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Vietnam and the Transitions Workshop

When David and Jeff and I went to Vietnam in 2005 it was Jeff and my first time back in VN since the war. It was David’s first time to be in Cambodia. For Jeff and me it was not as emotional or cathartic as one might expect from men who had been in heavy combat with all the killing and dying that happened right there where we were visiting in 2005. Why?

Vietnam countryside – a fighter’s view

(I can speak only for myself.)

These mist covered mountains…

After I came home from VN I would run something like a video in my mind at least once every single day. It had a title: “How Donohue Got It.” It was a replay of how my friend, “Lurch” Donohue was grievously wounded and I was beside him when he died in the dirt in a little clearing with bullets snapping past. The every day video gradually came to an end after I attended one of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ Transitions Workshops. This was before hospice, probably 1976 or 77.

The workshop was in a former convent in San Antonio. There were 70-80 people there, with approximately 1/3 having a terminal illness, 1/3 having lost a loved one, and 1/3 being involved in the care of people with terminal illness (nurses, doctors, chaplains, etc.).

Near Dodge City – where men fought and died. Zamora and others were killed near here.

The process of the gathering was that first we went around the room with each person saying why they were there. People started telling the truth from the beginning. The truth was that we were all there because of our pain: the pain of being close to death, of losing love, of seeing people die, of disappointments, of judgments, and so on.

As the workshop unfolded, everyone had the opportunity to testify to their own pain and loss. Anger was a part of that – I remember that there was a mattress in the middle of the room and a 1.5-2 foot length of heavy garden hose. As we expressed our pain we were encouraged to express the anger through words and other vocalizations (groaning, screaming, crying, whatever) and using the hose to pound the mattress – it was very cathartic! Part of the process was also that when someone was crying, we were generally discouraged from comforting that person. The idea was that comfort could stop the experience of deep emotion and interrupt the path to healing; and that often comforting was as much for the comforter as it is for the comforted. Comfort came later. A lot of deep emotion was experienced and shared. We all got well beyond our previous comfort levels with respect to our own and to other’s pain.

Rice – I’m lying beside the padi

I shared how Donohue was killed with the group and as noted above, the daily video subsequently came to an end. I’ve come to realize it wasn’t Donohue alone I’d been grieving for; it was all of us, the living and the dead.

I also shared my sadness that it had been years since I had been truly high in the moment in reality, such as in entheogenic journeys (amazed to discover how much of an issue this was).

Post 1 was a few feet from this road (now vastly improved). We were the day’s top attraction for the locals.

 

There were breaks for food, sleep, and meditation sessions with Stephen Levine. The rest of the time people were telling their stories, letting go of the pain. We went from about 8 in the morning until 2-3 the next morning. Sometime in the night of day 3 I broke through to the present. I stayed in that state of vastly expanded awareness (high in the moment) for the rest of the 5 day workshop.

40 years after the war and almost 30 years after the workshop I went back to Vietnam. I went back to Dodge City, back to where 1/9, “The Walking Dead” got its name, to the river, to Hill 55, back to where Donohue and Laws and Georges and others died. I laid down one last time in the dirt by the padi. Later I held hands with an old communist fighter (he was about my age) and drank an orange soda and then a shot of rice liquor – “To Vietnam!”

Forgotten

The 100th anniversary of the end of WWI just passed. The President of the United States dishonored himself by skipping the ceremonies because it was raining. Here are poems/expressions of unbearable pain and bravery that Trump could never understand. Could never understand even their existence.

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AFTERMATH: March 1919

by Siegfried Sassoon

Have you forgotten yet? . . .
For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow

Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you’re a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same – and War’s a bloody game . . .
Have you forgotten yet? . . .
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz –
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench –
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, “Is it all going to happen again?”

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack –
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
as you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads – those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet? . . .
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you’ll never forget.

Siegfried Sassoon was decorated for bravery in a battle on the Western Front. He “became a focal point for dissent within the armed forces when he made a lone protest against the continuation of the war in his “Soldier’s Declaration” of 1917, culminating in his admission to a military psychiatric hospital…” (Wikipedia)

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Dulce et Decorum Est

by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And toward our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen was decorated for bravery after voluntarily returning to the War. He was killed on the Western Front a week before the end of the War. He also wrote Anthem for Doomed Youth, Futility, and other powerful poems.

The title Dulce et Decorum Est is taken from the Roman poet Horace and means “it is sweet and honorable…”, followed by pro patria mori, which means “to die for one’s country.” The link below is to someone giving a reading of Dulce et Decorum Est.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qts3K3KznN4

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Notes from the past few months

Notes from the past few months: writing, current events, lunch with David, love letter, women, Henri Nouwen.

