Letter to montyman

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your kind and good humored letter – pretty much your theme, I reckon. Good to hear you’re well and marching ever forward. The new camera sounds good, but I have to caution you that your photos are much less the product of your camera than of your mind, so we’re all expecting greater resolution of the same old great things. Photo: Chris, home on leave from the Corps; David, home from Houston; Lauren, here for a great weekend.

Yes, time moves on – usually a good thing.

At the moment I’m kind of between the past and future (but not really in the present, if that makes sense). I have most definitely left my job teaching, but am working two part days/week at la clinica. That’s going very well and is far less stressful than having students at the clinic – I’m just seeing patients and nothing else – enjoying working with Pat, Socorro, and others. I’m going to Bible study every Wednesday and staying the full hour now that I don’t have to race to the clinic to get there before the students. Hanging out at home a lot, reading, hardly ever writing.

A big part of what I’m doing though, is getting ready for the coming months. David is home now, between his job in Houston and moving to Berkeley in early August. In the meantime, he is leaving next week for Cali, to hike the John Muir Trail with his high school (and since) friend Scott. They’ll be on the trail for about 17 days (220 miles) through the Sierras – high up, alpine. When he’s through with that epic trek, he’ll go back to Berkeley for a few days, then fly to Denver where he and I will meet.

In the meantime, I’ll be here for awhile, doing what I’ve been doing, then in early July, driving to Colorado for a few days of car camping (camping at places you can drive to, maybe walking in a mile or two), then solo hiking – mostly to acclimate myself to the altitude – and then meeting David. Our plans are to spend about 10 days in the Wind Rivers, high and wild and then drive back to Dallas. We’ll spend a week or two here and David will fly to Berkeley and I’ll head back to the mountains for about a month – until the snow starts. My mate Jeff will join me part of that time and part of the time I think I’ll be alone, a good thing.

I got a dehydrator and am drying everything in sight (Leslie would say, madly drying everything …). At the moment a huge batch of chili, yesterday hamburger “gravel” to add to spaghetti, etc., and also some fajita jerky. This evening I’ll bake some energy bars: oats, honey, wheat germ, walnuts, cranberries, protein powder. They won’t be dehydrated of course. Actually, I just put the bars in the oven – Oh Yeah! Photo: Buddy, the innocent dog.

The situation in Burma is basically stagnant, with few relief workers let in and of those, many not allowed to leave Rangoon. Cops everywhere. What a tragedy. Anyway, my name is out there at a number of organizations to go when things open up, but I’m not sure they will.

Leslie and I are headed to Asia in early 2009, God willing. She asked the other night what I think of when I think of going to Asia and it’s the strangest thing – I’m longing for Hong Kong, of all places. I’ve always liked it there, but it seems like I would be thinking more of other places. As it turns out, HK is mostly what Leslie thinks of, too. I’m so happy and looking forward to traveling with her – what a great traveler Leslie is. I have this great photo I took in 2007 of Leslie on the stairs at the Chungking Mansions. It’s blurry, but who cares – how many 60+ year old anglo women have ever been on those notorious stairs?

So those are the plans as they stand now. I believe it was Jerry Garcia who said, “A plan is just something to deviate from.”

Warmest Regards, Charles

Backpacking in the Bandelier Wilderness

We were on the road again about 4:30am Monday, headed west through Fort Worth, then northwest through Wichita Falls and Amarillo; west to Tucumcari (still not much there except some low rent motels, but nicer than before); northwest into wide open New Mexico through Las Vegas with the snow-topped Sangre de Cristo Mountains off into the distance; into Santa Fe (a Wild Oats/Whole Foods right on the highway for a nice place to stop for whatever) and then north and west to Bandelier. Along the way along old Route 66, along the train tracks headed out west we saw wild turkeys, camels, pronghorn antelope, hawks …

Keep on rollin’
Just a mile to go,
Keep on rollin’, my old buddy,
You’re movin’ much too slow

Leavin’ Texas
Fourth day of July
Sun so hot, clouds so low
The eagles filled the sky.

