Calling My Name

I haven't been in Chicago in the Summer in years. I went back this past weekend for a family gathering. The weather was warmer than I'm used to and a bit more humid than I'm used to, but very pleasant for Chicago. I stayed with my brother and sister-in-law and was able to bring the dogs with me. I saw aunts, an uncle and cousins I haven't seen in a long, long while.

Sunday afternoon I wandered around Andersonville with my good friend, Carolyn. Joggers, bikers and skaters were everywhere (i.e., lot of eye candy). Folks were hanging out in coffee houses, cafes, and bars. It was all very seductive. My tendency to imagine a new life in a new place started to kick in and the city was quietly calling my name.

For the first time I wasn't overly anxious to hit the road to come home. I think I could have stayed another few days and fallen even deeper under this spell. Thankfully, as I crossed the Menominee River and came home to the Upper Peninsula, my motivation for living here snapped back front and center.

I started to think about affirmation though, and it continued even until I drifted off to sleep back in my own bed last night. I think we all seek affirmation in the lives we have chosen for ourselves. We are always tempted by the other roads we might have taken, by the other choices are families would have made for us if given the power, how green is the grass on the other side? Perhaps this is the insecurity from which my vacation musings spring from.

I think one of the best and certainly most memorable affirmations I received came from an old friend who came to visit me here in the U.P. He told me how much he admired what I had done. I really didn't quite grasp what he meant and asked him to clarify. He said that he admired that I had the courage to completely uproot my life and move to a new local - to follow my heart and take that chance. Until that moment I hadn't really thought about my decision in quite that way. Most of the feedback I had received questioned my decision to relocate to such a dramatically different place.

Lately I've been in a difficult emotional place. Nothing seems to fit comfortably these days - my home, my job, my relationships, my body. The opportunities for genuine affirmation are very few and far between. Perhaps it's wrong to expect it from our loved ones. Perhaps they don't affirm where we are in our lives, perhaps they don't understand and are left baffled and bewildered by the choices we have made. Even so, I think we still need to hear words like my father's from the day we had our big discussion about my "lifestyle choice." He said, "I don't understand it, but I love you, you're my son." Maybe that's really all we need to hear from our loved ones.

(apparent non sequitur warning!)

I am the representative payee for a developmentally delayed, schizophrenic woman. Unfortunately my image/voice is also one of her regular hallucinations. This becomes problematic because she communicates with the hallucination and I am left out of the loop, as it were. Yet she thinks that the communication channel is working just fine.

I think that this blog creates a similar circumstance. For example, as I have struggled with my new diabetes diagnosis, I have regularly blogged about it here. Folks have kept up with me by reading this blog, yet their interest and concern are invisible to me. It's as if they've connected with the hallucination, not with me.

It's got me wondering about what other areas of our lives, what other faulty means of communication leave us thinking that we've communicated the message: "I don't understand, but I love you," when in fact the message never arrives to the actual person. It's puzzling, isn't it? In this age of widening communication opportunities, real connection seem harder and harder to come by.

Peace all.

I Just Can't Seem To Make It Through July

Well, today is July 22nd and I have officially started to wish for the change of season. It was about this time last year too. I had an awesome sauna this evening--about 200 degrees. I'm sitting here reading an Alice Munro novella in the current issue of Harpers. I have a Bartok viola concerto playing in the background. I realized that what would make me so happy would be that it was 40 degrees outside with a moderate rain beating on the roof and a fire going in the wood stove.

I can't help it. I'm not a summer person. I'm an Autumn/Winter person. Mother Nature can keep her insects and humidity and late night sunsets and too early sunrises. I'm done for another year and now will have to patiently wait while the next 6-8 weeks pass.

I'll be on my way to Chicago this weekend. My folks are hosting their annual Shell Family Picnic. I haven't been down for one yet. I'll be staying at my brother and sister-in-law's house with the dogs. Today was the first day of a week off from work.

The diabetes is still there - I REALLY was hoping it would just disappear, you know. My 14 day averages are good - at around 110. My bigger complaint is a worsening bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome. The pain, weakness and numbness is becoming challenging. I saw my primary care doctor today and he believes it is related to the diabetes and sent me off to see a rehab physician. I walked through three doctors' offices today and realized that this is how it begins--the slippery slope to decrepitude.

I have this huge urge to uproot and move - I think it is simply a desire to run away and escape. Thankfully I love my house too much to do that to myself. Well, time to go back and curl up in bed with the pups and finish reading the story in the magazine.

Them!

Ok, first off I have to say - what the hell is she wearing? Now that that is out of my system, I can go on with my post. For the last 24 hours I have been waging war against an invasion. Yes, my quiet cabin in the woods has been invaded by ANTS!!!!

Armed with nothing more than my trusty vacuum cleaner I have been sucking up the bastards by the dozens. I may need to go out for reinforcements from the local hardware store. It seems these little buggers mean business.

All my intensive web research suggests that they are on a mission for food and that their nest has likely been disturbed. I don't recall seeing any ants in the colder weather and this has sprung up slowly this summer with this massive influx in the past day or so. According to the sites then I don't have a nest - just a whole bunch of seekers looking for a crash pad.

