Steve my buddy that gave us Sture ( pronounced stura) the flat coat retreiver came by for a visit yesterday.  Sture you remember from Phil’s Camino the film.  Well Steve shows up with a nine month old flat coat puppy named Rasmus.  So, we got to meet him for the first time.

He is still in training but should be part of adventures in the future.  One great thing is how is has some of the same mannerisms that our dog Sture had and we had forgotten about.  I guess it has been a long time.

At the hospital today getting treatment and bored to death.   Am looking forward to being on the road back to Vashon this afternoon.   Two important baseball games on the tube later.

Miss you, love, Felipe.

My Rebecca questioned me about yesterday’s post thinking that I was to vague.  She has called me on this before so maybe I ought to pay attention.  So, maybe I will explain what was going on yesterday from a different angle.

So basically, we had the two tracks that were traveling along seemingly independent of each other.  We had the purely medical track recorded by the hospital personnel.  I don’t know what is even in there but it has to be volumes by now.  Then we have this journal occurring here with over 1300 entries.  It attempts to explain the day to day business of being Felipe with interactions with Catholicism, Cancer and Camino.  Trying to connect the two tracks or exploring the area that lies between them is the effort that is interesting me at the moment.  This is what I was writing about yesterday that maybe was vague.

It is sort of like trying to connect art and science perhaps or religion and science.  At first there may seem to have little connection or that they are even opposed to each other.  But underlying there may be all kinds of similarities.  And maybe this knowledge would help both efforts.  This is what I am trying to get at.

When I mentioned things that Jim and I talked about they are just snippets of all that went on.  But they are things that stand out to me.  And they may seem disjointed at first but they all lie in this area of interest.

One other thing that I remember now was this Jimism, that one definition of health is when a person is total unaware of the state.  In other words they are aware of health only when they are unhealthy.  They are then aware of the lack of it.  When you are blissfully healthy you are healthy.  This may seem simplistic but it is valuable for this exploration.

OK, let’s not forget the important stuff like praying for Betsy as she makes her Camino.  Or for Las Vegas or for Puerto Rico.  We all take our turns at the hard stuff.  Love you, buoying you up, Felipe.

This is regarding my oldest friend who was here at the ranch for five days.  Hope he survived, as I haven’t heard from him since.  No, I am sure he is fine, just resting up.  I did want to pick his brain while he was here because I have been trying to fill in some blanks with my medical history, in the broad sense.  Let me back up a little.

Since my diagnosis in 2011 the hospital has kept extensive records on me.  All kinds of things are recorded and that is one very amazing information stream.  Then this blog which has been going for three and a half years recording a different aspect of me.  It’s all very personal in another way.  In each we are talking about the same individual and his connection  to his surroundings in another manner, through another lens.  These two tracks are related but not necessarily well connected as they appear to be two parallel tracks.

I realized that there is an area between these two tracks that needs exploring and that is one reason why I started this conversation with Jim.  He maybe being able to act as a bridge from one to the other.  OK, that is the background.

One thing that we covered was how diagnosis works.  It is not always a one shot deal that we think that it should be.  We are hungry for answers and want them now.  But a lot of times there is time involved because the diagnosis needs to be made on the evidence of a pattern that has to develop.

Another thing was the way that things happen and we try so hard to match them up cause and effect.  This takes time also to sort out because some things that we think are effects would have happened anyway and just look like it was a result of the certain cause that we had in mind.

We talked about how God has a way of showing up in bodies that are no longer healthy.  Jim had good quotes for a lot of these things but I am repeating  just the meat of the ideas.  This one is so true in my case as witnessed by this blog.  My cancer largely flavors my writings in a lot of ways.  And talk of God largely flavors it as well.  Without the heightened awareness that the cancer brought this whole complex dance wouldn’t have happened.  There is this dance between and amoung Catholicism, Cancer and Camino that we are always working with here at the blog that influences but is not described in my medical records.

OK, that is enough for one day.  Time to get moving, walk time, love you, Felipe.

Gosh, so much has been going on lately.  On top of Jim and Gloria being here Annie was here with the Tacoma Film Festival.  So Annie did a little filming of odds and ends that she was interested in capturing but that didn’t take too long.  What was the big news was that she was bearing the latest rough cut of the new hour long version of Phil’s Camino.

