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And then there is the change that happens dramatically. Suddenly you find yourself in a new land. Your sense of 'being' has altered forever. I started this blog based on that kind of change. It still happens. It happened just recently, this time hitting Jill much harder than me, but deeply affecting all of us in our family. Early in the morning yesterday Jill's dad, Roy Lipoti, died. He was 89-1/2 years old.
He was such a great guy! I can't even begin to capture in words the miracle of his pleasant personality. There are some people you meet and you think: "doggone, there is a person who really enjoys life!" Roy was like that. I can't point to any precise thing that he liked or any particular activity that cranked up his life-joy. He loved it all. He truly delighted in the simple fact of being here. Here is a picture my mom found of Jill together with her mom and her dad, and you can see in his smile what I mean:
This is the published obituary for Roy, and if you read between the lines you will find that he had a fairly amazing life:
ROY LIPOTI passed away on Friday, January 2nd, 2009 at Virtua Memorial Hospital in Mt. Holly, NJ. He was 89. Born in North Bergen, NJ, he is the son of the late Joseph & Julia Lipoti. Roy resided in Medford Leas in Medford, NJ since 2000 moving there from Medford Lakes, NJ where he resided from 1973 - 2000. Prior to this he resided in Wood Ridge, NJ. A graduate of the University of Iowa with a BS in Education and a Masters in Phys. Ed, he taught in the NYC school system until 1971 and continued his own education receiving a Masters in Special Education from Columbia University. In 1971 Roy began teaching at New Lisbon in New Lisbon, NJ where he developed the award winning program, "Project ACTIVE", (All Children Totally Involved in Exercise. He retired in 1985. He is a veteran of the US Army serving during WWII and receiving a Silver Star. He is the Beloved Husband of Ruth E. (Nee Gusky) of Medford Leas and the Loving Father of Dr. Jill A. Lipoti and her husband Dr. Brad Garton of Roosevelt, NJ. He is also survived by his sister Blanche Tyson of Sedro Wooley, WA and his two Grandchildren Lian Garton of Seattle, WA and Daniel Garton of Roosevelt, NJ.
Elsewhere in this blog I think I talked about how memories can act as a shield against this constant change, but last night at dinner I saw a different side to the memory-game. Jill, Lian (fortunately she was still visiting when this all happened), Daniel and I all went out for a nice dinner, and as we sat and recalled the happy times we all had with Roy, I realized that change and memory interact profoundly to give us the gift of our life. When we die, there it is. We want to grab onto the good times and hold them in stasis forever, but we forget that the act of holding would nullify the very goodness we want to maintain. And what of the times yet to come? Make of life what you can, now, and embrace the change, the continual marvel of being. Roy did, and I sure hope we all can count ourselves as lucky as he. Here is one more photo from my mom taken a few years ago, Roy with Daniel and my two nephews (Stefan and Bo):
The answer to the first question (not writing for several weeks) is a tangle of several things -- Roy's death (which I think affected me more than I suspected; I still think of him often), January melancholia (heck we haven't even had a decent snowfall again this year! Rain! Ugh! Rain!), classes starting (always more intense than I imagine it will be) compounded by prior commitments (Dave Sulzer and I have been getting some mileage out of the EEG/music project, lately on WFMU (playlist/archive here [we're on about 1/2-way through the show] and some photos here) radio and at the Cornell/Ithaca Light in Winter festival), I've been coding software like a maniac, I worry about things (many things), so much has happened this month, so much I thought of writing, and it all piled up, I'm a lazy bum, I just don't know...
That leads to the second "why" question, the motivation for placing these thoughts here. It seems such an egotistical, futile, self-serving and silly exercise. I have to remember, though, why I started this blog. When I got my cancer diagnosis two years ago, I felt really 'caught short'. There was so much I wanted to say, to do, to tell my friends and family, and the time to accomplish this had vanished. Now here I am, back in a 'normal' mode, and the urgency has dissipated. It should still be there, and I know this. I still get a thrill of fear riding over to the hospital, as I did just four days ago, for my three-week appointment with Dr. Pearse. Every three weeks! They're checking closely. Last week all was fine, but will there come a day when it isn't? I still stop by the little meditation chapel after each appointment at Weill-Cornell, and I realize how precious time is. I renew my commitment to making the most of what I have, but then it fades. I'm caught in the every-day, the mundane, the aspects of existence that simply mark the passing of time with no real resonance. Perhaps this is necessary, though, to make the luminous moments that much brighter.
