Walt,
Just as diet got simple for me over time, so the skilled relaxation goes. The struggle with thoughts has abated (especially since I made a deal with the voice who demands I write). I search for a common way to share my experience.
At first, the waves, the pulses of sensation rising in me while meditating were strange and almost anxiety provoking until I realized it was the sensation of deep relaxation. And I repeat from an earlier post (duh) (blush). This feeling awoke long buried and stifled feelings of love and seemed to open me to re-experience that feeling and deal with some issues in my life. That has been good for me, and I can see how individual these issues that come, and how each person will no doubt get different stuff.
How to get to and maintain a relaxed state is what interests me now. I am getting pretty good at it. I have found that you are right about there being many ways to approach it. As you said, different strokes…… In addition, I notice that I have used different approaches on different sittings, depending on what works at the time.
Where I need to get is to what I would call a diffuse focus, a concentrated surrender. Now, those sound like incompatible terms, and I guess that’s right. But when I get there, I am suddenly (and it does seem sudden) aware of my entire body all at once. There is a heaviness and a tingling throughout my body, and that rising feeling of relaxation seems like it will cause my body to start vibrating. It is difficult to hold. Air releases from my stomach, my hands flush, and my head, neck, and face feel like they are wrapped like a mummy. (Must be tense musculature). In order to keep myself in this place or to deepen the experience I have to use a kind of relaxed control that I can only describe as like when you try to stick your finger down your throat and hold it there. Yes, it is like resisting the gag reflex, only in this case the gag is, what, the return of entire body bracing? Meticulous control of my breathing is of the most help at this stage.
In a way, it is no wonder to me that GERD and LGS occur as a result of bracing, or that bracing is at the root. Like we can’t stomach it or can’t swallow it anymore.
Jim
In Reply to: Gag Me posted by Jim on February 02, 1998 at 09:18:33:
Interesting post Jim - Thanks.
I'm just starting skilled relaxation, so it is great to hear of other's successes.
Peter
In Reply to: Gag Me posted by Jim on February 02, 1998 at 09:18:33:
Der Jim,
It is SUCH a joy for me to have you share your experiences with this wonderful journey. I just hope others are listening.
You have even mentioned something I have hesitated to share with the BB for the concern that they already think me too far out. There is a whole science of the symbolic "brain thinking" behind many chronic conditions. The brain is VERY literal with its symbology linked to many chronic symptoms.
For example, I have seen people with pain and weakness in their legs (No other professionals could figure this out--they concluded that it was all in the person's head, which was true. However, they gave the individual no help in understanding why.) who turned out to be facing something "they just could no longer STAND" in their lives. In one case this had progressed to being wheelchair bound. Once they dealt with the symbolic problem, they threw away their wheelchairs & were symptom free.
Other cases of chronic diarrhea that resolved when they dealt with the "thing" in their life that made them think "oh, s--t". Or others whose itchy rash cleared up when the situation in their life that made them feel like their skin was crawling was dealt with.
I could go on for pages about this. I am grateful to you for having brought it up. Testimonials go much further than anything I can say.
I hope you are saving all this for your book. Just think how many people you could help with this difficult, though wonderful, transition!
Namaste` Walt
In Reply to: Re: Gag Me posted by Walt Stoll on February 04, 1998 at 11:27:43:
First off - Jim THANKS for your posts. I've re-read a number of them just for the pleasure of your writing style.
Walt,
I read your article in the International Electronic Journal of Health Education and enjoyed it very much. It made me think a great deal about our use of language ("health" as a static state vs. "Healthy Behaviour" as a dynamic process). Another example is the relative level of comfort users of this BB feel when addressing you as "Walt" vs "Dr. Stoll". I know it is a very conscious decision for me each time I post to this board. There are many messages conveyed here, but that will have to wait for another post.
When I looked at the table on the relative effectiveness of different types of treatment I saw psychotherapy way down on the effectiveness scale, while things such as eliminating sugar, wheat and milk way up there.
