June 20, 2012
Thirds
September, 1985
Dr. Laird's office was located outside of Asheville, in Leicester. His practice was named Great Smokies Medical Center which was located in a large old mansion that had been converted for medical use.
I loved the two-hour ride up the mountain from Hickory to Asheville and then the drive along the country road over to Leicester. Asheville is known as 'land of the sky.'
Asheville still feels like a step back in time. I still call it "1960s Hippieville." Some residents might be offended by that. I think it's sort of a compliment.
In Fall, 1977, I had gone to college near Asheville, in Montreat, NC, right outside Black Mountain. I'd been to Charismatic fellowships in the Asheville area before I'd found The Way. After I found The Way, I attended Way fellowships for a couple months in Asheville, until I quit college in December, 1977, to study and serve with The Way and moved back to Hickory until the summer when I volunteered for Word Over North Carolina Summer Outreach and was sent to Fayetteville, NC. Then after Summer Outreach I went out WOW. WOW was an acronym for Word Over the World. I was sent to Milwaukee and volunteered for one year, from August, 1978 until August, 1979, as a Way Word Over the World Ambassador.
Now, in 1985, I was sick.
I wasn't sick when I joined The Way.
I didn't have all these health problems.
I used to be a jogger.
I couldn't jog now.
I was constantly fatigued and struggling for breath.
And ...... I'd throw up at night.
The vomiting must have started sometime in 1983. I'd wake up at least three times a week around 2 or 3 AM and have to vomit. Then I'd lay on the bathroom floor and fall asleep. Sometimes I'd vomit little blue furry, oval-shaped, capsule-looking things. I'd wonder if they were Theodur pills that my body rejected and coated in something.
I didn't tell my allergist in Hickory about the throwing up...or the furry caplets.
I didn't want more drugs.
I didn't want more needles,
I didn't want more tests.
I was sick of tests.
I was sick of drugs.
I didn't feel the drugs were making me better; they just covered over the problem not getting to the cause.
What was the cause?
What was wrong with me?
I was such a defective believer.
I was on large doses of Theodur and Breathine.
I was on allergy shots and epinephrine shots.
I sucked in albuterol through inhalers and nebulizers.
I'd suck in atropine.
I sucked cromolyn through a spinhaler.
I'd spray my sinus with steroid sprays.
I'd be on and off dose packs of oral steroids, or on non-dose pack titrated steroid doses.
At Dr. Laird's office, I ended up seeing Dr. Stephen Barrie, a naturopath. Dr. Barrie dealt more with my kinds of problems - allergies and over-active immune systems. Dr. Laird specialized more with chelation therapy for heart patients and with folks suffering from diabetes.
Dr. Barrie looked like a hippie. He had a beard and his hair was pulled back in a pony tail. He was balding toward his forehead. He was soft spoken, very kind. He was married and I think he had a couple children. I recall once his wife phoned him apparently about supper and what to serve the guests they were apparently hosting. I can't recall the specific contents of the meal discussed from his end of the phone conversation except that the food was wholesome and natural.
Dr. Barrie looked over my records and history.
"First thing, I'd like you to go off birth control pills. Can you do that?" he asked.
"Yes," I responded. Hubby I used a diaphragm after that, though I don't think my body would have allowed me to get pregnant anyway. I was too sick.
"The second thing I'd like you to do is to give up dairy. Do you think you can do that, until our next appointment?" His second request.
I responded in the affirmative.
I had noticed that Dr. Barrie had gone to school at Bastyr College in Washington state. I knew of someone in The Way who had gone to that same school and was also a naturopath.
"You don't by chance know Walter Crinnion, do you?" I asked.
A big smile crosssed Dr. Barrie's face. "Yes I do. Walter and I correspond regularly and are good friends. In fact we just talked the other week. He's been in Ohio at some festival up there with some ministry or something. He goes every year."
"That's the Rock of ages." I replied.
My heart felt a flutter of hope. Dr. Crinnion was a believer in the Household. He and his wife were Corps and had taught Christian Family and Sex at Emporia, Kansas, when I had been at Emporia in The Way Corps. I like them both. I recall that his wife grew sprouts and sold them for consumption.
