As a teenager, I thought medicine was romantic. I blame it on the doctor shows that used to be on television, with all those handsome interns and Dr. Joe Gannons running around. First-hand experience of hospitals will cure you of this kind of thing, and it doesn't even require an overnight stay.
I recently received a medical bill for a service that ended up costing nearly five times as much as I had been told it would. I checked on the cost ahead of time by doing a little Internet research and calling the facility. The price the billing office gave me was in line with what I had discovered on the web, so I thought I knew what I was in for. I wasn't happy, but I was prepared . . . so I was surprised when a routine inspection of my insurance claims revealed a cost of $1,609 instead of $343.48.
Naturally, that started a round of phone calls. The further I got into that, the more I wanted to talk to an actual person. So I walked over to the facility and looked for the office of the patient relations specialist. That in itself took some doing, as I was in three different buildings before getting to the right place. When I found the proper office, the people there were courteous and listened well. I felt a release of tension after simply telling my story, which shows the power of a good listener.
I was distressed and amazed to learn that asking for the cost of a medical service ahead of time is no guarantee that you'll get a figure even in the ballpark. Why? I don't know. Billing is governed by very precise procedure and diagnostic codes, so if the facility knows what you're coming in for, it seems to me they ought to know what they're going to charge you.
I did not see Dr. Noah Drake while navigating the corridors of the hospital and its office buildings. I didn't even see Marcus Welby. The people who gave me directions were all polite, but the surroundings were utilitarian, the signs a little confusing, and the atmosphere austere rather than warm. The corridors were in fact rather mazelike. My medical health is fine, but I was having an irritating experience of the system itself. Imagine going through this if you were really sick.
I've noted before how little influence the Asklepian model of healing seems to have in modern health care. Talking to a priest about the dreams you had was a part of the Asklepian system. In my case, the talking involved recounting my frustrating experience, but I felt the frustration lifting just in response to having someone sit down and listen. It may be that this one simple thing, listening, is the missing ingredient in so much that happens. Science is wonderful, but it still needs the human touch.
I was so tired last night that I barely hauled myself to bed before falling asleep. I had a dream that I was driving to a cemetery where a family member was buried. The road ran like a tunnel down a green, leafy hill, surrounded by a broad plain of small waterfalls and gentle rapids. Unlike the deep pool of the unconscious, these waters rippled gently. The road was dry and clear.
The cure in the Asklepian temples involved bathing in healing springs and sleeping in the sanctuary to await the curative dream. My own dream was filled with symbols of life, from the running water to the graveyard, which is (contrary to what you might think) a powerful symbol of regeneration. Maybe my Asklepian moment in the patient relations office triggered a suggestion of a way to deeper healing. We could all use it.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Friday, October 18, 2013
Hunter's Moon
Just in time for Halloween, an online article came out the other day on old-fashioned candies that are becoming hard to find. I read it with interest. I remembered most of the items on the list, and many of them were things that always ended up in my trick or treat bag. Necco wafers! Sixlets! Tootsie Rolls! Ah, the ghosts of Halloween past!
A couple of years ago, I was taking an evening stroll on Halloween while trick or treating was underway. It was fun seeing the neighborhood kids in their costumes being shepherded up and down the street, but it struck me as being more orchestrated than my own Halloweens were (or seemed to be). These children were all accompanied by adults, aside from the fact that it wasn't even dark yet, and it didn't seem they would bring home much of a haul at the funereal rate they were going.
This sounds like one of those "When I was your age, I walked five miles in the snow to school" stories. "When I was their age, I ripped through the neighborhood, like all the other kids, with nary but a sibling and would have been insulted if you'd suggested I get home before dark. You would see other kids, but it was understood that they would go their way, and you'd go yours. Each group operated independently." I guess things are different now . . . or perhaps it just seemed later, darker, and more adult-free than it actually was. (Now that you mention it, wasn't that my Dad in the car, following at a discreet distance?)
Forget Samhain. The campy, jokey aspect of Halloween appealed perfectly to my sense of an enjoyable spookiness: like The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, it was silly-scary. The pleasure of being out after dark, wearing a costume, was thrilling precisely because it was understood that for just this one night, ordinary life was somewhat (but not too much) in suspension. What a sense of freedom, to be larking around, with that autumnal feeling in the air (even in South Florida, an October night is entirely different than a June night), passing nothing but the importunate princess, pirate, or ghost that imperfectly disguised another neighborhood kid (and an adult or two in tow, though they somehow seemed to fade into the background).
