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First post: Vietnam

At the DMZ – with 1/9, “The Walking Dead”

This post (a repost of part of my first web page, 2007) marks the transition from blogspot to my own web address (ckjournal.com). Thanks David!

American Dream…

To Dwight Laws, KIA 10/30/66 inside the company perimeter near Hill 55
To Lurch Donohue, KIA 3/1/67 in a deserted ville near Route 4
To Jerry Georges, KIA 3/23/67 at the Hill 55 bridge

They were good men. We were young. They could have lived a long time.

Photo: me, Mike Noumov, Jeff Wiseman at the rear on Hill 55 on my return (bearing gifts) from R&R. Over and over again we were playing the Byrds album with Turn! Turn! Turn! on it – “a time to be born, a time to die; a time to kill, a time to heal; a time to laugh, a time to weep; a time for peace, I swear it’s not too late.” Do you think that wasn’t blowing our minds? (4 of the first 5 photos are mine; the rest by someone else; all are taken at places/battles I was in.)

Here is the whole story of how Donohue was killed. For the first 10 or so years after I came home, there was never a day that I didn’t run this through my mind at least once – like some kind of video. I gave my compulsive rumination a name: How Donohue Got It. Then in 1978 I spent a week in a retreat with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Stephen Levine, and others. That was the first time I told this aloud. The second time was with my brother, Jeff (who identified Donohue’s body back at battalion). I seldom think of this now.

We were on patrol north of the bend in Route 4, the dirt road that went by C Company’s

My gun at the DMZ. Ready to rock.

position. There were no civilians left in this area (where 1/9 got its name, The Walking Dead) – a ghostly overgrown area of deserted villes, fields, and woods. Donohue was my A-gunner. We were digging in the first night of the patrol and he wasn’t doing his part of the digging. I asked him what was going on and he had trouble answering, but finally said he wasn’t going to make it. He was really sad. I said something like, “Bullshit, man – we’ve been here too long to not make it.” I dug us in and gave him a smoke (though I don’t remember that he smoked – I’m not sure about this – maybe I just wish I’d given him a cigarette). But he was inconsolable. He knew.

Operation Prairie. Real shit, man.

Charles Kemp during Operation Deckhouse. Later that day we had several tanks blown away.

The next day we saddled up and I gave him my machine-gun. Not too much greater love than to give up your gun for another man – because my gun was my hope, my friend, my ticket home. I loved that gun; and I was pretty good with it. Please allow me to introduce myself … We moved out, into a deserted ville. I was walking left flank point and came to a hedgerow of bamboo with a closed gate the only way through. Going through that gate was death – no question about it, there was a mine somewhere with the gate. I was crouched down, trying to figure out a way to stay on line and not be killed when there was a powerful explosion off to my right and someone started yelling, “Corpsman up! Corpsman up!” In a heartbeat I knew Donohue was the explosion.

I took off up the trail to the right and there was a man standing frozen in the trail still shouting for a corpsman and my recollection is that I ran literally up and over him (though how could that be?) and there was Donohue. He was on the ground with both legs blown off. I was beside him and saw that one stump was left with shattered bone sticking out and his guts were spilled out of where the other one had been. He was still alive! He was moaning and moving around a little. I was on my knees beside him and we were receiving fire by then. I was struggling with whether to go ahead and finish him off, because he was definitely going to die and even if he didn’t die, what was the use of going on like that. Then life went out of him. I’m grateful I didn’t kill him. I joined in on the firefight and then

At the Hill Fights (“the first battle of Khe Sanh”)

it was quiet; and then I had to find my gun as it wasn’t by the body. I remember walking through the bushes and trees looking for the gun and there were little pink/grey gobbets of Donohue everywhere and on my face and hands too. The smell. I found one of his feet before I found my gun. The foot was heavy and the gun was out of commission. For some reason this whole deal was the last straw – just too much. I mean, what for?

OR in bunker at Khe Sanh

I pretty much lost hope after that. We had been in the field for about eight months: out on patrol 3-4 days, back to company for a day, out for a night ambush, another day in, and back out on patrol 3-4 days – week after week, month after month and every day, at least one casualty. I realized there were hardly any of the original men left. By then it was a company of mostly fucking new guys and there was nobody I wanted to even talk to.

I was also having weird thoughts. Like maybe I could just walk out of the perimeter a couple of klicks to a ville we’d been through a few times where a one-legged girl lived (lotta one-legged people in them parts) and I could take her an adjustable crutch so she wouldn’t have to walk in the bent and twisted way she walked with her too-short stick of a crutch. A time to heal. Or maybe I could slip out and maybe run across a VC or two and instead of killing each other we could sit down in a clearing somewhere and drink a bottle of whiskey together and have some smokes and talk about our girlfriends. You know, have a good time. Be normal. A time to laugh. These sounded like really good ideas to me and I was thinking about them a lot – all the time. Now I realize that I’ve spent much of the past 40 years taking a crutch to that girl – and I have miles to go before I sleep.

