Category Archives: Pandemic

2023: Epiphany

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“Epiphany” can be defined as a sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something, or an intuitive grasp of reality through an event or experience that can be both simple and striking. Sometimes it is attributed to divine inspiration or a sudden insight of logical deduction – either way it usually results in a marked change of thinking or behavior.

My most memorable epiphany came about fifty years ago when I had a (take your pick):

  • Road to Damascus
  • Alma the Younger

..experience that changed my life. As a teenager I was not a particularly bad kid, but I wasn’t a particularly good kid either; between the ages of 17 and 20 I spent a lot of time on unsavory activities that I had hidden well. Unfortunately, my behavior juggling act began to break down, and by the end of May 1973 I was in a real mess.1

I still remember the day – I was leaning on the frame of the door that lead from my loft bedroom into the attic proper, my eyes locked in a “thousand yard stare” at some spot across the pink Fiberglas (T) insulation, when the thought flashed, “I am never going to crash and burn again,” in a manner strong enough to make me twitch a bit. I closed the attic door, laid down on my bunk, and fell asleep almost immediately…and when I woke up hours later, I was a different person. The benchmark for “normal” had changed in my life and when I left home the following autumn it was not just returning to college but to a new life.

Fifty years later I am at a similar crossroads. Between the effects of advanced ankylosing spondylitis, the aftereffects of several fractures, and a continued minuet with Mademoiselle Pandemic, I have been bedridden2 for more of the last two years than I want to admit…and it has changed my life. I have been able to do little other than watch television, and while that sort of life might be some people’s dream, it has been purgatory for me.

For example, part of the change for me in 1973 was a physical change – I lost forty pounds and got into the best condition/strength of my entire life3. Now I can’t stand for more than sixty seconds, and my physique is more like that of Jabba the Hutt than the paratrooper I once was. For the first six months or so I was so weak I could do little other than sleep, and there were many nights that I went to sleep wondering if I would be waking up the next morning. It’s only been since I’ve started getting (a little bit) better that I’ve had enough energy to grumble about my situation…and I don’t like what it is doing to me.

…and then fifty years after the first epiphany I had a second one.

I’ve always been goal driven. My kids, my Beautiful Saxon Princess, co-workers, and friends have told me all through my life that “I don’t have the work ethic you do”. I’ve kept records of what I’ve written, drawn, or made in my life  -mI guess to keep score with the cosmos or my own mortality. Unfortunately, between age and ailment I can no longer keep up the pace. I need to have reasonable expectations in what I try to do and patience with myself when I fall short…and as much as I love them, I need to limit the use of calendars, lists, and planning matrices that fan the flames of doubt by creating a fear of not being able to keep up as much as they help me organize. I also need to avoid hanging on to negative thoughts and seize what is good in my life, especially my Beautiful Saxon Princess.

If I do need to measure what I do, I should give myself some latitude. For example, at one time my goal was to add to this blog at least twice a week, but then that became once a week, then once a month, then every couple of months. I want to change that frequency but after battling the ‘Rona for a couple of years the journey back is difficult. Many of my chronologically earlier posts have been taken down, so I am going to rerun it all while filtering in the new stuff I write. There is a part of me that resists this course of action, but I need to do something to jump start my life and embrace a new normal just like I did in 1973.

Notes   

  1. None of which included out-and-out lying. I just got very good at employing half-truths and diverting attention.
  2. More properly “recliner-ridden”. I have a massive “Papa chair” in our bedroom right next to the queen-size bunk that my Beautiful Saxon Princess sleeps in.
  3. When we were dating in 1976, I would do pushups with my Beautiful Saxon Princess lying across my shoulders.
  4. …not to mention I turned seventy last May.

Brews To Go

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One of my favorite duties as a platoon leader was “Right Arm Night” – the practice of an officer taking his platoon sergeant (his “right arm”) out for a beer late on a Friday afternoon after a particularly hard week at work. Despite the fact that I am a nondrinker I feel it is one of the best of the army’s traditions and is great for morale and cohesion. My own platoon sergeant SSG Kraft would nurse his beer while I’d knock back a Shirley Temple1 as we’d share ideas just as valuable as the more technical conversations we’d engage in during duty hours.

My platoon leader days are long past but I have friends that I relate to in much the same way I did with SSG Kraft. Some of these men are friends of long standing dating back to my sophomore year in high school, but I’ve also more recent but equally solid friendships with current neighbors, recent students, and fans of my work. The only drawback to this newer group is the manner in which they are scattered all over the country, which precludes a group activity anything like a “right arm night”.