And then, to ring doorbell after doorbell and have the people within each candlelit house load your bag with candy! -- the object of the whole evening being to end up with a trove you'd be eating for two weeks. Once the thrill of the hunt was over, you had something to show for it. Never mind that there would always be duds. You could trade these off, or at least wait until you'd eaten all the good candy, by which time any undesirables would start to taste better. I can still remember my personal pecking order: chocolates, candy bars, caramels at the top, licorice and unidentifiable taffy at the bottom.
When I was out walking earlier this evening, enjoying the combination of a glowing sunset and a rising Hunter's Moon, I had a fleeting sense of that autumnal excitement of years ago. I know a lot of adults love to celebrate Halloween, but for me, much of the thrill is gone, a joy I left behind when I graduated to trick or treating for UNICEF and then becoming too old to trick or treat at all. I've been to Halloween luncheons and costume parties with pumpkin-shaped cookies and apple cider, but they don't hold a candle to a childhood Halloween, being rather tame affairs in comparison.
That's all right. Every once in a while, like tonight, a yellow moon, combined with a certain briskness in the air and a fading orange twilight, brings with it a faint echo of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," the smell of a plastic mask, and the taste of candy corn. There's a lot of enjoyment in just remembering.
A couple of years ago, I was taking an evening stroll on Halloween while trick or treating was underway. It was fun seeing the neighborhood kids in their costumes being shepherded up and down the street, but it struck me as being more orchestrated than my own Halloweens were (or seemed to be). These children were all accompanied by adults, aside from the fact that it wasn't even dark yet, and it didn't seem they would bring home much of a haul at the funereal rate they were going.
This sounds like one of those "When I was your age, I walked five miles in the snow to school" stories. "When I was their age, I ripped through the neighborhood, like all the other kids, with nary but a sibling and would have been insulted if you'd suggested I get home before dark. You would see other kids, but it was understood that they would go their way, and you'd go yours. Each group operated independently." I guess things are different now . . . or perhaps it just seemed later, darker, and more adult-free than it actually was. (Now that you mention it, wasn't that my Dad in the car, following at a discreet distance?)
Forget Samhain. The campy, jokey aspect of Halloween appealed perfectly to my sense of an enjoyable spookiness: like The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, it was silly-scary. The pleasure of being out after dark, wearing a costume, was thrilling precisely because it was understood that for just this one night, ordinary life was somewhat (but not too much) in suspension. What a sense of freedom, to be larking around, with that autumnal feeling in the air (even in South Florida, an October night is entirely different than a June night), passing nothing but the importunate princess, pirate, or ghost that imperfectly disguised another neighborhood kid (and an adult or two in tow, though they somehow seemed to fade into the background).
And then, to ring doorbell after doorbell and have the people within each candlelit house load your bag with candy! -- the object of the whole evening being to end up with a trove you'd be eating for two weeks. Once the thrill of the hunt was over, you had something to show for it. Never mind that there would always be duds. You could trade these off, or at least wait until you'd eaten all the good candy, by which time any undesirables would start to taste better. I can still remember my personal pecking order: chocolates, candy bars, caramels at the top, licorice and unidentifiable taffy at the bottom.
When I was out walking earlier this evening, enjoying the combination of a glowing sunset and a rising Hunter's Moon, I had a fleeting sense of that autumnal excitement of years ago. I know a lot of adults love to celebrate Halloween, but for me, much of the thrill is gone, a joy I left behind when I graduated to trick or treating for UNICEF and then becoming too old to trick or treat at all. I've been to Halloween luncheons and costume parties with pumpkin-shaped cookies and apple cider, but they don't hold a candle to a childhood Halloween, being rather tame affairs in comparison.
That's all right. Every once in a while, like tonight, a yellow moon, combined with a certain briskness in the air and a fading orange twilight, brings with it a faint echo of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," the smell of a plastic mask, and the taste of candy corn. There's a lot of enjoyment in just remembering.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Clio Muses Over Current Events
With all the political wrangling in Washington over the budget crisis, it's easy to focus on how tough things are (and they have been better, no question). But people who read history usually take the long view and can often point to events that put the current situation (whatever it is) into perspective. Entirely by accident, I've recently read two novels dealing with 19th-century life on the American frontier, and both made me glad to be living in the 21st century.
Jane Smiley's The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton tells the story of a young Illinois woman who follows her new husband to the Kansas Territory just as pro-slavery and abolitionist forces are clashing for control of it. Her husband Thomas, though mild-mannered and kind, enters K.T. with smuggled arms to aid fellow abolitionists who have already settled in and around Lawrence. Lidie, a tomboy self-described as "useless," has married the attractive but enigmatic Thomas largely to escape a circumscribed life. Like many others, she has fallen under the spell of advertising that encourages settlement by promoting Kansas as a new paradise.
