I’ve seen this before, but haven’t thought of it for a long time.
Very true.
Author: Jon
Re-Centering
A good friend of mine told me that my mother’s death would change me. He was right.
I’ve found that I’m re-prioritizing things in my life. I’m wanting to integrate into my life more of the things that I’ve neglected and strike a better balance. One of those areas is the body. Seeing death up close has reminded me that this body only lasts a relatively short time under the best of circumstances, and I’ve not been giving mine the best. So in addition to my semi-vegan diet, I’m exercising more, and I’m currently in training for a 5k run in early May. (Man, have I got a long way to go!)
But things are already progressing well. I now can run 1600 meters (that’s a mile for my fellow Americans) without pausing or feeling exhausted, and I’m getting a little bit closer to getting back into shape every day.
I’ve also become aware of how much of my life has been spent sitting on my butt in front of computer screens. I really want to reduce that a bit. I’m not talking about changing my work, but I might be talking about changing my play. Parkour, anyone? Of course, I know I’m not ready for that yet. (Emphasis on yet.)
Her Passing
My mom passed away Sunday evening. She had been hanging on, despite the fact that all of us had individually encouraged her to let go. However, when all three of us–my brother, father and myself–did so together, and assured her that nothing, not even death, can break our bond to her, she left quickly.
My brother and father had to take a phone call in another room, while I sat by her bed, held her hand and sang to her. While I was singing The Sloop John B., she quietly stopped breathing.
I want to go home
Just let me go home,
I feel so broke up,
I wanna go home.
Please keep my family in your prayers.
Thanks.
My Mom
My mother is dying. Although I try to be very personal and open on my blog, this is something I haven’t wanted to put out there till now. She’s been very sick for the better part of a year now, often in great pain, and in and out of the hospital several times. She’s made her wishes known that she wants to die naturally without artificial life support, and we’re respecting that. She’s coming home tomorrow.
I had the good fortune to visit her a week ago during her last, short recovery. We had some good times together and I am so grateful I had the chance to say goodbye while she was conscious and lucid. But just four days later, things changed dramatically. The doctors today said she probably has less than a week.
If this request resonates with you, please pray for my mom, Corrinne, that her transition may be painless. And also please pray for my dad, Lloyd, and my brother, Bob, and myself. This is a difficult time. Thank you.
My Vegan Trial
Today is the last day of a 21-day trial of a vegan diet. Overall, it was far easier and more satisfying than I expected it to be. In fact, there was only one day in which I was really disapponited I couldn’t eat something non-vegan; that was my boss brought in some delicious muffins his fiancée made.
Why did I do this? I needed to change some things in my life desperately. I began the year with a diagnosis of high blood pressure, high triglycerides, and high LDL cholesterol. I’ve been obese for many years now. I need to change and obviously, everything that I’d tried before wasn’t working.
I can verify that I’ve lost six pounds, and that my blood pressure has gone down significantly, and I expect that the other numbers have as well. My energy has been higher, my thinking clearer, and I’ve had less a tendency to “crash” when I get home after work.
Besides health, another thing that interested me in a vegan diet are the environmental benefits. The overwhelming amount of grain grown in the world (not just the US) is fed to livestock. If you think that beef cows graze grass on farmer Jone’s ranch, the reality has been quite different for a long time. I’ve known that the deforestation of the Amazon has been caused by farmers burning trees to create more farmland, but I didn’t know until recently that that great rainforest is being burned mostly to grow grain for beef cows.
In 2006 a United Nations study affirmed that raising livestock for food contributes to massive deforestation and climate change. If the existing farmland of the world were re-purposed to feed humans instead of cows, pigs, and poultry, not only would be there far more food than we need, but we’d soon be converting vast quantities of it back to its natural state.
So, am I going to stay vegan from now on? Probably not in the strictest sense. I’m not an absolutist. I might have some dairy now and then, fish from time to time, and meat occasionally. But I’ve no doubt that my daily meat and dairy habit is over, and good riddance. I feel better than I have in a long time.
Buddy
Last Monday, I lost Buddy. Apparently he was jumping from a tall wooden fence, caught his paw on a shorter, chain-link fence, lost his balance and broke his neck. I’m certain I found him only a few minutes after he fell.
Other than a instant of having a cut paw, I don’t think he felt any pain. I, on the other hand, felt quite a bit.
Simply put, it tore my heart out to lose him. I cried a river the night I found him, and when I buried him the next day. But even though he’d be alive still if I hadn’t start letting him out six weeks earlier, I know I made the right decision. The last six weeks of his short life were simply packed with joy.
Buddy
Remember when you came to me,
Barely more than a kitten?Remember when you were at first frightened
of the big black cat in your new home?