Photo: CK, CB, DK at Indian Rock. This is one of Berkeley’s magical places. It’s a 30 minute walk from home, then clamber up 60-70 feet on the rock, then the quiet, friendly voices one hears at this place.

I’ve been caught up in a writing project and the awful news of these days. These are days when principles and morals are under direct attack – as is democracy in America. I’m tuned in to quite a few news sources and I spend a lot of time reading and so on. It’s not an elevating activity!

The writing project is cleaning up and reformatting all my blog posts. There are about 350 posts, all with photos that require work to reformat. I’m making a book for David and one for Jean.

Several times a week I have lunch with David near his new office at UC Berkeley Law. For the past two years we’ve been meeting 3-4 times/week in The City, but now that he’s teaching part-time, we meet in Berkeley. From home I walk up about a block to the 7 bus stop on The Arlington. It’s a 20 minute ride to downtown Berkeley. Then I walk across campus, feeling grateful that I’m having lunch with my son and that I live in this magical university city. Talk about exciting! One of my regular stops is the Life Sciences building where I groove around the halls, absorbing the extravagant energy of this place.

Photo: Vote Peace (note flags at half mast for people murdered in synagogue)

When David and I finish lunch I walk back across campus, always including walking through Sproul Plaza, the birth of the Free

Speech Movement. Today, a man is holding his own peace vigil. Berkeley – Yeah!

A couple of days ago Jean received a beautifully affirming letter from Peter Winslow. It was a love letter to Jean and to her husband, David Leach. What a life!

When you hear the music ringing in your soul,

And the feeling in your heart just grows and grows.

The precious gift of each unrepeatable day.

Jean finished the 4th of a series on women. This one represents women in Bali. The others include Spain, Turkey, and Japan. This is the first of her art works that I’ve been around for from beginning to end. What a life!

Photo above right: Bali woman

I was in Dallas a few days ago. John and I were sitting in the front room where he saw a tattered piece of paper on the desk. “Do you want this?” he asked. Yes, I’ve carried it or had it in front of me for 40 years. It was an integral part of founding and directing hospice; it goes like this:

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

Photos above. Left John and “the girls.” Right: Phana and Bella. I helped Phana in the last year of her life. Countless journeys for chemo, other medical things, shopping, intense talks about the end of life, the meaning of life… BUT, here’s the truth of the matter: yes, I helped her, but she helped me at least as much as I helped her. She gave me meaning and purpose when my world had crumbled after Leslie passed away. A young woman dying of cancer; an old man grieving for his beloved wife. What a partnership. What a life!

Lot of death these days. Chuck, Bryce, Miriam. It really is a hard road, daddy-o. Four of the men in the photo of my Bible study group have passed.

Photo left: Bible study;

I’m spending more time working in the garden: the Sungold tomatoes were brilliant, the strawberries were excellent, the herbs keep us in pesto, z’atar, etc., the herb is excellent (especially the Sour Diesel), and the flowers are spectacular. I’ve now ordered 50 bare root strawberry plants to be delivered in early spring.

Photo: Jean in front garden.

 

 

 

 

 

David, my house

At the top of a 10′ ladder on the front porch. David loved climbing things.

I decided to post this despite not having enough photos of David. David’s childhood photos are all prints and they’re in Dallas. When I’m back, I’ll scan some and then complete this post. Some of what follows is a repeat of parts of this post: http://ckjournal.com/david

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I love my house. All the years with Leslie, then Leslie and David. Loving days. Happy days, growing together as a family – so much time.

I look around. Our home.

It was built in 1931 – three bedrooms, two baths, two kitchens (the house was built to have an apartment in part of it), LR, DR, kitchen and breakfast room. There is a good-sized front/side porch and a cottage (hippie) garden in front. My Mom died there, as did my brother, Tom. My brother John lives there now.

When I’ve been away it takes about three days for the house to reopen in my presence, alive in the present and into the past… Leslie and I were in the midst of the best years of our lives and then David was born propelling us into even better years. Leslie taught me how to be a parent, a good parent.

David was a water baby – bathing in the sink when he was tiny and a

David and his Grandmother Mary a few months before she passed

little later playing in a plastic tub in the shower, playing in his Grandmother’s sink for hours and hours. Later, when he was 3-4-5 we would walk to the Y and swim the summer days away. Playing with Katie and Mary Beth like little brown fishes. He and I would swim down to the bottom of the deep end and pop up as far away as we could to surprise Leslie.

