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December 1, 2018

The last month of the year of 2018 has begun. It is strangely difficult to imagine letting it go, because Richard was still alive in this year. He was in the process of dying, but in December of 2017 he read “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” to me and Len and Marion after Christmas dinner. He insisted he wanted to even though he was nearly blind. He did OK speaking the lush language. With forty years of repetition he could step into the well worn footprints of the Welsh snow. Those he could summon in his clouded brain. Marion and I glanced at one another when he missed key sentences but we listened intently as well. It was clear to us this would be his last reading. I briefly thought of recording him, wishing we had thought to record him when he was fully present. I dismissed the idea knowing that preserving this phase of his decline was not something we wanted to keep for the future.

By January 2018 he was in the hospital more than he was home. We were hoping that by allowing the doctors to administer full brain radiation this would slow down the cancer cells flowing freely in his cerebral spinal fluid. The lymphoma was busy finding more homes within the nooks and crannies of his brain. The oncologist thought mostly it would offer relief from spinal pain (it did) and that it would help to sustain more mental clarity (it didn’t). As I have written before, that man, Richard, that I loved so well, was no longer here, even though his fading body and mind still occupied the hospital bed of our rental house living room. Relating to his body, altered as it was, kept him anchored in our world with us for twelve more precious days once he was released from the hospital.

Through a psychic friend after his death, it was comforting to hear him ‘say’ to me, that “the bull needed to move aside so that my  lamb could step in.” We all have different aspects of our personality. Richard was so deeply loving and kind but he was also stubborn and willful. Naming the bull was very specific and it is true, that he was also an utterly sweet, endearing lamb the more the brain tumors eradicated his executive function. I watched him become wide open and without boundaries as the end drew near. His body would jerk if someone opened the door to the kitchen at the far end of the house. I could barely hear them entering but his sense of the change in atmosphere was instantaneous. That is why we were so blessed by his bevy of caretakers. If we had someone with an abrasive personality it would have troubled him greatly. Instead we got angels.

Music particularly ran through his body like wine. You could see his nervous system responding to the words or rhythm whenever someone sang to him, which we all did in our own way. We could feel the mutuality of exchange whether his body or voice was visibly or audibly participating or not. The psychic also reported he said the he had been hyper aware, with the left side of the brain diminishing as the right side opened up to where he was going. Whether that is truth that was channeled or not does not trouble me. I have no need to confirm the unknowable in rational terms. Articulating the omnipresent infinite cannot be accomplished, certainly not by me.

Again and again, I can say from my experience, I saw that Richard was Love itself and that I now know that we all are. It has nothing to do with our belief systems. I cannot ever un-know this perception of our human selves. It was a great gift that Richard bestowed on me. The loss of the bull is something we will all experience in unique ways. The presence of the lamb will step forward when we, too, move aside into Love. I know he is Love in 2019 and forever. The 2018 calendar is in *Kronos time. Kairos time offers me an additional perspective.

*Kronos: the Greek god of linear time

*Kairos: Kronos’ grandson of the eternal now

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Seven Billion Hearts

11/29/18

Yesterday was another ‘first’ of tough days because it was Emilia’s birthday. We both missed Richard fiercely; me, the co-parent of this first-born daughter; her, the father of her life. Emilia looked up his birthday email to her from last year, when he was already very compromised in comprehension and focus. He was in denial about the reality of his losses and wasn’t able to process in rational ways. He didn’t know that he was three months away from death. But his email was crystal clear about how much he loved her on so many levels. It made us both weepy to reread his sweet words of love.

I slept better last night after a day that became too busy for me to handle gracefully. I got 6 hours in a row! which was a minor miracle after a week of choppy dozing that passed for a night’s sleep. Pushing myself onto a hamster wheel of unending practical accomplishments, I felt pressed for time yesterday, determining that I had to race endlessly on. Which of course, I cannot do well. I summoned old habits that have apparently not died off from lack of use, as my body/energy continues to fail. I easily summoned that anxious, pushy Judi who I have not revisited for some time. I claim her as my little sister, giving her loving boundaries. She was dragging me along behind her on a long rope of fear, afraid to stop and feel sorrow. Finally, her exhausted little fists unclenched, letting the burden go.

