War, refugees, Boom!, Leslie

In the spring of 1967 I was in what were called the “Hill Fights” (or First Battle of Khe Sanh), a series of battles along the Vietnam DMZ. I was in that deal for about a month and a half. I spent a few weeks of that time at Khe Sanh (which was kind of a rear), just kind of hanging out between operations.

Marine cleaning M-60 at Con Thien (not my photo) 
One day I was on the perimeter and we saw someone walking toward us. Nobody had ever done that before – just a person, alone, walking out of the forest toward the Khe Sanh perimeter. I’m guessing there were 30-40 automatic weapons trained on this person, and the claymores. We began to realize it was a man… a western man… a western man wearing a clerical collar. He was barefoot, with shabby clothes – maybe a cassock? I don’t remember. I remember he was a handsome young guy and his feet were pretty gnarly. He turned out to be a French priest and he was visiting us to talk about artillery and whatnot being careful of the villages he served near Khe Sanh.
Medevac Con Thien  (not my photo) 

I was impressed then, and remain so today, many years later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leslie and I visited Khao-I-Dang refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border around 1981-82. Bob Kramer, the beloved cystic fibrosis doctor at CMC, as well as some other doctors gave me a bunch of antibiotics and other medications to take. I had a sea bag completely full of good medications and to hide the goods I had one short-sleeve shirt folded on top of them – a few layers of cloth between the contraband and security. Sure enough, Thai security wanted to have a look in the bag. I said my first prayer in a long time and stood there trying to look bored as the man unzipped the bag, peeked in, and zipped it back up. Whew!

Khao-I-Dang refugee camp  (not my photo) 
I also had two sets of money – $500 or so dollars that had been given to me for whatever I wanted and several thousand dollars from various refugees in Dallas to give to relatives in the refugee camp (all mail was opened and all money stolen, so delivery was the only way to get money into the camp). I gave the drugs and part of the $500 to Pere (Father) Robert Venet. Pere Venet was a Jesuit priest who spent 50-60 years serving the poorest Cambodians and after the war, working in Site 2 and Sa-Keo refugee camps. Really a hero. It was pretty funny to show up unannounced at the monastery with cash and a bag of drugs. They were happy to see us.
Torture chamber Tuol Sleng – bed used as rack

We changed the money that refugees had given us from dollars to baht (yielding bigger stacks of bills). We didn’t want to attract attention so we went to different places to change the money – walking around Bangkok, changing $300 here, $500 there. I divided the baht into two stacks and put a stack on the bottom of each foot and a sock over it and then my shoes, which fortunately were lace-to-the-toe shoes. A tight fit, but it was only a 100 or so miles from Bangkok to Khao-I-Dang.

Mass graves at Choeung Ek

Before we got to the camp, we had to stop at Task Force 80 (the paramilitary beasts who ran Khao-I-Dang) and go into an office to have our papers examined. Uh-oh, it was one of those offices where everyone leaves their shoes at the door. So I’m walking in, kind of mincing-like with the stacks of bills crackling under my feet – Here come old flat-top, he come groovin’ up slowly. He got ju-ju eyeballs, he thinkin’ how he gonna do this shit? Come together. Right now!


Cave where bodies were thrown (near Battambang)
Pieces of fabric like prayer flags from sarongs from the dead

But all’s well that ends well and we got into the camp – beyond the hospital and clinic where foreigners were supposed to stay. We walked all over K-I-D with help from two young people who led us to the various people on our list of relatives of people who were sending money. I had a pocket of 100 baht notes, a pocket of 500 baht notes, and one of 1000 baht notes and we’d go into these little refugee camp hooches and hovels and do a pay-out and move on to the next place. In the end we were something like $50-100USD off. The extra money that we’d been given made up the difference and was also a nice payment to the people who helped us.


Khao-I-Dang hospital  (not my photo) 

We stayed one night in a two-story house in the countryside somewhere near the border. As far as I know, we were the only people in the house. Artillery rounds were exploding a mile or so away – Boom – and except for those flashes of light it was very dark. Leslie and I talked and I told her what tree to rendezvous at if we had to get out fast and were separated. She was just like, “Okay” – and I was thinking something like, “Incredible. What an amazing wife!” I remember there were lots of lizards on the walls and ceiling of the room we were in and I was reading a book about Edie Sedgwick, one of Andy Warhol’s tragically hip “superstars” who died way too young. I saw a weirdly brightly colored amphibian clinging to the wall of the shower (that we didn’t use). Boom. It doesn’t get much weirder than all this. I don’t remember if we were smoking at the time, but what a great time and place for a cigarette. I’d like one right now just reading this.

In the garden (outreach)


We stayed at K-I-D just a few days, mostly hanging out at the clinic, talking with doctors and nurses about providing healthcare for the Khmer people. That was our official purpose and I think we accomplished it. I wrote a report for Church World Service and for the US Dept of State – both of which no doubt pretty much ignored it. But more to the point, out of that visit and the work I was doing with refugees in Dallas, I was able to inform many people through articles I wrote for professional journals and presentations I made locally and nationally. LOL, I gave a consultation this afternoon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leslie on bus in Burma 2007 and Leslie waiting for bus in Nepal 1978 

I’ve been with Leslie in refugee camps, spending countless hours on some mean streets and alleys and in too many seriously run-down slum apartments; I’ve seen her comfort women who’ve been raped, people in pain, people who are dying, people past the edge of grief, pain, madness; I’ve watched her work miracles – going up against The Machine and winning, time and time again; I’ve seen her go where no 60 year old western woman has ever gone – the back stairs of the Chungking Mansions; I’ve been with her on buses rattling all across Asia, on trains into the Vietnam mountains, on boats in the Gulf of Siam, in donkey carts in Burma, on Royal Nepal Airlines with the cockpit door swinging back and forth, on crazy bus rides; we’ve slept together in a little grass shack on the Gulf of Siam, in Burmese guesthouse rooms with walls that went up ~6 feet and then chicken wire, in a tiny low-ceiling room in Nepal sleeping on a straw mattress with a giant wool blanket and a wooden latch on the door, in rooms smaller than prison cells, in a brothel, in a little shack in Oklahoma with tornadoes roaring all around, in a really old hotel in a mostly deserted town in Nevada where we lived for a few months, on trains, boats, buses, all over the place.

Leslie at Butt Fast Foods in a hallway at the
back of Chungking Mansions

She would not go to Tuol Sleng or the “killing fields” – those places were done. She would have gone if people were there, but not now. Not just to see where they were and what they looked like.  

I’ll have some photos up in another few months. I’m going through slides atm and am struck by the sheer volume of what we did with Cambodian refugees and the incredible number of people who were served.

Baking bread

Rustic sourdough cheese bread
I started baking bread about 1969. The Tassajara Bread Book (Edward Brown, Shambala) was my guide to rustic crusty whole wheat loaves, to creating my own sourdough starter, and to other baking adventures and a few misadventures. The Bread Book took me through the bread making process step by step, do this, do that, and then the magic of bread. Learning a right way allowed me to learn my own right ways. But I generally follow bread-making recipes more closely than other recipes.

