I apologize to readers. Last night I forgot to blog! Just plain forgot until I was already in bed.
In some ways, since I blogged about the prison cells collected outside my window, I have lived a rather drunk, rather surreal life. Not literally drunk – I have had no alcohol and very little Morphine. Rather I have thrown my hat thoroughly into Cycle 3 and now it is simply unfolding. With this come demands – on my time, listening, focus, energy, stamina, words. There are demands from my assistants, ACF, ODSP, the Marsha Forest Centre, the Wisdom City Team, from my circle, my body, Father, WPIT, e-mail, Laser Eagles, the ROM?, the Book of Judith. I am not complaining – just spinning!
It all stems from taking myself seriously – perhaps way too seriously. I continue to imagine that I can transform the world by transforming how diversity is valued and included. Mike and I saw “The King’s Speech” again tonight, and though I waiver between whether I am more like George or Lionel I know (as in KNOW) I have an essential part in a drama much bigger than myself. Everything speaks to me as a potential means of finding a pathway to peace through Inclusion so I can turn down very little these days. That, and the ongoing search for $$’s, keeps prodding me on.
This morning Mike and I met with ACF and their poverty reduction champions and this afternoon with old and new members of the ACF Board and the Inclusion Circle. In all we met for over six hours. Mike was still raring to go after it all, but I was exhausted. For me the morning was mainly about listening, and listening to mainly whining, grieving and nostalgia for days when organizing seemed clearer. Listening took place on top of my own weary concern with feeling like once again I am being drawn into strategies that don’t work,
In the afternoon I felt the need to speak up about how it seems that ACF has not implemented the Inclusion Task Force recommendations. That and other people’s stuff led to a much livelier energy. However, at the end of the day (literally), it still remains in the hands of others to decide when, who and for what end this process will continue.
Going into the movie I lined up behind a young woman who is familiar to me from the Wisdom Course. Coming out we ran into a woman and her friend/supporter, both of whom were active twenty-five years ago in some committee or other that I was part of, probably the Ontario Advocacy Coalition. I felt that a certain element of safety and familiarity was added back into my day. In particular the woman who has a long term cognitive difference after a brain haemorrhage that she had in 1970 brought back the joyful sense that life is to be celebrated. She is just the sort of person I want to bring to lunch with ACF – Mary Lou, Miriam, Chloe, Greg and Felicia – the people who show me over and over again that it is way more effective in the end to stop trying to fix everything, and to enjoy the food, the company and the movie.
Speaking of lunch, I had the best roast beef sandwich I think I have ever had in my life. I could chew and swallow every bite, and I ate the WHOLE thing.
Showing posts with label Morphine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Morphine. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
January 15, 2011
I had wine with dinner – a fabulous duck dinner at the King Eddy – supplied by Peter Christianson. A few hours later I took Morphine because the left foot pain just wasn’t abating – the first dose in six days. In any case the inebriation may come through.
I am learning to play with and get used to the person I am becoming, which is an internationally oriented player with power. I must rapidly – am rapidly giving up that I am a small actor in a big show.
It has come up four times this week.
The first was with the agenda published by Second Story Press. I started to read the vignettes for the other eleven women only to discover that the women written up for January is a Burmese activist for democracy and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. How did I get into this group?
Next I met Kimberly Fu’s father, David. He is an international broker for companies in Mexico, Taiwan, China, Canada, etc., providing communication structures so they can work cooperatively. At his invitation we talked for about 1 ½ hours – a rich gift in his framework. He gave me several insights into how to organize WPIT so that it is more sustainable, productive and understandable in the corporate world.
Next was the time spent on Skype with Liz Denny, an artist in Massachusetts who is also a PhD in Sociology and a grant writer. We are creating grant writing streams to bring $$’s to WPIT. She is our incipient financial office!
And although Peter C is mainly working in Canada his outlook is international. Tonight he was presenting several observations and resources to strengthen WPIT’s organizational power.
Of course I have been international since the mid-80’s – this is not really new. I just never have felt like I belonged in that sphere of influence. Yet clearly I do – I have evidence of my ideas and writing showing up in thirteen or fourteen countries, and physically I have been in seven. It’s now about me owning the reality.
Indeed, there is other evidence as well:
- advocating for individualized support with people from the UK, Germany, the US and Canada;
- participating on teleconferences that are Wisdom related with people in Canada, the US and more than one European country;
- helping to lead Summer Inclusion Institutes with a similar spread of participation, but also including the UK, the Netherlands, Russia, India, Australia and New Zealand; and,
- playing Farmville with over 27 million other Facebook members.
And, in addition, there are seventeen Wisdom Unlimited City Teams around the planet and I have been a City Team member since March 2003.
So I guess it’s about time I stepped into my own shoes!
I am learning to play with and get used to the person I am becoming, which is an internationally oriented player with power. I must rapidly – am rapidly giving up that I am a small actor in a big show.
It has come up four times this week.
The first was with the agenda published by Second Story Press. I started to read the vignettes for the other eleven women only to discover that the women written up for January is a Burmese activist for democracy and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. How did I get into this group?
Next I met Kimberly Fu’s father, David. He is an international broker for companies in Mexico, Taiwan, China, Canada, etc., providing communication structures so they can work cooperatively. At his invitation we talked for about 1 ½ hours – a rich gift in his framework. He gave me several insights into how to organize WPIT so that it is more sustainable, productive and understandable in the corporate world.
Next was the time spent on Skype with Liz Denny, an artist in Massachusetts who is also a PhD in Sociology and a grant writer. We are creating grant writing streams to bring $$’s to WPIT. She is our incipient financial office!
And although Peter C is mainly working in Canada his outlook is international. Tonight he was presenting several observations and resources to strengthen WPIT’s organizational power.
Of course I have been international since the mid-80’s – this is not really new. I just never have felt like I belonged in that sphere of influence. Yet clearly I do – I have evidence of my ideas and writing showing up in thirteen or fourteen countries, and physically I have been in seven. It’s now about me owning the reality.
Indeed, there is other evidence as well:
- advocating for individualized support with people from the UK, Germany, the US and Canada;
- participating on teleconferences that are Wisdom related with people in Canada, the US and more than one European country;
- helping to lead Summer Inclusion Institutes with a similar spread of participation, but also including the UK, the Netherlands, Russia, India, Australia and New Zealand; and,
- playing Farmville with over 27 million other Facebook members.
And, in addition, there are seventeen Wisdom Unlimited City Teams around the planet and I have been a City Team member since March 2003.
So I guess it’s about time I stepped into my own shoes!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
January 11, 2011
Well there are days when the ball just won’t go between the posts! I was running late pretty well all day. Mike and I went to a consignment store this morning and there were some really great things but nothing in quite the right size. I got an email back from someone who had been asking good questions about WPIT but he declined to donate. I called some more people to be guests at the Wisdom Completion Evening this Thursday but just got message machines. Blah blah blah.
Perhaps the truly concerning “failure” was my need to use Morphine two days in a row. Jen did say there would be major shifts, and there have been. I do recognize it as one of those plateaus before a great step forward. Just the same, I am tired and sore, and kind of wishing I hadn’t booked myself such a busy week! But so it goes and I’m just venting, not really worried or complaining.
