Three years here, three years there, next thing you know: six years.

I was scrounging about for a memory card for Robyn's new camera when I found this one, full of pictures from 2007. Three years ago, not long, really. My son is still small with round cheeks, my daughter is piling her hair impossibly high for prom or homecoming. There is a Christmas tree, probably the most beautiful yet. It always is.

I thought I would sit down and try to explain how it is those three years seems like such a long span of time to me, but I'm not sure I can. Over this hiccup in time I turned 50, nearly killed myself, watched a friend die, mourned a friend who died by his own fickle hand, watched my mother diminish, brain cell by brain cell. Over this increment, I remembered to be patient (because I had no choice), to grateful (for not having to be so god-damned patient), watched my wife and children with new eyes, learned that I am not invincible, but that I can endure . . . and overcome.

In 2007 I was taller, younger, stronger, and somehow less aware. Had I known what the next three years would hold, I suppose I would have to choose to experience them again, since I am what I've become and the journey has made me thus.

The good thing about the future is that we're ignorant of it. Not knowing what comes next, we begin each day. I think I'll go put some socks on.

Peace incidentally descends.

It is Christmas Eve and I am sitting pretty. My mother is in a a very well run nursing home. She is dry and warm, comfortable and oblivious. She is the best she can be. She can no longer remember. She cannot count the cost. For this we are thankful.

She is warm and safe.

Robyn and her mother Donna are upstairs wrapping presents. Caitlin is home from school. Soon Walker will be home from work. The dogs are asleep: Maggie on the sofa, Tye on the carpet. Snow falls outside, big as feathers. Caitlin's friend has decided to spend the night here, rather than brave the road to Burlington.


Tonight I notice that I am not in pain, that my movement is not restricted, that I can move about at will. Tonight I notice that the people I love most, my son, my daughter, my wife, are safe and warm. Tonight I notice that peace falls around us, feathered snow, soft, sweet and constant.

Peace be upon you, kind stranger.

We are stardust, we are golden, we are caught in the Devil's bargain, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden. Merry Christmas.

Do the Tighten Up baby!

This picture makes me dizzy.

My clients are conspiring to feel well and cancel appointments in favor of other, more positive activities. Since I'm not worrying about how much I bill, I can relax about it and take advantage of a whole Saturday. Sessions on a Saturday morning are really a pleasure. That said, every touchy feely needs a day off once in a while. Families tend to prioritize therapy out this way because they like the security of working with me. At the same time, things are really going well and so wouldn't you really rather watch football than address conflict? Works for me.

I always try to do a "discharge" meeting, though. It's good to get folks to state clearly what they think is working. We all have little signals we send our selves when we start to feel stress and begin to act they way we inevitably act when we begin to lose balance. It's good to clearly state how we think we'll know this is happening. Then, because folks want to be "fixed" and there's no such thing, we rename the discharge a "consultation phase." This makes it fair to check in, ask for a "booster" session. Thus we make room for the next fascinating conundrum, and Sam is endlessly entertained.

I mean this with all respect. There is little in this world more fascinating and inspiring than the therapeutic process. It's a real privilege to get to do it, and when I'm fascinated and absorbed in the process I'm entertained.

How about these shots? I call this series "Cedar Rapids for the Iowa Citian." My take on what denizens of the Athens of the Midwest think when they ponder my fair city.

One of my co-workers pulled me aside and shared a concern yesterday. During our staff meeting I had waxed expansive regarding an incoming corps member who was overcoming difficulties and I gave away more information to my co-workers than was necessary. Allison very discreetly pointed this out, and I thanked her for it. I joke about how many ethics credits I have but ethics is a tricky think. Ethics are a tricky things.

I didn't identify anyone by name, and a case could be made that the details I disclosed would help our empathetic co-workers to better appreciate what some of our incoming corps members are facing. It wasn't my information, though and I shouldn't have shared it in such a way that my co-workers could figure out who was whom. Who. Thus each and every day, just when we need it, we get to dance the "Tighten Up." That really was a dance and there was a song that went with it. I could stand to do the Tighten Up on a regular basis.

It's a good thing when a younger colleague calls you out appropriately. It's a good thing to acknowledge a legitimate concern and adjust one's modus operandi. Operandus. In such ways is trust built.

As I got up to serve my primary function in life, to facilitate the ingress and/or egress of dogs, I noticed a hairy frost in the early morning light. I put on some shoes and joined the dogs out in the snowy yard. It's looking like a pretty good day.

This is what Cedar Rapids looks like to me this morning. Enjoy the frost and the light.

ChristmaHannuKwanzaakah

My daughter is home from her first semester of college. Caitlin is the Holiday Enforcer. Christmas will now begin. If it doesn't, someone's ass is going to get kicked.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the natural development of families, particularly those families that include children who are my childrens' age. Caitlin going away to live and returning home for the holidays marks a change, the first of some pretty serious structural adjustments we're bound to make in the next few years. Walker's a Junior, giving us one more year of something like the status quo before things get a good deal quieter around here.

More than just the launching, which is good and right, there is something of a generational nature going on. Someone is "coming home" to our house.

Robyn and I come from families that are in many ways very different from one another. For that matter, Robyn's families are very different from each other. I could write a book on this subject, and may some day.

My family of origin is punctuated by distance, physical and emotional. I have four aunts and uncles living nearby and only have contact with one of them. I have a large number of cousins and we're friendly and glad to see one another when we do, but we're just not regularly involved in each others' lives. My mother left her family and never really returned. My Dad had a very strained and difficult relationship, particularly with his mother, and trips to visit his family were tense, filled with anxiety and unresolved sadness. Perhaps this is why we always celebrated Christmas at home.

Robyn's parents divorced when she was young. Her mother is warm and supportive, rather a nut, loves a good scotch, and is very much a part of our family. She can be counted on to make us an odd meal, let the dogs out, get a kid from school, go to a Christmas concert. My mother and I used to describe parents like Donna as "over-involved." Our implication was that it's the natural course of things for family members to grow up and move AWAY. Donna has taught me that families hang together, support each other in all kinds of practical ways. It's not over-involvement. This is involvement.

LeRoy is really a child of the Great Depression. He was raised to work hard and scrap for everything he got. Sports and the arts were frivolities as far as his father was concerned. LeRoy's dad had the contract for county road maintenance in Benton County and if LeRoy had extra energy there was gravel to throw. He's a very accomplished man, very bright, very active. Connecting with LeRoy really requires a project to work on, however, an idea to be analyzed. Let him use that big brain and deliberately think his way through a problem and he's at his best. He has what could charitably be described as great difficulty with emotional connection. Hug him and you can feel his ass pucker. It's hard to get him to hold still and talk to you about anything real. He plays favorites sometimes, has lost contact with one of his (best) children, tends to give with one hand and take a little back with the other. LeRoy's a hell of a lot kinder and gentler than his father was. I think he's doing the best he can.

