Ned Henry January 11, 2021 · nedhenry.medium.com

Slept good. Feet a little cold but that little electric blanket is good. Took and ambien last night. Slept till 8:30 and made coffee. put on some baroque. Having a little trouble with constipation so I’ll take more colace. Anyway, went back to bed to lie down listen to the music and fell asleep again and slept til 11:30 with music kinda loudish. Very peaceful so here I am back at the desk. But it’s already noon.

CIM Lesson 9 — I see nothing as it is now.

An idea that came up in this lesson is important. It says “understanding is not necessary at this point…These exercises are concerned with practice, not understanding.” Practice not understanding. There is such a thin edge there. Prosperos seemed all about understanding to me. And Shambhala was all about practice to me. So I spent some time pursuing both almost exclusively. And then pursuing nothing for years like hedonism and fantasy. Cancer has changed that. Don’t know how yet and don’t know how long term but something is happening. And I think for me I am learning that understanding is not really all that important as long as you strive to be be present and to be kind. And that takes practice. Constant conscious practice.

CIM Lesson 10 — My thoughts do not mean anything.

The lesson says to practice this one for no more than 5 times today each time for 1 minute or less.

So I have a pretty easy week on the medical front. No appointments except a zoom with palliative care. I don’t know if they can do anything for me or if insurance would cover it but we’ll see. So far Medicare has taken care of almost everything. I’ll find out what services and support they offer. If they would send someone here to clean the house, I’d jump on it. LOL. I also just called the nutrition services at Winship to see what they might be able to offer and if it might be covered by insurance. Left a message and hope they call back. So that’s it on the medical front. Just those 2 things. It heats up again next week with Round 2 of Chemo. Pete is going to bring me a meal (it doesn’t have to be gourmet but he is a gourmet cook by practice only) over the weekend so I can build up my strength before chemo. I know he is not reading this. This would be way too much for Pete. I hope I get to chat with him though on the deck this weekend. He voted for Trump and Purdue and Leoffler. When I texted him that I was delighted with the results of the run off, he wrote back that he was skeptical about what they would do with the their new power. I know Pete is very conservative on right to life issues and taxes and stuff like that. We don’t try to change each other’s postions and we rarely talk politics at all since we know we don’t agree and don’t really see the point in destroying a friendship over it. We enjoy what what enjoy with each other — football, golf, family, parties, friendships. Some of my very closest friends here are in this circle. We just don’t agree and it’s OK. But I do think it is important for all of us to try to understand why people that don’t think like us think the way they do. Not to change their mind or anything but to broaden our own perspective. I think that has to be a part of this whole idea of “coming together” as a nation. It’s gotta be more than a Kumbaya moment and a lot lot more than more than a na-na-na my side won moment. We’ve done that for the last 4 years and look where it got us. So when Pete asked when he could feed me again I jumped. Did I mention that he is a good cook. Way better than me and I am no slouch.

My dear sister Terri grabbed me for a minute this weekend before everyone got on the Sunday call and wanted to tell me that I shouldn’t say something on this blog about someone. Doesn’t matter what. I told her in no uncertain terms that this was my life and my memories of it and my process of dealing with my cancer and my future and that she had no right to suggest to me what I decide to write. Now Terri is the most generous and caring of all my sisters. She would do and give me anything and she is energetic and kind and recently remarried to a wonderful guy who has actually been in the family for the last 15 years. But and this is for all of you. I am going to say what I need to say here. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to read it, you can take it personally if you want or you can just let it flow off your back like water off a duck. Remember the CIM lesson today — My thoughts do not mean anything.

Jan and I talked for a minute after the family call and she recalled something that had happened when we were kids and how Nancy’s memory of it and her memory of it were completely OPPOSITE. That’s how out minds work. We build our world out of our memories and our memories are not objectively true. So we build on that perverbial sand foundation. I have been having a very deep and thoughtful email correspondence with someone I love deeply about all this. She is going to visit me this Spring. The ball’s in my court right now to answer her last letter and I’m still figuring out what to say next in this exchange. Suffice it say that the letter I got from her yesterday was the most thoughtful letter I have ever received in my life. There’s no rush to write back. She is reading this.