It is interesting how the quality of the questions and comments about WPIT as an organization and our projects are taking on a very more rich and serious (in a good sense) quality. I was Skyping with a colleague this evening and she completely bought into our need for a $6 million dollar foundation so that we can do our projects without constantly having our hands in somebody else’s pocket. She also was thinking about who, at the university level, might take on the kind of social/economic research that inclusion deserves. In a sense she is a “nobody” in the world of big money and research but life doesn’t work that way. Talking to her tonight makes it easier for me to talk to the Executive Director of ACF tomorrow, and on the other hand I have no idea who she knows or who knows who she knows. The message is travelling out and getting stronger as it goes.
In Wisdom we talk about fail, fail, failing your way to success. It very much feels like that is where I am at this time. It kind of makes it easier in a way because if lots of failure is the way to success then bring it on, bring it on, bring it on!
Of course, I hope that the failures are getting smarter as we go!
I feel like it’s been a very long time since I worked hard. I did not work hard at my jobs in the early and mid 90’s. The international travel was fun. The paid office stuff was excruciatingly boring and useless but not at all hard. The intense schedule and consistent phoning, writing, speaking that I’m doing now is considerably more difficult in the sense of leaving no room for fooling around, but it’s making a lot of sense and building a network and proving that I can be worthy of a team working with me. It is a very different life than Cycle 2.
Oh yes, I painted today. Well I didn’t actually paint. Mike and I spent about an hour preparing to paint. I am about to attempt reproducing a photograph of a scene outside my window – one of the scenes of the industrial and railway view outside my bedroom. It is a picture that I took during the last week that I spent most of my time in bed. It is very inclusive of all the elements that intrigue me about this view – the cranes, the trains and the sandbox quality of the scene.
At one point this morning I thought that I might not be able to paint today and keep up with all the other things I said I would do. I realized, though, that painting is once again going to disappear as a regular activity unless I stick to it in my schedule. Actually it’s amazing how much disappears when I (or anyone else!) doesn’t stick to the schedule. We talk about freedom of choice etc. But I chose all these things that are in my life and I chose them freely so having them disappear because I don’t keep my schedule is just some sort of insanity. I am free. I just have to remember that!
It’s been a long day. Tomorrow may be a big day if the meeting with Atkinson goes as well as it could! Time to pack it in!
Perhaps the truly concerning “failure” was my need to use Morphine two days in a row. Jen did say there would be major shifts, and there have been. I do recognize it as one of those plateaus before a great step forward. Just the same, I am tired and sore, and kind of wishing I hadn’t booked myself such a busy week! But so it goes and I’m just venting, not really worried or complaining.
It is interesting how the quality of the questions and comments about WPIT as an organization and our projects are taking on a very more rich and serious (in a good sense) quality. I was Skyping with a colleague this evening and she completely bought into our need for a $6 million dollar foundation so that we can do our projects without constantly having our hands in somebody else’s pocket. She also was thinking about who, at the university level, might take on the kind of social/economic research that inclusion deserves. In a sense she is a “nobody” in the world of big money and research but life doesn’t work that way. Talking to her tonight makes it easier for me to talk to the Executive Director of ACF tomorrow, and on the other hand I have no idea who she knows or who knows who she knows. The message is travelling out and getting stronger as it goes.
In Wisdom we talk about fail, fail, failing your way to success. It very much feels like that is where I am at this time. It kind of makes it easier in a way because if lots of failure is the way to success then bring it on, bring it on, bring it on!
Of course, I hope that the failures are getting smarter as we go!
I feel like it’s been a very long time since I worked hard. I did not work hard at my jobs in the early and mid 90’s. The international travel was fun. The paid office stuff was excruciatingly boring and useless but not at all hard. The intense schedule and consistent phoning, writing, speaking that I’m doing now is considerably more difficult in the sense of leaving no room for fooling around, but it’s making a lot of sense and building a network and proving that I can be worthy of a team working with me. It is a very different life than Cycle 2.
Oh yes, I painted today. Well I didn’t actually paint. Mike and I spent about an hour preparing to paint. I am about to attempt reproducing a photograph of a scene outside my window – one of the scenes of the industrial and railway view outside my bedroom. It is a picture that I took during the last week that I spent most of my time in bed. It is very inclusive of all the elements that intrigue me about this view – the cranes, the trains and the sandbox quality of the scene.
At one point this morning I thought that I might not be able to paint today and keep up with all the other things I said I would do. I realized, though, that painting is once again going to disappear as a regular activity unless I stick to it in my schedule. Actually it’s amazing how much disappears when I (or anyone else!) doesn’t stick to the schedule. We talk about freedom of choice etc. But I chose all these things that are in my life and I chose them freely so having them disappear because I don’t keep my schedule is just some sort of insanity. I am free. I just have to remember that!
It’s been a long day. Tomorrow may be a big day if the meeting with Atkinson goes as well as it could! Time to pack it in!
Monday, January 10, 2011
January 10, 2011
Last week I required no Morphine for 4 of 7 days. Jen today and last week did strong work on my right upper thigh – the scene of 5 surgeries. It is tough sledding for both of us but clearly a big difference is showing up. At the same time I feel more stoned than if I were on the full dose of Morphine I was using when I first came out of the hospital in mid-October. The treatments, the Vivex elixir, the better quality food I have been eating and, I think, just getting closer to life essentials are together spinning the energies I call “me”.
I have had “Epiphany” a lot on my mind lately, and I suppose this is only natural as this phenomenon is culturally located in early January. I understand the Epiphany to name the experiential intersection of history and eternity, of the ever disappearing Now and the timeless spirit from which all being springs forth. Today Jen was getting at Epiphany from a very different set of metaphors – a mix of Chinese or Eastern understanding of the body, her father’s Mastery of Reiki and her own empathy.
I was bathed in the experience of being sourced from and through a deep, blue well, and, at the same time, understanding as a direction to follow that a person in her physical self has a Yin energy fire that must stay lit for body life to continue. Ordinarily we nourish this fire through breath, food and water, but there are other, more essential, paths to stoking the flame. I have long been fascinated by those who have given up eating or breathing for months or years. Today I got a sense of what that takes, though Jen says it requires enormous focus.
The rest of the day, before and after, has mainly been about the ordinary here and now. I got lots done and there is much I did not do. Mostly I am OK with that since in some sense it is not about doing, but about manifesting, in any case.
Still, as skilled a manifestor as I am, it is not yet clear enough how to tell the difference between magical thinking and having life occur – in Now – through being rather than doing. Today I saw, and I spoke it to others, that when we make a promise we must also create an integrity that will support the fulfillment of that promise. Out of this structure failure can be useful and powerful. However, without a created integrity, our promises have no more power than hope has.
Now I wrote all that in Landmark jargon. You can get how my metaphors and energies are jumbled right now. I am sure they will reorganize in some strong way in short order!