Dinner time

A few weeks after Donohue was killed we were out on a night ambush and ran into another patrol from our company. The word had not been passed that we were going to meet. I was on point and when I saw the first man in the dark – like about 10 feet away, man – I started shooting. I shot the point man of the other patrol in the leg, hip, and chest (lucky for him I was carrying an M-14 instead of the 60); and the man behind me shot him in the chest with a grenade launcher. I remember watching one of my rounds (tracer) hit him and fly off at an angle – which was pretty far out. We were so close that the M-79 round didn’t spin enough to arm, hence didn’t explode and ended up lodged in his neck. Incredibly, he lived. There was an article in Stars and Stripes about the surgery to remove the M-79 round. I don’t remember the name of the man I shot, except that we called him the Red-Headed Mexican and he was a good guy. I remember (before I shot him) him going crazy in Dodge City (Thuy Bo) and charging a VC position right after Zamora was killed. Three helicopters shot down right there that day. 13 KIA and 66 WIA that operation. Keep on rockin in the free world. And now I know his name because a few weeks ago I read a copy of the article about the incident! Raymond Escalera. The article said I shot him only once. There was an investigation and not long after I was transferred out of 1/26.

Sometimes, in a dream
You appear

Thank you Jeff. To everything, Turn! Turn! Turn! there is a season, Turn! Turn! Turn! And a time to every purpose under heaven, Turn! Turn! Turn!

A gunner (like me) at Khe Sanh. Cleaning his weapon. Goddam, good gun, good smokes.

I started at MCRD San Diego, then Infantry Training Regiment & Machine Gun School; Camp Pendleton & las Pulgas for Special Landing Force training. On to Subic Bay & Olongapo (oh, how we partied, like doomed youth) in the Philippines; first landing southern South Vietnam (1st casualties); second landing Deckhouse & Prairie for serious battles (photo from Operation Prairie – yeah, man, it’s real); Hill 55 & Dodge City (snipers, mines, occasional firefights & some battles – see above); Dong Ha & Hill Fights (168 KIA, but it took awhile); also at Con Thien, Gio Linh, and Khe Sanh, though not for long in these last three. If there was a sound track to this section it would be Sympathy for the Devil, maybe Gimme Shelter. We won every battle and beat back very attack, but America lost its will and lost the war. Nice work, so-called “greatest generation.” All told, 13 months

A beautiful sight

in combat (well, you know, not every day) in the two provinces (Quang Nam & Quang Tri) accounting for 25% of the US KIA (I think there are 20 or more provinces in VN); Danang, The World. God. I’m alive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful Christmas, Phana, days into days, a day on Mount Tamalpais, Esalen couples massage, How to Survive a Plague, Book About Love, Massage class notes

Jean on Mount Tamalpais
It was a beautiful Christmas with Jean, David, and Charles, despite a death in the family. This Christmas was a time to enjoy and to savor vs. endure as in the previous year (and previous six for Jean). Jean gave me an art coat and a book on love and I gave her a lithograph and a book. A time to be born. I flew to Dallas Christmas afternoon (see below) and Jean flew in a few days later and we celebrated the New Year together. Though we were a little under the weather it was a good time.  
Amidst the joy, sadness. I got the call two days before Christmas that Phana had passed away. We spent a lot of time together over the past one and a half years – long, long days of chemotherapy, hospitals and doctor’s offices in Houston and Dallas, endless hours in the car. Phana was young and in some ways, unfulfilled, yet she went through illness and death with bravery and equanimity – and so fulfilled that last thing: an honorable death.
David and Jake, CK, Phana – Ocean Beach, August 2015
David and I flew to Dallas on Christmas day for the funeral the next day. He spoke at the service. A sad day.
Back in Berkeley, back home, we were in a time of transition, which can be difficult. But that’s the nature of things – changes, changes. (Looking out of the bus window going past the Berkeley Art Museum I see a young man holding an older man sagging in his arms.)
Days rolling into days. These are the days… of the endless summer… days upon days in Paradise. Magical mornings – waking sometime between 6 and 7, coffee in bed, watching the astounding changes of colors and clouds in the sky through the double doors with the Bay below and Mt. Tamalpais in the distance, and out of bed around the crack of 9. A bowl of fruit and yogurt with toast and almond butter for breakfast.
Grateful Dead Night at Ashkanaz – where we go dancing
Most days I go into the City to see David: Number 7 bus to downtown Berkeley, BART to Embarcadero, MUNI to Castro, walking the stairs of Harvey Milk Plaza past the rainbow escalator to the corner of Market and Castro. Walking down the avenue to meet David for lunch (Starbelly, Harvey’s, the Vietnamese place, Kasa, the usual places). Life unfolding – ahhhh – so beautiful!
Today coming up out of the subway with Bombay Calling (It’s a Beautiful Day) on my headphones flashing back to being in a little room in the Bombay airport with Leslie very sick and there was nothing to do but give her water and watch the cockroaches crawling on the wall… when you’re in a dream, time passes so slowly, time passes so slowly, open up your heart…

Back to MUNI, BART, Berkeley bus, home to Jean’s house hanging high above the San Francisco Bay.

