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August

Yesterday was my 55th wedding anniversary, the eighth one without Richard. I no longer anticipate sorrow or nostalgia on this day but remain open to whatever arises. Last week this poem came to me in remembrance of my newly widowed days.

Holding Hands- a True Story

I moved here as a widow where nobody knew who you were, who we were, or who we had been during even one of our almost fifty years together.

I began life all over as just me, by myself.

A year or so after you died, I lay in bed one night crying softly in a sudden lament,

“But I’ll never… get to hold your hand… again!”

The next day I sat on an observation deck overlooking a swampy pond. A sparkling blue dragonfly alighted on my hand. His multifaceted eyes took me in. His translucent wings rested quietly on his back.

We sat there, he and I, holding hands for a long time.

I have returned to that pond, Button Bush Pond, many times and never again has a swooping hungry dragonfly come near me. It was a lovely recollection, a healing gift from Nature’s bounty. We are all held every day by Gaia.

On the days predicted to be hot, I get outside as early as I can on my mobility scooter. Just before dawn, it is so quiet on this campus with hundreds of residents and staff. Even the noisy geese are inhabiting other ponds in the area. Only the croak of one resident duck couple and a few bullfrogs sounds me out as I roll by five of our other ponds. It has felt like the end of August already, with chilly dew-drenched mornings and hot swimming temperatures by afternoon. In the middle of last month, I saw my first monarch butterfly and heard the first evening cricket and buzzing night insects in the trees. The weather patterns have changed course as any times as our President’s erratic pronouncements.

As I keep reiterating here, I work to keep my heart open as a grounded witness to this rapidly evolving transformation of my country and the world.

I end with one of my predawn poems with my photo.

Venus in the Morning

Venus makes lovelight to the waning half moon

Tress silhouette against the rising glow

A breeze tickles whispering leaves

Wildflowers dance on the hill

One bird, ten birds sing the

miracle of dawn

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February

February

Around mid-January I found myself turning teary while listening to the sad news or the occasional good news story on the radio, hearing just about any music, or seeing my dear elderly companions as they each navigate their days. I was teary when a retired nurse from my assisted living area recently returned for a day to fill an open space on the schedule. She is a very formal efficient sort of woman, and when I greeted her as I rolled past the nurse’s station in my wheelchair, she stepped out from behind her desk and came around to give me a hug. My friends and I were astonished at this display of affection. It touched me deeply and I saved shedding the tears sparkling in my eyes for when I returned to my room. I teared again up today when the sun shone bright after weeks of dreary cold weather. It was fifty degrees F on the first of February, and I went outside on my mobility scooter to enjoy the fresh air for the first time in a month. The above photo of melting ice on the pond is from that excursion. Joy undid me. It doesn’t take much. I, too, am melting.

I am not feeling sad, just very vulnerable. I know this emotional upwelling is because we are approaching Valentine’s Day, marking the sixth anniversary of my husband death. I try to remain available to whatever arises in me to mark this occasion. My daughters and I usually score some chocolate chip ice cream to honor his memory, just as we did when we served ice cream to the hundreds who attended his memorial. Grief is an unpredictable ongoing phenomenon. So far, this year is offering me a delightful mixture of nostalgia, memories, gratitude, and joy. I have written before about how grief is tied to gratitude. My heart was cracked wide open when Richard was dying. It appears that it has never again closed as tightly as before. This is what the touchstone of this anniversary is revealing to me. Losing him was his gift to me of a still opening heart.

Of course I miss him, and the intimacy of a partner who knew every fault I have and loved me anyway- the jokes we invented together when we were teenagers falling deeply in love- or co-parenting two cherished daughters- and the knowledge of how he would have adored his two grandsons had he lived to meet them. I embrace missing that Richard, the man who was my husband for almost fifty years. I also know how happy he would be that I live in a wonderful new home where I am supported at all levels of my being to thrive and live the last chapter of my life without his physical presence. His devoted life work provided me with the opportunity to live at Kendal at Oberlin and I am grateful for that alone every day.

May Valentine’s Day be not just a commercial reminder to buy cards, flowers, and chocolates, (there’s nothing wrong with any of those!) to show our love for others but also to serve as a deeper touchstone for sharing our love and light every day with all beings in our lives.