Sirius XM expires tomorrow. I have to cancel the subscription since I’m like spending no time in the car. Or better, see if can negotiate with them a way that I can keep it on my phone for the low low price of whatever they’ll give me. I mostly listened to the fantasy football channel, CNN and MSNBC and The Grateful Dead channel this past year when I was in the car. Not much else. NPR maybe.

Listening to baroque today. All day. I once took a class called proprioceptive writing. Liz still takes these classes every week. Pretty sure she is still reading. I know her from Shambhala and she has me over every Christmas eve and prepares and serves this very traditional Scandinavian Christmas eve feast. Like 6 courses. Not this year. Covid. And I didn’t go last year because I was sick with a bad flu or something and didn’t want to pass it on. It’s a small group her kids and a few friends. Bob and Carol used to come. The first course is and I am going to try using phonics to come up with this word — risingere — No spell check that had the right word. Liz text it to me. She did — it’s risingrot. I wasn’t even close. Anyway it is a rice porridge kind of stuff. And you serve it with soft, (what an interesting word that is. I mean seriously. My dictionary is a good one and it has dozens of entries for soft but not this one) which is a is a kind of thin syrup made from lingonberries I think. And you put cinnamon on top as well. By the way Liz correctly spelled it saft so I looked that up and it’s the Scottish word for soft. But nothing about the syrup. Risingrot is the ultimate in comfort food. And in every pot of there is one marzipan pig. And if you get the pig in your bowl, you’ll have good luck all year long. The courses are the cheese and fish course, a pasta course, cucumber salad, sweedish pancakes — you know those real thin ones like crepes. And it ends with a cake Liz makes with rasberries and whipped cream. Many great memories of those evenings every Christmas eve with Liz and her family and a few people I didn’t even know in this small group of maybe 10. Lucy is her daughter — a yoga teacher. She sent me the sweetest note when Liz told her I had cancer. Her email sign off is “Big Love.”

So Proprioceptive writing. The class was taught by Sandra Deer — Jane’s wife for those who are following along. It is a kind of meditative stream of consciousness kind of writing. Not sure how to describe it but it lets you tap into some deep recesses in your mind. Let me see if there is a wikepedia entry.Proprioceptive writingProprioceptive Writing is a method for exploring the psyche through writing developed since 1976 by Linda Trichter…simple.wikipedia.org

So it done for set periods of time say 20 minutes by a small group — say 10 people. The idea is that you listen to yourself and you must keep the pen moving at all times. No stopping to think what am I going to say now. You know like when you put the pencil in your mouth and think about what to say next. That is not allowed. You must keep the pen moving even if all you are writing is “I am keeping the pen moving because I know I have to and I don’t know what to say next so I keep writing and just keep going and on and on….” It is done to baroque music. The baroque music helps keep the pen (consciouness) flowing. After the writing period is over (a timer goes off), the group, which needs to be an intimate group — intimate in the sense of total trust — reads their writing to the rest of the group and Sandra would offer brief comments to the group. Jane never did this. Wasn’t her thing. She was busy out there being kind. But Liz and I did for a while and Liz still does. I haven’t done it in years. But I’ll bet Liz has been doing it for 25 years once a week. I would take it up again if I could find a group that intimate but working with people has always been the most difficult of the 3 paths for me. I can work on self and I can work for the world in general. It’s the second one — working with people that has been the hardest. Proprioceptive writing can be done alone but it is most powerful when done in a small close group. You’d finish each meeting with another writing session usually shorter — maybe 15 minutes that you would not share with the group. Here’s another website I found about it.Pwriting.orgProprioceptive Writing is a method for exploring the mind through writing.pwriting.org

I did it again. And email popped up from someone I know saying they meant to send me this picture. And I clicked the link and it took me to some story about Megyn Kelly. I closed it immediately, deleted the email, rebooted to clear cache, but shit I hate it when I act automatically like that. I restarted the baroque music to help me keep the thoughts flowing. I am not doing proprioceptive writing here btw but I am writing and for the first time in a long long time. And it is helping me even if it’s just stream of consciousness. It’s 41 today here. Too cold for an outdoor walk.

