So much swirling around in my head, so little to write home about. The sun comes up, shines through the winter clouds or not, the sun goes down, sleep does that thing it does and delivers us to another sunrise… and life continues to happen. More every day I understand how we’re but another species on the planet, albeit the one holding most of the chips. We’re smart, too much so for our own good in key ways… “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” if you know your proverbs. We want to believe we can handle anything and everything, but when reality bites we’re just another species at the mercy of our environment and earth’s other creatures, who don’t care about us one way or another.
For me that’s a freeing realization… I haven’t sussed out the what, where, and why of my existence, but I know I’m a sentient being with limited power in my sphere. Rather than fill me with dread and fear, that knowledge sets me free to live as me, end of story. I didn’t ask to come here, as far as I know, but I’ve willingly paid my dues on my way through, done what I can most of the time to make things better instead of worse, tried to keep it real. What more is required… what am I neglecting? It’s a large planet inhabited by billions of people, of which I am one. A blip. A speck of DNA in the universe. And yet, somehow, I matter to a handful of humans who are my life; therefore, I belong here, being me… and I don’t have to understand that in order to proceed.
If we could strip away ego, ambition, greed, and all the meanness in the world, leaving each of us standing in our own skin, on our own merits… and if we could each unselfishly look out for the guy next to us… being human would eventually become an accolade. “Yeah, that’s the species that cares, the one that nurtures its weaker members and pulls for the good of all. It’s cool to be human.”
***
Mr. Waits is my spirit animal.
With every passing day post-op I feel more human in good ways and more equipped to meet life on its terms, which… well, we have no other options, so… Projects that have languished for months (years) under my piteous gaze are falling like dominoes now that I can start and finish most of them in a day or less and without penalty in terms of pain. So… plot change… reset… I’m possibly not irretrievably ancient after all… and the freedom to pursue a goal and achieve it is beyond value.
Good morning on a sunny, crispy-cold Saturday. Compared to yesterday’s predawn 5º temp, it was a balmy 20º this morning, so Kim walked Mass Street and environs, bringing me his icy fingers as he does after every winter stroll. I actually invite the delicious shock and brace for it, everybody has a good time, and I’m not the one who has to go out and earn it. Also, did I mention it’s Saturday. The Breakfast. The Soak. In all sincerity, if Dr. Carlson and staff knew what a huge role a simple kingsize jetted bathtub can play in the healing process, it would be prescribed during every post-op dismissal. I can hear my bones sighing as I sink under the water…
The world squandered the power to shock me some time ago, but this past week was surprising in its onslaught of book bannings across the country. Comes across like a sudden and spontaneous development, but it’s no doubt been underway for months and years because the banning of “seditious” books is a key element of fascism, whose proponents desire control like they require oxygen. However far this goes, it’s a honkin’ big yellow canary in the coal mine letting us know that none of what’s happening to democracy is benign, nor do the autocrats have our interests in mind in any way, best or otherwise.
When political actions call for less education, less knowledge, less awareness among the public… ask why.
Not all writing is journalism. Not all writing is truth. Not all journalism is truth. But this woman’s protest sign exposes what’s behind book-banning and the arrest of journalists around the world.
*****
I have only a passing knowledge of the thought processes of early psychiatrists like Freud, Jung, and others, but I do share an affinity with Dr. Jung for silence… the quiet of a tended mind. It makes surviving chaotic times doable. On that note, I wish you a peace-filled weekend, and may every cognizant discovery stay with you and affirm you in the space you inhabit.
I’ve shared this before, yes… probably will again.
Our frantically-forecast snowpocalypse failed to live up to its billing, but things are white outside, we had biscuits & gravy for breakfast followed by a lovely soak, and I feel no impulse to leave the building today for any reason. Totally zen situation. Now, if only it were the weekend, with sports on TV… so soothing.
I’ll never not love rain and snow, the more the better… to a point. Snow, especially, carries magic in its kaleidoscope stencils.
Every day for an introvert is filled with never-ending thought… endless attempts to process it all… to figure out where one is and why…
Inevitably, a large percentage of my thought process becomes about current events, in this recent era more than ever. In our naiveté as Americans we want to believe, like Pollyanna, that all will be well no matter what because… well… we’re Americans. While incontrovertible facts tell us we’re becoming a less healthy republic by the day, we continue finding comfort in our determined delusions. Memo from a Baby Boomer this morning: America is very much in trouble, democracy is holding on by a hangnail, and we’re seeing nothing on the horizon massive enough to take out the impending fascism that’s bearing down on us. It’s ugly, but it’s truth we need to hear.