You mentioned dealing with the symbolism of our symptoms (wow - those words look very similar!). Perhaps therapeutic approaches that work on this level would be more effective.
Is this some of the theory behind NLP?
Just some random ideas that I felt a need to share.
Peter
Dear Walt,
Here is a quote that popped up in my mail this morning. I thought might belong around here somewhere.
Peace Pilgrim 190? - 1981
On the anger habit: Do not suppress it-that would hurt you inside. Do not express it-this would not only hurt you inside, it would cause ripples in your surroundings. What you do is transform it.
Also noteworthy: Did you see that Ornish has come out with a book on the healing power of love. I can hear the murmurs around the MD campfire. He's dancing on the edge.
Jim
Walt,
I will post my answer on the top of the main board. We are at the end of a very long strand that will be missed by those who don't read the daily posts by "search" or scroll back to October.
Jim
Walt,
If I have only one guess to your question about when the most heart atacks happen, my guess is Monday morning, 5:00 AM is the best time for a heart attack. Who wants to go to work!!
This last summer, I found your board after using the Internet to guide me through several diet/health regimens. For instance, I sought out information on Adkins when I did the high protein thing. I lost weight and felt better on it for a time, and I think that had to do with cutting carbs more than anything else. After a time I just couldn’t eat that much meat anymore. It was monotonous. I found Ornish and began his recommendations. That was a complete turn-around with his no cholesterol/meat aspect. I lost more weight and felt pretty well doing that too.
Before the Internet (B.C., A.D., and now B.I.) I hooked up with the Fit for Life through reading, and had some isolated, temporary good results with that. I suppose the lack of skilled relaxation undermined that effort. Of course, anyone with CSR would suffer from all the fruit he recommends. If someone is healthy, it is probably a good thing.
When I began to read the board in July, I started being to put things together. In the past I had run marathons, practiced yoga, tai chi, and even hung out at the Self-Realization Fellowship for a time. After all, I am from California where all this is considered acceptable to do, or talk about as if you do. The thing is, I never put all this stuff together at the same time. Also, my LGS symptoms were in their infancy, so hey, I could run fifteen miles around Mission Bay and then gorge on pizza and beer with the best of them.
By the time I read your board this summer I was a mass of symptoms. In the last eight years of my life, I went from an always healthy guy who could pretty much live however he wanted and get away with it (as far as I could tell at the time) to a depressed, chronically sick, downhill sliding specimen of a worrywart. I just figured that, for me, aging was genetically timed to happen sooner than in others. Doctors surely didn’t have anything for me, and I surly made the rounds.
As I scanned down the posts I was confused by all the abbreviations and the strange sounding diseases. I was astounded by the fact that you were responding to everybody. Other boards around are filled with bantering by the uneducated, the blind leading the double blind. And lots of requests for "email me, we’ll talk." Misery loves company. Occasionally the expert sponsor of the board would come on and expound on some topic that was hot on the board. Nowhere did I find a board where someone responded to everybody, even book reports (which I’m fond of answering). Of course, I stopped looking after I got here, so maybe there are others.
After hours of reading, I began to find MYSELF in the posts. I could to piece together experiences and symptoms in my life that I thought were isolated, and I started to see my downward spiral as a long and connected set of circumstances. I became aware of the chronic disease process, the concepts of wellness and immunity, and as a by-product, I was able to see the disaster that is the medical establishment. I feel a heart ache over that. I have know a good number of physicians on a personal level, and many have confided to me their feelings of helplessness at what they see every day, and their struggle to remain human and caring amidst demanding and desperate patients and a money driven system. It is no mystery to me why the suicide and drug abuse rates are so high among physicians. I know there are those with less conscience, but I choose my friends carefully, so I didn’t know what the insensitive and sinister ones might be thinking. Your experiences in KY, Walt, have given me an idea of what that thinking is, and what the effect is on our lives.
