My "Grand-daughter" Needs Help

Hello to all of you who are reading these words. Since 2011, when I began to blog, you have supported me whenever I shared a health concern with you . . . and there have been many concerns.

Or so it seems to me. You have prayed for me in many different ways because each of you has your own Center of Oneness. And each of you calls that center by the name that best describes where you are on the circle of belief that connects us all.

Back in 2006 when Meniere’s Disease entered my life, a Minnesota friend said, “Dee, I think you have fourteen guardian angels watching over you. Somehow, no matter what, you always bounce back.” 

The truth is that I have even more angels now for when I’ve shared my health concerns with you, you’ve always been sympathetic, compassionate, thoughtful, empathetic, gracious angels. Always. 

Now I’m asking you to extend your great, good concern for others to Elisa Magagna, whom I met through blogging. She has become the daughter—or granddaughter (given our age)—I never had. Her four children call me Grandma Dee. Elisa and her family are an abiding blessing as I move through these final years of my life. 

Elisa is now at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City. After several lengthy CAT and MRI scans over the past week, the doctors have discovered the following: 

·      An invasive tumor on her L2 and L3 vertebra in her lower back. That tumor is eating into the bones and causing pressure on the spinal column so that both her legs are now numb and walking has become difficult. The bone pain is horrific.

·      A second tumor on her spine.

·      Tumors on her gallbladder.

·      Tumors in her lungs.

·      A tumor in her brain.

The doctors think this is all caused by the metastasizing of the melanoma removed from her wrist two years ago. However, they won’t know for sure until they do a biopsy tomorrow.

Everything seems dire. However, I try to stay in the present moment and not let my mind race into future possibilities. For me, life is now one step; one moment; one day. Sufficient unto this day is information I now have.

Let me tell you a little about Elisa. She was 28 when we met in 2011; I was 75. Caught in the web of a troubled marriage, she got a divorce and became a single-parent, raising four children—who are now 10, 12, 16, and 18—on the minimum-wage job she found that would enable her to be at home when the children most needed her.

Time passed. She grew in the confidence that had evaporated during her first marriage. She met and married a man who gave her the love and support that now enriches her life. Mike, an exceptional human being . . . as is Elisa, is a thoughtful husband and a loving father. 

Now Elisa, who is 37, is involved in the fight of her life. I believe she has a plethora of angels, but she needs more. She needs you who have been such a support and comfort to me. 

I ask you to pray for her—that is to do whatever is comfortable for you to do when someone asks for your help. Pray; send healing thoughts; visualize; put her name on prayer lists at your church or community center. 

None of us knows what is best, but all of us know that the loving concern of others can bring healing of mind and heart, spirit and soul. And we hope and trust . . .  healing of body. 

Thank you. Peace.

 

FYI

 

This posting has a twofold purpose: to update you on my health and to tell you about my news-fast.

 

Re: Health:

In late September, after the seasonal change, the barometric pressure seemed to calm—here in Missouri—its precipitous ups and downs. Because of that the Meniere’s symptoms have been in abeyance. I have the occasional mild headache, but it is simply a short drizzle compared to the storm of a Meniere’s headache. 

 

I cannot truly explain what this means with regard to my ability to think clearly, prioritize, make decisions, and respond with some coherence to the questions of others. I am feeling equal to life again, and I hope to begin reading blogs again and working on my writing.

 

Re: News-fast:

One aspect of my calm is that I’ve been fasting from politics since Monday, September 21. RBG died on Friday the 18^th. I spent the weekends reading the New York Times articles about her, viewing the DVD film “RBG,” and watching the television news anchors eulogize her. 

 

On Sunday night, I sat against my bed headboard, reading a NYT’s article on her life. Next, I read an NYT’s opinion column on how her death would probably change the make-up of the Supreme Court and three impeding cases. 

 

An overwhelming emotion roiled within me. Closing my eyes, I tried to get in touch with it. First came anger. I let myself feel it. Then I plunged deeper into the recesses of my psyche. Still as a statue, I discovered a profound and abiding sorrow over the changes in our culture, which I’d witnessed in the past fifty years. 