I am learning to tolerate my breaking heart though I still construct sturdy dams against the pain. The pressure builds, my defenses collapse, and finally I overflow with tears. Great emotion pours out. I find myself open to more love both entering in and shining out. I am awash in love. This is a gift of grief. Death and loss break our hearts open over and over again until we accept that this is essential to living the fullness of human experience. No wonder we fear death. Each piece of defense crumbles away until our very identity is subsumed, while our hearts remain wide open. Recognizing this cycle, and allowing it to run its course, is something I am gaining some conscious control over; death defies any control.

If I insist that there must be a way to cut off this painful half of being human, I create more suffering. I suffer “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as a woman who is cleaved from her real being. This role eventually becomes too heavy to hold; the burden unbearable. I crave the refuge and relief that comes from being whole again. I see more clearly that this is a drama co-authored by me.

There are more and more times when I know I am the author, the actor, and the unchanging stage upon which the play is enacted. There is a new self-abiding that I repeatedly lose, but find, and am found by, in intimate moments of awareness. It arises not because I am trying to escape the pain, but because I am learning to unlock the door and put out a welcome mat for it instead.

Many upcoming rituals and holidays will celebrate the return of light to our corner of the darkening earth. The vast cosmic dance toward and away from the sun echoes the drama of humanity. We swing towards and away from the light we crave and the black empty space we so fear. Seven billion of us co-create and co-author this miracle of the world we inhabit. Seven billion of us long for “the peace that surpasses all understanding.”* May we find the wholeness that we already are, in seven billion moments of the infinite now.

*Philippians 4:7

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Stuff

Thanksgiving is early this year. Which means that commercial Christmas is, too. Besieged earlier by endless election ads, we apparently now require ads to boost our need to buy and give more stuff.

Richard’s folks lived in Florida and when they both passed, family members requested various favorite pieces of artwork and furniture which were sent all over the country. The larger items Richard and I chose arrived via a moving company owned by Russians. When they trundled up our steep driveway, I gladly received them, relieved they found their way up our winding mountain road in New York state. The team of efficient young men spoke no English but the boss/driver did, a little. I directed them up and down the stairs by vigorously pointing, “Here! Careful with that! No, outside on the deck!” and other helpful gestured advice. When it was all done, the driver came up to me with the receipt. I wrote him a check and he said very seriously with a heavy accent, “ Enchoy your stooff.”

It was delivered in such a sober tone that afterwards it struck me hard. I didn’t ever consider us as ‘wealthy’ but compared to many we were. He didn’t actually say,” Oh you rich Americans with all your crap, you hardly have room for what you already own.” Maybe it wasn’t even implied. He might have simply used that simple English phrase with all of his clients. The truth is that there were many things we inherited that we didn’t need, but rather accumulated out of nostalgia. Some of those things I still have, some of those things my daughters have, and most has been auctioned off for an unknown somebody else to ‘enchoy’.

‘Downsizing’ is a familiar phrase at Kendal. Everybody here left behind their former lives, professions, and many possessions. We brought only what could fit into a cottage, or an apartment, or in my case, a single room. It is a familiar phrase to all of my aging friends as they are contemplating the approach of the inevitable move from their current homes. We all have more than enough stuff to see us through our elder years. Sometimes I still think, “Whatever happened to the St. Francis tile Richard bought in Italy? I thought I kept that.” Perhaps it is still in an unopened box in Emilia and Zoran’s attic. Or perhaps, in the chaos of leaving my life in Bearsville behind, it is on someone else’s shelf.