Sunset over the Golden Gate (from deck)

(In the past months I’ve spent more time looking at the sky than ever before in my life.)
In the evening, sunset, a glass of wine before dinner, and after dinner, tea and a bowl. Last night we “made hand love” – just hand to hand – for an hour or more. These are the days!!!
Two-three times/week we have dinner or otherwise meet up with some of Jean’s group (tribe?) of friends.
Mt. Tam., Pacific Ocean
On a beautiful January day (1/31) we drove to the Pacific side of Mount Tamalpais. We walked along the Bolinas Ridge Trail, then on unnamed trails along the sensuous rounded hills rolling off the mountain to a place in the sun and trees overlooking the sea on one side and the hills on the other side. In the sun, in the wind, in the golden afternoon, on the soft hilltop talking of love, of people we love, of regrets, now dancing in the sun, embracing. Oh! As the sun began to set and the cool rolled in we walked – a long walk – back to the car. San Francisco rising like Atlantis in the far distance. Hail Atlantis! It was an epic drive home. Neither of us felt like eating, so we took a long deep bath together in the warm candle-lit bathroom.
Charles and Jean 
“The best days are the ones when I look around at all these people in my life, these people in my heart, and I think, This is it.” 
We got a massage table for Christmas and have each been getting a long massage at least once every week. We spent last weekend (2/4-5) in little hippie town in Marin County at a Esalen couples massage workshop. There were two other couples signed up, but both cancelled, so it was just Jean and me with the instructor, Nora. Somewhere along the line we both realized Nora is a master teacher. We had a beautiful and very valuable experience, learning and practicing some basics of Esalen massage.
Saturday night (after the first day of class), we went to a dinner party at Linda and Frank’s art house. To me, the dinner/gathering was an installation within an installation. Someone at the party asked why we took the course/what is this massage about (those were more or less the questions). Good question:

San Francisco in the far distance from Mt. Tam
  • Esalen massage is about the connection between the person giving and the person getting the massage… loving, expressing love, receiving love, uniting.
  • It’s about feeling good deep inside, a sense of well-being.
  • Relaxing.
  • Esalen massage is about opening to self, connecting, experiencing one’s own (and another’s) body and mind.


Notes from the class are at the end of this post.
I’ve read two books in the past month. How to Survive a Plague by David France is an account of the AIDS epidemic and the appalling lack of response on the part of the government, healthcare system, and society to the suffering and death of gay men – and the magnificent efforts of AIDS activists such as the ACT-UP group to force a response.
The book is a triumph of love and strength.
I lived in the Castro for about two years, first with Leslie and then alone. I loved it. I was surrounded by people hated and attacked for being – and their individual and community response? They take the word “gay” to describe themselves and their culture. They dance. They hold together. They create. They BE. We be. 

The Castro

Michael Callen (one of the early AIDS activists), on Christmas day, 1993:
“… just repeats like a mantra: life is good. Life is good.”
“I realize some people could look at my life and say, ‘Oh it was so sad. He died of AIDS and isn’t that tragic.’ But what I want to come through is that even after all the pain and all the torture, and even having AIDS, I can honestly say that being gay is the greatest gift I was ever given. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
When all his friends had spoken their farewells that afternoon, Callen signed his last will and testament and then turned up the dial on his morphine drip, sliding into a deep and lasting sleep.
The other book is A Book About Love by Jonah Lehrer, given to me by Jean. It started out as kind of a feel-good book, then turned into something deeper. Ultimately it was an extravagant affirmation of living life and loving to the fullest. Loving in the face of joy, suffering, work, getting tired of it all, in the face of death, in need, in strength and weakness, for better, for worse, in life.

Meeting of minds: Marcia and Jean in Marcia’s garden

“The best days are the ones when I look around at all these people in my life, these people in my heart, and I think, This is it.”  



Esalen couples massage notes, taken at Nora Matten’s class, 2/4-5/2017 
(website: http://www.noramatten.com/)
Have supplies ready, warm room, music, lighting.
Begin with talking about intentions, connecting with the other person, dancing each part of the body, mindfulness meditation.
Start – back
Bolster under ankles.


