family

Broken Brains

May 3, 2016 by rurugby Leave a Comment

I watched “My Beautiful Broken Brain” today on Netflix.

I’m still thinking about it. Having a major stroke around 35, and losing language losing the ability to read and write easily. Literally seeing the world different with more colors and loudness. And finding a new balance and a new happiness.

I have a strange way of looking at the world with bipolar disorder and I do worry about major manias. I took take medications and I wish I didn’t have to. I do think they make it harder for me to concentrate for a while. I have read far, far fewer books since I started taking them again in April, 2013.

And I think about my dad already different after having a major tumor removed in his frontal lobe from brain cancer but with three good years. Then a tougher tumor to remove and probably a couple strokes. He wasn’t at all the same the last 9 months.

I also think about living in a very loud and distracted world, filled with smartphones, cars, traffic and just lots of noise. I don’t know if we are made for it. I think we do need quiet for the brains, and it’s important to retreat.

I also think all of our broken brains are beautiful.

Three Years Later

April 1, 2016 by rurugby 1 Comment

It’s been three years since my dad passed.

My cats are “helping” me type right now by joining me on the desk.

I am doing good.

I didn’t sleep great last night. I got through work. I think I will take a day off next year.

I got to play some fingerstyle guitar. I think I like it. Fooling with the bass for a bit I think helps.

But I feel like I should post links from days past.

Here is my blogpost from 3 years ago.

Here is Lanna’s beautiful post. My dad was a very good man. I was lucky to have a wonderful father and still have a wonderful mom who completely love each other.

And here is my blogpost “A Constant Struggle, A Constant Worry” that a few days later on April 6, 2003 talked about the whole process of his cancer.

I really wish he was still here. He would only be 69.

And here is some John Coltrane playing Blue Train because John Coltrane is amazing and I am feeling a bit blue but upbeat.

And some Dave Brubeck “Take Five” because this just what he loved.

Chet Baker “Almost Blue”

And a Miles Davis and John Coltrane concert in Stockholm from 1960.

All straight ahead jazz my dad would have loved.

Music meant so much to us.

And thank you everyone who expressed their love during his sickness.

It means so much to me.

The Gift of Having a Blog

March 7, 2016 by rurugby Leave a Comment

I was looking at my memories on Facebook, which I am apt to do and talked about earlier in the week. And know that March is rolling around it is that my dad was about to pass away 3 years at the time. He passed on April 1, 2013.

And through the blog, I am able to see what I was feeling at the time.

Both relieved and upset to be so far away from my parents. Eight hours from Portland, Maine to Allentown, PA.

Reading that my dad “keeps saying “goodbye” to mom when he goes to bed.” That happened about 3 1/2 weeks before he died.

Crying with Johnny Cash, there is a reason playing his music on my guitar means so much to me.

In My Life is so beautiful in Johnny Cash’s hands and voice:

In this post, I was dreaming I was my dad, how incredibly frustrating it must be to be bed bound and losing your mind and your body.

And I do think when I drove back on March 30th. 2013 my dad wanted me to be there before he passed. And just mom there when he did pass from the Earth to what lies beyond.

And so much in one of my best blogposts ever, “A Constant Struggle, A Constant Worry”, 4 1/2 years as a brain cancer survivor. But without cancer my dad probably lives until his 80s. I miss him all the time.

And as I said in the post “Being a caretaker is so challenging. Blessings to the aides that cleanup. The friends that listen. The parishioners and friends who pray. Blessings to nurses who listen. Doctors who try their best.”

And blessings to everyone who reads these words and sends out love.

edmund

You are always on my mind

March 21, 2015 by rurugby Leave a Comment

My dad has been on my mind a lot this week.

I felt his presence watching my guitar instructor George Lesiw jamming with a cool 7 string guitar almost sounding like a stand up bass.

Kids were playing and being silly. I was being silly with them while counting time.

We were talking jazz, of concerts, of memory, of good times.

