Raining coyotes

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It started to drizzle. On our regular Saturday hike in the Gazzam Lake Forest, Annie and I regretted that we hadn’t brought rain gear. But we’d lived in the Northwest long enough to know that it wasn’t a big deal—eventually we’d dry out. Rounding a corner on the trail, we encountered a woman in a long black raincoat and a waterproof hat. She was accompanied by a little white dog, also dressed in rain gear. “Wow,” Annie said, “you’re really prepared!”

“Yup,” the woman replied with a grin, “I sure am!” In the hand not holding the leash she brandished a sturdy stick, which neither of us had noticed. “Those coyotes aren’t going to mess with us!” We were stunned by this colossal non-sequitur. But Annie recovered quicky, and in her soothing therapist’s voice said, “Coyotes?” That was just the right response. It triggered a breathless commentary about how the last time the woman and her puppy had walked the trails they were surrounded by five or six coyotes. Fortunately, the combination of the dog’s growling and her frantic arm waving dispersed the pack. This time she was ready, speaking softly but carrying a big stick. We wished each other a good walk, and went on.

Just out of hearing range, Annie and I chuckled at the monumental misunderstanding. Without wet weather gear, our concern was rain. The woman, on the other hand, was all set for rain so when it began she hardly noticed–she was thinking coyotes. It’s natural to project what’s currently on our mind onto the person we’re interacting with. And, more generally, to assume that other people see the world the way we do. How silly is that!

Once I was the recipient of an animated disquisition by a guy who had just returned from a hunting trip. He told me in vivid detail about how he bagged an eight-point buck with only two shots. He carried the carcass home in the bed of his pickup, dressed it, and stored the severed parts in his chest freezer. He couldn’t wait to thaw out a chunk, cook it up, and sink his teeth into some venison stew—nothing was as good as wild game! He was so focused on his story that he failed to notice my cringing and squirming—he’d apparently not considered that I might be a vegetarian and a lover of animals, and really didn’t want to hear his story. I have no doubt that over the years I’ve carried on equally insensitive conversations, based on the unwarranted assumption that the listener shared my politics, or aesthetics, or spirituality. Or concern for rain, rather than coyotes.

A particularly energizing thing about travel is being confronted with how different people actually are—the traveler knows that everyone doesn’t eat the same breakfast, or wear the same clothes, or even drive on the same side of the road as they do. When we travel we tend to be sensitive to and respectful of the differences. Why not extend a similar grace to others when we’re at home?

Rather than making assumptions about what the person you’re talking to is thinking or feeling, why not ask an open-ended question, inviting them to share their world. To remind myself to do that, I’ll think of Annie’s brilliant one-liner: “Coyotes?”

[The picture is of some coyote pups that were playing in our yard last fall. It wasn’t raining at the time.]

The old man’s friend

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In medical school, during the pulmonary block we learned that pneumonia used to be called “the old man’s friend.” Why? Because before the days of antibiotics it almost inevitably led to the peaceful demise of elderly men. Well, I had pneumonia last month and it sure wasn’t peaceful, and it sure wasn’t my friend. Happily, that must mean that I don’t yet qualify as an old man. Or maybe my particular strain of pneumonia missed the lecture. Anyway, for whatever reason, it was hell. But I guess I shouldn’t complain since, as the alert reader will deduce, I survived.

It began when Ari, my younger grandson, came down with a severe upper respiratory infection. He had a fever and cough, and was really knocked for a loop. A few days later, as Ari was recovering, his dad inherited similar symptoms. And then it was my turn. We all tested negative for Covid multiple times. Joey spiked a high fever and was really sick. Similarly, I had a fever, dry cough, body aches, and lost all energy.

Joey recovered and returned to work, but my symptoms persisted. Then, disturbingly, my coughing got quite a bit worse, and my pulse oximeter said that my blood oxygen saturation was quite low. Finally, despite my reluctance Annie, persuaded me to go to urgent care (yes, it’s true–doctors indeed make the worst patients). The nurse practitioner said my lungs were clear and agreed with me that this was a persistent viral URI (I suspected it was RSV– respiratory syncytial virus). She prescribed a bunch of cough remedies that, also from lectures in the pulmonary block, I knew were worthless. But out of desperation I still got them. Of course, they didn’t help.

By this time I couldn’t lie flat in bed. So I slept in the old green recliner in the living room, getting up frequently to catch my breath and slowly wander around the house. For several nights I was coughing every 30 seconds or so for extended spells. I lost my appetite, a lot of sleep, and nine pounds.

The coughing got yet worse, and my oxygenation went further south. So with Annie’s encouragement (well, insistence) I went back to urgent care. This time another nurse practitioner ordered a chest x-ray: I had a dense left lower lobe pneumonia. Now I knew why I felt so sick! She ordered an antibiotic, but I suspected that it was inappropriate for my situation. Fortunately I’m still in touch with a good buddy of mine from medical school who is board-certified in both pulmonary medicine and infectious disease—what could be a more perfect background! He suggested another antibiotic, which I forwarded to my internist, who agreed. So after a day on suboptimal therapy I began curative treatment. Of course I didn’t respond instantly, and realized that I was short of breath virtually all the time. Annie managed to track down an oxygen concentrator, which delivers extra oxygen through a nasal cannula. What a difference that made! It was as if I’d been thirsty for weeks but no matter how much I drank, I still felt parched. As soon as I started the oxygen, though, my thirst was finally quenched.