Here was this doctor sitting across from me in North Carolina who knew Dr. Crinnion, who practiced in Washington state, all the way across the country.
This had to be God at work.
This had to be God's mercy.
Had I just obeyed Mrs. Wierwille over a year ago, maybe I could have forgone so much suffering in the past year?
Over a year previous, when Mrs. Wierwille had prayed for me, she had personally counseled me to get up with Dr. Crinnion at the Rock of Ages. But everytime I'd stop by the Third Aid tent at the Rock of Ages, Dr. Crinnion wasn't there. So, I'd given up...thinking "he'd just have me do more natural stuff with diet or something."
The Way used the tern Third Aid instead of First Aid.
First Aid was God directly.
Second Aid was a fellow believer ministering healing to the believer in need.
Third Aid were doctors and such.
Brings to mind another 'third' phrase from The Way:
"God first.
Others second.
Myself third."
June 13, 2012
I Would Have Preferred Gills
AWW: june 13, 2012
non-subject ~ to smell
*****************
Drowning in one's own's fluids is a horrid existence.
That's what asthma feels like. The gurgling bubbles of mucus stir while they sit encased in pink flesh surrounded by ribs. Yes, the bubbles stir and they sit, like thick, wet cement.
I never, ever, ever, ever want to go back there again. "There" being those times for years, when I prayed for death. When I could not understand why I was so tormented. Why didn't inhalers work for me? Why did steroids become my enemy turning my skin into a leathery, thick armor? During the hive attacks, I used to say my skin became like a crocodile's; my dermis would swell and itch and fever, and ooze tiny drops of blood from scratching.
But, when the attacks were not present, one would never know I lived with such swollen horror...except that my sinuses were constantly plugged with polyps. Gray, pearly, oyster-jellyfish-like growths that packed my sinus cavities. I could feel them if I stuck my finger far enough up my nostrils. I could see them in a mirror when I shined a flashlight on them.
I waited until a few months of being unable to breathe at all through my nose before I had my first sinus surgery. I was put under with general anesthesia and my sinuses were rotor-rootered. I can't recall exactly how much was extracted. At least a cupful. It was 1984.
I thought that would be it. I'd be rid of the polyps for good.
But within three months, I couldn't smell again. Within eight months, I couldn't breathe through my nose again. Again, I waited until I could no longer stand the insanity of it.
Do you know what it is like to have no air, nada, zilch, none, circulating up through the nose and into the sinus cavities? And at the same time to live with ongoing, severe asthma attacks? My allergist at the time, Dr. Hancock, said she had never seen a case of asthma as bad as I suffered. She'd been around awhile.
I was tested multiple times for Cysitic Fibrosis. All tests came back negative.
Within a year of the first surgery, I was back on the operating table. Another rotor-rooter. Over a cup of polyps and "matter" were removed. No cancer, just 'dead tissue,' whatever that is. During this second polypectomy, windows were carved in the walls of my sinus cavity to help mucus flow. It was 1985.
Do you know what it's like to have your sinuses packed with cotton or whatever it was the surgeons used to pack them at that time? And then, a week later, to sit in a chair and have the surgeon pull the stuffing out your nostrils as you sit with your head leaning backwards and the surgeon's arms and hands moving quickly one of the other as he pulls literally feet of the manmade absorbent material out of your nostrils? First one side and then the other?
Within a year after the second surgery, I was back on the operating table. Again, now the third time, I had waited until I could no longer stand the insanity of suffocation. Again, over a cup of the dead matter was removed. Again, more windows were carved in my sinus walls. It was 1986.
I was discouraged. I was wearied. I was exhausted.
What was wrong with me as a believer?
I just wanted to be able to breathe.
__________________
non-subject ~ to smell
*****************
Drowning in one's own's fluids is a horrid existence.
That's what asthma feels like. The gurgling bubbles of mucus stir while they sit encased in pink flesh surrounded by ribs. Yes, the bubbles stir and they sit, like thick, wet cement.