Bread makes itself, by your kindness, with your help, with imagination running through you, with dough under hand, you are bread making itself, which is why bread making is so fulfilling and rewarding. Brown
Whole wheat, like I used to bake from Tassajara Bread Book

I baked all our bread from ~1969 until 1975, when I started back to school. Those were formative years – Leslie and I were married, I started gardening, started baking bread, and I started the healing journey for myself and for others. Then, along with our marriage I was caught up in career and mission and had little time for baking. Then the joys of parenthood – what a time that was! And years of working with Leslie. And then the tiredness of the end of my work and then retirement and now for the past 4 or 5 years I’m baking almost all our bread. My favorite is a rustic sourdough from Artisan Baking (Maggie Glezer, Artisan), which goes like this…
No-knead bread baked in a glazed clay pot. Fully fermented dough at left

About a week ahead of time, I start refreshing the sourdough starter I started about four years ago. To refresh I mix 10-12 gm starter with 25 gm warm water, then mix with 45 gm bread flour and knead (in the bowl) just a little to make a little ball of dough. The dough ferments and rises for ~24 hours, getting bubbly and having that sourdough fragrance. I take 10-12 gm of that, mix with warm water so on and so forth. After a few days it comes to a full ferment in ~12 hours, and then fewer hours and it’s about ready.
Using a bench knife/dough scraper

The starter is combined with water and flour and left to ferment overnight to make a levain. The levain is combined with water and barley malt (syrup) and yeast and bread and all-purpose flours and smaller amounts of whole wheat and rye flours. I knead it for about 10 minutes (enjoying the kneading), then there is a process of fermenting, folding, shaping, proofing, and so on and in the end I end up with 6 loaves of as good a bread as I’ve found (I finally matched SemiFreddie’s in the Bay area). Usually I bake four plain loaves and two pepper jack cheese loaves.
Kneading 
Coarse, crusty
With rich true-spirited flavor
That one soon learns to love and crave.Brown
I bake bread on a stone, a piece of slate, well-heated in the oven. The man at the rock yard had never had a customer who wanted only one piece, so he just gave me the slate. The hot stone helps create a crustier crust. In the bottom of the oven is a pan with rocks and chain in it. The stones and chain also preheat and when I put the bread in, I spray the stones and chain with water from a garden sprayer – all this with the goal of creating a lot of steam, which also helps with the crust. 
Whole wheat and some cookies

As others have said, good bread is more – magically more – than the sum of its parts! The process is good and healthy. It’s good and healthy like working in the garden is – mixing, kneading, folding, dividing, shaping, baking, and then eating the bread – sometimes just the bread, sometimes with butter or olive oil, sometimes with almond butter and homemade preserves, and always with appreciation.

Here is a link to a recipe for no-knead pot bread:
http://ckjournal.blogspot.com/2010/02/more-bread-and-so-on.html

A bag of fresh-baked rustic sourdough bread


“You call it liver. I call it karma.” (But it was worse)

As we left the Kim Hotel in Saigon, standing where our alley meets the street, one of the young women who works there hugged Leslie – and patted her on the bottom. Sweet.
Wat in Chiang Mai
Easy flight to Bangkok on Vietnam Airlines, good seats that got better when we moved to an empty row, then a stressful taxi deal that was a small screwing. Got to the Drop Inn on Sukhumvit Soi 20, checked in, and moved rooms to escape cigarette smoke. The Drop Inn is as close as we get to a splurge – $44/night.
Ladies of the night in bar across the soi from our hotel


We caught the bus to Tops where I had pork fried with chilies and a handful of basil leaves, and then a generous plate of mango with sticky rice and coconut milk (let the good times roll!) and Leslie ended up with rice, noodles and (oops) chicken gizzards and livers with chilies – “He said it was chicken; he just didn’t tell me which parts.” It’s been two weeks since we’ve had a salad and Tops has a salad bar, so we got salad to take back to our room for dinner. Shared a Beer Chang on the little patio in front of the hotel. Salad in the room. Listening to Brandi Carlile, REM, 10,000 Maniacs, and so on on the computer jukebox. Even when the travel is easy, it’s tiring for us.
Sick tourist in Bangkok


Leslie talking that trash: “Pure tabaccy” and “That’s the way I roll.” Where does this stuff come from? I don’t know.

Little bitty waitress at “chicken street” stand 

In recent days there have been demonstrations against the current Prime Minister in Thailand. A number of government offices have been occupied, streets closed down, and some violence (five people killed so far). This fits with our last few visits to Thailand. The last time we were here the police raided some guys making bombs about a kilometer from where we were staying. One of the bomb-makers ran out of the apartment and threw a grenade at the police. Oops, it hit a pole and bounced right back at the guy, blowing him to smithereens. The time before demonstrators shut down the Bangkok airport for several days. We were on the first plane (literally) into the reopened Bangkok airport. This time the street we’re staying on (Sukhumvit, Soi 20) has been all or partially shut down several times. And I just remembered that a long time ago we stayed with an army officer who was part of a coup d’ etat while we were at his house (he was gone for several days, needless to say).

Grilled chicken, something like laab, sticky rice, peanuts from Indian guy


We made yet another expedition to the amulet market near Thamasat University – red 25 bus through Chinatown, through Indiatown, past Wat Phra Keo and then the crowds near the market. While we were waiting for the bus back, a woman brought me a chair (Leslie already sitting down). Basically It is one loooooong bus ride back to Sukhumvit. Hot, noxious road air, but actually good times with Leslie. Every time we’ve been on a crowded bus, someone has given their seat to Leslie. I, on the other hand, am never offered a seat.

Very nice moment: Bangkok buses all have a driver and a person who circulates through the crowd, collecting fares. On one bus there was a sick toddler asleep at the front of the bus – the fare collector’s child. Apparently fare collectors make very little money… One of the passengers gave the collector 50 baht for the child. Lot of nice people here.
Sick child on the bus


We ate at “chicken street” one night. This was where we were, sitting on stools along the sidewalk when Leslie made a famous comment re a rat running by less than 3 feet away – “But it’s going the other way.” No rats this time, but an awesome cat circulating.

As I said in an earlier post, we seem to be mostly repeating ourselves on this trip, going where we’ve been before, eating tried and true things… Oceans of memories memories memories memories….oceans… of memories… together.
Monk’s laundry at wat in Chiang Mai


We flew to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Staying at the Roong Ruang Hotel near Tha Pae Gate. Made a songtaew run to the Central Airport Plaza, which sounds like, why would anyone go there? Unless you’d been there, to the food court where there isn’t a word of English on any sign and where there in khao soi to end all khao sois… red curry soup, noodles, fried thingies, chicken and add lime juice, chili oil, shredded cabbage, holy basil, shallot, sour vegetable, and whatnot. Another bowl please. On the way out, pick up – you guessed it – mango and sticky rice with coconut milk. On the way out, commenting on foods available at one place. Leslie says, “Blobs and squiggles.”
Buddha image at wat in Chiang Mai


On the way back to the Tha Pae Gate we were packed into a songtaew (pickup truck with benches in the bed and a canopy over) and there was an Englishman in his 70s or 80s sitting across from us. We were talking about this and that. Noticing he was wearing a wedding ring, Leslie asked about his wife. He said she had died 20 years ago and he said some things about her to Leslie that couldn’t hear.

Settled in to Chiang Mai, enjoying the smaller (than Bangkok) city with wats all around. As before, true that a big effort to get to the more famous ones hardly worth it as several lovely wats are a 5 minutes slow walk from our hotel.

These are the days.
Roong Ruang Hotel (old section) in Chiang Mai


Leslie connected with a woman at the hotel desk, Nan, and we’ve gone from having to stay in the older section for four days to one night in the newer section to three nights in the newer section and one elsewhere to all four nights right here in the very comfortable and quiet room. The old section is something from days gone by with old-fashion doors, kind of uncomfortable beds, kind of a dank atmosphere, kind of moldy, kind of cool. The way this hotel worked out was when we got to Chiang Mai I hiked all around inquiring about rooms, and in the sweaty end, the Roong Ruang, even the old section, was the best I could find. So after I did that part, Leslie took care of negotiations. Pretty good teamwork.
At Erawan shrine


We’ve gone to the Airport Plaza every day for lunch – 20 baht ($.64) songtaew ride. Sometimes downstairs in the people’s food court, perched on stools, getting down on khao soi, and sometimes upstairs in the more upscale area (where seats have backs and menus have English subtitles – but prices are still good. One day upstairs we had chicken panang, pork satay, cucumber salad, and rice all for less than $3 USD. A brilliant lunch for $1.50 each. I’ve gotten mango, sticky rice and coconut milk every day. Bliss.

