Part of my recent routine is tackling select morning chores as the day’s first medications wear off and the second batch of drugs ramps up to take over, a sixty-or-so-minute process that begins about 8:15 am. The challenge is to…
Humility’s gentle grace
My life—until recent years—mimics a pendulum’s widening arc of extremity, hinting only the slightest hesitation as the center oscillates past quiet with confounding predictability. Recognizing prior patterns of hollow value does not magically charm foibles into fables, and perception alone…
Coexisting realities
The deep brain stimulator surgically implanted in 2014 has served me well, but its effectiveness wanes each day. A persistent brain fog hounds me, often leaving imagination as my only reliable companion in adventures of memory. Today, I traveled back…
Returning to port
My hobbies and ten years in the navy reflect my attraction to the sea, an evolving self-discovery of conflicting visions. Watching the sea’s delicate orchestra of peaceful violence fascinates and thrills, luring, tempting to risk venturing a stroke too far.…
Courageous kindness
While The Lost Intruder was certainly about deep diving, Naval Aviation, and underwater exploration, these perspectives merely provided the framework for the book’s genuine aspiration: describing the re-discovery of my soul. Despite countless hours of reflection, however, the mechanisms at play behind…
Strength happens
Flying home after a visit with my son in South Carolina last week, I pondered how life had changed in just the past year. In addition to a longtime grounding from flying, there was now no more diving, severely limited…
The alchemy of kindness
Recently, an event has tested my faith in compassion, empathy, and kindness as tools of reconciliation and healing. I will not go into details other than to say that it is perhaps the greatest challenge of my life, with impossibly…
Fortuitous circumstance–a PD update
Before my deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery in 2014, despite significantly increased Parkinson’s symptoms, I was overall happy and at peace with life. I also had a deep-seated conviction that DBS would change everything, including my sense of spiritual well-being.…
Ambushed
Ambushed Four years ago, I was preparing to go to Guadalupe Island in Mexico to cage dive with the 400 plus Great White Sharks that congregate there from summer through mid-autumn. I did not realize it at the time, but…
Farewell, old friend…
Aging is a constant cycle of releasing: letting go of those things closest to you in the recognition that, ultimately, “things” are unimportant. Thus far, letting go of “things” as my Parkinson’s disease progresses has been easy for me. Flashy…