Catch the Detroit Lightning
Out of Santa Fe
The Great Northern out of Cheyenne
From sea to shining sea

Jeff said that going to a rest home is probably about like being in prison or the Marine Corps. There’ll be people and things you don’t like, but you just gotta learn to deal with it because nobody’s getting out until they do their time – which in a rest home is usually 3-6 years before they carry you out the back.

Got into Bandelier around 5pm and went first to the ranger station to work out our route, then to Juniper Campground (drive-in campsites) where we set up our tent and grilled sausages for dinner (with salad from Wild Oats, bread from home, water). We pitched the tent without a fly, so it was a cool, open night. Up at 7am, had cereal with milk from the ice chest, broke camp fast, and drove to the ranger station to leave the car and hit the trail up Frijoles Canyon. Photo: Cliff dwellings

The first mile or so of the trail was paved – and took us to the Anasazi Indian (ancestors of the Pueblo Indians) cliff dwellings along and in the cliffs on the northeast side of the canyon. We spent an hour or so in the caves, structures, and ruins there and then on up the shady trail through Douglas fir and Ponderosa pine alongside and back and forth across the mountain stream running cold and clear through the canyon. The canyon walls were 200-300 feet high, with the NE side having vertical to overhanging rock and most of the SW side steep rocky scrub, though there were places with walls on both sides, and sometimes within a 100 feet of one another. There were ferns (some maidenhair), horsetails, violets, columbines, lady’s slippers, what looked like strawberries in first bloom, and other wet woodland plants all along the trail. There was one place where a spring flowed across the trail and into the stream and there was a clump of iris in full bloom in the mud beside the trail. Photo: Jeff on the trail

The walk was only slightly uphill, but we were tired and glad to get to a good campsite around 2pm in “Zone F” on the NE side of the stream (there were many good sites on the SW side of the stream) (6-7 miles). I guess we were feeling the effects of age and the 7000 foot altitude. We pitched the tent on the thick carpet of pine needles among tall Ponderosa pines at the base of the cliff. We fixed the main meal of the day by around 3pm – freezer bag homemade dehydrated chili, cheese, crackers, and water. We used a cat food can stove and denatured alcohol to cook and it worked just fine. Jeff took a nap in the tent and I walked up to the bottom of the cliff amongst the rocks and found a shady spot where I wrote for awhile, then dozed. I went back down to the campsite and we talked for awhile, had an energy bar for a snack and turned in as soon as it was dark. Photo: Stream

In the morning we had FB oatmeal with apples and pecans, and coffee. We talked about the route and decided to take an easier loop than originally planned – the new route was shorter and had less up/downhill. This decision lightened my mind quite a bit. We continued up the canyon and at the Upper Crossing headed up the Mesa del Rito. It was a good hump up switchbacks to the top of the mesa. We walked about a mile back to the SE above the canyon and stopped around 2pm (~4 miles). There were junipers and then Ponderosa pines and we found a great campsite slightly below the top of the mesa. The site was among huge Ponderosas, completely level and soft with pine needles. We pitched the tent without the fly and fixed the main meal – FB mashed potatoes, Spam, rosemary, butter, cheese, and bread. We’ve had several single serving packets of Spam around since the last trip to Asia. On the packets is written, “Just rip and tear your way to crazy tasty town”. Okey dokey. Photo: Cougar scat

Jeff took a nap and I walked to the edge of the mesa to write. I watched a hawk ride the wind high above the canyon and then the wind got bigger and bigger and the hawk was gone and I dozed, leaning against a Ponderosa with the wind blowing over me. We hung out by the tent, talking and then to sleep as soon as the sun went down.

Around midnight I awoke with rain on my face. We got the fly on in less than a minute (fortunately we’d already set rocks ready to anchor the fly). We slept well with the rain pattering on the roof of our tent like a little cave. Thanks to the decision to shorten the route, we had no need to get up at any particular time. The rain let up around 9am and we fixed FB oatmeal with dried mango and pecans, and coffee. Moments before we finished it began raining again and we laid up in the tent for another hour or so. Photo: Campsite on Mesa del Rito

As soon as the rain slacked off, we broke camp and headed down the trail at a Captain Kappleman pace (he was the C Company Commander and always set a fierce pace). It rained some, hailed (little pellets) some, and there was a little thunder – the reason for the fast pace. We were glad to get well off the mesa. By then were so close to the ranger station we decided to not pitch (a wet) camp and walked on out down the side of the canyon (where we realized how extensive the ruins are as we walked above them on the opposite side of the canyon) and back to the car (~5 miles).

