason in particular except that I have been focusing on the pain clinic and the variety of homework required. It is easy to be diverted from writing, there are always more reasons not to write than to sit here and figure out what the next word ought to be; there are hundreds of quotes from writers on just that, in the end there is the simple rule that writers write .

Taking medicine is the easiest part of handling pain and discomfort, to change the behaviors that have either caused the pain or have grown up to protect it is difficult. I haven’t done any exercise for my heart and vessels in a long long time, since I injured my knee; as a result I don’t have a lot of endurance, I become fatigued quickly. It was easy to blame the fatigue on Lyrica, but when Cymbalta caused the same problem I began to wonder. Reading the list of side effects for almost anything it is easy to find what I am looking for, someone has reported fatigue somewhere the line, and I seconded that effect.

There is a growing list and daily log of stretching and strengthening exercises that will protect me from injury and discomfort, these are new to me, and none of them is easy if I am doing them correctly. But I can feel the improvement, it feels pretty good.

The reason I was not writing was not the time that I devote to exercise, it is that I have to think in different ways, additional ways. I feel natural when thinking and writing about philosophy or theology, the nature of the religious experience, the agonies of existential being and becoming; all that stuff fits well into who I am. The business of taking care of this body has been neglected, and I paid the price of neglect; perhaps I can incorporate these two areas of who I am together. Writing this helps that happen.

Pain Management Clinic

Half an hour ago I received a call from the Chronic Pain Care Center , they just had a cancellation and would I like to come in tomorrow at 8 a. m.? My answer was an immediate yes, the two month wait to see them has now become little more than half a day.

They had sent me a series of questionnaires about my pain, my health, my attitude that I was going to answer in June; so I had to do them this afternoon. To question closely the specifics of pain is unsettling, like most people I had made a mental accommodation, a day to day way of handling this thing, my special way; now I have described it by questionnaires for medical and psychological doctors. All my previous accommodations are upset and would like to be back to their almost once comfortable positions.

This is my first professional visit to pain specialists; not only do I expect that they have all the possible modes of handling whatever it is that I have, there is the thought that if they don’t have an answer, the answer, then I am in trouble. I have been avoiding, denying that my pain may be impossible to relieve, the rheumatism or fibromyalgia pain; in the back of my mind there was the belief that there is a cure, but if I don’t search for it I can maintain that belief, that fiction. That notion is about to be tested.

Now that I have put the idea down here, that there is or is not an answer I can see that there will probably be a complex answer, things that will relieve the pain and things that will assist me living with whatever pain is left over. This is not an uncomfortable afternoon.

A series of questions has to do with my significant other , they are insistent that I list someone in my life to whom I turn, this isn’t an easy question. I saw in the paper that a recent survey found just over half of all women are single, from that I assume that a fair number live alone, are divorced. For every divorced woman there has to have been a divorced man: that means there are is a big bunch of divorced guys out here, and many of them are not living with someone else, many of us have parents who are dead, more than a few are alienated from their children, or never had any, perhaps don’t have a close friend, haven’t had a close friend since they growing up. I don’t think that I am alone in having trouble naming this significant other person. I mention only men because that is what I happen to be part of, if someone wrote that there are a large number of women who would have trouble with that question I wouldn’t be surprised.

About a decade ago I had to go to an Emergency Room at 3 a. m. I had thought that there is nothing lonelier than going to the E. R. alone at 3 in the morning. Even when I had a wife who didn’t like me she would have felt it her duty to go with me; I think that there are a number of situations where an unhappy spouse gives in to duty, I remember when I did it for her, she for me. Now I sit alone.

I volunteer to sit with people who are about to die, I have yet to have a situation where there is a spouse present; children often are in denial about the situation, are present physically but not fully. There can be nothing fucking lonelier than sitting someplace and waiting to die; yet it is a necessary, the necessary, act of our life. It can be described as the second most common act, the first being when we become alive. I sit with these people in order that their loneliness is lessened.

Several people have commented that I have been writing about weird stuff, that I have difficulty writing about everyday things. Yes, that’s the truth. Is there anything more everyday than the knowledge that I am alive but someday will not be? I guess that I am writing weird stuff, and so what?