I’m not going to detail those changes here, but I saw so much isolation and self-absorbed individualism that I found myself sobbing in the deep center of myself where Oneness dwells.  

 

It was then that I decided to fast from the news of the day. No viewing of the television news or the Facebook political raves or rants. No reading of the New York Times on my computer. No talking with friends and family about what is happening politically—and for me, almost everything is, in some way, political. 

 

I decided to fast for seven weeks—until the election of November 3. Depending on its outcome and the consequences (domestic terrorism), I’d then decide whether to resume my normal “keeping-up-with-what-is-happening” attitude or not.

 

Since leaving the convent, I’ve been what my uncle once called “a politic junkie.” For the past five weeks, I’ve been in rehab. I’ve “cold-turkey-ed” political news. Well, to be truthful, once each week, I called someone and asked for one tidbit of news.

Here are the five tidbits I’ve learned in five weeks: 1) in the first debate the president yelled a lot; 2) the president had COVID and was in the Walter Reed Hospital for a few days and he now says he’s immune; 3) a fly landed on the head of the vice-president during his debate; 4) the woman who’s been selected to replace RBG is a strict constructionist or an “originalist” (I think that’s the word my friend said); 5)  COVID is on the upswing in quite a number of states.

 

Okay. Five things I know from the past five weeks. Believe me, I have little to talk about to anyone who calls. I’m downright boring.  

 

I have two weeks to go on my news-fasting. And really that’s nothing compared to the eight-and-a-half years in the convent when I heard no news at all. I’ve spent these weeks feeling grateful for my life. I am so fortunate in so many ways.

 

Peace, pressed down and overflowing, to all of you who have read these words.

Accepting, Embracing What Is

This year, I’ve posted sporadically and done a poor job of visiting your blogs and leaving comments. That haphazardness is due to Meniere’s Disease. 

The specialist who diagnosed Meniere’s in 2006 said I had a “truly bad case” that was both “progressive and intractable.” This year’s vision problems have resolved themselves as I follow the routine of 30-minute-focus/20-minute-close-eyes. That’s easily doable; what Meniere’s does to my mind isn’t easy. 

 

For me, this year has been the worse for Meniere’s since 2009. From early March on, I’ve had almost daily headaches that are like migraines in intensity, but without the light sensitivity. On those days, I want to bang my head against the wall so as to knock myself out. The headaches drain me, so, if the next day is headache-free, I have no energy to do anything except listen to a book. 

 

The headaches make me stutter when I talk; I can’t think straight. My brain becomes “foggy.” That is, I can’t prioritize, make decisions, or make sense of what is being said to me. 

 

Beyond the brain fog, Meniere’s brings wooziness, dizziness, insomnia, and an imbalance that has me bopping against the hall walls and falling against the computer screen or furniture. (My mailbox is across the street, and I weave back and forth getting to it. I suspect the neighbors think I’m a secret tippler!) 

 

This year, I’ve so enjoyed listening to audio books about the American Revolution. As our democracy is being fractured, these books help me put the present time into perspective. However, my last post, which was about my reading, took me 5 ½ hours to complete because of the brain fog and the vision routine.

 

Leaving comments when I read your postings also takes time. Time for the words to come and to make sense. When I proofread the comments before clicking, I discover words missing, meaning gone. So, writing comments whether on your blogs or mine is both time-consuming and frustrating. 

 

For most of my life, I’ve had a routine: school, convent, work, retirement. Even with my vision, routine reigns: 10 times a day I put drops in my eyes. And I now have the vision routine of 30 on/20 off. When I don’t stick to a routine, I accomplish little. When that happens, I feel frustrated; disappointed in myself. In 84 years, I haven’t been able to outgrow this incessant drive to achieve.

