Tag Archives: health challenges

The Road to Diamond, Day 360: Love and Mercy

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 22, 2025- His voice cracking, and eyes starting to well, R stopped and recovered himself, then continued on with his account of the past five months, since I saw him last. R is one of the friends I will miss after leaving Prescott. He and his wife were among the first to welcome me, in 2011. Their restaurant is one of the mainstays of my life here, once a week, for breakfast or lunch. The shenanigans of the staff or of the locals that sit at the counter are always a hoot. I listened with rapt attention and reflective comments, as R filled me in on his so far successful fight for life. I want to see people win those kinds of battles.

Getting back to Home Base I, I arranged for the delivery of a piece of furniture that I have had re-upholstered. It had been in almost too sorry a condition to even invite people over. Now, it is in beautiful shape and I will be proud to hand it off to someone who needs a nice piece of furniture for their living room. As it happened, the delivery man’s schedule conflicted with my usual stint at Farmers Market, but as my cosmic advisor said of today-“It is a day to go with the flow, when life interrupts routine.” Delivery man and his helper were meticulous in bringing the piece in and getting it in place. They took their time folding their blankets and putting everything back in place.

I went to Farmers Market, anyway, and finding the crew dealing with a long line of vendors, I took care of cleaning and putting away the folding chairs and tables, then made headway in taking down at least some of the tents. It was then time for Baha’i Feast, so I left the nonetheless grateful crew, who by that time were finished with the vendors.

Feast was a cozy affair. We had our devotions and talked of community matters, then planned next month’s activities and enjoyed refreshments. This little community is also a group of people I will miss, having collaborated with them continuously for fourteen years, and having known many of them from our residence here in 1992 and 2000-01. The Baha’i Faith has only been an impetus for my positive growth as a human being.

Finally, I spent the evening at Raven Cafe, enjoying a light dinner and the music of a favourite local band, The Cheektones. Don and the boys have a knack for getting people up an dancing. I occupied an old wooden chair and had the company of a few friends of the band. After about 1 1/2 hours of bouncing in my seat, I got up and joined the dancing to the last two songs. Before I did so, the guys played a song that summed up today, and many days in my life: “Love and Mercy”, the Brian Wilson song from 1988. Here is an earlier performance by The Cheektones, from Prescott’s Summer Music on the Square series.

This is the last of my “two posts a day”, game of catch-up on this blog site. It has been sometimes a challenge, to find a theme for a given day, but from my readership, it seems there are plenty of you who identified with at least some of what has happened here, since my return from Europe.

Life is sweet.

The Road to Diamond, Day 350: Attention to Detail

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Education, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 12, 2025- Someone I care about, here in town, mentioned recently that several health challenges lie ahead in the coming year. Having faced similar issues, within the past six years, I offered some recommendations and left it to friend to follow up. Caring has to be tempered with a respect for dignity.

I have learned, as a caretaker in the 2000s, and as a person in resilience in the 2010s and early part of this decade, that lack of attention to detail can very often come back to haunt-and at very unexpected times. Besides, being more present has helped relieve the level of autism that has gotten in my way. With less off-center behaviour, I also have less tendency to offer excuses for missteps-or to blame others for things that only I can control.

That is as true of physical ailments as it is of psychological issues. A lot of the progress I have made in both areas is also due to a greater focus on natural supplements. I have benefited greatly from do Terra products. Others use different companies’ fare, with results that work for them. The important thing is that a person knows self well enough to choose the right physiosocial regimen that meets her/his needs.

Each of us is important to the world, and the Universe, in some way. May details be seen as parts of a road map, and not as nuisances.

Sunset Pioneers

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 13, 2024- Last night, I pondered what role medication has played in my mother’s recent health woes. A friend here has had his medication adjusted, at his daughters’ insistence, and the barely cognizant soul, who had us all concerned , has resumed being his relatively feisty self. Apparently, Mom’s doctor had similar thoughts, and the resulting adjustments have made her a bit more like her old self.

This is good news for us all, and while we are not under any illusion, as to the long-term, being able to follow her instructions, that I not give short shrift to my obligations here, will be true to both her steadfast insistence over the years, that our word should be our bond and to my own sense of integrity. So long as her condition is stable, I will keep on with activities in Home Base I, both Baha’i and secular, and will head out across the continent, in the evening of April 28.

We are each pioneering our sunset years: Mom, my siblings, most of my cousins, surviving aunts, a good many of my friends, including my dearest, and yours truly. That means as many different things as there are of us. It means varying health challenges, of which thankfully I have very few, to date and which most have faced with a great deal of fortitude and resilience. I am proud of each one who has faced down aching joints, diabetes and macular degeneration, with corrective surgery, both natural and allopathic cures and a steady regimen of physical therapy. It means having a can-do spirit.

This most recent scare has reminded one and all that family comes first, then community and after that, the wider humanity. I stand firm on each of those counts. This pioneering life will continue in good stead.