Christmas has been structured around these two divorced families for years. Years. Donna get's Christmas Eve, LeRoy get's Christmas day, sometimes the following Saturday. As Donna's gotten older and her house had gotten smaller, the large Christmas eve gathering moved to my brother and sister in law's home. The pattern didn't really change, though.

This year Robyn proposed that we have a Christmas Day open house and stay home. Anyone can come visit who wants to. This caused some rumbling in the jungle. It seems to me everyone is pretty tired of the old pattern but no one feels comfortable shaking it up. My gal did it. This year we get to spend Christmas Eve in our own home. We will spend some of Christmas Day at LeRoy's. Couldn't get a consensus on that one, mostly because the step-sister was still locked into divorce era thinking: "He never gets to have us on the real holiday." She's in her late 40's, and well, as my Southern friends say "bless her heart." LeRoy, at 80, has wisely decided just to give us all some money and let us do our own shopping, which is a big change from his perspective. The whole sitting around a circle watching a lot of people open an endless number of presents until we lose the will to live ritual will be a thing of the past.

Tomorrow, perhaps in the morning, we'll go out to the tree farm and take down a small pine to decorate. Christmas Eve is open to whoever wants to share it with us. Now our kids will be coming home to our house. As the year goes by I have some wishes:

I hope that my children look forward to coming to visit us. I want them to come when they'd like to come and feel comfortable when they're here. When they have children (a long time from now, please, God!) I want them to stay home with them when that makes sense. I want to be involved, on terms that make sense for my kids, and for their kids.

I'm no Christian. I can and probably will rant about how many awful things have been done in the name of someone's "truth." I'm not even really a theist. If God's running this he/she has a wicked sense of humor. At the very least, The Plan is much too complicated for me or any other human to understand. What this holiday means to me is not about virgin birth (yikes!). It's not about family traditions that no longer serve anyone. This holiday is about connecting, giving, taking and spending time.

I will be playing the part of the parent no one dreads seeing.

Missing

God, he was a moody fucker, a human mood swing. Will posed something yesterday which reminded me that Cam killed himself this time last year.

I'm not angry with him now. He was the son of an escape artist, a man who abandoned his family, who Cam almost met, who left a space that could not be filled, and of an undetermined shape.

Cam found a scene from the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt in which Steve and an actress talk in a smoky jazz bar. The man playing the guitar, Cam tells me, is his father. Apparently the director liked the music well enough that what you hear in the movie is actually Cam's Dad playing.

In the scene, we can make out the man's silhouette, but not his face. He sings some scat over the guitar and it's very beatnik and 1960s. A man in those days would perhaps run from Clear Lake, Iowa, from a wife and two kids, heading off to California. . . .

You can hang around this one pump station
I'm going to take myself a lifetime vacation
Next time you see me take a long last look
There'll be one less name in the telephone book

Cam wrote beautifully about images that possessed him. I think his most evocative lyrics are the ballads. Songs about lonely highways, big moons, about being somehow outside things, driving by, hoping someone will burn a candle for him. The boy knew how to write a hook, and in his humorous songs, could certainly twist it. He wrote a song about my first marriage, Bessie's Gone, that still cracks me up. And he took the time to write a song about me. Who does that? Wrote a hell of a good one about our friend Al, too.

Cam's passing taught us another important lesson: Facebook is immortal. Cam's site is still up and people are still posting, although Cam, of course is not. For a while, Cam's site was a pretty strange place. His wife was posting and in a lot of pain, people were reacting to the news, it was raw, even a little creepy. I went there this morning just before I started writing this. It's quieter now. People are still posting, but we've all had some time to get used to this.

Steve Earle wrote "I Ain't Ever Satisfied." The song was about Cam. It was about that part in all of us that whispers to us that our successes aren't real, our better qualities are evanescent, that we are frauds about to be found out. There was no pleasing him sometimes. There was no pleasing himself. I'm not sure if this made it fair. One could safely say that Cam suffered from his moods more than anyone else. That didn't make him any easier to live with. At one point in my life, I backed away from Cam, determining that I could not ride with him, could only step back and watch him go. He was tough on wives, because of the darkness in him at times, but also because he was a very sweet, generous, expansive guy a good deal of the time, and that was real, too.

When Cam died, I wasn't that far from cheating clumsy middle aged death myself. I was watching my mother fight death brain cell by brain cell. The idea that Cam would just step off, take a lot of pills and die, left me grasping. . . .

Here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to take a crack at a really good, difficult book. I'm going to work up a few songs to the point they're worth doing. I'm going to work on laughing and encouraging and being generous of spirit. I can do that.

My Dad was a different sort of cat, too, Cam, but mine stuck around. I knew that whatever I did, he was proud of me and loved me. Because of him, there are times, just some times, but times nonetheless, when I feel full, happy, thankful and at peace. I mutter to my father that I'm sorry and he sighs and says he guesses it will be okay.

I wish he'd called me, called somebody, old Camster. He was, I guess, too much apart from us, from all of us, that night. There was about Cam often a sense that he was present but also was thinking of something else, some next thing. It meant we connected but did not stay connected.

I look out the window, and see you standing in the road.

Today you get Asters

Will posted a picture a while back that I just love. I think Dan took it. It shows Will and Joe and I sitting on John Keane's porch in Athens, Georgia, taking a break from recording our last, Visiting Normaltown. I tried to paste the picture in here, but it didn't transfer well. Today you get Asters.

At the moment the picture was taken, we were recording in the best studio we'd ever used in our lives, surrounded by beautiful equipment, gold records on the wall, attended to by John, a quiet man with a dry sense of humor, who cut his teeth recording all the early stuff with REM. Locals, including a former member of the band Sea Level, dropped by to listen as we laid down tracks. We played a local watering hole and lots of enthusiastic locals came by to hear this band the Andy Carlson was producing. We got up and did a hot two or three songs and one slightly drunk man came up and grabbed me by the shoulders, got into my face and said: "You are one singin' mother-fuckah!" We laid down all our tracks the third week of December, or maybe it was the second, but it was close to Christmas, and then Andy stayed there (his family live there) and mixed our work with John.