If it doesn’t appear, I will say goodbye to it again in my mind. I still have my grandmother’s small wooden statue of him here on my windowsill. I love to watch the birds on the bush outside my window over his shoulder with the little birds carved there. I know this was bought by my grandmother in Assisi. It is enough of a reminder for me to love who this saint is storied to have been. I don’t actually need the tile. Richard’s life with me is everywhere in tangible form; from the leather chairs he had in his Manhattan office, to the small earring tree he and Emilia at age four built for my birthday. And in a moment of grief inspired clutching, I kept the last pair of pajamas that he bought before his final trip to the hospital. He wore them maybe once. They are a masculine gray, have a button fly, and are a little too large. At the time it was clear I needed them as the packing ensued. And I do wear them. (You don’t have to picture that.)

More importantly, he is a presence whispering in my deep inner ears. I don’t worry any more if it is “him”, that human Richard I loved so well. I just let the whispers touch me, help me, love me whenever his voice appears. This is from an open letter to a fan that Nick Cave wrote about the death of his son. He speaks to this listening so beautifully.

“I feel the presence of my son, all around, but he may not be there. I hear him talk to me, parent me, guide me, though he may not be there. He visits Susie in her sleep regularly, speaks to her, comforts her, but he may not be there. Dread grief trails bright phantoms in its wake. These spirits are ideas, essentially. They are our stunned imaginations reawakening after the calamity. Like ideas, these spirits speak of possibility. Follow your ideas, because on the other side of the idea is change and growth and redemption. Create your spirits. Call to them. Will them alive. Speak to them. It is their impossible and ghostly hands that draw us back to the world from which we were jettisoned; better now and unimaginably changed.”*

*I thank my cousin, Bob Barnett, for sending me this letter. He is another reconnected cousin from my father’s side of the family who sends me inspirational writings just when I need them.

 

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Life with no Wings

I spoke to a couple of friends about my new relationship to experiencing memory loss. MS has already created my Swiss cheese brain, but this additional dreamy haze of the past has happened since Richard died. I asked my ninety-eight year old friend if she is also sees her past through a scrim as it continues to exist farther away in time. “Yes, but not when it comes to memories of my children. I also have photo albums to remind me.” I don’t look at photos yet. I am not sure I can bear it right now. For me, the metaphor of the old rug I trod so urgently every moment of my whirlwind focus on creating my identities as girlfriend, wife, mother, therapist, etc. is being rolled up behind me with every step forward I take. It is disorienting but happens with everyone as we age.

For me it was abruptly intensified due to losing Richard. He had long and deep memory skills. Old clients would be amazed if they met him on the street twenty years later. He’d ask, “How did your Aunt Sophie do? I remember she was your close adult ally as a child and how hard it was for you when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.” Clients would be astonished and clearly touched. He was also the ardent memory keeper of our relationship. His memories were embedded in all of the material possessions he acquired with each new enthusiasm he embraced; that tool, that hat, that horse bridle, was acquired on that day in that place and the sun was shining and it was on sale. He loved living here on earth in a palpable, sensate, way. He dove into everything that caught his attention with passion and intelligence.

I was never so fond of the earth plane and material items-  I was always hovering a little above it all trying to escape the suffering of my unstable childhood. I spent hours alone in the woods around our house being a fairy. I couldn’t escape on those tiny wings, of course. As I have learned to address each old wound through years of work in self- awareness, they have less hold on me and the need to escape seems less urgent. Tuesday’s miasma of suffering was a reversion to old habits inspired by new pain. But even as I fanned the misery flames, I knew I would have to relent and turn towards the pain of my body and soul. I knew it was a temporary delusion; that I was fighting against my current losses to no avail. As I am often heard saying these days, “You can’t fight reality. It always wins.” Like my friend Einer used to say, “Gravity. It’s the law.” True, that.