I have likely posted this song some years ago? but I post it here again with my voice of loving remembrance.

My February Song                   1/22/20                    by Judi Bachrach

February is the month you had to leave me

My heart is held within the hand of memories

March lions chase the cold

New lambs cry in the fold

Every year, Every year,

Every year creates new seasons for my life.






April drenches me with pouring rain and sun





May flowers born of hope rise up in everyone





June, July and August





Summer blesses each of us





Every year, Every Year,





Every year creates new seasons for my life.










September burns to colors of the molting Earth





October catches leaves for her great rebirth





November calls me home,





giving thanks for everyone





Every year, Every year,





Every year creates new seasons for my life.










December takes me into the darkest night





January starts a new year in returning light





February comes again,





with a day for love and then





Every year, Every Year,





Every Year creates new seasons for my life. 






	



	



		
			



	
		

			

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May
					


	

	

	

		

May





A parade of blooms and weather changes proceed along spring’s merry way. The red bud tree next door spreads pink petals like a flower girl at a wedding all over a patch of unplanted earth beneath my window. A Dawn Redwood tree shades this northwest corner of Kendal and although the resident chipmunk adores this quiet terrain, not many deliberate plantings take to the shady, acidic, clay soil around here. Almost five years ago I could still do a little gardening in that spot, but due to the lack of a hose attachment nearby and my fading strength it is now a small wild place that attracts a variety of low growing weeds. A chipmunk has dug many holes while building up a mound of dirt where he is a bit higher up to oversee his munkdom. It is close enough to the birdfeeder outside my other windows where he can safely scavenge the sunflower seeds dropped by sparrows and finches.





It is not the larger wildlife of regular bear, fox, cayote, deer, wild turkey and weasel sightings of my former home. But further away from my end of Kendal there are deer, cayote, and fox sightings. And Ponds. Lots of ponds where I spend time with frogs, turtles, and waterfowl. Spring commands attention everyday with trees filling out and floral smells providing olfactory pleasures. There are new tree species to greet in Ohio and just the sheer shades of green high and low are enough to fill me with joy, even during last week’s cold snap with snowflakes wafting among puffy dandelions gone to seed.





So much else in the larger world seems very unsettling and shaky and it is comforting to see flowers and bunnies and goslings still emerge. I don’t think I have had one conversation with a friend which hasn’t devolved to bemoaning yet another dire sign of conservative extremism in Ohio, our country, and indeed around the world. I keep saying it is a reaction to so much underlying fear of the rapid changes on the planet. Frayed political systems unable to handle these changes invoke hatred, rigidity, and violence in a desperate attempt to clamp down and control fearful people. My friends and I have to pause when we touch on the dire direction our thoughts can take us. We agree to invest in hope and not feed the fear with our own sorrow about the way things are going.





It is hard in the best of times to look beneath the surface and address underlying fear of loss. I face continuing loss of mobility and physical independence. It is my own personal cauldron bubbling with the unknown. We all have fears of losing My Life as I Know It. It is human. It is what calls us to do the digging to find a larger means of viewing and living in the world. It is a means of loving that which gives birth to flowers and bunnies and goslings and all of the suffering. Feeling separate from the ever-present consciousness that gives rise to every season- the abundance of spring into the barren revelation of winter- is the loneliest experience I know.





A verse from an old song of mine goes… “Oh, Lady Summer, I am still a child of Spring. Let me do as the swallows do- build a nest in your arms and learn to sing.”






	



	



		
			



	
		

			

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Grief Stew
					


	

	

	

		

8/24/19





I inherited an older office chair for
my desk, the one piece of furniture I had left to purchase for my
home. I am on the Quiet Room committee, where six of us have decided
how to transform someone’s old office into a space for grieving
families, a meditation spot for staff and residents, and an official
calm room for anyone to rest within the bustle of a day. When I first
arrived at Kendal, I was astonished to discover that there wasn’t a
non-denominational chapel of some kind. I heard there used to be a
Quiet Room designated for this purpose, but when the new Memory wing
was built, that space had gotten absorbed. Six years later, with the
help of others who also felt this to be a glaring lack at Kendal, we
now have another Quiet Room. I got the old office chair from there,
just for being in the right place at the right time to inquire about
its future destination.





