They do actually listen (sometimes)

I’ve been talking (preaching) to my son over the last few months about the concept of becoming responsible for his own well being.  This concept of personal responsibility covered the full gamut of life’s challenges ranging from healthy eating habits and exercise to assuming the responsibility for planning his education plans.  The raw form of present accomplishments along these lines was the typical teenage boy; immersed in his own world of me and now; get up, eat cereal, play on computer, call friend, play on computer, eat chips, play on computer, look for temporary job (3.8 minutes), play on computer…and so on.  He was graduating from high school and headed for college.  I pointed out to him that there was a reason that mail from his college was address to him and not “Parents of…”.   They are assuming that they are dealing with responsible adults (or at least they are going to force the issue).

Well, these various discussions seemed to go like the previous 1,392,456 had; in one wax laden ear and out the other (how’s it do that?)  However, to my pleasant surprise I have actually begun to see a gradual change.  He started making a list of things that had to be done and started keeping a calendar.  He announced a month ago that keeping track of his busy life required a Palm Pilot; well, so be it.  We got the gadget and he is actually using it.  We attended a local committee meeting in order to get permission to do his Eagle Scout project and low and behold he was sitting there taking notes on his PP, recording dates, names, and contact info.  Damn!, I thought, “this is all starting to come together”.

So, this morning I got a call from Wife, “do you know where Son is?”  “Noooo, why”, I responded.  “Well he left the house this morning without saying anything and the dentist office called and said he hadn’t shown up for his appointment”, Wife exclaimed with not too little panic in her voice.  I mean, after all, the possibilities of calamity were endless, broken down car, car wreck, girl friend (naw), or abduction by Taliban Freedom Fighters. “He’s supposed to be at work at 10:00.  At 10:00 I’ll call over and see if he showed up”, I said very calmly.  He’s working at a little company that is across the parking lot from my office, so I walked over a little after 10:00.  “Hey son”, I said in greeting.  “Hi dad”, he replied.  “You missed your dentist appointment this morning”, I said, trying to keep my tone very neutral.  “No, I didn’t”, he said with the obvious look of someone who has just pulled off a mild coupe.  “Dr. X’s (dentist) office called and said you didn’t show up”, I responded.  “Dr. X?  I went to Dr. Y (orthodontist)”, Son said with an instantaneous shift in facial expression to one of chagrin.

I just grinned to myself and thought, “Well, we’ve come a long way, we’ll just have to work on the pesky details later”.

The inability to come up with anything to write is an interesting study in itself.  I have sat several times over the last few weeks at the keyboard with the intention of jotting down some thoughts on some matter of interest, but haven’t been able to come up with anything.  One reason is that my mind seems to be in too big of a hurry, too unsettled to develop a complete idea… why, I don’t know.  It just is.  Another reason is that my mood is not in the right place.  I don’t have the thoughts screaming to get out.  I don’t have this deep sense of urgency to understand and express myself on a particular matter.  During the previous six months I was dealing with a number of intense personal trials that may have brought me to a heightened level of sensitivity.  Both prose and poem just sort of emerged in my mind and the challenge was to type fast enough to get the thoughts recorded before they faded away.  I can see this in my writing as some sentences seem to be singular statements of thoughts, only loosely related to the general thread.

I appreciate more and more the ability of those who can take, not only the more poignant events in our surroundings, but even the seemingly routine, every-day happenings and describe them in a detailed, interesting manner that causes the reader to mutter, “yes, yes I know exactly what you are saying, I felt exactly the same way…” (Faith comes to mind)  I have read some of Hemingway with one goal being to understand what makes this author’s works to be regarded so highly.  I read and read, all the while, trying to decipher the code, the technique that made this work a treasured masterpiece.  And it wasn’t until the end of two or three books that an understanding slowly emerged that it was not in the profoundness of great expression or extravagant revelation that the work found its value but rather in the subtlety.  I realized that the stories and the imagery had become a part of me without my awareness.  The power of great writing (in my humble opinion and purely for my own need to “figure-it-out”) is in the author’s ability to slowly, patiently create an image or character that will stick with you…like grandma’s oatmeal breakfast.