I never, ever, ever, ever want to go back there again. "There" being those times for years, when I prayed for death. When I could not understand why I was so tormented. Why didn't inhalers work for me? Why did steroids become my enemy turning my skin into a leathery, thick armor? During the hive attacks, I used to say my skin became like a crocodile's; my dermis would swell and itch and fever, and ooze tiny drops of blood from scratching.
But, when the attacks were not present, one would never know I lived with such swollen horror...except that my sinuses were constantly plugged with polyps. Gray, pearly, oyster-jellyfish-like growths that packed my sinus cavities. I could feel them if I stuck my finger far enough up my nostrils. I could see them in a mirror when I shined a flashlight on them.
I waited until a few months of being unable to breathe at all through my nose before I had my first sinus surgery. I was put under with general anesthesia and my sinuses were rotor-rootered. I can't recall exactly how much was extracted. At least a cupful. It was 1984.
I thought that would be it. I'd be rid of the polyps for good.
But within three months, I couldn't smell again. Within eight months, I couldn't breathe through my nose again. Again, I waited until I could no longer stand the insanity of it.
Do you know what it is like to have no air, nada, zilch, none, circulating up through the nose and into the sinus cavities? And at the same time to live with ongoing, severe asthma attacks? My allergist at the time, Dr. Hancock, said she had never seen a case of asthma as bad as I suffered. She'd been around awhile.
I was tested multiple times for Cysitic Fibrosis. All tests came back negative.
Within a year of the first surgery, I was back on the operating table. Another rotor-rooter. Over a cup of polyps and "matter" were removed. No cancer, just 'dead tissue,' whatever that is. During this second polypectomy, windows were carved in the walls of my sinus cavity to help mucus flow. It was 1985.
Do you know what it's like to have your sinuses packed with cotton or whatever it was the surgeons used to pack them at that time? And then, a week later, to sit in a chair and have the surgeon pull the stuffing out your nostrils as you sit with your head leaning backwards and the surgeon's arms and hands moving quickly one of the other as he pulls literally feet of the manmade absorbent material out of your nostrils? First one side and then the other?
Within a year after the second surgery, I was back on the operating table. Again, now the third time, I had waited until I could no longer stand the insanity of suffocation. Again, over a cup of the dead matter was removed. Again, more windows were carved in my sinus walls. It was 1986.
I was discouraged. I was wearied. I was exhausted.
What was wrong with me as a believer?
I just wanted to be able to breathe.
__________________
June 12, 2012
I Got Older
AWW non-subject: I got older
a wednesday in june, 2012
I often think of myself as a late-bloomer, seeing as I don't credit myself for ever finding a career.
But the reality is that my "career" has been that of a mother.
October, 1983.
I stood in the warehouse area of the Outreach Services Center (OSC) at the The Way International headquarters in New Knoxville, Ohio.
Vehicles would drive into the warehouse, passengers being important leadership or family members of leadership or Bless Patrol staff or whomever was on tap to teach at a meeting. The warehouse is like the back stage entry to the building.
The warehouse is huge storing all the stuff for the yearly Rock of Ages festival that The Way hosts every August, at least from the 1970s and into the 1990s. The largest-attended Rock of Ages must have been sometime in the 80s, maybe. I don't know officially. I've read the highest attendance was around 20,000 people. Us believers would descend upon New Knoxville, Ohio. Way Headquarters, which once was a farm belonging to the Wierwille family, became tent and RV city.
Earlier that October, I had left my Way Corps duties at Headquarters, breaking my Way Corps commitment for a second time. I had left in a frenzied state, trying to flee from something which I couldn't identify at the time. It was deja vu, a repeat of when I left my Way Corps commitment the first time back in 1980. Like the first time, I didn't take time to pack my few belongings. I just left; AWOL. Unlike the first time I'd left when I had hitchhiked from Connecticut to North Carolina, this second time I had a car and had driven from Ohio to North Carolina.
Now I had returned to Headquarters, a couple weeks after leaving, to get the rest of my stuff.
John Lynn, the Ways Corps Coordinator, and I spoke as we stood beside one of the fleet vehicle station wagons in the OSC warehouse.