I think at this point Big Wooden Radio was at the top of our game, in our incarnation as a six piece band. We had several other points where we were in similar fettle, once when our first CD came out, again when we added Paul on percussion and went to Telluride.

Soon life intervened, as it will tend to do. We ran into our own limitations. Could we really travel enough to support life at the "next level?" Would one person continue to do the vast majority of the booking (along with tearing down, the most thankless part of playing gigs)? Would years and years of focusing on putting on a show rather than addressing issues between us wear on us? When you're bringing original material, arrangements, and ideas that you care deeply about to a group of peers you care deeply about, a certain degree of emotional turmoil is to be expected. There's a reason most bands break up, often with acrimony.

Merle Haggard, or somebody equally cool, commented "Anyone can be gracious on the way up." After that photo was taken, we learned a lot about our limitations. We did therapy together, for God's sake! Over the coming years, the number of gigs we played diminished. Our lives and band process really did not permit taking the time and making the commitment to make another recording and work together to play gigs and sell it. Much of being a band is working to retain the illusion of some sort of momentum. It helps to be the band that is going someplace. One really has no control over this. What does one do in order to be prom king year after year? Popularity is evanescent. There's even a band by this name, of course, chosen, I hope, with irony.

We continued to make good music together, perhaps not at the level of practice and attention to detail that we brought to our game during the Athens days, or by the end of a summer playing more than 50 gigs, but solid, honest music. We worked as a quartet, the way we started. This was probably our most interesting formation. This isn't a reflection on the other fine musicians we've included in the band. It's just that we were most surprising when we looked like a quaint little bluegrass band, but then played an amazing array of songs. It was great fun to play eight songs in a row, all unlike each other, and watch the audience figure out "what kind of band we are."

I miss playing music in public. So far, I don't miss it enough to book any gigs. I have a standing offer from one of my favorite bar owners at my favorite bar, and on this very computer I have a song list to work on when I pick up a guitar. Playing even two hours in a bar requires arranging at least 40 songs. All my old arrangements have spaces in them for Will or Joe or Andy or Greg or Al to play instrumental solos. My list needs to be rearranged now so that I can do something on the guitar, or scat sing, or tap dance and fart, to fill that space. Because of my association with these fine musicians, I know I can't just fill that space. I need to make it matter, make it my own. I pick up my guitar, not regularly enough, and work through arrangements. One of these days I'll book that gig, providing enough pressure for me to finish the arrangements and learn them satisfactorily.

I don't know who it was, maybe Paul, who introduced the term "clams," to our vocabulary. Making an error in our highly arranged material became known as "dropping a clam." Paul taught us a lot about rhythm and arranging. He also taught us not to make faces when we "dropped clams." "You guys have to learn to smile when your pants are full." He was right. It was not permissible to make a face. It was permissible to turn to one's partner, off mike, and say "this is a real chowder-fest!"

A solo artist is responsible for his own arrangement. He or she can take more liberties with arranging, since changing direction mid-song doesn't cause any trouble for any partners. We're also lonelier. When times are bad, a good band becomes a closed committee. "They sure hate us. Let's crank this out and get out of here!" A solo artist bombing is lonely. He can only rely on the audience or on himself for strength. His clams are his own and he must stand in them. (Standing the Clams! There's a song.) I miss the good gigs. I also remember bombing slowly, a musician on a slow rotisserie, basted with audience disregard.

I'm happy with where we turned out. I'm grateful for those times on the porch, times when our hard work and discipline paid off, when opportunities seemed unlimited, when we found ourselves playing out of our league and doing well. That, my friends, is a really fine feeling.

Hoopla

Any person who has broken his back and can walk knows what gratitude is. It was a good Thanksgiving. We had a relaxed mid-day meal. The dogs didn't get any of the food.

The food deserves it's own paragraph. We had a turkey basted lovingly in butter and Reisling, covered with cheesecloth until the last quarter hour, as moist as the day it first gobbled. We had a ham, a big local one, cut cross-hatch and basted in brandy and brown sugar and slow baked to let all the wonderfulness soak in. It was pork, as candy. Robyn mixed sweet potatoes and sliced sauteed apples. We had mashed potatoes and green beans with the french onion thing going on and cranberry jello stuff and the traditional Caitlin's boiled cranberry relish, which is actually fabulous, and we had three pies: pecan, pumpkin and apple. John whipped cream, really whipped it with a whisk, and we ate it on our pie, glad to be fat and happy and warm together.

Why, then, did we all go out into the bitter cold and stand outside a Target for two and a half hours? It was windy, too, a breeze that cut through my parka and my stocking cap and reminded me how old and frail and middle aged man can be in the early morning, with no rising sun in sight.

I learned a few things from this adventure:

1. When your son says "I think we should go earlier" he is right. We did and we got the television. Had we come a half our later, our success would have been doubtful. 2. Columbia parkas and stocking caps are great, but nothing beats an old wool blanket held over the head Civil War POW style. 3. Some people need their mommies to dress them. There were a lot of people out there in light coats and no hats. I don't think stupidity entitles you to favors from God, if that's what they were trying. 4. Prepare to be tazed for causing a ruckus. There were lots of cops patrolling and the tiny Target security guy insisted in an adolescent voice he wouldn't tolerate nonsense.

The last time I stood in line for an equivalent period of time, it was 1975 and I got Dylan tickets. It was a great show, the Rolling Thunder Review, and the memories lasted longer than any television I ever owned.

The second Thanksgiving was at my father-in-laws. It's the one I rant about every year. I think we can just replay last year's rant. I did the math this morning, and there were five people there I like, including my father in law. There were six people there with whom I would go to great lengths not to visit. (Notice I didn't end with a preposition!) We sat in a semi-circle around an enormous television. Robyn says I'm focusing on the negative. The whole scene left me in a bad mood even though I was psyched up to be a "sport." I might have made it but the only other company when we got there was the "neighbors," a relatively nice not very bright buy guy with a toupee that would only be more obvious if it got up and danced on his head, and his wife, the alcoholic former prescription drug abuser, who offered up nuggets of wisdom such as "violent videos are just awful," "that dog is going to knock over my wine," and "oh . . . oh. . . my vertigo! (x12)" The social worker in my wanted to suggest that wine and vertigo are perhaps not the best combination, but then neither are abject stupidity and verbal expression, and that never stopped anybody.

I left in a foul mood, no longer thankful for any-fucking-thing. It took me the rest of the day to decompress by myself in the upstairs bedroom, muttering to myself. Today is sunny and stretches out before us filled with possibilities, strengthened by caffeine and foolish optimism.

