65 of 100: Life

Two months ago, my husband, David, went to the ER over a bad pain in his side, thinking it might be appendicitis. They insisted on tests, which involved hospitalization. Two days later, he received a diagnosis: stage IV lung cancer. 

Needless to say, our take on life has been different since then—September 10. His treatment so far is simple: a daily pill. He feels well, is gaining back some of the weight the disease took from him. In some ways, nothing is different. Except: the death sentence. 

And even that is unclear. "Median survivability" from this sort of lung cancer—adenocarcinoma with an EGFR mutation—is 2.5–3 years. We sure are hoping for the far side—way far side—of that median. But still: there's an expiration date of sorts now. 

The hospitalist who broke the news also said that if they rounded up ten random people of David's age (at that point, a few days short of 71) and tested them, they'd find something concerning in every one. 

We all have an expiration date. Most of us just don't know what it is.

We've been getting phone calls and visits lately, which mean so much. Emails of course. Cards that go on the mantel. Cheerful flowers. It's a sad reason to be embraced, but the embrace is cherished.

Today, some wilderness ranger friends organized a fresh-air happy hour. It was delightful to hang out for a couple of hours and share life.

64 of 100: Harry Belafonte

Okay, I've fallen out of my countdown to 100, but I'm gonna get back to it. Starting with Mr. Harry Belafonte (1927–2023), inspired by a tribute concert we went to today—streamed live from Lincoln Center, with Renee Marie singing, arrangements by Etienne Charles, and a stellar ensemble featuring piano, bass, trombone, guitar, drums, and Charles on trumpet, flugelhorn, and percussion. It was delightful. Thanks to Carmel's Sunset Center for sponsoring it, for free!

I can't feature the concert here, but I can post a few videos. Starting with the "Banana Boat Song," aka Day-O, told from the perspective of a laborer cutting bananas; the performance is from 1960:

Though you might know the song from the Tim Burton movie Beetlejuice:

And here's "Jamaica Farewell," from the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956:

Belafonte popularized calypso, acted in movies, was a confidant to Martin Luther King Jr., and served as a celebrity ambassador for juvenile justice issues with the American Civil Liberties Union. Calling Paul Robeson his mentor in the civil rights realm, he spoke out strongly against George W. Bush and Donald Trump, and endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2016. He died last year at the age of 96.

Here's a lovely interview with and profile of him on 60 Minutes from 1997:

And finally, a "life and legacy" look-back upon his death:

I was glad to be reminded of this man, and to dance along with his music.

Book Report: Jar City

17. Arnaldur Indriðason, Jar City (2000) (10/22/24)

A friend of mine on FB remarked recently that she'd discovered a new Nordic Noir author whom she appreciated, Arnaldur Indriðason. As I do, I checked him out—and realized that I owned one of his early books: the third in the series of fourteen featuring the saturnine inspector Erlendur, and the first to have been translated into English. 

After my couple of months with Gus, Call, and the rest of the Lonesome Dove crew traversing the American plains, it was quite a switch to end up in rainy autumnal Reykjavík tracking down a brutal murderer. But I settled in.

The story itself was pretty good, beginning with the killing of an old man, and leading into past incidents of rape, organ theft and genetic disease, and Erlendur's passionate doggedness. He himself has lost his way, after divorce and two children who themselves aren't finding purpose; but the desire to delve down to the truth of a crime continues to motivate him. He still cares about the people around him, especially those who are victims of crimes, even if he has some work to do on himself. (And in this book, in his stumbling way, he begins to connect with his daughter.)

I found the language rather stilted, no doubt a result of a spare writing style in the original Icelandic and the British, no doubt literal, translation. I kept wondering if the story could be brought to more "life" if it were translated more loosely

But the story was what mattered, and it delivered. Will I read more Indriðason? Maybe. But I'm glad I finally read this one, which has been sitting on my shelf for quite a long while now...

63 of 100: C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS)

When I was up in Oregon recently fooling around with wax, it was cloudy down here in Monterey. But the day I got home, the skies cleared—so David and I went comet hunting. And we found this:

We went to a relatively dark blufftop on Monterey Bay and looked southwest between Venus and Arcturus (as a couple of FB friends instructed), and I spotted a fuzzy lightness in the sky. Binoculars made it clear that that fuzzy spot was the comet. And the phone saw it clearly. So nice!

In 1986 David and I sought out Halley's comet, up in the Berkeley Hills; in 1995, we saw comet Hyakutake, somewhere very near where the above photo was taken, on Del Monte Beach; and in 1997 we saw Hale-Bopp, from up on Laureles Grade and again on I-80 as we crawled along in slow traffic and kept marveling that the comet seemed to be beating us to our destination, a ski lodge near Tahoe. 

