Up to Cottonwood

 Probably the most fun I had while stumbling around was the weekend trip we took on the weekend of the 14th of April, which gave me a chance not only to experience a long car ride as a passenger, as Jessica drove us up I-17 to Cottonwood, but then to spend all day Saturday on an old steam ride as it went up a canyon into the wilderness.

Before we left I was wondering if I would make it. Supposedly my vertigo/nausea combination was what people experience with motion sickness, which I have never experienced in my life, to my recollection. I have never been car sick. I can sleep during any car ride. The worst I get are leg cramps from being cooped up. 

Now would motion sickness catch up to me. I monitored myself as we left on the 101 and headed towards the junction with I-17, and then went northward. It was a beautiful day, not too hot yet. I felt no nausea. So far so good. 

It took a little over an hour to reach our destination. We had been to Cottonwood previously on one occassion and knew it would be a nice get-a-way. Jessica had booked a room in a new hotel there of her own initiative and planned the entire trip. Moreover we have been to Sedona, which is nearby to Cottonwood, on multiple occasions. 

Jessica had gotten a double gift certificate for the train ride for her birthday, as a gift from her mother. She had wanted to use it before the temperature got too hot. She does not do well in the heat (unlike me who thrives in the heat but who shuts down in the cold).

It was only mid April but it was well hot when we parked by our hotel on the street in back. I got out of the car and felt ok at first. Then I grabbed by small backpack and slung it over my shoulder. It was not very heavy, but immediately it sent me reeling like a drunkard, and I almost fell onto the pavement of the street. I felt a wave of nausea and could barely contain myself while standing in the reception as Jessica checked us in. Nevertheless I did not need recourse to vomit. Nevertheless it was a bit of downer, as I wondered if I'd be good company for the weekend.

The next day we drove to the Verde Valley Railroad station---a legacy locomotive, as they call it. At the gift shop I bought a pleasant map of legacy locomotive routes in the United States. I was anticipating an awful experience, sitting on a wooden bunch seat for four hours as we bumped along uneven tracks.

Instead on board the train I found it completely in a lush style with padded seats and small tables and lounges. As I would discover, the purpose of the train ride is to allow oneself to drink from an open moving bar. The bar tender---who yelled her instructions to us at the top of her lungs while standing next to us---implied that she expected all of us to consume our fair share of drinks.

There was free champagne at our little table, in little plastic cups. I picked my own to toast and as I did so, I experienced the weirdest sensation because the sides of the cup began erupting with a fountain of champagne. It took us a second or two to realize my plastic cup was broken along the sides and that by picking it up, I had forced gravity to send it out of the cracks. It was actually beautiful in a strange way, this fountain of champagne.

We probably drank the least of anybody in our car (in all there were 400 people on the train in various similar cars, each with their own bartender). When we got to the turnaround point in the canyon, at a ghost town inaccessible by normal vehicles, she ordered the bartender's special drink for us to share, with ice cream, because it was a desert treat and also we didn't want to keep saying no to the bartender, who probably makes her living off the tips. Times are tough for everyone.

Recovering My Balance Using the Internet

 The last couple days have found me in good spirits, as I've concluded that eventually I will regain my equilibrium in walking completely. For a few weeks it was touch and go. It seemed to go away, but it would come back with a vengeance if I got hot or tired, as I did a couple times. Thankfully the nausea has mostly gone away, with only a slight twinge at times that I would barely notice otherwise, but for which I am currently well attuned to. 

Anything on my body that "breaks" in any way sends me to an obsession over it, as I want to gauge how big of an issue it is. It has taken me most of my life to realize I am far more connected to my body than the average person, in that I tend to notice anything out of whack. Also, as I told my current dentist when I went to see him last year, I'm very much into my original equipment as much as possible. I feel an obligation to God to do so, part of repentance for ignoring certain issues for so long, and treating my body---which is supposed to be a temple of the Holy Spirit--with disregard as if it would last forever.

Losing the ability to walk fluidly, as I did upon waking on the morning of April 7, felt like a warning jolt to what might lie ahead in my later years.  I did not like it all. The idea that my mobility might give out is terrifying, as the thought that I can ultimately get anywhere I need with "my good legs" has long feel central to my self-conception.

Is this what dying feels like, I thought to myself? At that moment, I realized the disequilibrium I was experiencing, and the accompanying other symptoms, were a gift. Memento mori. 

Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. BPPV for short. Jessica diagnosed it for me. Her step-father had it. He had keeled over on the toilet and had thrown up. He went to a physical therapist and learned it had to do with dislocation of crystals in one's inner ear. There is a maneuver that therapists can perform, called the Epley maneuver, that will "reset" one's crystal. He explained it over breakfast the other morning. He said when the therapist did it, it released everything immediately and caused him to vomit, but after that he was ok.

Just knowing this existed put my mind at ease. I looked it up online. Many people had positive testimonials. It can even be done at home by oneself.

