Day Three, Living till Dying

Coping Strategies

Before...with my reflection of the trees outside my windows - in my newer larger glasses.

After shower and hair wash...still drying. Wearing my last year's glasses because I'm about to nebulize, and I've found a film that  comes out of the sodium (salty) fog that the nebulizer makes seems to eat away at the "expensive protective anti-scratch film" on the glasses. I've already used the "one year guarantee" on the glasses to get them replaced once, so I'm again coping with things the best way I can.

I also open the windows and turn on the air handler on constant fan, and still my little air purifier turns its lighted signals to cautionary levels. It usually clears out faster if I open windows on opposite sides of the apartment to get an air flow. It does need my adapting to different temperatures outside also.

How do I feel about pushing myself to use the shower yesterday?

Not thrilled at all the resulting coping strategies I'm dealing with.

I see how much of my life is coping and being glad to be resourceful enough to do so. Gratitude for that.  Felt cold after the shower, and the day was colder with nighttime lows forecast to be in 40s, while Saturday night is due to get into 30s F.

Emotional? Not much feeling. Some personal satisfaction at an accomplishment. But also some determination to push myself forward for continued progress. Baby steps!

Baby Steps as a phrase comes from Bill Murray in the movie What About Bob. Richard Dryfus too. Funny flick!

Living till Dying Day Two

 It's the First of May...

I catch echoes of a tune from "Camelot" which a blogger used to post every year. She was called HecateDemeter. I miss her posts.

Today I added this quote to my regular blog about May Day.

We are bodies. We do not have bodies... If all our ‘inputs’ are visual and textual, and all we touch is frictionless surfaces, and if we have not reinstated the rich and varied physical life that lockdowns and contemporary electronic habits have stolen from us, then we will, very simply, be somewhat ill. One birth right of humans is a place in the ongoing physical life of earth. Without it, we are without context, (literally - not in the fabric), sullen, and prone to dubious medications peddled by the Machine.

Am I asking you to roll on the ground in the sunshine or push your faces into the hands of willing friends? Well, that would be a good start, as it would deliver a life-enhancing dose of the a vitamin we are mostly all deficient in - foolishness. Pioneers such as Moshe Feldenkrais and Thomas Hanna based their lives' work on returning people to natural movement. I would encourage us all to urgently attend to the state of our tactile lives, to touching and being touched, to feeling things under our hands and feet that are not manmade.

SOURCE: 

A Low Slanting Ray - Antidotes to the Hubriscene part 4, from the archive

by
Uncivil Savant <carolineross@substack.com>

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I post it again here after reading some blogs and making some comments. I need to get up and away from the computer soon. But it's definitely addictive to me.

Self-care is my mantra today.

I keep giving all the details of my current health on blogs, and am so grateful to have a supportive community here, but I think I'm failing myself. I'm not doing the care that I should, and I wonder how much that contributes to poor health.

Not just eating right....but also

Taking long hot soapy showers or baths.

Skin care.

Dental care.

Hair care.

Digestive care.

Household upkeep

Doing laundry.

Changing the sheets on the bed.

Doing dishes.

Making phone calls regarding medical care

Going to appointments (I'm pretty good about this!)

Car upkeep!

Exercise! Oh my yes...getting myself to just DO SOMETHING!

OK, that's the laundry list of where I know I'm not doing as much as I know how, as much as minimally is needed to be healthy. NOBODY else is responsible for these actions.

So maybe each day of my recovery should have just one of these as the focus. I know I am unable to accomplish all of them daily...even weekly! 

So I lean back into my bag of counseling tricks. What is in my way? 

Not laziness and procrastination...because they are constants about everything except a few bodily functions that break through and I do pay attention to them. 

Denial? Perhaps. Like the one about dying eventually and have I done anything/everything I can before then? I'm writing here as a step in that direction!

I do have a mental barrier about lots of these things...psychologically I mean. The first thing listed is showering, and I do minimal daily cleaning of my body. But getting into the shower has become rare. 

