You can fill in the blank to the above statement. I have gone back and forth with many descriptive words over the last week; some positive, some down right hellish. I'm doing my best to find center these days.
Big Bad News
We found out one week ago that my wife's father has stage four thymic carcinoma. He has been given 6 months to live without treatment and possibly a year to 18 months with treatment. He begins his chemo on Friday and will see how it affects him. He told us Friday night when they came to visit that he wants quality over quantity. And I support that greatly. I affirm his decision.
Tina is handling this like she handles all things; with grace and practicality. She has sprung into action to do whatever she can to spend time with her daddy and to help as much as possible. She'll be going to Indiana this weekend to spend time with her dad after his first chemo treatment.
Me? I'll be here doing RENT at the theatre. It's a story about love, death, loss and overcoming the mind to accept the gift of the present moment. "No day but today" is one of its primary themes. It certainly has a deeper meaning now. Of course it had a deeper meaning after losing my father so freakishly last year as well. I will do all that I can to get to know this man (Tina's dad) as much as possible these next few months and I will do whatever I am able to do to ease his transition. I have wept a great deal the last week and expect to do so quite a bit more.
An interesting note....
The other day Eli and I were doing our afternoon 'cuddle' before naptime and he picked up his little play cell phone and was talking to grandpa. I asked him if he was talking to "Grandpa Doug." (Tina's dad)
He said, "No, Grandpa Carmichael" (my dad). I asked him what Grandpa Carmichael was doing and he said, "He just caught a fish. He catches a lot of fish in heaven."
Eli is three.
"What else did he say?" I asked as I was a bit freaked out that he mentioned fishing, because we really haven't talked about that part of my dad's life too much. He died fishing.
"He said he loves me and misses me." I nearly cried then and I am crying now.
Many of you know my thoughts of heaven and hell and all of that jazz, but I don't really know that there IS a heaven. We tell Eli that Grandpa Carmichael went to heaven because he is three. We tell him that Grandpa Carmichael also lives in his heart. Now don't get me wrong, I HOPE to HEAVEN there's a Heaven! I think it would be fantastic to be reunited with our loved ones. I do believe in the continuation of the energy/soul/spirit/ that makes us alive, but I have my doubts about the personality remaining intact once we've dropped the body.
I mean, where does the electricity go when the light bulb burns out? It simply gets used somewhere else in the house, right? If the medium through which the energy travels cannot support the energy coming to it, the energy just doesn't go there.
Does the bulb live on? God, I hope not. I've thrown them away my whole life. However, I still hope, if even naively, that some part of me as Dino does live on. But hoping something, believing something and knowing something are all very different things.
I have had little bouts with past lives, I think. I have had memories come wafting through my mind in the wee hours of the morning that were not from my present lifetime. When was I ever a lady in the 1890's cooking in a log cabin? When? (Obviously in the 1890's, because that is one of my memories...much more than mere imagination, I tell you.) In fact, most mornings when I wake up, I have to really shake off the night before, questioning what is true for me as I begin my day. But I digress...(that paragraph will probably release many of my friends from believing me sane...but the hell with it...this shit is on my mind and every word is true)...
My view of death is that we do it every night. We go unconscious every single day. We lose all track of time, space and of Self. Then we awaken to a new day. People who come out of years-long comas have no idea of how much time has passed. It could have been 10 years of no awareness, then bam...they're back.
It seems to me death is just like that. We just don't know if we come back from the non-aware state. But if we don't...we won't ever know it. No biggie...for us. Very much a biggie for those left behind.
I think the dying part is much worse than the death part. My dad, hopefully, died very quickly. It's the suffering I want to help alleviate. But as the Buddha said, 'life is suffering.' You can attempt to run from it, but it's always there to some degree. Some days/months/years/decades are better than others. But the Buddha also said you can transcend suffering. You can learn to detach your sense of self from the transitory things that fill this life up. Things come and go. Good times. Bad times. Let them come. Let them go. You remain. Always. No matter what.
Maybe even until the end of the earth.
I hope so.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Fail. Days 2 and 3
Well I have failed according to my initial plans. I made it through Monday just fine, but Tuesday night at 6pm, I ate veggie tacos. I was in the midst of headaches, severe nausea and no desire at all to go home and drink a glass of juice. My lord, did it suck yesterday. Once I ate dinner, I was fine on all counts.
Funny because I have fasted, I mean fasted--no food at all, for 5 days before and didn't have this kind of reaction. It was much harder to do the juice only than to go without food completely. Psychological and physiological, I'm sure.
But now what? I continue on with juice as an addition to my diet and I revert back to my original April plan: to drink only water and juices and to eat only food. No processed stuff for this guy for the rest of the month.
