August update

I mentioned earlier that this May I was diagnosed with cancer. It's a very rare type, myoepithelial carcinoma. Less than 600 cases have been reported since its discovery in 1972. MC usually occurs in a salivary gland but was on my kidney. The thing is, about 15 years ago I did have an enlarged salivary gland removed but, at the time, it was considered benign. Now we're not so sure. Most likely, the Nevada lab doing the biopsy had never heard of myoepithelial carcinoma.

Even this spring, after weeks of trying and being unable to determine exactly what it was, the Oregon lab had to send the kidney biopsy to a bigger, better equipped facility in Indiana for identification. In July, I had surgery at the Champalimaud in Portugal. An 8 cm (3.14 in) kidney tumor and a second smaller one on my neck were removed. Both were MC. At least for now there is nothing more to do. With MC, surgery is not generally followed with any other treatment though that may change as more becomes known about it. All I know at this point is that I'm tumor free. I'll be having initial follow-up tests in October to see what's up.

Note in a bottle

Hi world. What are you doing today? It's evening here where I am. I know. It's every time of day and night for you but where I am the sky is still blue and there are voices off in the distance and the sound of cars. Always the sound of cars. A vine is growing up the window screen. It's a beautiful thing to watch . . . strands winding around each other, their tips fragile and moist. I haven't got much else to say really.

Summer solistice 2019

In the southern hemisphere this is the shortest day of the year, the longest night, the pause, the time of in-going and renewal, the beginning of winter. Here in the northern hemisphere this is the longest day of the year, the beginning of summer, the dance, the lingering and going about. Wherever you are, whatever species you encounter as you go along your way today, be kind.

Unfortunately, the Summer Solstice is also the beginning of the 10 day Yulin dog meat "festival" during which thousands of dogs and cats are bludgeoned, blow-torched, skinned, and boiled alive for a 10 day drunken "feast".

Please help shut down the Yulin!

Sign the HSI petition and pass the link around. Thank you.

Can't See Me

Several years ago I went through a very bad time. I was living in the hills of West Virginia and would come into town now and then to open my then husband's tiny electronic repair shop. He was a whiz that way. When I got to town the first thing I'd do was buy a bag short dogs, sit in the alley beside the shop and drink a couple. Then I'd open the shop. I didn't go in very often but as I recall we never had any customers when I was there. I played a lot of country music real loud those days. It helped. Marshal Tucker's "Can't You See" was a special comfort. I'm listening to it tonight as I write this. I don't live in West Virginia anymore. I don't even live in America anymore but it's another bad time and that song is still a comfort. This coming week I start a round a tests to determine if I have cancer.

German cornflakes in Portugal

It's been 17 days since leaving Nevada. So much has gone on. This morning my breakfast is German cornflakes in Portugal, but to recap . . . before we left Nevada Penny (the) Robin came by. Nice to see her in the Bird Park one last time. Also I went to Comma Coffee one last time, the scene of several poetry reading with Ash Canyon Poets though, ultimately that scene dried up and I lost contact with them.

The morning we left I hosted a giant feast in the Bird Park. In true crow fashion, Minerva put out the word and news spread fast. Literally in minutes more crows showed up than ever dropped by one time, even in winter. And, of course, Maggie, her magpie friends, and all the other birds also attended but it was the crows who made the biggest splash. For a brief while they flooded the place. It was wonderful. Of course I took a lot of photos but most didn't record. I don't know what exactly I did wrong but something. My favorite, that didn't take, was of a crow who landed very close, probably Charlie or Minerva. I'm sure it was to say thank you and good-bye. Crows are, after all, known for their willingness to befriend individuals of other species and their sense of fair play.

No way to say goodbye

Packing, sorting, pruning and letting go of almost two decades of my life has been overwhelming but mostly it's done now and what's left tucked in boxes and ready to go. We move at the beginning of next week and then what? A new phase of my life? The last phase? I'm saying good-bye to friends. We assure one another we'll meet again but will we? Every door closes for the last time.