At that moment, I felt as if I'd been given a great gift of mercy. It will probably go away on its own, but the symptoms can be treated by oneself at home! 

Of course I haven't done the maneuver yet. I'm letting the symptoms go away naturally, because I want to learn how long it takes my body to kick it.

That I can look such things up on the Internet gives me great peace, just as it does to write this blog and throw the entries out into the digital sea wrapped in a bottle for anyone to read and retrieve I thank God for such conveniences and mercies, even as I wish I could write letters to my old friends with a typewriter, and mail them with a stamp.

As far as civilization got without the Internet

 I just watched 

this video on kids in the Phoenix area discovering the usefulness of old typewriters.

How you can not love what these kids are doing. I commented in the video that my belief is that civilization peaked with the advent of the commercial laser printer. For a generation raised on manual typewriters (they were still teaching that way in 1980 when I took typing), and even for those who used the later more convenient electric ones with automatic correction, the laser printer was a dreamlike technology that enabled new creative output beyond anything anyone had dreamt of.

All you needed was a laser printer and a little Mac SE, the old mini post office box style, and you could pretty much mock up anything. The first time I saw that set-up was in 1988 working on the campus newspaper in Salem. I was blown away. It changed newspapers almost overnight, antiquating centuries of established and evolving production techniques.

For a season, in the early nineties, it created a craft industry of published materials. Portland as we know it---the Portland of the 1990s---was created on this industry.

What happened? Well as I like to tell people, the thing about the 1980s, and especially the late 1980s, is that they represent as far as civilization got without the Internet. 

Or more specifically, the world wide web, which was invented in August 1989, the same month that Hungarians started pouring across the Austrian border, trampling the barbed wire, and no one was stopping them on either side.

The Bimmer Years

 As I write this, taking a break from work for a few moments, Jessica is in the next room breaking up with a client. She is closing down her private practice, in women's health, at least the level that she can do with a physical office. So she is reaching out to her existing patients, some of whom she known for years since coming to Arizona.  Some of them have been with her a while. Some are out of state.

It reminds me of much of life is saying good-bye to people in various ways. One day you no longer see that person. Sometimes you know it at the time, sometimes not.

In my youth the good-byes were mostly due to geographical separation. Sometimes moving from one neighborhood to another, and changing schools, meant one day a friendship was over, never to be in contact again. 

For a season of my life, up to about ten years ago, I made it a point to overcome, at least temporarily, the good-byes of geography that had accumulated over the years.

At the same time, I had the distinct feeling that civilization was collapsing, because the bonds of social interaction were disintegrating due to social media. I wanted to see people before the madness set in, which it id.

I found victory in this. I found both great joy and also pain. Reunions are only temporary it seems, even when good, and definitely when bad.

My effort--the Bimmer years--could not be sustained in the form I had achieved. I am now rather fixed, and again find many limitations of fellowship due to geography. 

The last decades have brought an increasing load of separation due to death. That was rare and abstract in my younger years, experienced mostly vicariously, seeing my parents mourn the grandparents, whom I knew, but not intimately. Later were my own grandparents, who loved me, and whom I deeply loved---one by one they went from the early 1990s until the last one in the fall of 2010, the occasion of which sent me into some kind of mania to see everyone I knew again.

Eclipses Make You Sick

 Today the eclipse came and I found myself waiting for 11 o'click, when it when the eclipse would be well underway here in Phoenix, and thinking I should got downstairs to the parking lot and get the eclipe glasses that are in the small plastic pocket in the car, leftover from the trip tot he New Mexico last year.As

As I waited, I wathed Youtube video on my ipad and Youtube suggested a live feed of a stramer showign the eclipse through a camera right here in Phoenix, so I was able to monitor how long I had to wait until it reached its maximum which would be about 65% coverage here.

I was in no hurry to go down, because I was not feeling well. I had woken up the day before, early on Sunday morning, and gone about my morning routine making coffee and praying, when I noticed something very weird. I noticed that I was losing my balance as I walked across the floor to the kitchen. It reminded me of being on a ship that is rocking, so that one is staggering bit to each side.

Then I immediately started feeling nauseous in the pit of my stomach, and I immediately hied to the bathroom, where I began retching dry heaves into the toilet, the stomach acide burning my throat as it came up.

After ecovering my wits, I tried walking again and found the same unsteadiness (not a spinning dizziness, jsut lurnching around like onboard a ship), and almost the same thing happened.

Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. Jessica lager told me I probably have some kind of viral infection of the inner ear, which would account for my symptoms. It persisted all day Sunday,w hich ws spend mostly sleeping, and in the evening I was running a fever and got the violent shivers, as I do when I sick.. It was somewha ta relief to have a fever and know that I was sick. I told myself that meant I could recover from whatever it was that had hit me.

