Love, roller coasters and little girls...

“No one is smart enough to figure out

anything worthwhile from scratch.”

- Pinker, S.  The Better Angels of our Nature

Susie Shamkunas (Sham-Koo-nis)…now there is a name, and there was a girl.  Little doubt, I was smitten!

Memory is that illusive narrator of history with a kind of plasticity.  You know, elastic things return to their original shape (rubber bands for example), plastic changes DO NOT return to their original shape (pie crust from a ball of dough).  Once changed, they appear to have always been that way.  Yeah, memory may or may not have anything to do with the truth. 

Truth – what the heck is the truth?

But then there was Susie Shamkunas, at the age of six, the love of my life.  In my less mature years (prior to six), I thought girls were…hmmm…in the nicely honed vocabulary of my youth  - YUCKIE!  In fact, I even resented them in the free floating anxiety best expressed by having been isolated to my own bedroom, while my sisters got to share.  I didn’t understand and thought it to be completely unfair! 

Girls, as far as I could tell, they were a real nuisance.

The page turned…

But then something changed, something brand new, something I had even less understanding about – I ‘saw’ Susie.  It wasn’t that I had not seen her before, after all, we were in Sunday school together.

I don’t even know when this actually happened, but one day I looked at her and all kinds of things began to happen: unsettled tummy, short breath, heart beat faster, no words to speak, damp hands and furtive glances to see if there were some place to hide! 

Yep, I think I was in love!  She had blond curly hair, wore frilly dresses, had brown eyes, and I don’t know…it was like I had been lightening struck.

One day, when my mother was looking after her at our house – right at the beginning of the Mickey Mouse Club on TV – I kissed her!  Okay, I had been emboldened by Annette Funicello, whose face had just popped up on the screen announcing herself: “Annette!” 

I had practiced kissing Annette on a couple of occasions when she announced herself, so I did have experience.

I mumbled something like, “I love you and now you are my girlfriend.”

She smiled and giggled like we had just shared a secret, and I can’t remember one other thing about the girl from that day forward!  The event with Susie is memorable to me, simply because…well, simply because of the feelings and the terror of the first kiss!! 

I loved my mother and dad, but would characterize that as a feeling of consistency and safety.  I know I learned to love my sisters, I suppose because they were daily constants in the routine of my life, but I can say this with certain authority – I NEVER felt anything with my family like I felt with that cutie pie who first stole my heart – Susie Shamkunas!

Yeah, but what does it mean?

Love!  That set of feelings that have yet to be defined despite the untold volumes of poetry, stories, music and film on the subject – all of which reflect the most common and primal sensations every single one of us has had.  Importantly, when read, heard or seen, some ageless resonance is touched within us and we know of a surety we have at least basked in the echoed shadow of the ‘vérité obscure’ (obscure truth).

So what is this thing called love.  One is tempted to express, “I don’t exactly know what it is, but I know it when I see [feel] it!”

Okay, to be fair, there are dictionary definitions categorizing the attraction we, as humans have for one another: affection, friendship, romance, eros and unconditional love.  I suppose I can identify with these words in terms of the way we interact with one another, and I further suppose, for this discussion, I’m talking about eros…I guess.

Giving it a whirl…

I have given this a fair amount of thought in trying to understand the context of my life experience.  I mean, when does the ‘I like you’ slip over the cliff to ‘I love you’? 

“Cliff” is a good metaphor, best reflected in the expression “…falling in love…” Yeah, that’s the feeling isn’t it – falling!  Like the first drop on one of those huge rollercoasters. 

If you are a kindred spirit that likes coasters, close your eyes and imagine the excitement of heading up the first hill, the fearful anticipation of the approaching uncontrolled feelings, the exhilaration as the car passes the crest and the total cognitive ‘short circuitry’ of the drop! 

No thought…no deliberation…no sense of anything but the astonishing stomach turning of the drop!  Yeah, that’s what I think love is…or at least how it seems to start.