Hale-Bopp was visible for 18 months. I only remember seeing it twice. Why didn't we go say hello to it every night?

This one, familiarly known as Atlas, is already headed back out into the universe, after a quick visit. I wonder who or what will be around to see it when it returns in 80,000 years.

62 of 100: Astoria, Oregon

This weekend I met up with my wonderful sister-in-law Patty and book arts friend Susan for an art-and-writing retreat in the charming town of Astoria, Oregon. I posted some photos on FB: here and here and here and (flight home) here, complete with explanatory captions. Here are a few of those pictures, randomly, just to decorate this page. 

Astoria fishing shack

Patty inside the 146-step Astoria Column,
with magnificent views from the top

Bubble Church

My FB friend Jody Miller, at her art opening

Astoria's RiverWalk is along a former RR right-of-way

Our reason for being in Astoria: an encaustic art workshop

The Astoria-Megler Bridge

San Mateo–Hayward Bridge, 
as I arrive back at SFO.

61 of 100: Nasa's Europa Clipper mission (and a poem by Ada Limón)

I am stealing wholesale an email I received today, about a project that is fascinating, and that incorporates a beautiful poem. Here's the intro (modestly adjusted by me):

As part of her stint as US poet laureate, Ada Limón wrote “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” dedicated to NASA’s Europa Clipper mission. She debuted the poem on June 1, 2023, to kick off the NASA “Message in a Bottle” campaign, which invited people around the world to sign their names to the poem. The poem has been engraved on the Clipper, along with participants' names that were etched onto microchips mounted on the spacecraft. Together, the poem and names will travel 1.8 billion miles on Europa Clipper’s voyage to the Jupiter system.   

One point eight billion miles, people! It will take until 2030. Which right there is pretty unbelievable: 1.8 billion miles in five and a half years. Crazy.

The Clipper is scheduled to launch tomorrow, October 10, at 12:31 p.m., on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida (assuming Hurricane Milton doesn't interfere). Beyond Earth, Jupiter's moon Europa is considered one of the solar system's most promising potentially habitable environments.

Here is the poem. It moves me to tears, truly. I've included a bit more on the science of the mission at the end of this post. (And  you can hear Ada read her poem here.)

In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa

by Ada Limón

Arching under the night sky inky
with black expansiveness, we point
to the planets we know, we

pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,
we read the sky as if it is an unerring book
of the universe, expert and evident.

Still, there are mysteries below our sky:
the whale song, the songbird singing
its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.

We are creatures of constant awe,
curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom,
at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.

And it is not darkness that unites us,
not the cold distance of space, but
the offering of water, each drop of rain,

each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
O second moon, we, too, are made
of water, of vast and beckoning seas.

We, too, are made of wonders, of great
and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,
of a need to call out through the dark. 

 

What will Europa Clipper do?

Europa Clipper’s main science goal is to determine whether there are places below the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa that could support life. [Ed.: Jupiter has 95 or more moons, by the way, three of which—Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto—are icy. In April 2023 the European Space Agency launched its own spacecraft, the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or Juice, to study these three, especially the latter two.]

The mission’s three main science objectives are to understand the nature of the ice shell and the ocean beneath it, along with the moon’s composition and geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.

NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft will perform dozens of close flybys of Jupiter’s moon Europa, gathering detailed measurements to investigate the moon. The spacecraft, in orbit around Jupiter, will make nearly 50 flybys of Europa at closest-approach altitudes as low as 16 miles (25 km) above the surface, soaring over a different location during each flyby to scan nearly the entire moon.

Designed for Jupiter’s tough radiation environment

Because Europa is bathed in radiation trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field, Europa Clipper's payload and other electronics will be enclosed in a thick-walled vault. This strategy of armoring up to go to Jupiter with a radiation vault was developed and successfully used for the first time by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The vault walls—made of titanium and aluminum—will act as a radiation shield against most of the high-energy atomic particles, dramatically slowing down degradation of the spacecraft's electronics.

Life beyond Earth

Europa shows strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust. Beyond Earth, Europa is considered one of the most promising places where we might find currently habitable environments in our solar system. Europa Clipper will determine whether there are places below Europa’s surface that could support life.

The spacecraft's payload will include cameras and spectrometers to produce high-resolution images and composition maps of Europa's surface and thin atmosphere, an ice-penetrating radar to search for subsurface water, and a magnetometer and gravity measurements to unlock clues about its ocean and deep interior. The spacecraft will also carry a thermal instrument to pinpoint locations of warmer ice and perhaps recent eruptions of water, and instruments to measure the composition of tiny particles in the moon's thin atmosphere and surrounding space environment. 

 

P.S. The spacecraft launched only a few days late, on October 14. Farewell and safe travels!