Reality does have a way of barreling right over us without a backward glance to survey the damage – that’s how “what ifs” come to us. A basic reality is that each of us is one person… one. We can do only what we can do. But when we pool our efforts and resources, human existence starts to take on a whole different look, so take heart…
And then to make yourself available.
We’re powerless to fix much of anything in the world… so the only logical place to start is with us. Be the real you today… I’ll be thinking of you.
Lately I’m up by 6am to watch the gorgeous winter sunrise unfurl, don’t ask me why, it’s already worrisome enough… am I turning into a DAY person, ’cause this keeps happening! Any morning the temp is above bone-shattering, Kim makes his early-morning trek down Mass Street and back… observing… tracking the pulse of life in #lfk. Somebody waking up in a doorway might need a cup a’ coffee or a few bucks for breakfast. It was in the 50s in the afternoon, with sunshine, so he played PickleBall in Lyons Park, and when he got home he walked with me to the river and back, which was the fulfillment of a simple little longterm wish… he just wanted to go on walks with his girl, and she wanted to go. Life, I’m thankful you can still surprise us. Out there in the sunshine, hiking pole in hand, everything starts to seem possible.
If you’re a list-maker, I don’t even have to explain… sometime in the last three years I stopped making them, which would have been a harbinger of change had I been paying attention. As a perpetually-unreformed ball of anxiety with OCD, I don’t function without lists… a planner… a set of calendars. At some point in there, as the isolation weighed heavy, it all ceased to matter and the only thing I was keeping track of was doctor’s appointments, but those should be fewer and further between now, and my psyche is asking “What do we do next?” so yes, Virginia… life does go on.
If you’ve read this mundane stream of consciousness to here… X … you’re a real friend who knows sometimes I just need to let my mouth and brain run until they find a parallel track… and your long-suffering doesn’t go unnoticed. I saved stuff all week with you in mind, so here ya’ go…
Getting to be a bit much for the average bear…
On the flip-side, a far greater truth… and bless the memory of Thich Nhat Hanh.
On the weather front…
*****
A single sentence can be life-changing. When I encountered this one I stole it and practically ate it for lunch… it’s provided an ongoing epiphany, amen.
That’s gonna stick.
In related news…
*****
But plotting a break-out…
Some of you have been reading this mess for a long time now, so thank you for sticking around. I only wish I knew each of you as well as you’ve allowed yourselves to know me, and I welcome every comment. I’d love to talk with you…
Gotta love it when a plan comes together – it was over 50º and sunny before noon, so Rita and I walked the south side of the river from the boathouse parking lot to the bench at the other end and back, probably a half-mile total. It was amazing to be out in the air, which felt pretty crispy around the ears, striding out, hiking pole in hand and sister by my side. The city has a huge clean-up project underway next to the Kaw, clearing acres of dead trees and underbrush back away from the sidewalks, opening up small tributaries and other vistas we hadn’t known were there. Lots of tiny encampments have been dismantled and hauled away, but we could still spot a few tents and hooches through the leafless winter trees. “Sleeping rough” wouldn’t describe it, and I wish every human could count on warm shelter no matter what.
Along with welcome moments of consciousness-raising, today’s walk was a needed affirmation that all is well in the recovery process. The success of previous spinal procedures has hinged on my doing the work post-op to make it happen… somehow… without the actual source of the pain having been addressed… so I carried the guilt every time for the lack of positive returns. This time around, we were in the right place when the technology arrived, stellar young people REPAIRED the problem, I walked out of the hospital without nerve pain, and today’s effortless half-mile folded me up when I tried to tell Kim about it. Gratitude… so full of it these days.
Sunny but cold. Today feels like one long tunnel. I tried all morning to write a letter, but it isn’t coming out right, so either it isn’t meant to be written, or I haven’t cracked the code of truth yet. For now, this is a better story that somehow speaks to what I was trying to write…
My dad has bees. Today I went to his house and he showed me all of the honey he had gotten from the hives. He took the lid off of a 5-gallon bucket full of honey and on top of the honey there were 3 little bees, struggling. They were covered in sticky honey and drowning. I asked him if we could help them and he said he was sure they wouldn’t survive. Casualties of honey collection I suppose.
I asked him again if we could at least get them out and kill them quickly; after all, he was the one who taught me to put a suffering animal (or bug) out of its misery. He finally conceded and scooped the bees out of the bucket. He put them in an empty Chobani yogurt container and put the plastic container outside.
Because he had disrupted the hive with the earlier honey collection, there were bees flying all over outside.