It was a good trip, easy hiking, not as harsh a desert environment as Big Bend. While we were in the wilderness area we saw eight other people. We saw summer tanagers, robin red breasts (with brighter colors and sharper markings than what we usually see in Dallas), several different hawks, flickers, canyon wrens, wily old crows, vultures, and many others. We saw mule deer, squirrels, lizards, one snake, and clear blue skies, clouds, rain, hail, and rare beauty. Photo: CK cooking, 1st afternoon on the trail. Stove is inside the foil windscreen on the right.

Some lessons learned: New pack from REI and trekking poles good. Homemade dehydrated food much better (and cheaper) than bought. 5-7 miles in about 5 hours is about right for Jeff and me.

More photos are on WorldisRound

Cleaning out my office

It's Cinco de Mayo and I'm cleaning out my office. Several people have asked if it makes me feel sad and though surely somewhere along the way I will feel sad, so far, no. I feel nostalgic, looking at photos of people whose lives and sometimes deaths have crossed mine (see Look at her face below) - and seeing reports from students on some of the wonderful work they've done - and cards and notes from people - and so on. Mostly I'm looking to the (unclear) future, not knowing exactly what will happen - beyond spending somewhere around 6 weeks backpacking in the Rockies this summer (Glacier, Winds, maybe Beartooths). Leslie and I are talking about Asia in the early spring. So the details are cloudy, but the direction is good.

The garden has exploded in color and fragrance. We leave the front door open in the evenings and the front of the house is perfumed with roses (Maggie, Buff Beauty, Old Blush, American Beauty, Perl d'Or, Zepherine Drouhin, Marie Pavié, New Dawn ...), Confederate jasmine, iris ... Photo: Standing in the front yard, looking toward the street. The arbor is covered with New Dawn (be careful walking through - lots of thorns), mid-lower part of photo is American Beauty (a true and fragrant beauty), delphinium in the garden and in the yard.

Look at her face

Tomorrow is my last day with students. There is other work to do, evaluations, clearing out my office, graduation ceremonies, etc., but tomorrow is it for a large part of my life's work. I'm still in kind of a daze at (for me) the momentousness of it all. I don't seem to be able to get very far with my thoughts about the past or present or future. The last time I looked at the clock last night it was 2:30am. The students had a wonderful lunch today - and included the promotoras and several of my community health friends. This evening I'm thinking about some of the people my students and I and others (especially Leslie) have been with over the years ...