A big part is the evidence that shower leads to wetness in the bathroom, which leads to mold inside the walls, window frame tracks, and the drains. I am so afraid of mold these days. It's a big thing, and I'm avoiding it by not showering at all. I do so weekly so my hair gets a good washing. And then pay attention to drying off the areas in the room that I can. I have 2 fans I use (the ceiling one, and a portable one on the floor.) The maintenance man put a little pot of white and yellow beads on the floor that's supposed to absorb dampness. The dampness is under the floor and behind the fiber-glass shower unit...and gets worse after rainy days. Of course having high humidity each night doesn't help dry the building out.

I just remembered, I have an appointment to have a haircut (with hair wash included) next Wednesday. Shucks, I'm not going to go that long without washing my hair. So today it's full blown shower. And focus on drying the room out afterward. 

Sorry if this is way too much information about rather mundane private stuff. But this is what I'm trying to change in my life, and I make these kinds of attempts to change ever so slowly...just like how long did it take for me to stop having daily showers? It was very gradual. And it has probably been supported by being able to read blogs first thing with my coffee...rather than shivering to dress afterward, and doing all those demanding routines for drying off the room. As the apartment warmed up, I could easily go get cleaned up and dressed after an hour or two...and the easiest way was what my mother called "spit baths" or harking back to using warm water in the basin and washcloth (washrag would be mother's term) with soap. I could dry off in no time, and be dressed.

I want to keep track of my acknowledging this as something needing my attention. This is my baby step today.

Living till Dying, Day One

 I was thinking nobody knows when they're going to die.

At least those who aren't suicidal or those who have euthanasia legal where they live...

So mainly I am thinking about myself. And I'm not depressed.

So I posted this the other day (after being totally frustrated by the health insurance industry!)

About 20 minutes ago I gave up trying to take a nap. I started my thoughts as to what I'd next do with lots of things I've let lapse lately. Then I thought of writing a blog post saying this was Dying Day One. Who knows how long it will go...conceivably until I am no longer.

It seemed an interesting proposition. Rather than counting down, let's count up. Maybe I'll get to 99 days, or 999, or maybe...well, it's going to be till I get bored and say so, or am unable to do whatever is necessary to post about a day.

I realized I write almost every day about myself anyway. And there are actually a few people who read and comment on my posts. I often wonder if they have busy lives, or get as much out of our little connections here as I do. They do write about trips, gardening, selling, working sometimes though not much, creating things sometimes, having relationships with friends and families, and their own health challenges.

I don't have much except getting sick, getting treatments, getting well, it seems. And a few photos around my life, sometimes flowers.

Boring.

I may not even make a post on this topic daily. Who knows what I'll feel like tomorrow.

But I do have today (as many sage people have said, that's all we ever have.)

Today I'm thinking of rehab. I have plenty of resources for doing a bit physically (from videos). I've requested an order for pulmonary rehab from the PA who I saw last Monday...in case insurance might foot the bill for me to go and work out at the rehab gym in Asheville which I've done before. We shall see.

In the meantime I looked up the Feldenkrais videos which are from 3 years ago when I tried taking classes (and paid for them) but ended up with a bout of pneumonia interrupting them. So I don't think I benefited as much as I wished I had. I just found 3 available, out of what were around 8-10 classes. But it's a start to do easy movements that help me feel  better.

I also opened the Ornish exercises which were my cardio rehab from 6 years ago. The suggestion of a plant based low fat diet is under consideration still. I slipped back into my old ways after about a year of trying to go with that diet. And when recovering from a hospitalization (like I currently am) I tend to want easy to prepare things that won't mess up the kitchen.

 I was thrilled to drive through various fast food places about once a week. as soon as I felt safe to drive. And I paid extra for things that were better than frozen dinners at the grocery, purchasing portions of catered type dishes. Plus for some reason this time my insurance offered me free meals, which were delivered earlier this week. They are minimal, but the ease of popping something in the microwave means I definitely don't have to stand and prep veggies or cook at the stove.

