The clouds are thick today. My wife and I managed to go out for a 3 km walk this morning. For the rest of the morning, I continued working on my trip planning for the autumn. So far, Saint Malo (3 nights), Caen (3 nights), Bayeux, D-Day beaches, Rouen (4 nights), Le Havre and Honfleur, and Dieppe have been planned in relative detail. I am now working on the three-day stay in Amiens. Next will be a two-night stay in…
As usual, the weather is warmish, 22 Celsius as I write this on the back deck. It is a pleasant temperature, especially with no wind to make if feel colder. The morning began with sunshine and 12 degrees, enough to have me meditate nude in my favourite space in the back yard. Now, the sunshine is intermittent due to mostly cloudy skies. Rain would be welcome as everything is becoming stressed from a lack of rain. For Friday and Saturday,…
This sitting around too much following surgery is frustrating. The first dressing has been replaced leaving only a small dressing over the belly-button. The stitches come out on Thursday. All indications are that all is progressing very well. I am eating right, avoiding lifting, and doing all the right things to help with the 4 to 6 weeks of recovery. Yet, that isn’t enough for me. My thoughts are jumping all over the place, rarely landing on one thought long…
Now, I know that despite all the years I have studied, both at university and since then, I really don’t know all that much. I am living that old expression, “the more you learn, the less you know.” When someone tells me that I am wise, I worry even more for the human race. And then, I find myself checking in on contemporary happenings in the world, especially with our leaders. It isn’t bad enough that they seem to be…
Well, I survived the surgery and am beginning to heal. It was my first surgery dealing with an umbilical hernia. This was the cause of my belly button changing from an “innie” to an “outie.” Now, I can look forward to four to six weeks of limited activity, but not limiting my walking. Today, I went out for a three kilometre walk around the town without any extra pain. And yes, there is some pain. At least, this gives me…
As I mentioned earlier this week, I return to the book The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran. I am blessed that in our Arabic-phobic world, poets and writers and artists from the middle-eastern world found a home in our western hearts. As promised, I am turning to the poem, “On Clothes” for today’s post. Interestingly enough, what Gibran had to say about clothes matches both my preference and Joy’s preferred state. That said, neither of us, for a moment, believe that…
Well, this is my last post before tomorrow’s operation. It isn’t supposed to be anything major, so I am not too worried. I will be in good hands, the hands of a skilled and experienced doctor. At one point in my life, I may have taken these last hours for prayer, trusting in the hands of a god to keep me safe. But, not at this point. It isn’t that I don’t believe in something, some presence greater than “self.”…
I was looking at my book by Kahlil Gibran called The Prophet because of a photo I had seen on Twitter quite recently. I picked up the book and looked inside to see that I had originally bought this small hardcover book in 1969. It was a strange purchase for a 20 year-old at that time, perhaps at any time. However, it wasn’t the first book of poetry that I had bought. That honour went to Leonard Cohen’s small paperback…
It’s a waiting game as my surgery is finally set for Thursday, June 6th. It appears that my blood pressure is up. I go for a pre-operation appointment on Monday afternoon. Needless to say, I am working on bringing the BP down a bit as I will be having the hernia repair done under local anaesthetic. Part of my strategy for bringing the BP down is to reduce my coffee intake to two cups of coffee or less per day,…
As with the past few days, I again went out for a second walk which was done clothing-free. Again, I drove out to the pullout at the end of a lightly gravelled country road which then turns into a dusty, dirt trail used by an occasional farmer doing the work of seeding, spraying, and crop-checking. The crop is now in the ground and the farmer won’t be back for a while until it is time to spray post-emergent herbicides. Yes,…