I would like to dabble a little with writing; sort of a recreational thing, personal growth thing, and outlet thing, when needed (learning to express a thought without using the “thing” thing).  But as I have found, it will probably be sporadic simply due to my moody nature.  I am going to end with a “scene” that I created as sort of an exercise in image creation. I hadn’t planned to include this when I started this blog (‘course Hemingway was the furthest thing from my mind when I started this blog) but, I thought it might be appropriate, given the direction that this blog sort of took on its own.

Survival and instincts

We stood still, staring at each other, neither knowing what should happen next.  Her wound did not detract from her beauty and her nakedness was enhanced by the dancing, glittering waters which flowed against her thighs.  I was in the river up to my knees and was having trouble standing in current.  She seemed at home in the icy mountain runoff.  The red sash lying on the bank with her camos identified her as one of them.  There was no doubt what must be done.  I leveled my rifle, taking aim at her heart.  She raised her hands slowly to show her intentions.  I paused for a moment, her bronze skin and the sexuality of the whole scene conjured absurd feelings and arousal.  I had never gotten used to fighting and killing women, but the enemy gave me no choice.  Some of their most ruthless and fierce fighters were women, women who had lived half their lives living and fighting in the jungle.  She was so beautiful.  She wore her nakedness without shame.  She looked neither frightened nor challenging.  The level stare of her eyes sought to tame the circumstance, to tame me.  I knew what I had to do…squeeze the trigger…kill her.  Every part of me wanted to rush to her and take her, plunge into the water and let the warmth of our bodies contrast against the icy waters.  Make love to her instead of destroy her.  Her weight shifted slightly towards the bank and I was shaken from my images.  I hesitated, willing her not to move, nervously aiming more intensely at her breast, making her feel my dilemma across the waters.  “Don’t move…don’t do it” I thought in panic.  “We can stand here and let the world go by with the water”, my mind raced.  She raised her leg in a motion to step towards the bank; the image of her weapon, lying half hidden amongst her clothes flooded my vision.  There are reactions that keep one alive in war.  Those that do not acquire these reactions die early, those that do, might live longer.   My finger squeezed and she was gone.   The water rushing past my leg took on the crimson hue of the deep jungle sunset.  A shadow flowed by beneath the surface, out of reach.  I crouched and scanned the bank for more enemy.

 

I have no idea what I am going to write about, so this may be short.  Faith pointed out that even since going into Xanga-retirement she has posted more often than me!  Well...well...so...ok, I just can't think of anything to write.  I feel like there should be some substance to what I write and there just doesn't seem to be anything bubbling forth recently.  I'm staying away from politics recently and don't feel up to tackling religion.  I don't want to constantly dwell on health issues and the teenage-son-mother/daughter-grandson part of my life is currently unremarkable unless, of course, you want to read a descriptive prose about the way grandson frowns while he's filling his diaper.   Ooops...saved by a call to a meeting (I think we're both saved from this blog)

Later!

Ok, in the tradition of my illustrious Xanhga coach, it's GAME Time!

Here's the deal:  Make a sentence with every third word being a color, such as:

You’re very yellow exclaimed the red faced competitor, green envious and black faced after white lightning flashed scarlet glimpses of purple rage.

I'm sure you can do better.  It's Friday afternoon and my brain is runnin' for the barn.

My son has his first semi-regular job now.  He is 17 1/2 years old and will graduate from high school in June.  He's working for a small electronics company that is owned by a friend of mine.  He is doing a lot of miscellaneous stuff ranging from clean up to soldering circuit boards.  He really likes it.  I can tell by the grin that escapes whenever he talks about it.  A big part of the trip for him is the adult, independance thing.  Knowing my friend, he is probably talking to son as he would any other adult;  give him a task, expect it to get done, enough direction without over-doing it.

