Perhaps like most people, I grew up loving the sun and grumbling about the rain, not-so-secretly wishing that the summers would last forever. It never crossed my mind to question this assumption, maybe because the clear sky meant running and…
Being lost
How hard we work to stay distracted, desperately shielded from the smallest honest glimpse; surrounded by idols and walls and carefully contrived paths to nowhere; setting up the game to rules born of obscure fancy. Until that rare person pierces…
Walking the dog
Two and a half years ago, I was walking the family English Golden Retriever through our rural neighborhood. It had only been a couple of months since my Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery, and I was having difficulty relaxing and…
Imagination’s key
Intellect, perched smugly secure behind convention’s walls, fragments the soul into scattered pieces, rendering it weak with contrived conflict. We are taught to be one of many, unique in conformity’s perceived choices. Black and white, right and wrong; the options…
Humility’s legacy
Man’s basest instinct, fueled by ego and pride, goads us in a legacy of “more” as money, power, and fame greedily measure out our spiraling descent. Insecurity is humanity’s collective theme; humility our lonely virtue. The conflict with self never…
The riddle of the Sphinx
When asked, “What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three in the evening?” Oedipus correctly answers, “Man.” The mythological Sphinx’s riddle illustrates the physical progress of Man through life in…
On report
It’s been one and a half years since the batteries implanted in my chest were turned on, and new electrical pulses began firing in both sides of my brain, ameliorating the worst of my Parkinson’s physical symptoms. It has been…
The “all of us”
Two days ago, I had four medical appointments at Swedish Hospital, the location of my Deep Brain Stimulation surgery in Seattle last November. It was beyond strange to return after two months of no visits, and I found myself fighting…
A new day
The progression of Parkinson’s is similar to the concept of “boiling a frog”: life’s natural coping mechanism—time—tends to mask the true weight of the illness from the afflicted. Now imagine if the emotional distortion of time did not exist; what…
Not Today: a 4.5 minute video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PBlzRR7ySg