The thing is, everything we know comes into our minds single file, and every way we communicate with others, comes out of us single file…but man, when all that stuff is ‘in the mixer,’ Katy bar the door!  When the accumulated paraphernalia floating around in our brains is sparked by feelings of love – all bets are off!  Call the it Kismet, pheromones, serendipity, fate, the weather, the stars…call it whatever you want, but when it is lit ‘things’ happen!

Empires built, novels written, songs sung, flights to the moon and the stars, an explosion of creativity – a ‘no holds barred’ sensation overcomes us and we feel there is NOTHING we cannot do!

The ‘language of love,’ usually in the context of the delicate – sometimes not so delicate – dance that leads to a carnally conclusive act, is often discussed as though sexual gratification were the driving force toward the end game whispered by our genetic code for the survival of the species.  Yeah, maybe…

All I know is that when it gets going – Mazel Tov!!  (Congratulations and Good luck!!)

As the management of those initial feelings, Plato calls the ‘charioteer’ of our nature, emerge…the wilder horse is reined in by the driver (human soul), and once happening, our widely swinging feelings calm (the more noble horse taking control) and our lives proceed forward.

There is more…

The thing is, we are not machines.  The passion of love that we feel in the beginning doesn’t (or shouldn’t) go away and can emerge at any time in our lives.  In maturity, it may become more guarded and ‘other focused’ through the accomplishment of tasks/goals/challenges life brings us, but the appetite of the wild horse lying just under the surface continues to inform the things we do and decisions we make.

This may be a revelation to those of you who are young, but while planetary ‘time in service’ may diminish many things, it does NOT lessen feelings of passion.

Take away…

So what is my take away from this?  I have come to believe the passion of love is like beautiful music the lyrics for which we have not yet, as a species, come to truly understand…or at least in a succinct, clear, articulated way.

I think love is a primal communication that God, the universal creative intelligence, has placed in us as a homing mechanism to draw us toward one another yes, but more importantly, closer toward Him. 

Love has no time…no distance…no culture…no circumstance…no geography defining its existence.  It may begin with proximity, but from the ‘lighting of the fuse,’ it has a life of its own.

You don’t believe this?  Take a moment to think about someone you love(-ed) with whom you no longer have contact, or who may have passed on from this life…take a moment and think of them…what do you feel? 

Yeah, I thought so.

I can tell you this…when Susie Shamkunas came to mind, it wasn’t some distant thought of ‘Paradise Lost,’ it was all the richness, sincerity and feelings a little boy of six could muster…

- ted

Let there be peace...

“In memory, everything seems to happen to music.”

- Tennessee Williams: The Glass Menagerie

It began with 11 simple words posted on Carol’s Facebook page. 

“Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me…”

In less than a millisecond I disappeared into the mists of memory finding two companions significant to my life: My older sister Anne and my mother.

For the next 10 or 15 minutes, I entered the ‘cavern of cognitive dissociation’ from the real world, and was transported to any number of settings where the beginning lines to this family favorite hymn brought images and sounds, with clarity, to my heart and mind.

In those moments lost to reality, these two wonderful women sang this hymn for me under very different circumstances.  Anne was gifted from a child with a notable soprano voice.  My father liked to show her off when people visited, and I cannot count the number of times he, to my mind, aggressively encourage her to sing for our guests. 

She may have enjoyed this – I never really asked – but it seemed to me, she often sang under duress.  I do know this, however, she loved music and loved to sing and cultivated her gift through a graduate degree in voice, making a career of pleasing people privileged to hear her and cultivating the gifts of voice students with whom she has spent her adult life teaching.

My mother, on the other hand, had a lovely ‘choir’ voice.  It was in the alto register and quietly expressive.  As a child and young adult, she had memorized many hymns, the words of which brought her strength and sustenance.  She sang and taught them to me…it was her way.

When I read the single line post, my mother’s voice took over my mind with an almost startling immediacy and I heard her with quiet sincerity sing those words to me once again.  It was as though I had slipped into a tub of warm water and felt the soothing gentleness of her character envelop me as she so often had done in her life.