"You can stay, if you want. We haven't kicked you out." John was pragmatic as he spoke with me. Looking back, he was fatherly, in a sense. Like he understood that I AWOLed not because I was cruel or had evil motives, but rather because I was confused.
"But I want to have a family. That's all I really want. I want to get married and raise children." I responded nervously. Within me I knew that believers and leaders do have families. I just couldn't figure out how that could be done when I was supposed to have a sold-out commitment to being Corps. I couldn't handle all the standards. How could I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, strength and live the "It is Written" standard of the Way Corps and also have energy to love my family and raise my children?
"You can have a family. Lots of Way Corps get married and have children." John echoed my thoughts.
"I can't do it."
"I don't want to stay."
I can almost see John's head nodding as I spoke.
"Well," he responded, "I'm not going to tell you that you will die or have horrible things happen to you if you leave The Corps. I don't think that will happen."
I nodded in agreement. I knew that sometimes bad things do happen to people when they break their commitments to God and the Household. On the other hand, I believed God was bigger than that. Apparently Rev. Lynn did too.
God still loves me, I thought. God is all love and in Him is no darkness at all. None.
I recall a pause of silence.
"I just want you to know the door is open, if you want to stay. We love you." Rev. Lynn's parting words.
I don't think I ever spoke with John Lynn after that.
I appreciated his words.
I doubt he remembers the incident.
I was a little fish in a big pond.
_____________________
a wednesday in june, 2012
I often think of myself as a late-bloomer, seeing as I don't credit myself for ever finding a career.
But the reality is that my "career" has been that of a mother.
October, 1983.
I stood in the warehouse area of the Outreach Services Center (OSC) at the The Way International headquarters in New Knoxville, Ohio.
Vehicles would drive into the warehouse, passengers being important leadership or family members of leadership or Bless Patrol staff or whomever was on tap to teach at a meeting. The warehouse is like the back stage entry to the building.
The warehouse is huge storing all the stuff for the yearly Rock of Ages festival that The Way hosts every August, at least from the 1970s and into the 1990s. The largest-attended Rock of Ages must have been sometime in the 80s, maybe. I don't know officially. I've read the highest attendance was around 20,000 people. Us believers would descend upon New Knoxville, Ohio. Way Headquarters, which once was a farm belonging to the Wierwille family, became tent and RV city.
Earlier that October, I had left my Way Corps duties at Headquarters, breaking my Way Corps commitment for a second time. I had left in a frenzied state, trying to flee from something which I couldn't identify at the time. It was deja vu, a repeat of when I left my Way Corps commitment the first time back in 1980. Like the first time, I didn't take time to pack my few belongings. I just left; AWOL. Unlike the first time I'd left when I had hitchhiked from Connecticut to North Carolina, this second time I had a car and had driven from Ohio to North Carolina.
Now I had returned to Headquarters, a couple weeks after leaving, to get the rest of my stuff.
John Lynn, the Ways Corps Coordinator, and I spoke as we stood beside one of the fleet vehicle station wagons in the OSC warehouse.
"You can stay, if you want. We haven't kicked you out." John was pragmatic as he spoke with me. Looking back, he was fatherly, in a sense. Like he understood that I AWOLed not because I was cruel or had evil motives, but rather because I was confused.
"But I want to have a family. That's all I really want. I want to get married and raise children." I responded nervously. Within me I knew that believers and leaders do have families. I just couldn't figure out how that could be done when I was supposed to have a sold-out commitment to being Corps. I couldn't handle all the standards. How could I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, strength and live the "It is Written" standard of the Way Corps and also have energy to love my family and raise my children?
"You can have a family. Lots of Way Corps get married and have children." John echoed my thoughts.
"I can't do it."
"I don't want to stay."
I can almost see John's head nodding as I spoke.
"Well," he responded, "I'm not going to tell you that you will die or have horrible things happen to you if you leave The Corps. I don't think that will happen."
I nodded in agreement. I knew that sometimes bad things do happen to people when they break their commitments to God and the Household. On the other hand, I believed God was bigger than that. Apparently Rev. Lynn did too.