The antibiotic kicked in after several days, and I gradually improved. My oxygenation crept back to normal, and I weaned myself off the concentrator. Finally my cough abated, and I was able to sleep in my bed for the first time in three weeks. I guess it turned out that the antibiotic, not the pneumonia, was my friend!


Strangely, one of the most memorable things about this illness was my change in eating pattern. For breakfast, for example, rather than my usual pot of tea I couldn’t even finish a single cup. And curiously, though I always drink my tea black, during this illness I regularly added a bit of milk. I also took much smaller portions of food than usual, and often didn’t finish what was on my plate. Even at the time I felt some pleasure in simply stopping when I felt full rather than being compelled to finish every bite and every sip. Eating and drinking thus became more mindful. Though I’m trying to hold on to this healthier approach to nutritional ingestion, it’s already slipping. I suspect that in a few weeks I’ll be back to my regulation pot of black tea and will automatically consume everything on my plate. A pity.

In the midst of my illness, up much of the night with perpetual coughing and shortness of breath, I longed simply to feel normal. So now, weeks later when I finally just about do, I’m incredibly grateful. As is true for many people who have made it through a close call or a serious illness, I treasure every day I’m alive, and profoundly appreciate what a gift it is to be healthy. In that sense the pneumonia was my friend after all–not because it did me in, but because it didn’t. It gave me perspective on my life in ways I couldn’t have appreciated had I not been sick. But what takes the edge off this euphoric feeling is the near certainty that these feelings will wear off. Just as my eating habits are reverting to my pre-pneumonia norm, and just as my earnest New Year’s resolutions seem always to go by the board.

I wish I had a formula for how to hang on to my appreciation of how sublime it is to be well. Maybe from time to time I should make a habit of drinking only a single cup of tea (with milk, of course) and eating just a half a slice of toast for breakfast to remind me of how sick I was, and thus celebrate my glorious return to health.

Fantasizing the future

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A few years ago I wrote a story about a couple who, in the course of a meandering road trip, found themselves in Moosic, PA (pop. 5,976). It’s a place I’d never been, and in fact, had never even heard of. I picked it out randomly on a map.

To make the story realistic I scoured the internet for information about little Moosic. I learned about the nearby Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour and the Anthracite Heritage Museum (Moosic was clearly in coal country!). Jim and Margie parked their RV at the How Kola Campgrounds, and had a great lunch at Berlew’s Hoagies on Main Street (“Serving Signature Berlew Family Recipes since 1945”). Jim ordered The Original Berlew, a dreadful-sounding combination of “cooked salami, spiced ham, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, o&v”, while Margie had a Super Tuna (“Berlew signature recipe with American cheese”). On Google Images I found lots of photographs of Berlew’s Hoagies as well as the rest of Moosic.

I felt I had developed a real connection with the town. If I’d been blindfolded and dropped off in the middle of Main Street I think I’d recognize Moosic without difficulty. And would really enjoy my stay; fortunately, Berlew’s offers a veggie hoagie.

Moosic came to mind after I recently read an article claiming that a major part of what makes a vacation memorable is the anticipation. That is, considerably before you pack your suitcase or find yourself waiting in an interminable TSA line, you’re fanaticizing about what the experience will be like: checking out local restaurants on the web, identifying promising hiking trails, looking at photographs of the idyllic beaches you plan to bask on.

In fact, the article said, the anticipation may be the best part of the entire experience. This is because it’s about what we imagine it will be like rather than the cold, hard reality: the bus that was supposed to take us from the airport to the rental car office that never showed up, the hotel room that had a faint but persistent moldy smell, and the hard rain that caused the highly-anticipated whale watching excursion to be cancelled. Such realities are certainly memorable, but not in the pleasurable sense we’d hoped.

I think my virtual experience of Moosic was very much like fantasizing about a vacation. In my imagination I could make the Anthracite Heritage Museum an engrossing depiction of the time When Coal was King (if anyone really says that). The museum would be beautifully decorated, uncrowded, and maybe even have free admission because it was Seniors’ Day. To say nothing of the tea room that, to my pleasant surprise, served excellent homemade pastries. And to add further delight, the gift shop was filled with interesting coal memorabilia such as anthracite paperweights and decorative coal scuttles that could serve as umbrella stands. Then, after touring the museum we’d go to Berlew’s for lunch, where the staff was super-friendly, and the veggie hoagie absolutely delicious. This is in contrast to the possible reality that the Anthracite Heritage Museum is actually dingy and overpriced, and the soggy veggie hoagie contains an unwelcome slice of bright orange American cheese.

Hmm. This line of thinking seems to be rolling toward an inevitable conclusion: 1) plan a trip in detail, 2) fantasize about how wonderful it will be, and 3) don’t go.