Anne then appeared with a power and inspiration of voice that one could not hear without being touched.  This song and ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ (also a favorite of Mum) came to mind with the rush of a summer wind blowing through the leaves of the Canadian hardwood trees of my youth.  I suppose because it seemed so natural to hear her sing, I seldom expressed to her the depths with which her voice touched me.

It gets better…

I was so taken by Carol’s first line, that I posted the next …”Let there be peace on earth – the peace that was meant to be.”

Over the next day, other friends of hers placed line after line – one person at a time until the first verse was complete.  I confess, I checked several times during the day, hoping it would get done.

While the specific circumstance was unexpected and greatly enjoyed, the experience of an unpredicted stimulus bringing to life things passed, is not new to me, and I am certain, you either.  It is part of the magic of life!

The bigger picture…

I never cease to be fascinated that everything entering through the vacuum cleaners of sight, sound, touch, smell and taste, somehow sticks to fluid bathed, micro electric neurons and remains surprisingly alive and well somewhere in what appear to be inaccessible regions of our minds…until…until some unforeseen stimulus brings them to the surface like bobbing balloons held under water and quickly released.

The thing is, we don’t ask for these memories to emerge, from behind the boulders and sand dunes of our minds.  Yet there they reside, in what seems to be a state of suspended animation eagerly waiting for an opportunity to slip across the technicolor, silver screens of our minds.

I had not expected to spend a little time with the women of my family yesterday.  In fact, I can’t think of anything that was further from my mind, or maybe better said, buried more deeply in my mind.

More to the point, I had certainly not expected to see the first line of that wonderful old hymn on Carol’s Facebook page either.  Yet post it she did and with little doubt, the quality of my day was immeasurably better…

- ted

True dat...

“A people that values its privileges above

its principles, soon loses both.”

-        Dwight D. Eisenhower

34^th president of the

United States

It is always like this when I come here – the ‘sweet and sour pork’ of life. 

Sweet: The stunning beauty and energy of this city and the land/water surrounding it, crying out for possibilities and experiences yet to be revealed…it is filled with the smart…the successful…the ‘doers,’ and it is a seductive place to be.

Sour: Within its concrete canyons, however, exist the lives of the broken…the mentally challenged…the ‘lost tribes,’ who like hunter gathers of an era gone by, subsist on the streets, eating what they can find, wearing what they have worn, relieving themselves often in public and sleeping wherever the doorway of a store or restaurant can provide shelter at day’s end…the invisibles.

In order to manage the sheer volume of cognitive dissonant data coming at lightening speed, one must compartmentalize.  Not to do so, makes experiencing the disconnected visual and auditory messages a landscape defying rational thought.

Context for this dissonance? A spine conference in San Francisco, California.

Pieces of the puzzle:

Monday;

·      Molly and I flew in for symposium taking place the next day; had dinner with a colleague, tucked into a comfortable bed – capping the day.  While I worked, she would spend time with a friend.

Tuesday:

·      A 20 minute walk at 6AM – still a little dark – to the convention hotel, passing any number of homeless people sleeping in doorways of shops and restaurants…their days not yet begun following the exhaustion of a wandering day, resigning themselves to the potentially dangerous exposure of sleeping in the open.  

·      Meet with the pre-course presenting team for breakfast at the Marriott – a lovely buffet, costing somewhere north of $27.00 each.  Our time was collegial and had the ‘feeling’ of a group of athletes readying for the game.  We headed for the convention Center around 7:15, just as some of those homeless folk were pulling the blankets off their heads and shaking out the cobwebs and discomfort of having spent the night on a concrete bed.

·      Pre-course: Well done, with each of the speakers providing some of the best presentations I have heard in their areas of expertise.  It was a privilege to work with and learn from them.