What seems like a big adventure turns serious once Lidie and Thomas arrive in K.T. and see for themselves the open hostility that frequently results in violence. Aside from that, Kansas is no Eden, and life for homesteaders is difficult, even for the young and strong. Despite the harsh conditions, the Newtons make the best of their new life and friends until the escalating brutality results in tragedy, and Lidie is forced to decide on a course of action.
When I learned about the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act in history class, it was in broad terms. This novel really opened my eyes to what America must have been like in the 1850s and how much blood was shed over the issue of slavery even before the Civil War. It was a vicious time, marked by tragedy and ill will. The novel is remarkable, and Lidie is a wonderful protagonist, but the book describes an unforgettably dark episode in the push for westward expansion.
Tracy Chevalier's The Last Runaway, set in 1850, gives a view of similar events through the eyes of a young Quaker woman, Honor Bright, who comes to America for a new start after a broken engagement. Her adventure starts off badly when her sister dies soon after the pair's arrival from England, leaving Honor alone at the edge of the Ohio frontier.
Honor finds conditions in America daunting due to the loneliness, the coarseness of daily life, and the hardships imposed by both nature and an unsettled society. The area around Oberlin is part of the Underground Railroad, but the consequences of helping escaped slaves have become more severe since passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Even within Honor's Quaker community, questions of right and wrong are balanced against questions of livelihood, pragmatism, and safety. Honor learns that adhering to principles can lead to ostracism, even among Quakers.
Miss Chevalier's book paints a vivid portrait of an America still half wild, where a wagon journey through the forest between one town and the next presents innumerable hazards, and social divisions simmer ominously, sometimes boiling over. An episode in which Honor accompanies a runaway slave during her own bid for freedom has a parallel in Miss Smiley's book, although the consequences are different. Both books reminded me of Toni Morrison's Beloved, which tells the story of an escaped slave in Ohio still entangled in the tragedy of her past. Beloved has been likened to Dante's Inferno; it certainly contains many scenes of both personal and societal hell, as do Miss Smiley's and Miss Chevalier's novels.
With so much contention in our history, it's not surprising that we still find ourselves at odds with each other. Maybe there is some good news in the current climate after all: at least now the divisions are over budgetary issues, health care, and the debt ceiling and not over slavery and territorial expansion. Current matters are serious, but at least we're not engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Perhaps we've learned enough from the past to proceed peacefully even when stakes are high and disagreements are sharp. Maybe our tumultuous past has at least given us that legacy.
Jane Smiley's The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton tells the story of a young Illinois woman who follows her new husband to the Kansas Territory just as pro-slavery and abolitionist forces are clashing for control of it. Her husband Thomas, though mild-mannered and kind, enters K.T. with smuggled arms to aid fellow abolitionists who have already settled in and around Lawrence. Lidie, a tomboy self-described as "useless," has married the attractive but enigmatic Thomas largely to escape a circumscribed life. Like many others, she has fallen under the spell of advertising that encourages settlement by promoting Kansas as a new paradise.
What seems like a big adventure turns serious once Lidie and Thomas arrive in K.T. and see for themselves the open hostility that frequently results in violence. Aside from that, Kansas is no Eden, and life for homesteaders is difficult, even for the young and strong. Despite the harsh conditions, the Newtons make the best of their new life and friends until the escalating brutality results in tragedy, and Lidie is forced to decide on a course of action.
When I learned about the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act in history class, it was in broad terms. This novel really opened my eyes to what America must have been like in the 1850s and how much blood was shed over the issue of slavery even before the Civil War. It was a vicious time, marked by tragedy and ill will. The novel is remarkable, and Lidie is a wonderful protagonist, but the book describes an unforgettably dark episode in the push for westward expansion.
Tracy Chevalier's The Last Runaway, set in 1850, gives a view of similar events through the eyes of a young Quaker woman, Honor Bright, who comes to America for a new start after a broken engagement. Her adventure starts off badly when her sister dies soon after the pair's arrival from England, leaving Honor alone at the edge of the Ohio frontier.
Honor finds conditions in America daunting due to the loneliness, the coarseness of daily life, and the hardships imposed by both nature and an unsettled society. The area around Oberlin is part of the Underground Railroad, but the consequences of helping escaped slaves have become more severe since passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Even within Honor's Quaker community, questions of right and wrong are balanced against questions of livelihood, pragmatism, and safety. Honor learns that adhering to principles can lead to ostracism, even among Quakers.