So here’s my idea: First decide where you want to travel—Tahiti? Beijing? The South of France? Then go through the steps of making plane reservations. Select your travel dates on an airline website, and hey, why not be extravagant, and go Business Class? (But be careful—don’t actually push the “purchase” button). Next, find a great five-star hotel, check out one or two local tours, and go through the motions of booking some restaurants. Plan each day, but allow plenty of time to lie on the beach, wander through back streets, and have unexpected encounters with the locals (a friendly family you meet in the park will likely invite you home for dinner). On the day you’ve booked a particular restaurant, pull up the menu on their website and decide what you’ll order. Then pair it with a bottle of wine from their extensive selection; why not splurge, since this is a special vacation. And after a leisurely dinner, anyone care for a midnight stroll on the beach? There will be a full moon, and a warm gentle breeze is guaranteed.

Your vacation will come alive, and be quite memorable. As a bonus, this method will not only ensure that all your memories are great ones, unburdened by the constraints of reality, but will also save you buckets of money.

I’ve already got a head start with Moosic, so I may as well plan my next virtual vacation there. I think I’ll book a room at the Rodeway Inn on Birney Ave.—a Standard King with continental breakfast is only $61. And it’s just 1.6 miles from the Rodeway to Berlew’s; I’ll walk there for lunch, since I know for sure that the weather will be good. Can’t wait to tuck in to that vegie hoagie!

Dust bunnies

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For some unknown reason, I decided to do a deep clean of the downstairs hallway. This involved not only mopping the floor tiles (which I try to do yearly, whether they need it or not), but also pulling a towering wardrobe and a big bookcase away from the walls. Those things I do no more than once every ten years. And I have to say, it looked it. Behind these hulking pieces of furniture was a decade’s worth of misplaced pencils, paper scraps, clotted spider webs, a filthy sock or two, some random coins, and a magnificent collection of vintage dust bunnies.

I vacuumed, scraped, and scrubbed till everything gleamed. But I really don’t know why. If I hadn’t pulled out the furniture, neither I nor anyone else would have seen all the debris. And what’s wrong with a collection of assorted shmutz accumulating quietly in these inaccessible locales? Some might say it’s health hazard. But is it really? I doubt that colonies of coronaviruses were breeding in the muck, ready to spring out and attack unsuspecting passersby. And even the particles of dust probably don’t launch themselves from behind the wardrobe to penetrate respiratory passages and elicit allergic symptoms, or worse.

But still, albeit unseen and benign, the filth beckons. I must admit that at some level I always knew it was there—occasionally when I passed the wardrobe I’d hear the mutterings of the dust bunnies, taunting me. And, of course, once the dirt is revealed it’s impossible to ignore; the genie can’t be stuffed back into the bottle. So having viewed the dust disgust I had no choice but to deal with it. Now everything, seen and unseen, is sparkling; the spaces behind the wardrove and the bookcase are pristine.

So now what? Should I regularly move the furniture and prophylactically clean to prevent a new bunny invasion? Or should I just let the furniture be until, again, the spirit moves me to move the furniture? Or should I think about this problem in an entirely different way?

As the alert reader will appreciate, a multilevel metaphor is lurking…

On one level, hidden but known detritus is present in so many aspects of our lives. This could simply be termed “clutter.” From obsolete files on the hard drive to piles of magazines and letters tucked away in drawers. It’s so easy to ignore them. But like the lurking dust bunnies, they do nag. Venturing into the depths of the storage room and investigating a dusty box is tempting. But also threatening—remember what happened to Pandora!

The solution, of course, is not to let all that stuff accumulate in the first place. Easy to say. But what do you do when out of town friends suddenly announce that they’ll be coming to visit in a few days and you need to clean out the guest room in a hurry? All the stuff that was haphazardly piled on the bed (theoretically poised for eventual sorting) gets thrown into a big packing box, which finds a new home in the garage, and is soon forgotten. Until you trip over it, or the water heater springs a leak and the box’s soggy bottom can’t be ignored.

Then there are the emotional dust bunnies. Of course they’re different for everyone, but almost no one can navigate life without accumulating some—or usually, many–of them. Like physical dust bunnies, they are easily overlooked most of the time. But at some level we know they’re there. And like pulling a bookcase out from the wall, certain events can suddenly bring them to light: Getting a call from an estranged sibling, running into an old lover at the grocery store, attending a wedding, being fired without warning. Such unexpected occurrences expose these emotional dust bunnies—guilt, regret, jealousy, longing, anger–all sorts of unresolved feelings. Just as I could have simply shoved the bookcase back over the shmutz, one can simply push down the feelings that were triggered. But not completely. Even though the dust bunnies are again out of sight, we retain a vivid picture of how they look behind the furniture. Similarly, the vivid emotions triggered by the wedding can’t be shut out entirely; they linger, and intrude.

As I said, we can deal with dust bunnies in different ways: one strategy is to never move the furniture away from the walls so as to never confront them. The emotional equivalent is to shut down, avoiding emotional investment in others. Or we can take a deep breath and confront the mess straight on with broom and mop, sweeping and scrubbing until it’s all cleaned up. The psychic equivalent would I guess be to fearlessly acknowledge and address uncomfortable feelings that you are aware of, following them wherever they lead. Then deal with them. But here’s where the analogy breaks down: though sometimes a real pain, the way to clean up physical dust bunnies is usually clear and, with enough persistence, effective. But the emotional ones can be a lot trickier to manage. Focusing on them can sometimes worsen rather than scrub up the mess, at least in the short run.