·      The afternoon: Rented a car and took the invited speakers to the giant Sequoia trees of Muir Woods, one of the most spiritually peaceful places I know on the planet.  These trees can top 200 feet (90m), some having diameters of greater than 20 feet (9m) and life spans of more than 1,500 years.  While these folk had traveled extensively around the world, and seen many things, these trees…these ancient living creatures…took their breaths away.  It was a lovely day…for us.

·      Dinner:  The Spinnaker Restaurant in Sausalito sitting on the shore facing San Francisco and the Bay Bridge, arriving just as the sun moved below the Western Horizon…that magic time of the day when all things seem to soften around the edges, drifting slowly out of sight as they take on the mystery of the ‘present yet concealed’ veil of darkness.  We had a corner table windowed on both sides.  As the cosmos turned down the lights all around, the City across the bay turned its lights on, providing the sense that two great invisible hands simultaneously dialed the previously illuminated sky down and the city’s candles up!

·      Over a fillet of Sole dinner, I wondered how those folks tucking into their concrete beds were doing…how often their souls been filleted by the time darkness ended their day.  I wondered if they had a ‘regular place’ or whether the storefront hotels were first come first serve… “By the time I got to Phoenix…,” I mean ‘my hotel’ I was tired and as I passed by some of them tucked in for the night – they were “…sleeping…”

Wednesday:

·      Morning: Same walk, but no early schedule, so it was a little later start to the day.  Attended the presentations I was interested in, met an old friend and colleague from Columbia, Missouri.  I had brought him my new book: ‘life in small bites – moments in time’ to give to Garth Russell, the surgeon who brought me into the world of orthopedics in the late 80s, and without whom, the last 26 years of my life would have been very different indeed. John took the book. It was a small thing, a token really to remind Russell how important he had been in my life, and if he could appreciate it, the love I felt for him.

·      Lunch:  Last month, I spoke for a spine meeting in Singapore and met an orthopedic surgeon from San Francisco.   She and I bumped into each other the Tuesday morning, and agreed we should find a little time.  By this day, with a little schedule adjustment, we had lunch.  You know how it is when you meet someone with whom you resonate almost immediately?  This happened to the two of us, and our lunchtime chatter was as though we had been doing it for decades…a lovely way to finish a productive morning!

·      The afternoon:  Meeting and meetings…

·      The evening: We met our friends Paul and Monica from Atlanta.  This orthopedist and his wife are two of the more remarkable people I know.  We don’t see one another as often as we would like, but when we do, the hazy mists of time evaporate as we squeeze all the love we can out of one another, and as has been the case almost from the moment we met, we did it once again!

·      The day had been long; fulfilling and I knew where I would be sleeping.

Thursday:

·      Morning:  Early morning breakfast again at the Marriott again with the team. One of our invited faculty members from Great Britain had not been able to make the pre-course, so we ‘huddled up’ again to welcome her and discuss the symposium they would be presenting the following morning.

·      The day: Busy…with lunch sponsored by a journal for which I am an associate editor, and a board meeting for a new foundation established by the larger organization.  The Editor in Chief, an orthopedic surgeon from Stanford, uncharacteristically, did not make the Journal luncheon.  He is a Vietnam veteran, and as an adult, an Iraqi trauma surgery veteran as well. On his way to the luncheon, he came upon an accident, so horrific he later told me, that it was like treating battle injuries.  Missing the journal luncheon??  ‘Pale by comparison’ would be the grossest of understatements.  There are few I have met as humble, brilliant and heroic as this man.  Someone still has family because this ‘Samaritan’ was on the road at the right time; the right place and the right skill set bringing all that he had and knew to save a life. 

·      The rest of the day, meetings and meetings, and by the evening, the week had ‘gotten long,’ so it was an early dinner and acceptance of the gift of the Gods…a restful night’s sleep, in the same place as the night before…

Friday

·      Morning:  Up at 4AM to catch an airport shuttle for an early flight – Molly to Tucson and temperatures in the 80s (mid 20s C); me for a week ending meeting in Syracuse, New York where temperatures would be in the low 30s (-1C) or high 20s (-2C) and possible, ah…snow.  The flight took the day, and sure enough, when it touched down, it was snowing with vigor!

