TRUST

Hokusai

Rode again today by public transportation to Winston-Salem, so grateful somebody else was driving, I'd have been happy if the van's interior smelled of beer and puke, which, thankfully, it did not. It had a pleasant aroma, almost a new car scent. It tells the degree the drivers keep the vans immaculately clean. It also tells on management. The service is that well managed. I see it in the people working there, their efficiency and communication. The drivers of the recent four trips have been good people, good drivers, friendly people I felt I knew as a friend by the time we returned. I used to be uncomfortable alone with somebody I did not know for an extended time.  Possibly, in that time the ego was in a turmoil wanting to make a good impression, not say the wrong thing. That was awhile ago. Since then, much has changed. I think it had something to do with accepting self as is, not as I might want self to appear. Maybe it had something to do with fear of others, fear of judgment, growing up in a hyper-judgmental environment. Maybe I'm getting close to home.

 

hokusai

 

Living in the mountains went a long ways toward healing that affliction. I live in a world of people I care about who care about me. It's what I call community. It took living among the mountain people, people I fell in love with as a people, as a culture, individuals in the culture. Some of the most human human beings I've known have been here in these hills. I emphasize the human as allowing their own humanity, the full range of it. Judged from the outside by Yankees, the hill people don't have much to offer. Seen from the inside, from inside the culture, from knowing the lives of the people around me, I see people who exemplify what I consider the highest human qualities in their everyday lives. You have to know the people well to see what they have to offer. They don't brag on themselves, they don't put themselves first. First thing that comes to mind I can say of the mountain people is grace. They have a grace that can only be seen from the inside. It is closed to the outside. I find I breathe the freest in the company of mountain people. I feel most comfortable with the mountain people I know, the wide variety of them, given that each one is individual who he or she is. Getting acquainted with somebody new from here is fun, find out who they're related to, who they know that I know, where they grew up, went to church. By the time our first conversation is over, we know each other.

hokusai

 

I don't mean to imply they are perfect people with halos. They are human beings who live in a world of other human beings. Inside the culture, everyone is treated with respect and regards others around them with respect. Trust is especially important among the people of these hills. Trust is important to me. I learned it here. It took thirty-five years for Whitehead community to trust me, and I'm glad it took so long. The trust would be empty otherwise. I never learned much about trust in youth, living in a world where  fickle was the norm. Perhaps this could be behind why trust is so important in the latter half of the life. It has a great deal to do with why I value certain people that other people look askance at. I see someone who understands trust, someone I know I could trust to the grave. For having such trust given to me, I feel it necessary to give such trust in turn. The people with trust between them never talk about the other behind their back. It's an unspoken code. Personally, this trust that takes years to earn gives life a richness like the rich quality of a chocolate cake.

 

Hokusai

 

I like to hear people tell their stories, like on the radio show, This American Life, though in person, hearing it from the source. Sometimes, like today, I talk just to keep the other talking, because I like hearing their stories so much. They tell me who they are in their stories and I tell who I am in my stories. On the drive to Winston-Salem and back, we carried on a spontaneous back-and-forth story-telling festival of experiences, people we've known. I've learned from experience to avoid politics and religion as subjects for conversation. Too predictable, both based in ill-informed opinions. I'd rather talk about our lives, what we've observed. In the Age of hate radio and television, I know better than to let a man my age, more or less, get going on politics. The white men of my generation have been a disappointment, now that we're the old people. When I was younger, I thought the older people the most interesting. Now that I'm older, I see the younger people the most interesting. I like to watch kids play. The spontaneous appeals to me now more than ever.

Hokusai

self-portrait 1839

 

 

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HAPPY DAY ~ NEW BATTERY

air bellows drive thru art museum

 

Yesterday I did nothing, yet accomplished a very great deal with the help of others. Took public transportation to Winston-Salem, Wake Forest hospital, to have defibrillator/pacemaker replaced. The battery in the previous one expired. Since they have a new model, the whole thing was replaced. The process of replacing it was perhaps the most relaxing part of the day. Being fussed over relaxes me. Sitting in the barber's chair having hair trimmed relaxes my interior such that I feel a bit wobbly standing up when it's over, like stepping outside in the light after seeing a matinee movie. Before and after, much activity and inactivity. A little over an hour in the van with Larry Cole driving for Alleghany In Motion, so grateful not to be driving, and grateful, too, the driver was someone I know and like, whose woman is someone I have a great deal of respect for. He let me out at the door. Next was morning exercise walking down a long hallway, up a flight of stairs, another hallway, follow the signs to the device clinic. Instructions said go to Admittance, but I had no idea where it was in the infinite labyrinth of white walls and ceilings, gray floors. I was carrying a copy of George Orwell's, 1984, for waiting periods.