From beginning, work to relax the person.
LEs and UEs, use deeper strokes except with varicosities, injuries, etc.
Up-strokes are more invigorating (increased force) and down-strokes are more calming (decreased force).
Avoid surprises, be intentional re everything. Commit to the stroke.
Work with one foot back (sometimes), heart open, 
Come into myself, including awareness of pain, discomfort…
3-fold towel under shoulders diagonally
Introducing myself… Slowly lower hands to lower back and behind the heart. Not doing, just being. Breathe. Breathe with the person.
There is a beginning (pause, rocking, long strokes), middle (detail work), end (long strokes, pause).
Jean: Push – rocking.
Now “long, flowing strokes… signature of Esalen massage” – entire body, including head. SLOW. Always come back to this – integrating.
Pause, still integrating.
Stay comfortable.
After long and slow, pull sheet partially down, then fold to center of body.
Oil hands and arms – will use both.
Start shoulders, back… three dimensional, circular… follow the 3-D landscape. Reach over and pull up on side. Commit to the stroke – complete, e.g., off toes and fingers. Go slow. Use forearms – for increased weight.
Sit with sheet over leg to work on shoulder.
Hands, inclu ROM


Then bring arm forward to rest on stool.

Photo from the showers at Esalen, beside massage rooms

Always come back to the long strokes.
Head now or after pulling sheet up.
LEs, inclu toes. ROM.
Draw sheet slowly up. Stroke on top of sheet.
Come to child’s pose. Lift sheet so can turn over.
Face up
Adjust bolster to under knees, towel under head.
Long and slow.
Work on shoulder and chest.
Pause
Go under shoulder, embracing.
Arms, hands (interlock fingers), rotate wrist.
Long and slow
Pause

Legs
Finish long and slow all the way off feet
Head last
Roll with hands
Face, brows, easy on temple, ears, occiput, scalp
Use towel to roll head side to side – towel over eyes.
Finish long and slow all the way off feet.

Love and magic, the sadness, Star of David, I care about/don’t care about, courage, post-election

Love and magic
Reading each word, each phrase, each one slowly with reflection. What’s left out?
💕 Love is a feeling, where everything is right – open hearts and minds and communication and synchronicity and commitment and seeing all the beauty and hope and fragility of one another and caring for each other (caring more about the other than self) and the tenderness and discovery and sex and romance and sensuality and acceptance and clear, open communication and depending on one another and softness around one another and around the love and around this life …
💕 Magic – the love is ramped up, intensified (Sometimes talking of love for hours and hours makes sense – what else is there?), kissing caressing making love for hours and hours, intoxicated with one another, pretty much completely in synch, taking the utmost care of one another, it’s the greatest thing …
💕 How? Surrender, pay attention to one another, look for all the magic and beauty in one another, believe that magic is real and possible, put selves into magical places and activities, magical music, accept times of less magic, wide-open communication …
——————–

Talking with a little 5 year old mermaid named Beatrice, who asked, “Do you have kissy love in your heart?” “Oh yes!”

——————–
Getting ready to decorate Jean’s and my Christmas tree I got out my small collection of San Francisco Christmas ornaments. Opening the box/the Christmas season triggered a flood of emotion and I cried as I did in the first months after Leslie passed. It’s a hard, consuming crying that goes on and on and leaves me exhausted and sore all through my body. Jean helped me through part of it and left me alone at a good time.

Sunset from the deck

———————
One of the decorations we put on the tree is a Star of David (for Jean’s husband, David, who was Jewish). Jean wondered aloud about putting a Jewish symbol on a Christian symbol. I quoted from John 14: In my Father’s house are many rooms… Later these lyrics came through the speakers: In my Father’s house are many rooms.
———————-
I care about:
Being a good person.
Feeling good given/within whatever circumstances.
Loving you, Jean; being loved cared about.
Loving David.
In Vancouver
How you’re doing.
Being close/connected/making you happy.
Being beautiful – being beautiful for you.
Just beingwith you.
I don’t know how to say this, but I care about your vision, your expression, your art (not only what you produce). I’m digging your wisdom, too.
Experiencing nature/natural beauty.
Having beautiful, loving sex – pleasing you sexually – exploring one another’s sexuality.
Suffering in the world.
Justice.
John.
Friends and men in bible study group.
Who wins the election.
La Honda – before a magic night
People being nice to one another, especially parents being nice to children.
Growing, becoming, reaching toward my potential.
Being healthy.
Having or having had meaning – as in a life pattern.
Getting high, especially with you.
Being strong.
Having peak experiences.
Having enough money.
Being respected by people I respect.
Looking good.
Low stress, no conflict.
Being around kind people.
Living life effortlessly. 
Baking and things like that – I care but not all that much about these things.
I don’t care about:
What we eat, when we eat, where we eat.
Where, when, how we go, except that want to go with you.
Under the same sky, the same moon
Where we sit, when we go to sleep/awaken.
What I wear, except that I want to look good for you.
Manifesting much of anything other than decency and safety (Haha – actually, I want to manifest cool).
Who wins the football game.
——————
In November
Falling in love in these days/this age takes courage. One will pass, one will grieve (though surely not as long, nor as terribly as before). Eyes wide open.
————————
Political/cultural comment
We came so close, and then we lost it. The reasons are complex, I guess. Someone else can figure it all out.
My friend, Janet said, ”…everything we worked so hard for…” And for so long. Ah, what a beautiful vision we had.
I think we may be on the threshold of a time of tribulation. I have no idea what form(s) it might take.
What to do after Trump election? (Answers evolving)
Live our normal lives, working on love and acceptance and meaning and growth… manifest these things.