·      The hotel was warm and comfortable, all of which had been pre-arranged.

An epilogue?

Here is the thing.  San Francisco is one of the most unique cities in this country.  There really isn’t anything like it anywhere on the American Continents – North or South.  I have been coming here for 25 years and look forward to it every single time, but once here cannot help being struck by the astonishing contrasts that confront one almost moment by moment. 

Money and poverty…Brilliance and ignorance…all of it existing side by side and all of it coming at a pace that is hard to embrace and hard to ignore.

When I think of the things that happened this week…papers…people – old and new, the food…the sense of wonder at the long lived trees of Muir Woods and the beauty of the city shining across the waters set against a darkening evening sky, I am touched by the fortune of my life and appreciation for each experience…every single one of them.

And yet, it is hard to disregard all of this happens on the broader canvass with stark images of poverty…and fear…and helplessness for those less fortunate…wandering and wondering – through the concrete jungles of their lives, like hunter gathers of old – what the day will bring for them, and maybe as importantly…the night.

This, of course, is not unique as it is common in all big cities.  I have seen it everywhere I have traveled.  Maybe it is so notable here because there is so much beauty…maybe it is because there it is such a broad mix of energetic culture…maybe it is because I have not stayed here long enough at any time for it to become routine…I am uncertain.  BUT when I am here, the contrasts grab my attention in ways other places do not.

It is written in the scripture: “Wisdom is the principle thing, therefore get wisdom, but with all thy getting, get understanding.”  I hope, the journey upon which I have spent my life has brought me some wisdom, but understanding? 

As the Queen of Hearts said to Alice, "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"  

Getting somewhere in life and understanding it…well, that is a different Kettle of Sole…

- ted

Our life is a vapor...

“See her how she flies golden sails across the sky

Close enough to touch but careful if you try

Though she looks as warm as gold

The moon’s a harsh mistress

The moon can be so cold.”

- Jimmy Web: Song writer

The moon’s a harsh mistress

This time she had a gun, dramatically changing the dynamics.  You see, when you have a gun, AND the authorities get involved…all of it – and I mean all of it – takes on a life of its own.

There were a couple of police officers at the rear of her home when we left in the early morning to exercise.  By the time we returned, there were nearly 100, a SWAT team in full battle array carrying AR-15s, and the Bomb Squad…all focused on our friend hoping, in the end, she could be talked down.

You see, when you have a gun, AND the authorities get involved…all of it takes on a life of its own…

Another day…

The morning started like most.  Turn on the coffee, feed the cats, get a cup of coffee, sit and read for a while.

Actually, before the read, sometimes I check the overnight news headlines and emails to see what the coming day might be bringing.

To: my email in box - 6:04AM

“Ted, if I do not answer the door by late this afternoon, please feed the cats.” 

To: Alice 6:05AM

“I was just thinking of you…will do…”

Alice and I have known each other for a couple of years, but friends since arriving in our little Oro Valley neighborhood the last year.  She is a smart, thoughtful, engaging and richly deep person in her expression of thought – a retired administrator by trade, living what could be called an idyllic and genteel retirement.  A relative youngster in her mid sixties, her working life successes had allowed her to walk away early and with some comfort. 

She is a Buddhist and has found a ‘place’ in the universe that is gratifying when we ‘close the outside doors’ and jump into one another’s minds to see what the ‘collective’ might discover.  Winding through the chasms and ‘blue highways’ of her knowledgeable wealth has always been a delight.  I have not engaged her once, and not felt the benefit of her gifts and wisdom.

She is a small woman…slight of stature, with greyish hair that hangs a little more than halfway to her shoulders.  When engaged, her bright eyes sparkle with focus and interest. 

