Florida Breakfast....Nov. 21, 2013

Sitting in my sister's screened patio, delray beach, Fl. reading the Sun Sentinal newspaper and keeping an eye out for lizards.

Choice Overload

Landed in Fort Lauderdale yesterday. Situating my mum in Florida requires my immediate attention. After that I will figure out where I am, what to see, where to go, where to stay, how to get there, and how to pay for it all. Other than that this trip is well planned.

Reflections on Cumber

In the early seventies I worked for two years at the Seattle Goodwill sifting, transporting, trashing, and shuttling around people's donations. This was my first encounter with cumber. 

About that time I became a Christian and read with fascination the New Testament admonition to "put off all encumbrances and things which hinder growth."

After my father's death in the mid 2000's my grief was seasoned with existential angst while disposing of his estate. We hired an auctioneer to sell off his accumulated treasures. The PR was lousy and so was the turn out. Consequently only a handful of buyers showed up and they bought my dad's beloved hand tools, power tools, furniture, paintings, hand made tables, and a thousand other oddments for pennies on the dollar. I shook my head in Ecclesiastes-like lament as truckloads of his beloved possessions were hauled off by strangers drunk with glee at their good fortune. I imagined their kids someday hiring an auctioneer to get rid of all that stuff which would be an encumbrance to them.

In helping my mother downsize for a move to Florida I had opportunity to witness her goodbyes to many of her beloved books. She wisely kept saying, "I can't keep everything" so we sent many titles, along with boxes and boxes of housewares and other miscellaneous items, to the Goodwill. Her cumber is now creating jobs for the disabled.

I muse on this as I pack for my journey. How much cumber do I need? Part of me wishes I could travel armed with only a book and a credit card. But I also need a cell phone. And comfortable walking shoes. And sun glasses. And toothbrush. And, and, and. 

Like it or not, I gotta have my stuff. Which brings me to this oft repeated but still funny bit from Manhattanite and former Roman Catholic, George Carlin.

Things That Blow My Mind

The thought of visiting world renowned museums in NYC makes me quiver with delight. I'm easily awed and I predict this art trip is going to be full of awe. It blows my mind that "awful" has such negative connotations.

In going through my mother's books (her hobby was collecting and reading non fiction), I discovered that one of her favorite authors, the Quaker mystic and religious guru of the 1800's, Hanna Whithall Smith, was a mother in law of Bertrand Russell the famous atheist. This blows my mind.

With my mom's permission I've been sorting through her treasured papers including love letters from my dad to her in 1942 while he tugged barges from NY harbor to Boston and she was home alone pre-kids. He passed away in 2006 and I miss him dearly. The relentless passing of time blows my mind.

Even though I used to live in Seattle, I'm now so countrified I expect to marvel in amazement at how a city like New York works. Even though there are aldermen, mayors, and governors, they can't micromanage eight million people. New Yorkers have learned to coexist successfully. The very thought blows my mind. So do flocks of birds, schools of fish, and colonies of ants who work together, get along, and play nice without a centralized command center.

A Letter to my Men's Group

(11/16/13). Sorry to be so absent from our group these weeks. I miss stories about the World Series, the 48, Falling Upwards, Bill's cruise, church news, Bellingham politics, and everyone's head shaking laments about the fortunes and foibles of our often kooky religious world. Can't wait to get back into the grove of reading and thinking with you all. By the way, Happy Birthday, Tom.

 

If all goes according to plan, my 89 year old mother and I fly out Tuesday AM for Florida where she plans to die. Her health is so precarious that every day for the last 3 weeks I'm never sure if she's going to be alive when I get to her room (she's in assisted living at Spring Creek and hates it). Her heart isn't pumping as good as it used to. I facilitated her farewell to her 84 year old brother and sister in law in Anacortes (heart rending) and my kids (teary), sent her cat special delivery to Del Rey Beach, FL (the cat's travel expenses cost 8xs what my mom's ticket cost), I've sent boxes, consolidated her banking data, became an amateur pharmacist, could conduct my own medical office visit for patients with congestive heart failure, and am bracing myself for the dreaded day when I leave FL probably never to see my mom again. Coping with her...paranoia about pick pockets...has been taxing to the max so I'm looking forward to taking my time traveling alone, visiting WA DC and NYC, and returning to WA just before Christmas. I may take a train across country so I can read and see America from an Amtrak Vista-dome. All this while still trying to do the necessary grief work my heart and soul craves.

 

I've downloaded videos and books on my new tablet, packed three paperbacks (including A Severe Mercy by Sheldon VanAuken) for non digital entertainment, and am still getting the hang of no keyboard or printer. I'm packing short sleeve shirts for FL and sweaters for NY. I'm kissing my plant based diet goodbye for the time being and looking forward to the day when I can illustrate Ecclesiastes, complete spiritual memoirs, and engage in some sort of ministry in January. If there's any silver lining in this, I'm able to juggle these tasks as a relatively alert 61 year old. Can't imagine what widowers in their 80s or 90s would do.

 

Blessings on you all. I'll have email access and my phone (if I don't get pick pocketed in Manhattan).

 

~~Erik

Last Week Before Departure

This isn't a vacation. I'm swinging by New York after I relocate my mother to Florida which means I'm closing down her bank accounts, cancelling her phone, internet, and newspaper; shipping her cat, managing her meds, arranging for assisted living before we leave, cleaning out her condo, helping her sort 89 years' of possessions deciding what to keep, ship, give, or trash, playing sodium warden (she's under strict doctor's orders to reduce her salt intake), keeping her out of the ER (she's been there 4 times in the last 6 weeks), keeping her occupied during her unpleasant stay in assisted living, take her to the movies, cleaning out her cat's box, and in my spare moments day dream about not getting pick pocketed in New York.

For my own peace of mind today I get to attend a TEDx Conference in Bellingham, WA. Can't wait!  

Rich and Poor

This week's issue of the New Yorker includes this tid bit, "Last year, the poorest twenty per cent of the city's households earned, on average, $8,993, and the  richest five percent earned, on average, $436,931."

Bill de Blasio, New York's new mayor will, the article continues, address this inequality.

Hmmm.

If by some fluke of providence I am captured during my upcoming visit and am forced to serve on his advisory committee,  what would I, the least political, least economically minded person I know, suggest?

1. Earmark some of the city's tax revenue to job training, free career counseling, education, and micro-loans.
2. Tax the rich. Mandating generosity isn't pleasant but watching people starve is worse.
3. Incentivize the rich to take sight seeing tours to the food banks, homeless shelters, and free clinics. Perhaps seeing human suffering would motivate charity, creativity,  and generosity.
4. Empower NGOs (ie., philanthropic and humanitarian churches) to help.
5. From the office of the mayor laud media efforts to promote creative problem solvers. I realize the New Yorker needs to run ads like this (I'd love to know what kind of revenue this back page ad generates; it must be a lot since the magazine pays its cartoonists royally), but what if the back page made literacy volunteers, teachers, and people helpers look as classy? (By the way, I think these watch innards are beautiful! Sticker price, $123,000).