Indian Path 

Now, more than ever, be a living mudra (symbolic gesture) of the potentials in life. Lift up (with energy, with money) positive forces, in my case World One Radio (http://worldoneradio.org/), my son’s high school, hospice – especially the Presbyterian hospice in Dallas, Atrium Obscurum, other entities. Be kind to others, friends and strangers.
I need to remember that long-ago boddhisatva vow: to liberate all sentient beings. It ain’t easy lol. I’m not done with myself.


–>

Lay it all on the line at the right time. No need for fear… we’ve all faced at least this much before.
——————-
And the bodies move and we sweat
And we have our being
Van Morrison, Daring Night

Light in the Grove, Esalen magic, Nouwen quote, magic, my last patients, beautiful night

Esalen campus

It’s been awhile since I posted – much of my writing has been personal.

—————–
We went to Light in the Grove, the 25th anniversary benefit for the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. http://www.aidsmemorial.org/ We got there early and sat in the car talking – a sweet time.
Light in the Grove

We made the most beautiful entrance I’ve ever made – when people arrived they were each given a glass of champagne and a candle in a glass vase and then walked down the switchback path to the Circle of Friends area – like an endless line of people, of lights. The path was lined with lights and every 20-30 feet there was a person standing greeting everyone warmly. The redwood grove below was beautifully lighted and there dancers in the glade (I think on this night the faeries were on the side of the hill). At the Circle of Friends everyone placed a candle in memory of someone (for me, Rueben). Then down a path at the edge of the glade where names of people who died projected in a moving, never-ending list on the trunks of the redwoods.

It was all deeply moving.
Esalen campus – class 

At the end of the path was a huge tent where there was a nice buffet, wine, drinks, etc. David and Charles got there a little later and sat with us for a bit and then they were off to connect with friends. We left not too long afterward. We sat on a bench beside the path – what a night!

—————–
The next day we drove south on Highway 1 along the magnificent coast into Big Sur and to Esalen (http://www.esalen.org/). Here, hidden from the world, giants of the counter-culture had walked, studied, meditated, taught, opened… Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, Fritz Perls, Allen Ginsberg, Virginia Satir, Joseph Campbell, and countless more.
Esalen showers

Our room opened onto the headlands above the Pacific rolling, crashing against the rocks below. We unloaded the car and headed for the hot springs baths, where we watched the sun set over the Pacific, blue water, white foam, crashing strong.

We talked about a time six years before when Jean had scattered her husband’s ashes by “David’s tree” beside the path to the springs. We talked about how the night before, less than 24 hours before, we had been at the place where my son and I had scattered my wife’s ashes less than a year before. What a life we lead!
Room at Esalen

In the morning we made love (“Open your eyes. See the sky! See the ocean!”) and later went for a massage. Like everything else, the massage rooms hang above the Pacific. A timeless massage with the waves rolling and crashing below… and then to the baths, where we made love (not physically) for three hours with the waves crashing below. Late lunch, nap on the lawn, drive to Carmel Valley for a glass of wine with Steve and Susan, then the long drive home.

I’ve dreamed of Esalen for half my life. Although there was a little weirdness in this trip with the presence of too many web developer millennials (a little too much loud talking, some even wearing swim suits in the baths – eww), still, the magic and beauty were there. We just created a cocoon around ourselves and opened to the magic, the love, the beauty, dreaming our dreams.
Esalen baths

—————–

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means 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. Henri Nouwen
—————–
Last patients, last day of work

These kind of things keep happening. I need to remember to record them. Jean texted that she was on the way home. I texted back that I would put a candle in the window. Less than an hour later this song came on the radio: Put a Candle in the Window. Home to this warm home, to this temple, the walls, the walls, the…

“walls with hangings rich,
of many strange designs”
(Robin Williamson).
—————–
Listening to U2’s New Years Day live, thinking of my work, about how I was there deep, deep in the richness and difficulties of the flow until the very end. I wondered what was the last photo of me at work? I looked and here it is – on my last day, my last patients. Taking the photo was the Mom’s idea.
Thanksgiving 2016

I met the woman on the left years before, very shortly after she got here from Mexico. We were in an apartment (a typical refugee/immigrant apartment) with some people, maybe her husband and someone else and two students, and somehow it happened that there was a modesty issue and I looked away without lingering. I always had the sense that she appreciated that. I took care of her and her daughter (in pink) for years. When I saw them that last time (photo) her daughter was about 13 or 14, wearing a shirt that said, Why Not?