We put the 3 little bees in the container on a bench and left them to their fate. My dad called me out a little while later to show me what was happening. These three little bees were surrounded by all of their sisters (all of the bees are females) and they were cleaning the sticky nearly-dead bees, helping them to get all of the honey off of their bodies. We came back a short time later and there was only one little bee left in the container. She was still being tended to by her sisters.
When it was time for me to leave we checked one last time and all three of the bees had been cleaned off enough to fly away and the container was empty.
Those three little bees lived because they were surrounded by family and friends who would not give up on them, family and friends who refused to let them drown in their own stickiness and resolved to help until the last little bee could be set free.
Bee Sisters. Bee Peers. Bee Teammates.
We could all learn a thing or two from these bees.
Remember broomstick skirts? I do, and I was doing fairly okay with the aging process until my throat started looking like one… so now, like Nora Ephron, I feel bad about my neck. Filters (did you know they have cotton-candy hair?) may or may not have been employed in the making of this image, but if any were, they were clearly defenseless against the throat rebellion. Just a reminder of how real life can be…
Waiting for spring with a whole new intensity this year, which is misguided since we’re barely into winter for real. The thought of walking outdoors, on real surfaces, in fresh air and sunshine, is genuinely tantalizing at this point… but since it’s currently 12º out, headed for a blazing high of 19, I plan to make the acquaintance of the treadmill in the 5th-floor workout room in about 5… 4… 3… Time to grease the zircs, oil the hinges, and get this show on the road. Rita Jo’s out there every nice day, finding the cool walking trails, and I’m consumed with envy, so I have to get there… starting with a benign stroll on the flat sidewalk along the Kaw. FIRST NICE DAY!!
Still maintaining my extended fast from TV news, but I’m fully aware that the insanity continues unabated. It’s cause for both tears and laughter, so I look hard for the humor and kindred spirits.
*****
When it’s over, it’s over, but I keep a good thought.
On the subject of current events…
The weekend starts tomorrow, or if you live in #lfk, tonight. Absorb all the good from it…
Tuesday, January 18, 2022 is a day for the record books, by which I mean mine personally. We saw my neurosurgeon today for my one-month follow-up and all is well. He removed all my staples and stitches, which alone makes for a comfier existence, said everything is on schedule, and told us that the surgery could not possibly have gone better. I was hoping for a spa soak, but that’s still another month out, so I’ll get over it and press onward. I’ll be walking, walking, walking until the 3-month mark when he’ll reassess and decide what to assign next. For now, I think he’s given me ten extra years, and I thanked him for paying the price to be where he is, doing what he does, because he’s changing lives.
Time has lost all meaning over the past two years, but especially in the sequence of events we just experienced. By all rights I should still be at least three weeks out, waiting for surgery, but since the KIMN8R (on a hint from Rita) asked that I be put on a wait-list I ended up having my first consult with Dr. Carlson six weeks sooner than my original appointment, and then a woman scheduled for my exact procedure cancelled, with surgical team in place, so I inherited her spot. Thus, surgery was already done and I was home from the hospital a week ahead of my originally-scheduled visit. Therefore… we missed the main onslaught of Omicron and made it back to the cave before the devil even knew we were out.
There are things in life that really are supposed to happen, and once they get rolling you could barely stop them if you tried. It feels like I closed my eyes on fifty years of pain, surrendered my body to science, and woke up in a world I’d almost forgotten. I dropped the opioids at the end of week one, parked the walker, and haven’t looked back… life is never over until it’s over and I’m ready for more of it. Only time will tell if the pain’s going to move up my spine to the other wonky disks, but for now the real problem’s been fixed, the nerve pain has disappeared, and I’m moving unless something stops me, which doesn’t seem quite real yet, although black & white does have a way of bringing things home…
TRIGGER WARNING: Bones and hardware
So that’s how things are looking at L5/S1 around these parts, folks, and we’re callin’ it progress. Hoping for an early spring…
We were graced with a brief band of fire this morning before the gray winter skies closed in and extinguished it from view. Tomorrow’s forecast says cold and snowy, so we appreciated the warm handshake from the sun, no matter how short-lived. Today it’s simply cold and gray, requiring a more creative approach to the hours. It’s good to be able to spend a few minutes in my desk chair again, because other than books and a couple of games, most of my creative impulses are poured into this big MOchine. Feeling better usually requires writing words, and that happens best right here.
Or I could borrow someone else’s, because…
On the uninspired days, it’s helpful to remember this rule.
Looking back over this week’s trove of saved things, one stands as more important to remember than the rest…
A few touchstones, a week into the crisp new year, beginning with a roadmap I’m still learning how to navigate…
Anne is a much-beloved kindred spirit.