The chair is not pretty, and is rather
tall and imposing, but it is very comfortable, and adjusts every
which way. The two reading chairs I brought with me here from
Richard’s Manhattan office are sleek and comfy for those of us who
can still rise in and out of cozy low chairs with lower arms. Many of
my Kendal friends require the sturdy high arms of my new acquisition
for better leverage. It will also nicely accommodate my tall and
lanky son-in-law. He has not yet had the honor of sitting there but
perhaps he will later this week when he and his mother, who is here
for a two week visit, and my daughter, will come to take me home with
them for an overnight. I am looking forward to having a broken
English/Bosnian chat with his mom on becoming first time grandmothers
together in December.





Here is a journal entry from last
month. Grief arises at it does, when it does, on its own time.





Diary 7/20/19





Recipe for Grief Stew





serves one:





2 cups tear broth (comes salted, don’t
add more salt)





1 small handful of disbelief





2-3 chunks of seasoned sorrow





Distilled years of shredded future
dreams (to taste)





½  cup of sweet memories and
acceptance





¼  cup of dried loneliness





½ teaspoon of astonishment





3 heaping Tablespoons of loving
gratitude (optional, but highy recommended whenever available)





After bringing to a boil, lower heat,
and simmer for 1½ years. Store in fridge. Eat as necessary when the
mood strikes.





Recommended for dessert: a sweet
memory.





You are sitting outside
on the deck, covered in sweat and the confetti of sawdust from
working down in the woods at your portable sawmill. Morgan, the dog,
is panting at your feet. Walking in the back kitchen door, you had
filled a 12 oz. tumbler with water and brought out a plate with an
apple and a chunk of our homemade manchego cheese for lunch.
Overlooking the sheep in their paddock, source of the milk that made
last year’s cheese, you take off your cap, showering the Adirondack
chair with more wood chips.





Drinking down the water
in one long chug, you gaze below at the ewes nursing large lambs and
chewing their cud, and then up at the mountain across from ours. The
cicadas are buzzing, so it must be August. Morgan waits patiently for
the apple core that is sure to come, delicately taking it from your
fingers at your “OK” command. The cheese is gone to the last
crumb. Slapping your cap against your leg, you replace it
purposefully on your head. Wiping your resinous hands on a paper
towel, after brushing dirt away unsuccessfully from your overalls,
you stand up and walk back down the hill to complete what you began.
Morgan dutifully tags along behind having lapped up water from his
bowl.





Not wanting to track
more sawdust in the house, I come out to collect the plate and the
glass you left behind, listening closely for the sawmill’s whine. I
am relieved to hear the motor is still behaving for you after
tinkering with it in the early morning. When it is nearly dark, after
feeding the horses and sheep, you will trudge back up to the house
and tell me of how many boards you cut from that particular dead oak,
and that tall pine you culled last fall. You will list the 2×4’s and
8’s, and 10’s, if they were straight and free from knots, and tell me
how you will use them to build the future barn. You hauled the milled
wood by tractor to our east facing plateau where you stacked it to
dry under the slanted roof you made for the growing pile of lumber.





The barn never got
built, but the memory of you is sturdy and clear as day.

	



	



		
			



	
		

			

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Richard’s Birthday
					


	

	

	

		

6/24/19





Today is Richard’s Birthday  










Entering this day





through the womb 






of his memory





is painful 






as all births are





I draw my first breath





and another





and another





the day is manifestly





beautiful





as every day is





were I to always 






treasure breathing 






on my own.





The day unfolded sweetly from the first
thing in the morning poem above; with loving support from family and
friends near and far. I am held and loved and swaddled in kindness.
Gratitude for what is, nourishes and comforts me. I am truly blessed
in both my sorrow and my community.