For instance, Damen DeLeenherr lives in British Columbia. He’s a family man working in the healthcare industry, but in his free time he’s building a home for his family and plays Battletech. Battletech is a tabletop miniatures game involving giant fighting robots, the development of which I was heavily involved with in the late 1980’s. Damen commissioned a Battletech-themed piece of art a couple of years ago, and since that time we’ve gotten to be such good friends that I think of him as another nephew.

It was Damen’s birthday a week or so ago, and while I wanted to give him a birthday present I didn’t plan very well – anything I found on line would be almost a week in getting to him. The puzzle just got all that more challenging because as the day went by I realized that what I really wanted to do was buy Damen a beer. The resemblance wasn’t screamingly obvious at first but he brings to mind a new millennium SSG Kraft with tattoos and 21st century haircut, and a brew seemed more appropriate than the totally tacky cash option I’d finally settled on…but there wasn’t much I could do to get some suds to him.

Then I got to thinking.

 You can deliver send/receive flowers in the space of a single day – why can’t we do that with beer? Picture a network of brewmeisters scattered all over the globe but linked with telephone and Internet like FTD or Candygram. Place an order through a local dealer before noon and by the end of the day your buddy could be knocking back a cold one. The idea is still in its infancy but I did come up with some names for the business.

Names like:

  • UberBrews
  • PayPabst
  • BudHub

I just have to remember to include Shirley Temples as one of the options.

  1. A nonalcoholic drink comprised of Ginger ale and a splash of grenadine garnished with a maraschino cherry. Kraft always maintained that I had more class than most tee-totalers: “While they get soda pop you order a mixed drink!”

(Props to Marty Calderone for nudging me back in front of the keyboard. It’s been extremely difficult getting back into the creative saddle since my “second go-around” but Marty’s words of encouragement have helped immensely)

Marking Time

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It’s been a while since I’ve taken a look at this page, and I was surprised to see that the last time I posted anything was the 28th of last month – and while I long ago came to grips with the way time sprints even faster with each year, I was saddened that I haven’t been able to keep up with the race. I always figured that whether I was sitting at my desk in the studio or balancing a keyboard on my lap while curled up in my papa chair I would always be able to write.

Well, it looks like I may have been a little overoptimistic, but then I’ve had my share of distractions, with most of them involving health issues to include:

  • An upcoming Mohs treatment to deal with a trace of basal cell carcinoma on the tip of my nose.
  • An upcoming  second injection of Covid-19
  • A change in pain management for my never-ending battle with ankylosing spondylitis is not going well.

…all of which means  a marked uptick in pain, anxiety, and depression. I’m hoping that I will make my way through this particular rough patch, but I always wonder if this is the point at which I become bed-ridden or worse. I try to fight the fear but sometimes it gets ahead of me and all I can do is drift through the day and continue trying…which includes typing out something out like this.

In the same way marching a unit soldiers requires “marking time” – keeping step in the same place – to keep the parade running properly writing notes like this will hopefully keep me functioning until better days.

Thanks for your support

david

Wrestling Day Reverie

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Weird day. Pain meds definitely NOT working and my sleep pattern is upside down (laid awake all night then slept today from dawn until mid-afternoon.) I want to grumble at getting my plans up-ended, but as hard as I work at it I can’t get perturbed.

It’s just too nice a day, and definitely the kind of Christmas I’ve come to expect in this stage of my life.

I’m spending time with people I love and we’re all safe, warm and most definitely well-fed. For just a little while the curtains are closed and we’re safely walled away from 2020 with all the magic our favorite quilts and Christmas music can muster.

For Miriam

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We spent part of the month in a “social distancing times two” situation when my Beautiful Saxon Princess was tested for Covid 19. Our family physician was concerned about symptoms that came to light during a regular check up so our family spent our days lurking in our individual lairs – BSP kept our bedroom while I camped in the studio while Meghan and her family pretty  much had the run of the rest of the place.

As most of my collectible “stuff” is located in the studio I was able to avoid feeling sorry for myself but after 42+ years of marriage its hard to sleep alone. Long ago I found out that doing something for someone else is the best mood elevator EVER so I spent my time putting together some Tinkerbell art for my grand-niece Miriam.

Modified Tinkerbell art that is.

Life had dealt Miriam a pretty flat hand of cards and she spends most of her time immobile. Speech and vision problems isolate her even further so video provides most of her entertainment. She loves the color and motion of “chop-socky” shows like Inframan and has a particular fondness for Tinker-Bell so I came up with posters for her depicting Tink as alternately a Rambo-type adventurer and a crew member from the original Star Trek series.

2020-07-02A TrekBo2020-07-01A TinkerBo