So what’s my advice? Simply put, I have none. Some people are happier to regularly pull out the furniture, and clean up what was hidden. And to actively reflect on uncomfortable feelings that bubble up, then work them through. Others seem to fare better by letting things fester until they are forced to confront them. As for me, I have no set policy for either physical or the emotional bunnies, though I aspire to be proactive in confronting both categories. I just hope, before the dust settles, to be able to deal with whatever I’m dished.

Hearing is believing. Or is it?

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As a badge of my membership in The Presbycusis Club, I was recently fitted with hearing aids. Being a typical aging male, I’d had increasing difficulty understanding my 6-year old grandson, which was quite distressing. On walks, I often couldn’t hear the birdsong that delighted Annie. And in restaurants I tended to tuck my chin and focus on my food, since it was often hard to hear what anyone was saying. In other words, the usual stuff of geriatric hearing loss.

The snazzy Bluetooth hearing aids have been transformative. I can hear Ari loud and clear. The birds sing again. And I can talk and listen at Bruciato’s while munching my margherita.

But in the early days of the aids a new and unpleasant auditory world revealed itself: There was a sudden symphony of snap, crackle, and pop whenever I flipped the pages of a magazine. The jangling of my keys was painfully sharp. And driving was a nightmare–the oppressive sound of wind whooshed through the car even when the windows were closed, the tires produced an invasive high-intensity hum, and unidentified intrusive noises were everywhere.

Had I’d been missing these sounds for years? And if so, why did I want them back? “You’re experiencing sensory overload,” my audiologist helpfully explained. So she dialed down the volume of the high frequency range, which is of course where most geriatric hearing loss occurs. This moderation indeed made things more tolerable, and was a reasonable compromise between being aid-less and over-aided. During the succeeding months she gradually ramped up the high frequency sensitivity, which became increasingly tolerable, and improved my hearing.

This ability to manipulate what’s pumped into my ears raises a question: Is what I’m hearing “natural?” That is, with my hearing aids installed are the sounds I now perceive the same as when I was a young pup with pristine cochlea? Or has my current sound palate been artificially colored to optimize my hearing? And how does what I hear now compare with what Annie hears? And Ari? And, for that matter, what my grand-dog hears? Or a bat? As we all know, many animals perceive frequencies that are far above the range of even perfect human hearing. Nevertheless, though we can’t perceive them, such high frequency “sounds” are considered real.

While exploring the options on my hearing aid app (yup, it’s true–there’s an app for everything!), I came across a toggle labelled “MoreSound Booster.” More sound, or even “MoreSound” seemed like a good thing—I asked the audiologist what it was about. She said it boosted voices and muted background noise so it was easier to hear people talking. “Well that seems like a no brainer,” I said, “so why not have it on all the time?” She said it’s only for when I’m tired, or are having a lot of difficulty hearing someone. Otherwise it should be off “because it’s not natural.” Hmm. Why should I care about having unnatural hearing if it allows me to hear better? X-ray vision isn’t natural either, but it might be nice to have in certain circumstances.


Recently someone asked my good buddy Steve, an astrophysicist, if those stunning photographs from the Webb telescope were “real”. By which she meant if that’s what would be seen simply by looking at the unaltered images collected by the telescope. Steve said no—the wavelengths of all the images are in the infrared. Thus we would see absolutely nothing unless they were digitally transformed into wavelengths that the human eye is capable of perceiving. In that sense the beautiful images are not natural, but “artificial” since what we are seeing is visible only by virtue of manipulation. But they certainly represent real objects that reside in the universe. Similarly, the sound palate delivered to me by my Oticons is probably not exactly what I would have heard in my youth. But they get the job done.

And then, of course, there’s augmented reality. Ultimately, is there much difference between augmenting my hearing with hearing aids and augmenting reality by adding additional layers of perception? I actually know very little about augmented reality. Apparently, certain goggles can superimpose information on what’s being seen, for example the name of the mountain you’re looking at, or the menu of a restaurant you’re walking by. I suppose that my hearing aids could do the same in the aural realm. Maybe the app could be programmed to insert appropriate sounds into the ambient environment. For example, native birdsong appropriate to the neighborhood through which I’m walking. Or local color music. Or maybe even a commentary on a historical event that occurred in the building I’m walking past. Who knows, this probably isn’t fantasy—I wouldn’t be surprised if a company somewhere is developing, if not already marketing, something like that. Yikes!

Like a gateway drug, I fear that my innocent hearing aids could be leading me down a path of increasing distance from reality. But for the moment, I’ll take that risk–I love being able to talk to Ari in a crowded restaurant, and to hear the birds sing when I hike with Annie in the woods around Gazzam Lake. Whether or not what I’m hearing is “natural.”

JGK and JFK

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After a long illness my mother, Joyce Gale Klein, died on Halloween, 1963. I was fourteen years old. When trick-or-treaters came that evening I remember feeling great embarrassment when my father answered the door and said, “We’ve had a death in the family, so we’re not giving out candy tonight.”

I couldn’t understand why he didn’t simply put up a sign, or just ignore the doorbell. But he greeted the trick-or-treaters every time the bell rang. As he gave his little speech the little ghosts and cowboys and witches peered in, and saw me sitting numbly in the kitchen. Hearing my father tell them the news, especially while they could see me, was strangely humiliating.