Nathan Bell suggested yesterday that we all celebrate monkeys, and call it "Thanksgibbon."

SonShine

I like to get up early on Sunday. I usually drink some coffee, read the paper, then go see Mom. I try to do this every Sunday because Mom can't tell if I'm there or not and I could never go or go twice a day and she wouldn't know which.

Since she's moved to the nursing home Mom has been attending church. Attending is probably the least appropriate term for what she's doing.

Mom's consciousness exists for seconds at a time. These seconds are very seldom connected now. If I sit with her, I often get a glimpse of her, of some familiar neuron firing, perhaps for the last time, and Mom looks at a sleeping old woman and then at me and says sternly: "You should help her." I tell her I will.

This morning I was confronted with very energetic, pretty doggone old volunteers who were busy wheeling residents, except for those who declined, to a room at the end of the hall. I found my mother in her high backed wheelchair, in a line, like a stately old jet at O'Hare, waiting for takeoff. I woke her. She sleeps most of the time and had no idea what she was in line for.

When we moved to Wichita in 1965 we were not a religious family. We'd lived in Illinois, New York, West Virginia and Ohio and it hadn't really come up in our conversation as a family. "Where's God?" I asked once. Mom said "God is everywhere." Mom was a Catholic girl who left the Church and her family to marry Dad, a divorced Non-Catholic. "In the potty?' I asked. I think Mom changed the subject. I was three and she could do that.

Southern Kansas - well, really most of Kansas - follows one evangelical Christian faith or another. Evangelicals must witness to others to fulfill God's plan for them on earth and so I was repeatedly questioned by all my new friends, who wanted me to come to their churches on Sunday mornings, or to Sunday school on Wednesday night. That's "church night." After not very long, my good friend Jay invited me to go to Olivet Southern Baptist Church with him. I was intrigued, and told Mom, who said, not missing a beat:

"Oh, didn't I tell you? We're going to the Unitarian church this Sunday. We already have plans." That's how Mom saved me from the Southern Baptists.

Given this history, I decided that I needed to step out of my comfort zone and see what this service was all about. An energetic old woman had already gotten me a chair right by Mom, who is really slumping in her chair, sawing logs. Big logs. Mom is 5' 10" and I can't lift her up in a chair without hurting her, so I asked one of the energetic old women to help me, but she wasn't allowed. "God will give you strength," I wanted to suggest.

I found some help and got Mom straightened up so she wouldn't be rolling on the floor. I was pretty sure that this was not going to be that kind of service. For a while, the energetic women continued to roll their audience in. Some were cheerful and responsive. Some, like my mother were somewhat less aware, or not aware at all. Mom, for instance was snoozing happily. One wonders why they couldn't have just rolled them from their rooms directly to the church room, without lining them up in the halls first, but I didn't inquire. God works in mysterious ways.

A husband and wife team led the service, eventually Both looked retired and energetic. The woman apologized that there was no piano but let the room in song , referring us to the SonShine Songbook, Large Print Edition. I found it at the SonShine Society website.
The energetic woman began to sing energetically in a voice that was quavery but strong and mostly in tune. Others sang along as best they could, songs about how Jesus suffered and died and how we should humbly glorify him and his Father God, how anyone can be assured of Heaven, how for every instance of pain and suffering there is, somehow a Plan. The plan involves me and Mom joining up, of course. Not much chance of that. Remember the Spanish Inquisition! I'm the strangest creature you ever have heard: my mother's a virgin, my father's a bird! Nananananana! During the second song, Mom woke up, and picked up her side of the Victory Edition SonShine songbook. She looked over at me and smiled a beautiful smile, one I remember from church a long time ago, holding a Unitarian Universalist Hymn-book full of not much better songs. She tried to sing a few words, then flickered out, a brief signal on an old television, and went back to sleep. But what a smile that was! It warms me up just remembering it. The minister talked to us about showing humility and bowing down before God. I thought about Mom's evil illness, how it's rendered her incapable of noticing that she's at a Christian service, or that I am with her. I'm humbled by this terrible disease and it's certain victory over my mother. I wonder how this could possibly be part of a Plan. What an awful plan. New plan, please! Still, that smile. . . the minister wrapped up and we all began to wheel ourselves out of the room. An energetic old woman thanked me for coming and I thanked her for having us.

I wheeled Mom back to her room for a long snooze. Was a time she'd have politely dismissed these folks and spent Sunday morning with a paper, or with a bunch of nerdy Unitarians and me. Now they can't convert her.

Hey, don't forget your SonShine pin!

Perhaps some hope

There's a fascinating article in this month's Harper's about "prodromal" treatment of schizophrenics. I can see your eyes drifting away, disappointed that I'm not ranting about Thanksgiving yet. I'm sure I will yet rant. Be patient.

The article focuses on treatment of schizophrenia while symptoms are just developing. This requires that psychiatrists listen to their patients with well tuned ear, since early pre-schizophrenic thought is a very introverted process. People ponder whether solid objects are really solid, they focus intently on religious or relational themes, latching onto symbolism or ritual to try to make sense of things that used to be certain. I knew a guy who spent a lot of time wondering whether or not his arms and legs really existed. This can seem "funny" but it's not. Schizophrenia causes the physical deterioration of the brain over time - patients' brain scans reveal widening fissures, significant measurable deterioration over time.

My father and his father both suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Dad's most profound worry was that I too would succumb. My mission in life for a period of time involved the absence of this disease. Accomplishing the absence of something can be a confusing mission. To this end, my father and I had a number of fascinating conversations. We read R.D. Laing, a British psychiatrist who advanced a "behavioral" theory of the evolution of schizophrenia, which is now largely disproven. I was somewhat attached to the behavioral theory, given my dubious inheritance, but Dad didn't buy it.

What Laing did that was brilliant was to record a great number of interviews with individual patients and their families, sometimes scripting family interactions and interviews. This provided Dad and I with a look inside other heads than our own, gave us reference points for comparing our internal states. We were particularly interested in comparing my mental status at the time (an early 20's person) with the mind-set my father had before he had his first full blown episode, nervous breakdown, violent outburst, at the age of 27. Dad's behavior when psychotic was violent and dangerous, and it offered no basis for comparison, no way for me to relate or compare. I've just never thought about grabbing an axe, heading into my wife's bedroom, and accusing her of infidelity.