When he was about two months old, A Cambodian grandmother named Pov Lon and her granddaughter, Keo came to live with us to help with David for several months – until the betel nut stains on the pillows became too much for Leslie. Lon and Keo moved in with Keo’s Mom in a two story frame house known as “the mansion” in the Cambodian refugee neighborhood. There were 6-8 other families living in the mansion in rooms divided by blankets. David spent many days there, always being held or in a hammock, rocking back and forth, back and forth… Years later I took care of Keo when she was dying of breast cancer.

Leslie’s office was a few blocks away and I was in the community a lot, so we could both come by a few times a day. David’s siblings, Bunchoeun, Phana, and Soda also were there some, as they lived nearby. I’m guessing Choeun was about 8, Phana 5, and Soda 3. Thirty years later I took care of Phana through many days of cancer treatment and into the days of her dying.

The second structure is “the mansion”

David slept in a crib in his bedroom. He cried when we put him to bed, so one of us always slept beside his crib. The pediatrician said, “Let him cry it out.” We tried that for about three minutes, which was as close as he ever got to “cry it out.” He was colicky in the evening and the only thing that soothed him was going for a walk, so every night there we were, walking Baby David. When the weather was bad we’d walk in the corridors of JL Long Middle School a block from the house. Big-time good times.

From the earliest days we arranged our home for David. In the living room I built a carpeted three-step stair leading to a 2’x3’ platform and then three more steps down. The sides had walls and there was a little hidey-hole beneath. Later after he could zoom up and down the stairs, I exchanged that for a huge (4’x4’x8’) heavy-duty cardboard box full of pillows and stuffed animals. The couch was a boat and there were wagon rides all over the house.

Goldy, David, Judo

After the high chair (always at the table with us), we put a child’s table with two little chairs in the kitchen. We usually ate at that table. David learned his ABCs at the table and when he was in K-1, did his homework there. Since there only two little chairs, I always sat on a milk crate. That was back when I could sit on a little box for long periods of time.

David had big heavy bunk beds (David Overton helped carry and set them up). The bottom bunk was like a cave full of “babies” (stuffed animals) and pillows. In the evenings he and I would sit in the cave and I would tell stories about “Little Wolf and his Daddy.” We would have adventures in the snow and forests and mountains and then there would be a big snow storm and we would be holed up in the cave and would let assorted (stuffed) animals in for shelter. One of the animals was Critter, who was always starting trouble, and Sandy, the biggest bear would talk tough and then of course, David’s oldest bear, Cookie Baby, would get everyone calmed down. Sometimes we would put on plays for Leslie, with the biggest hit being “Running Bear” sung by Critter.

David’s room usually had a tent set up in the middle of the floor. Often the whole room was a “fort” made of blankets and tapestries and tables and chairs. Always Goldy would get into the tent with us or whomever was there and when she would pass gas everyone would pile out laughing.

We all three liked to pile up in Leslie’s and my bed – we would read and talk and sometimes David and I would have huge battles trying to push each other off the bed and when it looked like the other guy was going off the edge, the one winning for the moment would shout (for reasons unknown) “Big Door!”

In the back yard I built (with help from Chuck Maxey) a big tree house with a “secret entrance” that only big kids like David and Katie could use. There was a pulley and bucket that Leslie would put food in for the children to haul up. We were always trying to get Goldy to “Put the ball in the bucket!” but it never happened. We would laugh and laugh and she would just stand there with the ball in her mouth. There was a zip line from the tree house to the corner of the yard. “Don’t let go!”

After Christmas we scoured the neighborhood for discarded Christmas trees, which were used to make vast “tree forts” – with tunnels and rooms and children and dogs everywhere.

We would go for long walks along the Santa Fe railroad tracks with David riding my shoulders much of the way. Other times he would bushwhack along the steep 20-30’ high berms. Sometimes we’d get as far as the “big black bridge” – a railroad over White Rock Creek. Several times I climbed up a 50’ supporting pillar and belayed David up, then got quickly off the bridge, as the trains were still running then.

We’d take canoe journeys up and down the creek – above the lake almost to LBJ Freeway and below the lake until the woods and meadows gave way to neighborhoods where street people were hanging out.

My Mom lived in the back cottage. In her last few years of life she was at peace with life. David was a part of that – hanging out with her – standing on a step stool and playing in her kitchen sink, hanging out in her bed, having snacks like candied pecans, orange cake, cookies from Neiman’s. There were back porch get-togethers, back yard parties, holidays, and countless hours spent together – what a life for all of us.

He was with her the night she died (cancer) in the cottage – before and after, my beautiful child. My Mom and I journeyed  together about four weeks before she died. After that she had much less pain and unhappiness.

David and my Mom and I went to Little Gus cafe for breakfast almost every Saturday. We’d eat and talk with one another and with other people. David especially enjoyed stuffing endless napkins in a glass of water.