Accepting submission to reality as the last gasp of “NO!” passes my lips, is Grace. For me it is usually followed by tears of anger and/or sorrow. I release the physicality of denial, of holding back against the waves of emotion that emerge. Then I feel less full of Judi, and that emptiness allows a drop into the nourishment of Silence; as awareness of Being. There is a magnetic pull towards the depths, and my longing is met by an upwelling of peace that meets in the middle. I have this image similar to Michelangelo’s God and Adam, but reaching not to touch fingers, but to merge beings. That painting would show Awareness and the manifest earth plane as not two, but as one and the same. Being and being. In my mind’s eye the artist’s next painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, would be only a radiant fusion of light, as Adam grows up to know that he and his God are One.

Another friend reflected to me that I now seem less concerned with creating a new ego identity here at Kendal. I have been fueled by the adolescent drive to figure out who Judi is as I blundered about joining this writing group, petitioning to start meditation classes, establishing myself as a contributing performer to the community, and so on. It was a necessary step to find out who this individual woman was without Richard entwined in my every thought. That structure is established and more and more I can just show up so that life is living through me. The identity is mine and I like her. But she is already a bit dreamlike as I am invited to live more moment by moment. At any time I can always choose to pick up my troubles if I wish to. I am not less, but more, committed to being here in this world with no wings.

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Counting my Losses

Yesterday I was counting all my losses, not my blessings. I nourished them tenderly all day long. I was miserable. The loss of Richard arose as unbearable loneliness. I seem to be in the middle of an MS exacerbation resulting in further loss of communication with my left leg. I am dragging it about lately. Despite an ongoing scheduling conflict that I could not resolve, I went to the first rehearsal for the Winter Solstice choir (assembled for the next big community wide celebration at Kendal) just to see what music they were learning. It was an impressive, diverse and complex selection. I am only a modest sight singing reader and many of those singers were, and still are, pros. They were terrific, the conductor was an enthusiastic force of musical nature (former professor of voice at Oberlin), and I realized I did not have the stamina required to challenge my brain and body and voice at that level anymore. Another loss that was sadly acknowledged on top of the rest of my losses.

What to do? My friend reminded me earlier that morning, that the first Noble Truth as stated by Buddha, is that mundane life is suffering, or Dukkha. Pain is pain, but suffering is caused by the very human tendency to reject it vehemently. I once wrote, “It is not easy to forgo suffering in the face of pain from … a chronic condition. Nor should you skip over it. It is an essential step in the journey to accepting pain for what it is (to embrace pain and work with it, not against it). We project endless suffering into the…future based on the fearful experiences of the past. Suffering cuts us off from the respite of … possibilities available in the moment. Learning to release suffering into original pain, brings us into reality, plain and simple. Life is no better or worse than what it is right now.”

Nice words, Judi, and the source of that wisdom was unavailable as long as I huddled inside my self-imposed dark cell. I came back to my room before dinner exhausted just from being an observer of the rehearsal where I had stumbled along, tracking the difficult (for me) musical scores. I found a small package waiting outside my door. A cousin of mine (John Moncure Wetterau), who I have not been in touch with for years, sent me a book of his poetry, Greeting Buddha. He had said he would send it to me after we had emailed each other around a larger family matter. He was in Greece at the time of our original communication, shortly to be on his way back to the States. I was as moved by the fact that he followed through with his offer as I was by his poetry. People often don’t take the time to put something in the mail when they say they will.

Greeting Buddha within me took the rest of the evening and well into the time before sleep. I was very entangled in my woes. I used every meditation tool l could think of. Finally I took Richard’s set of mala beads from the back of my bedstead, going around one hundred and eight times. I went first in one direction and then the other, over and over, making short prayers that were authentic to each round. After I could focus on genuinely praying for others, there was a crack of light as the cell door slowly swung open. I put the beads under my pillow and mercifully sleep arrived.

I wrote this chant some years ago and it was one of the tools I used to get me through until the new day.

In the dark before the dawn,

When I’m wandering all alone,

May I search for, may I find

A light to guide me home.

Hold to that light

Through the long night

Until my eyes

Bless the sunrise.