Curiously when I woke up this morning, at least 2/3 of them were dead. Perhaps I'm being invaded by an on going ant war between two colonies? The dramatic potential is almost novel worthy, eh? As I sit here typing I see two more of the buggers. I wish I knew where they are coming from. It's almost as if they erupt from the carpet intact.

Actually I have located at least one and maybe two window frames where they appear to be gaining entrance. I will shortly do a perimeter check of the house. Do you think a flame thrower is too over the top? I hate bugs - mostly mosquitoes but the ants are taking a close second place this summer. Grrrrrrrr.

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa!

Sometimes I simply can't believe myself. My body continues to respond very well to the medication. My 14 day average is now 110! I have not needed to take any Regular insulin during the day and have begun to slowly decrease the amount of Lantus insulin (long acting) that I take at night - right now at 34 units. (Remember the doc thought I would need well over 50 units a night) I haven't even gotten to the full dose of the glucophage yet as it takes time to get one's body used to the drug.

I am not feeling particularly deprived with what I'm eating. I've even began to put sugar back into my coffee again, albeit a smaller amount. I am beginning to take walks, but by no means daily, and, yet, my pants are beginning to loosen up a bit. I'm no longer out of breath by the time I get to my office in the morning.

So what is wrong with this picture you may ask? I am feeling guilty. Just when you least expect it, the guilt starts to creep back in. I'm feeling guilty because I feel like this is too easy. I started to blog about this to share my experiences and now I feel a bit like a fraud because it's only three weeks into this thing and my response has been phenomenal. I am so neurotic - I just can't believe myself.

Yes, I am completely aware of how silly this is. Once again, I'm not sharing this for strokes, but thank you anyway for all the love, prayers, and concern. I am aware that much of what I suspected appears to be proving true. For example, this was a very early diagnosis thanks to my body's unusual response to the glucose toxicity (I still think it might also have been that huge batch of homemade pierogis that I polished off the weekend before my peak sugar--so perhaps I have to thank pierogis for my early diagnosis). I was well aware that my diet was not the typical heavy sugar/heavy carb diet that typically leads up to diabetes. I also knew that my couch potato lifestyle was my main risk factor in conjunction with my size and that if I started moving, the natural response to exercise might help kick my pancreas back into gear.

Guilt is a very bizarre emotional response. However, I once shared with my psychiatrist some of the thoughts that I was having that I was finding a bit scary. What he said was so important for my continued well being. The gyst of it was this - deep down my psyche wants me to feel bad. In order to accomplish that, in my case, my psyche has to get very clever. In order to short circuit my very rational brain that has done a phenomenal job of pushing aside most typical attacks - I know I am a good person, I know I am a good friend, I know I am a good brother...it put these thoughts into my head that I know are unacceptable. Are you following this?

Take, for example, suicidal ideation. The thoughts creep in - not because I really want to end things but because my intellectual brain will start to say, "Hey, buddy, you must be really f*cked up to be thinking that!," and then I start to feel bad (see original point - my psyche wants me to feel bad). Therefore, I will push through this "guilt" I'm having as yet another battle with my psyche.

I refuse to feel badly about this - I choose to celebrate my success and choose to be thankful that due to circumstances and good fortune my body is responding well to the medicine and my deliberate treatment program that I am responsible for enacting. My heart does go out to those folks out there who are doing everything correctly and still struggling with their illness. However, there sh*t is theirs and my sh*t is mine and there's no point in mingling the two just to make my psyche satisfied.

Peace all.

With A Nod To Andy Rooney

Did ya ever have one of those days where...

(Warning: apparent non sequitur that will make sense eventually)

Good buddy Maria posted this bit about Heaven and this was my comment:

"For me heaven will be leaving an isolated existence as a single "human" and rejoining the font of energy of which we are a mere small portion. This being created around this body of cells will no longer be, and instead will be like a bucket of water poured back into the ocean. Hell would be an eternity as an isolated spirit - kept apart from the God energy that is love."

I strongly believe in the connection that unifies us - my blog quote from Amy Tan: "The world is not a place, but the vastness of the soul" - this unifying force is love - God is love. I don't mean romantic love or the filial love we have between parents and children. It is a genuine compassion for humanity - even the briefest moment of understanding between strangers waiting for a bus in the rain.

On a day like today I am more sensitive to being separated from the source of all that is love. This is different then being lonely, though I believe many people experience this as being "lonely." They then place themselves into a crowd or grab some friends or visit their children to alleviate the ache. Others may begin cleaning and organizing, jogging, or turn to the bottle. We so badly want the ache to go away.

The challenge of being human is that we are isolated individuals. If we are fortunate we manage to find a few other individuals who come close to truly understanding the being existing in the cells that form our physical bodies. Even then, however, there are times when we still feel the isolation. Many many others live out our lives feeling that we are not really understood by any of our loved ones.