Having fiddled around with so much of what you advocate (and that’s just what it was, fiddling around, when I wasn’t really sick yet, just playing at it ‘cause it was co
In Reply to: Re: Love and anger and the best time for a heart attack. posted by Jim on February 12, 1998 at 07:09:16:
Walt: I think this would make a good forward in your
next book. It's what we all have to go through. Martha
In Reply to: Re: Love and anger and the best time for a heart attack. posted by Jim on February 12, 1998 at 07:09:16:
Dear Walt,
The idea that those around us seem to improve was meant as a joke, not a laughing joke, but a knowing, twinkle in the eyes, good natured, joyfully self-effacing, nudge, nudge, wink, wink kind of joke. What I meant was, as my health improved, so did my outlook. My increased vitality was reflected in those around me. The psychologically minded will point out that this is known as projection. It is a wistful and bittersweet humor to realize that your friends are the same, but your appreciation has been off somewhere supervising and maintaining a checklist of the reasons why life is so miserable. Bittersweet, because you realize you have missed much while you were away, and because along with your renewed admiration of your friends, find worry for them and their health.
That’s an interesting word, "outlook," because that describes what actually takes place. One begins to look outward when no longer forced to constantly focus on aches and pains. And it is so much more than aches and pains. It is more like having one’s total being drawn inward to a black hole of mind numbing self-consciousness.
You remind us often, Walt, that the body is sending us a message. The only thing that impresses me more than the body’s ability to "ring our bell," is our insistence on ignoring it for so long. The body always wins. No, that’s not right, is it? To think of it as winning and losing leads off to an irrelevant place. That takes us to experiencing the body as separate. But, any time we ignore our bodies or respond incorrectly, regardless whether it is from pride or ignorance, the reaction from that part of us we know as our bodies is taken to a new level. Whatever we have used to avoid the "call," whether, aspirin, ginger, alcohol, or any other form of denial, is rendered ineffective. If we continue to replace it with something else, of course, the body eventually becomes incurably ill, and we die.
I suppose what’s why we think of it as winning and losing. We think of living as winning and dying as losing. But, if dying is losing, then life becomes a whole game of unsuccessfully trying to avoid the inevitability of losing. We can’t win, so we fill our lives and bodies with stuff, material stuff, psychological stuff, foodstuff, pleasure stuff, achievement stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff. (Maybe this is more of what you have called "symbolic brain thinking," Walt. "Stuffy" noses).
I’ll bet you can see where this is heading. If dying isn’t losing, then life is part of a spiritual trip. I have skipped a whole bunch here, but it is almost my stepping off place. So maybe our health problems are rooted in ignorance about the reality of life. That is an opinion. It is my stepping off place here because we have had many great inspired spiritual sages whose job it has been to report, throughout the ages, the fact that life is really prelude. The ultimate call of the body is to a temple, I think. That is the bell we originally ignored.
If we do not hear the lovely bells, we get the iron rod in the triangle at the round-up. If we ignore that, we get trash can lids banged together. If we ignore that, we get a trash can lid on the head, as so on. Pretty soon we’re IN the trash can.
This is where I reach my limits. I love an old, I don’t know what you would call it. Asian in origin, and I’m doing it for memory here, because I don’t know where to look for it, but it goes something like this:
The temple bells are silent now, but I can hear them in chiming in the flowers around me.
Namaste’
Jim
In Reply to: Re: Love and anger and the best time for a heart attack. posted by Jim on February 12, 1998 at 07:09:16:
Dear Jim,
Your posts are so perfect that I have found myself hoping, every day as I sign on, that "Jim posted today."
I hope you are saving all your stuff that you have posted so far so you can just combine it into a book someday. I don't think you realize how much you are helping this BB help others.
Regarding the heart attack guess: you got it in one!
I have tried, for more than 20 years, to figure out the best way to open doors for people. The best I have come up with so far is what I am doing with my book and here on the BB. I KNOW it sounds simple WHEN IT IS NOT. However, I have tried to tell the whole story in the beginning and most peoples' eyes glaze up before I get to the end of the first page.
