We are ok. Badly shaken, literally and figuratively, but ok.
Epicenter was 8 miles northwest of Anchorage, 25 miles deep. 7.1, maybe 7.2. Numerous aftershocks, horrible.
This was a Bad one, scariest we’ve experienced in some thirty years.
A few miles from our house, on the way to the airport, which for now is shutdown
Just returned from the biannual visit to my Pain Provider. Okay, that’s a bit harsh. How about, Deliverer of Discomfort. And she wants to change bi-annual to quad-annual – “I think I need to see you every three months.” Followed by (as always), “You need to floss more often.”
Okay, that’s it, if I hear her say this one more time…
Slowly, I remove my sunglasses. A courtesy protection to prevent being blinded by the obnoxious lamp she needs to illuminate my buccal cavity throughout the entire hour+ (!) cleaning procedure. I’m still flat on my back, my fingers and toes tingling from blood loss because I’m tilted so far back in the damn chair while my teeth are terrorized. I turn my head and look up at her, straight in the eye. Her nose and mouth are still covered by a mask, now splattered with peppermint tooth polish. My terry cloth bib is soaked with my own spittle and the over-spray from her little squirt gun rinser. I feel like the Gerber Baby. “So,” I say, “how often do you suggest I floss? Five times a day? Six?” Surely, I think, she’ll find the hyperbole amusing, touch my arm consolingly, chuckle a bit and say, Oh no, Mr. Nibbe, that would be ridiculous of me. Instead, she pauses, looks toward the ceiling, as if to ponder if five to six times a day just might in fact be the right frequency for me. Woman, I’m thinking, I was kidding!
Alright, maybe pain is an exaggeration. Some people say they rather enjoy getting their teeth cleaned. Some people are masochists. I don’t know. And I don’t care. Holding my mouth agape for one hour+ while my dentition is poked, picked, chiseled and ground ain’t my idea of enjoyment. And then to be told it’s my fault because I don’t floss enough, or I’m not doing it right, or not using the right floss, or the correct circular motion, etc etc.
I can’t fault her for not being thorough though. Even so, an hour+, seriously? Used to be I was in and out of the chair in half that time, then patted on the back with an attaboy and sent home with a new brush and paste of my favorite flavor (Cherry). Copy/paste, every six months.
I dunno, maybe this is just another lament on the list of It’s-Hell-Getting-Old. More likely it’s a sad reminder that plaque removal hasn’t progressed since medieval times; it’s the equivalent of bloodletting to cure bad humors.
I‘m intrigued by meditation. I say that having never done it. But I’m eager to get started.
There are different kinds of meditation but the one I’m most interested in, having recently “read” about it, is mindful meditation. The goal of this form – though you ought to listen to the book yourself – is to become more mindful of the thing you’re doing right now. Everything – tying your shoe, preparing breakfast, talking with a friend, walking the dog, driving a car, enjoying music, swimming, falling asleep, crafting a blog post! The opposite of mindfulness is mindlessness, which, if left unchecked, at least for many people, leads to a kind of noisy experience of reality, one that reflexively reacts to the onslaught of raw sensory inputs (e.g., Facebook likes) instead of pausing to interact with your atomic experiences in thoughtful way, with full clarity of mind. At least that’s how I understand it. Regular, mindful meditation isn’t the only way of reducing mindlessness in our lives, in turn making us measurably happier with ourselves and others, but it is one proven way of doing so (there’s some decent emerging science around this).
Mindful meditation (performed daily) is an exercise for the brain that produces wellness benefits analogous to those that exercise has on our muscles. Different tissues, same approach. And like physical exercise, the wellness benefit is roughly proportional to the amount of time spent doing it (although, not unlike drugs, there’s probably an upper limit). Benefits include increased calmness of temper, clarity and rationality, greater feelings of fulfillment, less arguing with your spouse, heightened feelings of gratefulness, and, yes, that ultimate goal of so many self help books du jour – increased Happiness.
The author, Dan Harris, whose previous book is ten percent happier, is wryly self-deprecating in the way he dispels the cynical reaction many firstcomers to meditation have – that it’s something for Hare Krishna types who enjoy humbling themselves in fleece shawls while seated cross-legged gazing at their navels for hours on end. It’s not that at all. The approach is super practical, and the book is a kind of manual for beginning meditators, infused with too few (if you ask me) hilarious anecdotes from Dan’s personal experience with meditation and his interactions with fidgety skeptics. Nevertheless, there’s enough practical seriousness here to keep you from thinking you’re being seduced by the latest self-help gimmickry. In fact, mindful meditation, unlike, say, Mantra meditation (as practiced by real Hare Krishna types) is a purely secular exercise of the mind. It’s not an escape from reality; the practice is a deep dive embrace of the voices in our head, identifying them, accepting them, welcoming them to the party, diminishing their control over us, and in doing so diluting (not eliminating) their interference of a life-improving mindful experience. As one of Dan’s close friends and coauthors emphasizes (himself a mindful meditation expert) – a committed practice of mindful meditation will make you more equanimous. No drug I’m aware of is going to do that for you. And there’s no prescription required.