Tomorrow we fly to Bangkok. Hope we can get past the demonstrations. Two weeks left in the Asia part of the trip. These are the days.
Beer with ICE in Bangkok, peanuts from Indian man


Every evening in Chiang Mai and Bangkok we’ve sat outside and had a beer together – “happy hour.” I’ve been to more malls and 7-11s in Asia and drunk more beer this trip than in the past 10 years. The mall food court scene is basically street vendors moved inside with cleaner dishes. 7-11s in SEA are unlike 7-11s in the US – prices are good and they have more stuff. Beer is Chang.

Things we’ve eaten in Thailand so far this time around (it’s extravagant and cheap):
Here it is – mango with sticky rice and coconut milk

• Mango with sticky rice and coconut milk almost every day for me
• Pad Thai, vegetarian and with shrimp (little dried ones and fresh)
• Pad see eu
• Krapow, chicken and pork versions
• Green curry
• Panaeng curry
• Red curry, several variations

Woman vending panaeng and satay at mall 

• Masaman curry
• Khao soi – a lot
• Satay, several kinds
• Grilled chicken, several different – some as good as what we used to get in the Shell station parking lot way down Sukhumvit a long time ago
• Gyoza
• Mushrooms wrapped in ham and grilled
• Fried bananas – 10 baht buys a lot
• Jook (like congee with tons of garlic)
• Laab, several kinds
• Tom kha

• Tom yum
• Chiang Mai sausage
• Western salad from several salad bars
• Chicken fried with basil and garlic; also pork the same way
• Peanuts fried with citrus leaves and garlic
• Papaya salad
• Chicken with ginger – ginger not as a flavoring, but a vegetable
• Khanom jeen nam ngiaw – this is a spicy stew with clabbered blood – a detail I didn’t know about – not good. At first I thought the blood was liver. Leslie said, “You call it liver. I call it karma.”

• Several things I don’t know the name of; things I’ve forgotten

Rugged stuff – blood on right side of bowl

Bangkok: at this point in the trip everything is a big effort. Basically we’re just being in BK, eating fabulous food, having “happy hour” every evening on the porch of the hotel… 50 years on… 


Malls. Really, who would have ever thought I’d go to a mall, much less know something about several!. Here is the deal on mall food in Bangkok: They have collections of vendors who, in days gone by, would have been street vendors. So the food is as good and authentic as you can get from a street food perspective. They are air-conditioned (not an insignificant factor in Bangkok). Most have chairs with backs. Clean restrooms with toilet paper. Here are some malls on or near Sukhumvit Road:
Great food – khao soi


Siam Paragon: A huge upscale mall with the greatest food court ever. SP was the world’s most instagrammed location in 2013. Really a fabulous and extravagant place.
Tops: A much smaller place up the road from our hotel. Good grocery store, nice inexpensive food court and okay salad bar.
Big C on Rama IV: The people’s mall. Today we had masaman curry, sticky rice, and laab for 100 baht (less than $1.50 each). Some of the food at Big C requires culling and discarding of less desirable parts, but well worth it to us.
MBK: Huge, cheap discount mall. We had a poor experience at food court there.
Emporium: Upscale with hard to find and not so great food court (but when you think about it, so much better than anything in the states), but the best salad bar we’ve found.

Erawan Shrine to Lord Brahma


At Erawan Shrine

We visited the Erawan shrine to Lord Brahma today (Sunday). Many people there, heavy clouds of incense, traditional music, classic Thai dancers, flowers, and worshipers. From my book on culture and health beliefs and practices: Many Thais and Laotians practice a mix of Theravada Buddhism and Brahmanism or Phram. The practice of both, as well as belief in spirits is seen in the relatively common approach to shrines: Inside the home is reserved for the Buddhist shrine; while outside may be found a spirit (Phi) house (small house or shrine on top of a pole or column). Offerings of food are to spirits, while offerings of flowers are to Phram.


A poem from Michael Montague:
Up Lad; thews that lie and cumber
Sunlit pallets never thrive;
Morns a bed and daylight slumber
Were not meant for man alive.
Clay lies still, but Bloods a rover
Breath’s a ware that will not keep
Up lad; when the journey’s over
There’ll be time enough to sleep
A.E Housman

Saigon, a little Hanoi, some Sapa

.

Saigon: We’re staying at the Kim Hotel in a backpacker alley off Bui Vien Street in the Pham Ngu Lao area. $18/night with aircon, fan, hot water, etc. It’s hot in Saigon. Haha, of course it’s hot; it’s the tropics. 
Alley where our hotel is (Kim Hotel) 

We’re mostly just repeating ourselves now – pork chop and egg on rice with tomato and cucumber and café sua da every day for breakfast; walk to Ben Thanh Market across intersections of no mercy, through the park where someone has set up a bizarre Holland exhibit of street, store, café, and garden facades so people can take photos of one another as if in Holland and of course they do take the photos. Across another stressful street, cut up a side street toward the market to discover that this is a largely Muslim street now so when it’s as hot as hell their women can be covered and “protected” while the men are comfortable in short sleeve shirts. Right.
Another alley, where we eat breakfast every day. Leslie on the left.

The market is as before – hot, crowded, some stuff for tourists, some for locals, and one of the world’s great food courts. For me, bun thit nuong with a very generous amount of pork right off the grill and for Leslie a return to the banh cuon stall where about two years ago the woman came out from the stall to hug Leslie and this time the woman (Hue) sees us across the way and breaks into a smile of recognition. Incredible. Good banh cuon for lunch with a fried shrimp pastry. I got Hue’s email address and sent her a photo I’d taken the time before. Here is her email to us:

Dear A Good Couple,
Thank you for your kindness and thanks for coming.
Hue
Breakfast of Champions!!!

What can I say? Vietnam has been full of these graceful moments. I’m grateful.

Two nights in a row we’ve eaten at JJ’s Fish and Chips, a small street cart with two tables and four chairs run by a British guy and his boyfriend. Basically, they make the best French fries ever and the fish is outstanding as well. Sitting on the sidewalk next to some open-fronted bars with bar girls sitting outside to entice men and we’re drinking Saigon green label beer over ice (hell yes, just like in the old days) and eating fish and chips.  
Family moto

I made this forum post on the Lonely Planet site: Vietnam scams: We’ve been in VN about 10 days now, mostly Hanoi and Sapa, and now in Saigon. As on previous trips to Vietnam, we are unaware of being cheated – except for today. I was making a small purchase on Bui Vien in the heart of Pham Ngu Lao (the main backpacker area) and handed the woman a 500,000 dong bill instead of 50,000 dong. She said, “OO! No!” and gave it back. So, so far, the only cheating has been totally my own doing. What a numbnuts!

I think the main protective factor is paying careful attention all the time and clarifying everything, which I usually do. But there are those moments of inattention and zoning out. Thanks lady! Vieeeetnaaaam!
Dong Xuan Market – the porter’s area

Hanoi: Taking it easy in Hanoi, leisurely breakfasts, coffee and more coffee, into the flow now. Reading Shogun, a perfect travel book. This copy is an old one, brittle yellowed pages, front and back covers off. I have to keep it in a plastic bag.

