Courage without reward, no emerging rainbow sharpens life’s cloud, seeking peace while guts roil in the tempestuous agony of forgotten. Bereft banality of belief or transparency of purpose, the surrounding sin feeds greed’s eager deity by crying out for the…
On parenting: the rare mercy of vague memory
There are no perfect parents. Parenting is an impossible task lasting as long as you breathe life completed on someone else’s timeline; a thankless job with all the world acting as critics. How you were raised is your only practical…
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…
Watching the garbage truck
Watching a garbage truck perform its job has, strangely, piqued my interest since I was a little boy—something about people partaking in mundane daily activity while the magic of Spiritis Mundi, ignored, patiently waits in the wings. As a pre-school…
Liberation
One complicated concept for outsiders to grasp about Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is that of “on” and “off” times, the indications of whether medications are in balance with the disorder. If one has been dealing with PD for any significant amount…
Groceries
I feel it thick in her overly casual glance in my direction. She’s worked at the store for long enough that she probably remembers my last descent, my first Parkinson’s stumble into the abyss, but the reality is that I…
Round two (or was that 200?)
Life sometimes travels in circles, compelling us to confront similar challenges over and over. Maybe the core problem with breaking free from these recurring themes is that the goal—whether consciously or unconsciously considered—has not been met; perhaps the necessary life…