In hind sight, I should have forced this several (maybe a couple) years ago.  I could run through all the reasons and rationals that were imposed for not requiring that my children get part time work during their high school years, but that just opens up room for debate and more rationalization.  And, that is not what is on my mind.  I am done with that part of child raising and I don't plan on writing another "how to" book for raising chidren, so I am just not going to bother my overloaded brain with determining what I "should" have done and telling the rest of you what you should do.  What I did want to reflect on (very briefly) is that this seems to be a pervasive part of parenting; lamenting over what was done and what could have been done better.  Those of us that are astute enough to realize this ahead of time, begin their fretting process early in the game, make well-devised plans for doing it "right", and then join the rest of us at the end of the cycle who are trying to identify the "if-onlies" that might have improved or at least changed the outcome.  Part of the question is, "what outcome are we after?".   Whenever I contemplate this issue or overhear conversations that focus on raising children I usually end up in the same state of indecisive confussion.  I think one of the missing links in the whole thought process is the variability in the the little mounds of clay that we are trying to mold into perfect human beans (this particular spelling error was an attempt at humor; how'd it work?).  Picture the new parent at the head of an inclined ramp.  At the bottom of the ramp is a number of slots which are numbered from 1 to 10.  The goal is to roll your little ball of a child down the ramp and have it end up in the number 10 slot which we have been told is the place to be.  Now, it's obvious that if you hold the ball just in the right place at the top of the ramp, take into account the compound angle of inclination, windage, etc.; you will be able to release the ball with just the right touch and watch as the little thing rolls down the ramp, straight into #10 slot.  The thing that most of us tend to not notice is that our little ball is shaped like a football, rather than a soccer ball.

I am going to blog whether or not I have anything to say.  I don’t want to be shunned for insufficient blogging.  Better to be shunned for insufficient content.

The company that I work for held its 30 year anniversary party last Friday.  It was a nicely done affair, representative of the personality of the company; diverse, eclectic, non-mainstream, etc.  The current CEO spoke and then the founder of the company spoke.  Both addressed the past and also the future, but in different ways.  The CEO spoke in specifics; accomplishments, humorous anecdotes, status of the business, and future possibilities.  The founder spoke in platitudes and visions, “if onlies” and “what ifs”.  The presentations from each seemed to mimic the role they have played in the evolution of this small, intellectual, ecologically and humanity focused company.

Without the person of vision this company would never have happened.  The founding invention would have been presented as a technical achievement (maybe even revelation) as a paper in some obscure conference; yielding the author some brief notoriety among his peers.  Passion is probably the key concept.  Even awareness of need, human condition, pending environmental disaster would not necessarily be enough motivation to drive one to chuck the relative security of academia and venture into the quagmire unknown of starting a private venture.  Passion is the key.  Passion is the only driving force that would make a professor of technocracy dive into the horrors of…eeeuuughh…hiring employees.  Indeed, if passion was the key ingredient, it sufficed to propel the company forward for twenty plus years through hundreds of business and technical setbacks and achievements.  At some time, however, it was inevitable that the company would need a different type of leadership.  I think this is quite common if not universal in technology based companies.  There are rare exceptions (Bill Gates/Microsoft come to mind) as with any rule of thumb, but I think the basic truisms that drive this evolutionary trend in entrepreneurism are quite transparent and obvious to the most casual observer.  As the business grows and the tentacles of responsibility and accountability spread ever wider area, the reins must pass from the inventor to the business-focused executive.   The altruism is still present but must be blended with corporate viability, market driven awareness.  One must depart from the comfortable notion that,  “if you build it, they will come” to the more realistic concept, “know your customers’ needs”.   When your goal is to save the world from itself, this can be untenable conflict.  The current CEO and leader appears to be able to strike a nice balance with the conflicting goals of making a business out of doing good.  Although, maybe…just maybe… he has been handed the golden egg on a silver platter.