	



	



		
			



	
		

			

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Perennials
					


	

	

	

		






Diary 4/19/19  





Last year at this time, I was still
recovering from the outpouring of love and and intensity around
Richard’s memorial. Gradually my focus turned towards leaving
Bearsville, the home of twenty five years of our lives, of his death,
and of my childhood since I was 5 years old. His death chapel/living
room was filled with boxes of our old life. Every day was an
invitation to dispose of what was left after the first go round of
auction-able items. Some decisions were easy and clear cut. After
Richard’s family and our friends had chosen a few of his nicer
clothes, and after we gave away any of his useful work-clothes and
boots (and tools, tools, tools) to men he had worked with over the
years, all of his other clothing went to a charity organization in
our nearby small city. I imagine someone wearing his barely used suit
to a special occasion. Or his various coats for the many seasons
endured in Catskill Mountain weather, walking around on other
people’s bodies. A few of my own dressy dresses also went to that
good place. How many weddings would I attend in the very near future?
Would antique styles be back in fashion fifteen years from now as
grandchildren graduated and got married? At the time, my body was
already in rough shape and I couldn’t imagine traveling anywhere,
anyway.





Looking back, I can see I made both
solid and irrational choices based on “widow mind”. There is a
reason that you shouldn’t make any big decisions for a year after
losing your partner. Grief renders your executive thinking into
unrecognizable mush. The hospice team said,“ It’s perfectly normal
to feel crazy in your grief.” Crazy is when you can’t see for
yourself that you are not entirely rational. It seemed perfectly
reasonable to let go of some things I now wish I still possessed. I
only knew if I was to live in one room at this unknown place called
Kendal, I probably would live like a nun. A renunciate’s life
appealed to me at the time. I had already lost all of my best beloved
earthly delights- my husband, my home, and my health. I was more than
halfway there. My daughters firmly kept me here and were so dearly
supportive of wherever I needed to go and however I deemed best to
get there.





At the time, I couldn’t have known that
the brutal wounding of my heart broke me open in marvelous ways.
Letting go of what was my life, for better and for worse, yielded a
reemerging hunger for new life. Not the life I knew before, but the
life that was yet in its infancy when I first arrived at Kendal. The
reshaping of my identity as Judi took surprising turns. Living in a
community with its established celebrations and excellent vehicles
for creative expression brought out a dormant fount of my own need to
write more songs, poems and essays; even to choreograph a dance. It
has been a revelation to see the offerings that have sprouted through
me. I saw a need to nurture simply being in the midst of this very
actively doing group of people and now I lead weekly meditation
groups. They are small but we are fed by our partnership in silence.





This chapter of my life released me
from being a wife. Ten thousand decisions ,always undertaken with two
of us in mind, fell to me alone. I had been with Richard since I was
sixteen. I barely had time to see “me” as an independent person
before becoming a “we.”. Waking up to myself is a gift I have
been given and I do not take it lightly. I am more dedicated to being
alive as fully as I can be. That nun has gratefully shed her robes
and entered into the world wearing colors and styles that are much
younger than her peers at Kendal. I am more my own age than ever
before. My physical compromises pointed me to a necessary inner life
earlier than others in my late sixties bracket. I am grateful for the
depth of my spiritual explorations: they sustain the me that I am and
they abide as my overriding passion. 






I am fortunate that I can also kick up
my worldly heels at the same time. My body has been re gifted with
more stamina to engage. I have a small garden outside my windows that
calls me to enduring fertility, nurturance, and flowering. I am going
to buy composted soil this weekend to prepare for new perennials I
will soon plant. I need to kneel down, get dirty, and be responsible
for their colorful lives.

	



	



		
			



	
		

			

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Loneliness and Love
					


	

	

	

		

Diary 4/1/19





April is here.There are forced
forsythia branches in our morning eatery sunshining up the kitchen.
It is sunny outside today, but chilly, and I am watching yesterday’s
snow leaving the south facing roofs. Now the grass is slowly peeking
through the northwest lawns in my purview. The sky is blindingly blue
and requesting my presence. I have a meeting at the far end of the
building later this afternoon, and I will bring my coat and continue
on out the back door to visit my favorite accessible bit of Kendal’s
“wilderness; the Buttonbush Bridge. The pond there is murky and
dark after the ice melted, filled with the ratchet of spring frogs,
shrill peepers, and too many bird calls for me to discern
individually. Last time I visited, the clash of two geese on the
apartment roofs behind me, shouted down all other sounds until they
slithered down the shingles to the ground and flapped raucously away.