God still loves me, I thought. God is all love and in Him is no darkness at all. None.
I recall a pause of silence.
"I just want you to know the door is open, if you want to stay. We love you." Rev. Lynn's parting words.
I don't think I ever spoke with John Lynn after that.
I appreciated his words.
I doubt he remembers the incident.
I was a little fish in a big pond.
_____________________
June 7, 2012
Yurt Dreaming
AWW ~ 06/06/12
__________________
Authentic Writing Workshop is tonight. It's 8:33 and I'm just starting to wirte for the next part of our session which begins at 8:45.
I had such a full day with the more-than-typical schedule changes.
One change had to do with Doug, who works for me, having to be in court with his brother, Gary, to support Gary because Gary's ex is a humdinger of an ass. Gary and his ex have a son who is elementary school age. Gary's ex has been trying to make it near impossible for their son to be able to spend time with his father. Eight weeks a year, while Gary lives in Oregon - that's the legal arrangement. But the humdinger ex is a twat. It makes my soul growl like a mother bear when a parent uses a child against the other parent. I sure hope the judge ruled in Gary's favor today. He's simply trying to be a good dad.
Other schedule changes had to do with added client visits, which I enjoy because my clients are beasts, in a good sense. Dogs and cats and birds and reptiles and rodents. We get along superbly.
The other schedule change had to do with me misplacing a client's key. That added forty minutes of extra driving to my rounds.
Animals, like children, make life go slower. Slower in the sense of more noticable, in the sense of living in the moment. I have to slow down to walk the dogs, to sit with the birds and the cats. To feed live meal worms and crickets to lizards.
As I walk my clients, I often notice gardens and homes and yards. Some day I'll have my home and yard like I want to have it. I don't have a specific image in mind, but more of a feel.
And someday, I'd really like to clear part of the woods in the back, plant bamboo, and erect a yurt. It will be my cottage away from home. I'd like that.
__________________
__________________
Authentic Writing Workshop is tonight. It's 8:33 and I'm just starting to wirte for the next part of our session which begins at 8:45.
I had such a full day with the more-than-typical schedule changes.
One change had to do with Doug, who works for me, having to be in court with his brother, Gary, to support Gary because Gary's ex is a humdinger of an ass. Gary and his ex have a son who is elementary school age. Gary's ex has been trying to make it near impossible for their son to be able to spend time with his father. Eight weeks a year, while Gary lives in Oregon - that's the legal arrangement. But the humdinger ex is a twat. It makes my soul growl like a mother bear when a parent uses a child against the other parent. I sure hope the judge ruled in Gary's favor today. He's simply trying to be a good dad.
Other schedule changes had to do with added client visits, which I enjoy because my clients are beasts, in a good sense. Dogs and cats and birds and reptiles and rodents. We get along superbly.
The other schedule change had to do with me misplacing a client's key. That added forty minutes of extra driving to my rounds.
Animals, like children, make life go slower. Slower in the sense of more noticable, in the sense of living in the moment. I have to slow down to walk the dogs, to sit with the birds and the cats. To feed live meal worms and crickets to lizards.
As I walk my clients, I often notice gardens and homes and yards. Some day I'll have my home and yard like I want to have it. I don't have a specific image in mind, but more of a feel.
And someday, I'd really like to clear part of the woods in the back, plant bamboo, and erect a yurt. It will be my cottage away from home. I'd like that.
__________________
June 4, 2012
"See Me Beautiful" by Red Grammer & Cheng Lin
Today is my friend Linda's birthday.
If not for Linda, I don't know if I'd be where I am right now....much more free and healthy. Linda listened to her heart and reached out to me via a handwritten USPS-delivered, old-fashion, pen-to-parchment letter in May, 2005.
Unknown to Linda at that time, my soul was an empty shell. I cried every day with a giant hollow hole in my heart. I was researching how, if I decided to take the step out, how to leave The Way. I didn't know where to turn. I didn't want to become bitter. I didn't want my family to become split.
I wrote a poem in June, 2005, that gives a glimpse of my heart in June, 2005. That poem is here ~ Pinhole View: Prose One.