I now have had to realize, humbly, that all I can do IS open the door and the person has to walk through. The further they get through the door, the more of the goodies they will find as they walk down the path. Each "goodie" has to be found, picked up and examined. Once the goodie is recognized, THEN the real work begins.
The only reason this works at all is that, by trying the simplistic part of this, people find that they feel better. It is THAT realization that gives them the energy to continue down the path--which does not end until we pass on to the next level of existance.
You say all this much better than I can. I am counting my blessings for your continuing to expose us to your wisdom and communication skills here on this humble BB.
NAMASTE` Walt
In Reply to: Re: Love and anger and temple bells posted by Jim on February 14, 1998 at 08:18:37:
Dear Jim,
I understood completely what you meant. As a matter of fact, I routinely used to warn people about this phenomenon when I got them started toward wellness in my centre in KY.
They would come to me saying that they just had to quit their job, get a divorce, move to Mexico, etc., etc. They just couldn't take it any more.
Knowing that any of those choices would greatly increase their stresses, at least at first, I would tell them to wait till they started feeling better before taking that step. Even though they may eventually find that the step WAS necessary, they would be much more capable of getting through the stress of such a big change if they were healthier.
BESIDES, the boss (wife/husband, etc.) that was intolerable yesterday would, somehow, not seem to be so bad next month. S/he had not changed, the patient HAD! S/he was no longer living so close to the "edge of his/her cliff" & so was not overreacting to everything. Sound familiar from the book????
I appreciate your clarifying it because, though I had experienced it with MANY patients, this might not have been so familiar to many of the BB participants.
Thanks, Walt
In Reply to: Re: Love and anger and the best time for a heart attack. posted by Walt Stoll on February 14, 1998 at 09:57:06:
Dear Walt,
Thank you for your kind words and encouragement. I want you to know I am listening to the Health Coach. The document that contains the correspondences I have had with you and others here on the board is up to thirty single spaced pages for the last six weeks. That was a bit of a surprise.
I have been following your advice regarding my health, despite the misgivings and uncertainty at the beginning, so I’ll do with the writing as the Health Coach suggests, and we’ll see what happens. Maybe there’ll be some goodies that will come out of the writing as well. It surely is pleasurable to write about what you care about. Makes me wonder what Kyra's up to.
Final Valentine’s day words from a folk song some 30 years ago.
May the long time sun shine on you
All love surround you
And the pure light within you
Guide you all the way on
Jim
In Reply to: Re: Love and goodies posted by Jim on February 14, 1998 at 22:39:46:
Dear Jim,
OK, i'll rise to the bait! me, i haven't succeeded in eliminating my ego just yet...what Kyra's been up to lately is doggedly pursuing the healing path, among other things. Every day i wake up by 6AM and attempt to meditate before my 3 year old son bashes his way into my morning existence (the 6 1/2 year old son unit can blissfully sleep until 9, but...), and before the cat with a brain the size of a walnut not exactly gracefully leaps up onto the bed in search of crunchies. My husband usually sleeps through it all. So, approximately 20 min. later, revived(?) by my spiritual teacher's meditation practice and and prayer and wondering if i've achieved anything resembling alpha state (the cat is ALWAYS in alpha state--did someone say a similar thing about their animal companion in an earlier posting?), i'm off and runnning, relatively speaking. i stagger into the kitchen and THE DAY BEGINS (loud trumpet fanfare at this juncture). Kid duty. Husband duty. Check the e-mail early before the server is overloaded. Consider the exigencies of what to feed Kyra for the day, and how to avoid the seductive call of the cheese demon. Nuke a large cup of rice milk with nutmeg. (The label doesn't indicate that the rice milk contains any added rice syrup, but i enjoy the stuff too much. So, rice milk's probably off the politically correct list. Have to check that one out further. Organic brown rice and vegies (except for nightshades) and spices and to a minimal extent, salt, are pretty much it these days