It is a beautiful spring afternoon in Chicago, daffodils and tulips are spots of strong color after months of gray and brown smudges. Almost everyone I have talked with in the last few days has mentioned how much they are enjoying our spring; it doesn’t last for long, but that makes it even more precious.

That is all I have time for now, it is time to open a beer and cook some orange roughy fillets, fingerling potatoes, green pepper, broccoli, a fair amount of olive oil and garlic are about to be ingested by this occasionally weird guy; there may be a third beer tonight.

What was the question?

WHAT WAS THE QUESTION AGAIN?

I was feeling unsettled over something or other, and decided to drive over to Peet’s for a coffee; I don’t know what made me think of doing this, I have the same coffee at home, and the traffic on North Avenue is always to be avoided, especially on my day-off. There was nobody I knew at Peet’s, but there was a dozen people burbling on cell phones; I took my coffee and walked up past the Whole Foods store, questioning as I always did what it was that there business is about, it isn’t just good and pure food, we have always had sources for that, it is that they promise something else, something philosophical or spiritual and pseudo-scientific, I can’t put my finger on their message; but it certainly is successful, their message resonates, especially among a certain group. Could it be that people believe that if one ate just the right combination of foods there would be a special reward? That their food should be thought of as some sort of prescription that will ward off evil spirits and give eternal life; is this what Ponce De Leon had sought and never found?

I stopped in front of Transitions Bookstore , a “new age”café and store with a display of books and lecture announcements all of which seemed to be offering the one true answer, the one right path, the secret of the ages. If there was but one true answer, one great secret–why is it in any number of different books? Why isn’t it taught to every school child in the world? Why would the one important truth in life be limited to these “New York Times bestselling authors”?

I walked on through the stream of pedestrian robots with earpieces supplying the necessarily constant and deadening music, reminding me of Aldous Huxley. Next is this large store with a name that is made-up, selling makeup, that is successful, and not only with women. A lot of people paying a lot of money to pretend to not look or smell as they really do; factor that notion in if you can.

None of these observations are new, none are unique to me; but there is something more going on here, there is something behind all of this avoidance and denial.

In my work I occasionally drive people whose names are familiar, who employ people to make sure that their names and faces are familiar; I drive these people to a place, wait for them to do their thing, then drive them back to the other place. If it is a nice day I often stand outside the limousine and read a book while wait, or just stand and enjoy the passing parade; part of the parade is the awe that comes over people when they think they may be in the presence of someone famous; people who are famous for being famous.

I am far from the first person to witness and note this effect; but what is it that is going on here? How does this relate to what I was noticing at the mall.

The day after my walk through the mall on North Avenue I paid a visit to Bert in the home: He is looking even more drawn than before, I imagine the cancers in there doing their nasty work; the colors on his face and hands becoming more a patchwork of grays and whites, the food stains on his shirt more noticeable because he has just finished lunch, and more lunch is dropping from his slack mouth.

I say hello, he looks up into my eyes, after a few seconds there is a recognition, I say my name, he smiles and moves his hand in an attempt to raise it, I take hold of that cool hand, not too energetically or forcefully I give him a handshake. He is sitting in the hallway, there are about eight of them lined up in the hallway, all in wheelchairs; I pull up an empty chair in order to sit beside Bert. I ask that question that always makes me feel really stupid, I ask him how is it going? What kind of question is that to ask a dying man? What else is there to say? my options are limited here. He gives me a smile and says “oh, you know, it goes”. I ask if he is in pain, that is a required question, one that must be answered on the report form; no he is not in any pain—-good, very good.

There is one question that always brings a wry smile “well, what’s new at this place?” Boredom is the universal among the elderly and the dying, so I try and make some sort of joke about the obvious.

We sit for a while, I make my usual comment about watching the parade go by, I say it because it always makes us both smile. I ask what he had for lunch, less than an hour previous, he can’t remember; did his daughter visit on Sunday, he can’t remember. I sit, he sits, we sit, the lineup of wheelchairs sit in the hallway, near the nurses’ station where they can all be seen in a glance by the always busy nurses and aides.