I look forward to going to the Jewish Community Center again in 2 weeks on the 2nd anniversary of his death of April 1st and listen to some jazz keyboard and then go off to play pinball. I haven’t gone to play pinball in a wild. It’s a lot harder when you break and damage your coccyx to drive 30 miles each way. But, I miss it. Playing Pinball Arcade on your phone isn’t the same as going to Pinball Wizard Arcade with over a hundred pinball machines and over a hundred classic games. The New England Pinball Associated is packed in there today for finals. I am happy not to be there, it’s a lot of pinball. But if you are near Lowell, MA and love pinball and classic arcade drive a few miles to Pelham, NH. It’s magic.

I am really taking to guitar. I have been considering it for years. And when I heard a tone that said yes on the Ibanez Jazzbox, I just had to get it. It was marked down from $400 to $300 and the Fender Frontman 25R Amp from $100 to $80. I am very happy. And even happy I got the insurance. I don’t trust myself not to damage the guitar. Although if you are good to your guitar paying $60 for 3 years insurance on a $400 guitar is a lot.

I am amazed how much the memories of my father are positive but sometimes I need to cry. Here i the excellent Willie Nelson playlist from the classic country standard written by Kris Kristofferson “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” I would love to sing a lot of these songs. They are beautiful.

Sometimes you just need to cry.

Blessed be.

ecq

Memories of My Father

January 28, 2015 by rurugby Leave a Comment

I had a huge disruption in my life on April 1, 2013.

Had written everyday in the blog from I think Thankgiving, 2011 into mid-April.

I lost the rock of my life, my father Henry Edmunds Davis.

He always had a twinkle in his eye, incredibly intelligent and grounded with someone who wanted to be a farmer as a kid. He became an agronomist which means a weed scientist and a Ph.D. in Agronomy from the University of Wisconsin. I was born in Madison while he was studying. We even had food stamps for a short time while my dad was in school and my mom was a full time mom. We all need help sometimes.

We moved to Dublin, Ohio near Columbus when I was a little kid and my sister was still a toddler around 1977 or so when my dad completed his Ph.D. She as born on June 2, 1976, me on June 23, 1974. I have very happy memories from our time in Ohio. I remember being awed by the coal mine exhibit at the COSI science museum in Columbus. I think there is a groundedness to the midwest that you don’t see in New Jersey and Connecticut but begin to see again in Maine.

We moved to NJ when I was in 1st grade, because my dad got a good job offer at Mobil in NJ. I remember I was way, way ahead in math and had already completed second grade in math at the more self directed private school that my parents took us to Ohio. New Jersey is very different. Beautiful, underrated, but more of a drive to look out and look to keep doing better. I think people sometimes look to get ahead without worrying about others. I think similar things like places like Greenwich, CT and Well Street where money is worshipped over people. I think I always felt like an outsider in New Jersey, even though I ended up going to Montgomery schools all the way through High School. And there are people I have known there for over 30 years now. I am someone who I think feels like an outsider even when I am a regular and I know people. Does anyone else get this feeling?

Unfortunately, not long after dad moved his job ended and he had trouble finding another job so he decided to open a business, the Weed Doctor, doing home lawn care. He did this for decades after and I helped him out in high school and college. We had a lot of bonding there. Like me he had a map of places he has been in his mind. It’s an interesting superpower to have. I think he often charged to little for his services, and certainly had a bunch of characters work for him, some of which embezzled, one of which propositioned me when I was in Junior High School. Which I think affected me for a long time.

His mom lived until 90, and I expected to him to have him so much longer than I did. We didn’t expect brain cancer, I guess nobody does. Got lucky with his first operation. He had 5 good years, and 9 terrible months after his second operation. And I feel like there is nothing I need to say to him, I have no regrets, I just wish he was around so much longer.

It’s amazing how the death of a parents changes you. I have still been very active on social media and am now up to 187 straight days of Three (or way more) Good Things but there is something different about sharing things on WordPress. I have been wanting to get blogging every day for a long time. Hopefully these posts come out a lot more than I got a computer again.