Personal reflections / impact of Young Onset Parkinson's in life of a late-40's musician,husband,father and teacher. Metaphysical implications of disease, musings on life, music, poetry ...

Friday, December 28, 2007

The Patience of Parkinson's.....scary!


Chronic, progressive,

As water saps strength from stone

Cliff breaks as I tremble



I like my politics progressive, thank-you - not my ailments if’n I had my druthers.

But my druthers are handled by others, largely at least in regard to PD..….and this time around I’ve taken on a partner who’s calmly steering the ship to a rocky shore . One of the things you can learn by experiencing the slow creep of Parkinson’s is the power of patience and persistence – at least from the disease process itself. It's in no rush, hakuna matata, and while you don’t have all the time in the world, it does. So things change, slowly, subtly and seriously…

Still doing better than not in all regards, but I note some disturbing new symptoms – occasional involvement of my right arm, till recently not at all involved and – equally if not more troubling, some difficulty swallowing. Swallowing is not the type of thing you think about very much, till it becomes less than fully automatic. And, believe me, you start thinking a lot then. So, tell me, how do you swallow?

Peristalsis….(add short segment here)

So, while the disease won’t officially off you itself, it sets up a myriad of ways to deliver your
demise (we deliver!)….falling without reflexes to recover is a popular one, choking growing out of swallowing difficulties, also a perennial, or complications from pneumonias becoming more common with progression of disease all among the top ten ways to check out growing out of this withering away of motor control we call Parkinson’s.

As the process commands and deserves great respect for its patience and persistence, so too must I gird myself to be strong enough not to yield my center, my power to resist that which I might and accept unavoidable changes as they occur, the strength to open a tremorous hand and release with the appreciation for having had them the powers the precious capabilities that collectively form the dowry of health which the more fortunate among us bring to each earthly incarnation.



Friday, December 21, 2007

Prius Envy....







So, I gets the Mitsubishi back from the shop with the shiny new tranni and within a days it's stalling, and jerking 'n huffing and generally not behaving the way a satisfied car with a new transmision ought to act....so I hoof it over the a local car rental place at 7pm just in time to snag the sorriest and very last rental on the lot...a shiny red DaeWOOO! mini....hot damn.

Drove this clunker for two days while the garage celebrated their good fortune at finding a new donor for thier slush fund...people treat you, well, different, yes....thats the word, different in a daewoo! (there's the marketing pitch .....daewoo......different!)... heres how...

othewise courteous little-biddy old lady drivers feel suddenly free and empowed to drive by you and give you the finger.....not a single, but a triple-thrust fuck-you gesture....for no apparent reason

little children know its ok to toss old soda, or diapers at you as their leer down from towering hummers and suvs, while the dad looks on, winks as if to say, 'thattaboy!"...

people will cut you off without compunction in this thing.....
looking forward to getting the mitsubishi with a skin condition back soon!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Prius Satori Moment..


When it goes, it goes
When it stops it just stops: silent!
Prius Satori...


'Been an up and down week - down: transmission died / up: rented a Prius.
The three day repair puffed out to six, so in that time I had a good opportunity to get familiar withe the electric/gas hybrid. The amazing thing about the technology is how completely silent and still the car is waiting at lights when the engine disengages - unlike traditional cars, which even stopped always have an agenda of 'go', eternal automotive manifest destiny, if you
will the
Prius just hangs there, state of quiet and complete stillness, an unexpected moment of simply
being there rather than going there.

So how does this relate to PD.....well, it doesn't, not in any meaningful way - other than a reminder to live consciously in the moment you're in -- good things open up unexpectedly, Prius Satori.
And now, everybody into the full lotus position, deep healing breath in, now.....

"oyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy"
Yiddish trancendental mantra"

Sunday, December 16, 2007

On Spaghetti and Billiards and Conducting....


'Trying to make 'zee love without 'zee woody,
is like shooting pool with wet spaghetti"
Pepe LaPieu


Fear not, gently reader, for Modem's Woody is strong (read my 'Stalevo Horndog' entry) - why I'm hornier than a two-peckered billygoat roaming free in the cialis-patch, truth be told!. Yet the quote from the grand Warner philosopher has new meaning to me as I wrestle with the existential 'is-ness" of what these changes in control of basic bodily movement translate to in day to day experience. These days, I am hyper aware of how having the Heebie Jeebies (i.e., the disease formerly known as Parkinsons) challenges me in playing and conducting music. As for conducting:

Conducting, in its essence, is all about communication of intention through gesture. Movement disorders, Parkinson's for example, strike at the medium between the two - and as they challenge your ability to control the nuance of your own gesture, so to do they impact your ability to shape and mold the fine gesture and subtlety of movement of the 5 or 20 or 40 musicians in front of you. As a frequent keyboardist/conductor for musical theater, it's been truly dismaying to witness the loss of specific skills once taken for granted - i.e., playing the keyboard with the right hand while conducting with the left - grow undependable, risky and
atrophied. Any yet, you struggle, you find ways to compensate -

some truly amazing histories come to mind in this regard, foremost among them Django Reinhard, Hot Jazz Gypsy Guitarist who made his mark with only three grotesquely fused digits on his left hand, the result of a high-intensity cellophane fire that left him maimed. And, in a wider perspective, we're all on our way out once we've made our way in, so heebie jeebies or not, it all comes back to making the most of what you've got while you've got it.
.......carpe 'freaking diem!





Saturday, December 1, 2007

How do we do what we do, while we can do it?


From conception to intention without a hiccup...until the hicupping begins...
'Stitch got a glitch' sort of thing, only its happening to you, you and not some marginally
cute animated disney-'freakin space alien....and that makes it mighty personal!

So how does the quarterback throw the flawless spiral, the dancer the impossibly precise kinetic gesture, or the master musician one focused note so emotionally charged that someone back in the nosebleed seats is propelled into a profound emotional catharsis, a node struck on their string of inner experience, as a doctor would tap your knee in a neurologic exam, only this time with a sonic hammer weilded by a muted trumpet played by a dying jazzman?

There's so much we take for granted... being able to balance, to extend a steady arm, to swallow.
It's been a little disturbing to experience challenge to each of these formerly taken-for-granted
abilities of late - and as a keyboard musician and conductor of a reasonably solid high school jazz ensemble and orchestra I cannot deny that ability to acurately control gesture has begun to impact how I work....."mr. stictch got a glitch.....daaaaaaang!" (said in the vernacular of a contemporary high school terrorist)