Alice is a private person, who lets you ‘in’ on her terms and does so without apology.  Sometimes people, careful about access to their lives, come across abrupt and unfriendly.  Not so Alice.  She just has that kind of aura that says, “I have worked hard to create a world in which I feel safe and comfortable.   This is the way I most easily manage the “…doors of perception…” in my life.  It doesn’t mean I don’t like or want to be around you, I just like to take life in small bites…"

I love that about her!

The three of us – Molly, Alice and I – have a relaxed relationship; one of easy acceptance.  She is a cat lover, and as it turned out an avid sports enthusiast.  When the sport conversations begin between the girls, I slip into a ‘different room,’ for in that arena, by comparison, I am a rank amateur.

Alice has had Meniere’s disease for the last 6 years or so.  It is an ailment of the inner ear that causes extreme dizziness, often accompanied with hearing loss, ringing in the ears and sometimes pressure.  In her case, the pressure manifests as pain…strong and unrelenting pain.

Finally, last month, it was too much and she took an overdose of potent medication with the intent of ending her pain AND her life…or so it seemed, but uncharacteristically she left her garage door open and front door unlocked, sending a small alarm through this neighbor friendly community.  We got to her in time and she survived.

Out of the hospital for a little better than a week, she was doing pretty well.  We had, as usual, a long open ended chat a couple of days ago and a short one yesterday.  No hint – no warning.

My inbox: “Ted, if I do not answer the door by late this afternoon, please feed the cats.” 

This morning after her email, she made a call to the local crisis hotline; that triggered the police interdiction protocol, and probably saved her life.  It took several hours before she ‘gave it up’ and was taken to the hospital for a minimum 96-hour hold.  You see, it is not against the law to take your own life…I mean, what IS the punishment??

This is not the first friend who contacted me when it looked like it was the end of the road for them.  It has happened a time or two…one survived and has carried on, as far as I can tell, a productive and healthy life…one did not.

A time for thought…

I have spent a good part of the day thinking about this against the tapestry of the final three years or so of my mother’s life – a brilliant, thoughtful, compassionate caring person – caught in the ever-darkening prison of Alzheimer’s disease. 

I also watched as my younger sister, the brightest and best of our family, slowly strangle…each breath more labored…in the throes of early onset Alzheimer’s until she died in the most undignified way, while we stood in sorrowful impotence, quietly to the end.

The miracles of modern medicine?  It is hard for me to imagine a more cruel and merciless way for these women to end their journey. 

I have heard the arguments for the sanctity of human life…for letting the ‘will of God’ take its course…hell, I have made them myself…yet over the years, these words have rung more and more hollow. 

It seemed so easy to advise and pontificate about the value of ‘climbing the rope’ to the very end.  It seemed so easy until I was on that rope…so easy until I was uncertain what to do…until I watched in horror as two women, one of whom brought me to life and the other who knew me better than any living creature…watching like a guard over the prison of the condemned awaiting their execution. 

But you see, there was NO EXECUTION!  There was only the agonizing and unrelenting, breath and life taking experience of waiting…waiting…waiting until every good and gracious characteristic was stolen with the painfully slow ‘skin stripping’ of death’s gravitational pull…pulled to and from their very last breaths!

The neighborhood…

“This time she had a gun, dramatically changing the dynamics.  You see, when you have a gun, AND the authorities get involved…all of it – and I mean all of it – takes on a life of its own….”

Alice?  I cannot say into what dark place she found herself hopelessly huddled as she twice contemplated the end of her journey.  I can’t even say it was a dark place…I am no jury…I am no judge. 

I can and will say this.

When she returns home, I (we) will continue to love and support her as long as she is with us.  If it is a long time, I will no doubt be the beneficiary of this bright and articulate woman’s mind. 

If it is not a long time, I will take consolation in the moments we shared and as God IS MY WITNESS I will not blame her for decisions she makes or thoughts to which I am not privy nor understand, nor will I feel guilty that my voice or the voices of others were not enough to make a difference.

After all…she is a private woman and she is my friend.

- ted