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This was the house I came home to in the morning after Leslie passed away at Baylor.

 

Things I’ve learned, Marine Corps lessons, what to say when you’re in bed with a woman, new garden

Some things I’ve learned along the way:

  • Jean twirling at the Flagging party

    There are no guarantees in life; life can be short; and it can get really hard, so enjoy it fully while you can. THIS IS IT.

  • Most people have to work hard to succeed.
  • Be grateful.
  • Be nice to others; be nice to yourself.
  • If it feels good to your soul, your human potential, do it.
  • Embrace pleasure.
  • Never give up.
  • Take care of your friends and family.
  • Find your spiritual home/center.
  • Magic is alive.
  • Love is the greatest miracle.
  • We die as we live in most cases.
  • Watch your weight, take care of your teeth, don’t smoke cigarettes, take your medicine.

    David, Charles, CK, Jean at Flagging on Mother’s Day

  • Stay active (use it or lose it).
  • Tell the truth – that way, you don’t have to be careful of what you say (except for being nice).
  • Be nice, don’t be an asshole, don’t yell, be fair, help your neighbor/your friend.
  • Overcome or accept or otherwise deal with your issues (e.g., for me, anger).
  • Grow a garden, dig in the dirt, eat healthy food, live gently and softly within this miracle of life.

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Marine Corps lessons:

Never give up.

Khe Sanh. I took this photo. Incredible.

Keep your weapon clean.

Forward.

Faster.

Keep your smokes dry.

Maintain your intervals.

Pass the word.

Squeeze the trigger.

Eat your fruit cocktail first.

Your Corps and your buddies are everything.

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What to say when you’re in bed with a woman

Mt. Vision near Point Reyes – we walked up this trail on a misty foggy day. Mt. Vision!

We were in bed, reading. Jean was reading a book by Margaret Atwood. I saw that her bookmark had some very nice beadwork hanging off what I’m sure is handmade paper, now fraying. A beautiful bookmark. So I went to the bookshelves and brought out a few of my bookmarks: Harvard Bookstore, Majors Scientific Books, a Lao Airlines boarding pass, a picture I’d cut off an old calendar, so on and so forth. There we were, in bed, sharing bookmarks. What a life!

I used to frequent used bookstores – and still do, just not to the

Tarts! Homemade.

extent I used to. Time spent in the stacks meant that I was able to find some beautiful

old editions of classics, such as The Call of the Wild, White Fang, Rudyard Kipling’s complete works… And, as it turns out, Jean is a Jack London fan – she’s now re-reading my copy of White Fang, published in 1913.

A girl who likes gardening, books, White Fang, and bookmarks!

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Books read in the past month

At the Hill Fights with B/1/9. CK Photo.

The Hill Fights: The First Battle of Khe Sanh. I was in the Hill Fights for a few days. It was the heaviest, most intense combat imaginable. Here’s to the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines.

Just Kids by Patti Smith. An account of her life and relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe – “So honest and so pure as to count as a true rapture” (Joan Didion).

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. A neurosurgeon’s account of his journey through lung cancer into death.

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New garden!

Herbs in new front garden: thyme, oregano, lemon grass, cilantro, basil, tarragon, sage, rosemary, lavender, chives, chamomile – so far.

We took out most of the old plants and are re-doing and re-planting the garden

Roses: Iceberg and Collette.

Flowers – most in clumps; some from previous garden; N = new: foxglove, iris, alstroemarium (N), coreopsis, tansy, daisy, purple trumpet vine (N), nicotiana (N), hellebores, California poppy, Mexican tarragon (N), sweet allysum, pineapple sage, clematis (vine), borage, impatiens aloe vera, camellia (tree), smoke tree (N), lantana, matilija poppy, forget-me-nots (Ohhh) (N), salvia, columbine (N), red mask flower (N), blue-eyed grass (N), verbena, calla lily, blueberry bushes (2) (N), nasturtium, oak leafed hydrangea (N).

Grass: none at all, except for blue-eyed grass, which is grown for its flowers.

Mt. Tam in the distance. California! Click for a beautiful enlargement.

PURE California

Walking in the valley

Several hours north of Berkeley, near an obscure highway crossroads, 4 miles up an unmarked gravel road winding through the low-lying Coastal Range, through a gate, across a bridge, another mile on the gravel road… We’re at Wilbur Hot Springs, an 1800 acre nature preserve – “Sanctuary, Stewardship, Spirit.”

CK soaking

Our cabin has a queen bed and en-suite toilet and sink, but no shower. None of the rooms have showers – they’re all at the flumes (hot springs pools).