Dong Xuan Market, mostly a wholesale market now, narrow aisles, insanely crowded and fast, where a few years ago I felt Leslie patting my bottom and looked around and realized it was an old woman wanting to get past me, where today, someone patted Leslie on her bottom, also wanting by. These weren’t customers but women porters who carry small to huge loads from place to place. I love it; it’s a little like a rave with all these people all together (not loving, but massively getting along – LOL).  
The Queen of Bun Cha

Bun cha for lunch with Leslie somehow knowing what street is what, guiding us through what some people call the “medieval streets” of the Old Quarter – streets that change names every 1-2 blocks and direction whenever, walking along the edge of the streets/in the gutters because the sidewalks are blocked with vendors and their goods, bales of this and that, stuff kind of spilling out of stores, parked motorbikes, and so on – and here in the streets we’re sharing space with countless motorbikes passing by literally inches away (with one person riding, two, three, four, carrying everything from huge loads of rice to a refrigerator, yep, a refrigerator), a few cars, xyclos, women carrying bamboo poles with baskets on each end (baskets of produce, baskets of tiny portable cafes – really, baskets of portable butcher shop, flowers, clothing, I mean everything), other pedestrians, stacks and bales of whatever – WOW!
This whole cafe fits in 2 baskets, each one carried at ends of bamboo pole 

She says, “If we go straight here and turn left, we’ll be at whatever becomes something.”Hahaha, that’s my wife talking as she takes us through these “medieval streets.”

Bun cha and crab nem for lunch and garlic and more garlic, garlic as a flavoring, garlic as a spice – you know you’re getting a lot of garlic when it’s hot like Tabasco. Acha!

She says, “Here comes a dead chicken” and sure enough, here comes one carried by its feet by a woman.
Why me? Taken in bun thang cafe in Hanoi

Leslie’s email to David: We’re back in Hanoi after a nice visit to SaPa, a beautiful town with an abundance of even more beautiful Hmong people. The whole scene seemed more Nepalese than Vietnamese; surely all mountain people originated in the same place as they all really look alike. Two 12 hour train rides with only a night to recover was a bit much, but the train was better than I expected.

We leave here tomorrow for Saigon and are staying at Mrs. Kim’s as usual. This time, we booked an airport taxi with her to skip the hype, cheating, and angst of doing it ourselves upon arrival.
Leslie throwing elbows in a plane scrum

CK at the fish and chips place in Saigon
All is well here. The two young women at the desk have been wonderful to us. We really got passed hand-to-hand from here to the train (someone from the hotel followed the taxi to redeem our receipt for actual tickets at the station) and then had a van driver waiting for us in Lao Cai for transport to SaPa. The return trip was even more interesting. The Paradise View Hotel booked a van to Lao Cai which deposited us at a Cafe near the train station; the proprietress obtained our train ticket and then sent a young man to escort us to the station and position us in the right line at EXACTLY the right time. Finally, when we got off the train in Hanoi, a young woman who was also a passenger on the train called the Camillia for me, and Huyen from the front desk brought a taxi to take us to the hotel. We just accepted everything on blind faith, not understanding anything until each step was completed. I can’t think of any place in the world except Vietnam where all of this could actually work out successfully. Amazing, really!

Hope all of you are doing well. It must be nearly Thanksgiving; we miss being there with you. Give our best to Charles and a big “woof” to Jake.

Motos in the night. Photo taken from the fish and chips place.


Hahaha, there are little bitty ants crawling along on my computer screen.



Sapa, Hanoi 2013

It makes perfect sense to be sitting here on a tiny tiny chair on a sidewalk in Hanoi in the mist having a cup of strooong espresso with sweetened condensed milk. Happy me.

Young hill tribe women


The journey to Sapa began with a taxi ride to the confusion of the Hanoi train station. We did what we were told and ended up in a 4 person “soft sleeper,” which wasn’t very soft. Leslie and I were sitting on her bunk (she had a bottom bunk and I had a top) across from a middle-aged Vietnamese man and his daughter when a woman kind of pushed past Leslie to join us on the bunk. My lame-ass “She’s a nice looking lady” got me one of those looks from Leslie, so I didn’t have anything else to say on that matter and meanwhile, the woman was lounging on Leslie’s bunk, leaning back on the pillow and one foot on the bunk and I thought my best bet is to lay low except there’s no place to hide out. Oh well.
On the train – woman slips in beside Leslie. Make yourself at home.

The middle-aged man’s daughter left, but the woman stayed, and then the woman also left and we moved down the bunk to block her return to our space like there’s an “our space” in Vietnam LOL. When the woman came back she did a spectacular climb up to her top bunk above Leslie. Whew.

The lonesome whistle blew and the train began to move. I brought my pillow and comforter (supplied by the train company) down and we leaned back in complete comfort and Vietnam passing by outside in the darkness. We were sharing the new iPod, with one ear bud each, my arm around Leslie… “as we sail into the mystic… let your soul and spirit fly, into the mystic…” picking up speed, clacking, rumbling along and here’s Robert Earl Keen, headin’ down that dusty trail again, Ohhhh yeah, sharing a Hanoi beer… Now…
Sapa town

“Seems like yesterday, but it was long ago, Leslie was lovely she was the queen of my night, there in the darkness with the radio playin’ low, and, and the secrets that we shared, the mountains that we moved… and I remember what she said to me, how she swore that it never would end, I remember how she held me oh so tight… we were young and strong, we were runnin’ against the wind…” (a tip of the hat to Bob Seger)

We sat there a long time. Sweet. Into the Now. And then I climbed into my top bunk and fell into a rumbling fine train sleep. Pulling into Lao Cai in the early morning. Someone took us to our bus and away into the mountains, into Sapa. Get out, walk up the street to the Paradise View Hotel – 15 rooms and ours on the ground floor in the back. Perfect…
Cloud at night in street

Sapa, where the sun is shining one minute and literally the next minute clouds rolling right through town for a few minutes and blue skies again and in a little while clouds again so that you can see 50-100 feet ahead and then sun and the mountains revealed, cloudy themselves…
Sapa, where indigenous people walk the streets, looking nothing like the lowland Viets, distinctively mountain people, a little Tibetan in appearance, the women with incredible clothing with fine cross-stitched details, head-dresses, leggings, and many wearing… wait for it, rubber boots, many with a basket on their back, some peddling hill tribe crafts (some very insistently – “I follow you forever, to your village if no buy from me.”). There’s something about mountain people, whether in Nepal or Vietnam or America, something different, maybe a sense of specialness, I’m not sure.
Playing in the street

Sapa, a little like Nepal, with houses clinging to hillsides and when we went a little higher up, houses clinging to mountainsides, terraced fields, the harvest in now, the road winding up and up, past a high waterfall, and on to a high pass overlooking mountains and clouds…

Sapa has expensive food, though we were able, as usual, to find some good noodles at a good price at the Cozy 2 Hotel. Our hotel had an outstanding breakfast included, with more good Vietnamese coffee. Overall (except for the hotel breakfast), not a great food trip.
Taken from room balcony at Paradise View

When it was time to leave for Lao Cai and on to Hanoi, we got on a bus for a real death ride down the winding mountain road with the driver taking and making phone calls and at one point holding a phone in each hand. Tailgating? We’re talking extreme tailgating – honk honk honk honk and finally out of the mountains and into Lao Cai, taking a detour to let a bunch of people out who knows where and on to the train station.

Terraced fields after harvest

He let us out at a café near the train station where a woman in pajamas took our train ticket voucher, “Sit down. You wait 5 minute,” and sure enough in 10 minutes (i.e., 5 minutes) she was back with the train tickets and getting a kiss from Leslie, and there we sat for an hour or so, having a beer, watching the street unfold. Really, it doesn’t get much better than this. At one point we got up to go to the train station, but a man came over and told us to wait. Finally, a young man we’d never seen before walked up and took our suitcase and away we all went to the train, to the right car, to the bunk, our 4 bunk compartment shared by a German social worker (what are the chances that two social workers would end up in the same compartment!). As before we sat together on Leslie’s bunk, happy as hippies, listening to her iPod while the world slid by outside. Rolling, rumbling, shaking on down the tracks. Hahaha, “Red lips, red hair and fingernails, I hear you’re a mean old Jezebel” and the Dixie Chicks singing that “Earl has to die!” Hell yes.

Women and children


Back in Hanoi standing outside the train station Leslie asked a young woman to call the hotel for us and in about 10 minutes, here comes Quyen across the street. Talk about a welcome sight!