Dad talked to me about feeling a certain hollowness, emptiness, an absence of self. He was a good student, a talented writer, a decorated veteran and a very good teacher. His accomplishments always seemed hollow to Dad, as though he were playing a role, acting a part, rather than being genuinely present. He talked about no knowing how to love, or to trust the love of others, because of that same hollowness. He was preoccupied with somehow being a "success" in life but had very rigid and unrealistic expectations of what that would look like. He worried endlessly about interactions with other people, what they might have meant, what he should have said. He was a jealous lover, afraid of abandonment. How can you trust or understand others if you have no internal frame of reference? You're left trying to construct theories that somehow match the external world with your increasingly confusing thoughts.

Before Dad was a "mental patient" he suffered for years in this prior state, uncomfortable and uncertain, but not delusional or particularly unstable. At some point stress put him over the edge and he spent a good deal of the rest of his life teetering there, struggling with symptoms he recognized but could not conquer.

Psychiatrists in clinics that use the Prodromal treatment model are intervening with patients before the "big snap," putting them on low doses of the newer antipsychotic medications, allowing them the time space to regain their balance without experiencing the full blown agony of a psychotic break. The editors of the DSM-V, which will be published within the next couple years, are working to quantify this pre-schizophrenic state and define a diagnosis that will make it more recognizable.

It's early to say whether the patients at these clinics will avoid full blown schizophrenia. It's hard to stay on medication. Great stressors may still trigger psychosis. It doesn't sound as though there are definitive studies yet. The patient anecdotes in the article, however, seem to indicate that patients feel more control over their lives and are functioning pretty well.

Dad had fourteen years, corresponding to my later teens and early adulthood, when he was relatively symptom free. He was eccentric and occasionally cantankerous, but he was an active, involved part of our family. He was a wonderful father to me and a great support as I tried to figure out how to be an adult. He learned how to love us, to feel it, and to be loved in return. He has told me several time that this was his proudest accomplishment.

One day, during the time when I was living alone after moving out of the home I shared with my former wife, Nancy, he called me and in a strangely familiar voice asked me if "I had been hearing things about him." His symptoms were back and he could no longer internalize them. I assured him that I was not hearing anything and begged him to contact his doctor, which he did. What ensued was a fruitless painful struggle to find something that worked for him. The meds that bought him 14 years betrayed him, leaving him with nothing but tremors as a side effect. Dad submitted to electric shock treatments, culminating in a particularly barbaric process called "maintenance ECTs" which involved ongoing regular shock sessions, rather than discrete periods of treatment followed by recovery. ECTs scrambled his thoughts and left him very confused. They did not control his symptoms but no one seemed to have any other ideas. Eventually Dad learned about a new trial medication called Clozapine and got himself included in a study. By then we discovered what we thought were neurological side effects of anti-psychotic drugs were actually the early symptoms of ALS. I'm still convinced that the ECTs weakened his neurological system, making him vulnerable to ALS.

When I close my eyes and call my own name, I can feel myself, inside myself. I am a person, responsible for my actions, taking credit and sometimes blame, loving and being loved. When Dad and I talked, I realized that this was the difference between my father and I. I am present in my own body, a self, a soul, and I can feel this. My father taught me how precious this is.

Courage among the severed hands

On Halloween, my daughter Caitlin comes into her own. She and her mother and Nana have collected a vast array of Halloween related items over the years, all of them tacky (but fun). Caitlin erupts into a frenzy of decoration which always includes stringing fake spider web across the front porch at just the right height to garrote her father.

My attitude toward holidays borders on the curmudgeonly. I like a few simple decorations (particularly if I don't have to do them). I already have my house arranged the way I like it and tripping over pumpkin related items placed inconveniently is not my idea of a restful home life. Put the pumpkin (one pumpkin) on the porch, get a triple bag of Milky Way, pour a scotch and we're set.

This little guy is Cullen. He's the grandson of our neighbor Jackie. He came over to admire the severed hand lights, multiple pumpkin, witch and spook related items, as well as the life-threatening spider web. He was evidently impressed and eventually touched one of the severed hands. I think he could have done Halloween quite successfully as a little skater and not changed a thing. Note the skull and crossbones on his stocking cap. He and his family came across the street to visit our dogs, the next door neighbor's and ours, who were in turn visiting each other in the front yard. After a brief interlude with dogs (dogs is just dogs after all) he went straight for the severed hands. In a very business like tone, he announced several times to anyone within earshot that he was going to be Spiderman. He was of the opinion that it was time to get into that Spiderman costume.

My father was a holiday curmudgeon. His birthday was "just another day" unless you forgot it. He would grumble about Christmas hassle and then get misty watching us decorate the tree. "This is the best tree we've ever had," he would inevitably declare. He and I are still one in spirit in this regard: we like to be taken along for the ride, grumbling. If you listen closely you'll hear small murmurs of enjoyment.

We had a visit from Spidey later in the evening. Here he is demonstrating his web prowess with some minor parental assistance. Note the mask slightly ajar. He's using his spidey-sense.

Some kids approach life with great gusto. There's a clarity to their enthusiasm. Cullen is full of juice and ready for the next moment's wonder. What could be better?

I really like that Spider Man costume. My favorite though is Cullen's natural skater look. I'm going to have to find one of those hats.

History revisions

This morning the puppy, craving attention, grabbed my freshly addressed bills and ran away. Maggie's quite fond of and adept at shredding paper, so I had to chase her down, although I try not to reward her like that. Payment on time and perforated! That's the way we like it!

After a week of research I was able to find and confirm my father's social security number. This entitled me to copies of his death certificate. I had evidence of the poor man, but nothing that counted with the Federal Government. I am evidence of the poor man, for that matter.

It's an odd thing to have a question about one's family, to think about asking one's parent, to realize again that they can no longer answer. Pieces of our history become unavailable. There was a period of time when my mother and I had some brutally frank conversations about our history together. I think Mom wanted to be sure I got the truth while she could provide it. I still have questions to ask, not the least of which was "Mom, what's Dad's social security number!"

A few years ago while rifling through literally hundreds of saved letters from my father's family I stumbled upon a letter from someone connected with a rooming house who had had a run-in with my father. In the letter, she put together some of my father's history in a way I had never heard, alluding to him as a "spoiled child, indulged, who was reckless, wrecking cars. . . and once shot another kid while hunting." The son of an insane person. My father had written a defensive note on it and given it to his mother, I suspect in response to her inquiry.

Dad was very intense and emotional. He was raised by his mother and grandmother, two world class worriers, while his father was hospitalized in an institution for the insane at Anna, Illinois. His mother, a woman in the early 1930's was assigned a guardian and given an allowance. It was all her husband's money. I'm sure Dad was a handful, and he told me about wrecking his mother's car, about swinging a shotgun around while hunting and blowing the top of a friend's head off. I recall that it was just the skin on his head and that he survived. I'm not sure, though. It was an accident and Dad did no time.