Today I completed my preparations to talk policy change with the Executive Director of Atkinson Charitable Foundation, Olivia Nuamah this Wednesday. It seems to be an important meeting. I feel that my perspective is very different from hers, yet this is likely something she respects and finds creative. Somehow the Inclusion Circle has dissipated and many of Atkinson’s key players have moved on. Atkinson now has a new Chair and ED, and the long term community developer and most recent Economic Fellow both have taken jobs more in the City of Toronto realm.
Perhaps there is space for my efforts and thinking.
I have had “Epiphany” a lot on my mind lately, and I suppose this is only natural as this phenomenon is culturally located in early January. I understand the Epiphany to name the experiential intersection of history and eternity, of the ever disappearing Now and the timeless spirit from which all being springs forth. Today Jen was getting at Epiphany from a very different set of metaphors – a mix of Chinese or Eastern understanding of the body, her father’s Mastery of Reiki and her own empathy.
I was bathed in the experience of being sourced from and through a deep, blue well, and, at the same time, understanding as a direction to follow that a person in her physical self has a Yin energy fire that must stay lit for body life to continue. Ordinarily we nourish this fire through breath, food and water, but there are other, more essential, paths to stoking the flame. I have long been fascinated by those who have given up eating or breathing for months or years. Today I got a sense of what that takes, though Jen says it requires enormous focus.
The rest of the day, before and after, has mainly been about the ordinary here and now. I got lots done and there is much I did not do. Mostly I am OK with that since in some sense it is not about doing, but about manifesting, in any case.
Still, as skilled a manifestor as I am, it is not yet clear enough how to tell the difference between magical thinking and having life occur – in Now – through being rather than doing. Today I saw, and I spoke it to others, that when we make a promise we must also create an integrity that will support the fulfillment of that promise. Out of this structure failure can be useful and powerful. However, without a created integrity, our promises have no more power than hope has.
Now I wrote all that in Landmark jargon. You can get how my metaphors and energies are jumbled right now. I am sure they will reorganize in some strong way in short order!
Today I completed my preparations to talk policy change with the Executive Director of Atkinson Charitable Foundation, Olivia Nuamah this Wednesday. It seems to be an important meeting. I feel that my perspective is very different from hers, yet this is likely something she respects and finds creative. Somehow the Inclusion Circle has dissipated and many of Atkinson’s key players have moved on. Atkinson now has a new Chair and ED, and the long term community developer and most recent Economic Fellow both have taken jobs more in the City of Toronto realm.
Perhaps there is space for my efforts and thinking.
Monday, December 20, 2010
December 20, 2010
Jen the masseuse, Kevin the frazzling child, trading a ride to Christmas shop with Helen for a car wash – inside and out, fundraising, cancelled meetings all day, tracking down a minced pie for tomorrow’s Laser Eagles potluck, discussing the next phases of WPIT with Mike, answered and unanswered e-mail, wrapping presents – these occupied my day.
Jen says there is no choice except to rest. At the same time we are on a very different plane today with my body, discussing together the intricacies of clearing and opening space for my right side while moving more of what I do with my right side into my left side – practical to spiritual. It’s a much different place than managing pain, though there is still some pain to manage. Oh, by the way, I don’t really get what all that means in a day-to-day way. Stay tuned!
When I get to this moment in the year I generally feel a certain sense of victory. This year, this night, at 3:17am Eastern Time there will be a full eclipse of the moon and we will also pass the Solstice. Thursday will yield more sunlight than today. Daylight will steadily lengthen until June 21, 2011.
There are moments in life when you know for certain that it doesn’t get worse than this. Those moments are perversely joyful, at least to me, giving a sense of power and vitality. Now that I am solidly into my Third Cycle this eclipsed Solstice offers just such a sense of joy and strength. I have already come through some of the most difficult moments of my life, and yet so much potential and realized opportunity is with me at this time.
I love my home, my health has returned, I have pathways to money, I have great staff and awesome friends, the ROM is working with me, the Book of Judith will tour this year coming and next, Mike Skubic is putting real legs under WPIT and – mysteriously – I even feel more attractive to men. I want to be a leader, I am a leader and I have the strongest chance ever to make a worldwide difference.
Some euphoria is Morphine, no doubt. Yesterday I took none but today I took two doses. Just the same could Morphine give me a high if there was nothing in my soul to be uplifted? I doubt it.
Besides money, if there is something to be at work to accomplish it would be to paint more frequently and steadily, which means having reliable and frequent access to a tracker that is trained to my ways. Mike has great potential but we have so much else going on that tracking for me easily gets sidelined. There is no reason I couldn’t have more than one tracker.
I never expected that art and writing would play such a large part of my life and be such a strong path to building Inclusion. Yet when I look back over the past seven years, and also twenty-eight years, painting, theatre and writing have been the most expressive and reliable vehicles for me to be Judith.
Funny how long it takes to see the obvious.
Anyway it is time to focus on painting, writing, friends, good food and rest. There are other important aspects to my life, of course, but these are my foundation.
The Third Cycle will continue.
Jen says there is no choice except to rest. At the same time we are on a very different plane today with my body, discussing together the intricacies of clearing and opening space for my right side while moving more of what I do with my right side into my left side – practical to spiritual. It’s a much different place than managing pain, though there is still some pain to manage. Oh, by the way, I don’t really get what all that means in a day-to-day way. Stay tuned!
When I get to this moment in the year I generally feel a certain sense of victory. This year, this night, at 3:17am Eastern Time there will be a full eclipse of the moon and we will also pass the Solstice. Thursday will yield more sunlight than today. Daylight will steadily lengthen until June 21, 2011.
There are moments in life when you know for certain that it doesn’t get worse than this. Those moments are perversely joyful, at least to me, giving a sense of power and vitality. Now that I am solidly into my Third Cycle this eclipsed Solstice offers just such a sense of joy and strength. I have already come through some of the most difficult moments of my life, and yet so much potential and realized opportunity is with me at this time.
I love my home, my health has returned, I have pathways to money, I have great staff and awesome friends, the ROM is working with me, the Book of Judith will tour this year coming and next, Mike Skubic is putting real legs under WPIT and – mysteriously – I even feel more attractive to men. I want to be a leader, I am a leader and I have the strongest chance ever to make a worldwide difference.
Some euphoria is Morphine, no doubt. Yesterday I took none but today I took two doses. Just the same could Morphine give me a high if there was nothing in my soul to be uplifted? I doubt it.
Besides money, if there is something to be at work to accomplish it would be to paint more frequently and steadily, which means having reliable and frequent access to a tracker that is trained to my ways. Mike has great potential but we have so much else going on that tracking for me easily gets sidelined. There is no reason I couldn’t have more than one tracker.
I never expected that art and writing would play such a large part of my life and be such a strong path to building Inclusion. Yet when I look back over the past seven years, and also twenty-eight years, painting, theatre and writing have been the most expressive and reliable vehicles for me to be Judith.
Funny how long it takes to see the obvious.
Anyway it is time to focus on painting, writing, friends, good food and rest. There are other important aspects to my life, of course, but these are my foundation.
The Third Cycle will continue.
