OLYMPIC DREAMS

 

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad the Olympics are getting ready for their grand finale. After the opening ceremonies, I’m not sure what spectacle the Chinese will create to outdo that at which we still marvel – perhaps have everyone in China stand on each other’s shoulders and juggle the planets – I just don’t know. What I do know is that I need a lot more sleep than I have been getting. All right, you say, you probably wouldn’t have stayed up past midnight to watch women’s beach volleyball if the players were wearing sweat suits, and I couldn’t totally disagree. And perhaps I watched too much of the gymnastic competition, for today when a man slipped on a water spill in the hallway, I found myself criticizing the lack of toe point during the airborne portion of his unplanned summersault.

 

There is undeniable beauty and grace in the efforts of these fine-tuned athletes to defy gravity, to soar with the ease of creatures of air rather than the lumbering of earth bound mortals, to move through water as though we belonged to the realm of Neptune, to glide across the earth with the swiftness of gazelles. I can’t even fathom the single-minded dedication to sport, to the elusive, and for almost all, never achieved title of “world’s best.” I’ve known two Olympic gold medal winners personally, and when I asked each, “Was it worth it?” the answer was always a resounding “Yes!” However, I never had the chance to ask the same question of anyone who trained as hard and as long, and not only did not win a medal, but never even made the team. Ultimately, the only fair competition is the one we have with ourselves. Have I improved from who I was yesterday? Have I done my best, reached my peak potential? Yet, we are hard wired to be competitive, for being so offers survival advantage, so I suspect if the Olympics hadn’t already been invented, someone would be sure the come up with the concept sooner than later.

 

I wish NBC’s coverage would have been a little more even handed, and we were given the opportunity to see other great athletes in events besides the ones where our own stood a competitive chance of winning. I also wish that someone who has just had their Olympic dreams crushed by a small misstep, or just by a better competitor, would respond to the leering commentator thrusting a mike in his or her face and asking. “How does it feel to lose everything you worked so hard to achieve?” respond by quietly strangling the person with the microphone cord to the cheers of the watching audience.

 

Finally, am I the only one who finds irony in keeping a medal count by country when winning athletes for the United States were born and raised in Russia, China, Romania, Germany, and when winning athletes from other countries lived and trained in the United States? I suspect that nationalism is far too strong to allow the performance of an athlete to stand on its own, but it’s a nice dream to have. Perhaps, even an Olympic dream.

The days of summer are flying by with the speed of wind-driven clouds. My son and his wife are spending their last weekend here before they fly back to their lives in Paris. We’re grateful for the wonderful times we had together, but like many parents, I’m already thinking of the void their absence will leave behind. At times like these, I understand better than I ever could before the longing in my family’s voice every time I left home.

 

My wife is an orthodontist, so it is not surprising that, because of its title, the following poem caught my eye. It serves as reminder of something I learned a long time ago: words, once said, can never be taken back. It’s better to walk away from an argument for ten minutes, allowing hot emotions to cool a bit, before hurtful things fly out of your mouth that can be forgiven, but never forgotten.

 

TMJ

 

Reflecting regrettably on

My last words with you,

I am reminded by

The clicking in my jaw,

How great pain can be

Inflicted by such a small thing,

How so much of happiness

Can hinge on the motion

Of mandible and tongue,

How so much of joy can

Depend upon seemingly

Insignificant articulation…

Whether bone or word.

 

C. Scott Williams

 

 

A couple of nights ago we had a midnight visitor.  We woke up in the morning to find that the Creepy Crawley pool cleaner had been lifted out of the pool, and that the hose had been shredded into small pieces.  Neither Miki nor I heard anything, though that is not unusual as we are both sound sleepers.  Miki thought it was the work of vandals, while I suspected an animal such as the raccoon as nothing else had been disturbed.

 

Due to an accumulation of circumstances, our home has become a wildlife refuge.  We have fruit trees to provide food, a pool to provide water, and an undeveloped tract of land owned by the city adjacent to our property.  This land contains tall pine trees in which we have seen owls roost, and a savannah of tall grass where coyotes and hawks love to hunt.  We have a bird population nesting in our bushes of quail, sparrows, turtledoves, hummingbirds, robins, blue birds, and an occasional oriole.  For a long time we had a road runner performing his usual antics, though sadly I haven't seen him lately. The rabbits can be very destructive to Miki's flowers when the predators are on holiday and the ecosystem shifts in their favor.  We also have our share of possums, skunks, raccoons, and have even noted visits from a white egret and a deer.

 

Last night we were sitting on our patio with another couple enjoying a glass of wine, celebrating the end of the workweek.  The hose from the pool sweep was still lying on the deck, awaiting its replacement.  We heard a sound, and looked up to see our vandal returning to the scene of his crime.  There was a big, healthy looking raccoon playing with the broken hose.  Instead of being afraid, the animal started to slowly walk toward us.  Our friend stood up, clapped her hands, and yelled.  The raccoon, completely ignoring her bluff, kept slowly coming toward us.  Being fully aware of the damage those sharp claws and teeth can produce, we beat a hasty retreat behind the sliding glass door of the kitchen when the animal was 5 feet away.  Satisfied with his victory, the raccoon calmly inspected his conquered territory for any spoils of war.  Seeing none, he unhurriedly ambled off into the night.