Is it the current marketing and negotiating prowess that explains the company’s ever-improving fiscal outlook or is it that we have built “it” and “they” are starting to come?  Is the thirty year old vision of what the world would need starting to come to fruition?

These are rhetorical questions that popped into my head for my musings and are of little interest to anyone else.  Thanks for reading, I have blogged my way out of obscurity.

Lou passed away last night from acute liver failure (see my April 9 blog).  She died in her husband's arms.  I didn't know her personally, just through the posts that she and her husband made on the Lymphoma board.  Yet, through her simple posts, one could tell that she was one of those unique souls who one doesn't run across often.  I'm sure she will be deeply mourned and missed by her family and friends.  Her legacy to the rest of us, who were on the fringe of her community is one of strength, resolve, love, and wisdom.

Goodbye Lou.

Thanks for all of the notes of support.  They truly make a difference.  First round treatment went without a hitch and I'm feelin' goooooood.

The following excerpt comes from a post on a web bulletin board that is focused on Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.  I have been waiting for permission to post this on this Xanga site, not knowing that Lou was on a vacation.  The timing of her return and granting of permission could not have been timed better given the reflections of my last blog and a recent blog by Lovingmy40's

...The funny thing is its probably not cancer that is going to kill me!

I have stage Iv adenocarcinoma that has spread to my liver very badly, so it is prob liver failure that will sign on the dotted line when collecting me for eternel sleep!
I am gutted, but I have to say if I come across as non-caring or very abrupt please know I am not, its just the way I am. I was always the joker and will continue to be, hell this thing is taking my life, it aint getting anything else from me!
I have in a strange way become at peace with is what is happening to me and what is going to happen. My main concerns now are for my family.

The one thing that I cry over a million times a day above anything else, is the fact that people around me think I am giving up. I was never a quitter, I feel let down that they do not know this, they should know me. I have refused chemo for my symptons and in the hope it will buy me some more time.So in some people's eyes I am a quitter.
I ask these people, have you seen my son? do you see how beautiful he is? how young he is? do you NOT think if I had a figthing chance with this, that I would not try? I have refused because I do not want to give people around me false hope, hell they see me taking a tablet, or a shot, that may be the one that works right?? WRONG.
I am going to die, why would these people ask me to spend the precious time I do have to spend with them as the person I am for as long as I can, having stuff that may, just may buy me another week or month if am lucky. With that week or month also comes the side effects on top of everything else. I do not want it. sorry.
Thats me being selfish thats me being Louise. Sorry all for that rant.

I look at everyone else you know out the window, in the car park, on the tv, and I feel like they are in a club they I have been ejected from. I am no longer a part of the elite club of life. They go on,everything is normal for them, and I want to scream HEY WHY DID YOU KICK ME OUT?

But you know what? I like my club too! I have gotten to know stuff about people I love that I would never of known if this had not happened, I have learnt that every day should be filled with at least one heartfelt laugh from the belly! I have also learnt that my son will know me now as the perfect mum, I can tell you I never was. You know as a typical parent, sometimes you would have impatience, sometimes mad because you nearly broke your neck on a stray football! But now I truly truly appreicate my family and I will be a better person for doing so, so in turn will I will be a better person for them in their hearts and for them when they look back. Does that make sense? Its hard finding the words.

Oh another good thing about this club,is that who do you know can say that fancy ice cream at 4 am and people go get it for you!!! I could say what direction I want my coffee stirred in and people would do it, they are sweet and they love me, for that I am blessed.

Ok so the point of my post is after that massive ramble is THANK YOU for understanding, Thankyou for listening and Thank you for being the most decent bunch of folks I have come across in a long while.

Love always.
Lou.

