Winter Solstice 2013

The sun goes south.

Best wishes to all for the the year to come.

Death in Your Face

For the past week or so I've been processing my own reactions to my friend Mel's death.  As one of his caretakers, I could not help but see myself in that same position.   I felt guilty even thinking of myself and  mostly put those thoughts aside in favor of my immediate tasks of caring for Mel.  But the image of my own death wasn't very far below the surface, especially now, after the fact.  If I live as long as Mel, something similar will happen to me in the next two decades.  And there's no guarantee I will live that long.  Maybe I'll last longer.  Regardless of the timing, my number will come up and I will make the transition from life to death, just like everyone

I can't hope for a better death than Mel's.  Despite three previous cancers and the infirmities of age, he lived a long, full life.  At age 82 he went from from diagnosis to dead in under two months.  During most of that time he was alert, aware, out and about and with friends and family.  He had his moments of frustration and anger but they were few and he never lost his sense of humor although his physical activity became increasingly more limited.  His real decline came in his last two weeks and even then he was able to get out a bit.  Maggie and I joined him and two of his long-time friends for dinner six days before he died.  His final collapse took place over four days.  Mel was never without company in those days and was with his daughter and Maggie in his last moments.  

Mel's death is my first hands on experience with death.   I've always been conscious of death and have experienced my share over the years but Mel is the first person I have cared for in death.  It's perhaps the most intimate experience I've had with another person outside of sex.  It was hard and emotionally draining.  work.  Definitely frightening.  I found it difficult to see my old friend so helpless and was ever afraid that I would add further to the indignities of his helplessness.

Despite all my fear and sadness, caring for Mel is one of the most positive things I have done in life.  I can't think of a greater gift than caring for a dying person.   I was not the only caregiver and hardly the most involved.  Mel's family was there and had wonderful assistance from hospice care.  All of us were simply trying to make a difficult passage more comfortable.  I am honored to have had the opportunity.

I posted this video earlier this year but after loosing three friends in a 10 week period, it bears repeating.

Two Muscians

Today's Washington Post carries obituaries for two musicians, Stephen Simon and Ann Rabson. Their music differs but each expanded our musical heritage.

Simon was a leading specialist in the compositions of George Frideric Handel and introduce many of Handel's lesser works to modern audiences.

“Handel — everything you do of his becomes a continual learning process,” he told the New York Times in 1972. “There is a lift in his style that is wonderful.”

Music critics noted Mr. Simon’s ambitious endeavor to animate Handel’s music in non-traditional ways, emphasizing multiple soloists and the personality the soloists brought to the Baroque tradition.

“It’s such irresistible music — blast those trumpets; build that fugue; call out those massed voices; stop on a dime for a grand Handelian pause, the world ringing in your ears — and Simon makes it all seem like so much fun,” music critic Tim Page wrote in The Washington Post of a 1996 concert that included the “Hallelujah” chorus and lesser-known Handel works such as “Semele,” “Samson,” “Saul,” “Solomon” and “Judas Maccabaeus.”

Ann Rabson co-founded Saffire-the Uppity Blues Women, a group that sang of sex, carousing and the mixed pleasures of middle age.

The group’s style harked back to the 1920s and the music of Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Sippie Wallace, but Saffire’s music adopted a wry, post-feminist point of view. One of Saffire’s signature wink-and-a-nod tunes was “The Middle Aged Blues Boogie,” which celebrates the sexual vitality of older women:
“I’ll forget about my arthritis / My backache, my lumbago / At the horizontal disco.”
[...]
 “We are absolutely very raunchy people,” Ms. Rabson quipped to The Washington Post in 1994.
[...]
“It’s a wonderful life,” Ms. Rabson said in 1993, describing the career of a musician. “I mean, how many people have jobs that every five to 10 minutes people say, ‘Hey, you’re doing a good job. Yay!’ . . . Music. It’s a painkiller.”

Both had a unique talent and opportunity.  The world is richer through their artistry.

Sheer Weirdness

Local transaction gone wrong:

...[T]wo former friends got angry as they tried to negotiate a price for a lawn mower... "[O]ne thing led to another, and before I knew it, there were knives and guns and everything just went haywire."

And then he ate his beard.

Places in the News

All of my former hometowns are in the news all at once. Go figure. The Arizona senate election covers my years in Phoenix and Window Rock. My Virginia years come up in violence directed at congress members regarding the health care finance bill.

Rep. Eric Cantor claimed his Richmond, Virginia office was attacked. I began my professional career in that city. In Albemarle County or Charlottesville, Virginia, a gas line at the the home of Rep. Tom Periello's brother was cut after the brother's address was mistakenly posted on a Tea Bag Facebook page as a place for to demonstrate displeasure with the congressman's vote on the health care finance bill. I lived in both Charlottesville and Albemarle County during college and graduate school.

When told of possible injury to three young children, a teabagger from Danville, Virginia called it "collateral damage". My childhood and high school years were in Danville and I'll be damned if I didn't say something that stupid back then.

That's it. Every place of which I have a conscious memory. All in one week. All dubious distinctions.

Death Notice

Obituaries in a national newspaper are perhaps their most informative articles. Where each day's news follows trends and patterns from previoius days, death is universal and surprising. An obituary tells me something unexpected and new, about a life and a person I've never encountered before.

Today, I learned about Cecilia Rogers, a talented, independent woman.