 

A psychiatrist once said to me, “Dee, be gracious to yourself.” I’ve said that to others, but the truth is, I find it hard—I’m driven to produce. (If only I could work on my childhood memoir, I’d explain how that happened!) This past Wednesday, however, some concerned friends encouraged me to accept that I must let go of routine. I need not only to accept that truth, but to embrace it and find good in what is. By doing so, I’ll banish the debilitating feelings of disappointment and frustration and, yes, guilt that hound me. 

 

I’m sharing this with you simply to let you know that when I can visit your blogs, I will do so because I so want to keep up with those of you who have become virtual friends. You matter to me. As the weeks and months pass, I’ll visit when the day feels right and I’m making sense. When a day is especially good, I hope to post my ongoing response to the audio books. Just know that you aren’t forgotten, that I will always feel deep gratitude for your support.

 

Peace. 

PS: I’ve read, reread, edited, and searched for words for this posting for five hours. I’m going to stop now. Please excuse any mistakes.

Reflecting on Learning from "Bunker Hill"

What does a revolution look like? What happens when something revolves? 

I’ve been reading about the American Revolution (AR) at the same time as I’m witnessing Black Lives Matter (BLM), which seems to me to be another revolution, one to secure systematic equality. In Bunker Hill by Nathaniel Philbrick, a writer who delights in extensive research and has an uncanny ability to find what I call “the telling detail,” I’ve been repeatedly surprised by a number of similarities between the AR and BLM.

BLM: For the past three months, people of all ages and from all walks of life and background have peacefully protested police brutality, especially toward Black men. They have drawn attention to systematic racism in our country.

AR: Between 1767-75, colonists wrote King George III and members of Parliament to air their grievances about the Townshend Acts. The cry was, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” 

BLM: For many Americans, the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, was the final straw in the long history of racial inequality in the United States. 

AR: The final straw for the colonial rebels was the march to Concord, Massachusetts, by British soldiers and the deadly skirmish at Lexington in April 1775.

BLM: A large majority of Americans support the “Black Lives Matter” movement. Many supporters do not have a shared reality with the Black protesters, but they do have a shared desire for justice. For equality. For human dignity. 

AR: At first, only Massachusetts supported independence. The other thirteen colonies, particularly the southern three and New York, did not immediately see how what was happening in Boston touched their lives.

BLM: In several cities, looting and rioting followed the peaceful protest. (Personally, I think today that the wordrioting is code for “Black rioting.” Somehow “Whites” don’t riot.) Because of that, some supporters have turned against the protest and are themselves protesting the loss of property. They now view the protesters as criminal rather than peaceful, convoluting protesting with looting/rioting. That is, they see everyone in the protest—except perhaps for the White participants—as potential looters and rioters. Moreover, they fear that these protesters will destroy their property and livelihood just as lotters in Minneapolis destroyed the small businesses along Lake Street.

AR: Those colonists who favored independence came to be called Patriots; they disagreed with the Tories who had little trouble with the status quo. The Tories deplored many of the Patriots’ actions and began to fear them because several Patriot gatherings evolved into mobs that assaulted and tarred-and-feathered dissenters. 

In 1765, a mob of Boston colonists, protesting what they considered an unjust law, ransacked the home of Thomas Hutchinson, the Massachusetts governor. They shattered windows, broke dishes, demolished furniture.  In the early 1770s, colonial sailors, resenting corrupt tax collectors and abusive law enforcement, attacked British ships. In 1772, they burned the Gaspee. In December 1773, a number of colonists, dressed as Native Americans, dumped a shipload of tea into Boston harbor to protest the tea tax. 

Looters? Yes. Property destroyers? Yes. In the dark of night, in costumes that masked who they were, these “Sons of Liberty,” feeling unjustly done by, rebelled. Their actions caused loss not only to the British tea company but also to those in the colonies who stored tea in warehouses, carted it to stores, and owned the stores that sold it.

Protesters, looters, rioters seem part of both revolutions. However, I’m not defending destroying property. I am loudly decrying the taking of human life in the name of justice. Or of “law and order.” And I’m trying to help create a country in which all of us will acknowledge the truth of the reality that has been part of Black lives for centuries.