*****
This has to be said and I hope you won’t have any trouble recognizing yourself in its joyous celebration of humanity…
*****
Some of us require extra grace, so thank you for giving it.
It doesn’t.
On the other hand, once we slide into life’s third trimester of experiencing it all for ourselves… we start knowing a couple of things and remembering what we may have forgotten. I love this photo montage for the way it ties my G’ma Wagner’s era to mine and keeps the love and humanity intact. Some things are universal forever.
And based upon zero evidence other than an odd quiet sense of hope this morning, I see this as a distinct possibility:
Once more into the fire, and tomorrow the answers start showing up… did we find the right nerve? Will fusion be the fix? Will I get my life back? Those are the operative questions, see what I did there?
None of this would be happening without Kim, who told me from the beginning that he was going to keep looking for whatever would stop the pain. I was 57 when he married me, skeletal from grief anorexia and fried from years of caregiving and loss, but still a house afire and totally into living life. Fast-forward to 2021 and increased degeneration from the accident I told you about… https://playingfortimeblog.com/2021/10/04/a-fractured-fairytale/ … has nearly immobilized me, so it’s gradually become a fact of life to be dealt with… will I stay on my own two feet, or is that becoming history?
It’s been a long time getting here, but fifty years after I first became acquainted with intractable nerve pain, we “know a guy.” There’ve been a lot of starts and stops along the way, most of them total dead-ends, but from here to Wichita to Scottsdale and points between we’ve checked out information and leads and promises and guesses, and it’s always been “We think this could help… we can try this procedure… welp… we tried.” A senior-staff spine surgeon, without so much as sitting down or making eye contact, told me in 2018 that nothing could be done to upgrade the state of my spine, so I came home with something settled in me that said “Don’t bother exercising, it only ramps up the pain.” That wasn’t a conscious decision, but the psyche is a powerful and mysterious universe and knows how to shut us down.
This fall, with things clearly falling apart in the pillar that holds me upright, Kim raised the ante and went in search of any helpful information available. A PickleBall friend told him about his wife, my age, who had robotic-assisted spinal surgery in Kansas City and is walking again without pain. Another PickleBall buddy told us about her own friend, my age, who had yet another KC surgeon do the same surgery, with similar positive results.
Boys and girls, medical robotics have arrived in the heartland and the Young Turks are on it. A primary factor in our move to Lawrence was the stellar medical community here and in next-door Kansas City, and that’s been proven wise over and over. We’ve had critical need for their gifts many times in the eight years we’ve lived in this Kansas cocoon, and nobody has disappointed us so far. And before we’d even settled in, Kim started making himself part of the neighborhood, the community… local… bringing us now to a personable young surgeon with a shiny resumé who knows how to “fix it.”
So tomorrow we’re going to fix it. Please keep a good thought.
Not this part…
not this part…
not even the trainwreck in the middle, just one key spot.
The x-rays are this side of obscene, but the amazing fact is that I stand straight… I just can’t keep moving for more than a few minutes.
Before they bring in the Happy Juice, I’m saying thank you to the guy who got me here, because it wouldn’t have happened without him. However this turns out, he never gave up the quest. When he married me I was under a hundred pounds, brown as a bean, and vibrating with life. Seventeen years later I’m over a hundred pounds, white from lack of sun, nearly deaf, evading seizures every chance I get, and on the cusp of living out my days on a Jazzy. Not sure why I’m even still hanging around, but the heartfelt hope is that after tomorrow it will start getting less tricky by the day to be here.
This isn’t the first time the KIMN8R has saved my life. He’s the cook who brought me back from the edge when we met, and he’s fed me irresistible food every day for all these years. He keeps me laughing, makes sure the adventure doesn’t end, holds me when I cry (a lot), lets me be me, end of story… and he believes in me. From the moment we met, it was going to be him or no one (I said no one, but never tempt fate), and against all odds he’s kept me putting one foot in front of the other.
While preemptively fighting my battles for me, he’s had his own challenges since January 2021, including 45 radiation treatments for an aggressive form of cancer, followed by months of other therapies and protocols, ongoing in 2022. He aced the radiation and went on to double his exercise quotient in order to maintain his conditioning for putting up with me… a job he says he was born to, and he’s so right. He’s at fighting weight and I couldn’t be more fortunate to have him as my cornerman. For six years he helped nurture Robert’s mother in her 90s and made her days far more interesting, fun, and lifegiving than if it had been just me all the time. He didn’t get to do that for his own family and he values it above price. In my world he’s The Guy for all the things.