Miss Chevalier's book paints a vivid portrait of an America still half wild, where a wagon journey through the forest between one town and the next presents innumerable hazards, and social divisions simmer ominously, sometimes boiling over. An episode in which Honor accompanies a runaway slave during her own bid for freedom has a parallel in Miss Smiley's book, although the consequences are different. Both books reminded me of Toni Morrison's Beloved, which tells the story of an escaped slave in Ohio still entangled in the tragedy of her past. Beloved has been likened to Dante's Inferno; it certainly contains many scenes of both personal and societal hell, as do Miss Smiley's and Miss Chevalier's novels.
With so much contention in our history, it's not surprising that we still find ourselves at odds with each other. Maybe there is some good news in the current climate after all: at least now the divisions are over budgetary issues, health care, and the debt ceiling and not over slavery and territorial expansion. Current matters are serious, but at least we're not engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Perhaps we've learned enough from the past to proceed peacefully even when stakes are high and disagreements are sharp. Maybe our tumultuous past has at least given us that legacy.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
My Day of Hardly, Strictly
It's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass weekend out in San Francisco. I've only been to the festival once, about ten years ago -- my, how time flies! -- but I was reminiscing tonight about my one and only experience of this event. It's a big happening out there, but when you're from Kentucky, it's a little like carrying coals to Newcastle to attend an event like this. That's the reaction I got from someone I worked with, who had a good laugh about the idea of me flying to the Bay Area to hear bluegrass music. I guess it was pretty funny, at that.
True to its name, though, HSB is a very ecumenical event, meaning, as far as I can tell, that almost anyone is likely to show up. Their mainstay may be venerable old-time musicians like Hazel Dickens, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Del McCoury, but Hammer has played there, too.
At any event, I found myself heading out for coffee with my SF friends on a cold and foggy Saturday morning, having arrived the night before with insufficient layers. I had to borrow a heavy, slouchy jacket and was told it made me look more like a native -- I'm not sure how, exactly, but it was gratifying to know. When we started heading in the direction of Golden Gate Park, the gray skies were still lowering, and it was quite chilly. Nonetheless, we took the scenic route, since my pocket guide suggested a walking tour of some of the hipper sights of the Haight, which I had never seen.
We walked up and down a couple of streets, finding houses once occupied by Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. We took pictures of ourselves at the corner of Haight-Ashbury (though the big chain fashion store at that location was a surprise) and climbed to the top of Buena Vista Park before stopping for another coffee break. By the time we got to Golden Gate Park, it was late morning, still chilly, and still gray. We entered a large meadow fringed by trees and settled down on a blanket to hear Gillian Welch.
There were simultaneous acts on other stages and enormous crowds everyplace you looked. It was a real ocean of humanity, but in general, people behaved decorously and seemed really to be there for the music. There were attendees of all ages, and kids and dogs everywhere. When we got up to move to another stage, the fog was lifting, and it was showing signs of becoming a fine afternoon. It was one of those days you often see in San Francisco that seem to roll at least three seasons into one, starting out cold and turning summery before cooling down again. Indeed, I had to peel off two layers and apply sunscreen before the day was over.
The most unequivocal bluegrass act we heard that day was Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder. I have seen Mr. Skaggs at a folk life festival in Kentucky, where I passed him on the sidewalk. At HSB, he was on a big stage some distance away from us but performed a spirited set in fine style. It was great fun to sit in that crowd of people of all ages, races, and persuasions and feel them respond to the down-to-earth energy of bluegrass. The single image that sticks in my mind is of a young man awash in a complicated outfit seemingly made entirely of filmy pink and purple scarves, dancing joyously and uninhibitedly to the rapid-fire rhythms of Ricky Skaggs' band. That was something you'd likely not see in Kentucky and was probably worth the trip.
We left the park around four o'clock and caught a bus somewhere out on Fulton to head back toward the inner city. A group of teenage girls got on sometime after we did (they had not, I take it, spent the afternoon at HSB), talking animatedly amongst themselves. Just before we got off the bus, I heard one of them say disparagingly, of a popular song they were discussing, "It's so old. It's probably two years old."
That tickled me. For awhile, it had seemed that everyone and his brother was in Golden Gate Park, sipping wine, listening to old-time music, cross-referencing articles in No Depression, and nodding when the names Doc Watson and Ralph Stanley were mentioned . . . so this was a wake-up call. It's true, not everyone in San Francisco is a bluegrass aficionado (and the same is true in Kentucky). I came away with a sense of worlds colliding. HSB is a place where many fans with extremely sophisticated and complex tastes will sit on the grass to hear music of very humble origins played with consummate musicianship. Just beyond its borders, teenagers listen unconcernedly to the newest sounds and have never heard of Earl Scruggs. But someday, one of their current favorites will probably take the stage on another foggy morning.