Book Report: Lonesome Dove

16. Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove (1985) (10/5/24)

One day on the way home from doing trail work in the Ventana Wilderness, my companions and I got to talking about books. I'm not sure how Lonesome Dove came up, but the other two had read it and said it was great—maybe even one of the best books they'd ever read. Now, that's a mighty good recommendation. So I ordered it. And then, unusually for me, I picked it up and started to read, almost immediately. (Usually, the 857-page books get shelved and glare at me, making me feel guilty, for years on end.) I did have to put it down briefly for the last book I read, but for the last couple of months I've been immersed in Lonesome Dove. 

And man oh man, what a book—what a story—what a cast of characters. It definitely deserved its Pulitzer Prize.

What to say about it, really? The book is basically a road trip on horseback, surrounded by cows. It's a restlessness on the American frontier, a quest to satisfy a dream—or a variety of dreams. One of the two Hat Creek head honchos, Augustus McCrae, is bigger than life (though I cannot picture Robert Duvall playing him in the TV series—for me, Gus was Sam Elliott all the way; though Duvall could easily be the other head honcho, Call... maybe I will adjust my take once I've seen the series, which I definitely intend to do... as for Tommy Lee Jones as Call, ditto, but again: I'll check it out, maybe it works). A few women's stories enter in as well, for a pleasing roundedness. And then there's Sheriff July Johnson's story. Plus random other characters. So much life!

But it's a sad story. Although it begins in optimism and high spirits, it ends up, well, yes, sad. Sad in the way life can be sad, with its losses and missed opportunities and wrong turns and hardness. There is the satisfaction of actually finishing the drive of the cattle from Texas to Montana near the Canadian border and the establishment of a ranch. And some of the characters find their way to a place of stability and safety, at least, if not necessarily happiness. But there are so many lost opportunities, missed connections, and deaths along the way. So much loneliness.

I flagged the book like crazy. Here's a passage from chapter 2 (of 102), when the mood was playful and optimistic. The chapter begins by describing Woodrow Call's habit of seeking alone time:

Of course, real scouting skills were superfluous in a place as tame as Lonesome Dove, but Call still liked to get out at night, sniff the breeze and let the country talk. The country talked quiet; one human voice could drown it out, particularly if it was a voice as loud as Augustus McCrae's. Augustus was notorious all over Texas for the strength of his voice. On a still night he could be heard at least a mile, even if he was more or less whispering. Call did his best to get out of range of Augustus's voice so that he could relax and pay attention to other sounds. If nothing else, he might get a clue as to what weather was coming—not that there was much mystery about the weather around Lonesome Dove. If a man looked straight up at the stars he was apt to get dizzy, the night was so clear. Clouds were scarcer than cash money, and cash money was scarce enough. 

And here's a passage from chapter 92, a hundred pages from the end, featuring Gus's true love, Clara—though they were both too independent to be able to come together—and her helping hand, Cholo. Clara's husband has just died, after lying in a sort of coma for three months having been kicked in the head by a horse. And years earlier, she lost three sons to sickness, who continue to haunt her thoughts.

They sat quietly for a while, drinking coffee. Watching Clara, Cholo felt sad. He did not believe she had ever been happy. Always her eyes seemed to be looking for something that wasn't there. She might look pleased for a time, watching her daughters or watching some young horse, but then the rolling would start inside her again and the pleased look would give way to one that was sad.
     "What do you think happens when you die?" she asked, surprising him. Cholo shrugged. He had seen much death, but had not thought much about it. Time enough to think about it when it happened.
     "Not too much," he said. "You're just dead."
     "Maybe it ain't as big a change as we think," Clara said. "Maybe you just stay around near where you lived. Near your family or wherever you was happiest. Only you're just a spirit, and you don't have the troubles the living have."
     A minute later she shook her head, and stood up. "I guess that's silly," she said, and started back to the house.

I've got death on my mind lately anyway, and most of the deaths that happen in this book were, yes, sad—unnecessary, in a way, though of course the only "necessity" about death is that it happen, at some point. Many, or maybe all, of these deaths come from violence, whether natural—a swarming mass of cottonmouth snakes—or human-caused—being gunshot or lanced or arrowshot or hanged. You want to see the bad guys get their dues, but not the good, innocent ones. The ones still trying to figure out, understand, just what they really want from life.

This is apparently the third book in a tetralogy. I'm content to inhabit only this slice of that reality. I don't want to see any more death (McMurtry, in a 2010 preface to LD, indicates that a main character who ends up alive in this book does eventually meet his end, and honestly, I'd rather just remember him alive), and I don't need to experience the Texas Rangering past of Gus and Woodrow. This book gave me an entire world, and I am grateful, if sadly so, for that.