“A people that values its privileges above
its principles, soon loses both.”
-
Dwight D.
Eisenhower
34th 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…
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