The fun continued on my journey home, when I happened to sit next to Jimmie Dale Gilmore on the plane. I might not have suspected it was him except that I knew he'd performed at the festival. Unfortunately, something had possessed me to seek out an exotic lunch to take with me on the plane, something to extend the multicultural experience. It's not every day you eat a pungent falafel sandwich while sitting next to a legendary Texas country blues performer on a plane, but that happened to be my day for it. That's San Francisco for you. Hopefully, he's forgotten it by now.
True to its name, though, HSB is a very ecumenical event, meaning, as far as I can tell, that almost anyone is likely to show up. Their mainstay may be venerable old-time musicians like Hazel Dickens, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Del McCoury, but Hammer has played there, too.
At any event, I found myself heading out for coffee with my SF friends on a cold and foggy Saturday morning, having arrived the night before with insufficient layers. I had to borrow a heavy, slouchy jacket and was told it made me look more like a native -- I'm not sure how, exactly, but it was gratifying to know. When we started heading in the direction of Golden Gate Park, the gray skies were still lowering, and it was quite chilly. Nonetheless, we took the scenic route, since my pocket guide suggested a walking tour of some of the hipper sights of the Haight, which I had never seen.
We walked up and down a couple of streets, finding houses once occupied by Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. We took pictures of ourselves at the corner of Haight-Ashbury (though the big chain fashion store at that location was a surprise) and climbed to the top of Buena Vista Park before stopping for another coffee break. By the time we got to Golden Gate Park, it was late morning, still chilly, and still gray. We entered a large meadow fringed by trees and settled down on a blanket to hear Gillian Welch.
There were simultaneous acts on other stages and enormous crowds everyplace you looked. It was a real ocean of humanity, but in general, people behaved decorously and seemed really to be there for the music. There were attendees of all ages, and kids and dogs everywhere. When we got up to move to another stage, the fog was lifting, and it was showing signs of becoming a fine afternoon. It was one of those days you often see in San Francisco that seem to roll at least three seasons into one, starting out cold and turning summery before cooling down again. Indeed, I had to peel off two layers and apply sunscreen before the day was over.
The most unequivocal bluegrass act we heard that day was Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder. I have seen Mr. Skaggs at a folk life festival in Kentucky, where I passed him on the sidewalk. At HSB, he was on a big stage some distance away from us but performed a spirited set in fine style. It was great fun to sit in that crowd of people of all ages, races, and persuasions and feel them respond to the down-to-earth energy of bluegrass. The single image that sticks in my mind is of a young man awash in a complicated outfit seemingly made entirely of filmy pink and purple scarves, dancing joyously and uninhibitedly to the rapid-fire rhythms of Ricky Skaggs' band. That was something you'd likely not see in Kentucky and was probably worth the trip.
We left the park around four o'clock and caught a bus somewhere out on Fulton to head back toward the inner city. A group of teenage girls got on sometime after we did (they had not, I take it, spent the afternoon at HSB), talking animatedly amongst themselves. Just before we got off the bus, I heard one of them say disparagingly, of a popular song they were discussing, "It's so old. It's probably two years old."
That tickled me. For awhile, it had seemed that everyone and his brother was in Golden Gate Park, sipping wine, listening to old-time music, cross-referencing articles in No Depression, and nodding when the names Doc Watson and Ralph Stanley were mentioned . . . so this was a wake-up call. It's true, not everyone in San Francisco is a bluegrass aficionado (and the same is true in Kentucky). I came away with a sense of worlds colliding. HSB is a place where many fans with extremely sophisticated and complex tastes will sit on the grass to hear music of very humble origins played with consummate musicianship. Just beyond its borders, teenagers listen unconcernedly to the newest sounds and have never heard of Earl Scruggs. But someday, one of their current favorites will probably take the stage on another foggy morning.
The fun continued on my journey home, when I happened to sit next to Jimmie Dale Gilmore on the plane. I might not have suspected it was him except that I knew he'd performed at the festival. Unfortunately, something had possessed me to seek out an exotic lunch to take with me on the plane, something to extend the multicultural experience. It's not every day you eat a pungent falafel sandwich while sitting next to a legendary Texas country blues performer on a plane, but that happened to be my day for it. That's San Francisco for you. Hopefully, he's forgotten it by now.
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