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Death’s Bounty

I just finished work-shopping the sonnet I wrote for our poetry class. We followed the Shakespearean format,  of 10 syllables per line, the correct ABAB rhyme scheme in three quatrains and a finishing couplet.  It was daunting, impossible, until all a sudden it wasn’t and I “got ” it. Nobody in my class suggested any changes so here it is. It belongs to Halloween, the thinning of the veils between the worlds.

Death’s Garden; A Sonnet

by Judi Bachrach 10/22/18

Sitting alone at the top of my head,

The mind grasps at everything to mean something.

Tell me how to live now that he is dead!

My heart cries, keens, remembers how to sing.

 

The soil of pain breeds rich fertility.

The mind cannot comprehend the reason,

Wonders at its own inability,

To reap Love’s harvest from this dark season.

 

Death’s bounty brings me spaciousness at last,

Lets my mind rest inside the mystery.

The heart frees my thoughts from future and past.

A seed planted now creates history.

 

Life is the digging, love is the growing,

My soul flourishes in peace, Not Knowing.

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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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Bulls to Seashells

Diary 10/12/18

Bulls to Seashells

The bull market “is not ending, but it is ‘resetting’, according to my financial manager’s report from his banking institution. The message being, “Don’t Panic” as I interpreted his words from the email I received the day before yesterday. It had to happen eventually, as everybody knew. Constant expansion is not possible in our world. Everything moves in waves- everything is in flux, including financial systems, governments, weather patterns, beliefs, life cycles of flora and fauna, birthing and dying. Sound moves in waves as does electricity, as do the intimate undulations of blood flow and breath. Every molecule is either a particle or a wave depending on how it is observed. Nothing remains static. If there is life, there is movement, and movement means change; beginnings and endings.

Most of us spend our lives endeavoring to stave off the effects of unwelcome transitions. In times of chaos, our desperation increases in order to hold on, to grasp at anything that we can use to stop the forward momentum of the next wave. It can be a tsunami, or it can be the slow rise of temperature that remains invisible. Until worldwide droughts and increased storm violence and frequency reveals our unwillingness to deal with the consequences of our actions, we freeze; we hold on. Slow or urgent, the dynamics of life are always at some point on the arc of swinging pendulums; back and forth, in and out, up and down. Though we wish to be in control of these motions, we never can be. We can only attempt to learn better surfing skills, learning to read the gathering volume of wind and water as best we can each time we venture out on our boards.

Given such unpredictability, the prerequisite to living a full life is both riding the waves and diving deep below them to where the ocean floor is essentially unaffected by the turbulence above. To me, this is the slow discovery of Silence as my ground of being. Many simply call it Awareness, or our True Nature. To source my life from these peaceful depths does not mean withdrawal from the messiness of being human. Rather it means embracing the whole ocean from shifting waves to stillness. Swimming in the ocean often means being roughly tumbled about, scraping onto the shore with your swimsuit full of sand. It means floating in bliss as the sun warms you from above and the water cools you from below. It means donning the right gear with the right preparation to enter the silence and rich grandeur of what lies beneath the surface. The bigger the wave above, the deeper your need to dive in order to emerge with the wisdom of spaciousness and fulfillment, of no grasping, and no resistance to wherever the waves deliver you.

I have not been able to stand upright at the oceans’ edge for quite a few years now. My precarious balance cannot handle the pull of the tides. I can’t even navigate over an expanse of sand by walking on my own two feet. Yet I love the beach, the wide horizon, and the smell of salty marine plants and creatures at all stages of their lives. My life is now so full, so engaged with meaningful relationships and activities, that I remember the beach with pleasure and not loss. It is not in my current experience but I have imbibed past experiences within me to draw upon when needed. I can let my past life be as it was, my present as it is, and more and more the future arises as it will. I have a rollator and a scooter (no board) to help me surf, and the mysteries of the deep keep calling me down, spiraling inwards like a seashell towards Home.