Peace

Drawing from Wikipedia.

An Intro to a Series

The political and pandemic period in which we now live prompts this posting, which introduces a series of postings I plan to do on audio books by well-known historians.

First, some personal background: my parents encouraged me—from about the age of 10—to read two newspapers a day. Around the supper table, we discussed what I’d read. They wanted me to understand “history being made.”  In college, I mostly studied ancient and European history.

However, in August 1969, after leaving the convent, I began my studies for a Master’s Degree in American Studies at the University of Minnesota. Two years later—after taking as many classes as I could over the course of twenty-four months—I obtained the degree with an emphasis on Black and Southern history.

For American studies, I took classes in several departments that offered courses about the United States. Among these were sociology, art/architectural, linguistics, literature, political science, and history.

After completing my master’s in 1971, I read two weekly news magazines (Newsweek and Time) and the daily Minneapolis and St. Paul newspapers. From 1976 on, I nightly watched The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, which later became known as the PBS Newshour.  

What I didn’t do after leaving the U of M was to continue reading books on American history written by distinguished historians. That was a mistake I’m correcting now.

For the past four years, whenever I hear the president speak, I think of the behavior of Joseph McCarthy, the Republican senator from Wisconsin who conducted televised hearings during my last two years in high school. I watched those hearings whenever I could and listened to my grandmother Ready rhapsodize about McCarthy. 

In the spring of my senior year (1954), while watching the Army-McCarthy hearings, I heard the legal representative for the army say to McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency?” He asked this after repeatedly witnessing McCarthy browbeat and belittle others with derogatory names and blatant innuendo.

As McCarthy did in the 1950s, many Americans—those of the “Contract with America” in the 1990s, the Tea Party Movement that began in 2009, and those who espouse the QAnon far-right conspiracy theory of the past two years—keep referring today to their “rights” and to the Constitution to explain their words and actions. Given that and the partisanship so evident in our country, I decided on my 84^th birthday in April to study American history. I’m going for another master’s degree!

No, I’m not going back to school. I’ll take no tests. Write no papers. But I will, for as many years as I have left to live this life, read the books of reputable historians who can explain the threads that tie together one century/one event to another in the United States. Ultimately, I’ll award myself a home-made diploma from the University of Historians! 

I’ve started my degree work (sounds impressive doesn’t it!?!?!) with the late 18^th century. Already I’m astounded at how woefully ignorant I’ve been of this period of American history.

In future postings, I’ll share with you books I’m reading about the following:

·      The 1^st American Revolution (the war for independence—1775-1783)—books by Nathanial Philbrick, Rick Atkinson, and David McCullough.

·      The 2^nd American Revolution (securing the peace, establishing government, writing the Constitution—1783-1789)—three books by Joseph J. Ellis.

·      Biographies of those who led the struggle in both revolutions—books by McCullough, Ron Chernow, Jon Meacham, and Ellis. 

I hope to live long enough to study the entire history of our young country. And then . . .  if my health permits, I want to study the history of the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand as well as several Asian, African, and South American countries. I want to learn and appreciate.

So much to listen to and absorb. So many reasons to be grateful. Peace. 

Postscript:

You will note that the historians I’ve mentioned are all men. White men. As I learn enough to be appreciative, I will read histories written by and about women, histories written by and about Native Americans, and histories written by and about people of color.

I want to, I must read about colonial women and their work for the cause; about African Americans and the significant role they played in the Continental Army that George Washington commanded; and about how the founders of the United States systematically put in place plans that would push Native Americans westward and ultimately eradicate them. 

If any of you have books to suggest to help with my education, please do so. The only caveat is that the book must be available in audio because I’m no longer able to easily read paper or e-books. Once I move beyond the United States, I’ll need suggestions for other countries and their histories. So please help me out with this. Help me be inclusive. Expand my mind and my heart. Show me how to embrace Oneness.

That is . . . Help me learn the lessons of history and the struggles of all human beings as they try to find Oneness.

Peace.