My father kept me home from school for a few days, then I returned to my classes. I felt self-conscious, alone, and different. Did my teachers and my classmates know that I no longer had a mother? If so, how did they feel about it? I had no clue. A few well-meaning friends approached me with awkward sympathy, which provided no comfort. No one told me they knew how I felt. How could they?—as far as I knew none of them had lost a parent, or even a pet.

One day, while walking home from the bus stop after school, I passed a neighbor’s house. The mother, wearing an apron and holding something she’d just taken out of the oven, was on the front porch waiting for her kid from the same bus. Rather than feeling sad when I saw her, I felt like a freak. I suspect that my sadness was so deeply buried that I wasn’t even in touch with it.



Three weeks after my mother’s death, on Friday November 22nd at 1:30, the speaker in our classroom came on with a crackle. It was a radio station; a reporter was talking with tension and urgency. We dumbfoundedly looked at the teacher and tried to understand what was going on, but she looked as confused as we were. Soon it became clear that President Kennedy had been shot. Shortly after that the choked up reporter announced that the president was dead. We sat in utter silence, not knowing what to say or do. I think we were sent home early.

My feelings were complicated. This new and unexpected death of course resonated with the death of my mother, making the assassination even more intense and personal. But, strangely, there was solace too. Now it wasn’t only me; everyone was grieving a profound loss. There was comfort in knowing that I was no longer a freak–others were experiencing something similar to what I was, and feeling the way I felt. It wasn’t schadenfreude—I certainly wasn’t gloating that everyone else was sad too. I guess it was more like misery-loves-company: I felt newly connected to my classmates, who were now also touched by a death. It was a sort of circumstantially-induced mass empathy.



Roughly speaking, empathy is sharing someone else’s feelings or experiences, then reflecting it back to them. The goal is to provide comfort to someone who is hurting. It’s a hard skill to master, and even harder to apply appropriately.

While in medical school I witnessed one of the most ham-fisted attempts at empathy I could imagine. It was during my obstetrics rotation. My instructor was examining a young primip in hard labor. She was afraid, in pain, and screaming. The obstetrician paternally patted her shoulder and said, “I’m sorry this is so rough, dear. But I know just how you feel; I was with my wife for the birth of all three of our kids.” I suspect this gave the poor woman as much comfort as it would have if he’d said “Buck up, honey, it’s not so bad.”

Insensitive attempts at empathy are worse than saying nothing. For example, after I had a bike crash and busted up my right hand, I went around with a brace and protective glove. People frequently asked me what happened. After I told them the story, almost inevitably the kindhearted questioner would start a monologue about their own bike crash–what was injured, how much it hurt, how long it took to recover. So even though they shared a similar experience and reflected it back to me, it was all about them. This wasn’t empathy, at least not useful empathy, and it certainly didn’t make me feel better. If anything, it made me feel worse, since most of the bike-induced injuries I was told about took forever to heal. Almost no one said something straightforward like, “So sorry to hear about your injury; I crashed my bike once, and I know it really sucks!” That really might have helped.

Comforting someone with emotional pain is even more challenging than with physical pain. People in emotional pain are sensitive and particularly vulnerable. Connecting with them can be challenging, and since each person’s need for solace is unique it can be easy to get wrong. Perhaps sometimes the best way to communicate caring is to gently say “I’m so sorry.” Or to just sit silently with them.

And even if it’s well-administered, not everyone welcomes empathy. Like after my mother died. I wanted to be left alone, to be numb. Or maybe to grieve. I don’t think even a gentle “I’m really sorry about your loss” would have helped. But as was true for me, I think almost everyone would be comforted, at least a little, by simply knowing that someone else had experienced something similar, like the death of the president.

The first seal

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The first time we saw a seal in our bay we were transfixed. We hooted and hollered. We called relatives and emailed friends. We couldn’t believe it. Wow—a seal!

Now, twenty-some years later, when I glance out the window and see a seal pop its head up out the water, I barely notice. Or if I do I think, “Oh, another seal. That’s nice.” Why the incredible attenuation in my response? Is it that seals are less interesting or less cute these days? Of course not. The seals are just the same. It’s I who have changed. In this case I don’t think that familiarity has bred contempt. Just jadedness. After seeing the five-hundredth Sealy paddling around the bay, the sight is simply not as alluring.

When Annie and I were starting to date, every time we were together—watching a movie at the Roseway, having a croissant at the Rimsky-Korsakoffee House, taking a walk in Laurelhurst Park–I felt an even greater thrill than when I saw my first seal. But now, after all these years, I don’t text my friends to tell them about this incredible woman I’ve just been with. Even though I love and treasure her more now than when we were newly together.

People sometimes mourn that they don’t continue to feel the intensity of first encounters. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s a blessing that life isn’t so buzzy all the time–constantly thinking of our new seal, or our new love, might lead to a perpetual semi-frenzied state. It could be that we would pay a high psychological and physiological price if we were so constantly activated. To say nothing of being distracted from the many quotidian tasks clamoring for our attention.

Still, it would be great to occasionally recapture those heady days of The First Seal or The First Kiss. So how can we manage that? Well, in terms of human relationships I guess the infrastructure is fairly well established: we celebrate anniversaries, look at the wedding album, and put precious mementos from The Early Days on our dresser. And we spontaneously bring home flowers or go out to dinner. If we remember to follow the script, these activities can certainly bring alive some of those wonderful memories.