And then there are my beloved friends in the Bird Park. They made Nevada livable for me, even delightful . . . Maggie the 7 o'clock Magpie (7 o'clock because in the beginning she always came at 7 AM, before everyone else) and her tiding . . . the charmer Chatterbox Charlie along with beautiful Minerva and the rest of the crow congress . . . Plonk, his girlfriend, and the ensuing band of pigeons who followed them here . . . the bevy of doves with their screechy, forever melancholy call . . . the drifts of quail, generations now . . . the hilarious, head-banging quarrel of finches with their ridiculously comical, but oh yes, very serious fights . . . the tiny, mild-mannered sparrows . . . the flock of grackles with their most mellifluous song . . . Babette and Mr. Fancy Pants . . . the pool parties and dust baths . . . Old Man pigeon who came and stayed to spend his last days here and after whom we named the pile of torn out lawn turf where he rested Old Man Hills . . . Penny Robin who came for her apples so many springs, even this one . . . I will miss them all terribly but always and especially—Maggie.

Maggie and a bit of apple

There is no way I can tell them that I love them but I'm going anyway, no way to say goodbye other than remove the little white table where, every morning I've been here for the past seventeen years, they have come for breakfast. The Bird Park was a haven most of that time, until the hawks showed up. At least that part will also end.

Moving update

Today is the Equinox, the beginning of spring here in the northern hemisphere, autumn in the south. May we all enjoy, if only briefly, this moment when light and dark are in balance.

I'm finally on the downside of packing. We move at the end of the month. It feels like a death, but not just because we've been in Nevada for 17 years. It's something deeper. Sorting through the memories, stones, and mementos I've collected along the way . . . the skull of a horse I found near a dry water hole, a horse killed in a brawl with another, head kicked in, jaw broken in several places . . . a whole mummified eagle's body . . . the half-billion-year-old trilobites I found in the Great Basin left from when this now desert was a vast, warm inland sea under the equator . . . the night coyotes sniffed our feet as we lay naked on our makeshift bed in back of the truck . . . the petroglyph of a pony express stop carved in nearby stone sometime in the previous two centuries . . . this is not just the end of a chapter, it is the end of a journey that is now a time gone by.

April 14 we leave for Portugal to apply to their residence program. This, of course, if I get my passport back in time. I forgot to sign the renewal application. When I realized this and called they assured me I'll get the new one before April 14. We shall see.

In more soothing news, the magpies, crows, and starlings have devoured their breakfast and moved on with their day. The little birds and quail are strolling around nibbling seed. Even Jimmy the squirrel put in an appearance.

Empathetic Dog Reacts to Emotional Scene in The Lion King

RIP Word Jazz Guy

Ken Nordine died yesterday, Mr. Word Jazz. I found one of his albums when I was a schoolkid. Along with Kafka and Rimbaud, he made sense at a time when not much else did, the '50s. I loved the bizarre conversations he had with his inner self . . . just him . . . just them . . . echoing in the mind . . . twisting, echoing, changing . . . free in lateral space.  He/they were wonderful, true artists. Bon voyage, guys.

There comes a time . . .

When it's over, when the next change changes everything, we call it death. Short of that, the end is often only realized it hindsight. Not so with this one. In April I will begin the process of becoming a resident and, eventually, a Portuguese citizen

I am writing this in a room converted from an outside deck which will become my office/studio base in Oregon. Half the ceiling is curved glass that comes down nearly to the floor and comprises 2/3s of the long wall facing east. The surface of the remaining portion of that wall and its opposite, were formerly the outside of the house. Boxes of collectables, not mine, are stacked to my left, marked and ready to be moved to storage until they are sold. In the north, the figure of a contemplative sits in meditation. Wooden beads hang from his neck and drape over the table along with a second necklace, a Chinese prayer card with a long gold tassel. Behind him are four Chinese small reddish clay tea pots of varying shapes and sizes. All sit on a small deep red rug with an intricate design. They too will be packed, moved, and eventually sold.

I will miss my birds in the Bird Park. Maggie the Seven O'clock Magpie still looks for me. She knows I will always return. Last week, after being gone six months and back one day, I put some peanuts out and she showed up. I will miss her. I will always miss her, especially in the morning, and the others . . . beautiful Minerva the crow, the quail clan, the little birds, the spring robins coming for their apples, Plonk and the rest of the pigeons, charming chatterbox Charlie and the rest of the crow clan, but especially and always my Maggie.

Straigue Stone Fort 1700 years later

For years I stuck to a timeline, ever running to keep up with the present but that is changing. Perhaps traveling has helped move me off the stuck point. The past is ever with us, not only in memory and dream but effect and also quite physically. But enough rhapsodizing.

Me, Swami, and Juan Carlos
Staigue, Kerry, Ireland

Straigue stone fort in Co. Kerry Ireland was built during the late Iron Age making it about 1,700 years old. No adhesive of any kind has held it together for the last almost 2000 years. It still stands because it was built right and no hotshot developer has come in with a bulldozer to clear the land for yet another soulless shopping center, condo project, freeway etc.