vis a vis grub. Do nystatin powder orally 4X a day. Give myself magnesium sulfate injections 2-3X a week, which can be quite a sight in the bathroom mirror when the phone rings per Murphy's Law and i've got a syringe hanging out of one glute or the other. Have gone through 5 sessions of Rolfing. Love the stuff. To me it feels just like what the ideal deep-tissue massage should be like. i'm standing up straighter, breathing deeper, and starting to relax. Am also doing craniosacral therapy, which given the vagaries of my skull, distorted a bit by a navel orange-sized benign brain tumor 10 years ago, is producing more effective and lasting deep relaxation than does deep-tissue massage. Oh yeah, the 12-14 grams of esterified C a day (keeps things moving), and a 100 mg balanced B complex cap daily. Broke down once over the course of a month and ate sugar. Cupcake. Cookie. Ancient chocolate which only the truly desperate can find. True confessions of a sugar addict are so cathartic...anyway, i paid. Didn't beat myself up about it though. A good sign for a compulsive perfectionist. Just accepted the fact that i was ovulating, and when i ovulate, the refined sugar monster rears its head. May just have to fast during ovulation to bypass the craving. Dysautonomia. Plagiocephaly. LGS and C-RS. Anxiety. Tachycardia. All descriptive words, but not death sentences. My motivation to heal is too strong. My body is a pretty good temple, after all, and the world is a wonderful place. Question of the moment that's absorbing
me: do bacteria have sentient consciousness, and as such can they experience a sense of altruism? So, the day goes on. Second session of skilled relaxation is squeezed in, somehow. For me, it's more medidation. For a couple of months, i lost the ability to meditate. Now it's returning. Am noticing a subtle shift in my ability to stay in the present moment. My handwriting is changing. Have lost around 10 pounds. Husband Chris is requesting advise on spices for the squash soup...Gotta run!
Om namah Shivaya, Kyra
In Reply to: Re: Love and goodies posted by Kyra Kitts on February 15, 1998 at 22:23:09:
Dear Kyra,
OK, I admit to wanting to catch a glimpse of the catfish. What made me think of you was a topic that came up in my correspondence with Walt. We had touched on the issue of how life view changes as health improves. I have not forgotten your comments in your original posts about how you were feeling about your writing job and how you thought it might be contributing to your stress. I’m interested in knowing if your attitude has changed. Are you still writing copy? Is it any easier now? Do you ever write only because you want to? Choice of work and art are so connected to health, don’t you think?
So, that’s why I chummed the surface.
By the way, I want you to know that I, too, have known the "ancient chocolate." I found it in October, in the layers of sediment of the top drawer of my dresser where all things without a home go. I removed it with the care of an archeologist. It was a Hershisaur, probably from the Presucroseceous period. I carefully extracted it from its archaic golden foil, exposing the brittle fossilized innards. I sniffed at the mottled and faded remnant of the once soft and richly fragrant domino sized bar of pleasure, but could detect no odor, no essence of life. I considered sending it in for carbon dating, but instead I tossed it in my mouth where my saliva restored just enough of the original splendor to constitute a chocolate fix. Yes, I too have had my shameless moments. Those little candida varmints had a party that night.
And I’ve wondered about bacteria too. I think they’re gypsies. Sometimes at night I think I hear finger cymbals and accordions.
Vaya Candidos,
Jim
PS I think your sharing here on the board is valuable stuff. Your delightful style brings it to life for me, and I am sure, for the other readers as well.
In Reply to: Re: Love and goodies, and ancient chocolate posted by Jim on February 16, 1998 at 14:55:17:
Oops. I wrote my reply to you in three separate documents in Word, and this got left out when I did the cut and paste. It needs to be said. It goes right after, "So, that’s why I chummed the surface."
And you gave so much more than I had hoped. I loved the entertaining description of your day. I am in awe of you and others who are going on this journey with children (toddlers, no less) in the nest. My daughter has flown the coop, which makes it that much easier for me. All I have to worry about are overly playful dogs. I bow, I salute, you have my admiration.