But with non-relationship peak experiences—the first time I drove a car by myself, the first summer the fig tree we planted bore fruit and, yes, The First Seal, the situation is more fraught. We simply don’t have off-the-shelf rituals designed to evoke those feelings. That’s a shame, since reliving such memories can bring great joy. So maybe we should institute some recollection rituals. Maybe a sort of Valentine’s Day for the celebration of first events. But this would probably be rather unwieldy since everyone’s important first events are so different. And it’s hard to think of a generic Hallmark card that would work for celebrating either The First Seal or The First Fruit.

Speaking of “firsts,” here’s a possibility. Maybe on the first day of every month (when my family all say “White Rabbits” to each other to bring good luck) I should try this routine: I’ll walk around the house and consciously look at all the paintings and photographs that I normally pass by without a thought. And really look at them, and recall what drew me to acquire and display them in the first place, and bask in the glow of those feelings.

Without formal institutionalization, an alternative might be to make a real effort to see familiar things with new—or in this case, old–eyes. When I put the key in the ignition, just once in a while I should recall how it amazing it felt to do so for the first time. And also realize how blessed I am to be able to drive now with so little effort or anxiety. And occasionally, when I see Sealy pop up out of the water I should make a point of stopping what I’m doing, really look at it, and remember how miraculous it seemed—and yes, still is–to live in a place where I can see seals out my window.

Come to think of it, Annie already does these sorts of things; I now recall that it’s one of the reasons I was drawn to her in the first place. I’ll try to really remember, and treasure, that.

Natural healing

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We all know the story about the guy who scatters pennies wherever he goes. Someone asks him what he’s doing. “Keeping the tigers away,” he says. “But there aren’t any tigers around here!” they protest. “Of course not,” the guy says triumphantly, “it works!”

Even though we roll our eyes at the silly man, all too often we act the same way. When we were kids, everyone seemed to have a great aunt who had lots of wonderful home remedies: Wrap boiled cabbage leaves around a sprained ankle, put a drop of peppermint oil on the forehead for a headache, eat garlic to cure a cold. And indeed, these simple, natural remedies worked–the ankle got better, and the headache and cold went away. These treatnents are so compelling that we sometimes carry them into adulthood. Then as parents we pass them on to the next generation, along with fond memories of Aunt Bea. But of course sprained ankles almost always heal and headaches and colds get better no matter what you do. Or don’t do. Maybe Aunt Bea was just scattering pennies.

On a trip to New Mexico some years ago we visited El Santuario de Chimayó, about 35 miles north of Santa Fe. Chimayó is the Lourdes of the southwest. But in keeping with the dry climate, the healing substance is dirt, not water. A hole in the chapel floor contains the holy dirt, which is replenished to the tune of more than 25 tons a year. When a visitor grabs a handful of dirt and rubs it over the affected body part, miraculous cures are said to result. In testimony to its power, there’s an impressive collection of crutches leaning against a railing on the chapel wall. Pretty compelling stuff—how can you argue with dozens of pairs of abandoned crutches? But as I looked at the evidence, something suddenly struck me: almost all the crutches looked nearly new, with fresh rubber pads and shiny aluminum tubing. Not my image of the crutches that old folks, crippled from youth, would throw down after the healing dirt kicked in. Thus, it occurred to me that maybe most of the Chimayo crutches’ owners had sprains or simple fractures that would have healed just about as well without the application of the consecrated soil.

During my first year of medical school, wedged in between lectures on oxidative phosphorylation and the mucopolysaccharidoses, we were given a tiny block of time to do something different. I elected to go to a small community hospital to hear from a real family doctor—not many of that species hung around the medical school. “Frankly,” he said at one point in his talk, “I sometimes wonder how many patients I’ve cured by going on vacation.” This was one of the most memorable—and wisest—things I heard in my entire medical education. This is the point: whether a patient, complaining of a sore throat, runny nose and muscle aches, went to the doctor for a prescription of antibiotics, or didn’t go to the doctor at all, the outcome would undoubtedly have been the same–antibiotics have simply no effect on a viral respiratory infection. But fortunately colds get better on their own.

(Now at this point I’d like to be clear that I’m certainly not against using drugs to treat disease—after all, I’ve spend a good chunk of my career developing new medicines, and know that when given appropriately they can be extremely useful, and even life-saving. It’s just that they should always be reserved for situations where the proven benefits clearly outweigh the risks.)

We spend billions of dollars on herbal remedies, megavitamins, and all sorts of other healing potions. The internet is teeming with breathless testimonials hawking miracle cures, very often from “all natural” products, and usually with a prominent “order now!” button at the bottom of the screen. These ads are very seductive, and the products they flog sound almost too good to be true. But, in fact, they probably work pretty darn well. About as well as scattering pennies.

We are blessed with bodies designed to heal themselves from a wide variety of assaults. Thus, maybe we shouldn’t put so much faith in cabbage leaves, holy dirt, or internet natural remedies. Perhaps simply letting nature take its course, without our meddling, is true “natural healing.”

The best days of our lives

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Jim was a high school classmate. He was handsome, captain of the football team, and senior class president. His girlfriend, Janet, was the extremely cute head cheerleader. “Remember, Kenny”, Jim said to me one day after school, “these are the best days of our lives. You should really savor them!” Oh no, I thought, if these are the best days of my life, I may as well jump off a bridge.