Banh cuon + roast pork with cinnamon for breakfast (it’s a well-known fact that you can’t get too much garlic), and for lunch we were invited to join the hotel staff for a nice meal of bun cha, small whole shrimps (head, antennae, carapace, legs, etc.), noodles, vegetables, peanuts, etc. Good food, good company, good times.

They wanted a photo with me in it. Sure, great idea

Hanoi 2013

Looking out of temple entrance on bamboo street

(I don’t know what’s up with font changes. I have no control over that.) 

Last night (our first night back in Hanoi) we went to the King Café for a toasted cheese and onion sandwich, French fries, and Hanoi Beer. While we were waiting for the food I walked outside to the narrow busy street and shift, I was there, all the way. A young woman told the man she was sitting on a motorcycle with to move up a bit so I could walk past easier. Such a small transitory action – and it opened a window for me to again feel the magic of Vietnam. I thought, my God, these people!

Passageway inside a temple

From email Leslie to David: We arrived in Hanoi last night earlier than we expected, but getting through airport immigration, etc. is a very lengthy process. The Camellia Hotel driver was waiting for us (Hallelujah!!) so finally got to the hotel about 9:00.

The night club next door is back in business and combined with

a Saturday night street crowd was LOUD! But they must have a midnight curfew, at least on clubs and bars, and all was quiet after that.

We have a balcony that looks out over a nice neighborhood from a bird’s-eye view, beautiful old multi-floored/multi-layered building that looks exactly like you’d want a VN building to look like: green and red tiled roofs, balcony railing with the green porcelain tiles like at the Citadel, and an ancient old woman sitting on a balcony, looking out…
We have no onward plans yet but will keep you posted. Your Dad wants to go the Delta area so hopefully the weather will allow.
_____________
I hardly ever remember my dreams. Last night I had the longest most complex dream I’ve had in many years.
Vendor

Leslie and I were standing outside the old Ross Avenue Sears. I asked her if she wanted to go in and she said no. Then I was nearby in a place like a park, with huge ancient trees, birds all around, and a male cardinal on the ground strutting his stuff, making his wings flare out and forward, singing for a female and the female hopping amongst the leaves making sweet little cardinal sounds,

Then I was running toward my car, up an incline that was getting steeper and steeper and then I was climbing and the ground was unstable and there were two people below me and a black woman to my right, digging her hands into the dirt to keep from falling and I was wishing the people below weren’t there because if either the woman or I fell
What a load; what balance!

we’d take the others down with us and I was wondering how the car got to where it was and what I was going to do if I got to it.

Then I was in a car with a couple about 60 years old and a boy about 8. The boy was explaining to the couple how Obama is a very bad man trying to destroy America. One of them asked where he got that idea and he answered, from “a 4 hour DVD.” They were patiently talking with him, trying to help him understand that maybe he’d been misled.
Then I was somewhere else and saw the couple. I was telling them how impressive their patience was. We were talking about how we never saw that sort of political or religious indoctrination when we were children. But then we realized that when we were children, at least for the middle class, America was basically all right wing and we were all being indoctrinated all the time.
Bun cha and nem (see below)


I awakened, realizing that what broke us out of the right wing rigidity were the Vietnam war and the consciousness revolution. I felt tremendous gratitude (not gratitude for the war, for God’s sake) that so many of us got out of that mind prison. I felt so sad about the terrible tragedies of that war. I thought what I thought last night on the street and what I’ve thought every time I’ve been here in Vietnam: why on earth would we ever go to war with these people.
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
Here we are, all under the same sky. Sitting here looking out of the hotel window across the rooftops of Hanoi’s Old Quarter.
We were in the process of getting tickets to Hue this morning and while the woman doing the
On the street

deal was on the phone with Vietnam Air, Leslie fell into conversation with a Vietnamese woman who said it’s flooding in Hue. I went to our room to check the internet: 14 inches of rain in two days, deep water in the streets. Never mind about the Hue tix!

The woman who gave Leslie the heads up works with a foundation procuring books and o
Woman at Hoan Kiem Lake

pening lending libraries in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. She said an American veteran was the energy behind the foundation. He showed up and we talked. He was an 03 (US military designation for infantry). Pretty amazing encounter – two old veterans, both 03s, with deep connections to Southeast Asia, he with books, me with refugees. We got ready to go our separate ways and hugged, hard, “Welcome Home!”

Here is the Children’s Library International website. (For a real good time, check out the photos on the home page.)
We went on a banh cuon quest today and the place we were looking for was closed. My sharp-eyed travel partner had noticed people eating on the sidewalk a block earlier, so went back to that place, which turned out to be a stellar bun cha café 
Pedicure

with two menu items: bun cha and nem cua be. Bun cha is grilled pork and grilled pork patty served in a fish sauce and lime juice soup with daikon radish (or something like it) + cool noodles and a generous plate of cilantro, mint, etc. Chilies and garlic in vinegar complete the picture. More garlic! More chilies! Nem cua be is sort of like a square egg roll with a flaky crispy wrapper enclosing crab and assorted mysterious substances. What a feast! More on bun cha here. 

Another day… several things went wrong today. We used up too much time arranging for a trip to Sapa; we used up way too much time discovering that no bank in Hanoi will exchange travelers checks; we got a little lost; when we found what we were
Banh cuon

looking for we couldn’t find what we were looking for there; we got a little lost again; le sigh. The good parts of the day included time together in the morning, a motorcycle ride with a pretty Vietnamese woman named Quyen, trip to Sapa arranged, more bun cha, and through the frustrations we kept it together.

The next day. We found a bank that will change TCs. Breakfast (hotel buffet – including credible pho ga) with Leslie. Went to a coffee shop the man from Children’s Library International man. Later headed out on a banh cuon mission – it was great. We’re sweating garlic now. Nap. Another heart-stopping motorcycle ride with Quyen. She took me to apparently the last bank in town that will exchange TCs (1% commission on dong, 2% on USD). It’s interesting that she would take me. There was nothing material in it for her – maybe just wanted to help the old people. Taking it easy in our room. King Café for chicken with lemon grass and chilies, Hanoi beer.
Quyen and CK


From the Forward (by Gen. Schwarzkopf) to We Are Soldiers Still: “… we see the evolution of that country (Vietnam) and people as they find peace after a thousand years of war. And we see a surprising concern and tenderness for each other among men who once had done their best to kill each other. If those men, veterans of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War, can become friends and pray together for all who died on that ground on both sides, then the war really is over and we can all be at peace.”

Train to Sapa tomorrow night. These are the days.

Hong Kong November 2013

From Victoria Peak (Pacific Coffee)

Wow. Get up at 6 am Monday in San Francisco, awake all day, fly out of SFO at 11:45 pm that night for a 13.5 hour flight (THE best seats in economy, thanks to Leslie) getting into Hong Kong at 6 am, finally settle into a room at the Dragon Hostel at noon. Somehow I calculated that at 38 hours on the go. I slept for about 6 hours on the plane (the longest I’ve ever slept on a flight – thanks to zolpidem) and Leslie slept not at all. I was doing pretty well, but by the time we went to bed, Leslie had an hour of sleep in ~48 hours.  We may be getting a little old for this.

Dragon Hostel room. Photo taken standing in the bathroom

We’re staying at the Dragon Hostel, which is more a guesthouse than hostel. It’s in Mong Kok on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong. Mong Kok has the “highest population density in the world, with 130,000 people in one square kilometer” (Reuters, 2011). Here is a pretty good Mong Kok slide show from Reuters, though one of their photos labeled “a doorway” is actually, obviously, the entrance to a brothel. 

Now it’s Thursday morning. Awake around 5:30 am. Coffee in the room, talking in the dark, here we are again. The room is a little larger than a basic prison cell (6×9 feet) and has no window (window rooms get traffic noise). Small, cut off from the world, no problem. LOL, I was sitting on my bed with one foot propped on Leslie’s bed and my legs crossed and Leslie ran into my foot with her head. It really is pretty small.