And how soon you became friends and brothers?Remember your aikido matches on the living room rug?
Your daily lessons with Talbot,
Throwing you as you’d try to lunge at him unseen?
You a white blur, him, a black,
together a yin and yang of fun and fight.Remember how you enjoyed sleeping next to me
And telling me that when the sun comes up,
I should too?Remember the massages I gave you when I came home?
Kneading the loose skin between your shoulders,
putting my hand on your back
and beaming all the love in the world to you?Remember discovering how wonderfully warm a seat
my monitor was,
with the benefit of putting you in petting reach
while I surfed the Web?Remember rocketing and ricocheting from room to room,
inviting Talbot and me to the chase?Remember watching the great outdoors on the windowsill with Talbot?
Remember when you decided to seize your freedom
by breaking the window screens?Remember the first time I let you run and play outside?
How I told you to be careful? How worried I was?Remember jumping and landing vertical on tree trunks?
Remember the food you killed and brought home to me?
Four squirrels and a pigeon, Buddy, mighty hunter.Remember how the neighbors laughed
to see you come running at my call?Remember when you were kidnapped by a do-gooder
who thought you were lost?Remember how you left, jumping off a fence, and onto a cloud?
I will never forget.
Bonan nokton, mia kara katetĉjo.
Freedom!
After about 25 years of caffeine addiction (and the last 20 of those specifically Diet Pepsi addiction), I’m finally free. Free from caffeine, free from artificial sweeteners.
Hallelujah!
I’ve tried many times over the years to quit, but this time I succeeded. I used Newton Homeopathic’s Caffeine Addiction tablets, and have only had one episode of the dreaded withdrawal headache. More may come, but I’m ready for it if they do.
I imagine that I used to spend more than $1000 a year on Diet Pepsi, not to mention other caffeine sources, like chocolate. It’ll be great to have that extra money in my pocket, and the extra chemicals NOT in my brain.
Pride
I’ve often written about the illusoriness of the thing called country. Be that as it may, this morning I feel more proud of my country, and more proud to be an American, than I have in decades.
Unwanted Gift
Buddy just killed a squirrel for me and left it by my back door.
Well, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the gesture… Thank you.
And yuck!
RockOm, Part Deux
This is another shameless plug for RockOm.net, a site that my partners and I are continuing to develop. I’m writing this, because if you like what you read at frimmin.com, I’m certain that you’ll love what you can read (and listen to!) at RockOm.net. RockOm is not a mere blog, but a developing social network, focused on exploring the whole realm where spirituality and music intersect, with all musics and all spiritualities, questings and questionings included.
If that sounds like big territory, it is. Our premier issue included interviews with musical personalities as diverse as Grammy-winning Christian bluegrass artist Ricky Skaggs, to Hindu kirtan performer Krishna Das.
Trevor Harden and Tommy Crenshaw recently finished a coast-to-coast trip to gather more interviews with amazing performers with penetrating insights into the human condition. But, course, we don’t let national borders stop us either. We’ve Skyped across the ocean to interview Joseph Rowe, translator of dozens of books (including The Gospel of Thomas) and an exceptional musician with an emphasis on Sufi music, and we’ll do more to bring together musicians from around the world.
Some of RO’s features current features:
- RockOm blog: Near-daily new content ranging from music and artists, to questions and musings
- RockOm podcast: a weekly in-depth interview with some of the most interesting and insightful musicians alive
- Featured Track of the Week: An exciting new track every week available to listen to from one of our guest artists
- Featured Articles: Transcriptions and photographs from our interviews,
- RockOm Forum: The heart of the RockOm community, where we discuss anything and everything.
Following RockOm is easy. Subscribe to our RSS feed to have our blog posts come right into your feed reader. And it’s easy to add the RO podcast feed to your iTunes or any other MP3 player, by following the links on RockOm’s home page. You can also follow RockOm on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Very soon we’ll be adding the RockOm store, offering compilation disks of music from our guest artists, and later on, group pages and other features that will further develop the social network aspects of RockOm.
Now another reason I’m writing: We need your help to continue to grow RockOm and realize our vision. Not money, but support. If you like RO, please help us get the word out.
Do you have friends who are interested in music with a message? Tell them about RockOm. Do you have a blog or site of your own? Please consider adding a link to http://rockom.net. Also, we’d love for you to submit a post for the RockOm blog.
Do any of the songs, podcasts or posts strike a chord? Or not? Agree? Disagree? Tell us about it in the RockOm forums.
Finally, we appreciate your prayers, intentions and wishes for our continued growth and success. Thanks, and RockOm!