History Lesson

After our turkey dinner on TG, complete with a lime-green and pineapple jello mold, I went to the movies with my Lynn, Liz, Erin, and Allie. Watching BOBBY was nostalgic and thought-provoking. Two days later, I continue to ponder my own slice of personal history related to that era.

Bobby Kennedy entered the presidential race at the end of March 1968. I had just turned sixteen. Not yet old enough to vote, my thoughts were on driving, clothing, friends, music. President John Kennedy had been assassinated just five years earlier.

Martin Luther King was murdered a few weeks after Bobby's announcement to enter the presidential race. The war in Vietnam and civil rights riots sometimes felt far from the suburbs of Buffalo, but thanks to up-close-and-personal broadcasting, these events arrived on our television set each evening. The world out there seemed to be a troubled and violent place.

We grew up with the hopefulness aroused by the Kennedys and Martin Luther King. The rules were changing. An emerging youth culture was bursting with flower power, hippies, humanity, rock and roll. Daily casualities of the war had reached about two thousand. Most kids were against the draft and the war. Everyone knew somebody there.

Bobby was shot in early June. Ever since his brother's death, tragedy seemed to be woven into the fabric of our lives. Yet, day-to-day existence for a sixteen-year-old girl remained intact. I lounged on the beach at a Lake Erie cottage with girlfriends during the week of the violent August protests at the Chicago democratic convention. Kids just a couple years older were getting their heads bashed in. A revolution was underway. Nixon was elected. The killing in Vietnam would continue for seven more years.

A year later, this photo of Hillary Rodham (Clinton) was taken....a girl like me. I am not convinced she is the best candidate for our next president, but I do like to see her in context in this history lesson.

Not Helpless

A helpless jelly poured into a mold. Henry James said that about human consciousness. Formless, expansive, receptive...we can wonder about ourself and the world, knowing the life that allows this wakefulness may end anytime.

I am quite certain that tomorrow on Thanksgiving Day in America I will encounter a colorful quivering mold of gelatin and I will be sure to be grateful for my own formlessness taking shape daily.

Karma

Finally, a little breath of fresh air. His Holiness The Dalai Lama on a windy September afternoon delivered inspiration at UB's north campus. A few days later, I was off with the pink suitcase to New York City for his teaching weekend on The Blade Wheel of Mind Transformation at The Beacon Theater.

Then...broken branches and broken glass...an October lake effect storm and a random home invasion.

The thief made off with a couple precious rings and a spare car key. I resorted to using The Club for security. I taped a note to it...THE LAW OF KARMA IS YOUR SHADOW. The law of karma is my shadow.

I began this blogging a few months ago with an intention to reflect on and explore living with multiple myeloma. The writing veered into various directions and I rarely mention the word cancer. I tend to re-frame whenever possible....for good reason. My American Heritage dictionary defines it as any various malignant neoplasms that manifest invasiveness and a tendency to mestastisize to new sites...a pernicious spreading evil...creeping ulcer.

No Thank you.

Thus far, I remain in the best kind of remission. I am well. I am better. Memory of treatment drifts further into the background of my mind like a passing cloud. Buddhist teachings maintain that the physical body is a vehicle that carries us and our karmic inheritance through the world. I especially appreciate Dr. Andrew Weil's belief that intense feeling gives power to the body...passion heals. Many buddhist teachers have received cancer as their final life challenge. The cancer wants to live too, proclaimed Shunryo Suzuki Roshi before he died of the disease. He also instructed You are perfect as you are AND you could use a little work!

I am working.

Autumn Awe

Magnificient flaming leaves of autumn hung over the brick side of my house like a coat...until just the other day when I noticed most had fallen into a pile on the driveway. The clocks were dialed back an hour. A full harvest moon ripens in the darkness.

The seasons turn, turn, turn.......blogging has been neglected. Two months have passed since my last entry. Where have I been? Summer visits, the Jefferson Pilot incident, the River Grille incident, the two hundred five over one hundred fifteen incident.