From the Star Ferry

About the coffee: we’re traveling with a drip through basket, filters, immersion heater and enough coffee to get us through San Francisco and Hong Kong (HK has terrible coffee). We’ll buy a few kilos of coffee in Hanoi, some of which we’ll drink in Thailand (another coffee wasteland) and some we’ll take back to the US.

It’s a time of life when we seem to be repeating a lot. Today we took the #6 bus to the Star Ferry (smell the sea); ferry across the harbor; #15 bus up the Peak; coffee at Pacific Coffee sitting with a panoramic view over the city and harbor; Tsim Chai Kee for shrimp wonton noodle soup (shrimp with a wild, fresh taste, unlike what we get in Dallas); walking back to catch a bus to the Star Ferry, window shopping at Chow Tai Fook – a $2 million USD jade bracelet, similarly priced diamond necklace, all those kinds of things; back to the Star Ferry, talking about how we’ve ridden this ferry countless times; back to our little bitty room…

Entrance to Sincere House, where the Dragon Hostel is –
look past the head of the man at far right to barely see entrance 

Another day, more bus rides. But first, lying together in one of the little beds, then walk to Cherikoff’s Bakery (started in the 1920s by a white Russian refugee from the Soviet purges – his great-great grandson contacted me a few years ago) to pick up egg and ham sandwiches for breakfast in our room. Add some ketchup and Tabasco – alriiiight. Go down two levels of the MTR to put more money on the Octopus card.

Take the #2 bus to Chungking Mansions, one of the most international places in the world – on the ground floor a warren of money changers, halal curry shops, internet cafes, little stores of every imaginable sort (Need some clothes for a Nepalese wedding? This is the place), stacks of Chinese, Arabs, Africans, Bangladeshis (Hashish sir?), Nepalese, and of course plenty of western backpackers. Then there are about 15 stories of apartments, low-rent guesthouses, more cafes, little bitty factories, and a whole lot more. I love it; Leslie not so much.  
In the Chungking Mansions

Another Star Ferry ride, another bus ride (#7), more shrimp wonton soup, walking the streets, back to the ferry, bus, back to our room, and when it was dark, to the Ladies Market where we found nothing we wanted, much less needed.

She’s coming out of the Sincere House

Later I went for a walk along a street that is blocked to vehicles so that people have the streets. There were musicians, portrait artists, photographers, jugglers, poets. and an astonishing press of people. Leslie calls this urban compression. I’m IN the flow, Aes Dana on the iPod, INTO THE FLOW. Is this good or what!

Saturday we had dim sum and shrimp wonton for breakfast in our room. On the way to get the dim sum, there were children on the streets soliciting for money for the HK Community Chest. Every time we’ve been in HK, we’ve seen children and teens doing this for schools and so on. We always contribute and in return, get a little sticker which I put on the little notebook I always carry. Talk about a good souvenir! Hanging out in our room, packing, talking, good times, the best of times.
Crossing the street

For lunch we went to Good Hope Noodles’ new café. Now the man who makes the noodles (traditional way, by hand) works in the window. Another great meal – braised noodles with ginger and scallion and shrimp wonton noodle soup.  

Hanoi, here we come! Dragon Air into the sky!

On the way to Hong Kong and beyond, a tender heart

Picture a door leading from inside a house to outside. The threshold is about ¾ inch high… Threshold definitions:
A piece of wood, metal, or stone that forms the bottom of a door frame and that you walk over as you enter a room or building.
The point or level at which something begins or changes.
Hue, in the old palace grounds
Though I sometimes still carry a backpack traveling, I usually use a rolling suitcase these days. We’re on the way to Asia for about 6 weeks plus time in San Francisco going and returning. Yes, let the good times roll. It’s two minutes until the airport shuttle picks us up and I’m rolling the suitcase out the front door and as the suitcase goes over the threshold, Pop!, the handle breaks completely and irrevocably. This is the suitcase that replaced the one whose wheel came off less than two years ago as we walked to the bus stop to catch the A21 bus from Mong Kok to the Hong Kong airport on the way home. I didn’t realize the wheel was off until we were at the bus stop. Dang, I was thinking, “This thing sure is hard to pull today…”
Threshold: The point or level at which something begins or changes.
Hahaha, here we go. Rolling.

San Francisco, near David and Charles’ house

ATM we’re in San Francisco, staying with David and his partner, Charles B. and their dog, Jake. Lazy days, same old thing, buses and streetcars to Good Luck Dim Sum, the new Market Street Whole Foods (you didn’t think Whole Foods in SF is the same as Whole Foods in Dallas did you!), Castro, New Chinatown, all them places. Meals with David and Charles. Coffee, lunch at a sidewalk café, people, dogs, passing by and the occasional whiff of cannabis. San Francisco!
Our schedule of Hanoi to Bangkok in 6 weeks with stops here and there, depending on flooding seems like it might be changing already. It didn’t occur to me that Hanoi might have issues, but it seems to be directly in the path of Typhoon Haiyan. (Written a day before winds veered away from Hanoi – keeping it in because it’s what we’re thinking about.) By the time the typhoon hits Hanoi it will have deteriorated to a tropical storm with 50 mph winds vs. the 100+ mph winds of a typhoon. The Vietnam government has evacuated 600,000 people around Hanoi. So we’ll see what happens. Hopefully we can get to Hue/Danang/Hoi An and then onward. If not, the train into NW Vietnam to Sapa in the mountains is a possibility. Whatever.
Hue, at a tomb
Now there’s word that protests and strikes are happening in Bangkok. We’ll have to see how that goes too. A couple of years ago, about a mile from our hotel, the police raided some guys that were making bombs. One of the guys got out and threw a grenade at the police. It bounced off a pole and killed him. Of course we only saw it on the news.
Onward. Our plane takes off in six hours (Cathay Pacific). We’ve flown United (the worst), Korean Air, China Air, Thai International – and Cathay Pacific is the best at a decent price. The flight is supposed to take 13 hours, 25 minutes. We used Seatguru.com to get some primo seats (in one of three rows of two seats vs. the 3-4 seats in all the other rows and with some extra leg room for one of those seats.

Ban cuon lady in Hanoi. The people on far left are in
another cafe. This is a small place. Leslie’s favorite.

Hong Kong (Mong Kok), Hanoi Old Quarter, Ninh Binh, Hue, Dalat, Saigon, Can Tho/Mekong Delta, Bangkok, Chiang Mai (it’s the Banana Pancake Trail for sure).    
“Whole generations of westerners who went out there as soldiers, doctors, planters, journalists … lost their hearts to these lands of the Mekong … they are places that take over a man’s soul” (Jon Swain, one of the last westerners out of Cambodia in 1975).

Tender-hearted Leslie. I’ve known few people as truly tender-hearted as Leslie. She really does hate suffering and injustice and all that. She doesn’t like to hear about these

things, much less talk about them. Yet she spent most of her life deeply engaged and helping with people and in situations where there was enormous suffering and injustice. That was what she did. She changed a lot of people’s lives. She sacrificed a lot, laid it on the line, on the altar.

Please don’t take the word sacrifice casually. Think in terms of going eyes wide open into the fire, Think in terms of wounds.
Part of this was that she connected with people and would not turn away. It was personal with her. Her connections were personal and her battles were personal. What a warrior! A warrior for justice, against suffering.
So, here we go, on what really may be our last trip to Asia. 

Poems, a magician, holding the door, the beautiful Wind Rivers, Between Two Fires, dreams and dedications

These are all the poems I could find that I’ve written.