It is always a revelation of an
experience larger than myself. I leave touched and opened. I did so
today, learning why those two geese had caused such a fuss on the
lawn behind the pond. They chose this pond as the spot to lay their
eggs. It was now their territory. The mother goose created her nest
right on top of a muskrat’s nest. The mound had been there last week
and looked even bigger and sturdier now. Sitting on her eggs, the
goose reached out her long neck from time to time gathering more
strands of duckwweed within her reach to add her contribution to the
mound.





Both creatures don’t know that this is
a vernal pond, and by midsummer, it will be dry or reduced to a very
small puddle left in the middle. How they will get on with one
another I can’t imagine. Geese are very aggressive and muskrats are
very shy unless cornered. Perhaps the upstairs/downstairs arrangement
will work out for them. One enters by air, the other by underwater
doorways. I wish them both well in starting their new families.





Three days ago I awoke with such a
longing for the simple human intimacy of being with Richard. This
initially painful gift is also a heart opening. Only when I drop down
as deep as the pond, am I touched by Love, an equally welcome though
differently painful opening.





Diary 3/30/19





Morning loneliness 






seeps through the skin





foggy tendrils of sorrow





grasp coiling around





your ghost










Your breath is gone





you hands your smell your voice





the empty spaces





exuding lost masculinity





intimacy of humor





the steadfast love of you





not here not there










Pulling me  





through the illusion 






of separateness





into restful





arms that hold





for a moment





nothing and everything





Such Intimacy 






I can hardly bear





.






	



	



		
			



	
		

			

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Alive
					


	

	

	

		
Diary 2/9/19


The emotional prelude to the first anniversary of Richard’s death has begun. Kindness from new and old friends undoes me. The smallest gesture of friendship breaks open my heart in stuttering bursts of love. I am extra vulnerable since I have understood the steadily increasing pain and inability to walk, sit, or stand, is due to spondylolisthesis (Greek for “spine + to slip or slide”). For years my vertebrae at L 4-5 have been slipping over each other and then clicking back into place. The clicking stopped some time ago and today they are permanently overlapped. L5 has shifted so far over the top of 4 that it presses directly down onto my spinal cord, severely pinching the nerves feeding information below.


This has reduced my capacity to participate in my new life here. I cannot bear to go to an informational meeting (and there are many to keep this large village informed) that is less than stimulating. Boredom keeps my pain level front and center in my brain. Only if I am truly engaged or entertained can I withstand being part of a group. Even eating a meal with others has been challenging. Sometimes I prefer to get a tray and bring food back to my room. Trying to socialize while paying attention to my meal at the same time as noting the pain, is getting harder to do. I am tired of lying around and it is good that this upcoming sad anniversary is the same date as my second meeting with a back surgeon in the Cleveland Clinic. I need to hear if, how, and when, surgery may bring me some much needed relief.


I originally went to this doctor a few months ago for the stenosis (narrowing of the spinal cord. again due to vertebral impingement) in my neck, C 4-6. That, too, is increasingly causing weakness, tingling, numbness, and pain in my hands and arms. I may end up as a titanium wonder of fusions or with disc implants from stem to stern. I have steadily used every alternative method possible to deal with the early stages of these problems, thinking it was all somehow because of having MS. A lot of muscular weakness to hold my bones in place is because of past MS lesion activity. But my MS has been quiescent for several years, and now I understand the progression of compromise much better than before. Twenty years ago, I once had a Pilates instructor say, “Judi, your spine is a train wreck.” Not what I wanted to hear, but in hindsight, she was right. It is.


I am not unhappy, and when people ask “How are you?”, as we do when we pass one another in the halls, I say, “ I’m fine, but my back is a real problem.” I surely have had moments of despair as I adjust to yet another level of pain and restriction. Overall, I’d still say, I love being alive. And I do. Somehow through all the loss and total restructuring of my life, I cannot relate any longer to that piece of little Judi who always thought it would be easier to leave than stay here in a world full of suffering. After surviving my recent bout with The Nasty Virus, I was so grateful to my animal body that insists on surviving despite immediate misery. I came out of it with a renewed sense of claiming that “I am here”.