Over time this isolation we all experience can undermine important relationships in our lives. These relationships seem failed because the other one still doesn't seem to "get" what we're about. Spouses drift apart, siblings never talk or visit, friends move off down different paths. We are not aware that we are all reacting to this isolation of our physical existence.

My brother's going to think I've found some funky mushrooms again in the woods. I suppose I am a bit of a mystic. I sat down to find a way to blog about my mood today - my lost sense of balance and this is what ended up in print.

When you are normally comfortable in solitude and actively seek out the peace and quiet, but have days like today that still ache - it is easier to sense this is different than loneliness. It is a beautiful day - low 60's, sunny, light breeze, few bugs. The dogs are in and out and romping. The beauty of my location cannot be adequately described on this blog. Filtered sunlight through the green maples. I know that I am blessed and yet I ache for God.

I hope that this ramble makes some sense. I didn't want to put up a blog piece that said simply "I'm in a funky mood." I am very self-conscious of pathos. That is not my intention in sharing. Rather I hope to describe so that others may say - "Ah, yes, me too." Peace all.

Celebrating Independence

My cyber sister, Maria, inspired this post. She has a wonderful bit up on her blog Kirkepiscatoid about the Japanese Shindler. Clearly Sugihara was an independent thinker who saved many many Jews at great personal cost.

I first learned of this man when I visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. The museum is laid out in a timeline fashion so that as you move further into the museum you hit "bottom" as it were half way through with a railroad car display - from that point on the second half of the exhibit takes you out of the depths of the horror and ends with my favorite portion of the exhibit.

The governments of Europe claimed that there was nothing they could do in the face of the Nazi power but hand over there Jewish citizens. This final section of the museum debunks that argument. There is a Wall of Fame and Sugihara's story is included.

There also is a panel that tells the story of the people of Denmark. Denmark alone of all the occupied countries of Europe fought the deportation of their 8,000 Jewish citizens. The story is powerful. In the end, a German diplomat informed the Danish resistance of the impending deportation and the people of Denmark moved quickly. As a national community they transported their fellow Danes to Copenhagen and the coast where Danish fisherman ferried them to neutral Sweden.

In the end, 500 Jews were still deported to the camps. Yet all but 51 of these survived, in large part because the Danish government continued to pressure the Nazis with concerns for their deported citizens. Would that the other countries of Europe had done the same.

Of course, in my previous post I spoke about revisionist history - a modern version of that is that the Nazi's alone were responsible for the Holocaust. What is forgotten is that many of the countries gladly handed over their Jews - France in particular. Britain kept Jews from emigrating to Palastine. The U.S. severely restricted the number of Jews who could enter the country.

I like to think that if I ever am faced with such monstrous oppresion I would be a member of the resistance. I'd like to believe my home would have been part of the Underground Railroad. I'd like to believe I would have hidden Jewish children in my basement. Truth be told, I won't know really how I will react to blatant authoritarian destruction if it means my life will be in jeopardy. God willing I will never have to know.

On this Independence Day, raise a glass to independent heroes everywhere fighting tyranny and oppression.

Revisionist History

Every time I hear the words "revisionist history" I can't help wondering if it is really just redundant. Isn't history, that is to say the attempt to document past events for future generations, revisionist by nature? After all, "history is written by the victors." We like to assume that there is Truth - Absolute Truth - many of the readers of this blog assume that Truth is decidedly Democratic. Alas, there is no Absolute Truth ,and as humans we have been battling over that for centuries with each side in each conflict believing they have the handle on this mythic Truth.

Take today, for example, at least in the United States--the Fourth of July. Think of the history that is associated with this date. I don't mean a bunch of facts - Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence, America's birthday, and all that - I mean think about what you believe occurred some 230 years ago. What do you believe was the mindset on the "Colonial Street" as it were? We have a very revisionist picture of those times.

Did you know that at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence (which by the way took a bit longer to sign then just on July 4th, 1776) about 1/3 of the population was in favor of revolution, 1/3 was in favor of the crown, and 1/3 just wanted to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads and didn't really have an opinion. One third of the population was against the idea of revolution! Talk about red state/blue state!

So what is my point? I'll have to take a moment and think about it. I write these posts completely on the fly - moved by the Spirit. I think my point is about keeping a healthy perspective. I have often posted before about the importance of living in the now. Of course, when we live in the now culturally, we believe that we are living in "the best of times and worst of times."

Pious folk believe that our depravity is about to drag us under - not recognizing that more open dialogue about issues doesn't translate into more activity. Depravity has been around in all manner of activities for as long as humans have had sexual urges. We can't believe how biased Fox News is or how biased the New York Times is - and, yet, the term yellow journalism has been around for over 100 years.

We are saddened by what we see as increased divisiveness in the country - the red state/blue state mentality, and, yet, even 233 years ago there was significant difference of opinion over the revolution. The media plays up that "divisiveness" as well. In reality most of the regions of this country are purple - a mix of red and blue - and those red and blue neighbors manage to get along just fine in their day to day.

Peace all and Happy Independence Day! Remember to always think for yourself!