Email sent to my wonderful dentist:

The good news is that the right top wisdom tooth that you extracted on Monday is completely healed.

The bad news is that on that very same day, the cap on my left top wisdom tooth came out--as I was eating soft foods. Um.

The good news is that I have the cap in a very safe place.

The bad news is that I can’t make it in to see you until Monday.

The good news is that I don’t feel any discomfort at all.

You’ll have to admit that this is quite coincidental. That wee cap must have responded in sympathy to her little buddy. Right now I am sitting in the mystery of it all at my cottage by the sea in Maine.

I drove up to the cottage yesterday after a 8AM visit to the dentist to have my wisdom tooth extracted. I hated to see it go, but it was loose and effecting it’s neighbor, so having it pulled was my only good choice. I am leery of going to too many doctors and specialists and having too many blood tests or exploratory tests (such as ultrasounds), especially when they are ‘prescribed’ as routine and preventative, not because of any problematic symptoms. The dentist and optometrist, however, are my exceptions, and I’m keeping a eye, or rather an ear, on my hearing.

     A few weeks ago I met an acquaintance from my early teaching days who told me that since the birth of her last (fourth) child forty years ago, she has never been back to a doctor. “Just eyes and teeth,” she told me. Admittedly she is in good health (as I am): her attitude resonated with mine.

     Another friend told me that her mother, who died at age 96, claimed that she was living so long because, “I don’t let anyone have my blood.” No blood tests, no meddling, no medicine.

     I try to stay away from doctors and medicine as one of the simple ways to keep my life simple. For example, my body didn’t have to wonder what all that flu vaccine was doing inside, because I did get a flu shot. “Why put ‘poison’ into a healthy body?” I asked myself and since I couldn’t come up with a satisfying answer, I avoided the needle prick and possible shot symptoms. I figure that if I get the flu, my mind/body/spirit will deal with it. All worth the chance.

     I can’t count the number of times a headache as disappeared after I didn’t take a Tylenol. Since I don’t watch TV very much, I don’t learn about all the physical problems I might have and the meds I can take just in case. I do my best to live with a ‘no med’ policy. I take a few vitamins, and for the most part I eat healthy, although I love chips and anything salty.

     I don’t mean to sound arrogant or invulnerable. I have two friends who had successful brain surgery this past year, and believe me, I’d have done the same in their situation. I’m just sharing some of the ways that I try to lead a simple life, which in some small measure means not giving attention to medical issues that don’t exist. I want to lead an intentional, and yes, a simple life, not a long one. I am not interested in living in the medical world, now, while I’m healthy, or later for any extended period of time when my body breaks down. That being said, I did have Novocain at the dentist yesterday!

I have been home for the weekend, and yup, you guessed it, less silence, solitude and simplicity than at the cottage. But I find my moments and spaces, just as you find yours in the midst of your lives. In fact, I assume that most of my readers have a busier, more complicated life than I do, and that there’s no way around some of it. Raising children, which inherently is not silent, solitary or simple, comes to mind. And yet, I believe that if we really want to, we can move away from the noisy, active and complicated end of the continuum. When we admit (or imply) that we are busy, busy, busy, there may be some unnecessary and unwanted accesses in our life. Even with my relatively silent, solitary and simple life, this is true.

This morning at 4:30 (yes I got up an hour earlier than usual) the only sound I heard was the furnace kicking in, again and again, cycle after cycle. Not much action; morning twilight was an hour away. As I turned on the coffee, my eyes rested on thermometer, which seemed to be at very steady zero degrees. Have you ever noticed the range that an out-of-door thermometer can register? Well, first time for me: + 120 degrees to -40 degrees. Who needs that range? in the summer, people in the southwest might live in +120 degree heat, but where does anyone inhabit -40? Maybe on top of Mt. Washington, but who really lives there?

     Out on the deck, I waited for dawn, just sitting there sipping coffee, while the mergansers, who also get up at 4:30, paraded up and back in front of the cottage. They moved rather randomly, or so it seemed, in a couple of distinguishable groups, but I’d have to say they were one community. Where are they going? Do they know each other? Questions without answers, at least to the solitary observer silently sipping coffee…but I can learn something. Although they don’t swim in a row, these ducks seem to know what they are doing, and they are only minding their own business.

    By noon my free-range thermometer registered eleven, so, remembering my keys, I bundled up, and set out for the lighthouse. Invigorating but not frostbiting cold until I began the return home. I’ll just report that I felt the wind chill factor, and leave it at that.