I stay for about another fifteen minutes, it seems forever; there is nothing here other than hello, a few smiles, a waiting; I can’t stay there longer than that, it becomes pointless, it borders on being depressive, I feel out of place.

I fill out the necessary form, leave a copy on the nurses’ desk, say goodbye to Bert, then I say goodbye to a few others who have come to recognize me over time. One woman takes my hand and compliments me on my new hat, tells me it makes me look good, that she is glad that she got to see this great hat. There is a guy in one of those padded chair/beds that are used for people who have little or no control; I think that he is looking at me, I say hello, he makes a noise, I smile and then move on to the elevator.

On the ground floor, near the elevator, there is a drinking fountain where I always stop and take a long drink; there is something about spending time up there that makes me want to have a long drink of cool water. Then I leave, or do I escape?

My mind wants to make a connection between the questions raised at the mall and the experience of sitting with this dying man who is my good friend, who doesn’t know my name; there is something that is in the back of my mind, it is yelling something in my ear. I refuse to understand what it is that I am being told.

At the mall are offered answers to unasked questions, to made up questions, to stupid questions—–at the home there is no answer, no question, no worthy comment. There is just sitting in the hallway waiting.

I was about to make some comment on what other people are looking for, what is missing in their lives, what keeps them from being right here in the present and not in denial; then I realized that that would be going down the conservative way of blame and criticism, change direction. All that I observed and wrote down here is part of my trying to figure out what I am about, the only person of whom I have any knowledge or control. So what do I think that I am missing, what is absent from this life of mine, what answers will make it all right?

There is nothing missing.

This is it, complete and understandable.

If I sometimes forget this, remind me.

An unknown street

My dream.

It is late afternoon; I am riding my bike through a neighborhood that is familiar in that the houses are of a type that I have known, the yards differ from one another but are also of a type I have known, kids are running down the sidewalks, yelling and chasing one another in some game or another, as kids always have done.

I come to a street corner, stop my bicycle to look at the street sign so that I can find my location on the map I take out of my pocket. This sign makes no sense, Seventy Fifth St.,andFirst Street;that makes no sense at all, I don’t know how to find that intersection on my map nor in my memory. I look up at the signs again, there must be something I am missing here, but the signs are just as I had read them; looking around the neighborhood again I hope for something, anything that will show me where I am so that I can go where I want to be.

I am used to a street map that is laid out in Cartesian co-ordinates, blocks that of the same size, streets that are rational, every now and again a major artery that runs for miles and can be my guide home; the map I hold in my hand shows twists and turns, loops and dead-ends all with no sense to them; none of the names are familiar, they seem to always be the names of the daughters of the original developers, names that relate to nothing beyond themselves. My map is useless, my present location isn’t on it, nor is my home neighborhood or address.

The afternoon sun is approaching the horizon, I need to keep track of the time because I have no light on my bike; I don’t want to be out on the roads at night where I can’t see or be seen, where I might be struck without warning.

An attractive woman approaches me; an open smile, a pleasant face, she says that I look as if I could use some help; I ask her to point out on the map where I am now, I ask her about major streets that have been the defining routes around here for over a hundred years; she continues to smile, tells me that she is sure I will find my way, but nothing on the map is familiar to her, as she walks away she repeats that she is sure I will find my way.

Where will I be when the sun goes down? Where am I now? Why didn’t that woman know anywhere beyond her own neighborhood? Why do I think that someone else will know my direction when I don’t?

I would be frightened to be lost if I was hungry, but I am not; if the weather was cold and rainy, but it is pleasantly warm. It is just that I am at an unknown street corner where I can’t even tell which way is north, I don’t know where I will be when night falls.

Making Soup

If your larder contains a bushel of broccoli and a bushel of chicken bones, and you are hungry, there is a pretty good chance that you will be eating broccoli soup for dinner. The protein from the marrow of the bones satisfies appetite, and it’s smooth texture feels good going down the gullet. The broccoli has its particular flavor, a strong green color that looks good in the bowl; animal protein combined with vegetables works in all the ways necessary for a good dish.

