Catch a Falling Star

Today I went to the dermatologist. The doctor and her assistant were both ladies. Both young enough that they could’ve been former students. And, of course, they needed to look at and survey my bare skin… all of it. Sometimes it is good to have experience as a nudist. And they gave me a cloth to drape over me in the most personal places. Of course they had to look at all of my skin. Eczema, psoriasis, and shingles don’t respect your privacy.

I have been a writer long enough that I have no secrets left anyway. Even the fiction I write reveals more of me than I would be comfortable telling the word about just five years ago. For instance, the picture above, of me naked, is not really what I looked like. My parents never let me wear my hair that long. And by the time I was eleven, I struggled to take my clothes off even at bed and bath times… after being assaulted. And the Belmond tornado. And the death of my Grandpa Beyer, And President Kennedy being shot, and the Apollo 1 astronauts burning up in the command module capsule. All of which happened around the time I was between ages seven to ten.

But as my dermatology team was surveying the various bumps and blots and warts and whatnots all over my old carcass, they found a spot on my right temple that is definitely pre-cancerous, and may be actual cancer. In three weeks I may need a biopsy. But for today, I got freeze spray sprayed on the side of my head. Yes, they froze part of my head to kill the potential cancer cells. And that kinda hurts when they freeze a chunk of the old gourd you think with all the time.

Will I die from this? It’s possible. But we live in an age when technology has made survival more probable, especially when you already have that sweet Medicare money that the Republicans and Ted Cruz are so desperate to take away from me.

But you have to understand. I am in no hurry to be dead. But I don’t fear it either.

Mark Twain pointed out that he had been dead for billions of years before he was born and was never inconvenienced by it. Not even a little bit. And I am of the same opinion. Looking back at the time before I was born, all those past lives… being a crocodile with bad teeth… living in Patagonia with a seabird and an iguana… and that time in the Great Nebula… But I’ve already told you more of my secrets than you probably want to know. So, if you want to know the truth, the chess board is ready. And if the Grim Reaper wants to play me again, I’ve thought of a few gambits he’s probably not aware of. As long as the chicken refuses to give him hints on what moves to make.

This post was originally created in 2020 when my father was dying. It gave comfort to most of my family as the pandemic was raging and my father couldn’t even remember my mother. We had a Zoom funeral that I watched in Texas while they mourned him in Iowa. A year later, my mother passed away as well. She just couldn’t last any longer without him. It still makes me cry to hear these. But it also brings them back to life for me, if only for a moment.

My father is going into hospice care. Parkinson’s disease is winning against him. I am stuck in Texas until the results of my COVID 19 test come back. Needless to say, my heart is broken. I need magic to fix it now. Where do you find that kind of power? This is where I am looking today.

These are acapella songs. No instruments. Only voice. It comes straight from the heart. Out through the mouth and into the ever-present ether. Life may come to an end, but the sound of it continues… never-ending. Even God does not make a song unsung once it has been made real.

I have been watching these videos on my laptop, lying on my sickbed, and crying at the beauty, the truth, and the depths of sadness in my soul. It hurts to lose a parent. My father was born in 1930. In October of this year, his life-song will reach 90 years of age. It hurts now. But songs are never unsung once they finish. In this I find comfort.

I hope you will actually listen to these. I add a lot of music to my posts, and I never notice any reports of someone clicking on the videos. But these musicians; Pentatonix, Home Free, Peter Hollens, and BYU Vocal Point all have that magic… the power to both lift you up towards God and to make you weep for the bittersweet tragedy that is the experience of being alive and knowing… well, that every book has a final chapter, every song has a final note, and every life…

I don’t have to finish that thought, do I? Now is a proper time for sadness, for trepidation, for listening to music like this… and for remembering love. And I am not through crying just yet.

Since I originally posted this musical essay, my father passed away on my birthday in 2020. My mother did not last a year without him, rejoining him in September of 2021. I can’t listen to any of these songs now without weeping. But it is a good cry. It fills me up with the song of life. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? But today… today I am filled with the music of lives well-lived. He was 89. She was 87.

82 Days with Posts in a Row. And I did it on my phone while the internet was down.

All of these pictures were created with Tap Color Pro, a coloring book app. They are not my original drawings.

I have been struggling to get writing done since the last time I had Covid. I have been feeling like I have lost my mojo after being sick with it twice in 2022. But I am getting better a little at a time. I got work done on two different books this last week.

Most of it was work on the book Naked Thinking. I have been wallowing in the poetry, philosophy, and obsession of being naked. It is very much a book of ideas, with naked metaphors and nudes in the artwork.

And I have reached the halfway point on The Haunted Toy Store. That goofy thing is a humorous story with ghosts in it where the people who go into the store turn out not to be the customers, but rather, the toys. It’s a hoot to write. And I should be done with it by now.

Believe it or not, I am writing again. Almost regularly.