the weather, death and stuff

The cold is bitter in the predawn hours today, but the snowfall that had everyone closing up shop before the event is minor ... maybe four to six inches. It's worse in other parts of Massachusetts, the state where I live. A friend emailed an advisory picture that summed things up minus the solemnity:

Based on a look out the window, the advisory seems to be accurate. I'm in the "no-big-deal" neighborhood.

Yesterday evening, Gideon, the man who lives in New York and manages my aging mother's affairs with a kindness I appreciate, called to say that he couldn't put his finger on it, but he thought my mother would die soon. She is 98. On Gideon's latest visit, my mother recognized him and smiled, but was unwilling to make the effort to talk. Gideon wanted to line up the bureaucratic ducks (the will and other arrangements), but encouraged me not to come down to New York if I was feeling fragile, which, generally speaking, I guess I am. I thought it was kind of him to think of that. I don't like whining, but appreciate it when someone recognizes that I might want to.

Today, I have to go to the hospital for an "upper endoscopy" -- a video camera shoved down my throat to see if there is some biological cause for an on-again-off-again stomach discomfort. Ah, the Organ Recital ... part of the music of getting older. As much as I dislike discommoding others, my daughter will drive me to and fro ... the drugs and the hospital insurance company, no doubt, suggest that driving myself is not in the cards.

Over the last couple of days, I have had two emails from people -- one a Roman Catholic priest -- who have found an interest in Buddhism. I like Tom -- the priest -- quite a lot based on earlier emails about non-Buddhist topics. Of course there is no knowing on what basis or with what degree of what seriousness anyone conceives such an interest, but I always like to hear that people have taken an interest in something I too have taken, I guess, seriously. I like it partly, I suppose, for the club-house feeling of group activity, but mostly I like it because I am happy for anyone who even thinks about the possibility of investigating their own lives: The odds of straightening things out and being happier are improved ... even for the wand-wavers. Belief, while useful on a tentative basis, really can't cut it in the end and it makes me happy to think someone might take those reins in hand.