And I still look out the bedroom window in the morning, the trees traced against the sky. I wonder what will happen next. I desperately want it to be good.
Whatever. Things now come and go as they always did, perhaps with a bit of an edge that wasn't there before. Well not just "perhaps", for my awareness of life has fundamentally changed. But I do feel back in standard-operating mode. Classes are going very well, I've been going to various meetings, planning collaborative ventures, working on reports, answering insane amounts of e-mail, worrying about the Computer Music Center budget, all those faculty-like things. Sometimes when that edgy-awareness intrudes it all seems like a strange game of "pretend", but that isn't necessarily bad. The economy has made nearly everything bizarre, and maybe "pretending" is the best strategy.
And I've been doing stuff! I managed to finish up new versions of my [rtcmix~] and [chuck~] language objects, with a revised [maxlispj] on the way soon. I've been having great fun hacking some iPhone apps with a group of terrific students and colleagues at the CMC. I finished up two new pieces:
My brother-in-law turned 50 with a GIANT surprise party organized by my sis (happy one, unca john!), my mom has a big day tomorrow, dad's latest medical checkup was good, Jill, Daniel, Lian... this is how the web of life gets woven.
Still, I sometimes look out the window and the sky is so blue, the
trees are so green.
Snow.
It was like that one day a few weeks back.
I suppose that means something, and it probably would be easy to construct all kinds of sub/semi/pre-conscious explanatory tales about it. It didn't bother me much, except for a related and deeper worry that everything all will come crashing, or perhaps more properly re-crashing, down again. All my appointments lately with Dr. Pearse have been great: "good to see you! nothing new to report -- all statistics are normal! you seem to be tolerating the drugs with no problem!" How long can this last? And when it ends, will I have succeeded in saying more of what I wanted to say? Shouldn't I be writing more? Doing more?
With 'normalcy', however, comes all the other stuff. Reports to do at Columbia, events promised, classes to teach. Life becomes what it was before. We accommodate quickly to changed circumstances. And this isn't a bad thing, I don't think I can be 'wifty' forever.
I do have things to say, things to write. I just need to make the time to communicate a priority again. I still stop by the little chapel at Weill-Cornell with every visit, and I sit there and attempt to renew my commitment to getting things done. The things I want to get done. The important things. But how do I know them? I probably don't.
I have proof that I do think often of this
blog. I don't know that this qualifies
as something Truly Important, but we do tend to endow
the cycles of nature with an eternal quality (or perhaps
at least we hope as much). A week or so ago the crocuses
in our yard began to bloom, harbingers of spring. I walked
around with my camera, and I took some pictures for this
web-log. Then of course I didn't find the time to post them.
Here they are now:
Just last week I was teaching 'Impressionism' in my music history class ("Music Hum" to those who know Columbia's core curriculum). One of my favorite example pieces to play as an example is the Pavane from Maurice Ravel's Mother Goose Suite:
On my way to pick up Daniel after learning the awful news, I was playing Evening Song in the car from Philip Glass' opera about Gandhi, Satyagraha:
Possibly one of the kindest and gentlest families I know, with a daughter who was sunshine and joy. How can these things happen? How can they?
Today in a few hours they will be holding a memorial service for Emily back in Roosevelt. Oh my friends and neighbors, my heart flies across the continent to you! I am so lucky, so very very lucky.
Later I got to hear the traditional "Happy Birthday", and the loudest singer was Bandit, Jeff/Dorothy/Blanche's dog:
How do I communicate the apparently unique happiness I feel right now? Despite the timeworn descriptive aspect, it seems so special, but I hope that it isn't. I want to have this again. I want to be here with my family, Jill smiling, Lian so 'moving-forward', Daniel so thrilled (it's the eve of his 15th birthday!), again and again. I want time to stop, just for a little bit at least. So I write these words, I take lots of pictures. I'll read and look later, hoping to trace in memory what it was like to feel alive like this. And I'll imagine the sound of the wind in the tall pine trees.