Linda and I connected via phone that June, or maybe it was July. In October, I made the final decision to step outside "the walls of Zion," ie: The Way International.
Linda now lives in China. It's not unusual for a street or park musician to be playing their erhu.
This song is for Linda. I am forever grateful....
If not for Linda, I don't know if I'd be where I am right now....much more free and healthy. Linda listened to her heart and reached out to me via a handwritten USPS-delivered, old-fashion, pen-to-parchment letter in May, 2005.
Unknown to Linda at that time, my soul was an empty shell. I cried every day with a giant hollow hole in my heart. I was researching how, if I decided to take the step out, how to leave The Way. I didn't know where to turn. I didn't want to become bitter. I didn't want my family to become split.
I wrote a poem in June, 2005, that gives a glimpse of my heart in June, 2005. That poem is here ~ Pinhole View: Prose One.
Linda and I connected via phone that June, or maybe it was July. In October, I made the final decision to step outside "the walls of Zion," ie: The Way International.
Linda now lives in China. It's not unusual for a street or park musician to be playing their erhu.
This song is for Linda. I am forever grateful....
June 3, 2012
Pendulums
When my ex-therapist exacted his blows upon my verbal and emotional and psychological landscape, my life changed.
First there were his initial blows. Verbal assaults with false accusations. Dehumanizing. Abandonment. Untruths. Rationalizing to another client. Lying to me in a voice mail. And whatever else.
Later there were the public smears. Lies upon lies about things he stated I had done which I hadn't done: such as legal threats, stalking, contacting his colleagues and clients, propositioning him for sex, and whatever else his mind could conjure up to make me out to be a person of great questionable character. He started a Facebook discussion about what a sick, perverted, psychopathic, crazy, professional victim (and other descript terms) I was.
Logically I know that the throws he exacted were projections. Almost everything (if not everything) he falsely accused myself (and others) of, he himself had engaged or was engaging in.
Yes, I still think about these things. I still feel the effects.
I continue to work on endeavoring to have compassion toward the perp, my ex-therapist Knapp.
I continue to work through the feeling of being marginalized by folks I once had warm relationships with; folks who are acquaintances/friends/cult-activists. Am I marginalized by those certain people? I don't know; but it feels that way...like I am tainted or something.
I'm less open than I once was. Some may say that's a good thing. Maybe so. I've mainly worn my heart on my sleeve most of my life. Now, I wear it more in a pocket.
I'm slowly relearning to trust again. Trust myself and others.
I'm much less trusting of people and their motives. In the past I thought the best of people. Now, I shy away from that. Not that I think evil of them; but I don't believe in people as much. I don't like that.
I guess it's another lesson upon life's pendulum that swings from left to right and eventually stops in the middle.
Yet when that pendulum stops, breath and heartbeat will also cease.
For now, I prefer the swing (and the circles) of the pendulum.
First there were his initial blows. Verbal assaults with false accusations. Dehumanizing. Abandonment. Untruths. Rationalizing to another client. Lying to me in a voice mail. And whatever else.
Later there were the public smears. Lies upon lies about things he stated I had done which I hadn't done: such as legal threats, stalking, contacting his colleagues and clients, propositioning him for sex, and whatever else his mind could conjure up to make me out to be a person of great questionable character. He started a Facebook discussion about what a sick, perverted, psychopathic, crazy, professional victim (and other descript terms) I was.
Logically I know that the throws he exacted were projections. Almost everything (if not everything) he falsely accused myself (and others) of, he himself had engaged or was engaging in.
Yes, I still think about these things. I still feel the effects.
I continue to work on endeavoring to have compassion toward the perp, my ex-therapist Knapp.
I continue to work through the feeling of being marginalized by folks I once had warm relationships with; folks who are acquaintances/friends/cult-activists. Am I marginalized by those certain people? I don't know; but it feels that way...like I am tainted or something.
I'm less open than I once was. Some may say that's a good thing. Maybe so. I've mainly worn my heart on my sleeve most of my life. Now, I wear it more in a pocket.
