HOSPICE PARTY FOR VOLUNTEERS

      louise nevelson, 1967

This evening a free dinner for hospice volunteers at the Silver Dollar in Glade Valley. A strange energy place, but probably I'm the only one that feels it, if I indeed feel it and am not projecting it. Whatever the case, it was an enjoyable evening. I took up right away at a table of 4 women I knew through the hospice. It was a trip sitting with women in their 70s and us having a grand time talking. We did. I realized these are my peers; they're not just a bunch of old women. I had white hair too. They were fun. We did have a good time talking. The Junior Appalachian Musicians of Sparta school entertained us on the stage with half a dozen old-time tunes like Sail Away Ladies, In The Willow Garden, aka Rose Connolly, among them. They played slow and tentative, but they had music. It was foot-tapping music. I said to the women at the table, They are the future of mountain music. They truly are. Not all will go on playing, but some of them will and some will stay in the region and be the respected musicians of their generation. One or more may turn up in bluegrass bands in the future. And none of the above may happen. It was an enjoyable entertainment. A few of the kids were already musicians.


Changes happening in the hospice offices in Sparta. Vickie, the director of the Sparta office, is leaving for a teaching job. Mary Lee, grief counselor, is moving into the director's role and Amy Douglas is taking the grief counseling role. Just seeing the names means nothing to you, but knowing these two women I see a perfect shift into the new style. Mary will be just right for her role and Amy just right for hers. I heard Amy at one of the talks given at hospice for volunteers on various issues concerning elder care. She's good. Got her ducks in a row. Pays attention. It's an excellent bunch of people there at the hospice office. They're all caring people. It seems like with all the bad news we're told every day on all varieties of media, caring people are rare and hard to find. That's not necessarily so. I find a lot of caring people, fewer that care enough to commit, but plenty that care.


Like I've said before, in this time of my life I want to only be around the people I care about who care about me. I find I have so many I don't need more. I don't need to go about like a flashing neon light that says Like Me. No need to advertise myself to strangers with a smile that says, I'm Nice. I'm not always nice, so it wouldn't be truth in advertising to let on like I'm nice. Therefore, I advertise myself somebody you don't want to know. That's the only thing I can truly advertise about myself. I'm as boring as Andy Warhol's 24hour film of the Empire State building. I don't play kick volleyball, and I'm not a team player, only meaning I prefer to work and play alone. I like George Thoroughgood's song, I Drink Alone. I like his sassy manner with it. I drink with others, but I also drink alone. I have no problem governing myself where liquor is concerned. I can go with it or without it. Thus, I do both; go with it awhile and without awhile. I tend to think of it as candy and don't overdo it. When I want a candy bar, I eat a candy bar. When I want some liquor, I drink some liquor. I like the buzz and I like to get shit-faced, but I don't like the next morning so well. It's the next morning that taught me moderation. Moderation for the sake of virtue means nothing to me.


I've just talked myself into putting some good liquor in a wine glass to have a sip or two. Or three or four. Or seven or eight. I poured the last of a jug of good liquor my friend Jr Maxwell gave me about 4 years ago into the orange juice glass he drank his liquor from. The glass he drank his liquor from was the only souvenir I asked for from Jr's objects. It was the only thing I wanted. About an inch and a half in the bottom of the glass. Just like when I drank with Jr in the evenings. Good memories. The kind of memories that are warm in the heart. Like the New Years Eve we decided we'd stay up til midnight. By 12, both our faces were on the table, neither of us could move. When the big hand and the little hand were both straight up, the party was over and we went our different ways to slumber. It was fun for both of us. We usually stopped drinking after 2 hours. This night we went on for 5 hours. We laughed like silly penguins giggling and flapping their flippers.