There are parts of our lives we'd just as soon not share with the oncoming generations. I'm sure not telling.

Some of my history, if I'm lucky, goes off into the mists off time unrecorded and unremembered. There'll be a lot of video of me playing in a band outside during the 80's and 90's. There's some stuff on public access video. There's a really embarrassing VHS tape of me drinking many shots of scotch in succession and sustaining an inane monologue for an excruciatingly long time (perhaps that will go un-noticed). Perhaps fairness and balance require that a little poison about us gets passed on, too. Someone's testimonial about what an insufferable shit I am. I suspect there'd be a few volunteers.

Send me some samples for review and I'll let you know.

Yum

Tye's the alpha dog here. He's nine and he was here first and for now he's bigger. Maggie's already faster, though and has the kind of nature that moves her to grab Robyn's panties and parade around the house with them.

Maggie taught Tye that cool air comes out of the grates. Tye always goes to the grate Maggie showed him. Maggie goes to all the grates.

Tye believes that as alpha dog, he has the right to eat whenever he likes and that he can stop Maggie from eating, even if he really doesn't want to eat himself. Maggie has her ways, though.

Whenever one dog wants out, the other dog goes out, too. I don't know why, but it's some kind of code, like the cliche about women and the powder room perhaps. Tonight Maggie went to the back door and barked. Tye looked up from his food and went to the back door to be let out. I opened the door and Tye went out. Maggie went to the food and started eating. I closed the door, leaving Tye outside watching Maggie eat.

I left him out there until Maggie had finished eating. You have to reward initiative.

You too could be a winner.

I spent the last few weeks going through boxes of documents, photos and papers in the basement looking for my fathers social security number. I used to have about seven death certificates for him - he died in 2002 - but for some reason I can find nothing now. I finally found an IRS document regarding my parents last joint claim that has an "ID number" that looks like a social security number, and isn't Mom's, so must be his, right?

This is all because now that Mom's in nursing care and almost through the money she got from selling her home, we are putting together something called a "Miller Trust." This trust is designed for people, like my mother, whose retirement income is steady, but not enough to cover the enormous cost of nursing care. The trust pays the care it can cover, and the rest is then covered by Medicaid. This is a good thing because it means Mom's expenses can be covered by her estate and not be passed on to her survivors.

Because Dad served with the Marines in Korea (his last message to me from his death bed was an ironic "semper fi!") Mom is eligible for support from the Veteran's Administration for part of the cost of her nursing care. After negotiating one of the least caller friendly voice mail systems I've encountered since Social Security, I got to Phyllis at the Commission for Veteran's Affairs. (The system is amazing. It says they're open, but no one answers. It give you an employee directory - not much help to a new caller - but no description of what anyone does. Phyllis called me back at one point and left me a message which did not include her extension number, so I had to go to the directory one more time. I couldn't help thinking that if I was a vet with PTSD I might have been tempted to save myself the trouble, hang up, and do something drastic.)

Phyllis was pretty helpful once she understood what I'm up to. People warm up to the only surviving son trying to provide for his dear mother who is in the last stages of an incurable progressive disease, and they should, dammit! After agreeing to send me the paperwork I needed, she hesitated and asked "Do you know how much time you have until she. . . passes?" I told her that Mom was under Hospice care, which implies a "window" of about six months. We agreed that it's really impossible to predict another person's demise, and that she could last quite a bit longer, really. Phyllis said that the thing is, it takes about nine months to go through the funding process. Once she's determined to be eligible, Mom can receive funding retroactively back to the time of application. If she survives that long. If she dies. . . no dice. You must be present to win!

This is one of a number of "systems" that depend on the ponderousness of the process to effectively limit which of many eligible recipients get the benefits to which they're entitled. Social Security Disability is another one. There's an entire industry built around the multiple denial, multiple appeal process that even a wizened quadriplegic in an iron lung must negotiate.

This morning I'm going to meet with a family that has decided to pay out of pocket for my services, rather than using the available therapists on a "list" provided by their insurance company. This company has what is called "a closed panel." The way these panels work is that insurance companies determine how many therapists they need in a given population area. They only "open" a panel when their number of therapists dips. This depends on therapists updating their own insurance information, which we seldom do, because there are a lot of different companies and besides we'd rather talk than do paperwork. In the end, this family couldn't find a therapist they felt their child could relate to, and felt strongly enough about it that they're going to forgo their insurance all together and just pay. This works if you're middle class and have a "cafeteria" health plan. If you're working poor, and happen to choose this insurance company for your Hawk-I (SCHIPS) coverage, you're ham-strung by this "panel" and therapist availability. The effect is that the company controls cost by limiting their customers' access to care. In this case, being alive doesn't necessarily help.

In the case of Mom and the VA, I'm really only going to be saving Medicaid money by going through this process. Mom's going to spend all her monthly income and Medicaid will pick up the remainder. Whether or not VA picks up a part is irrelevant to me. I'm done with those boxes in the basement for a while.

local musical culture

A sort of dormant musician myself, I nonetheless run into fellow travelers along the road. At work, a Corps Member asked me to jam. I have a cool green electric guitar that hangs out in my office. It's a signal.

I commented to the Corps Member, who we'll call Zekiel, that I'd seen him jamming with another corps member recently. Zekiel looked away uncomfortably and smiled.

"It's hard to find people who can keep a beat."

It's always been my worst thing as a musician: the beat. If I get excited, I tend, like a lot of singers, to kick the beat, trying to pull the band with me. This sort of habit confuses the groove. Because the person kicking the beat is the lead singer, anyone holding the actual beat appears slow. Rhythm is a cooperative thing. My responsibility to the groove is to recognize that I'm racing and correct myself.

My previous musical experience involved singing in choir, solo and duo work. The duos I shared (what does one do with a duo?) didn't prepare me for being part of combo. Duos adjust to each other pretty freely. There's always another note in the chord to take, another way to divide the beat. In a band, I had to learn to accept musical feedback.

This is all a part of trust, the other frequency in the groove. You come to trust that I will make space for you in our music, complement you the best I can, try to make you look good. If you're not aware of how your tendencies affect others within the groove, we can play at music together but we're not really playing together.

Isn't he pretty?












Dormant, but not deceased, thank you, one of my favorite things is local musical culture. Just made that up. Ha.

Every locality has its musicians lurking about. We need a little community and so quickly a local musical culture springs up. Some, like the amazingly talented Drollinger family in Iowa City, have been playing for generations.