I'm at the point of my life where something new---a new condition or physical ailment---is something I dread. Since 2018, when I first started having issue with me left eye, I have shifted drastically in my self perception, rom the assumption of indestructibility of my youth to one of knowing that body is slowing falling apart as a I age, and that at any moment, out of the blue, something might arise in my body that could change my lie utterly going forward. It count it as a blessing, to be aware of this.  Our bodies are not mant to last forever, and the decay of flesh is a gentle way for us to let go of this world and concentrate on the next one.

Nevetheless I'm very happy if I can heal or recover from someting that happens to me. As I write this, I am now able to walk again, still lurching somewhat, but without rushing to the toilet, 

This was not the case even earlier today, when I went down to see the eclipse. When I got the bottom of the outside stairs, even taking it low, the nausea had welled up me and I wretched on the ground, trying to hold it in, and then I approached the car, I could not contain it and out came the coffee I had drunk ealier. IT was all over the concrete. Anyone looking at it would not have assumed it came from a stomach, but ws just a spilled drink. 

I quickly steadied myself against the car and unlocked it to get the nylar-paper glasses, and then put them on to look up at the sun, almost at its zenith above th nearby buildings. What a spectacle I must have been to anyone watching. I imagined some scenario where they might tinterpret the eclipse as causing me to vomit. 

No Eclipse for You!

 As I write this, millions around the country are gathering along the path of totality for the total eclipse of the Sun today. Jessica and I will not be among them. I had asked her last year if she wanted to see it. I had seen the one in 2017 in central Wyoming, but she had not seen one. Given the rarity of the spectacle, I did not want to deprive her of the chance to see it,

My personality, as I've learned throughout my life, is either to far in advance in planning, or last minute scrambling. In this case, about a year ago, I realized the eclipse would happen in April 2024 and did research to find a good place to see it. I figured Dallas was the best shot and researched hotel rooms there on Booking.com, finding that even a year in advance, many places were sold out. I tentatively picked out some decent hotels in downtown but did not book them. That's the "way in advance" part of my personality---figure it out and then wait, not taking action until the last minute.

Last fall, when we went up to New Mexico to see the annular eclipse, I made doubly sure that Jessica was not interested in going, as I figured we could still get hotel rooms at that point but it would be a harder with each passing day as people woke up to the event that coming in April.

Once upon a time in my life, I would have been disappointed to "miss out" on the rare spectacle, even though I'd seen a total eclipse. These days I am more relieved to stay home. The younger me would look at the older me and say, "what happened to you, man?"

So it was with mixed feelings that I read last week that the forecast called for cloudy skies in Texas during the eclipse. On the one hand, I was pleased that we had done gone through the expense and effort of traveling here just have a suboptimal experience of the event. From my experience in Wyoming in 2017, the most thrilling thing was to see the solar corona during totality. The tendrils of the corona were a type of beauty in patterns I had never seen anywhere in nature. They reminded me of an ancient Indian design, the kind girls try to emulate in henna tattoos back when I was in college. Without that, it would feel like not really seeing the eclipse at all, and that is apparently what people in Texas will experience this morning. 

I feel bad for them. I wish everyone along the route has the kind of experience I had in 2017. I would rather that, and feel like I missed out, then feel justified in not going. Many people will go away from the event today feeling like it was a giant nothingburger. There's no real consequence from that I suppose, but it would be more fun if everyone got to see it and delight in it.

The Computus of Bede: Christ is Risen

Modern stained glass at Gloucester Cathedral, England
depicting Bede dictating to a scribe

Easter morning came with rain, blessed rain. Sunday found me sleeping in, to the sound of it outside.  Easter Monday, the first day of April--the second driest month of year here--gave us more rain. If I don't hear it again for several months, it will be all right.

I just got done with this week's Spellbreakers Podcast. The subject was computus. It may be my favorite show so far, because I got to speak about God, Jesus, and the Church. I started off by showing a video of an Orthodox priest in England talking about the Jesus Prayer, proceded to a video of an Orthodox monk on Vashon Island describing the activities of the Othrodox patron saint of the Americas with the natives of the Aleutian Islands (the cradle of Orthodoxy in America) and ended with a Youtube video of a young woman in a Lutheran Church in Cincinnati singing a famous modern hymn written by a Catholic priest.  It also threw some Jack Chick and the Venerable Bede. I love Bede. Bede embodies computus as much as any man in history.

I'm a fan of these types of Lutheran worship service, where the pastor is tie-less and the music is supplied by a band with keyboard, drum, and guitar. There is something earnest about these Lutherans, in the desire to find a meaningful liturgy amidst the loose of the modern world. I would rather attend such a Lutheran church than go to a most modernist Catholic masses with similar music and church decor. The Lutherans of today at least seem like they are trying to pull something together out of the wreckage of postmodern western culture, whereas the modernist Catholics seem like they are trying to tear down the parts that are still standing.

I was very nervous before the show that I would not do justice the topic, but I think the Spirit helped me out.

The best part---I didn't finish and plenty of slides for part two next week.