Friday, December 3, 2010
December 3, 2010
The Advil/Morphine combo worked well for me today, on top of another massage. I have been sitting up and pain free for 11 hours.
I am resisting writing. It is getting late and I have no burning topic, nor even a: “Well I meant to write about this a few days ago!” My entire focus is on rest, or getting ready for writing on Monday, or the Wisdom Weekend 5 – where I was most of today, or the MFC Board meeting tomorrow, or supporting BW for a month (a bit of cash there), or how to eat right this weekend on very little money. Busy, busy, busy mind.
But writing this blog is for my expression. What is there to express?
I was impressed and disappointed this morning on how badly I wanted to just get on with my day and not bother with my acupuncture. When Jen was working on me I could barely pay any attention to her. I regretted this and told her so, but my mind was and is FULL of what I want to do NOW and where I want to go NEXT. When I showed up for the City Team meeting at 1:00pm most of the thirty plus people there weren’t expecting me even though I had sent in the official notice that I would be. The general impression was that I was too sick to get well so fast. My circle has the same impression.
Why am I supposed to be sick for that long?
Maybe my body isn’t big enough to stay sick for a long time. Two days ago I could sit up for five hours. Yesterday it was for ten. Today it was for eleven. Somehow in others’ minds I MUST be heading for a disaster. Perhaps I am, but to me it seems more like I am heading for my chosen future.
Clearly I am not “normal”. I believe that these past eight weeks have left me with a great deal of comfort and there are several dimensions of this fact. Literally I have (at least some of the time) much more comfort in my body. I can laugh at my moodiness and be OK with how much I irritate others. In fact, in the space of that comfort more people are confronting me with whatever is annoying to them. This has opened a space for clearing up misunderstandings and for building stronger agreements.
I realized today that the ROM wants me because, in their “eyes”, I am disabled and I fit very powerfully into their mandate to be accessible. However, in my own understanding I am not disabled. I am an artist who is committed to building peace and inclusion in the world. Before now I would have wanted to turn them around or turn them down - to struggle to convince them that I have nothing to do with “disability”.
Now I see that it doesn’t matter. Naturally they see me as disabled. It is the perfect place to start our relationship because the reality is - that is what they see.
Something will occur for the staff of the ROM and for many others simply because I do this. I don’t have to make any particular outcome happen. There will be some level of transformation and inclusion simply because I am openly engaging the process.
How can I be sick when I am having such a great life – today and tomorrow?
I am resisting writing. It is getting late and I have no burning topic, nor even a: “Well I meant to write about this a few days ago!” My entire focus is on rest, or getting ready for writing on Monday, or the Wisdom Weekend 5 – where I was most of today, or the MFC Board meeting tomorrow, or supporting BW for a month (a bit of cash there), or how to eat right this weekend on very little money. Busy, busy, busy mind.
But writing this blog is for my expression. What is there to express?
I was impressed and disappointed this morning on how badly I wanted to just get on with my day and not bother with my acupuncture. When Jen was working on me I could barely pay any attention to her. I regretted this and told her so, but my mind was and is FULL of what I want to do NOW and where I want to go NEXT. When I showed up for the City Team meeting at 1:00pm most of the thirty plus people there weren’t expecting me even though I had sent in the official notice that I would be. The general impression was that I was too sick to get well so fast. My circle has the same impression.
Why am I supposed to be sick for that long?
Maybe my body isn’t big enough to stay sick for a long time. Two days ago I could sit up for five hours. Yesterday it was for ten. Today it was for eleven. Somehow in others’ minds I MUST be heading for a disaster. Perhaps I am, but to me it seems more like I am heading for my chosen future.
Clearly I am not “normal”. I believe that these past eight weeks have left me with a great deal of comfort and there are several dimensions of this fact. Literally I have (at least some of the time) much more comfort in my body. I can laugh at my moodiness and be OK with how much I irritate others. In fact, in the space of that comfort more people are confronting me with whatever is annoying to them. This has opened a space for clearing up misunderstandings and for building stronger agreements.
I realized today that the ROM wants me because, in their “eyes”, I am disabled and I fit very powerfully into their mandate to be accessible. However, in my own understanding I am not disabled. I am an artist who is committed to building peace and inclusion in the world. Before now I would have wanted to turn them around or turn them down - to struggle to convince them that I have nothing to do with “disability”.
Now I see that it doesn’t matter. Naturally they see me as disabled. It is the perfect place to start our relationship because the reality is - that is what they see.
Something will occur for the staff of the ROM and for many others simply because I do this. I don’t have to make any particular outcome happen. There will be some level of transformation and inclusion simply because I am openly engaging the process.
How can I be sick when I am having such a great life – today and tomorrow?
Sunday, November 28, 2010
November 28, 2010
I had the best dinner tonight!
Over these last two months food and beverage have been a constant concern. My recovery from the infection, my loss of bladder function and the effort to live creatively with pain (and increasingly less pain!) all depended in some way on what I eat.
During the hospital days and immediately thereafter the concern was THAT I eat. My various accommodations to swallowing difficulties, nausea from pain medication and the infection left me dangerously malnourished. By the way malnourishment is a theme that ran through my transition from Cycle 1 to Cycle 2. Hmm!
It was truly comforting deep in the hospital days to have Stanley, the nutrition researcher, glow over practically every mouthful I took and to have him rejoice as the quantities of food I ingested increased day by day.
As soon as I got home my friends, especially Gloria, filled my kitchen and freezer with very excellent food – so much that six weeks later I still have some of it!
With Jen’s guidance it soon became apparent that I needed to, and actually wanted to, shift what I consider to be an ordinary day’s way of eating. I literally felt like I was starving for the first few weeks and that certainly helped my motivation to try eating differently. This was boosted by the realization that different habits would let me stop using those foul laxatives!!
The fundamental problem was that any pain medication that works for me also slows my bowels, creating the blockage that interferes with my bladder (and shut it down for a month!) thus increasing the pain and driving up the use of medication, which slows down my…..
The three necessities were to eliminate gluten, increase noncaffeinated fluids and get more fibre into me. As straight forward as this may sound there are tricky conundrums, such as that oatmeal, though high in fibre is also high in gluten, as is chicken – the one meat my friends (not Gloria!) most want to provide. I have never been a big vegetable eater and now my limitations in chewing and swallowing eliminate any chance of salads. Day by day I found better combinations AND experimented with how much of my old habits (cheese anyone) were tolerable (not much!)
I got a slow cooker, discovered congee, started to carry a thermos of herbal tea and made many, many other changes.
It has become clear that it is useless to go to the Food Bank because everything they have is no longer food to me – wheat pastas, hot dogs, milk, etc.
Like everybody else I exist in a cultural pattern and such a drastic change has been confronting along with welcome. I am basically British in heritage and inclination. The first time I went to my ancestral homeland, England, I was amazed and awed that I was offered cream on nearly everything I ate. After a few days I reconnected with memories of my Mother’s cooking – stewed hamburger, cornflakes and tuna fish, boiled cod – and I realized that in the English soul food is fundamentally brown. That is, the colour of British food varies from the white and brown of crusty bread, through the cream to beige of fish and chips, puddings and pasties, to the deep brown of sausages, burnt toast, gravy and blood pudding.