I'm slowly relearning to trust again. Trust myself and others.
I'm much less trusting of people and their motives. In the past I thought the best of people. Now, I shy away from that. Not that I think evil of them; but I don't believe in people as much. I don't like that.
I guess it's another lesson upon life's pendulum that swings from left to right and eventually stops in the middle.
Yet when that pendulum stops, breath and heartbeat will also cease.
For now, I prefer the swing (and the circles) of the pendulum.
June 2, 2012
Flotsam. Jetsam. A Yurt.
There was a time I had a deep desire to help people.
I'm not sure where that desire dissipated to.
This past week I strolled down Madison Avenue in Ardmore walking sweet Oscar, one of my dog friends.
Oscar and I strolled past the bamboo patch that grows at the roadside.
As we passed, an image of the ocean appeared on my mental landscape. Debris floated amidst sea foam.
The debris represented information; the ocean represented channels - not just one channel, but a multitude.
Billboards. Television. Smart phones.
Books. Magazines. Blogs.
Information. Opinions. Facts.
Sometimes I feel I am drowning in it. There is no escape from the noise of it.
Each piece shouts, "Hear me! Pick me!"
Each piece hollers, "I'm right! I stand for what is moral and good and righteous!"
All across the sea spin tiny vortexes.
Round and round go the pieces of debris, bobbing and swirling.
Some drowning faster than others.
Every so often the vortexes cease, and the litter floats worn and ragged.
Flotsam and jetsam.
A sea of information.
I have another dream of late.
I'd like to clear part of our woods in the back and plant bamboo and erect a yurt.
_________________
I'm not sure where that desire dissipated to.
This past week I strolled down Madison Avenue in Ardmore walking sweet Oscar, one of my dog friends.
Oscar and I strolled past the bamboo patch that grows at the roadside.
As we passed, an image of the ocean appeared on my mental landscape. Debris floated amidst sea foam.
The debris represented information; the ocean represented channels - not just one channel, but a multitude.
Billboards. Television. Smart phones.
Books. Magazines. Blogs.
Information. Opinions. Facts.
Sometimes I feel I am drowning in it. There is no escape from the noise of it.
Each piece shouts, "Hear me! Pick me!"
Each piece hollers, "I'm right! I stand for what is moral and good and righteous!"
All across the sea spin tiny vortexes.
Round and round go the pieces of debris, bobbing and swirling.
Some drowning faster than others.
Every so often the vortexes cease, and the litter floats worn and ragged.
Flotsam and jetsam.
A sea of information.
I have another dream of late.
I'd like to clear part of our woods in the back and plant bamboo and erect a yurt.
_________________
June 1, 2012
When Limbs Go Quiet
I regularly visit Jon's blog, Brain, Mind, and Other Things. Jon has an encouraging post about advancements in technology to help folks who are unable to move their limbs.
In reading Jon's blog entry and viewing the video embedded in the entry, I of course thought of my dad. Dad was in a head-on collision in 1983 leaving him to live his remaining twelve-and-a-half years as a quadriplegic. Rarely a week goes by that I don't think about those years.
Upon reading Jon's entry and wanting to leave a comment with links to some things I've written about living with quadriplegia, I decided to compile some of the meanderings I've made public about those years and about limb paralysis.
Head-on Collision (poem)
Stainless Steel
Urine Bags and Heroes
Quadriplegia
War Maims
Heart Failure
Hands in Gauntlets
I'm thankful each day I can freely breathe and button a button.
In reading Jon's blog entry and viewing the video embedded in the entry, I of course thought of my dad. Dad was in a head-on collision in 1983 leaving him to live his remaining twelve-and-a-half years as a quadriplegic. Rarely a week goes by that I don't think about those years.
Upon reading Jon's entry and wanting to leave a comment with links to some things I've written about living with quadriplegia, I decided to compile some of the meanderings I've made public about those years and about limb paralysis.
Head-on Collision (poem)
Stainless Steel
Urine Bags and Heroes
Quadriplegia
War Maims
Heart Failure
Hands in Gauntlets
I'm thankful each day I can freely breathe and button a button.