——————
Esalen!

On a rainy day we went to visit a friend who lives in some mountains not far from San Francisco. The plan was to have dinner, have a sauna, and spend the night. He wasn’t home when we got there, so we got around the gate to the road to his wife’s studio (she is Jean’s good friend, traveling ATM) and walked down the road to the studio. The door was open and we went in and built a fire in the wood-burning stove (first photo) and put our feet up. Our friend came home a few hours later and we went to the house.

Nice dinner, great company, good sauna, back to the studio. It was cold and rained all night long. We set up the wood for the night, got the big air mattress set up on the concrete floor, then our new two-person sleeping bag, a bowl, a glass of wine, up every two hours to add wood to the fire, lot of bathroom runs, re-inflate the mattress a few times. One of the best nights of my life.
With John Kemp at Indian Rock

——————

Walls with hangings rich,
Lisa’s studio – cold, rainy day
of many strange designs


Just the facts, Yosemite, an ancient forest, illness, twilight, the way it is

Above the fog, above Golden Gate
There is zero embellishment, exaggeration, or anything else other than reporting the facts here. Driving across GG Bridge in the fog and then up into the Marin Headlands and when we were close to the end of the Headlands, parking and walking a short trail to where we sat/lay on a sarong in the scent of chaparral, in the place where fog and sun meet, at the edge of the world, around the bend from Shangri-La, and across the bridge from paradise – going home in paradise with the moon floating in misty beauty above. Paradise, where yesterday we lay naked and beautiful in the warm afternoon sun streaming through the temple door.

At the edge of the world
Yosemite: Beneath the Royal Arches, Washington Column, and Half Dome we lay cozy and comfortable beneath the trees, by the river and then walked quietly on soft pine needles in ancient forest with mossy rocks in faery circles and playgrounds in soft mist in these sacred groves, this “Sanctum Sanctorum” (John Muir).
———————
She said, “I honor you.”
———————
Three basic questions about serious illness:
What is it?
What does it mean to me (e.g., treatment, suffering, disability, dying)?
Can I do this?
Things that add up in the time of dying: First and always, good control of symptoms such as pain. Sharing heart space, all. Sacred meals shared, even if less than a bite. Drinking from a sacred vessel. Sleeping together. Opening a window. Music. Reading the old prayers. Whatever is possible…
Mystic forest
——————-
From a slow train Moulmein to Rangoon, 2007
Mountains above,
Padi fields below,
Andaman Sea in the distance!
In mystic light.

Through a village in a forest,
A beautiful, graceful girl,
With thanaka on her cheeks,
And a basket on her head,
Walks out of a dark path among the trees.
Then another!

—————-
Yosemite Valley, rainy day. Left to right:
Royal Arches, North Dome, Washington Column, and Half Dome
The night before I left Berkeley we had dinner on the deck – the Turkish entry in our ongoing ‘round the world salad challenge – and watched the sun go down behind Mount Tamalpais across the Bay and The City beginning to sparkle and we can still see GG Bridge and Alcatraz. Then Indian Rock at twilight – twilight, the mystic time of day in the mystic days we share. There were maybe 20 other people on the rock, their murmuring voices around, behind us and we’re sharing the cherry cherry wine, drinking from the bottle. These are the days!
El Capitan
“It’s getting dark – maybe we should go down.” We laughed at the unintended double entendre. Awhile later we decided to go down and whoa, it was really dark! We got down fine (slow) and sat close and warm on a park bench in the darkness…
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More facts (the bottom line):
Walking down by the river over the bridge through the trees and meadows and mountains and the soft forest floor with faery rings mossy boulders everything felt so right and so good walking along the street in markets in coffee shops in stores a café and a band playing dancing in a meadow so high in the sunrise in the eternal moment on the beach in the sand saying all the ways of loving and being talking of myth of art of mourning of euphoria of dancing of our generation of truth laughing in the golden light in the mist in the wind sea breeze in the fog in the sunlight making love in the forest in the temple fixing coffee breakfast dinner listening to WorldOneRadio wine on Indian Rock in the park in the dark on the San Francisco Bay kites flying dogs a man performing ritual a man playing a trombone on the highway telling the stories of our lives I feel ancient beautiful reborn prayer ceremony bliss love living a blessing crying dancing laughing serious happy sexy goofy singing loving …

Jean – Washington Column to left, Half Dome on right

Sacred space, sacred dance

Oh!
We danced in the meadow with all the shiny happy people at Flagging in the Park in the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. We danced and danced and danced – in the flow – sacred space, sacred dance. David, Charles, Jean, me in the grove in the grass in the flowers in the people on the soft grass dance floor. Jean and I walking into the quiet and majestic redwood grove where faeries watch from the underbrush, to the side of the hill to dance in the sun on rocks, in love, in beauty.
As the party wound down, slow-walking up and out of the grove, past the greens, and as Hippie Hill comes into view we hear, as a hymn, Attics of My Life, the choir singing slow, no instruments, just voices in reverent joy. 
In the secret space of dreams
Where I dreaming lay amazed
When the secrets are all told
And the petals all unfold…
In the AIDS Memorial Grove