Tonight, in complete agreement with food that works for me, I had roast beef (brown), potatoes and onions baked with a rosemary dressing (lighter brown), sauerkraut (beige), pumpkin pie (orangy brown) and lemon herbal tea (yellowy brown).
I am full and in heaven!
Over these last two months food and beverage have been a constant concern. My recovery from the infection, my loss of bladder function and the effort to live creatively with pain (and increasingly less pain!) all depended in some way on what I eat.
During the hospital days and immediately thereafter the concern was THAT I eat. My various accommodations to swallowing difficulties, nausea from pain medication and the infection left me dangerously malnourished. By the way malnourishment is a theme that ran through my transition from Cycle 1 to Cycle 2. Hmm!
It was truly comforting deep in the hospital days to have Stanley, the nutrition researcher, glow over practically every mouthful I took and to have him rejoice as the quantities of food I ingested increased day by day.
As soon as I got home my friends, especially Gloria, filled my kitchen and freezer with very excellent food – so much that six weeks later I still have some of it!
With Jen’s guidance it soon became apparent that I needed to, and actually wanted to, shift what I consider to be an ordinary day’s way of eating. I literally felt like I was starving for the first few weeks and that certainly helped my motivation to try eating differently. This was boosted by the realization that different habits would let me stop using those foul laxatives!!
The fundamental problem was that any pain medication that works for me also slows my bowels, creating the blockage that interferes with my bladder (and shut it down for a month!) thus increasing the pain and driving up the use of medication, which slows down my…..
The three necessities were to eliminate gluten, increase noncaffeinated fluids and get more fibre into me. As straight forward as this may sound there are tricky conundrums, such as that oatmeal, though high in fibre is also high in gluten, as is chicken – the one meat my friends (not Gloria!) most want to provide. I have never been a big vegetable eater and now my limitations in chewing and swallowing eliminate any chance of salads. Day by day I found better combinations AND experimented with how much of my old habits (cheese anyone) were tolerable (not much!)
I got a slow cooker, discovered congee, started to carry a thermos of herbal tea and made many, many other changes.
It has become clear that it is useless to go to the Food Bank because everything they have is no longer food to me – wheat pastas, hot dogs, milk, etc.
Like everybody else I exist in a cultural pattern and such a drastic change has been confronting along with welcome. I am basically British in heritage and inclination. The first time I went to my ancestral homeland, England, I was amazed and awed that I was offered cream on nearly everything I ate. After a few days I reconnected with memories of my Mother’s cooking – stewed hamburger, cornflakes and tuna fish, boiled cod – and I realized that in the English soul food is fundamentally brown. That is, the colour of British food varies from the white and brown of crusty bread, through the cream to beige of fish and chips, puddings and pasties, to the deep brown of sausages, burnt toast, gravy and blood pudding.
Tonight, in complete agreement with food that works for me, I had roast beef (brown), potatoes and onions baked with a rosemary dressing (lighter brown), sauerkraut (beige), pumpkin pie (orangy brown) and lemon herbal tea (yellowy brown).
I am full and in heaven!
Sunday, November 21, 2010
November 21, 2010
Last night I monetized this blog. I decided to do so because WPIT needs ongoing funding and this seems to be one easy way to have an income. We’ll see. I figured that readers these days block out such stimulate and if the mere fact that a number of people see the ads makes a financial difference then it’s worth it. I apologize if anyone is truly offended. If you are, let me know, because clearly I can stop it if it’s a real issue.
I guess I have crossed my self imposed watershed – again. To invite advertising and money is clearly to move beyond expression to communication. After writing for more than a month the two seem like both sides of the same thing – like the palm and back of a hand – distinct but inseparable.
I am contemplating the third dose of Morphine for the day. It’s after 10:30pm so likely I will just sleep instead. Two and a half days in bed and one half up, acceptable “poos” on all three days, lots of good clear peeing and still the pain has been brutal. I am discouraged!
I got offered a chance to buy another elixir tonight – at $80 for a month’s supply. It feels something like being held hostage.
Writing two pages seems undoable tonight too. I imagine ways to cheat! Of course I define cheating.
I was talking last night with Mike about how much I have written over the past ten years or so. I have taken steps on three occasions to write a second book (or third if I count my input into “From Behind the Piano”). Now I have three blogs. There are also a number of articles, letters, lengthy e-mails and other documents. Somehow none of it has gelled in my imagination into enough of a theme that I can design a coherent approach to a book.
Perhaps I need to dump copies of a representative sample in front of an editor and get knowledgeable help.
Writing “What’s Really Worth Doing…” in 1993 was a very different story. (Is that a quibble?) It was urgent and it was done essentially in eight days. For many years now I have wanted to write but there is no such urgency nor a clear sense of whom I might be writing to.
How come there can be urgency, drive, energy and courage sometimes while for no particular reason I can perceive procrastination rules most of the rest of the time?
When I was a child my body handled its blood sugar, its elimination and more. Now I am the manager and I consistently measure my inputs and outputs. As a child my reasoning and emotions were tempered and guided by others. Now I get to handle all that. It seems that getting older brings with it a series of shifts where some aspect of life – handling money, sobriety, work/life balance and much more – suddenly move from being simply experienced in some sort of automatic, unconscious way to requiring some sort of consistent, even complex, structure of intention, balance and limitation.
Is this what this relentless pain is all about? Is there yet another way that I must grow up and be responsible?
If so, where’s the g d manual??
I guess I have crossed my self imposed watershed – again. To invite advertising and money is clearly to move beyond expression to communication. After writing for more than a month the two seem like both sides of the same thing – like the palm and back of a hand – distinct but inseparable.
I am contemplating the third dose of Morphine for the day. It’s after 10:30pm so likely I will just sleep instead. Two and a half days in bed and one half up, acceptable “poos” on all three days, lots of good clear peeing and still the pain has been brutal. I am discouraged!
I got offered a chance to buy another elixir tonight – at $80 for a month’s supply. It feels something like being held hostage.
Writing two pages seems undoable tonight too. I imagine ways to cheat! Of course I define cheating.
I was talking last night with Mike about how much I have written over the past ten years or so. I have taken steps on three occasions to write a second book (or third if I count my input into “From Behind the Piano”). Now I have three blogs. There are also a number of articles, letters, lengthy e-mails and other documents. Somehow none of it has gelled in my imagination into enough of a theme that I can design a coherent approach to a book.
Perhaps I need to dump copies of a representative sample in front of an editor and get knowledgeable help.
Writing “What’s Really Worth Doing…” in 1993 was a very different story. (Is that a quibble?) It was urgent and it was done essentially in eight days. For many years now I have wanted to write but there is no such urgency nor a clear sense of whom I might be writing to.
How come there can be urgency, drive, energy and courage sometimes while for no particular reason I can perceive procrastination rules most of the rest of the time?