So that whole post on Monday....yeah scrap it. Too extreme for me right now. But what is not too extreme? Real food. Real drink. Only. Nothing made in a factory....or as close as I can come to it...even chickens are made in a factory now, as well as beef. Walking. Medititating. Good.
By following that plan: Not Fail.
PS...the high juice consumption has made my pee smell very different. Just thought you should know.
Blessings and love....more soon.
Dino
Funny because I have fasted, I mean fasted--no food at all, for 5 days before and didn't have this kind of reaction. It was much harder to do the juice only than to go without food completely. Psychological and physiological, I'm sure.
But now what? I continue on with juice as an addition to my diet and I revert back to my original April plan: to drink only water and juices and to eat only food. No processed stuff for this guy for the rest of the month.
So that whole post on Monday....yeah scrap it. Too extreme for me right now. But what is not too extreme? Real food. Real drink. Only. Nothing made in a factory....or as close as I can come to it...even chickens are made in a factory now, as well as beef. Walking. Medititating. Good.
By following that plan: Not Fail.
PS...the high juice consumption has made my pee smell very different. Just thought you should know.
Blessings and love....more soon.
Dino
Monday, April 9, 2012
A New Beginning of Sorts, Day One
Today is a new beginning for me. Spring Awakening, my show at the Center, is finally done after 5 wonderful months. I did not shave my head this morning like usual as I'm welcoming back my beautiful locks! And I will not eat food for the next 10 days; only natural juiced fruit and vegetables.
??!!
My hair is a Tina thing. My wife loves the hell out of me. She has given me so much in our time together. We have built such a beautiful life with each other. She is nothing short of a miracle to the story I call my life. Only she lives with me day in and day out. Only she knows the intimate details of my neurosis. She has seen me at my best and also at my worst. She has followed me into the whole Center for Living Arts saga and she has never complained. Plus there's a ton of other stuff that woman does that goes without mentioning that would take an entire lifetime to write out.
With all of that, I want to be pleasing to her in every way that I can. She likes my long hair. It's the very least I can do. It may seem silly, but to me, it is an outward gesture of my love for her. I'm not married to baldness. I like being bald just fine and it was certainly a very freeing thing to do after being a hippie for 11 years. It was very cathartic for me. But I've been bald for 7 years now. It's time to go back to the other side. I want to be one of those old white haired guys with a ponytail when I'm older; and the white has started to make its appearance.
The Food or lack thereof....
Two weeks ago, I watched a very persuading documentary, "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead." It was about a guy who was, you know, fat, sick and nearly dead. He juiced fruits and vegetables as his only nutrition for 60 days....60 days! He dropped almost 100 pounds and he became quite fit and without disease. I feel the same way; fat, sick and nearly dead. What disease do I have? Tiredness, grouchiness, the feeling that the best days of my life are long behind me. The feeling of "do I really have to get off the couch?" when my boy wants to go run outside. Damn it, I just don't want to be the man I'm starting to become!
My diet is for shit most of the time. It's not like I'm deep fat frying twinkies and guzzling down crisco, but I hardly ever get fruits and vegetables in my diet. I'm honestly just not that fond of them. So this plan of only juicing for the next 10 days is designed to give my body a 'reboot.' By the end of my time, I will hopefully have fed my body superconcentrated amounts of micronutrients enough that I will actually feel more life flowing through my being. Then will come the next step. That will be to continue to juice for another 10 days or to simply start eating a more plant based diet.
My feeling is that after I get through the first three days of feeling like hell, I will start to love eating (not eating) like this. I have done fasts before. I have done juice fasts before. However in the past I did not juice fresh fruits and vegetables, I just drank 100% apple and grape juice for 7 days. This new plan has so much more nutrition than the old way. Number one, I'll be juicing vegetables along with fruit and you can juice damn near any fruit or vegetable. I made a concoction of apple, carrot, broccoli, celery the other day and it tasted wonderful. I'll just get creative and experimental.
If you think about it, it's just concentrated nutrients, pretty much digested (broken down) and ready to go straight into your system. It's giving my digestive system a break from dealing with all the meat and chips I shovel in on a regular basis. I am also adding an hour long walk to my day and my usual 20 minute sessions of meditation. Plus this daily blog. I'll need someone to talk to...especially when I start feeling like crap this afternoon and tomorrow as my body starts to detox. That's the only thing I'm not looking forward to, but I've done it often enough to have the confidence that I'll make it through.