 

air bellows drive thru art museum

 

In the elevator, G is the first floor up, M with a star in it is ground floor. Instead of the M button being under the G button, it's over to the side. Two columns of buttons zig-zag back and forth, rather than directly up and down. It has taken me several trips there to get it, thinking I may have got it this time. Though by next time it may have wiggled down the groundhog hole of memory loss, again. At Device Clinic, I was told to go to Admittance. Where? I was given directions, turn left, turn left, turn left, long crooked passageway. By the time I was out into the hallway, the directions were going every which way in my head and I turned left. Turned left again. Took elevator, turned left, long passageway, but it wasn't crooked. I asked a woman who worked there. I was at the far end of the building. She was going that way and led me to it. Thank you. In Admittance, I sat and waited, opened the book, read four pages, rereading a few paragraphs from inability to focus  in a big room with people in motion, people sitting, a tv going. I folded the book. Too much distraction catching my eyes and ears. Decided to sit and watch the activity in this room so huge people in the distance were small.

 

air bellows drive thru art museum

 

A woman my age came to take me to next stop in a wheelchair. I said I'd rather walk. Need the exercise. She weighed half as much as I do. I could not feel right taking the luxury of a wheelchair ride with her pushing it. It was a long walk, we talked, became acquainted pleasantly. Wait. Tried to read Orwell again, but found it hopeless again. Sat and watched the people sitting in the waiting room chairs. The old boy with round belly, plaid shirt, bald head, round face, the corners of his mouth pointing straight down. I thought, head full of anger propaganda from the Fake news network. His daughter was with him. Another man reading a book. He seemed to be having as successful a time as I had. My turn. A good nurse I liked was my guardian over changing into hospital skimpy, wheeled to the operating room, spread out on a comfortable table, legs strapped down, interesting pillow to hold head in place. Doctor had to cut open the pocket opening, take out old device, unplug it, plug in the new device, reinsert it, then patch up the slice in the skin. Local anesthetic, Novocain. The most it ever hurt was like taking a cat claw in the arm when putting Caterpillar down and she hangs on with one claw.

 

air bellows drive thru art museum

 

I was so relaxed throughout the process, it almost felt like on some painkiller. My feeling is the doctor and everyone concerned can do their work better if I'm relaxed with a clear mind. Sometimes it hurt like hell. I stayed calm like a good hillbilly and said to self, I can take it. When it comes to physical pains I've endured, this was nothing. It was better than working in a patch of briers with a scythe, raking one across the face. The pain was never more than a cat claw puncture. From patient etherized upon a table, wheeled to the waiting room where I was to rest connected to a blood pressure and heart rate machine. The nurse in this phase was my favorite, a beautiful, round-featured black woman named Tabitha, a beautiful human being. She was so charming she made this part of the day fun. Everybody, all along the way, made the stay a pleasant one from start to finish. Every one of the nurses was pleasant, fun company, as were the ones I asked for directions. I saw a lot of beautiful black people. Since cell phone videos have exposed police brutality on black people that has been going on all along, my heart opened to every black person I saw and met. I viewed every one with the highest respect. I feel deep empathy toward American black people. I always knew the black experience in America is unpleasant, but did not know, before, that they all have relatives and friends killed and brutalized by police, and fear for their children's lives. I felt happy comfortable with all the black people I saw, because my heart opened and I saw each one with a prayerful compassion. I felt impulse to bow before every black woman, man and child I saw. Justin drove to W-S to give me a ride home. I told him about the joys of the stay. The experience of the whole trip, from leaving home to arriving home, made a joyous day.
 

air bellows drive thru art museum
photos by tj worthington



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