When I was a child my body handled its blood sugar, its elimination and more. Now I am the manager and I consistently measure my inputs and outputs. As a child my reasoning and emotions were tempered and guided by others. Now I get to handle all that. It seems that getting older brings with it a series of shifts where some aspect of life – handling money, sobriety, work/life balance and much more – suddenly move from being simply experienced in some sort of automatic, unconscious way to requiring some sort of consistent, even complex, structure of intention, balance and limitation.
Is this what this relentless pain is all about? Is there yet another way that I must grow up and be responsible?
If so, where’s the g d manual??
Saturday, November 20, 2010
November 20, 2010
It is just past 10:00pm and this is the second day that I have not gotten out of bed – or washed either. Yikes! What has become of me? (Ha, ha) A drugged, slovenly old lady!
I’m kidding – well mostly. It has actually been another busy day. I worked on my Wisdom phone list this morning, responded to e-mail and made some calls. Between lunch, dinner, pain breaks and mutual naps Mike and I worked on the presentation we will give to video game developers next Tuesday. Throughout it all there have been talks and explorations – ranging from funny to emotionally intense - of Inclusion, WPIT, Laser Eagles, the design of a good interactive presentation, how we will organize ourselves, what inspires us and frightens us – a strong flow of interchange.
Mike has been at work for some 10 days on www.wpit.org. It has to be a working website by Tuesday evening for the students who design video games. It will be.
There are some strong similarities between my time with Mike and the more than a year with Gabor. Mike wants to know, wants to drive Inclusion and WPIT, wants to read the years of writing I have done, wants to push me! Gabor was and is very different, but he continuously caused me to examine and expand the metaphors through which I think about Inclusion and all that I am trying to articulate and create.
Mirror, mirror on the wall! Often people meet me (or anyone) as if what you see is all there is or was or will be. It is an inexpressible joy to be met as an unfolding mystery, with depth and untapped directions to grow into.
The question of my legacy is often on my mind. When I am with Mike and Kimberly I feel a direct connection to a distant future that I will not personally be present in. This is a profoundly satisfying work to engage in.
Throughout the day I searched out old documents and PowerPoint slides. I saw that just nine years ago World Peace was not something I thought or wrote about. Not so very long ago I had not imagined the BMX Model of Inclusion. I was still working on articulating Giftedness and personal support. I have fundamentally altered my direction between then and 2008. This realization takes some power away from the metaphor of 30 year cycles that forms the basis of these writings.
Even seven years ago there was no painting and peace activism. At that time I began to engage in an intensely explorative and creative time – a six year span from 2004 to 2009 – ages 54 to 59 in chronologic time.
This was the time I also engaged in the Landmark Education Wisdom Unlimited course, Partnership Explorations, Power and Contribution in which I invented World Peace through Inclusion, and several Year End cruises, seminars and teleconferences about discourses. I also was and am still on the Toronto City Team – the group of volunteers who work with the Landmark Education headquarters, consultants and staff to produce the Wisdom Unlimited course in our area.
I transformed myself and my creative nest has been the transformational work supported by Landmark Education.
It’s funny to look back this way because I have felt that I was “me” all along. Without reflection I would have said that I had changed, but not THAT much. Now I see that Judith took some fundamental shifts – in particular I have moved from being a rights and services advocate to being an artist and peace worker.
This seems to be akin to moving from caterpillar to butterfly. And now this beautiful creature is laying her own eggs.
I’m kidding – well mostly. It has actually been another busy day. I worked on my Wisdom phone list this morning, responded to e-mail and made some calls. Between lunch, dinner, pain breaks and mutual naps Mike and I worked on the presentation we will give to video game developers next Tuesday. Throughout it all there have been talks and explorations – ranging from funny to emotionally intense - of Inclusion, WPIT, Laser Eagles, the design of a good interactive presentation, how we will organize ourselves, what inspires us and frightens us – a strong flow of interchange.
Mike has been at work for some 10 days on www.wpit.org. It has to be a working website by Tuesday evening for the students who design video games. It will be.
There are some strong similarities between my time with Mike and the more than a year with Gabor. Mike wants to know, wants to drive Inclusion and WPIT, wants to read the years of writing I have done, wants to push me! Gabor was and is very different, but he continuously caused me to examine and expand the metaphors through which I think about Inclusion and all that I am trying to articulate and create.
Mirror, mirror on the wall! Often people meet me (or anyone) as if what you see is all there is or was or will be. It is an inexpressible joy to be met as an unfolding mystery, with depth and untapped directions to grow into.
The question of my legacy is often on my mind. When I am with Mike and Kimberly I feel a direct connection to a distant future that I will not personally be present in. This is a profoundly satisfying work to engage in.
Throughout the day I searched out old documents and PowerPoint slides. I saw that just nine years ago World Peace was not something I thought or wrote about. Not so very long ago I had not imagined the BMX Model of Inclusion. I was still working on articulating Giftedness and personal support. I have fundamentally altered my direction between then and 2008. This realization takes some power away from the metaphor of 30 year cycles that forms the basis of these writings.
Even seven years ago there was no painting and peace activism. At that time I began to engage in an intensely explorative and creative time – a six year span from 2004 to 2009 – ages 54 to 59 in chronologic time.
This was the time I also engaged in the Landmark Education Wisdom Unlimited course, Partnership Explorations, Power and Contribution in which I invented World Peace through Inclusion, and several Year End cruises, seminars and teleconferences about discourses. I also was and am still on the Toronto City Team – the group of volunteers who work with the Landmark Education headquarters, consultants and staff to produce the Wisdom Unlimited course in our area.
I transformed myself and my creative nest has been the transformational work supported by Landmark Education.
It’s funny to look back this way because I have felt that I was “me” all along. Without reflection I would have said that I had changed, but not THAT much. Now I see that Judith took some fundamental shifts – in particular I have moved from being a rights and services advocate to being an artist and peace worker.
This seems to be akin to moving from caterpillar to butterfly. And now this beautiful creature is laying her own eggs.
Friday, November 19, 2010
November 19, 2010
As I was checking dates today I realized that I have been writing for more than a continuous month. This will be the 34th posting in this blog. I am “chuffed” as I somewhat expected that I would have missed a day by now, or written less than 2 pages or given it up all together. So far so good for me. I’ve never run out of gas either since owning my first car in 1980 (a yellow Fiat), except for the time that a block of ice severed the fuel line and the gas all ran out in ten minutes –I don’t count that one!
A funny thing happened today… Sometimes the Morphine hits me more than others, especially the evening dose. Tonight I was listening to some Moody Blues in my I-Tunes on my laptop. When Jay was here from Phoenix during our birthdays he left about 22 days worth of music in my folder. I’m not a big listener to music anymore and Jay likes a lot of stuff I don’t it seems, but at supper in bed tonight I found this familiar album from the late ‘60’s.
I realized that the last time I listened to this particular album I was likely stoned too – much more stoned than I am tonight and on a very different, non-prescription drug – but still in a recognizably similar state. Ah, it takes me back!
It felt humourous and good - a recognition and a bridge to a very different yet familiar version of myself. In many ways I am happier now than then, and I NEVER could have imagined today from the perspective of that day. The similarities are there, though. I am still idealistic, searching, self-centred and committed to making a real difference.