Eight degrees, oh yes, blue sky, 2:30 PM, off I go for my walk. Looking out from the cozy cottage, how could I resist? I don my shoes, scarf, two hats, and a coat, and before I put on my mittens I reach for my phone (right pocket) and house keys (left pocket). Oh no, I have locked myself out: I can see the keys through the door.
    No panic, in fact I’m very calm. After all, isn’t that what a couple of days of silence, solitude and simplicity ought to do for me? Besides, the first day I arrived here I hid a spare key outside. Isn’t that what someone settling into silence, solitude and simplicity ought to do? 
      So, out I go, all bundled up to retrieve the key and be on my way. Oh no, the key is there but the ring holding it is frozen in the ground. I pull, but no success. I have never experience how frozen dirt can become--have you? In fact I’ve never thought about frozen dirt-- have you?
     Still no panic. I make my way to the workbench under the house and find a screwdriver that I use to chip away at the dirt. No simple task, but finally I have the key in hand, make the necessary exchange of keys, hide the spare, this time resting it on a rock, and start out again. However, I cut my walk short because I am a tad concerned that my face could be a candidate for frost bite. No need to panic about that!

As I was walking to my favorite beach today, cars kept slowing and swerving to miss two trash barrels that were rolling about in the wind on the road. Believe me, I had promised myself that I would move them, but before I reached them a van pulled up along the side of the road and parked. A young woman got out, moved the barrels to the grass, got back in the car and drove off. That’s it. No more to the story, but isn’t a wonderful one? Very grateful!

My cousin Don died early this morning in California. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few days before this eightieth birthday and died five weeks later under hospice care with his children tending to him. A good death, as the saying goes. He was my much bigger cousin whom I saw at family gathers while growing up. As grownups we remained connected through his parents, my aunt and uncle, whom I visited every summer in Maine at their cottage by the sea.

    A few weeks ago his daughter told her dad the story my mom’s last words, ‘Very grateful.” Lying in his hospice bed, he smiled and whispered, ‘Very grateful.” These may not have been his last words, but close enough. It warms my heart that Mom’s message is being passed on through the family.

I am sooooo “very grateful” for the silence, solitude and simplicity that I have in my life, and am fully aware that my cottage-by-the-sea ‘heaven’ is a moment in time. Actually, it is one of several moments in my life when I have consciously embraced the 3Ss for an extending period of time, although I must admit that this is a mighty special one. Of course, times and circumstance will change, but I trust that my longing (and thus wherewithal) to live in silence, solitude and simplicity will continue.

     According to James Hollis, in Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, it is personal authority (PA) that sustains us to remain true to our deepest longings. Here’s how he describes it.

“What constitutes “personal authority”? Stated most simply it means, to find what is true for oneself and to live it in the world. If it is not lived, it is not yet real for us, and we abide in what Sartre called “bad faith,” the theologian calls “sin,” the therapist calls ‘neurosis,” and the existential philosopher calls ‘inauthentic being.” Respectful of the rights and perspectives of others, personal authority is neither narcissistic nor imperialistic. It is a humble acknowledgment of what wishes to come to being through us. If the ego does not step out of the way of that energy that wishes to live through us, the energy will trample us in pathological outbreaks, or something vital within us will die, even though our bodies may keep moving for decades. We all, privately, know this imperative summons every day, though we may flee it: find what is true for you; find the courage to live it in the world; and the world will in time come to respect you (though at first you may confuse others and scare them).”

    As I’ve said before, my hope is that this blog will inspire, affirm and encourage my readers to find their own true longing and to have the personal authority to live it in their lives. On the days when this is easy, and when you need courage, remember Joseph Campbell and, “Follow your bliss.”

I’m in the middle of the an eleven day hiatus from the cottage. Home for a dentist appointment and church meeting, for time with friends, , and this weekend, we’re off to visit our daughter. All good, all necessary, all part of the balance with my solitude at the cottage. However, eleven days of socializing feels a little out of balance to me.

     Recently I’ve been reading about hermits, discovering a new understanding of what a hermit might be. NOT, the stereotype of someone (usually a man) who wanders off into the woods, grows a long beard, and then appears years later to die.

     I’m drawn toward what I might call a religious hermit; one who goes back and forth, spending time alone and then going out to do good work in the world. The centering, the time alone, helps the work be freely offered, freely received. I like to think of my life this way although I fall mighty short all the time. However, I believe that we all want balance between our introvert and extrovert selves, and so I continue to search for it. It’s like a seesaw ride, sometimes up and down, up and down, other times steady and even.

Observations from a sunny, forty degree January day on the beach. Actually, my first observation was on my way to the beach. A homeowner was shoveling the snow along his walk, the heavy wet kind, but he was smiling.

      “I’m trying to push the season along,” was his greeting to me.

      “Well, do what you can!”

    A friendly encounter, thinks I, as I push along to the beach. On a day like this, why not wish for glorious spring days? And yet, isn’t that what we often do, push along to the future? My smiling homeowner friend was shoveling in the NOW and into the future—one foot in the snow, the other on the cleared walkway.

       My next observation was less personal. First, strange footprints on the beach. Not human, not dog, not gull! Then off down the beach, two horseback riders. Riders and horses walking and talking. The horse van was parked along the road, leading me to conclude that the riders had come to enjoy the Now of the beach. After all, what a huge effort just to get there! Why not enjoy the moment with their horses, who were definitely present to each step on the sand and to each inhale of sea air.