2011 – For about 6 months Leslie and some friends did an epic job of caring for a Sudanese woman who was dying from breast cancer – a refugee, a woman’s rights activist from bleeding Sudan. I helped some also. Maryam wasn’t really her name. I wish I could put her photo in – you’d see what I mean. The whole story is here.
To Maryam

Lying in the bed,
A little smaller each day
Slender once, thinner now
Mocha framing numinous eyes
Quick mind, quick speech
Clear thin voice
Following each thought
Through this strange land
Where everyone everywhere every time
Has gone each time like the first time
Fearful
Smiling in the face of fear
We’ll not speak of this now
Now that we’re here
Here like all before
Here like never before
Last week seeing your sister
With drawn face
Open to her sadness and pain
When I came unexpected
Around the corner
Before she could cover her soul
We are flesh, blood, bone, skin
The carriages of our souls
Rolling through
These streets this life
This pain, this joy
This longing
You know and I know
What’s real (and what’s not)
But we can wait for awhile
No need to rush to where we are going
From Hue 2011/2012 (not a poem, but it’s important to me): After a banana pancake breakfast (with honey and yogurt) and not forgetting a glass of very strong cafe sua and a few minutes later splitting an omelet/baguette sandwich, we took a riverboat cruise for 100,000VND (Leslie’s bargaining acumen) to

These mist-covered mountains, from the Song Huong (Perfume River)

Thien Mu Pagoda, 45 minutes up the perfume river. This where the monk Thich Quang Duc lived before he went to Saigon in 1966 to immolate himself in protest against the VN government and the war. The pagoda and grounds were quietly beautiful –understated and mossy with just a few people around and a view from the grounds across the wide river, past the plains, to these mist-covered mountains where we fought and bled, where so many from every side fought and bled and died, aching for life – me for a beautiful dark-haired girl whose photo was so washed out from the water that only the shadow of her left eye was left and now, 45 years later, looking across the room from where I write she’s sitting on the bed, the love of my life, beautiful, her hair white now and here we are in Hue and I look out through the glass-paned doors toward palm trees and mossy buildings – it’s misting in Hue.

Written at the last camp site after 2 weeks on the trail in the southern Wind Rivers


In the early morning sun,
Wishing you were here with me
Knowing we’re together soon
Knowing that’s forever more

I’ve loved you for these many years
I’ll love you many more
We’ll be together now
And forever more

Sun coming up (now) over foothills
Like it’s come up these past days
Over mountains stark and grey
How can I be here
In this place so high and wild

Campsite near where I wrote the poem at left 

All these years passing by
Not like a dream, not like a mist
Like treasures one by one
Passing through my life enriched

Working hard to make it so
Lucky that it’s turned out like this.


2010


and what lies ahead like a sparkling lake in the high snowy mountains, into lakes, lakes into streams, into lakes, into sparkling rivers and
These are the days
All the days we’re given
All that we have
Holding together

2009

No Mas

Mexican girls
Dark-eyes, sad-eyes, sloe-eyes, slow-eyes
Fiesta Mart perfume on
Skin so beautiful it takes my breath away.
Mexican girls
Walking arm in arm in lives
Arcing, peaking in the 10th grade
In love affairs bringing baby girls and boys
Sweet brown babies
Jessica, Junior, Araceley, Raymond
Riding in strollers with young mothers
Heads high in tattered pride
Knowing in this life there are no second chances and that
The 10th grade peak was it.
2007 – I found these lines among some papers. I have no idea who wrote them. Maybe me, maybe Robert Hunter. All I know is that I wrote them down on a scrap of paper.
Roses Round the Virgin

Joyfully she sings
I’ll be remembered
A 1000 years and over again.
And I saw
her tear.
Red roses, pink, white
In fragrant garland
On her breast.
No thorn, but
soft petals on
The Virgin’s breast.      
2007
Waiting
The red dirt cemetery is dry under the Texas sun
Monuments stand straight, tilt in red dirt
In the center, Confederate battle flags still fly
Honoring the men who fought for their country
My Grandmother is buried next to those flags
My Grandfather, uncles, aunts, others
Are next to those flags
A little concrete border runs around the plot
Someday we’ll put my mother’s ashes there
But for now, they’re in our dining room
In a box, with an old-fashioned knitted cover draped
18 years there, waiting for me to be ready
That’s pretty much my whole poetry output.

A magician

I was at 4211 San Jacinto and an older Vietnamese woman invited me into her apartment. I walked in and What! The apartment was literally filled with

I took this photo of a village meeting near Danang in 1967.
The women in the left and right rear are VN peasant
women archetypes. Not to be trifled with.

Buddhist statuary, incense burners, wall hangings, and the like. Her story was that all her life she’d been angry and subject to verbally and sometimes physically attacking other people. One night she had a dream and in the dream saw her apartment full of Buddhist icons and related. She started recreating the dream in real life and as she did, she lost the anger and people began asking her for advice. By the time I met her, she was counseling and doing ceremonies for many people and very effectively from what people told me.


I liked to visit her, sitting at the little kitchen table, drinking the café sua or tea she’d fix; she’d be smoking cigarettes.

Holding the door

I was holding the door for my wife as we were going into a market today. A couple was behind her so I held the door for them too. The man said thanks and something about me being “old school” and I said something like, “Right.” He says something about me being a Republican and I laughed and said no. Then he launched into a vignette about how he had told a woman he was Republican as he was holding the door for her and she wouldn’t go through. I said, “Right on!” And he muttered something about how he told the woman if she needed help she’d be happy to see him. I just smiled and moved on. It was getting kind of weird.
What I feel for the Wind Rivers

This is a good description of what I feel every time I go into the Wind River Mountains. It’s not that the Winds is the only place that would evoke these feelings – I imagine other mountains and deserts inspire similar feelings in other people. There’s a basin somewhere along the Maroon Bells 4 Pass Loop that also affected me in this way. 
The Winds. Twin Glacier.

“… I had already dreamt my way into their (the Brooks Range in Alaska) fabled midst many times over. And I can say, without reservation, that the age-old dreamer within me was vindicated by what he beheld – a landscape for which I felt an instant nostalgia, a landscape that inspired deep within me a terrible longing never to die, never to go blind to the world…” Dennis Schmitt

Between Two Fires

On a day when something nice would have been especially nice, something

Teaching at psytrance gathering

really nice happened.

About a month ago, in the context of writing about my spiritual development, I wrote about Between Two Fires, an extraordinary book by Christopher Buehlman. Today, the mailman handed me a surprise package with a book inside – Between Two Fires. The author had seen my blog and taken it upon himself to send the book and a kind and affirming note.  

Dreams and dedications

Leslie and I have always talked about our dreams – basically every morning. Now, we sometimes remember that one of us has had a dream, but seldom do either of us remember much content any more. Two important dreams: 

I lay dreaming that I was near an outdoor marketplace, watching a group of musicians set up to play. One by one, they began to tune, softly. Then in a soft clear voice, a woman sang the words, “Who knows … where the time goes … ” and at that moment I awoke and said, “To Leslie.” A true vision. Dedicated to my wife, Leslie.
Leslie and David in the rain in Hue


When my son, David, was about five years old, I dreamed one night that the end of the world had come. Everything was just slowing, slowing, slowing and I was drifting in space. I knew when it all stopped, that would be the end. David drifted into my arms as a voice said, “Into the arms of his father.” It was a calm encompassing peace. Dedicated to my son, David.


(On a three day combat patrol 1966 or 67)

Waking one morning to sit smoking
Watching the day begin through misty green
Slow, soft, green and mist
I could sit here for a thousand years. 

I wrote this for YOU – I think you’ll benefit from reading it


Introduction

I’m writing this because I still hear people talking about a family member suffering terribly at the end of life. In most cases, terrible physical suffering through the process of dying is an indication that quality of care is lacking. My focus is on cancer, but concepts apply to other conditions.

With current standards of care about 90% of patients with cancer pain can have their pain managed (i.e., acceptably pain-free and alert) with conventional means such as oral morphine and adjuvant medications (1). Most of the other 10% can be managed with alternative measures, such as surgery, nerve blocks, and so on. This has been the case since the 1980s (2). In any care situation there may be periods when there are problems – such as in the last few days of life – but these can nearly always be anticipated and successfully treated.