In Reply to: Re: Love and goodies, and ancient chocolate posted by Jim on February 16, 1998 at 15:58:20:
Jim,
In signing off you said " Vaya candidos' or something like that.
It's Spanish. It's "Via con Dios" Literally "Go with God"
Just thought you might like to know.
Ron
In Reply to: Re: Love and goodies, and ancient chocolate posted by Ron on February 16, 1998 at 20:13:23:
Ron,
Thanks for pointing that out. It was a typo. It was supposed to be vaya candidas, not candidos. A little CSR joke. A pun. A bad one, maybe, but a pun.
Gracias,
Jim
In Reply to: Re: Love and goodies, and ancient chocolate posted by Jim on February 16, 1998 at 20:19:44:
There, see, I did it again, another typo. C.R.S.!!
A Man For All Reasons
Get me a surrogate, a robot, a clone,
who'll come in a minute whenever I phone;
I need a valet to help me get dressed,
to go in my place to be baptized and blessed;
To do all the things I don't want to do,
like handle my chores and self-discipline too;
To eat all the foods that I should eat,
and cut out the dairy, and flesh food, and wheat;
To go to the dentist while I go to dine,
and have his teeth pulled instead of mine;
To lift my weights and run my laps,
do my yoga and take my naps;
To meditate and learn to relax,
and send me my status by email or fax;
To grade my papers and teach my class,
change my oil and fill up my gas;
To iron my clothes and wash my dishes,
and carry out some of my kinkier wishes;
Like painting my toenails with rainbows and stars,
and give me tattoos to cover my scars;
To patch my plaster and seal my doors,
replace my washers, refinish my floors;
To make me a patio, paint my walls,
hang new pictures in my halls;
To pay my bills and figure my tax,
and give me massages to help me relax;
Write thank-you notes and clean my plate,
and do all the other things I hate;
To tuck me in, clean and well fed,
and wake me each morning with breakfast in bed;
To basically do every distasteful task,
I really don't think that's too much to ask.
Jim :}
In Reply to: A MAN FOR ALL REASONS posted by Jim on February 11, 1998 at 07:39:05:
I may be a woman
but with you I agree
why can't we find
a clone to do
the tasks that
with which we all disagree.
I admit I am luckier than most
I still get fed my breakfast in bed
however I cannot find
a suitable substitute
to exercise and eat the
way I should.
Alas c'est la vie
emphatically with you I agree.
Zarin
Dear Walt,
It isn’t only sharing about myself on the board that is helpful to me. As you know, I sporadically respond to first timers. In some strange way, I think I am healing myself when I write to them, especially when you and I sometimes get into these three way "things," (almost like "good cop/bad cop), like with Barbara.
I don’t feel compelled to defend you, though it may come off sounding that way. (I hope you caught my little joke about working for you) No, I think I am plumbing the depths of my own guerrilla resistance to wellness which I know lurks around inside me performing acts of sabotage and terrorism on symbolic targets of my best intentions. (Now there’s a mouthful!). Does it make sense to you when I say that I heal myself by communicating with others?
Jim
In Reply to: Good cop/bad cop posted by Jim on February 07, 1998 at 07:46:49:
Dear Jim,
Just like the best way to learn something is to teach it to others. I understand completely.
Namaste` Walt
In Reply to: Good cop/bad cop posted by Jim on February 07, 1998 at 07:46:49:
Jim,
I really appreciate your "communications". They are enjoyable to read and inspiring.
I agree with you 100%. For me the communicating with others is the process of evangalizing to some extent. If I can be clear with others about why I choose a whole food diet and don't eat meat then I feel stronger in continuing to do this. It is all still new to me so I am still torn at times.
Please keep posting!
Peter
Dear Walt,
Harlan is a rotund little old retired teacher who has been substituting at our school for all of the five years that I’ve been teaching there. He is a cheerfully ineffectual man who can’t really handle a class anymore, but he’s bailed us out of many a jam. Each year the chaos in his classrooms grows just a little, as do the unshaven patches that he misses on his face each morning, miniature inverted alien crop designs just below his jaw and around his ears. Mine was a condescending appreciation of the humor and pathos of Harlan, the character.