Trump shutting down government

Shutting down government hoping to force America to pay for his wall be the first thing Donald Trump has ever claimed credit for that, in fact, he actually did.

As my world dissolves around me . . .

The family, dogs included, came over tonight for lasagna and a movie.Very nice evening. Thea is spending the night. M. Lee and I leave Wednesday for southern Oregon, a couple of weeks there and then back to Nevada to begin dismantling our world. Not exactly sure where this road is leading. What I do know is that it's time shed another layer along the way.

Winter Solstice 2018

It's the Winter Solstice toady and the full moon and there's a meteor shower. Much afoot in the heavens and here on earth. For me, it's a time to pause and reflect where I've been, where I am, and where I'm going. Happy new year and first day of winter.

Greta Thunberg addressing UN plenary session

You Are Stealing Our Future:
Fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg Condemns the World’s Inaction on Climate Change

Here and gone

Our time in Europe is again coming to an end. I'm not complaining. August to mid-December is a good a run but other than family, which I am very much looking forward to seeing, there just isn't much else drawing me back to the U.S. these days. When Bush was President, I wrote a lot about him here but with Trump? What can I say? America has been hijacked by fascists. I love that the Dems took 40 seats in the mid-terms but it's just a start. This rot is deep but we will cut it out. That I trust.

“There are only a few notes. Just variations on a theme.” ― John Lennon   RIP 38 years

Why midnight?

Naples, Italy

Every night at midnight assholes in our neighborhood let off with a barrage of fireworks. Why? WTF? The first night I joked that it must be a cover for the Camorra but it's not funny anymore. Is it some religious celebration? What?! Come on. Fireworks are bullshit. Even the seagulls complain about them. OK. Finally they're done. G'night.

Blue bucket

Naples, Italy

Why take the stairs when you have a blue bucket? Daily life in an old world.

The old man in Évora

Évora, Portugal

"Where are you going
in such a hurry traveler"
Capela dos Ossos

One of the last things we did before leaving Portugal was visit Évora, a city that's been continuously occupied for more than 5,000 years. Neolithic tribes, Celts, Romans, Visigoths, and Moors all passed through Évora, some staying centuries before being swept away by war or the changing of the age. You might think with all the different rulers, cultures, identities, and religions that have come and gone, and Évora's 15th century Golden Age being long past, it would be an empty husk but no. Évora today is considered one of the most livable places in Portugal and, because it maintains the integrity of the past within its historic center, it is also listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Swami & Juan Carlos
Évora town square
under the waxing moon

We got there early and spent the day doing our usual slow crawl, me photographing everything—medieval byways, the cathedral, paintings, gargoyles, bell towers, most of the 5000 skeletons in the Capela dos Ossos (Bone Chapel), Roman ruins, and random other details along the way. We found a friendly vegetarian restaurant for lunch and at twilight, under a waxing moon, sat on a bench in the town square to people watch while waiting for our train. Just after dark, an elderly gentleman wearing a dark topcoat and carrying an umbrella hooked over his arm emerged from a covered walkway along the square's edge. At our bench, he stopped, turned and, with a pleasant smile, bowed slightly looking back and forth into our eyes then slowly, and very deliberately, wished us boa noite and smiled when we wished him boa noite in return. Then, still smiling, he nodded, turned and slowly moved on. This, above all, is what I will remember of Évora.

Nowhere people

Lisbon, Portugal

Who are you?

“Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?”

The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know,” Alice answered.

“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 
 
For the last five weeks, and until yesterday, we stayed in a small flat on the top floor of a four story building near the top of one of Lisbon's many hills. Our flat was a comfortable place on a mostly quiet street with lots of light and a lovely view of the old city and from there we moled up and down through the narrow, twisting cobblestone streets looking for a neighborhood where we might like to live as we are planning to return next spring and establish residency. It's not that we want to live in Lisbon full time, or renounce our US citizenship, it's just that we are both, by nature, wanderers and Lisbon is a good place from which to wander. As a friend from London who is in Lisbon doing the same thing put it, "There are somewhere people and there are nowhere people. We are nowhere people."

A morning in November

Lisbon, Portugal

Morning from the balcony

Woke up today to a white fog sky, the barking of a small dog somewhere nearby, and the sound of a foghorn on the river.