So this is the picture of the family on my mother’s side on Troop Street when we were all kids. I’m wearing a tie next to my dad behind my mom. All the uncles and Aunt Sally are in the back row. And all of Grandma and Grandpa’s kids are sitting in front of them. 6 women — Rosemary, Fran, Helen, Jean, Mary, Virginia and Uncle Jack. And then all the kids. And there would be lot more kids to come. This was way before the Henry’s moved to California. So you see I have a very big big family and many in this picture have shown up for me this past month in a big way. Each one has a unique story and some are painful and some are joyful but most of them are both. Mine is that way.

And this is all of us at my parents 50th (wait…now that I think about it I think this is the 60th) wedding anniversary. I’m just over my dad’s head. Now some of those little ones in the front have kids of their own.

Here is a picture of the last time I think all 14 of us were all together. It’s very difficult to get 12 kids and 2 parents all in the same place at the same time. So this is my entire immediate family.

You’ll get to know all these people if you keep reading. I have been blessed with such a large and mostly loving family. As you can see from the 3 photos above, there are a lot of us, relationships are complex. Everyone is different and unique to be sure. Family dynamics are a well of complex and glorious things to discover. Tried to add the dictionary definition of the word dynamics but I don’t think the link is live.dynamics – Google SearchPlease click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds. Grow Your Business Faster With Traditional, Global…www.google.com

Look up the word. It’s a very interesting word. One of THE most important terms in music especially choral singing. I am going to ruminate on this word for a while. brb. I hope you took a little time with that word. The conclusion I came to on the last translation I did about a week ago was “Power is flowing through my being always.”

So here are the Leahy and Henry cousins sitting the steps at the big Troop street house. I do wish these pictures did not look so distorted. That beaming young girl in the middle (Mary) and I had a long talk the other night on the phone. And I have a precious symbol of her love for me on my refrigerator right now. We spoke about a lot things but we also spoke about Johnny and Jan dug out some pictures of

Johnny out of her attic. This is John nearing the end. That’s my folks and Jack with him. I don’t think I was on that visit. He was something. Wouldn’t know what a dictionary was let alone how to open one up. All he did was just try to make the people around him happy. He is dying in this picture wasting away from ALS and he is chuckling with my folks and with Jack. What a guy. How Ya’ Doing John? I miss you. Am so glad that Jan went into her attic and started digging around for some photos and sending them to me. John is as inspirational a person as I have ever met. More than any teacher I ever had — more than anyone really. He just exuded love all the time 24/7 non stop eternal. Uncomplicated and indiscriminate. Just a truck driver.

Jack bringing me back after that really rough night a few nights ago reminded me of coming back from seizures. I think I mentioned that I have a siezure disorder which started from a motorcycle accident in my early 20’s. And over years since I have had a few of them. Not many but a few. When someone has a siezure they do not need an ambulance, they just need someone there in front of them starinng them in the face and telling them they had a siezure, that it’s OK and here’s where we are and just rest and breathe and it’s going to come back to normal again soon. Within a couple of minutes I always figured it out even if I was alone. But Jack that night was that reassuring presence telling me that this was a reaction to the chemo and it sucked but that was all it was.