DISSOLUTION

by Judi Bachrach 20014

In my dream, the last wave delivered me to a shore

my eyes not yet open.

I groped to fill my usual basket

Confused

by tangled seaweed

Weighed down

by barnacled stones

Worried

over half a sand dollar

Desperate

over everyone’s garbage.

 

Fully re-collected

I arose with the sun

and trudged along the shore

towards the breakwater.

Midday I sit to rest unconcerned

as I watch my basket

dragged away by the gathering tide.

 

Empty

I close my lids against the sun.

Bright lights dance inside.

I taste

the tangy salt air

feel

the gritty warm breeze on my cheeks

hear

the mingle of birds and waves and buoys

smell

the death of countless briny creatures

 

Observe

my endless dissolution in the sea.

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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.

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Reconfiguring a Family

Diary 9/25/18

It is coming to the end of September, the start of fall weather, which to me, is always good news. Hot humid climates are that much harder for most people with MS. Everybody feels draggy in such conditions because wet heat slows down the transmission of electrical messages from neurons in the brain to muscle receptors. (Think relaxing in a hot bath.) My neurology already has slowed communications due to the road blocks or scars (sclerosis) of the disease, so sticky summer weather can be additionally crippling for me.

The Kendal Kabaret was a great success. My surprise was that after an absence of performing for almost 30 years, I saw how my wounded neurology was very challenged by the the nervous energy of being on stage again. The inevitable gearing up with the frisson of fear that accompanies performing was almost more than my fragile nervous system could handle. It didn’t automatically convert into the charge of projecting my voice as it used to do in the past. I was very fortunate to have a calm professional stand up bass player to accompany me. He kept me from being too pitchy (going sharp or flat) and kept my tempo nice and steady. He was like a grounding rod, and now he is a new friend among the residents.

In addition, my family was here all together for the first time since my husband’s death. We adjusted to the loss of the brother/father/husband/father-in-law at the same time. It was like watching a slow shifting of gears as they slowly turned, quietly locking into place. It felt natural and easy and fun to be with one another. That they got to see me in the Kabaret was icing on the delicious birthday cake (not a confection) of their presence.

My daughter from NY stayed with me at Kendal for two full days, meeting my new friends, swimming in the wonderful pool here, hanging with a friend who happens to own three gorgeous Borzoi dogs- and taking photos of them which she hopes to use on the back cover of her soon-to-be published novella. She watched the dress rehearsal for the Kabaret and enjoyed the finished program that much more after seeing what went into putting it altogether. It was delicious to simply be in my room with her in our down time, playing word games, reading in silence, and talking, talking, talking, about the past and her dreams for the future. My heart feels full up until I see her when she comes back by train for Thanksgiving. My older daughter and my son-in-law graciously hosted us all in their new home.

Today I am grateful that my old skills are being put into use in a new environment. I think of my little girl self, dancing to my mother’s songs. I imbibed music in my household though I never studied music properly. I remember my mother sitting me down at the piano a few times and saying, “Judi, this is a triad, and that makes a chord…” and me running away from her. My brother was a serious musician who wrote orchestral music, played both piano and oboe, and later went to to Yale graduate school for music. He had a Fulbright scholarship to study choral conducting in Munich. I felt it was too much pressure for me to compete with them and turned to dance instead. My other brother was also a musician and played both drums and guitar throughout his life. I took to writing songs when I was a teenager and played guitar just well enough to provide a musical structure for my melodies. But I played ‘by ear’ alone, still refusing to learn the basics.

To be known for singing now is amusing to me. I don’t have a great voice but I do know how to perform and since I don’t score my own music, if I don’t sing my songs, nobody else will. I am touched that my new community loved my efforts and enthusiastically joined in the chorus I taught them. Somehow, my music is being drawn forth after a long dormancy and I am very grateful to have something to share with my new larger family as well as my own family, of Bachrach+Stojakovic.