Video clips of Trump inciting violence

 These clips in no way document "all the times" Trump has called for violence
but they are a good example of how flagrant his lies are so for the record . . .



Postdate note:
President Twat's endless distractions are his way of controlling the conversation. It's time to stop engaging.

Paris, France

"Art is never finished. Only abandoned."
- Leonardo Da Vinci

Following up on a post I did in August,

Dying Slave
Michelangelo - The Louvre

here are some photos I took of Michelangelo's slaves at the Louvre.

Rebellious Slave
Michelangelo - The Louvre

It was late in the day, the light was gloomy and the photos are too dark but, as the mood suits the grim subject matter, I posted them as is. Better photos here, if you're interested.

Rebellious Slave
Michelangelo - The Louvre

The work was commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1505 as part of a 16 figure series called Prisoners.

Rebellious Slave
Michelangelo - The Louvre

They were meant to adorn his free-standing, three-level tomb along with 20+ other larger-than-life figures, also to be done by Michelangelo.

Dying Slave
Michelangelo - The Louvre

Unfortunately for us all, the project was repeatedly scaled down over the years. Most of the work was never even begun although four other unfinished pieces in this same series are on exhibit at the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence, Italy. 

Unfinished detail - Dying Slave
Michelangelo - The Louvre

Michelangelo believed that the figure is trapped within the stone and his job was to liberate it. Seeing them with that in mind, however "undone", they are all very moving.

Tomb of Pope Julius II
source: Web Gallery of Art

In spite of being repeatedly downsized, the Pope's tomb is still very grand. It includes Moses whom Michelangelo considered his most lifelike creation. As the story goes, upon its completion he struck the right knee commanding, "now speak!". There is a scar on the knee thought to be the mark of Michelangelo's hammer.

Beyond the Pale

Ireland, starting out - five weeks - 3000 miles

We came upon this spectacular work by Caravaggio in Dublin. Of course my photo in no way conveys its perfection. I leave this here as a note in the sand. Should you find yourself in Dublin, see it.

The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio
National Gallery of Ireland

After five days in Dublin, known in medieval times as The Pale, we rented a car and began this crazy, month long drive beyond The Pale.

Tiny Ireland is barely the size of the US state of Indiana
photo source: bleemo.com

I fell immediately under the spell of the emerald isle.

One of Ireland's 10 gazillion
such enchanted passageways

Our first base was south, in Kilkenny. It's about an hour and a half from Dublin on the main road but it took us all day . . .

because we drove the single lane back roads . . .

and stopped a lot along the way.

Centre for Peace and Reconciliation,
Glencree, Co. Wicklow, Ireland

Swami & Juan Carlos
loved the dark wood.

Graveyard in Glendalough
dating back to the 10th century

Grove in Glendalough

Medieval chapel in Glendalough

We also listened to a lot of music along the way including "I Dream a Highway" by Gillian Welch which proved to be almost too much.





Later M. Lee mentioned that during the drive he'd never felt so depressed in his entire life.

History Lesson for 300.000 Years

My poem History Lesson was recently accepted for inclusion in a one-of French/English publication titled 300K: une anthologie de poésie sur l'espèce humaine/a poetry anthology about the human race. It was a natural fit. Description of the publication below.

300K A Poetry Anthology about the Human Race / Une anthologie de poésie sur l'espèce humaine.

Our origins are not that well known though not totally obscure. Yet, recent discoveries in Morocco have pushed our ancestry from 200.000 years ago to over 300.000. Yes, we've been that long on Earth, and yet, this is a flea's leap compared to all the living and non-living things that were there before us, some of which still are, others we have more or less slowly but thoroughly wiped out or disfigured for the rest of time. You can also refer to Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction (especially its introduction) or Yuval Noah Harari's A Brief History of Humankind. Are we doomed? I am a pessimistic person and my own personal answer is yes. That's why I want to publish this anthology as a mark, a sign, a trace of our - yours and mine - passage on this planet. Think about petroglyphs, cave arts, artifacts, all the traces we have left here and there, all around the planet. Instead of chemicals, microscopic plastic particles, soda cans, gas jerrycans, used solar cells, full of silica, that no one knows how to recycle efficiently, smartphone parts, laptop bits and pieces... why not leave a book of poetry that will probably get lost in nothingness as many other books or objects before it, but that some descendants of the human race, or one of its creations (a mobile, self-conscious, artificial intelligence) or an alien civilization might stumble upon in, let's say, another 300.000 years; who knows?

300K is available here