I have been thinking of the governor who is about not to be governor, who has made an interesting dish so far, perhaps he will continue in the kitchen, make other meals, explore other flavors; it really isn’t important anymore, he was only important in that he governed, now he doesn’t govern, what he makes in the kitchen now is for private consumption.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind when making soup: Cook the vegetables until they are just at the height of taste and color, quench them in cold water if necessary to keep from overcooking. Watch out handling the stock, whether beef or chicken, stock is very good for growing bugs, laboratories use it to grow bugs; keep the stock below 38º F or above 145ºF, don’t let it cool on the counter, use the fridge. When the ads suggest serving soup piping hot, the idea of keeping the bug population low is behind that suggestion.

Here is a method for seasoning soups and sauces: Don’t add any seasoning until after the soup is made, this includes salt. Salt has the property of bringing out the main flavor of the soup, it will be responsible for making the tomato soup have the maximum tomato flavor. Pepper and the other seasonings should be considered as accessories, as compliments, never the reason for the soup. Salt is added until as much of the tomato flavor is there as possible, beyond that the soup will taste salty; so how do you know when the height of flavor is reached? Put a few tablespoons of the unseasoned soup in a small glass, taste it, remember that taste, add some salt, taste it, remember that taste, repeat. You will know when the soup tastes salty, remember how it tasted just before that, that will be your target for the potful; add salt to the pot, taste, compare the taste to what you remember from before. Now you see some of the craft of cooking.

If you have forgotten the taste at the height you can reverse the action by adding a few more tablespoons of soup to your glass, do the experiment again.

There are many more things I could say about soup, but maybe I should leave it right here for now; if you practice the above you will feel good about your ability, about cooking in general, it will be your dish for your table.

There has been letters and comments in the newspapers about the effect on the children of what the father did, what parents do; certainly everything that parents do leaves a mark of some kind on a child, everything my parents did, your parents did, that is the nature of being a child and a parent. If the kids are hungry enough they will make a nourishing life from what they have; this is the nature of becoming an adult.

I happen to have fibromyalgia and anxiety, among other ingredients: I do a fair amount of introspection and meditation because of how I am, the result of inner knowledge is something that I could not have known otherwise. I once came within minutes of dying, I didn’t die but I did come to understand the presence of the spirit, a religious experience, a something or other that has always been present, is present in each one of us; this is something I would not have had otherwise.

In cooking school I was given Bibb lettuce, from which I made a summer soup; lettuce doesn’t have a great deal of flavor, I needed to have a light touch with the salt and the other seasonings, I didn’t want to overwhelm that subtle lettuce flavor. I remember that it tasted pretty good, I had hoped to make tomato, everyone does, but lettuce is what I was given, that is what I used.

To make a good soup one needs ingredients, more importantly one has to want to eat, has to have desire for enjoyment.

Writing under my own name

At work yesterday Paul asked me about writing this thing using my own name; wasn’t I afraid that some psychopath would track me down and murder me? Nope.

I purposely put my name on this weblog, couldn’t come up with a reason not to say who I am as I write what I am about this morning. Isn’t the reason for publishing to say ‘here I am, and here is what I am about’?

I want you to know me.

A few people will read this, occasionally someone will respond, the point being that a person is saying hello to the world, as is.

I don’t need protection or facade, this is me.

This attitude of being out there comes from a history of repressing, be nice, you shouldn’t say things like that, nice boys don’t do that, you can’t be what you want; what Hegel would call the force of non-being. For me that force was strong enough to cause major depression, now it is merely something to be observed, commented upon, a tool that let me shape who I am, who I have become.

This notion comes back to acceptance, accepting that I am acceptable as is. I am surprised at the reactions I have had to that statement, that not one single writer has responded with an unqualified ‘yes’. I know that it had taken me a long time and work to get to the point of accepting as I am, others also find it difficult.

The sparrows are busy at the feeder this morning, the temperature is a few degrees below zero, but the sun is shining in a clear blue sky. The bird that frightened them away yesterday may have been a kestrel, that is as close as I can come in my attempt to identify it. My knowledge of kestrels was that I knew how to spell the name, knew that Rolls-Royce had used the name in their birds of prey series of aero-engines for fighter aircraft; beyond that I knew, know, nothing. But it sure got my attention while I was waiting to hear the pathologist’s report.