I told Tina that I'm really putting a lot of faith in this process. I told her that I'm pretty sure that once I start to feel better during the first week, I'll be all like 'born again' and trying to persuade her to cross the river Styx to the other side where you feel young and alive again! We shall see. I'm actually pretty balanced in regards to letting people walk their own path. I just don't want to be the 58 year old guy at my boy's hs graduation that has to use a walker. That may seem like an extreme statement to you, but it's certainly not to me. I cannot tell you how old I'm starting to feel. And everytime I imbibe on high doses of sugar or processed food, I start to feel even older. The way I see it, we've been given fruits and vegetables to eat on this planet, why not try that for awhile?
So, wish me luck. Keep me in your thoughts. I'll post daily, even if it's just to say the day sucked....or better yet, how much better I feel. I started today with a large glass of freshly juiced orange. I must now go poop. And so it starts.
Blessings on the journey!
??!!
My hair is a Tina thing. My wife loves the hell out of me. She has given me so much in our time together. We have built such a beautiful life with each other. She is nothing short of a miracle to the story I call my life. Only she lives with me day in and day out. Only she knows the intimate details of my neurosis. She has seen me at my best and also at my worst. She has followed me into the whole Center for Living Arts saga and she has never complained. Plus there's a ton of other stuff that woman does that goes without mentioning that would take an entire lifetime to write out.
With all of that, I want to be pleasing to her in every way that I can. She likes my long hair. It's the very least I can do. It may seem silly, but to me, it is an outward gesture of my love for her. I'm not married to baldness. I like being bald just fine and it was certainly a very freeing thing to do after being a hippie for 11 years. It was very cathartic for me. But I've been bald for 7 years now. It's time to go back to the other side. I want to be one of those old white haired guys with a ponytail when I'm older; and the white has started to make its appearance.
The Food or lack thereof....
Two weeks ago, I watched a very persuading documentary, "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead." It was about a guy who was, you know, fat, sick and nearly dead. He juiced fruits and vegetables as his only nutrition for 60 days....60 days! He dropped almost 100 pounds and he became quite fit and without disease. I feel the same way; fat, sick and nearly dead. What disease do I have? Tiredness, grouchiness, the feeling that the best days of my life are long behind me. The feeling of "do I really have to get off the couch?" when my boy wants to go run outside. Damn it, I just don't want to be the man I'm starting to become!
My diet is for shit most of the time. It's not like I'm deep fat frying twinkies and guzzling down crisco, but I hardly ever get fruits and vegetables in my diet. I'm honestly just not that fond of them. So this plan of only juicing for the next 10 days is designed to give my body a 'reboot.' By the end of my time, I will hopefully have fed my body superconcentrated amounts of micronutrients enough that I will actually feel more life flowing through my being. Then will come the next step. That will be to continue to juice for another 10 days or to simply start eating a more plant based diet.
My feeling is that after I get through the first three days of feeling like hell, I will start to love eating (not eating) like this. I have done fasts before. I have done juice fasts before. However in the past I did not juice fresh fruits and vegetables, I just drank 100% apple and grape juice for 7 days. This new plan has so much more nutrition than the old way. Number one, I'll be juicing vegetables along with fruit and you can juice damn near any fruit or vegetable. I made a concoction of apple, carrot, broccoli, celery the other day and it tasted wonderful. I'll just get creative and experimental.
If you think about it, it's just concentrated nutrients, pretty much digested (broken down) and ready to go straight into your system. It's giving my digestive system a break from dealing with all the meat and chips I shovel in on a regular basis. I am also adding an hour long walk to my day and my usual 20 minute sessions of meditation. Plus this daily blog. I'll need someone to talk to...especially when I start feeling like crap this afternoon and tomorrow as my body starts to detox. That's the only thing I'm not looking forward to, but I've done it often enough to have the confidence that I'll make it through.
I told Tina that I'm really putting a lot of faith in this process. I told her that I'm pretty sure that once I start to feel better during the first week, I'll be all like 'born again' and trying to persuade her to cross the river Styx to the other side where you feel young and alive again! We shall see. I'm actually pretty balanced in regards to letting people walk their own path. I just don't want to be the 58 year old guy at my boy's hs graduation that has to use a walker. That may seem like an extreme statement to you, but it's certainly not to me. I cannot tell you how old I'm starting to feel. And everytime I imbibe on high doses of sugar or processed food, I start to feel even older. The way I see it, we've been given fruits and vegetables to eat on this planet, why not try that for awhile?
So, wish me luck. Keep me in your thoughts. I'll post daily, even if it's just to say the day sucked....or better yet, how much better I feel. I started today with a large glass of freshly juiced orange. I must now go poop. And so it starts.
Blessings on the journey!
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