We played this song at Leslie’s service 18 months ago and I’m hearing it now, slow and stately, re-visioned. I shared this with Jean, as we’ve shared so much with one another – somehow in relation to my wife (whose ashes are in this grove) and in relation to Jean’s husband (today, Jean is wearing a talisman with some of his ashes in it). These days…

From Golden Gate, every bus and train back to Berkeley came with just moments of waiting. When we got home, the radio was playing Buffy Sainte Marie singing God is Alive, Magic is Afoot! How can things like this happen?

From the deck the sun sets behind Mount Tamalpais – an incredible thing when you think about it.

David Kemp, Jean Cacicedo, Charles Kemp, Charles Binkley –
Shiny Happy People
Here is a nice gift from me to you: http://worldoneradio.org/– it’s a radio station that plays gamelan music, Buffy Sainte Marie, rock and roll, EDM, chamber, all sorts of things all carefully thought out.









To David Bank

A little background music from Bob Seger (Roll Me Away): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXhxVjlJyQE
After 20 years as a New York police officer, David hit the road across America on his big two-wheeler. New York, down south, across the southwest, up the coast of California. Twenty years in the streets (of a runaway American dream), and now seven weeks into the trip, stopping off in Berkeley to have dinner with Jean and me  – the fellowship and the trip elevated me. Yeah!

From Grizzly Peak in Berkeley. Golden Gate in the distance.

Sitting on a rock wall near the top of Grizzly Peak above Berkeley (photo) – Jean, David, me – and far across the bay, San Francisco in in the afternoon light. In the evening, dinner outside looking across the bay into the sunset. America!
Roll me away.

From the deck the sun sets behind Mount Tamalpais.

San Fransisco to Berkeley

From the bedroom, through the temple door
Sitting in the front window above the Noe Street sidewalk listening to Van Morrison. I’ve been sorting and packing this morning (moving from San Francisco to Berkeley). It’s not easy – boxes of memories, of sadness, what to keep, what to discard (not much of the latter). Listening to The Healing Has Begun.
And we’ll walk down the avenue again
And we’ll sing all the songs from way back when
And we’ll walk down the avenue again and the healing has begun
And we’ll walk down the avenue in style
And we’ll walk down the avenue and we’ll smile
And we’ll say baby ain’t it all worthwhile when the healing has begun
I realize I’m sitting in the window, crying. Caught in the beautiful strands of the past. A few days ago, I told my friend Kristina that in the last months of Leslie’s life it was like there were shimmering falls of love and beauty coming down on us around us through us. Now, just short of 18 months later, I’m grateful I’m transfigured with love past and present.
At farmer’s market in Berkeley
There went two Dads with a beautiful baby wearing a rainbow jacket. Now an old Asian man and woman holding hands, walking slow. A pretty Mom and pretty baby. Oh Oh Oh!
And now I see a future. I always knew there would be some kind of future, but had no idea it would be beautiful like this. How can it be that I’m loving two women? Mourning one, making love with one. The love’s to love the love’s to love the love’s to love… Yes, I’m walking down the avenue again with a fine woman and a sense of wonder.
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In the early morning with the doors open to the fog and cold and the bed so warm. Oh! So warm!
The sky, the hill in the small distance, Golden Gate Bridge hidden in the fog (how it sparkled last night), the BART train going and coming from/to the station half a mile below and a few birds flying by, and somewhere a bird singing, and we’re talking of the past, the future, sacred space, this sacred space we’re in right now… 
With my cherry cherry wine (at Indian Rock in Berkeley)
Yesterday morning before we left the San Francisco apartment where Leslie and I had lived we were in bed I cried and cried and we made love and cried and drank our morning coffee and talked and I will never, we will never grow so old again I am so naked.
Yesterday we walked to Indian Rock and climbed up 50 or 60 feet and sat in the sun and drank from the bottle of cherry cherry wine – the same brand that Van Morrison sang about (could there be more than one brand labeled “Cherry Cherry Wine”) in Cypress Avenue: 
I think I’ll go on by the river with my cherry cherry wine
I believe I’ll go walking by the railroad with my cherry cherry wine
And that’s exactly what we did.
  

Principles for being, conversation, San Francisco, destiny

Jean at Marcia’s

Several of these photos were taken in Jean’s friend Marcia’s house in Berkeley.

