One more time?

So, still around.

Since the last one of these I've been way down, and now back up.  My ability to write, here or anywhere, has fallen off, and I am missing some other stuff that I always had.  Faced through efforts that were intended to stretch out the timing - so hey, you can get another year, or maybe even two.   But in what form?

My conclusion at this point is, no more, no thanks.  I have gone now to absolute minimum on the medical stuff and, I think, was able to walk back up to being me, more or less.  It may not last a year, or even less, but I'd rather do it that way and be me.

And especially to be with my beloved wife, and carry forward.  She and I have have been together 30 years, and I have never loved her more than now.  She is brilliant and I am a lucky, blessed man.

Plus we have a great dog.  She's at my feet now, and stays with us, the 3-year westie.  As far as I can tell she loves us, other folks, and other dogs.

Back to town

OK so the current choice seems to be Florida v. Missouri.  Not to say that Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York (city and state, under separate analytical approaches), New Jersey, DC, and California (north and south, also quite separate) aren't also in the running, or at least in the memory bank, and maybe Illinois and Texas too.  Hey, it's been a trip, these 63 years, and I'm not even planning to go back abroad to live, as I used to think I would, or to places I haven't been to yet. Say, Alaska.

The real point is whether, wherever I am, I'm living the balance of my time in a way that doesn't waste a day.  Or at least to think about how to do it, as a coming play - since I'm currently in a spot where the results are not in, I'm just told to cool it for another couple of weeks, then we can decide what's next, the 12-month version of stuff they will next apply and then say, basically, OK that's our best.  A total of six weeks of waiting for my brain to get back to whatever constitutes my normality, and then how to take it ahead.  Coming attraction.

Well, I have to say that right now, if not yet going forward, that this working with something less than 100 percent of the previous capacity is OK part of the day, and damn strange in other parts.  An example, right now right here, is the typing of this talk.  Every third or fourth word is typed wrong and I see it immediately and I fix it.  Includes spellings that are not even close to what I mean.  It's a very active version of composition correction, which even in smart days I used to make once in a while.

But the good news is it isn't today like trying to skip through a badly wrecked piece of landscape, as it was right after the head was first grilled and carved in December.  Just a practice that is somewhat slower than before, and probably not with vocabulary at the the same level.

And so-what to that?  I think I've moved to simpler patterns of thought and friendship.  Simpler language as well?

Oh OK.  Part of me wishes it were French.

Eastern coast of Florida

We're in Florida for a few days to stay with a great newish friend, in an oldish house in a part of Vero Beach, one of those long islands running off the east coast.  A relatively reasonable cost way to leave the Midwest for a few days, go someplace worthy, and, as it turns out, stumble into some of your greatest friends almost by accident. I guess Florida is now where most of our post-60 bunch goes, at least in winter, maybe more so than ever. Hmm.  A lifeplace I never thought I'd sign up for but man, now, dealing with medical stuff that is way off any previous-understood set of charts, maybe now I will, as least more than before, hang out in Florida.

Or not.  Who really knows where all this goes?  Me, least of all.

The trip here brings back strongly some old memory, of Fort Lauderdale and the lives my grandmother and uncle led there, with homes, water and boats, and the idea that  - 60-70 years ago - there could be a life there that differed from life in, say, Cleveland.  My grandmother, after brilliance in the Cleveland society of 1910's and '20's and loss and rescue in the '30's, lived her final years in a house on the water in Fort Lauderdale. Where I learned a lot in Spring visits, and in particular how to look out to the water that lead out to the ocean, and how that could mean future, not just that day.  Then my uncle, a fine-looking man with beautiful cars and boats, who went out of his way to live a fine-looking life which, as far as I could tell, he pretty well did.  Miss you, Uncle Greg, and the world, old Lauderdale, you lived in with residual class.

No. Six weeks since the last one?

One of the odd aspects of this brain surgery world is that days, then weeks, can drift by and you don't really even notice that you aren't doing what you should.  Used to be, over the past few years or so, that I felt bad about backing off from Strays and my other ways of tossing out mostly non-legal ideas.  But after the serious crap shoot in December, and especially over the recent six weeks of brain zap, I didn't really feel bad about quiet and non-reply.  I just saw the days and nights go by, and let notes from dear people go unanswered, and just thought, oh.  Did my life really consistent mostly, and without regret, of getting zaps and conversation at a hospital and otherwise watching the tube?

Well, I'd better return to more that that or pretty soon I will wish that December 23 had been the finale (as, for a few weeks, I wasn't sure it wasn't - an interesting time - wondering if this was post-surgery or post-everything, a sort of dream).  But naa, I'm still alive and it's all been just one life, bouncing from Cleveland to Concord to Princeton to Boston, back to Cleveland, to St. Louis, to Washington DC, back to St. Louis, to London, back to St. Louis, to Hong Kong, back to St. Louis.  More or less, and so far.