I was Jim’s polar opposite: nerdy, self-conscious, socially awkward, and without a girlfriend. Plus, my mother had died two years previously. And though he did the best he could, my father had very little idea of how to how to raise teenaged boys. All in all, I was miserable for most of high school.

I joined our synagogue youth group. My first outing was to a camp on the Chesapeake Bay. After dinner we hung around the campfire. Barbara, an exuberant girl a few years older than me, was talking about a guy she really liked. “He’s fantastic,” she gushed, “just oozing with personality.” She energetically flapped her hands as she spoke, as if to convey the considerable magnitude of the oozing. Simultaneously her eyes lit up and darted around the campfire, connecting with various members of the group as she said, “you know what I mean?. I guess they also had oozing personalities, so they undoubtedly understood exactly what she meant. But her eyes never fell on oozeless me, and I didn’t.

In addition to the youth group, I decided to try out AZA, which was called a “Jewish fraternity,” though I don’t think it was a real fraternity. One of its attractions was the rumor that the AZA brothers from time to time would travel to Baltimore, thirty-five miles to the north, to visit the Gaiety Burlesque. “It’s easy to get in” I was told, “they never card you.” But despite that allure, I was far too timid to go along, even in the unlikely event that someone would have invited me.

I did go to Baltimore with an AZA brother once, but not to the Gaiety. Rather, it was for a dance. Since I had major issues with dancing, I was intimidated right from the start. We were parceled out to a local member. The guy I stayed with was a Jewish version of Jim Ross. On his dresser was a bottle of English Leather aftershave—what an incredible smell! He wore a wide full-grain leather belt with a big brass buckle and prominent yellowish stitching. And a peek into his closet revealed not one, but several beautiful sweaters with suede elbow patches. These were things that I craved, but I didn’t feel worthy to ask my father to buy them for me. Not that he would have had a clue as to how special they were.

I don’t remember the dance at all. But to my shame, what I do vividly remember is dropping the girls off at their homes afterwards. My date was the first to be delivered. She was sitting by the window, and I was scrunched in the middle of the back seat next to her. She opened the door and got out. I said ‘goodbye,’ and she walked to her house. The brother sitting next to me shoved his elbow in my ribs, but I thought he was just shifting his position. Finally the driver, who was the guy I was staying with, said, “Hey, Kenny! Why the hell didn’t you walk her to the door?” I said I didn’t know I was supposed to. I could feel multiple sets of eyes rolling, and almost hear them saying under their collective breaths, “what a loser!” It was incredibly humiliating. By the time my mother died I guess I was still too young for her to explain basic social conventions to me, and I’m sure it wouldn’t have occurred to my father to teach me something like that. In fact, he never even taught me to shave, or that I should take regular showers; I had to figure out those sorts of things for myself.

Needless to say, that was my last experience with AZA, or any other fraternity. I fumbled my way through the rest of high school. Fortunately, I was pretty successful both academically and in student government. The next fall I left for college, apparently with the best days of my life behind me.

In fact, I’ve been truly fortunate in my post-high school life—I’ve had a satisfying career, done lots of travelling, lived in many beautiful places, married a really wonderful woman, and have fantastic kids and grandkids. I now know that it’s polite to walk people to their door, how to shave, and when to take showers. I even feel comfortable buying nice belts and sweaters.

I lost contact with Jim after graduation, and occasionally wondered what became of him. A recent Google search showed that he married Janet, then became a cardiologist. They had kids (who must be absolutely beautiful) and live near Annapolis, Maryland. Hopefully, Jim was as wrong for him as he was for me that high school days were the best days of our lives.

Bike crash

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Some weeks ago my wife, Annie, and our friend Vicki dropped me and my bike off in Blyn, WA. Then they drove 27 miles to Port Angeles, where we were to meet up again for lunch. I had a lovely ride until mile 19, when I came to a steep uphill segment. I lost momentum, went off the path onto the gravel, flipped the bike, and crashed in a heap. A bit dazed, I found it comforting just to lie, spreadeagled, on the warm asphalt path. Then, while cataloging all the places I had pain, it occurred to me that at any moment another bike might come screaming down the hill. So I struggled to my feet, retrieved my bike, and dragged it off to the side. Although I hurt in numerous locations, the only visible injury was the middle finger of my right hand. It was copiously dripping bright blood which, abstractly, I found quite beautiful. I struggled to open my drinking bottle with my left hand, and feebly poured water over the finger. Neither the embedded dirt nor the accumulating clot budged.

With no better plan, I walked my bike up the rest of the hill and when the path flattened out resumed my ride. A little breadcrumb trail of blood followed me for the first few miles, but by the time I arrived in Port Angeles my clotting cascade had fully kicked in. However, squeezing the right brake continued to be a challenge. It sure was good to see Annie, and have her tenderly bind my wound.

The back of my hand became quite swollen. At urgent care the next day I saw a physician’s assistant, who ordered an x-ray. She knew I was a doctor, so showed it to me. “Well, I don’t see a fracture,” she said, “what about you?” I concurred with her assessment, which was fortunately corroborated by a real radiologist.