None of the cabins have locks, except you can latch yourself in at night.

There are no electrical outlets in the cabins except for people with medical devices. No TV, no internet, no cell service.

Everywhere is quiet and some flumes are silent/meditation pools.

A couple was singing a love blessing to one another at breakfast.

Jean soaking

The kitchen in the main building is a big, industrial strength hippie-New Age-psychedelic vibe shared prep/cooking area. Lots of good food being made. In the same building is a commons, music area, dining room, veranda, library, and the retreat office. No shoes in this building. About 100 feet away are the hot springs.

Most of the people in and around the hot springs are naked, though not all. The age range is about late 20s to late 70s.

View from our cabin

Our cabin looks out on a hillside of grass, pines, Manzanita, other trees with golden sunlight in the morning and evening. Then the stars!

Right now I’m sitting behind the main building and there is a jackrabbit 50-60 feet away… some birds, a squirrel, a woman floating through.

We showered, soaked, showered (I don’t know how many times we repeated this cycle), walked through meadows winding through the hills, fixed our meals, talked together and with others, read, had a massage, watched the day dawn and the evening settle over the hills, sleeping close, waking together, loving, outside of time.

Berkeley!

“Once again” you said, “I have everything I need” – in this endless summer, in this life – in this beautiful bestowed life.

 

 

 

 

India 2018

At palace in Udaipur (photo by Jean Cacicedo)

Hong Kong to Delhi – another easy flight in Cathay Pacific business with good food, quiet cabin, lying down, sleeping – what a way to travel!

Delhi airport – easy immigration and no security slowdown for foreign elders. Then taxi chaos and a wild ride in a tiny rattling van to our hotel near the airport in the dystopian smog of Delhi. I’ve never seen smog like this. I’m starting to react – “reactive airway” is the perfect description and diagnosis. Cup of chamomile tea and sleep with dreams. In the morning, Delhi airport domestic departures OMG a true sea of humanity, but everybody behaving and the line moving pretty good and before long taking off in morning smog just like the night smog. Got a cough and wheezing going on.

Udaipur: another crazy taxi ride beep beep beep. In California, motorcycles go between lanes of cars; in India, cars go between lanes of cars. The taxi stops before the hotel as streets are too narrow for cars. Onward via tuk tuk and now here we are at Amet Haveli, a “heritage hotel.”

Hanuman temple Udaipur

Ahhh, now we’re truly in India and the first part of the trip is over! The Amet Haveli is very nice, old-fashioned, luxurious. Time to hit the streets – narrow lanes, barely enough room for a tuk tuk, and when you add Jean or me, someone has to yield, and it won’t be the tuk tuk. Yikes! Intense!

Mind your head, she said

The next day we’re back on the streets, walking to the City Palace – it’s rural kids field trip day at the Palace with crowds of students filling the halls and rooms. We’re sitting on a ledge and a crowd of 10-11 year old boys starts crowding around us, staring, seemingly mystified, some smiling, some just staring, crowding closer and closer until they’re too close for (our) comfort and we split, up stairs, narrow corridors, doorways (“Mind Your Head”), small rooms, down stairs, narrower corridors, and all the while b

Photo by Jean.

ody space closer than what we’re used to – bring it on!

We had dinner on the hotel lake terrace. Great food. Went for a walk after dinner, along dark alleyways, opening on to a temple for Hanuman and here is a smaller shrine to Hanuman with two men inside. One man steps outside and the other man says to me, “Do you want to know about God?” “Sure! Is this for Hanuman?” “Yes – here,” he says, offering me and the other man a bite from the offering he was making. “Thank you. What should I do?” “Eat.” “Okay.” And I take the bite, offering it to Hanuman and David Overton.

Our room in Udaipur

In the morning, sunrise over the lake and Palace, making love in the early light.

We take a car from Udaipur to a village, Narlai. On the way we stop at a Jain temple in the middle of nowhere. It’s a marble wonderland, with endless carved columns and rooms and domes. Onward to Narlai, where we have a reservation at another heritage hotel, Rawla Narlai.

Here we are at the most opulent place I’ve ever stayed. Our suite has a terrace on the manicured lawns, marble floors, and on our jukebox, a mix of Grateful Dead, Chopin, Brandy Carlisle, Jerry Lee Lewis (has Jerry Lee ever been heard in this place?).

At night we meet two other couples for wine and then a ride in bullock carts (two people/cart) through narrow village streets and into the very dark countryside – see the stars! I recall the first time flying over India at night where it was all completely black, black as black, and occasionally a sprinkle of lights where there was a city with electricity. Now there is electricity almost everywhere.