Some of the more vicious FB posts about Hillary Clinton started me thinking about how we communicate and what responsibilities we might have in communicating. I looked up something I wrote in 1999 about ethics related to end-of-life care, especially the part about being honest. The fundamental moral or ethical principle is respect for people. Within this respect are these principles:
In Marcia’s garden
  • Respect for autonomy – the right of self-determination.
  • Beneficence or benevolence – doing good, meeting needs; a moral obligation to practice mercy, kindness, compassion, and charity.
  • Nonmaleficence – doing no harm.
  • Veracity – truth-telling.
  • Confidentiality – respecting privileged information.
  • Fidelity – keeping promises.
  • Justice – treating fairly.

Of course these don’t apply only to end-of-life care; they are ultimately serious and high organizing principles for life and how we betogether and within ourselves. (Thanks and a tip of the hat to Tom Beauchamp and James Childress.)
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Conversation with Guy, the man who sells flowers on Noe:

It looks like I may be moving to Berkeley.
What about your son?
Well, I’m retired, so I’ll just commute – lunches in SF, Golden Gate, all that.
Marcia’s bathroom

You’re lucky.

I know.

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San Francisco
Several years ago my son-in-law recommended the Tales of The City series by Armistead Maupin. I think Charles thought that reading these books would help me better understand San Francisco, the city I’ve fallen in love with – especially gay San Francisco. That’s exactly what happened. I just finished the last book in the series – The Days of Anna Madrigal. What a soaring, beautiful book.
My apartment on Noe. Window by alarm is/was mine.

My apartment is very near David and Charles in Duboce Triangle, between the Castro and Lower Haight. Leslie and I lived here happily – most of the time. After she passed away (I almost wrote, died) I stayed. Like our home in Dallas, I’ve loved and been loved here, made love here, been happy here, mourned here – I’ve lived here.

This is the city David gave to Leslie – and she embraced it fully and was embraced by it. Leslie in the Haight! Market! Castro! Cole Valley! She’s on the bus, on the F-Line, she’s in the streets, she’s interacting!


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To be born again.
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We were studying Paul’s letter to the Romans (8:26-36) in Bible study (about groans too deep for words, searching the heart, predestiny – all that in ten verses!) and I was thinking about the

View from Jean’s house – Mount Tam

day before when I spent several hours at a coffee shop with a young friend and was blown away by the fact that with open heart and well-acquainted with groans too deep for words, she’s walking tall into her destiny. It’s been a long road and she’s stayed true to the call. She and I have had some of the same visions. This was a very affirming time for me.

In the streets

Apartments in refugee neighborhood
Cambodian children – cold in the apartments
The way it worked was I would take clinical groups of community health nursing students into refugee communities. There were nearly always 8 students/group, so initially we had 4 teams of 2 students and me. Later as our reputation spread, we had volunteer and then paid translators and community health workers, like promotoras de salud. Still later in the process we developed clinics with medical (primary care, psychiatry, gynecology, pediatrics, etc.) and other services, which were integrated into the district health scene. But for now, I’ll describe the straight district health end of things.

We started in one apartment building (about 40 units), where a lot of refugees lived (as well as other poor people). We went door to door, finding health and related problems. On the first day, two of students helped deliver a baby – so we knew things were going to be interesting. Every time we’d find a problem, one of the student teams would stop to help the people solve the problem. Some problems were straightforward and readily solved, some took semesters to solve, and some were never completely solved. Often, one thing would lead to another and we’d work with the people over time. And Leslie was working with us (what an education for students that was!). It was never, ever about referral. It was always about helping the most underserved people be served – solving problems (pregnancy, primary care, depression, hunger, family violence, cancer, and on and on and on). 
In the day we sweat it out in the streets
of a runaway American dream
Community garden outreach
Agape Clinic waiting room
When we got through the first building, we left a team in that building to continue working through problems and went through the same process in the next building. Then we left another team in the second building and started working through the third. And so on. Over time, over semesters we had all the buildings covered in about an 8 block area (which was a lot). And we also had classes and other outreach (health screening, vaccinations, etc.) going on in schools, churches, and community gathering places; for awhile we were doing intake assessments for children who had been removed from their homes because of abuse; and we added the medical, etc. and expanded clinic hours.
Estevan Garcia, MD and Charles Kemp, FNP
Much of what we accomplished was through partnerships and cooperative relationships with community organizations, from grass-roots groups like the Association for Salvation of Cambodian Refugees to Parkland Memorial Hospital, Dallas County Health Department, National Council of Jewish Women, Dallas Police, and a number of foundations, churches, and religious organizations – and of course, the Agape Clinic.
We said we would take responsibility for this community and we did that. Far out vision, isn’t it. With dignity and justice for all in the real world. What an education for students it all was!

It lasted in one form or another for about 30 years and parts of it (East Dallas Health Center, Agape Clinic) continue through today

Refugee children on Carroll Street

and are seeing more patients now than ever before.

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We didn’t have a TV in the waiting room. Instead we had books – especially children’s books and a children’s play area.