We find each other. There is music in us that needs to escape. We need to sit down and play and recognize each other, fellow travelers of the groove.

I think Zeke probably has some music in him that wants to get out, too. We'll see pretty soon.

Mellow

I took 357 pictures during our kayak trip. We stayed at Volga River Recreation Area and paddled the Turkey and Yellow rivers. The Volga was too low for passage. The weather was warm and dry, crisp at night from the frosts we had last week, warm and breezy by day. I decided that having a cool camera with a zoom lens isn't any good for me if I leave it at home, so I took it along with my in my boat. There are those who assert that I am far too accident prone for such risks. I turn my back on them. We came upon bald eagles on both our paddles. This one is part of a nesting pair we saw on the Turkey. Their next was a huge platform of sticks perched impossibly high up a dead cottonwood. I try to get the kayak going in the desired direction, then stow my paddle and pull out the camera, letting the boat drift closer as I hold still. One bird seemed to notice the rapid clicking of the shutter (or whatever it is on a digital camera), but they let me come quite close. We three busy middle aged men took some time out to paddle in the last of the warm autumn air. Northeast Iowa is a little secret I'd like to keep from the outside world.
















Mr. Schaal chose to fish during his paddle, with some gratifying results, including a stickle-backed carp sucker. I did not see this alleged fish, but Carroll was emphatic.



























Mr. Rainbow trout was no brooder, but would have presented nicely with crab stuffing.





















"Dad takes pictures of flowers," my son sighs. I had to include these photos for him. There are small pieces of beauty in these extravagant late-fall landscapes. Turn the great big lens at the bank and single out a plant.











You don't have to be flashy to be beautiful. Life at stream side is the envy of any terrarium.


The Yellow River was very shallow and had numerous riffles and rapids. One of us dunked, and I won't say who (hint: my camera is dry).











We broke it up Sunday afternoon after a magnificent run on the Yellow River. We ate braunshweiger sandwiches with an old biker dude that Geof picked up. We helped him get his bike on his trailer and next thing you know Geof is consulting with him, invited him to lunch and a beer. I know it must have been an attempt to give back some of the mountainous karma with which we have been blessed. Three relaxed middle aged guys finished their sandwiches, packed our cars, and drove back to our lives.

Not quite all the way back . . . .

Dog look

Here's to the last warm morning. Weathermen all over Iowa wax philosophical about the last day of what used to be called Indian Summer. Sunny and clear with a deep blue sky as pure as a Mormon heart.

Maggie discovered burrs the other day. I discovered that she photographs well against sunny concrete.

It's going to be a long cold snowy winter. Smudge a little good karma on the people you love. Cut some slack.

When all else fails, give 'em the "crazy dog look."

Salt of the Earth

It was a whirlwind of a week with my mother sitting confused but tolerant in the middle of it all. On Monday, with the help of Hospice staff and Special K Transportation, we moved Mom into her new, final home at a nursing care facility in near-north Cedar Rapids. Near-north because the last place was so far north that the weather got colder on the way there. Mom stuck her tongue out at the memory care staff who seemed genuinely sad to see her go. The nursing home staff were welcoming and professional. Everyone seems to have worked there for twenty years or more. Watch out for places with lots of turnover on the nursing staff. You're likely to find grandpa on the floor.

My intrepid friend Jeff, who has helped me with every Mom related move since this saga began, helped me clear out Mom's room in a day. I asked Kim, the admissions director, who seemed to be in a hurry to go home, how long we had to move out. She said "It depends on how many days you want to pay for." And don't let the screen door hit you in the wheelchair on the way out.

We got all the stuff out in one day. It's once again sitting in my side of the garage, where all good things rest on the way to where they eventually go. Not sure of what to do with something? Come and put it in my side of the garage! It was good to get it all done, but it meant that I didn't get clothes put away or pictures up in Mom's new room. I guess it's all about real estate. I wanted to ask Kim if I was going to get dinged for the full price of the room, since there would be no actual care involved. I wanted to ask her to jump up my ass, if you want to know the truth. I composed a magnificent poison pen letter on my way home. In the end, I did none of those things, figuring I need all the good karma I can get. Kim will no doubt contract herpes soon.

I really like the nursing home. That says something about me right there. I can now really like a nursing home. Although it's filled with people in various stages of decay, many of whom droop and snooze, the staff are courteous and caring and have been very helpful and understanding. There's a sense of purpose there.

I also talked to our attorney, Jean, about setting up a trust for Mom. She has a steady and tidy income which will continue until she dies and won't run out. This would seem ideal, except that it doesn't cover the cost of her care. Normally a person would "spend down" and then Medicaid would take over.

Let's take a moment and think about what a neat expression "spend down" is. It sounds like we are losing unnecessary weight, or cleaning up something excessive. What it means is that you have depleted every cent of your personal assets and are now indigent for all practical purposes. What a society we have! My mother taught the most disturbed kids in Wichita for twelve years. Then she began to work as a grant writer and program developer for Cerebral Palsy Research in Wichita, where, in her first year (1978) she landed two million dollars in funding. She founded the Independent Living Center for brain injured people. She was an advocate for the disabled. She started the Women's Equality Coalition and Women Art/Women Fair to promote female artists in the community. Now she will spend down.

The trust will reimburse Medicaid for all payable expenses and allow her to use her income for her own support. It's called a Miller Trust and thank God we found it, or I'd be paying for college and nursing care at the same time. Points for the staff of the nursing home, who turned me on to it, and for Jean, who is all over it.

Finally, on Thursday, to complete the "mortality tour," I sat down with Ken, a funeral pre-planner, to work out Mom's final arrangements. I chose a mortuary that used to hire our band on a regular basis. They had us set up in the parking lot behind the building, under the shade of some big trees, and play for the neighbors and whoever came by. They called it a "Celebration of Life." We called it "Opening for the Dead." Michael, the owner, is a very nice man active in local causes, and since he's given me some money and support it seemed fair to have him handle Mom's final business.

Our friend Diana went to this place to handle her parents' arrangements and came away enraged at the expense. I always suspected she was more universally enraged at the time, but I girded my loins nonetheless. Ken was a very nice man, actually, a fan of the band. I let him know what our thinking was: cremation, no viewing, graveside service, burial at the Old Welsh Cemetery near Aunt Joan, memorial service in Wichita at a later date.

