Sunday, July 9, 2023
I went to Saint Peter’s Cemetery yesterday. It is where Mom and Dad are buried. I go there often. I bring a white plastic chair, one that I used to sit in on the pool deck at 25 Jefferson. I keep the chair in the back of my Honda CR-V, along with a few other things for the cemetery: gloves, a spade shovel, a hand rake, a towel, and plant food. And for some reason, I have two record albums in the back, too. They are the sole remnants of my once large collection of albums, almost all of which I gave away, to a “record store,” when I moved back to Danbury from Boulder in 1995, after my graduation from CU Boulder. The two albums survived because, at the time, they were hard to find. One is Richard Newall, King Biscuit Boy’s: Official Music. The other album is John Baldry’s It Ain’t Easy.
I usually bring my chair out and sit, facing south, at Mom and Dad’s headstone. I sit and pray, meditate, read, write, or talk with them, though mostly with Mom. Often, I smile, I laugh; sometimes I am sad, and I cry. Anything and everything can happen in that mental-emotional-spiritual plane. Whatever happens though, it is a comforting experience. I sit there sometimes for only 10-15 minutes, other days I’ll be there for an hour. And I am often treated to the most wonderful cloudscapes. Since this area of Danbury is flat, and the rolling hills are quite distant, there is ample sky, and nature uses its palette for fantastic visuals. I look at the sky a lot, and not just here at the cemetery.
Another activity I often do there is take walks. The cemetery is a good place for a walk. It is flat, for those days when hills are not appealing. It is generally quiet, except for the highway, I-84, running along the north side of it. But the highway does not bother me. I think that is because I like road trips, and the sound of vehicles on the highway, trucks in particular, is welcome. This highway sound recognition began, as far as I can recall, in my hitch-hiking days of the mid-1970s. I have a distinct memory of being out on the highway late one night, hitching home from Boston after a concert, with the sounds of trucks approaching from a distance on what was otherwise a quiet stretch of road.
The south side of the cemetery is bordered by a woods area, and one result of that is there are lots of birds, a seemingly diverse sampling of our feathered friends. There are usually 10-15 different species, according to the Merlin app, singing their songs as I walk along that area. Also, yesterday I also saw a baby deer, tiny, with white spots. I think I startled it, as I saw it jump up and go running away. There was no mama deer to be seen, which was worrisome to me.
There are often other people walking. It is a large area, so even if there are other people, paths do not often cross. But sometimes they do. And when they do cross, I generally say hello and try to start up a conversation. Sometimes people say hi and keep walking, other times they stop, and we talk a little.
I met and talked with two people recently. One was a woman who reminded me of someone from high school. We are talking 50 years of time gone by, so it would be easy for me to mistake her identity, which I did. It was not my high school friend. We talked for a short time, less than five minutes, at which time her phone rang, and we parted as she needed to take the call. It was a positive interaction, and we said maybe we’ll bump into each other again. Turns out, we did, as we crossed paths several days later and had a longer talk. Among other things, she learned I am a retired librarian, and I learned that she is a non-retired writer, both fiction and non-fiction. I don’t know many professional writers, and I like to write, so, it might not seem like a big deal, but, that she was a writer was very interesting to me. And she just published her first book! I wanted to ask a million questions about it. But I kept it to a more manageable number. After about ten minutes we parted. We will probably cross paths again.
The other person I met this week was a guy I call Tom, but don’t confuse him with me. I was walking along and noticed him walking about 100 yards ahead of me. I recognized him from another time, maybe a few months ago. That was a cold, wet day, which resulted in my walking at Danbury Mall. On one of my loops back and forth, among the hundreds of people there, I noted a guy walking gingerly with a cane. He had an expression on his face that looked, well, it seemed there was some difficulty. Was he sad? Was he in pain? What was on his mind? I wondered, and I felt some kind of empathy, even connection, as he passed.
Two or three days later, I was walking at the cemetery and, of all the people that could be there, he was. I caught up to him and started talking, walking along side of him, with his cane, and we talked about walking. I told him I thought I saw him at the Mall. He said yes, he was at the Mall the other day. Long story short, he told me he had problems walking, but he had gone to a physical therapist, very recently, and he had some exercises he was starting to do. He hoped that the PT and exercises would help. He had pain, and he had very limited ability with walking, only short distances, and always with the cane, it seemed. I listened to him and tried to be supportive, and I told him I walked a lot and maybe I’d see him again soon.
Fast forward to the other day, when I saw him, and guess what? He was walking without his cane! NO CANE! I was so encouraged. I caught up to him. He told me how the PT helped, and he was doing a set of exercises and stretches, twice a day, which only took about 15 minutes each time. He said he did not like the stretching, it was hard, but it was working. He could walk longer distances. He could now go up and down stairs again. He looked different. His face did not have that look I had seen at the Mall. He was smiling now. I told him how happy I was that he was doing so much better, and that I could see in his walk, as I approached him, that he had no cane, and his gait was different.
Not only was he doing better physically, but he was also enthusiastic! Not only was he doing PT, exercises, and stretching, he told me he was watching Ted Talks on topics related to how the mind and body work together to do things related to improved mobility. He seemed to be fully engaged, body and mind, in improving his mobility, which was giving him better quality of life! Hurray!
Little changes can make big differences. This is true not only with improving mobility, but with any changes that we might like to make in life. Commitment, persistence, and consistency are key.
So, that’s (happy) progress at the cemetery. One other point to note, is that I’ll repeat (in bold) what I wrote about in my previous post, a short discussion about meeting people. So, about the topic of meeting people, connections, vibrations overlapping, personal energy, etc. What do you think? Random occurrences? Something else? Other factors?
Have a great day!
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