This event is worthy of a journal entry and some deep thought, maybe even a revelation or two, but I am actually at a loss for much to say.  So, I just started writing here thinking that some suppressed or hidden emotion will emerge as I jiggle the brain cells to create a few sentences.  I have a disease called Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.  It is a type of cancer that has many sub-types.  The sub-type that I have is not curable at this time.  Once started down this path, life becomes a series of treatments and remissions.  Remission durations range from a few months to several years during which time one is constantly on the lookout for signs of relapse.  Since symptoms of the disease are ill-defined and are also symptomatic of other, more common ailments, one finds oneself quickly reduced to the paranoia state of hypochondria.   Prior to the original diagnosis and treatment I was one like many who flew along the highway of life using my body to get things done, thoroughly expecting it to keep up the pace, much the same as someone who drives a car for five years and never changes the oil.   Pains and fatigue were things to be endured as they were simply a nuisance and probably not indicative of any major problem.  I went to the doctor seldom, only when a particular symptom was getting in the way of accomplishing what I needed to do.  This approach led to a mode of operation in which the body’s signals and communiqués are tuned out rather than the more rational approach of trying to listen intently to the whirs and purrs of this all-important machine.  I listen for noises and perceive slight nuances in my car’s performance so that I might head off nuisance or even catastrophic breakdowns.  I know my car needs regular care and maintenance or it may leave me stranded on the highway.  Wouldn’t this same approach make sense for the system that…er…keeps me alive?   This state of blissful ignorance ended abruptly with the cancer diagnosis.

I had a routine CT scan and Xray done on Monday and last evening my oncologist called at home and said that it was time for another treatment cycle.  There is constant development in the world of drugs and there have been some significant advancements in the seven years that I have been dealing with this.  The drug of choice now is called Rituxin.  It is effective in killing the cancer cells and is also designed to target only the cancer cells and not other cells in the body.  Big improvement!  (Note: this drug is only designed to work with B cell Non-hodgkins lymphoma).  I have had this drug during my previous relapse and tolerated it well and it yielded a three year remission.

So, on a conscious, thoughtful level I am confident that the outcome this time around will be similar to previous episodes.  On a gut level however, I am shaken a bit.  If nothing else this is a reminder that this is the road I must follow into the future.  *** This may be the moment of ponderous thought***.  We all must learn to deal with the uncertainties in life, the idea that a life changing event is looming just around the corner for all of us.  Why is it less stressful to live within that condition than to live with a known malady of uncertain outcome?  Cancer is a paradox that brings with it a certainty of hardship while deriving its most trying aspect in the uncertainty of timing.  I am in the position of knowing that there is a significant chance that, at best, I will be disabled by this disease and its treatments or at worst die prematurely.  I have had the question posed to me, “isn’t everybody in this same predicament?”…a fair question.  Aren’t we all just an accident or a doctor visit away from finding ourselves in the same situation?  I have, obviously, been on both sides of this fence.  I have not always lived with active cancer.  It is a truism for me that I am more anxious about my future than I was prior to diagnosis.  Why aren’t we all stressed by the potential hammer blow that is poised above each head?  Is the lack of stress due to the fact that we all live with a feeling of safety from being one of the unfortunate “chosen ones”, “bad things always happen to the other guy”. Or, do we (even the more thoughtful among us) cling, in the deeper recesses of our minds to the notion that people who succumb to such disease must, in some way, be culpable.  This latter is a more fundamental human notion that lies at the heart of many social structures, both past and present.

I think the answer has something to do with probability and possibilities, familiarity and the unknown.  What are the odds?  We are conditioned to constantly, unconsciously weigh the potential outcome of our actions.  We know that people die everyday on the highway, yet we continue to drive, we know people are killed en masse in terrible airline accidents, yet we continue to fly, we know that food additives lead to many modern ailments, yet we continue to buy our food at the local supermarket, etc.  These are familiar risks and we have tested the waters many times without slipping beneath the waves.  We can convince ourselves that the number of times we tempt fate is unrelated to statistical outcome.

Guess I found something to ramble about after all.