Pheap T. - We took care of her for several years while she died of cancer and alcohol. I remember a student kneeling, praying beside the dirty little couch Mrs. T. stayed on - it was the only time anyone really touched her that I knew of. Photo - Outreach with Cambodian refugees
Tresia B. - When we turned her over the first time 100s of little roaches scattered from beneath her great bulk. She had the most amazing candida infection I've ever seen on anyone without HIV. She died from cancer, followed very shortly by ...
Nicholas E., the man who lived with Ms. B. He and I used to sit at the coffee table in their apartment while the students did what they were doing with Ms. B. Alison helped - like an angel.
The old Vietnamese/Chinese couple who fixed me cafe sua da every week. My friend Jay would come over and we would sit in the doorway of their little apartment in the back of 4400 San Jacinto, drinking the sweet strong coffee and watching the always happening parking lot - people walking through, children playing. When they moved to Cali they had us over for a huge lunch. We'd never done a single thing for them.
The little girl with the big nevus on her face who we got into Children's for plastic surgery - whose mother had this tiny little store in her apartment where she sold soft drinks, cigarettes and candy to people in the neighborhood. One day the girl and her mom were getting into my truck and she said, "My mother says that man over there has a gun." He was walking toward us and I was pulling the mom into the truck driving backwards through the apartment parking lot (1418 Annex) and over curbs. 30 minutes later the man and his partner were in a shoot-out with the police on Central Expressway.
Rith S. R. and Yan S. - Yan was about 4'8" tall - Leslie got her a job at a hospital - she looked so great standing next to her 6'6" supervisor. Later their lives were unbearably sad. We still talk every Christmas.
Tep K.S. - who Leslie did so much for as he died - when I took him to the hospital the last time - where he died in the hallway, I asked him if he wanted a stick of gum and he just shook his head. His wife and daughter sometimes bring us curry, still.
The man who died in his sleep and was kept for autopsy while his children went to another satte. His daughter would sometimes run naked and baying through the streets. Leslie was always the one taking care of her. Leslie was the only person at his funeral - you could do a lot worse than that!
The Vietnamese woman who had been a prostitute long ago and the student with her at Parkland going head to head with a doctor who wanted the woman to sign an (uninformed) consent for cancer treatment. The doctor called me to report the student and I was saying, "Uh-huh."
The girl the students and I sprang from her apartment prison - the students distracting the mother-in-law while the 16 year old girl tossed her possessions in 2 black garbage bags out of the 2nd story apartment window to me standing below. Then the students and the girl walked out past the m-i-l.
The Cambodian family that fixed a wonderful lunch for the students and I. Such a nice lady.
Lay Rith, beautiful beyond measure, taking us in as we took her in. I visited her and her husband in Long Beach - gunshots in the background, one of her boys showing me his pogs. Her beautiful daughter Re already a gangster. Photo: In the waiting room
The two teen girls the students found living together in an apartment with no furniture - just a couple of blankets on the floor, on the run from their molesting "father." One of the girls ended up in prison, the other still comes in to the clinic.
The two people we made suicide contracts with last week.
The 1000s of people who have a place to go for healthcare, thanks to Bobbie, Leslie, me, others. And the 1000s who were cared for at the East Dallas Health Coalition, thanks to Syl, Pauline, me, others.
The boys who were being molested and told Alison's friend, Sandy. They called on Leslie, who made everything else happen and the guy went to prison for life and Leslie and Alison were there when he was sentenced - gonna follow your casket down in the pale afternoon.
The girls Martin and I were talking to one day and the next day their father called me, crying - one had drowned and the other barely lived. Martin and his colleagues did the funeral.
The woman who was a terminal alcoholic who said to me one day in her cracked, quavering voice, "Help me mister." I said, "____, there's nothing I can do to help you if you won't stop drinking." She died that night - there was blood on the walls outside her apartment. The minister didn't show at her funeral, so two Mormon missionaries and I did the service.
Guadalupe S., taken care of by everyone. She lived in about the most run-down house in East Dallas. Leslie was there one morning and her husband was sitting beside the house having a beer and jalepeño taco (nothing but jalepeño on that taco) for breakfast.
The Dalai Lama was in Dallas and we managed to get him to Grace Church to meet with the Cambodians. This was about 1983. After his homily there were about 30 people around him and I was standing on the periphery. He had never seen me before and there was nobody there to tell him what I was doing. He reached through the people around him and took my hands like in a prayer, giving me a blessing, saying, "Keep doing this work." Photo: Something beautiful for God
The Mexican woman with rheumatoid arthritis - Leslie went with her to the doctor who said, he didn't think she was having much pain. Leslie said look at her face - tears running down ... Look at Her Face.
The young Muslim woman dying from breast cancer, taken care of by my students Megan and Stephanie (who taught us all about spiritual care), by Leslie, and by Diane - not to mention a Jewish oncologist and the Jewish dentist Leslie found who did the work free, then a Muslim women's association stepped in and paid for some of the dental work. Meanwhile her brother descended into complete insanity and the psychiatrist said, "I don't understand why you people are calling me."

Each one of these little stories is a lot longer. It just goes on and on and on.

After all this time

Leslie told me that last night she dreamed that she was in the Avalon with David, Scott, Eric, Kevin, Daniel - all so happy.