My circle meeting was intense last night, leaving Mike and Kimberly put off to some extent. Thank God Gloria was here today. She got sick last night and missed the circle meeting but came today to collage and lunch with me. She has a great connection with Mike and I expect a growing one with Kimberly. We talked together and told many stories about Scott and his supporters, trials and joys of previous trips to Georgia, and of the kind of clashes people have when they care, when they are confronted and when finally they are honest with each other.
Of course both Mike and Kimberly are 25 years old. I am frequently and stereotypically confronted with the depth of their passion, energy, creativity and intelligence and how differently they look upon or simply are unaware of how I, and now my circle, see risks, fatigue, areas that need more careful attention or even some potential directions to take. To me my age shows up most around them. I both want to and don’t want to think and be like them. It seems both wonderful and exhausting.
I guess that it is a blessing that I am not young and they are not old. So far we have been able to work out an amazing variety of ideas and issues. I will do my best to keep it clean and good, not because of either them or me, but because the possibility of World Peace through Inclusion will do so well in their hands.
I am writing this while I am still in bed. Nick and I finally rigged up my laptop and Morse Code so I can use my interface while I am semi lying down. All the pieces that are necessary were in my bedroom. I just didn’t see the last essential part until this afternoon. How often we can’t see what we are looking at!
The collage I did today is about me being reluctant to stick out. Of course I love to have everyone’s attention too. But there is a fear that shows up when I get close to noticing I’m a leader.
After I finished the collage I saw that it has many eyes and points of light in it. It’s hanging over the foot of my bed. I hope I dream about it tonight.
A funny thing happened today… Sometimes the Morphine hits me more than others, especially the evening dose. Tonight I was listening to some Moody Blues in my I-Tunes on my laptop. When Jay was here from Phoenix during our birthdays he left about 22 days worth of music in my folder. I’m not a big listener to music anymore and Jay likes a lot of stuff I don’t it seems, but at supper in bed tonight I found this familiar album from the late ‘60’s.
I realized that the last time I listened to this particular album I was likely stoned too – much more stoned than I am tonight and on a very different, non-prescription drug – but still in a recognizably similar state. Ah, it takes me back!
It felt humourous and good - a recognition and a bridge to a very different yet familiar version of myself. In many ways I am happier now than then, and I NEVER could have imagined today from the perspective of that day. The similarities are there, though. I am still idealistic, searching, self-centred and committed to making a real difference.
My circle meeting was intense last night, leaving Mike and Kimberly put off to some extent. Thank God Gloria was here today. She got sick last night and missed the circle meeting but came today to collage and lunch with me. She has a great connection with Mike and I expect a growing one with Kimberly. We talked together and told many stories about Scott and his supporters, trials and joys of previous trips to Georgia, and of the kind of clashes people have when they care, when they are confronted and when finally they are honest with each other.
Of course both Mike and Kimberly are 25 years old. I am frequently and stereotypically confronted with the depth of their passion, energy, creativity and intelligence and how differently they look upon or simply are unaware of how I, and now my circle, see risks, fatigue, areas that need more careful attention or even some potential directions to take. To me my age shows up most around them. I both want to and don’t want to think and be like them. It seems both wonderful and exhausting.
I guess that it is a blessing that I am not young and they are not old. So far we have been able to work out an amazing variety of ideas and issues. I will do my best to keep it clean and good, not because of either them or me, but because the possibility of World Peace through Inclusion will do so well in their hands.
I am writing this while I am still in bed. Nick and I finally rigged up my laptop and Morse Code so I can use my interface while I am semi lying down. All the pieces that are necessary were in my bedroom. I just didn’t see the last essential part until this afternoon. How often we can’t see what we are looking at!
The collage I did today is about me being reluctant to stick out. Of course I love to have everyone’s attention too. But there is a fear that shows up when I get close to noticing I’m a leader.
After I finished the collage I saw that it has many eyes and points of light in it. It’s hanging over the foot of my bed. I hope I dream about it tonight.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
November 17, 2010
Today was a !banner! day. Yes, those are exclamation marks.
We don’t talk much about having a bowel movement – I am reluctant even to write the word used very commonly around here – “poo”.
Having a poo has become the ULTIMATE signal of progress or regression in my physical state since Oct. 4 when I went to the emergency room and was admitted for nine days. Nearly everything tried before or since that event to relieve or manage my pain has had the effect of slowing my bowels. On that day the situation became life threatening due to bowel/bladder interaction and infection. (Read previous posts!) Since then there has been effort on my part, Jen’s, the medical people, my personal assistants and my friends to get IT to come out right each and everyday. Practically a National project! It hasn’t been all that successful. The regular use of Morphine, and I suppose the added factor of my AGE constantly works against my good results and has led to this need to sustain a virtual preoccupation with the frequency, size, colour and consistency of my …. poo.
Today I had one – (a poo) – unaided by laxatives, stool softeners, suppositories, litres of herbal tea or other intervention. I realize that it is TOO SOON to imagine that life has returned to a pattern of elimination that I might consider “normal”. Just the same this is the very day when I was remembering nostalgically how I used to eat and drink a whack of foods now considered “bad” for me because they tend to exaggerate the bowel freezing effects of Morphine – coffee, bread, crackers, oatmeal, cheese, milk and SO many more.
I haven’t been very good at keeping to a mainly vegetables and herbal tea diet. Initially I was better behaved but I basically felt like I was starving. My masseuse recommended, by the way, that if I was “starving” I should drink more water. It felt like some sort of criminal punishment.
I basically cheat about a third of the time – a little bread here, a miniscule bit of cheese there, some pasta on rare occasions. But today I got curious. If it wasn’t for the Morphine it would certainly look to me that the supposedly healthier diet is actually plugging me up. Shortly after that thought – the awaited event happened.
Crazy - I know. But this six weeks of focus on my body is making me a little crazy!
Well enough about that.
Tomorrow Mike, Kimberly and I are going to present the idea to my circle that we go on a short tour of the east coast of North America for World Peace through Inclusion. Basically I miss the pelicans. But the concepts around WPIT are gelling and I am restless and M and K are ENTHUSIASTIC and it’s clearly looking like time to get on with it.
I’m expecting – even hoping for – push back from the circle. When we go I want to do so with some stability – not in the naïve way that Gabor, Erin and I left. More than anything I don’t want this to be more running off to prove myself, or ourselves. I want us to be welcomed, understood and celebrated.
Gabor and I spent time over breakfast today. Bit by bit we are carving out a way to have a future around WPIT and friendship. It is good.
I’m signing off on the short side of 2 pages today. Maybe that’s enough for my first “real poo” day in a LONG time!
We don’t talk much about having a bowel movement – I am reluctant even to write the word used very commonly around here – “poo”.