Ways that people do (the kinds of things that begin to happen when pain and other problems are under control): There was a water sprinkler set to hit the window of the patient’s room. Her son-in-law explained that she loved the rain.
Pain and suffering are not necessarily the same. Without going into a lot of detail, physical pain usually results from physical insult and can be enormously influenced by psychological, social, and/or spiritual issues. Suffering can be physical, but may also be psychological, social, and/or spiritual in nature. Most often, suffering is multidimensional. Quality care at the end-of-life addresses all these spheres of being.

I’m not saying it is easy to manage pain, depression, and other problems common at the end of life. I’m saying it can be done and should be done so that deep communication and true healing can occur.

My credentials for writing this are at the end of the post.

Living well within the process of dying

First, understand that you have to be in charge of your illness or your loved one’s illness. Knowledge is power. In addition to Google leading you to legitimate sites such as the American Cancer Society, NIH, Johns Hopkins, etc., you should search Pubmed. Pubmed is the NIH site that lists research articles (enable the abstract feature) on everything imaginable. Pubmed searches are often not quickly rewarding, but persistence is rewarded with breath-taking depth (this stuff really does turn me on). Search tumor type (prostate cancer, etc.), treatment, symptoms, and so on. One caution: not all journals are of equal veracity, so stay with known publications like Cancer, Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Cochran Review, JAMA, etc. Here is a relevant abstract from Pubmed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23881654
Ways that people do: A few days after he died, a dozen red roses were delivered to her. With them was a note from him, thanking her for their life together.

But can’t you just trust your doctor to do the best thing for you? Hopefully your doctor and the institutions s/he is associated with will do what is best for you, but there can be differing agendas among patients, families, doctors, institutions, payors, etc. Vast sums of money are involved, providers/institutions are alwaysin a CYA (cover your ass) mode, communications vary in accuracy, and so on. If you think about it, without a lot of work, it is highly unlikely that everyone will be on the same page.

Communication

Assertive communications supported by knowledge are essential to receiving the treatment you want in terms of quality of life and managing symptoms. Do you want to be treated with chemo, radiation, and surgery right into critical care to die alone and in pain? The longer aggressive treatment continues, the greater the pain and other symptoms are at the end of life (3). That sorry story has been acted out millions of times. Knowing when to shift the focus from cure to care is a complex and challenging issue.

Is dignity important to you? At what point do you want curative treatment discontinued? How much do you want to know about the diagnosis and prognosis? Do you want to die at home or in hospital? And much more. To do well, you haveto know about your disease and treatment – and also insurance benefits, community resources, and more.

Some questions (more specific than is there any hope): What is purpose of the proposed treatment? The usual outcome of (1) chemotherapy at this stage and (2) surgery at this stage. Best outcome? Worst outcome? What will treatment be like in terms of quality of life during and after treatment?


Communication is obviously central to dealing with psycho-social-spiritual issues. Communication with loved ones can be painful – which often is an indication that the communication is important.

Ways that people do: One of my students told me that when she was young her sister had advanced leukemia. They slept in twin beds in the same room. One night, when the lights were out her sister said, “I’m afraid.” My student answered, “Me too” and got into bed with her sister. They slept together that night and all the rest of the nights her sister lived. Despite the fact that everything changed for the better, my student still wondered if she said the right thing.

Why would she wonder if she said the right thing? Because in her (white middle-class) culture, people are supposed to be brave (or pretend like it). They are supposed to be positive. They are supposed to have faith. What a load. How about being brave enough to be honest. How about respecting the person who is dying enough to treat that person as an adult deserving of open, honest and loving communications. How about having about as much faith and positivity as Jesus Christ. “My soul is sorrowful even unto death (don’t leave me).”

When everyone is brave and positive in a false front, the result is often emotional isolation for everyone concerned. What a tragic waste of energy and precious time.

Ways that people do: It was about two weeks before Jan died. Her mother was painting Jan’s toenails. “I guess you’re wondering why we’re doing this at a time like this.” “No, not really.”

When should hospice be involved?

Hospice services should be started early in the process of terminal disease, before symptoms are severe or psychosocial or spiritual problems develop.

It is a fundamental and grievous mistake to wait until things are bad to get into hospice care. Hospice is not an admission that nothing else can be done. Hospice (a good one anyway) is an affirmation of the fullness of life – physical, psychological, social, and spiritual. All these aspects of being are addressed in hospice care. As a result, quality of life is improved in most cases, especially when hospice is involved earlier than later.

Are people who are dying usually distressed to have hospice care introduced? No; they are often relieved.   

Managing pain

Here are some of the keys to successfully managing pain. These are applicable to other symptoms of advanced disease as well.

Oral medications are the first choice except when the pain is first being brought under control – when intravenous or intramuscular medications are used. Controlled release morphine is the first drug of choice for patients with chronic cancer pain. Intermittent patient controlled analgesia (PCA) via pump is fine for pain after surgery, but is inappropriate for severe and chronic cancer pain.

Issues of addiction and tolerance are addressed at the link below. Suffice it to say here, in terminal illness, addiction is not a problem (for several reasons) and tolerance is easily treated.

Medications should be taken on a schedule so that a relatively constant effect is maintained and pain does not recur. It is better to wake the patient for medicine on schedule than to let him or her sleep and then wake in pain. In other words, do not wait until pain is felt (much less, is severe) to take medications.

Primary side effects of morphine and other opioid (narcotic) medications include nausea and constipation. Nausea resulting from morphine or other opioid is what is known as an initiating side effect, i.e., it occurs when therapy is begun and usually ceases or at least decreases after a few days. When a person experiences nausea from morphine or other opioid medication, the antiemetic is then given on schedule so that nausea is prevented. Often the antiemetic can be discontinued in days or weeks.  Constipation is ongoing and treatable.

Other principles are discussed at the link below.

You can see the basic idea is (once under control) to prevent pain, nausea, etc. Basically in a pain situation it is nothing other than gratuitous cruelty to demand that a person suffer before receiving relief.

Ways that people do: The hospital bed was in the living room so that he could look out into the neighborhood where they had lived all these years. He could see a rose bush he’d planted long ago.

Did you ever have a painful procedure or treatment done and were given pain medication after the treatment? That’s not quality care; it’s poor care that demonstrates a lack of concern about you. It is not rocket science. MEDICINE SHOULD BE GIVEN/TAKEN BEFORE THE PAIN EVENT AND/OR BEFORE PAIN RECURS.

“The link below” No longer operational

This links to a website I created – Terminal Illness: A Practical Guide for Patients, Families, and Providers (hosted by Baylor University). There are straightforward discussions of what to do about pain, difficulty breathing, depression, anger, etc., etc.; how to tell when someone is dying; organizing family and friends; and many other problems and issues of dying. There is also a good low-cost coffin resource on the site. 

I invite you to use this website, as well as Pubmed and other suggested resources to do the work that will ease your loved one’s passing as well as your own passing. Link does not work 

Ways that people do: “Finally, we’re being honest with one another.”

References

(1) Oral morphine for cancer pain. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23881654
(2)  Coyle, N., Adelhardt, J., Foley, K.M., & Portenoy, R.K. (1990). Character of terminal illness in the advanced cancer patient: pain and other symptoms during the last four weeks of life. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. 5,2.

(3) Predictors of Symptoms and Site of Death in Pediatric Palliative Patients with Cancer at End of Life.

Credentials

My credentials for writing this: I have provided care (as an RN, later as a nurse practitioner, and also as a volunteer) for many people at the end of life. I founded the first hospice in Texas, which, when I left was serving more patients than any other hospice in the US. I have taught palliative and hospice care in undergraduate and graduate schools and have written a book and about 30 articles and chapters in professional journals/books on end-of-life care.