When I say hour long I really mean that it will be used in an hour long TV format so it is really fifty four minutes.   So it is approximately twice as long as the short version.  Everything that was in before is still in.  And to put it briefly the earlier story is fleshed out beautifully.

This is so exciting.  This was the first glimpse for us and Annie is going to begin to show it to select audiences to raise funds to complete it.  It is 95% done but needs music for example and color cleanup.  So, we are close but no cigar.  It’s a beauty, no joke.

So, we are walking at four.  Father David is coming today so we will be on our best behavior.  It’s a beauriful day, stop by.  Best wishes, love, Felipe.

We are off to the Tacoma Fim Festival in a moment.  Off to meet up with Annie, off to the day’s adventures.  Things are never dull with her.

It rained a little in the late night and have a fire going in the woodstove this morning.  The coffee is strong and I have a few minutes to check in.  Jim and I are pretty talked out but I have got some new insights.  I may need a few days to fully digest what we went over but you will see it soon.

So,  hope that you have a bonafide good day.  Eat a new apple, drink some fresh cider, smell some leaves burning kind of day.  Love, Felipe.

Annie joined our merry throng today for some major fun.  The highlight of our morning was a two hour boat ride around the Tacoma water front.   That was major fun and educational to boot.  So we are back in Tacoma tomorrow to watch Annie’s new film “Dear Congress” playing at the Tacoma Film Festival.  Then is the afternoon we are seeing a rough cut of the hour long  Phil’s Camino.

Love you, Felipe.

The four of us are sitting here hashing things out and I am not gettering anything done on writing here today.  Maybe that is how it goes today.  Now there is a lull.

Maybe it would be a good idea to pray for Betsy and her brave Camino.  Such a story she has.  Praying for strength for her.

Well, I guess I am not going to fight it today.  I can catch up with you at another time.  We are in it for the long run, we know that.  Love you, alperfect, Felipe.

We have a bunch of company that is coming through here this month.  Jim and Gloria are starting the parade.  Jim being my oldest friend back from childhood in Buffalo, NY and Gloria his wife.  They both walked the Camino last summer.

Jim is a physician, retired for a few years.  His father also was a doctor and was our family doctor back when I was a kid.  I remember him making a house call to see me when I was seven years old and suffering with chicken pox.  House calls,  that’s old school.

Him and I were up at zero dark thirty this morning and have been talking up a storm trying too catch up on all the news.   One thing that we talked about that may interest you is that I want to record a conversation with him about an area of my life that has not been sufficiently explored or documented.  Let me try and explain.

For six years I have been wrestling with cancer and it’s associated experiences.  And for six years the doctors and nurses have been recording millions of facts about my case.  Not a misplaced hair goes unrecorded.  All this data is available for use.  That is a track that is ongoing.  So, now on the other hand we have this blog which is another track which has been going on for three and a half years.  Everyday I have recorded info that relates to the cancer in some way.  That is track number two which is very personal in another way.

So these two tracks are moving along parallel with each other, sort of unaware of each other even though they are intimately connected.  So I am asking Jim to help me connect them more closely and to possiblely explore the area between them to see what we can find.  It seems this may be important someone.  So, that is in the works, stay tuned.

The weather  is beautiful here but chilly.  Hope you are doing well.  Love, Felipe.

Maureen wrote the nicest comment on Caminoheads a couple of days ago.  It was a little personal so I asked her permission to post it here.  I was so moved by Maureen’s words and sentiments.  You can sense the quality here.  Thanks M.