I want to experience all of life- including the attending pain and sorrow, and the despair and helplessness. I delight in joy and pleasure and hope, and the deepening peace I find within Silence. I less and less misuse my spiritual explorations as a way to get away from the pain in my back or my heart. I open to all of my personal issues and to those of being a world citizen The horror of losing species after species, habitat after habitat, resulting from the fear-induced denial and greed of our world leaders is also part of being alive in this time and place. I want to live every day as if it was the last one to bring in a new paradigm of stopping human and planetary extinction. I believe it must be that day for all of us.


I want to live as fully as I can as an antidote to potential extinction of the human race. I embrace that I am alive, even as the world as I know it, is unraveling. I welcome all the new souls coming into the world and am curious to see what they bring to the table of apparent Last Suppers. As distressing and sickening as it, I want to live through it all, giving what I can to reeducate and heal. Let us embrace reality; nurture joy, pleasure, and hope, and not delay doing our part. Take action wherever you can. Today.

	



	



		
			



	
		

			

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A Room for the End of Days
					


	

	

	

		
It is a dreary fall day that feels like November already but without my former northeast reference points of snow sprinkled mountaintops already stripped of leaves. The smell here is different- the species of leaf rot is not the same. Nostalgia is an inherent aspect of the season and next week our clocks will ‘fall back’. Barely gray by 6:00 a.m., now it will be black, both early and late. The days of rising under the stars as they finished their wheel over the barn are long gone, as are mornings of feeding the animals, coming in to rouse the girls, the bustle of breakfasts, packing lunches, remembering homework projects and backpacks, dropping them off for their ride to school, Richard bidding me farewell as he drove off to work in the city or finishing his last cup of coffee as he went into his home office. Me; I’d go off to my own office after finishing the breakfast dishes, and putting in a load of laundry to run while I gave sessions, too.


Now those two grown women rise to their own days to lead their own lives. Richard is altogether gone from the world of time and seasons, leaving me to remember that the world turns without him. I lead my own life in my small hamlet of the Care Center within the larger town of over 300 Kendal residents, along with the hundred daily commuters of nurses, social workers, PT’s, OT’s, carers, and the staff, from administrators, to cooks, to laundry workers, who run this sprawling organization. My first winter without Richard is coming. The first Thanksgiving is almost here. The first Christmas will be just me and my younger daughter, Marion, together at Kendal while my older daughter, Emilia, and her husband, Zoran, will go to Texas to be with Zoran’s sister, mother and their many friends from their school days.


I let the movies in my mind play out and then I am quiet. Empty. At first it is painful and lonely. Then there is a rush of gratitude for exactly how things are. Emilia sent me the sweetest text saying she wished I lived even closer than the 40 minutes distance between her home and mine. There might have been time for a quick morning hug before she dove back into grading papers. Sitting in my chair for a while longer, I meditate in the silent moment of no season, no loss, no gain, and feel the relief of Being, shedding ownership of anything at all. I arise opened and internally still.


After breakfast, I am going to listen to a radio program with my friend down the hall. This is partly to share the pleasure of her company and partly it is an ongoing ploy to convince her cat that I am no longer her evil assailant. For a while, I helped her owner subdue the flailing paws, and opened Miss Kitty’s reluctant sore mouth in order to administer antibiotics. She doesn’t run as far away from me as last week, but is still no where near to happily accepting grooming and petting from me as she used to. We figure the more I come and just sit quietly, the more she will accept me as her non-enemy. I am fine with however long it takes. She is a survivor, this rescue cat, and her instincts have served her well. My identity as a safe lap will come again in her time.


Big news! for me is that I am moving down the hall permanently into a new room. In a few weeks they will have repainted the walls and refurbished the floor. The former occupant, who I only got to know briefly before she died, had the room painted a bright “Goldfinch” yellow orange. Since the room gets little direct sun, I actually liked it a lot. Once I spent some time time in there looking around, I instead chose “Forsythia” from the paint samples. Imagining some of the artwork I own on the walls seemed to need a little less red in the paint, though I will keep the small kitchenette the color it is. Yes, I will have a small fridge, sink, and cabinets which will help me to attend to my dietary needs going forward. The new room is much larger, has storage space under the window seat, an additional window and closet, and the bathroom is not a hospital bathroom, but also is bigger and has a vanity with drawers. It is painted a deep lavender and I will keep it that same luscious color.