When we were almost to our destination there was a fire by a 20’ high rock by the road and an almost naked sadhu standing there blowing a little horn and soliciting baksheesh, which we gave, which elicited more excited horn-blowing. Ahead were 100s of candles and lanterns and the step well (a hole in the ground about 75 yards on a side and 50 yards deep). There was a man part way down strumming a string instrument and shaking cymbals and singing – home-grown trance. Good food, good times.

Hotel restaurant Udaipur

In the morning, lying in bed talking about intimacy and what happens when we die. Will we ascend like sparks of light to join with all the other lights of those who went on before – unimaginable Union!? Will we be united with loved ones who’ve gone on before with our consciousness and identity intact, i.e., “me,” “you,” “her,” “him?” Will we just cease?

Whatever the case may be, it’s our homegoing and we’ve lived enough, suffered enough, loved enough that whatever, we embrace it. Oh Life! It hurt so much and now our happiness and all else embraced. This is the train. Complete.

Some food:

Curries

Thali in Narlai

Bharwan tandoori aloo

Mint raita

Garlic naan

Chicken soup

Pakora

Thalis

Khozi kozambu

Lahsumi palak (spinach)

From Narlai we took a car to Jaipur – a five hour ride, including a stop at a fantastic Jain temple in the middle of nowhere. Guy offered to say a prayer for us, which we declined as it was a hustle. Onward, through troops of long-tailed monkeys sitting on stones

Marigold deco in Narlai. Getting ready for a party.

beside the road. Someone in a people’s bus ahead of us threw some bananas out the window and monkey-shines ensued. Otherwise it was an uneventful trip.

Jaipur – oh my, more urban chaos, but not near as polluted as Delhi. I’m coughing and wheezing more than before, so we stop at little pharmacy to buy an inhaler. I’m thrilled to find exactly what I wanted: an inhaler with levalbuterol and beclamethasone. Puff-puff.

We stayed at the

Not a bad pharmacy in Jaipur (photo by Jean)

Arya Niwas, a mid-range hotel recommended by Jean’s friend, Sophina. It was “an oasis in a sea of chaos.” Nice room, nice staff, decent food, good breakfast buffet.

On our first full day in Jaipur we went to a nearby town to visit Jean’s friend, Charlotte, who deals in textiles (see https://maiwa.com/). Traveling now is much like the last few times Leslie and I went to Southeast Asia: everything seems to take so much effort that we basically do one thing/day other than be, eat, sleep, and so on.

Tuk-tuk girl

Somewhere along the line we began experiencing GI issues. Was it the soup? The ginger drink? The hummus? Who knows? Jean kept on trucking while I laid up at the hotel. She had some misadventures at the Pink Fort and good times at a museum.

Dancing in the hotel (however briefly).

Winding down. Trying to figure out what next – Goa vs. Dharamsala? Both lead through Delhi twice and though I’m wheezing less, I’m not 100%. Then there are the GI issues. In the end we decided to come home early – a great decision.

We took a car Jaipur to Delhi – about five hours past endless iterations of the same shops, cafes, cows, trucks, buses, etc., etc. The lounge at the Delhi airport was perfect: nearby workers were cutting metal with a power saw – RRRRRRR, Screeeetch, the smell of hot metal… sigh. On to HK for a 6 hour layover, but we found a couch to lie on. Feeling marginally better. Nice, clean, quiet airport. Easy, long flight. Both of us very tired, still with GI problems.

Night view from our room in Udaipur

Random thoughts:

Independent travel in India is probably best done when younger. It’s a very challenging place, even with staying in nice places and comfortable flying.

We’re both good travelers, good attitudes, good communications, and that feels good.

Based on how I feel now (home for a week and today was my first day of feeling physically well all day), our decision to leave early was clearly the best decision.

Sunset today, 1/29/2018, Berkeley California.

 

 

 

Hong Kong 2018

Hong Kong Island, Central

50 years ago this month I first was in Hong Kong. Since then I’ve been in this city about 20 times. The first time was on R&R from the war in Vietnam. The last time was with Leslie in 2013, less than a year before she passed away. Most of the times it was on the way into Asia and again on the way out, with Hong Kong bookending two month trips into the magic of travels with Leslie. Now I’m with Jean and the magic is alive. It’s different, of course, but undeniably beautifully magical.

At the moment we’re on the big A-350 jet riding high and smooth above the mighty Pacific Ocean – the same Pacific we see from the deck of our home in Berkeley.

Life!