* 

ETHICS AS MARTIAL ART

accidental photograph



Have been talking, thinking, looking at in depth and detail ethical behavior with my friend from Hong Kong, Mary Lee. She found a dictionary definition saying ethics is human duty. Ethics is one of those words that doesn't have a handle. It takes two hands to carry it and if it's hot, you'll need pads. That word duty struck me right away what it is. Ethical (conscious) behavior doesn't seem to come to us genetically. It's learned behavior to help us get along in the herd without a great deal of negative feedback. At the same time, the notion of duty doesn't carry it for me. When a motivation has at it's root self-interest, then is it duty? Duty comes from outside ourselves. Seems to me ethics come from inside ourselves. Yes, we learn them from outside, but we fine tune them within ourselves, or so I'm seeing it now.


I say the motivation for ethical behavior, behavior that is respectful, is driven by self-interest, because ethical behavior keeps our emotional waters calm. No guilt or fears as a result. According to the universal law, you get what you give, when we give respectful behavior, we receive respectful behavior and it keeps the emotional waters mirror smooth so you see the clouds mirrored on the silver water traversed by occasional flying fish. It is self-interest to follow the words of Jesus, love your neighbor as yourself. It makes your life a whole lot more peaceful than perpetual war with that asshole next door who persists in cutting the grass one foot over the property line. Hail far, let him do it. That's a foot of grass I don't have to mow. Thank you, man. Let me put some gas in your mower.



Appears to me that right there is the foundation of ethics, self-interest, wanting the emotional waters peaceful all around me. I live in a world of people, whether in the city or the country. The people around me are more my world than the topography. Ethical behavior creates healthy relationships with the people in one's world, making for oneself a good life. If you prefer the biggest house on the highest hill with a high maintenance wife, and get there walking over people, living in it with a conscience that looks out over the town where you know at least a thousand people out there hate you and for good reason, doesn't strike me as inner peace. What kind of life is that? Then there's the American Dream, living underground a la Ayn Rand, out of sight and out of reach of the people you've jilted. Ethics makes it possible to live among whatever people you're around at the moment. In this way, ethics is even a martial art. The real martial arts master never uses it outside the dojo (the boxing ring). Ethical behavior means the martial artist never has to fight. But sometimes something unpredictable comes along and the martial artist knows how to duck.


In that the martial artist never "uses" his deadly knowledge, it's his ethical behavior that keeps him from needing to use it. Somebody wants to fight, he talks them out of it with good sense, knowing he has the upper hand. Rational talk disarms the aggressor and the problem is over. It is ethics that makes it unnecessary to use his training even to defend himself physically. In this way the martial arts make a good spiritual path. It's about conscious behavior. Another way of saying ethics might be self-awareness. Instead of blindly operating by body chemistry, perhaps ethics amounts to paying attention, giving attention where it's called for. I don't know that I would want to attempt to read a book on ethics unless it might be written by a Lokota medicine man. I don't think it means being the darling of little old ladies to be a man of ethics. Jerry Edwards of Whitehead is a man of ethics who goes about freely in his world with nobody looking at him through rifle sites. Welter Hamm too. Anyone who has ever dealt with either of these men has been dealt with honestly and with respect.



I prefer to think of ethics in everyday life action, talk and thought. Trying to define it so a lawyer couldn't find a loophole through it is beside the point. It's a very practical point of view that informs decision making, helps us to make better decisions for ourselves. When it gets down to the true and false questions, the multiple choice questions, essay questions for tests grading comprehension, that's when it gets complex. Like trying to explain every impulse and action involved in lifting the tip of my forefinger from the j on the keyboard to my nose could take volumes of explanations about unconscious thought to nerves that carry the message, on and on, when it's a very simple gesture. I don't want to detail it to death. I want to find the way of seeing what we call ethics in ways that can answer questions for given surprise situations that may be difficult to distinguish, even to the point of is there really any such a thing as ethics? Well, no, but we've made it so by defining it, so now we have it to deal with.