Having a poo has become the ULTIMATE signal of progress or regression in my physical state since Oct. 4 when I went to the emergency room and was admitted for nine days. Nearly everything tried before or since that event to relieve or manage my pain has had the effect of slowing my bowels. On that day the situation became life threatening due to bowel/bladder interaction and infection. (Read previous posts!) Since then there has been effort on my part, Jen’s, the medical people, my personal assistants and my friends to get IT to come out right each and everyday. Practically a National project! It hasn’t been all that successful. The regular use of Morphine, and I suppose the added factor of my AGE constantly works against my good results and has led to this need to sustain a virtual preoccupation with the frequency, size, colour and consistency of my …. poo.
Today I had one – (a poo) – unaided by laxatives, stool softeners, suppositories, litres of herbal tea or other intervention. I realize that it is TOO SOON to imagine that life has returned to a pattern of elimination that I might consider “normal”. Just the same this is the very day when I was remembering nostalgically how I used to eat and drink a whack of foods now considered “bad” for me because they tend to exaggerate the bowel freezing effects of Morphine – coffee, bread, crackers, oatmeal, cheese, milk and SO many more.
I haven’t been very good at keeping to a mainly vegetables and herbal tea diet. Initially I was better behaved but I basically felt like I was starving. My masseuse recommended, by the way, that if I was “starving” I should drink more water. It felt like some sort of criminal punishment.
I basically cheat about a third of the time – a little bread here, a miniscule bit of cheese there, some pasta on rare occasions. But today I got curious. If it wasn’t for the Morphine it would certainly look to me that the supposedly healthier diet is actually plugging me up. Shortly after that thought – the awaited event happened.
Crazy - I know. But this six weeks of focus on my body is making me a little crazy!
Well enough about that.
Tomorrow Mike, Kimberly and I are going to present the idea to my circle that we go on a short tour of the east coast of North America for World Peace through Inclusion. Basically I miss the pelicans. But the concepts around WPIT are gelling and I am restless and M and K are ENTHUSIASTIC and it’s clearly looking like time to get on with it.
I’m expecting – even hoping for – push back from the circle. When we go I want to do so with some stability – not in the naïve way that Gabor, Erin and I left. More than anything I don’t want this to be more running off to prove myself, or ourselves. I want us to be welcomed, understood and celebrated.
Gabor and I spent time over breakfast today. Bit by bit we are carving out a way to have a future around WPIT and friendship. It is good.
I’m signing off on the short side of 2 pages today. Maybe that’s enough for my first “real poo” day in a LONG time!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
November 13, 2010
Somehow I have been kind of giddy all day as if I had taken too much of my two daily doses of Morphine. I didn’t. Part of it is sheer enjoyment of spending a day with Mike Skubic. A fine personal assistant, Mike is also very in tune with my personal purposes. So in one day we have improved the design of our under-construction WPIT website, looked at fundraising plans, spent exhilarating time with Tom James working on the inclusive video game project, and also accomplished all sorts of typical daily stuff – eating, washing and so on.
Perhaps I am just tired! It’s been a full day and it’s not done yet and I have been “up” – not in bed – for a big part of it.
Then there is the Morphine. This week I started to take 2/3 of the doses permitted to me each day, but regularly whether or not I was feeling pain at the time. Practically this works out that I am taking 2 ml at 11:00am and 5:00pm. The reasoning behind the reduced overall dosage is to give my bowels a good chance to empty themselves in the morning, before I slow them down with the narcotic. The reasoning behind regular administration is to give myself a chance to lower the base amount of pain I feel day by day.
The concern remains – in Mike, in others, in myself. Am I, will I become addicted? The effects of the drug are minimal, yet at about the 5th hour I am counting down - when can I have the next dose or when can I lie down again!
I am swearing more, getting excited more, going from grumpy to happy and back more quickly. Is it the blogging that is releasing my social inhibitions?
This afternoon I picked up the misplaced prescription – Amitriptyline Hydrochloride. Its potential side effects include constipation, nausea, urinary retention and other worse stuff. I am terrified to take it.
I guess my point is: “When you are up to your ass in alligators it is hard to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp.” I want to be comfortable enough to fulfill my life. Apparently there is no treatable “cause” of my pain, so I must learn how to live with it. I do not want to shift my life goals to managing financial burdens and side effects. Yet the government funded allopathic pathway keeps throwing me into waiting lines and medication hell. To go outside this system promises more effective approaches but continuous and prohibitive costs as well.
The past few weeks or so my expensive, government funded, high quality hospital bed mattress began to develop wrinkles in the plastic cover. These wrinkles became more persistent and were developing into ridges. I cannot move my own body so these ridges are a risk not just of discomfort and pain, but also of skin breakdown and infection.
I called the distributor requesting immediate assistance and the person at the other end said it could be weeks before the problem could be rectified – but, she suggested, in the meantime why didn’t I remove the cover?
Now I have owned three or four hospital bed mattresses in my life time and slept on many more and never has one had a removable cover – until this one. So it never occurred to me to look for a zipper. It’s there! The wrinkled cover is now in a closet and I am sleeping on the best mattress you can imagine.
So, when it comes to me and my pain, is there a zipper?
Perhaps I am just tired! It’s been a full day and it’s not done yet and I have been “up” – not in bed – for a big part of it.
Then there is the Morphine. This week I started to take 2/3 of the doses permitted to me each day, but regularly whether or not I was feeling pain at the time. Practically this works out that I am taking 2 ml at 11:00am and 5:00pm. The reasoning behind the reduced overall dosage is to give my bowels a good chance to empty themselves in the morning, before I slow them down with the narcotic. The reasoning behind regular administration is to give myself a chance to lower the base amount of pain I feel day by day.
The concern remains – in Mike, in others, in myself. Am I, will I become addicted? The effects of the drug are minimal, yet at about the 5th hour I am counting down - when can I have the next dose or when can I lie down again!
I am swearing more, getting excited more, going from grumpy to happy and back more quickly. Is it the blogging that is releasing my social inhibitions?
This afternoon I picked up the misplaced prescription – Amitriptyline Hydrochloride. Its potential side effects include constipation, nausea, urinary retention and other worse stuff. I am terrified to take it.
I guess my point is: “When you are up to your ass in alligators it is hard to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp.” I want to be comfortable enough to fulfill my life. Apparently there is no treatable “cause” of my pain, so I must learn how to live with it. I do not want to shift my life goals to managing financial burdens and side effects. Yet the government funded allopathic pathway keeps throwing me into waiting lines and medication hell. To go outside this system promises more effective approaches but continuous and prohibitive costs as well.
The past few weeks or so my expensive, government funded, high quality hospital bed mattress began to develop wrinkles in the plastic cover. These wrinkles became more persistent and were developing into ridges. I cannot move my own body so these ridges are a risk not just of discomfort and pain, but also of skin breakdown and infection.
I called the distributor requesting immediate assistance and the person at the other end said it could be weeks before the problem could be rectified – but, she suggested, in the meantime why didn’t I remove the cover?
Now I have owned three or four hospital bed mattresses in my life time and slept on many more and never has one had a removable cover – until this one. So it never occurred to me to look for a zipper. It’s there! The wrinkled cover is now in a closet and I am sleeping on the best mattress you can imagine.
So, when it comes to me and my pain, is there a zipper?
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