A Dream

I dreamed last night that Ron C and I drove to a place near our home city where there was a village from Laos. It was set up in kind of an inverted U (ת); Ron parked at the bottom left corner and I immediately walked over to the right branch and started walking slightly uphill up a dirt path past little hooches (some Lao, some made of salvaged stuff from the US; most on stilts). There were Cambodians all around, some sitting in the doorways and I knew most of them from back in 1981-85. They were people who never made it in the US, but now they were happy and I was happy to see them. As I walked along we were speaking back and forth – “Oh, hey, I’m so happy to see you.” (I’m smiling writing this.) A young man was walking with me and when we got to the top (bottom of the U), we followed the path to the left and went underground. There were several large turtle heads sticking out of the wall like they were roof decorations but down low and there was fine detail everywhere, all dark and smoky looking and I was asking how all this could be here and the young man told me two women had gone to Laos and bought an entire village and brought it to the US. We went on to the last leg of the U and walking downhill came to kind of an infirmary with blankets over the two doors and I was thinking, maybe this a place for me. The door on the left was L&D and there was someone in labor in there. I asked the young man to ask if we could go in and he said something and an irritated looking midwife came out and said in Chinese, “Both of you go away.” We moved on and along the way, I told the young man I’d forgotten his name and asked what it is. He told me, but now I’ve forgotten it. He showed me how his eyes were all wrong, which I’d already noticed, but now looked closely at them, one rolling up and both kind of inflamed around the margins of his lids. When we came to the end of the leg, there was a building standing a little separate from the others. The young man told me it was a kind of church, and when I looked closely at it there were Kwan Yins and Virgin Marys painted kind of randomly on the outside walls and I realized that they are the same thing (Mercy) and always have been and I wondered how I could not have noticed that before. Ron was there and so was Leslie and we were talking about what an amazing place this is and Leslie was saying that she’d worked hard to make it happen and I remembered that she had gone up against some government entity to help the women bring it here. That’s all I remember.

Weeks and days passing

Writing the I’m Retiring entry put a hold on my writing. Since then …

A couple of weeks ago I spent several days working in the garden and yard. In the back garden, the iris (bought at an Iris Society sale) are blooming, Zepherine Drouhin and Lady Banks are blooming, and some of the herbs are doing well (oregano, sage, germander, lemon grass, mint, rosemary, and savory). I had let the garden go last summer while we were in Asia, but the good soil preparation years ago continues to pay off.

In the front cottage garden, roses are blooming (Old Blush, Maggie, Zepherine Drouhin, Katy Road Pink, Marie Pavié, Hermosa, and the even more wonderful Cécile Brünner), iris are magnificent (white, purple, yellow, and variations), delphinium are starting up (white, blue, pink), oxalis are carpeting in pink …

A few nights ago I awoke thinking about what it will mean to not be doing mercy and justice. For many years these have been huge part of my identity, my self – not my thoughts or beliefs, but what I do, who I be – and I’m setting it aside.

As the weeks come and go and retirement nears, I’m in a suspended state. It all seems unreal, unclear. Yet my eyes, my mind are clearer. Photo: On the right, Leslie waiting for the bus in Nepal, 1978 and on the left, Leslie on the bus in Burma, 2007. Aren't these the greatest photos!

You are the best of all my days

I’m unable to say with clarity what I’ll do, except that I’ll be in the high mountains, first with David in July and later with Jeff and (maybe) Somsai in August and September. But that only says where I’ll be and who else will be there, not how I’ll be. Oh sure, I’ll be tired, dirty, sore, sunburned, hungry, and all that other good stuff. But how I’ll really be is …
Standing alone on a mountain-top,
Looking out at the Great Divide,
My soul rising, rising, rising,
Flying, complete.

I wrote in the last entry that after Vietnam I was committed to not wasting the time of my life. I have not.

This weekend the G5 men's Bible study group went to Jim C's lake house. Like last year it was a good time - good to be in Charlie and Alayne's old house (now Jim and Nell's); good to relax with Jim, Mike, Chuck, Ken, Chris, Bryce, Rick, and Dave; good to sit on the screened porch and watch the lake, Mike fishing, the birds; good to sleep out under the stars; good to be.