 

Sadly, I can't afford to keep replacing the pool equipment, and we'll have to request animal control from the city to provide a trap for the raccoon in order to have him vacate the premises.  This is unfair, as this was his land long before we came along.  But then, there's nothing fair about the food chain.

 

I will be taking a short sabbatical from this blog, as my favorite poet and his bride have arrived from the City of Lights to spend their summer vacation with us.  Naturally, they have first claim on my free time; I trust you will understand.  Hope you are all enjoying your weekend.  Be well.

 

 

Another weekend is starting, tarnished somewhat by the relentless specter of disease that never takes a holiday, and demands that those of us who have chosen this battle be also willing to carry on the fight 24/7.  I’m fortunate in having two other doctors in my specialty sharing weekend work duties. We each take our own calls during the week, but this arrangement gives us the luxury of having to work only every third weekend. It could be a lot worse. It’s always better to be the doctor than to be the patient.

 

Southern California has a large Hispanic population, the bulk of who have come here from Mexico. Los Angeles is the second largest Spanish speaking city in North America, after Mexico City. Having lived and worked here as long as I have, I’ve grown to learn and appreciate the culture of our southern neighbor. Perhaps that’s the reason the following poem carries special meaning. Be well.

 

ASH  WEDNESDAY

 

In the villages of central Mexico the poor

make belts of braided soft-drink tabs;

zucchini soup contains the stems

of flowers as well fruit.

In Mexico nothing is wasted, so

the darkest of their recipes for mole

calls for stale tortillas and the seeds

of ancho chilis burned to ash

and folded in. As if to guarantee

the taste of dust and ashes always

in one’s mouth. As if one needed

in Mexico, yet another reminder

of the presence of los muertos.

 

Ted McMahon

 

 

 

 

 

FREEDOM

 

            When you look in Webster’s Dictionary for the definition of “free” and “freedom” you will find the meanings as a series of negatives: “not under the control of some other person or arbitrary power; able to think and act without compulsion or arbitrary restriction; not under the control of a foreign government; not held, as in chains; not kept from motion; not confined to the usual rules or patterns; not restricted by anything except its own limitations and nature…” This reminds me of the tag line in a Wall Street Journal article talking about the collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union, in which a Moscow resident remarks, “We are free – now what?”

            I was born in a time when freedom was elusive to absent in a large part of our globe, in a country where a knock on the door or the unexpected ringing of the phone brought terror based on very justified fears, and the only freedom one dared dream about was being allowed to exist in obscurity by staying under the radar of the ever watchful secret police and their countless informants, some of whom could have been, or in fact were, people you knew well. To those who grew up in the luxury of free society, these feelings are beyond the boundaries of experience, and cannot be truly imagined, much less viscerally acknowledged. To those who lived through them, they can never be forgotten.

            Perhaps the most frightening aspect to those of us who were not always blessed with the freedoms the rest of us take as our birthright is the knowledge of how easily and rapidly freedom can be lost. My birthplace had the traditional freedoms of a Western society throughout all my parents’ lives until shortly before the time of my birth. Throughout history, the loss of freedom has occurred as often from within as without. The desire to have power over others is a primal drive, and well recognized by the men who framed our Constitution. The system of checks and balances they designed, brilliant in its conception, can only endure as long as there exists a populace dedicated to the principles the document embodies.

            We are about to celebrate our Independence Day with a cacophonous collision of fireworks scattering falling liquid gold, emerald, and scarlet streamers across skies hazy from countless barbecues, as speeches are made and parades march under unfurled banners. For those who have served, as well as those whose family members sacrificed limb and lives, the price of our freedoms are forever etched in hearts and minds. For those brought up in a tradition of service, the memory remains that the price of freedom is dear. The paradox of freedom is that those who desire it the most must also be willing to subjugate some of their personal desires to see it achieved. 

            The world is a complex, complicated, and often frightening place. I can understand the desire to hide in the cocoon of daily life, of carpools and groceries, of work and play, and ignore the whole messy, confusing affair. Let the professionals, the politicians, the generals worry about what’s happening, and concentrate on our own turf. Unfortunately, this road, by which we abdicate responsibility to others, leads to the other end of George Bernard Shaw’s cynical observation, “the replacement of the incompetent many by the corrupt few.” The man was right – the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. So we must remain vigilant, not only of our enemies, but of those to whom we entrust our daily freedoms. We must not, can not allow our fears of the known or unknown to seduce us into turning those freedoms over to a perceived strong select few who claim to know what is good for us, and promise us security in exchange for giving up power over our own lives. Too many through history have done this. Too many suffered and died as a result of their mistake. Freedom cannot be defined by the absence of bad things – slavery, fear, subjugation. It needs to be defined by positives, by action. But what can we do, you plaintively ask? We can educate ourselves to the issue affecting our lives. We can educate our children so they understand the history of this great nation, both the good and the bad. We can be willing to serve to sustain the causes in which we believe, and at the same time allow for, and demand intelligent discourse from those whose belief is different than our own, as well as from those we have chosen to lead us. We can attempt to instill in our children the values and ideals on which all free societies are founded, and which our Constitution helped codify. We can teach them that there is a difference between patriotism and nationalism, that loving your country is not the same as blind acceptance or support of any governmental policy. We can resist the temptation to demonize those who oppose us while we are struggling to hold true to the core principles of our beliefs. We can and should encourage, demand that everyone give of themselves in the form of some national service for a period of their life. It’s the only way we can be exposed in a one on one setting to those whose ideas, opinions and backgrounds are different than our own. We must demand accountability not only from our leadership, but also from the press and the media, not to sink to the lowest denominator, but to help raise the level of discourse in all walks of life from mud slinging to enlightening. And finally, we must teach and practice respect for the persons and property of our citizens, along with this planet, and those with whom we share it.