The first time in HK was a surreal respite from

Exactly 50 years ago, after R&R in HK

war. I stayed in an anonymous hotel, had anonymous sex with several women (I was anonymous; they were anonymous), drank a lot, hung out with several British soldiers, rode the Star Ferry, ate at Ricky’s Café, drank more – one night I got everyone in a bar to stand while I stood on a table singing The Eyes of Texas, yeah – I was a piece of work alright – and most notably spent a few days with a nice Chinese girl. On the way back

to Vietnam, I got a

Jean resting at the (people’s) Fa Yuen Market

quart of gin and a bottle of champagne, which Jeff Wiseman, Mike Noumov, and I drank on an epic drunk at battalion headquarters on Hill 55 before I staggered back insensate into the war.

In 1978 when Leslie and I were living in Austin, she came home from work one day and asked what would I think about going to Thailand? Yes! Sure! We bought one-way tickets in the back room of a Thai grocery store going from Dallas to Hong Kong to Bangkok.

That first time we stayed in a place in the Chung King Mansions. Leslie was nauseated every time we got into the back hallways. We rode the very funky, very small elevators crowded in like sardines with people from across the world – Indians, Arabs, Europeans, Africans, not many Americans. I would wake at 2 or 3 in the mornings and sit all folded up in the tiny, tiny bathroom reading a Larry McMurtry book. We rode the Star Ferry, ate at Ricky’s, and walked and walked and walked, high on life. Then onward to Thailand, Burma, Nepal, and on around the world.

The view from our room

In 2005, David and Jeff and I were there on our pilgrimage back to Vietnam (for Jeff and me) and the first visit to Cambodia (David’s other homeland). We stopped off in HK on the way in and the way out of Asia. Sometime during those days I was riding the Star Ferry alone (I thought probably my last ride). There was a little girl and her father sitting directly in front me. She was singing, first in Chinese, then in English,

“Row, row, row your boat,

gently down the stream,

Merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream.”

The day before we left we were in Big John’s Café, a small place in Tsim Sha Tsui, and on the sound system was,

“Those were days, my friend,

We thought they’d never end,

Writing on the Cathay Pacific plane

 

We’d sing and dance forever and a day.

We’d live the life we choose

We’d fight and never lose,

 

Those were the days,

Oh yes those were the days.”

And so it has been.

And now it’s three hours before we land (we slept for about six hours)… Jean and I in our life together, 22 months and still our magic unfolding. I’m writing and Jean is creating art – because that’s what she does. My jukebox is playing Brandi Carlisle, Chopin, Van Morrison…

These are the days.

These are the days that

Wonton noodle soup (shrimp) at Tsim She Kee

will last forever,

You got to hold them

In your heart.

I’m so high!

In the Fa Yuen Market (photo by Jean)

Two nights ago we went to a party at Peter N R’s house. It was a total Berkeley party. Stood out front smoking a joint. Inside the question arose, who was Joe Hill? Three people broke into song – “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you and me.” Someone was talking enthusiastically about her meditation teacher. I laid a little something from the Bible on her – “In my Father’s house are many

Tsim Sha Kee

rooms.” Jean danced, I didn’t. An old friend of hers and I talked about how just because someone is gone from our lives doesn’t mean that they have to really be gone. Jean and I were talking with a Jewish woman and Jean said, “I have Jewish guilt.” I could see the woman prepping for something weird. Jean said, “I’m the only person who didn’t bring any food.” LMAO.

From Victoria Peak

New Years Day lunch with David and Charles and John and Sherry at a restaurant on the water in San Francisco. David updated

Jean’s Global Entry on his iPad. We talked of music and writing and art and life.

“Baby, ain’t it all worthwhile.”

Tuesday I went to San Francisco to see David. We talked about travel and Leslie and what David said a few days about he and his Mom and I never really had any issues – any big anger or angst – it has always been all of us trying hard, knowing what we have, just like now.

Life!

A couple of days later (night before last): I went for an evening walk along the crazy crowded streets and saw a place I had looked for several times since David and Jeff and I were in HK in 2005. It was Big John’s Café. I had wanted to take Leslie there, but never could find it, and now here it was! The next morning Jean and I went there for breakfast. On the sound system was The Sounds of Silence.

On the Star Ferry. Deep personal meaning to this photo

Life is a miracle!

 

Common regrets/questions at the end of life, The Shield of Achilles

I was listening to World One Radio the other morning. Someone was talking about regrets at the end of life and by some miracle I had pen and paper at hand. Below is more or less what the person said – I was struck by the similarities to what I used to teach in hospice training and similar forums. I’ve added to the WorldOne list based primarily on what I taught (and still believe).

What this is about is that we have our life; we have our choices; this is it – no second chances except within the context of this life. In other words, it’s not too late. It’s getting late, but it’s not too late. Common regrets/issues at the end of life include, I wish I had…

Been truer to myself.