My awakening was of the slack-jawed variety. What fluke was it that drew me to the mirror with my half-eye reading glasses still on my nose? What was that earthquake I felt as I tilted my head back and glimpsed beneath the jaw of what I thought was my cleanly shaven face. What ear-ringing silence ensued when I gazed upon Harlanesque alien writing upon my very own face.......hieroglyphics in gray stubble. Was my unconscious, having crash landed upon my face, trying to reach me with these desperate signals. What message in the haphazard neglect of my blade?
So, I am Harlan, and Harlan is me. I thought I had accepted that, the whole aging thing. But, there I stood, a solitary myopic beachcomber, finding age spots, wrinkles, and joint pain, the flotsam and jetsam of an ebbing youth.
But there is comfort in being philosophical. It happens to all of us who live this long. As in the I Ching, there is no fault here. As in the NBA, no harm, no foul. And I can happily adapt and seek fulfillment in the spiritual. It’s the tinfoil that has me perplexed.
You see, I have learned many things in my years, and one of the least is that after nuking a potato, you should wrap it quickly in tin foil so it can continue to cook while insulated. I did this recently (and artfully, without burning my fingers, I might add). Then, standing over the kitchen drawer where such things are kept, I carefully folded the leftover tin foil and placed it neatly between the unused tin foil and the plastic wrap. Gazing down into the open drawer evoked Memories of my grandma’s kitchen drawers.
Everything that had even the remotest possibility of ever being useful was placed carefully in those drawers by Grandma, tucked and stacked carefully. There one could find foil, wax paper, rubber bands, bottles and lids, paper sacks, and, of course, many odd looking kitchen tools which have no use in our time, except to collect. But that’s another story. It’s the stuff used for wrapping and storing that I remembered mostly, and that I thought of as I looked down into my own drawer.
And I was a tower of age as I looked down upon my own act. There it was for me to behold, a folded piece of used foil tucked away for another day. What force of nature was unleashed in me that day? Is it a natural behavioral evolution that at a certain time of life we begin to conserve and hoard? Am I the vehicle for some timeless human instinct expressing itself in the modern world, or has some latent form of social hypnotism just got its wakeup call. Will I have an uncontrollable and unconscious urge soon to go out and purchase a coin purse like Grandpa had?
As I ponder these unknowables, I see my old cat hunkered down outside on the patio watching a dozen birds at the feeder. She lays in the shade of a chair, flattened to the cement in an attack posture. But age has increased the distance between her and the birds on the other side of the patio to a hopeless expanse. Her body twitches from ageless chemical impulses of the hunt, and her gaze is steely and intense. I watch as the power of the feline life force, triggered by the sight of those delicious feathered morsels that hop provocatively in front of her, misfires when it reaches her once powerful sinew. Her skin jumps, her tail whips back and forth, and then, slowly, she lowers her gaze, her eyes soften, and she begins to purr.
It reminds me of how I was at th
In Reply to: Harlan, Tin Foil, and the Cat posted by Jim on February 21, 1998 at 11:17:40:
Jim...I loved that! Thank you.
In Reply to: Harlan, Tin Foil, and the Cat posted by Jim on February 21, 1998 at 11:17:40:
Dear Jim,
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I have just had my "Jim fix" of the day.
Please do not think I am pushing you to publish. I promise you I will never do that. However I do hope that, somehow, these jewels of the soul become available to others in our human culture.
By the way, potatoes continue to cook even without contaminating them with the aluminum in the foil. I, too, save foil that is in pretty good shape (sigh).
Walt
In Reply to: Re: Harlan, Tin Foil, and the Cat posted by Walt Stoll on February 23, 1998 at 17:44:01:
Walt,
I told my wife about the aluminum contamination thing. She laughed, looked me up and down and said, "Yep, one potato too many!"
Jim