My Cancer Journey 1/11 #2

So heated up some chicken soup (that I made last month and was in the freezer in anticipation of days like this after chemo) for dinner and watched the PBS NewsHour. OK. So allota shit is going down. I got the jist. Allen called me and told me tonight the the Ohio State Alabama game. I would watch it if I had cable but I don’t and it’s on ESPN which I don’t get. So I’ll just have read about who won. Alabama is the big bad wolf around here, but I kinda hate OSU as well. (I am soooo sorry Rosie). I’ve always been on the Michigan side of that rivalry with Mike Leahy. Rosie it’s just that I’ve known him longer than I’ve known you. But I do love you more. And I am going to post a puzzle one morning soon and work on it all day and see if I can figure it out all by myself. I guess I would pull for OSU just because of you Rosie. Alabama is such a machine. They could beat 25% of the teams in the NFL year after year I’ll bet. I will check the score before I go to sleep.

I called Rich my cousin in La Grange, IL on the Henry side. I had sent him the it’s time to spill the beans email but never heard from him and I wanted to be sure he knew and that he knew I was OK. Rich is my cousin who lost his only son, Dylan, to the opiod crisis. Dylan was the plumber working a job site that fell and broke his back sometime in his 20’s. And after more than a year, the doctors just cut him off and wouldn’t give him any more opiods. When Rich told me story a couple of years ago he admitted that he didn’t really know if the overdose was intentional or not but that Dylan was in unbearable pain and couldn’t see a way out. I met Dylan when he was a young boy — maybe 8 or 9. I never knew him as a young man. I can see how he could see that there was no alternative for him except to just give up and leave. What a tragedy for humankind. To see a young life snuffed out like that. And it happens every damn day every damn hour all over the world. Anyway, Rich and Pat (his wife) and I had a lovely conversation. Hillary, Rich’s only daughter was on her way over for dinner and I told him to give her a hug for me. It was good to catch up. He didn’t call me cuz he didn’t know what to say. I just told him it was fine and that I wanted him to know I was doing fine. I asked him to text me a photo of Dylan so if that gets here before I post tonight I’ll slide it and put it in my picture to print file.

Just put a Lyle Lovett mix on. Think I’ll do a little walking.

People keep telling me they can’t follow the stories on Medium. I don’t know what to tell you. I googled this. If you’re having trouble I hope it helps.The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Medium — 2020Start here if you’re new to Medium or haven’t found your way around, yet.medium.com

Turned on Mandolin Orange. A duo from North Carolina. I posted one of their songs a few days ago. Gonna walk some more.

Just had an avocado spinkled with garlic salt, black pepper, cumin and red chipotle power. Very good btw.

Speaking of walking, This is Me, Sue, Dana and John at the March for Our Lives in Atlanta. I was recoivering from my last knee replacement so I had to use a cane for the walk. Couldn’t carry a sign since well I had to use a cane to walk. It wasn’t that long a walk maybe 3 miles or so. Adn the cops let me sit on the hoods of their carss and rest when I needed to. I’d chat with them and tell them this was all about making everybody safer including them. They ALL agreed. So I hobbled along. I was so impressed with those kids from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. They just took the bull by the horns and said we have to DO something about this. And they led a nation for a little while. I was definitely one of the followers. All of them were so determined to make a difference. Just like Greta Thunberg. Just kids out deteremined to change the world. Since we grown ups can’t seem to figure out how to do it.