When Kendal was founded 25 years ago, there was no such concept as assisted living. The wing with larger rooms designated for this new category was added around 5 years ago. The room I am currently in is a very nice for a hospital room, but without storing things at E&Z’s house, there is no way I could have brought all of my meager possessions with me. Exactly because I do not have seniority (I am now the third youngest resident at Kendal), the Powers That Be determined I should have the larger room because it will be my home for longer than other candidates. The former resident of my new room certainly had seniority once she moved from her apartment into the Care Center and was a well known musical member of the community. She sadly died about a month or so after she had moved in.


None of us can know when or where we will enter our last days, but surely this new room will be my final home. It is sobering to consider and also inspires a moment of gratitude; to have landed safely, and to be well cared for. I believe that Richard would be very pleased that his loving care baton has been passed into the right hands.

	



	



		
			



	
		

			

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River Stones
					


	

	

	

		
10/8/18


River Stones


I was more affected by the UN collective announcement of our dire climate change situation than I would have thought. There is so much ongoing information on the topic that I suffer, as many do, from information overload. But this one is harder to put in the same box on the same shelf, labeled “I know, but am helpless to do anything about it!” It is so unpleasant to experience helplessness on such a large scale when I already experience it moment to moment in my own small daily life.


To paraphrase the childhood educator, Joseph Chilton Pearce, “The intelligence of a species can be determined by the way it serves to promote the continuation of its own species.” By that measure, we humans seem to be scoring very low marks. We have always gone for domination of resources for our own particular tribe over the welfare of the larger whole. Thus it has ever been. Civilizations rise and fall, continually rebuilding over the ashes of the one that went before. Stars explode as supernovas providing new available materials for new planets to form within their own galaxies. This all may be true, but NIMBY, or NIMcountry, or NIMplanet!


We live in ‘interesting times’ as the Chinese curse goes. And in my lifetime I do not think there will soon arise a global response to the problems we face. May I be utterly wrong for the sake of a potential grandchild and all current and future generations. May leadership emerge to inspire a change of lifestyle that can turn this huge ship around to sustainable living for all who inhabit this great planet Earth.


Meanwhile how do I handle my personal helplessness? I was helpless to save my husband from dying, to save my own body from continuing diminished function, or my own country from electing the face of the frightened helpless among us, looking to blame their disenfranchisement on the “others’ in every guise. Another quote from JCP is, “operate within a new form of science that asks not just what is possible, but what is appropriate—appropriate to the well-being of self and Earth. Such a question does not originate in the mental realm but the spiritual, and is felt bodily, once our senses and heart are attuned. So the central part of our being that simply must be allowed to function and be attended is the heart.” 

― Joseph Chilton Pearce, The Heart-Mind Matrix: How the Heart Can Teach the Mind New Ways to Think


That is what I endeavor to explore every day in every circumstance. It is what I bring to Kendal with me, and I am grateful that like-hearted fellow explorers are asking to join my new meditation/contemplation groups. It is a sharing that I have to offer, and it is also a way for me to anchor my own heartful explorations in the company of my fellow residents. I look at how I have so far organized my weekly life here. Caring for my body through PT sessions, craniosacral massages, PT pool exercises, sleep and diet, group classes to hone my creative skills in writing prose and poetry, and singing with others. In addition there is regular socializing with those who are in various stages of dementia, decline, or are mentally present, enjoying community events and other’s creative offerings.


These activities I have committed to are indicators of what I use to harness my devotion to navigating the world with an open heart. My week is dotted with heart opening reminders, Wake up! Pay attention! Now and Now and Now!


River Stones


by Judi Bachrach 10/3/18


I stepped into this unknown river.


He is not here to hold my hand.


 


I had not even been to Ohio before.


How deep did these waters flow?


 


How swift was the current?


Is there another side?


 


Hesitant and dripping wet


from ceaseless inner storms,


I searched along the bank while I stood shaking.


 


Here the riverbed widened out and I saw the stones.


Choosing which way was best for me,


a path was revealed, stone by stone.


 


New hands reached out for mine


Steadying, supporting, also wading through the unknown.


 


Nobody knows how long


but we do not travel alone.