Many places still to go to, if not to inhabit.  Maybe not a lot of time to get there, though, and flying from continent to continent would undermine an option I have thought about so often, my version of Travels with Charley - a work that was as important to me, decades ago, as any, but which did not involve world air travel.  At least as to the far-off stuff, maybe it will be better to follow Stevens, do it mostly by thought.  We'll see, no decisions right away, but I can't and don't want to wait for long.

Not so bad, this life thing

I had cancer a few years ago.  Took a while to sort it out - two episodes and about 18 months, actually. And then, when things seemed to be running off track again last Fall, the first question was whether it was a recurrence of the old neck cancer.

Then, as we went through surgery and the information it revealed, it became as clear as things get in this world (which isn't 100 percent clear) that I was dealing with a new cancer, brain version, that really didn't have much to do with the old one.  Number two (or three?), and about four years later.  Bad luck Mikey!

Ah well.  You know, you go through these things two or three times and really, at least in my case, it just gets to... here's the deal, play your best hand.  Not a terrible hand - hey, I didn't just get hit by a truck and pulverized - if not a great one.  The consensus at this point seems to be that I'm not looking at clearing things up 100 perfect and living for decades.  More like holding things off and living well for some time.

Since I'm now 63 and a half, well, it's not terrible.  The final number isn't what most folks seem to be looking at these day  - it could be kind of cheezy on post-age-65 retirement benefits  - but it sure could have been worse.  There was a time in my 20's when I really doubted if I'd make it to 30; the parties were pretty dangerous.  Then, law school, marriage (one), foreign work, marriage (two and still pumping), children, Europe in the 80's, Asia in the 90's, kids graduating from colleges, getting married, having babies, and me, more or less throughout, practicing law... really, not sure how much more than that I deserve.  Many people much finer than me have had much less.

So, here I now go into more treatments, some well established and maybe some experimental -  and after that, maybe lots more time and law practice and maybe not.  Either way, lucky me, as ever, lucky and blessed.

A new life.

So this one is it.  It.

I will try to get it out - but it will be many days.  My able to write has gone into a strange place, and who knows how it comes back.

So you know... I start today, December 26, 2013.  I am 63 ages old.  And I am now as young as I have been in many years.

****************************

(1/13/2014... seems hard to believe.)

OK I really couldn't write for beans at first, nearly three weeks ago, and I still have some amazing flaws.  Like I can't remember names.  NOT AT ALL.  Amazing stuff.  I do seem to remember the people, and I do seem to want to talk to them.  Writing?  Emails?  Even Strays, Morgan's written word? We'll see.  I'm going down the road into a new life.

So below is what I sent out to lots of folks yesterday and today.  Says what it says, and for today. Tomorrow will be... tomorrow.  And many tomorrows to come, they will be what they are.  No predictions; no promises; nothing but joy to be alive.

*****************************

I have been trying to stay quiet about Morgan's latest medical adventure, but just cannot any more. Each of you is important to me for reasons that in some cases go back decades. I want you to have an idea what happened.

Just a quick first note: in the past, with these sorts of status reports, I have done carefully different versions for different groups. No more. You're all on this one.

On December 23 I went in for surgery on my brain. It was a big deal. Five hours later they had pulled out about a baseball's worth of cancer.

The amazing part is that since then I have never been more in love with my wife and family or more fond of my clients, partners, and friends.  So hey. There is a really interesting dynamic going on here. I have a batch of issues to come, and my doc says I have to take at least month off. So I will. But in the meantime I hope to hear from each you a lot,  legal stuff or other.

From here:  It may not be a long future but I sure plan it to be interesting.

All the best to each of you.  I will forget a few pals on this  - hey, I never was perfect and still ain't - so please forward to anyone you think might want to know.

M

And walking into the sunset, grabbing the sun, and pushing back

After a life of having so few serious issues, so many great days, so much luck on friends and family and career... then, the last few years, especially the last few months, especially the last few weeks, especially the last few days...  facing the possibility of a drop, into an ocean, into some level of loss of all the things that used to fly me high up over the water.  Yes?

No.  No.  No, not going there, not giving it up, not even a mild concession.  Not letting any of this take me, or pull me down, or slow me down, or be a last chapter.  It is not the last, or the second last, or an end in the farthest sight.  Showing me the bottom and asking me, hey, ready to cave in?  No.  Me, pulling my head up, dropping the smile, giving instead a stare of eyes back to the devil, to the death angel, and saying once again, now, tomorrow, next month, next year - not even close, not now, not ever.  Will fight on and on and on.