John Lewis was my congressman. Well most of time. With gerrymandering it changed from time to time. It was either John or Hank Johnson. John was in at the beginning of the March for our Lives. My friend John was snapping pics as fast as he could and he got this one. It is precious to me. I’m sure you all learned about John Lewis last summer. Here was a very humble man, soft spoken but courageous like a lion. I shed many tears when he died. I watched TV for 4 days. PBS has shown a few specials on him — John Lewis — Get in the Way or John Lewis — Good Trouble. There are one or 2 more probably local productions. I have several recorded on Tivo and haven’t deleted them so I can go back sometime. I’m not gonna say much about John Lewis except one story. So Sue is working with a family of refugees at the refugee ministry at her church All Saints. She was assigned a newly arrived refugee family and she has been helping them out for a couple of years. One of the family members was a young girl, sophomore in high school. I don’t remember her name. I would text Sue but it’s too late. She was trying to fit in, you know doing her best, to learn English and all that. I didn’t know her at all but Sue did. And Sue invited me to join her for a sort of showcase of high school students that Pearl Cleague a local playwright put together. It was like a 2 week summer theater workshop open to high school kids. There were about 30 kids in the workshop. They were as diverse a group as you could imagine. I don’t know what else to tell you. There were blue eyed blonde kids from the suburbs and tough kids from the hood all colors, sizes, sexual preferences and everything in between. And this couragoeus refugee kid who could barely speak English. She was one of the youngest. Most were juniors and seniors. The project was to put on a showcase about John Lewis’ life. They broke it up in sections and each kid participated fully in the project and John was in the audience. There was singing and dancing but poetry and story telling and acting and props and the whole shebang. Sue’s dear charge gave a very moving talk in broken English about how much she admired John. Not a dry eye in the house. It was at the Center For Civil & Human Rights downtown. Here’s a short blurb. [The Center for Civil and Human Rights is a museum in Downtown Atlanta. The museum is dedicated to the work achieved by the Civil Rights Movement, not just in the US but throughout the world. The eye-opening exhibits include memorabilia pertinent to Martin Luther King, an interactive gallery about segregation and other historically important artifacts of the civil rights movement. The museum also houses an interesting exhibit on some of the world’s worst and most dangerous dictators.]

John gave a short talk, expressed his gratitude and admiration for the kids and took time to spend with each of them and have his picture taken with them. I never met the man or spoken to him but I have admired him since I moved into his district in 1996.

So Pearl Cleague created this workshop. Here’s her Wikipedia page.Pearl CleagePearl Cleage (December 7, 1948) (pronounced: “cleg”) is an African-American playwright, essayist, novelist, poet and…en.wikipedia.org

One of her plays is called Flyin’ West. Pearl knew Jane and Sandra. You know theater people and all. She is still playwright in residence at The Alliance — the biggest theater company in town where Jane and Kenny worked before they started True Colors. We produced this play at True Colors and got a state arts grant to take it on the road around the state. I was the Company Manager for that road show. Crystal Fox from the TV show In the Heat of the Night was the lead. It’s a really good play. Here I found a summary on the web. “Pearl Cleage’s Flyin’ West is the story of a small group of African-American women whose lives changed when the West was opened up for people willing to settle in a harsh and untested region. The backgrounds, actions, and feelings of the play’s four women and two men reflect themes of determination, racism, miscegenation (intermarriage between races), feminism, pride, and freedom.” We opened the show at the National Black Arts Festival here in Atlanta in the summer of 2004 to sell out crowds. And then we took it on the road to Macon, Americus and Columbus. It was a really good show and we played in some gorgeous old theaters but nobody came. We played to houses with single digits in the audience. It was sad. In Macon we ran into Little Richard in the lobby of the Holiday Inn we stayed at. He was doing an outdoor music festival later that day. In Americus is where I went over to Plains early one Sunday morning to hear Jimmy Carter teach Sunday school. I didn’t bother to stand in line to get a picture with him. It was pretty crowded. They had an overflow room with a video link but I got in the church to see him in person. He spoke about what he was doing. At that time he was monitoring elections overseas and working to eradicate Guinea Worm disease. And I said earlier. He is also a man I admire greatly. He told us about his last trip. And then he read a story from the bible and gave a short talk about it.Guinea Worm Eradication ProgramSince 1986, The Carter Center has led the international campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease, working closely with…www.cartercenter.org

I’m glad we took that show on the road even if nobody came. It was a seed that got planted in South Georgia. A couple of years ago Sue and John and Dana and I took a 3 day trip to Selma, Montgomery and Tuskegee. But that’s a story for another day.