This morning a breath of air through the window in my New York apartment evoked a strong memory of summertime. I was in 8th or 9th grade and taking a morning class in Spanish at Northside Jr. High school. It all seemed fun, not at all like "education". Before they opened the school each day, a group of us would play tag and other games around the building. I could smell the newly-cut grass, feel the morning dew on my feet. That was the memory the wind brought me. It was good.
It's one of those nights that I wish could stretch forever. Then I realize that a stasis -- even of a perfect time such as this -- is death. Perhaps only in death can we find a changeless existence that allows for an eternal revisiting of this particular night (younger Daniel's "religion" comes to mind again). The fact of the matter is that life continues to move and flow; I've just been too lazy to write it here in the blog.
A few recent events, life going on:
One of our best friends, Sharlene -- her mother died this past Tuesday. As with Jill's father, you can try to make it 'fit' in your mind: they both led full and long lives (I think Sharlene's mother was 85), grown families, a reasonably happy time here. Then there are events that make no sense at all, they never will. The death of a daughter.
But what is this "sense" in any case? We all know where our time-lines are heading. How can we make "sense" of the endpoint? I think we don't, I think we can't really believe it. We can't know. Then things happen, and we can't believe them, either. We try to make "sense".
I guess right now I'm particularly aware again of this failure of imagination. Yesterday Dr. Pearse told me that my IgG levels are slightly elevated. This is one of the immunoglobulin proteins they check for evidence of myeloma activity. He emphasized the word slightly, and also reminded me that even if the cancer was active again, we have many options available. There are always options. Well, almost always.
I'm reminded that time continues to flow. Death next year, death in thirty or forty years, it will happen. I don't know if it will make any sense, or what the 'sense' would even be. I do know that there is still a lot I want to do, and I had been lapsing into a false stasis. Time to get to moving again.
Unfortunately, the answer to the question isn't located in a shifting of life-perspective brought on by an ultimate cure for my disease, like the possible conclusion I described shortly after I first started this blog, "...years from now I'll go back and read it and say 'My goodness! That was certainly an interesting time in my life!'" I wish such were the case. Looking at my last entry, I see that I left things a bit up-in-the-air, and the truth of the matter is that they remain so located. My IgG levels came back down ("not detectable"), but then have danced back up slightly, the real impact being that I am again on a 25 mg regimen of Revlimid. This isn't terrible, but I can feel the drug working much more than I could when taking the 10 mg dose. Not a big problem, and my main hope is that it continues working.
It has been a remarkably productive summer. It all started with an amazing event here in Roosevelt:
Then we were off to Evora, Portugal, for a wonderful set of PGT-performances and family (Jill + Daniel) trip:
The last few weeks I've been having great fun porting our music-language RTcmix to run on the iPhone:
So life goes on. I do remember one of the main reasons I decided to start this blog: get these things down, things I want to tell, to remember. Even though I haven't written anything here in the past two months, I think of writing a lot. There is much to tell and remember. But I get so lazy! I even missed the 2-year anniversary of going into remission. If ever there was a time to write something Deeply Profound, July 18 should have been the day. I think I fell asleep that night watching the Jon Stewart show.
I still wake up in the morning and look out the window, though. I still get worried heading over for my 3-week appointments at the hospital (one coming up this Wednesday). More and more than ever, I think of how lucky I am, even to be here at this point after my initial diagnosis. I have a new piece I'm finishing. Tonight I sat on the back porch with Daniel and Jill, wood from storm-downed tree branches burning in our outdoor chiminea. It's all so good, I had to write this down. More later, I promise.
Even though this is all routine by now, even though I won't learn anything new from Dr. Pearse or Faiza today (it takes a few days for the lab-work to be done), I still get a nervous thrill on the ride over. I still sit in this waiting room and wonder -- like I did several years ago -- what's going to happen?
We never know what's going to happen, but this place is one where we are forced to ask that question. And I do.
That's all for now. It's a rainy day.