Another day to count, this is 3 weeks after discharge from hospital...and supposedly 5 days there means 5 weeks feeling that I haven't yet caught up with my life again.

I also have to make myself re-habituate myself to doing some ordinary things, there are some things that I just have to push myself to do, among them are self-care. Coming out of the hospital means taking full responsibility for my life again.

So I've scheduled a haircut next week.

Enough for living/dying today.

Considering what Rob said

 Dearest friend, Robertson Work, quoted Rumi as follows:

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion. We came whirling out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust . . . The stars made a circle, and in the middle, we dance."

Robertson writes on Substack. He is one of the most intelligent people I've ever known, or studied.

Here it is: https://robertsonwork.substack.com/p/being-and-doing-in-mystery-and-ecstacy

I'm pretty awestruck to find my name among those he mentioned as being part of his circles of those who affirmed and enabled his work. I admit to being a friend and neighbor, as well  as agreeing with much of what he says. He is the influencer, not me!

I'm particularly struck in this essay by his use of "reframing" to bring negative feelings into more positive possibilities.

I hope you get a chance to go glance at this relatively short paper (substack.)

Our computer lives

 There’s an old joke that goes like this: A bunch of scientists created a huge machine capable of complex calculations and called it UNIVAC. Eager to test their invention, they asked it, “Is there a God?”The vacuum tubes hummed and the tape spools spun for several minutes. Finally, the machine spit out a little card, on which was written, “THERE IS NOW.” On March 31 in 1951, the Remington Rand Corporation signed a contract to deliver the first UNIVAC computer to the U.S. Census Bureau. UNIVAC I (which stands for Universal Automatic Computer) took up 350 square feet of floor space — about the size of a one-car garage — and was the first American commercial computer. It was designed for the rapid and relatively simple arithmetic calculation of numbers needed by businesses, rather than the complex calculations required of the sciences. It was intended to compete against IBM’s punch card-reading computers, but UNIVAC read magnetic tapes, not punch cards, so a special “card to tape converter” had to be designed.

Though the government contract was signed, and a ceremony held, on March 31, the computer wasn’t actually delivered until the following December; this was because there was only one UNIVAC I, and Remington Rand wanted to use it for demonstration purposes. So they asked for and received time to build a second computer.

The government was the first big customer of the UNIVACs, with subsequent models going to the Air Force, the Army Map Service, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Navy. The first commercial sale was to General Electric, for their Appliance Division, followed soon after by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, in 1954. There were 46 UNIVAC I’s built and delivered, in all.

The computer first came to the notice of the general public in 1952, when CBS used one to predict the outcome of the presidential election. UNIVAC correctly picked Eisenhower and predicted his electoral count within 1 percent, but the network didn’t release the results until after the election was called, so as not to affect the outcome. 

Thanks Writer's Almanac

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My ex-husband was one of the first insurance employees writing code for computers, at Traveler's Insurance in 1964. He was first a Computer Programmer then called a System's Analyst most of his career. That was just 14 years after that first big ole computer was developed and went into use. 

Time has certainly squeezed along at a faster pace since then. I borrowed a word processor from him in the 1980s when I was in grad school. He had some of the first Apple computers in his home, and as he upgraded, sometimes I could receive the older models. Thus I had an Apple IIe for a while, but never had some of the other models, which went to our sons.

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Today I put energy into writing blogs (and replying to comments) when I have all this precious time as a retiree. And I give myself a daily mantra, "I use the screens, they don't own me."

 So many of us (me included) spend each moment gazing at our phones, games, TV's and computers. But they are just tools. I am so grateful to have all of these, but also need to remind myself of the wonders of nature! Yes, even if I don't go barefoot these days, yesterday I walked across a large grassy area, and was so happy to feel the earth as it had different softness and angles with each footstep.