Ken was very helpful. We found a very cool biodegradable urn (made of salt). Ken said it was so new it didn't have a name. Michael goes out and finds cool burial accouterments and brings them back. Everything gets a name. The cardboard casket made solely for cremation even has one (the Phoenix). Ken made up a name for the new urn, which was an orangish pink. "How about 'Salt of the Earth'?" I smiled. There's probably not a lot of room for creativity in the pre-planning business.

There was even a cool wicker casket that Mom would have loved, but since she's being cremated without a viewing it didn't make much sense. I could have gotten a cool biodegradable cardboard urn, but I liked Salt of the Earth and I didn't want the whole arrangement to be cardboard. I gave Ken the number for my contact at the Old Welsh Cemetery and left.

I took the rest of Thursday off. As I drove north, I felt the old familiar gloom descending, my old friend, faithful and true, accompanying us through this long journey. I busied myself buying a ridiculously expensive carpet steamer. Robyn came home and pointed out that it was way too expensive and not what she had in mind. I yelled at her to do whatever she wanted with it, that I was through making arrangements. I did not yell all the other angry things I thought, nor did I blame her, although I really wanted to. I went to my room and went to bed. Sometimes having done what we must, there is nothing left to say, nothing good anyway. In truth, I am not angry about carpet steamers or even about Robyn. I'm angry about the decay and demise of my parents, the robbery, at genetic gunpoint, of their old age, their absence in my life, my children's lives. I'm angry about all these things about which there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to do. I'm angry that I've had to grieve now for more than fifteen years, each and every day. I'm angry at myself for not somehow being a better son, whatever that would mean.

A long night's sleep helped. Friday, yesterday, was a good day through which I puttered with little ambition. Today I will hang some pictures in my Mom's room, make sure her clothes are marked with her name. I'll make sure the handful of belongings she retains in her room are properly arranged, deck chairs on the Titanic, to the tune of a fiddle while Rome slowly burns.

Entropy affects all of us. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, just sorry. I'm left with choices: grief and anger, reasonable carrying-on, attempts at feeling peace with it all. . . . I suppose I feel all those things at once. Mom's not hurting now. For her the worst is over. She's no longer counting her losses. I count them for her and remember who she was, a fierce, loyal, intelligent, independent woman of great worth.

Do not go gently into that good night
But rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Personal record

Robyn and I went to Walker's Invitational Cross Country Meet yesterday. Walker's a junior varsity guy, but the varsity team is ranked number on in the state. It was easy to see why. In a field of 300 or so ripped young men, Prairie runners finished in the top 30 or 35. They won the meet, which by all accounts was very fast. Walker, who has grown legs over the summer, knocked a minute and a half off his personal record for this event. His goal was a sub-20 time and he finished at 18:51. He was surprised, and in true cross-country tradition, vomited nicely at the finish line.

Cross country is a great sport. The kids seem more laid back and are great sports for the most part. I'm still amused by the long lines of young men and women, in grand physical condition, lining up at the porta-potties for their pre-game dumps. Wouldn't want to get to mile eight and have to poop down your own leg. These ordinarily self-conscious young men and women all stand in line together as though they are in the return line at Best Buy. I like that the kids compete against their own previous times (at least on our team) and encourage each other, regardless of how they finish. Walker finished well but did not medal or (I think) score for the team (which took second), but his friends were excited at the dramatic improvement in his time. They all embrace suffering and pain and personal accomplishment. Then, of course, they come home and neglect taking out the garbage. Some generalization of values will surely ensue at some point in time.

I made the final arrangements to move Mom into what seems like a very good nursing facility last week. As I finished the arrangements Friday afternoon, I felt a wave of sadness. When we moved Mom into her current facility - Memory Care - she asked "How long will I have to stay here?" I lied. "I don't know, Mom." The answer, it turns out, is "until you need a nursing home."

Choosing a home can be depressing, to say the least. My point of view has certainly changed, though. I remember being appalled when I visited my Aunt Joan at all the sleeping folks seemingly abandoned in their chairs and in hallways, folks sitting gazing off into nowhere, or sitting in front of televisions in congregate areas noticing little or nothing. I didn't want to think about Mom being one of those people. She is, now, of course, one of those people. They are doing the best they can with what remains of their gray matter, conversing or responding with great effort and then resting, nodding off, gathering wool until called upon to interact again, with great effort. We have found a clean, quiet place full of people who seem kind and knowlegable. Mom will have a room-mate who, like her, needs a quiet place, a radio, some classical music.

Although my first instinct in the face of these things is to purchase and consume expensive and tasty single malt scotch, I have not done so. Nor have I made the pitcher of martinis for which the situation seems to call. I drove down in the rain and saw a client, a woman of some significant insight whose lot seems to be improving. I came home and talked with my daughter who, bored and with a very sore ankle, came home for the night at my invitation. I vacuumed up a lot of puppy hair. It's falling off Maggie in great patches, carpeting our rugs with mismatched fiber. I watched our over-rated football team fall prey to hungry underdogs. Beware the hungry underdog.

I often introduce my young clients to the concept of struggle. Most of them have had to struggle mightily. They see their struggle as an exception. Their future is filled with satisfaction, to which they are no doubt entitled, punctuated by occasional hard times, which they don't really deserve. Why do bad things happen to good people?

I try to tell them that struggle is the known constant. Our lives are full of effort to understand, to cope, hoping to overcome. We struggle for things we believe in, for our truths, our values, for the people and ideas we love, or we struggle to no end, for no palpable reason, to pretend that things are in fact "okay." One way or another, day after day, we push the rock up the hill. I encourage my young charges to find passion, to think about what they believe, to pursue what fascinates them. Struggling for something one believes in, struggling to match our erratic behavior to something resembling our personal values, feels to me more worthwhile, even if I often fail, than struggling for what feels like no good reason.

This is a fine recipe, but the dish is hard to execute. One can blithely turn up the volume on one's own hypocrisy, in front of one or more witnesses, and not see the clarity of one's own delusion. Age does not improve us in this respect. Awareness is a fleeting thing - often appearing only in the rear view mirror, on the embarrassing video tape of memory - in the remonstrations of a close friend, a son, a spouse.

We make coffee and watch the sun rise. We make plans for the day. We think back on what's done, think forward toward what we intend.

Tomorrow, moving day, is all arranged. Mom's current care givers have cut her hair stylishly short and will dress her neatly. Hospice has given me the name of a service which specializes in the smooth transport of the elderly in wheelchairs. Mom's next care givers, specialized in the "next level" of her need, await her arrival. They are prepared to get to know her, to find the spark of preference and desire left between her befuddled and tortured neurons and to make her comfortable.

All I want is a room somewhere
Far away from the cold night air
With one enormous chair . . . .