 

 

 

 

Tomato Garden

 An old Italian man lived alone in the country. He wanted to dig his 
 tomato garden but it was very hard work as the ground was hard. His only 
 son, Vincenzo, who used to help him, was in prison. 
 The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament. 

     Dear Vincenzo, 
 I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be 
 able to plant my tomato garden this year. I am getting too old to be 
 digging up a garden plot. If you were here, my troubles would 
 be over. I know you would dig the garden for me. 
     Love, Papa 

A few days later he received a letter from his son. 
  

    Dear Papa, 
I'd do anything for you Papa, except dig up that garden. 
That's where I buried the bodies. 
    Love, Vinnie 

At 4 am the next morning, FBI and local police arrived and dug up the 
entire area without finding any bodies. 
They apologized to the old man and left. 
The same day the old man received another letter from his son. 
    

Dear Papa, 
Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That's the best I could 
do under the circumstances. 
     Love, Vinnie 

One of the lessons of aging comes from the gradual loss of abilities - the slow withering of function that we all intellectually know to expect, but that still manages to take us by surprise. The day comes, like it or not, when we no longer are capable of doing those things we once took for granted. Sometimes we react to this loss with anger, at other times with fear, and eventually, with grudging resignation. As children, we are faced with a double dilemma: how to relinquish the vision of a once powerful parent to the vicissitudes of age, and how to deal with this specter of our own mortality. The following poem deals with these universal issues.

 

Building a Bookshelf

 

Your hands, grand rotting cathedrals,

buckskin inebriate Brillos, two huge cowcuffers.

I once watched them rend plywood, hammer spikes

into blocks, every test a fight, the carpentry

learned in the army. The black-white photograph;

your big mitts taped up and shoved into boxing gloves.

 

Now your hands are demented, they fly at buttons,

they skitter and slapdash, they are shells, relics

of purpose. We put together the bookshelf

plank by plank, and those airplane wings

are undecided, fumble with a nail, drop a hammer.

You with the tremor and the grip strength of irony,

with paretic limbs. Each screw excruciates,

won’t go in, won’t tighten. I take the driver from you.

You look to me to tell you next,

and I tell you what I never thought I would:

Let me handle it.

 

Shane Neilson

 

 

A Father's Day message: We need dads 365 days a year

By KATHERINE KERSTEN, Star Tribune

June 14, 2008

When I was a very young boy, my mother used to belong to a rowing club, a perk provided by her company to help employees stay fit. I liked sitting in the practice module attached to the main dock, sliding back and forth on the rollers of the tiny seat, my oars in the water, pretending I was in one of the shells out on the river with the adults. There is a magic in the shimmering water, a power in the feel of the oars, an exaltation in the gliding of the streamlined varnished hull past the poplars on the banks of the river. This poem brings back many of those feelings. I hope it says something to you. Be well.

 

ON THE WATER

 

The wind makes a web on the water.

The oars make a song.

 

The green makes and solves a mystery.

The city sleeps.

 

She practices a start –

half slide, half, three-quarters, full, full.

 

She pulls long into the morning,

faces where she was.

 

The water holds its secrets. The blades slip in and out.

Minutes pass like fish.

 

The hull skims across the lake.

The sun is in her hair.

 

Leaves emerge, soft as moths,

shiver in the wind.

 

Spring streams around her.

She is blooming.

 

The shell is a cradle.

This is birth.

 

Joannie K. Stangeland

 

Stethoscopic

 

So convinced of the existence

of a rattle, my father made

my brother kneel in the back seat

of the Buick and move the stethoscope

across the window, the top of the seat,

the ledge below the glass,

as they drove around the neighborhood.

Nothing came through the long black tube

but my brother’s fear of  being seen.

 

Alone, stiff in the vinyl chair

at the bedside, my mother knew

the moment of my father’s death

without a stethoscope. Nor did

she ring for a nurse, but sat frozen

while the heating vent at the window

blew the curtains slightly.

Then she bowed.

 

I found his old one coiled in the cabinet.

I put it on as a curiosity,

listened to my heartbeat, then laid it back.

I don’t know what I’d expect to hear

inside the slide of my family’s breathing,

or what to imagine that doesn’t make a sound.

Where would I place that cold knob

to listen for devotion?

What would I set my finger upon

to catch the regular rhythm of hope?

 

Jack Stewart