In the current atmosphere, with relationships coming apart all around us, I remember people who watched two wounded human beings find love and happiness and said “I give it six months.” Have any of them ever felt a twinge over their cynicism, I wonder? Doesn’t matter…
I’m not sure most of #lfk knows Kim Smith has a wife since he’s always by himself, so I’m ready to get past tomorrow, and the three months after that, and whatever after that… and get out there with my ol’ man again.
From my heart to yours this weekend… for all who read my “working through anger” post yesterday, and all who need the sweetness this morning.
John sent this, saying it makes him think of Kimmers and me, which puts me on the edge of tears before the music starts. Finneas, beautiful soul, is a brother to Billie Eilish and has worked with her from the start of her career. At the end of the video, their family silently gathers together…
How do you know If you’ve done everything right? Is it the love you have at hand Or the cash you kiss at night?
How do you know If it was worth it in the end? Did every second really count Or were there some you shouldn’t spend On anything but anyone you love? Was this the life that you were dreaming of? A movie night, a yellow light You’re slowing down and days are adding up
So don’t waste the time you have waiting for time to pass It’s only a lifetime That’s only a while It’s not worth the anger you felt as a child Don’t waste the time you have waiting for time to pass It’s only a lifetime That’s not long enough You’re not gonna like it without any love So don’t waste it
I’m unimpressed By the people preaching pain For the sake of some small gain In the sake of someone’s name
I’m unprepared For my loved ones to be gone Call ’em far too often now Worry way too much about mom
Don’t waste the time you have waiting for time to pass It’s only a lifetime That’s only a while It’s not worth the anger you felt as a child Don’t waste the time you have waiting for time to pass It’s only a lifetime That’s not long enough You’re not gonna like it without any love So don’t waste it
It’s family and friends, and that’s the truth The fountain doesn’t give you back your youth It’s staying up too late at night and laughing under kitchen lights So hard you start to cry
Don’t waste the time you have waiting for time to pass It’s only a lifetime That’s not long enough You’re not gonna like it without any love So don’t waste it
–Finneas O’Connell
Find your joy this holiday season. Look for a handhold and hang on…
There’s a fun little thing that happens to some of us when we cross a certain threshold on the I-can’t-believe-I’m-this-old track: it sort of stops mattering whether other people like us very much. Except for animals and babies… we still care about the innocents because they look straight at us without trying to hide anything and all they want to know is whether we might hurt them.
Here’s the deal, people can like me or not, it doesn’t matter much either way… I have far less time on this planet than I’ve ever had before and I can’t spend it worrying about things I can’t change. It isn’t that I don’t care, it’s simply none of my business what anybody thinks of me, thank goodness. Jeez, look how many I’s and me’s are in this paragraph alone and it’s obvious to both of us that it’s time to lay it down. Nobody with this many rings around the ol’ cankles has the latent energy to deal with that much id, baby. I lied about the cankles.
What is this gibberish and why does it pass for sanity-based some days? Could it be that’s what the world feels like in my head when I’m being honest? Ah, yes… yes it could. This has been a time, so people really should lower their expectations and get over it because most of us are doing the best we can. A lot of “doing my best” these days is sarcasm-based and slathered in humor because I wouldn’t survive without it. Humor gets its funny from sideswiping truth so closely you can see the paint-transfer marks after it goes by, and there’s almost nothing better for getting through life.
Christmas is a logical place to start this morning…
TOPICAL…
Another thing about humor is that it isn’t always funny.
I like being a baby boomer and except for the obvious drawbacks, I like being older. It takes a long time to get here, with a lot of mishaps along the way, but it’s more than worth the trip. The mishaps and setbacks have built a system for the long haul and I’m here for it.
Boomers are fierce…
We know shit.
Rarely the first time at least.
We know this for sure.
If yours doesn’t, mine would say you’re lucky.Maybe knowing how to say things is the greatest threat of all.
Pretty sure there’s a book or two in me that will never see daylight.
*****
If life and truth are compadres, we all end up here…
PLAYING FOR TIME claims no credit for any images posted on this site unless otherwise noted. Images on this blog are the property of their respective owners. If there is an image on this blog that belongs to you and you do not wish for it to appear on this site, please E-mail me with a link to said image and it will be promptly removed. Thank you.
Welcome to my weekly blog on life's happiness. We are all human and we all deserve to smile. Click a blog title or scroll down. Thanks for stopping by.
Creative humour, satire and other bad ideas by Ross Murray, an author living in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. Is it truth or fiction? Only his hairdresser knows for sure.
Playing for Time 
Join the conversation …