After carelessly using my hand for the next three weeks it suddenly dawned on me that neither the swelling nor the pain were remitting. Thus, I decided I ought to see a hand surgeon–duh! Almost instantly he diagnosed a fistful of severely torn ligaments, and put my hand in a splint, where it lives to this day. As you can see from the photo, the splint is hard black plastic which attaches to my hand with a series of Velcro straps–I call it my “hoof”. Most of the time I also wear a compression glove under the hoof (I call it my Michael Jackson glove) to help keep the swelling at bay.



Well, that’s the back story. In this piece I’ll not go on about how amazing and wonderful it is to have a body with all parts working. And how grateful those of us who usually function at full capacity should be for what we have, And how we tend to take our wonderful capabilities for granted. All of these things are incontrovertibly true, but that ground has been well-plowed, and I have no furrows to add. Instead, what I’ll do is talk about the surprising discoveries I’ve made in my current state. But first I’d like to acknowledge how lucky I feel–it could have been so much worse. My head is intact, and I broke neither bones nor glasses. Even my bike, though a little scratched up, was still perfectly rideable for the post-crash journey.

With my dominant hand tethered by the hoof, everything has changed. During the first 24-hour cycle, I encountered many unexpected challenges to my automatic daily routine. Perhaps for the first time since I was a tyke learning to tie my shoes, I was conscious of how quotidian activities are actually performed. In particular, I became aware of the profound difference between tasks that require one hand and those requiring two.

I improvised a slew of workarounds. Typing this blog post is a good example—I’m supplementing my good left hand with the protruding middle finger of my hoof-bound right, in a modified hunt-and-peck routine. And manipulating the mouse with my left hand turns out to be very disorienting, like driving on the left side of the road. When I make coffee I now push the AeroPress plunger down with my right forearm instead of my hand. To extract toothpaste I bite the knurled cap with my teeth, then turn the tube clockwise with my left hand. And like teeth brushing, eating is now done entirely as a lefty–I’m in the painful process of learning how to convey soup to mouth with minimal spillage. Who knew that the non-dominant hand was so ineffectual at such mundane tasks?

Things that require two hands sit somewhere between extremely challenging and impossible. Unbuttoning my shirt and then hanging it up on a hanger is a major undertaking with an uncertain outcome, as is buttering toast, opening a letter, and yes, tying shoes. I’ve learned it best to seek help from sweet Annie to perform almost all such undertakings.

And here’s a selection of things that I simply won’t be able to do again until my ligaments weave back together: removing the cork from a bottle of wine, kneading bread dough, cutting a slice of bread, opening a child-proof pill bottle, and driving my manual transmission truck.

While out and about there are additional challenges. Signing my name for a credit card purchase is completely impossible—I simply ask the person on the other side of the counter to forge my signature. I sheepishly ask the librarian to put my books in my back pack. And when I shop for bulk food at the grocery store I flash my hoof and plaintively ask an employee to bag and label two pounds of rye flour. Despite the awkwardness of asking for help with such trivial tasks, people are understanding and gracious.

Recently, while going through security on our first flight since covid, I realized I had some coins in my right pants pocket. So I reached around with my left hand to try and extract and transfer them to one of those white plastic TSA bowls. A sweet young woman behind me saw my hoofed hand and that I was struggling, and asked if she could be of help. But when she realized I was digging deep into my pocket she said, “Oh! Maybe it would be better if I didn’t help.” We both got a good laugh out of that.

After learning how to do two-handed things in a one-handed way, or right-handed things in a left-handed way, my newfound skills quickly become incorporated into my daily routine. But from time to time, the need to perform a new activity pops up and I have to think through how to manage it. Or realize I can’t. For example, a few days ago I was drinking a cup of coffee (with my left hand, of course) when the phone rang. I put down the coffee and picked up the phone and held it to my left ear (the speaker phone function doesn’t work). Then, slightly distracted by the conversation, I reached for the cup with my right hand and almost knocked it over with my hoof. So I started to switch the phone to my right hand so I could pick up the coffee with my good hand, but quickly realized the folly of that. I was stumped, and sadly watched the coffee getting colder and colder as the caller droned on.



One thing that’s been hard to incorporate into my routine is my new dependence on Annie. It’s been difficult to ask her to do things that I never would have thought to ask her—cut a slice of bread, butter my toast, tie my shoes. And she’s had to take over most of the chores that I’ve always done, from burying the compost to taking out the trash to walking the dog. Though she does these and many other tasks quite cheerfully, it’s hard not to feel both diminished and guilty. Then I think of how many couples have an even more unbalanced division of labor—the husband who takes care of his wife after her car accident; the wife who has do to virtually everything for her husband immobilized by a stroke; the spouse dying of cancer.

Finally, I think of the profound difference between a temporary and a permanent disability. Though I’m a bit dubious, the hand surgeon says I should eventually regain almost all of the function of my hand. Thus all these adjustments will hopefully be temporary. And I’ll be able to revert to the old normal. Were my disability to be permanent (“your hand could end up like a pancake flipper,” as my physical therapist threateningly and inelegantly put it), all sorts of changes would need to be made. For example, I might have to look into a specialized keyboard to optimize my unbalanced typing, find some sort of contraption to hold a phone or a cup of coffee in my bad hand, and sell my beloved truck. And establish a new identity as an officially “disabled person.” Hopefully, it won’t come to that.