Black Mountain Golf course Nov. 10, 2013. My photo.

Life is all meditation

 First, state of mind this morning is contemplative. 

So the body follows. Or perhaps as its housing, it provides the ground upon which the meditation might arise.

Each step as I go to the kitchen to prepare the espresso and Americano which follows. The heel hits the floor, then foot rolls forward onto ball of the foot, finally bending the toes as it lifts to move my weight forward. Turning is no longer on my toes as it once was. Now I purposefully turn heelward, keeping my balance more easily. Fall prevention that wasn’t taught, but arrived organically, much as this wonderful opportunity to be aware.

The sip of coffee surprises me just now, a different taste from the first cup which was flavored artificially with French vanilla creamer. Now it’s just got honey to sweeten the caffeine. I like how honey remains in my mouth after I swallow…a taste that makes me salivate.

Do you ever have moments like these, of tiny awarenesses of life? For me to stop and know like this is rare, and to capture these feelings, observations, even rarer still.

The room is mostly dark. The photo makes it look like daylight, but it’s actually pre-dawn. There is a new device on the floor by my bed, the blue buddy of an oxygen generating machine. It gave me my first night on O2 which was pretty good. I didn’t feel all that different when I woke, except a bit light headed…my feet felt further from my head kind of. But I move slowly so knew I was ok.

Feeling much appreciation for bloggers today. I’ve read a few of my familiar friend’s statements from last night and early morning. There are all these interesting people, mostly without names or faces, who share their lives with strangers. And those then comment about their doings. That’s it for most of them. I and just a few will read those comments and make a reply to them…thus a very short conversation.

But these conversations, 2 statements on some subject or another, then provide interest beyond the original paragraphs…which next readers can then also comment upon. And this has created a new conversation. A small community of friendly people.

I do love this new creation which happens independently, with input from such diverse people. From all over the US, England, Germany, Scotland, Sweden, Canada (oh yes, several folks there!) and sometimes further away. I may read others, and sometimes comment, but there are few that have the time or inclination to push for the conversations. That’s ok. It’s still social media. And somehow nobody slams other’s ideas!

Of course this community of blog-friends all seem liberal minded and of similar political persuasions, and maybe even mostly of similar spiritual beliefs (or at least tolerant of others!) No MAGA are welcome here. And we support each other in confirming our strengths and frailties. After all that’s what friendship is all about.

It’s a neighborhood on the internet.

On the concept of peace

Dougald Hine starts (and doesn't finish) talking about:

  a talk that Ivan Illich gave at the start of the 1980s in Japan about the culturally specific flavours of “peace” and how historians have preferred to dwell on the violence of the past than on its forms of peace. He brings in a distinction from Ishida Takeshi between the peace of the centre (“peace-keeping”, “peace-making”) and the peace of the margin, where people’s hope is to be “left in peace”. And he offers this thought about what we are usually talking about nowadays when we use the language of peace:

Paradoxically, peace was turned into an academic subject just when it had been reduced to a balance between sovereign, economic powers acting under the assumption of scarcity. Thus study is restricted to research on the least violent truce between competitors locked into a zero sum game. Like searchlights, the concepts of this research focus on scarcities. And they permit the discovery of unequal distributions of scarcity. But in the process of such research, the peaceful enjoyment of that which is not scarce, people’s peace, is left in a zone of deep shadow.

It is hard to bring into view what Illich is trying to speak of when he says that the past includes “the peaceful enjoyment of that which is not scarce”. We’re so saturated in a story of original scarcity, there’s something here that doesn’t compute.

Then Hine quotes an hour discussion with a student of Illich's which is difficult for me to understand...but I will try again later.

I like being pushed to understand more about peace.

Inner peace has been so much the focus in my life, due to the incredible disruptions in our world these days. It's a survival technique I'm sure.

Just wanted to share this, as these are thoughts of a stream of ongoing considerations.