Been more loving toward the people who matter the most (what really matters in life is love).

Been a better spouse, parent, child.

Had the courage to express my feelings.

Stayed in touch with friends.

Not worked so hard.

Taken more risks.

Taken better care of myself.

Done more for others.

Let myself be happier and enjoy life more.

(One who sees the way in the morning will gladly die in the evening.)

—————-

The Shield of Achilles

Some years ago I knew a man who had been a doctor in the Iraqi army during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. About 1,000,000 people (half combatants, half civilians) were killed in the desert and trenches and artillery and human wave attacks and poison gas and horror. Since that war, the following poem has resonated in me in an awful way.

Now a question arises, will America fight the next war against North Korea or against Iran? Here are some lines from The Shield of Achilles (WH Auden, 1955).

A plain without a feature, bare and brown,

No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,

Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,

Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood

An unintelligible multitude,

A million eyes, a million boots in line,

Without expression, waiting for a sign.

 

Out of the air a voice without a face

Proved by statistics that some cause was just

In tones as dry and level as the place:

No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;

Column by column in a cloud of dust

They marched away enduring a belief

Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.

—————-

I feel sick

 

 

Honor Thy Daughter (Review of the book by Marilyn Howell)

Honor Thy Daughter is the story of a mother and daughter’s journey through cancer. The daughter (Mara) has a highly aggressive colon cancer. Her mother (Marilyn) is the primary caregiver and the chronicler – what a time, what a terrible journey they had!

Mara

This was difficult to write. I felt that I should truly honor this book, these people, these truths. I hope that I have, to some extent. In the end, I used Marilyn’s words.

—————

Mara experiences the reality of some cancers: one treatment failure after another and symptoms, especially pain, uncontrolled for the most part. The physical disease is exacerbated by Mara’s difficulties in accepting the realities she is facing – she fights the disease, the dying, the realities of being young and beautiful and dying. Her mother supports her in this and in all Mara’s other responses to the disease. Both mother and daughter hope against hope that the cancer will be cured or at least slowed. To these ends, Mara tries virtually every treatment she is offered or can find – mainstream and alternative. Nothing works. The cancer progresses and the symptoms worsen. It’s a hard road. There are respites, but the direction (toward the end of life) remains the same.

I experienced this as a difficult book. The valley of the shadow of death is a tough place. For me, personally there was an eerie sameness in Mara’s experience and the year and few months I spent taking Phana to chemo and other appointments. Phana and Mara’s tumors (primary colon) were basically the same, as were their ages and the progression of the disease. Hours and hours and hours in the infusion room, waiting rooms, exam rooms, the car… But of course, Phana wasn’t my daughter.

I don’t recall if Marilyn ever says this directly, but it seems to me that what she was doing was practicing a radical acceptance of her daughter’s path through cancer – fully supporting Mara’s every decision. “It wasn’t until I returned home that I realized how much fear and grief I had been holding in check. I stepped into my house, shut the door, and screamed” (p. 52).

150 pages into the book, with the cancer spread to lungs, liver, and elsewhere; with pain uncontrolled; with nausea, vomiting, and other GI problems worsening; with weight loss and weakness increasing, with despair… Mara and her mother connect with a man (“Allan”) who is able to give Mara accurate doses of MDMA. She takes MDMA several times and each time she experiences clarity, relief from pain (the first relief since the cancer began progressing), and the return of appetite. But the symptoms return after the drug wears off. She also uses marijuana and LSD, both of which help, but still, the symptoms return. Finally…

“On Saturday morning, September 10th, it was nearly impossible to awaken her. Finally, at midday, she was alert enough for me to ask her if she wanted to take MDMA. Mara mustered all her strength to say yes before returning to her restless sleep – gasping for breath and moaning… I put a tablet under her tongue.

Her breathing gradually steadied and her body grew peaceful…

David stroked Mara’s hair as I read (from This Timeless Moment by Laura Huxley). Those words, my voice, and her father’s caress told Mara that we accepted her passing, that her death could be noble, and that she was not alone.

All at once she began to move. She took her right hand from beneath the covers, reached across to place it in her father’s palm, lifted her chin, opened her eyes, and turned her head toward him. She was radiant. In that moment, she was beautiful again. With her last breath she conveyed the rapture of her being, life’s final gift to her, and her final gift to us.”

—————-

And we live and we breathe and we have our being (Van Morrison).

—————-

Marilyn Howell, 2011. Honor Thy Daughter. MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies). Note that MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, and marijuana are being given to people with terminal illness and despair in research studies at Harvard, NYU, USC, and other institutions.