Comment:
Hi Phil
Just want to say what a blessing you are to so many! I love reading your blog and continue to keep you in my thoughts and prayers! You keep us all focused on what is really important in our daily lives. We are all pilgrims among pilgrims.
I wanted to share about a very dear friend that is currently walking the Camino in Spain. She left on September 20, & will be gone till November 2. Her name is Betsy. She is one of the most inspiring and courageous women I know. We taught together at the same elementary school. When we first met, she was celebrating being a breast cancer survivor. Her favorite color is purple & she decorated her clsssroom with that color (even sometimes colored her hair) as a bold proclamation of her fight! She walked the 60 mile Avon Breast Cancer walk from Santa Barbara to LA, she still surfs, recently hiked the Grand Canyon, and it is clear that she lives life to the fullest, having stared down death! Her daughter struggled with high school foreign language classes and took sign language as an alternative. As a show of support, Betsy took classes with her daughter & went on to get another degree in sign language & transferred out of elementary school to teach high school sign language classes. In the past few years, Betsy has had many set-backs. Her husband left her for a younger woman, & her breast cancer returned after 7 years. She fought back in her “usual sometimes irreverent style”! At a Christmas party with a group of teachers, she proudly wore a t-shirt that proclaimed: “Yes these are fake, my real ones tried to kill me!” But her biggest battle was still yet to come. She retired a year ago, and had just visited her son last October who was a Maritme sailor. She was so proud of him & posted a picture of the visit with her 2 sons on Facebook. Three days later, Jack was killed riding his bike home from dinner. He was struck by a speeding car & killed instantly. It was incomprehensible to see her very next Facebook post with a picture of Betsy & Jack holding their surfboards & Betsy writing: Do not Rest In Peace my son, ride the Big One”. She celebrated Jack’s life with a “paddle-out” in Laguna Beach. I last saw Betsy at Christmas and she mentioned that a friend had been talking about walking the Camino in Spain. Though I have not walked the Camino, I shared my story of surrendering my son’s alcoholism & ultimate homelessness, meeting Annie & you through our Curch’s Camino in Lake Forest & how life changing it has been for me! Betsy wrote right before she left for Spain that “apparently God wanted her to walk in Spain alone” because her friend that was supposed to go, lost her home in the Florida hurricane! I KNEW that she would never be alone & praying that she would feel that amazing awareness on her Camino. She just posted: “the cat is out of the bag; I am spreading Jack’s ashes”. This brought tears to my eyes & goosebumps; reminiscent of Martin Sheen in “The Way”. I just had to write & ask for your prayers & perhaps you would like to mention her on your blog. Buen Camino Betsy!
Sincerely, Maureen
(a fellow pilgrim from Santiago De Compostela Parish in Lake Forest)

See what I mean?  Just pure quality there in and around those words.  There Maureen, Caminoheads worldwide will pray for your Betsy and be inspired by her great story.

Our world may seem chaotic and scary but our hearts are moving in the right direction.  This is where the relevant work is taking place at this time.  Realize that, hold on to it.

Love you, Felipe.

I was all pumped earlier this morning to write about some good news in the neighbor hood and we will get back to it shortly.  But first we have to cover this tragedy that happened in Las Vegas yesterday and was all over the morning news.  It hangs like something heavy on me now.  We need to work through at least some of it to clear some room.

It is the killing of the innocents one more time.  Two things come up with me at this moment and I need to start somewhere so here we are.  One, is the question of how anyone could work themselves into a place where they would think this was a good idea to embrace and implement.  Two, I am always struck by how quickly evil can be perpetrated.  To do good always seems like life’s work and the opposite in comparison.

Every week I light candles at church for the projects that I have heard of that are on my mind.  People, angels really, get it in their mind to build a dream that would be so good for so many.  Maybe it is a medical facility that is long my needed or a program to help a certain segment of the population that needs extra care.  And they struggle and struggle to make headway.  Everything thing seems uphill.  I light my little candles and pray my little prayers as these certain individuals heroically sacrifice.  Good seems to take so long and to be such a chore.  Is there a word for this?

Ah, a little room and just enough to say how happy our family is at the moment.  Our son Wiley and Henna got officially engaged yesterday.  We are so happy for them.  It is a moment to celebrate and remember.  It is the start of bigger and better things for them and for us.  It is a milestone along their journey that will go on to places beyond the horizon.  All good, uberperfect and even alperfect, here’s to you our children!

OK, a tough day to write a post on.  Time to get organized and walk Phil’s Camino next.  It looks gray but dry out, comfortable walking temp.  Maybe someone will show up or maybe I will say the rosary a time or two for our world.  Always, love, Felipe.