I feel like my own investigation and what I've come to regarding ethics satisfies my need for a conscious way of dealing with surprise issues. Compassion has to be in there someplace. Though I call it self-serving, which it ultimately is, on the way back to self, it goes out in the world through others and then back. Put out something like a smart remark, it isn't long before a smart remark comes back, either from same person or someone else later. Putting out respectful, honest behavior returns the same. Searching for a way to see ethics as an active part of everyday life, I've come to see ethics as first exhibiting through one's compassion for another. It must be altruistic in nature for it to come back altruistic in nature. When there is compassion, the ethical part is easy. It's when compassion is absent that we need a dictionary of ethics by particular circumstances, when it needs to become a course of study to get a doctorate in and write books about.



*

SEEING MARY LEE

white




This picture I got by accident. It has no intent of the human mind in it. Somehow I pushed the button without intending to and have no recollection of when, though I recognize where. It's the ceiling light that shines on the musicians Friday night at the Front Porch Gallery. I like accidental pictures. They're even more free of conscious composition than a small child's first snapshots. In this, there isn't even a subject. The mind wants to make the lights and the track the subject, which is ok by me. I still like the picture as itself. Different shades of white and one black line.



Met Mary Lee this morning, grief counselor with Hospice, who was a tremendous benefit in the time of Hospice helping keep Jr out of the nursing home. She didn't help with the changing of diapers, etc. Her role was more working with the caregiver going through emotional turmoil, sorrow, fear, helplessness. Whenever I felt the need for someone to talk with who understood what I was going through, a phone call to Mary would have her there first minute she could get there. Her's was one of 4 cars that when I saw one coming up the driveway, it was the same as seeing an angel flapping white wings like a crow flying low up the driveway.



Once, I felt like I needed to dive deep with a psychotherapist looking for something I couldn't find on my own. I asked Mary to come and spend an hour with me. We sat on the porch, Jr inside, and I explained my need to dive deep with someone to ask me leading questions. At this moment I don't remember the issue, but do remember by the end of the hour I saw into what what it was I was looking to find. It was a significant discovery at the time. We mostly talked about frustrations, joys, sorrows. Primarily, I needed somebody to talk out my meanings to and Mary provided the understanding ear and encouraging words. In addition to that, she's somebody I like knowing. We talk easily.



We had a great deal of laughs this morning. We took a corner in the coffee shop on Main St, Backwoods Bean, and did our private talking there. Two men in the place were out of their minds with curiosity about our conversation. It was animated and full of good humor, obvious we were having fun. There was a time each of them, one at a time, walked within earshot of us to hear what we were talking about, trying not to be obvious, like getting off the seat in the bar, walking over by us like looking at a picture on the wall, then back to the seat. It was funny, not a problem. We talked loud enough that if they wanted to hear us they could. We weren't hiding anything. They were, for me, part of the good humor. It was totally innocent. The time came they were eaten up with curiosity so much they had to hear something to make sense of our conversation. They made it real.



There have been times I've gone to her office to talk about something that was bothering me at the time. Mainly, I think it was a need to talk about Jr with someone who knew my meaning. Like today, it was for my part mainly a chance to talk about Jr. I tried the best I could to explain to Mary my meaning when I say I feel Jr's presence all the time now. It's not like a ghost, a spirit, or even anything psychic, just presence. All that I learned from knowing Jr, which is considerable, is now incorporated into who I am. In that way, he is with me all the time.
I told her about keeping the interior of the car clean, because Jr liked it kept clean. He never cleaned the outside, and I don't either. It will always be "Jr's car." I love it that he passed his old-man chariot on to me as I'm entering my own old man phase.



It felt good being back in touch with Hospice. My awe for these people is tremendous. A year must pass before a caregiver is allowed the opportunity to volunteer with Hospice. A year is passed first of November, I said I wanted to do something volunteer, thinking of being one who gives a caregiver a break for some hours, which amounts to reading a thick book. She had some other thoughts in mind that we talked about for awhile, something to do with understanding the grief process, the journal aspect of the blog before, during and after, keeping a record of the feelings one passes through. While going through the whole process, writing a blog entry every day became my friend. It was a kind of archiving the subtleties of a universal experience like making the videos at the Front Porch Gallery and putting them on YouTube for whoever happens to see them. Sharing valuable experience that uplifts the spirit. I look forward to a future associated with Hospice.