the amazing fish pen

proton beams in the ny times

was alerted to the fact that this appeared in the ny times
a couple days ago. if there is a financial imperative to use something
will it be overused? used improperly? i am biased naturally, as a recipient of proton beam therapy. perhaps that speaks to a broader problem in modern healthcare, ie the financial imperative but i'm not well-read enough to speak to it.
all i know is that some 2 years ago, held in place by the face for 35 radiation treatments at MGH (10 photon, 25 proton) for the remaining bits of a two-time surgically resected brain tumor, (a skull-base chondrosarcoma)i was grateful and thankful that the technology existed. it didn't 20 yrs ago. which begs the question, at least in my own mind: who knows where i'd be if that was the case.

today is the penultimate day of our san fran xmas extravaganza. got to see friends last night, which was awesome. the other days/moments are the stuff of future novels for margaret. which is good. in a way i suppose.

sugimoto house, kyoto

this comes from the 5th disc in this series

see the water rise...

last night was the latest reading for write around portland, for their most recent anthology, [their 25th!] i've been to several of these in the past couple years and i always leave in the same emotional state: reduced and renewed. It is so humbling to hear people's lives written and read back: their devotions and their grace as they move toward or away from second chances or triumphs over adversity, whatever form that may take. it's also frequently breath-taking.

the beautiful thing about write around portland is the disparate nature of the writing groups. [They are so varied that it sometimes feels like too much, like the idea will collapse under the weight of its desire to be inclusionary - but it never ever does]. the connections between these disparate groups are like little glowing stars imprinted in the blackness, little beacons of human-ness blinking in the dark and - all put together, they have a brilliance to them, a resounding affirmation of being alive and what it all means.

this was margaret's second session as a facilitator (the ILR group). getting to hear her students (if that's the right word. facilitees maybe?) read was triumphant. in fact, the title of the anthology comes from a staggering piece that came out of margaret's group.

someone should really make a documentary about write around portland already. lindstrom? you listening?

winter, thoughts on

depending on your interpretation of time, our book has been humming along. we’ve established a good working rhythm and been able to make headway in what for months has felt shapeless, like so much infinite and unidentified black goo. this week we read through what we have so far [the book is divided into four parts - winter, spring, summer, fall - and we’ve just about wrapped up winter] and believe it or not we were both not repulsed by a majority of. That may not sound celebratory but it was actually very exciting. With this quarter of the book laid down, this cornerstone, this first trail-blazing chunk, we now have a way out, a road-map up and into the light.

skip james