THE MYTHIC MONTH OF JULY 2026
In the Year of the Fire Horse,
July was predicted to be a time of personal growth.
And so it was …
FINDING PERSONAL AGENCY
The public bus passed a huge gap in construction,
the hospital where Eugene babies were born,
where I received a prescription for a life-saving pacemaker,
was a mostly vacant lot with piles of debris.
Gone because a supposedly religious organization
had carried out extensive federal corruption.
Further on, huge private student housing structures
had replaced charming eateries and coffee shops.
The former UO Bookstore was now a commercial
outlet for green and yellow clothing - Duck paraphernalia.
The formerly vivacious Apple computer store
was now four racks of accessories
available by ringing a bell for service.
Occasional students rattled around like lost souls
seemingly without direction, guidance, or purpose.
In a daze of disorientation, I found my way
to a bus station for returning to downtown Eugene.
The friendly academic community where I invested
fourteen years of my life was unrecognizable and
probably now long forgotten.
Reaching the newly developed 5th Street Market area,
I scrambled around for half an hour, up and down stairs, through areas that were once familiar - in what I had known as the Market.
Even with the address for Eugene Yoga, I could not fathom that it was not where I assumed it must be. Finally, someone took me outside and pointed me to a building a block away and on a different street.
Stumbling late into my first Restorative Yoga class,
I removed my coat, hat, phone, shoes and socks,
Spotting an open area - I rolled out my mat.
I was practically sobbing by the time the instructor
cloistered me with bolsters, blankets, and blocks.
Lying as a pitiful heap on the mat,
it dawned that ...
Entities of my own creation are now irrelevant.
I am carrying old baggage from the past
that is a hindrance to being an effective person
in today’s world. I must identify and let it go.
I am breaking free of what is no longer relevant.
to my friends. It was body workers who helped me
focus on my imbalances. Try these TMJ exercises
to relax the pressure in your jaws and teeth. Try
toe-to-heel balancing while standing at the counter
as a step toward better balance when walking.
Try this homeopathic remedy to open to the present.
Maybe this masseuse can get your energy flowing.
Take your time …
Little by little …
I am breaking free of what is irrelevant.
One day I realized ...
I do not want to carry forward the 20-year home where
- wrote three books few persons have read,
- created rarely viewed bodies of visual art,
- struggled with mistreatment for my hip pain,
- had to find my own reliable bone biopsy doctor,
- underwent weeks of exhaustion from radiation,
- suffered months of passing out due to medications,
- finally receiving a pacemaker, all while
- unsupported in confronting a MAGA tormentor.
Little by little …
I am breaking free.
8 comments:
I hope and pray the future is bright for all of us with all the changes that are happening! I used to go to near by city a lot but not anymore due to the changes that I am not embracing! We moved to the country some 23 years ago and it to is changing, to a. more citified place! May we all find out place in this new world that is everchaning!
We live in a small community on lake. So far so good.
(Here's my post again with a little editing)
Aging may be a requirement for fully recognizing
The passing of all things.
At a younger age, I could give lip service to standing
Between the "no longer" and the "not yet"
And then choose to be intentional and creative
By trusting the insights of my elders.
Today, aging seems to be less crucial
In grasping this new reality:
Surely it must take immense effort to deny it!
Finally, however, I can only speak for myself
In sharing hard won lessons from life.
Now as then, wisdom does poorly as a "supply" oriented offering.
To be truly useful, there has to be "demand" from seekers,
Whatever their age.
Are you saying Sacred Heart Hospital is no longer operational? I had my son there! I had cancer surgery there 40 years ago! Drs. York and Fitzgibbons saved my life there!
Didn’t mean for above comment about Sacred Heart to be anonymous- Kathryn Murdock here.
It is not just “no longer operational.” It is rubble. It is gone.
When I started to draft this personal chapter, the photo of the rubble that was Sacred Heart was still clipped to my computer monitor in Maryland. My ex still lives on Eugene”s University Street. He devoted more than twenty years of his professional life to the Sacred Heart emergency room before retiring, then watched the hospital abandon & then tear down the building. At the same time, the board abandoned the idea of an emergency room staffed by people devoted to medicine & to living & raising their families in Oregon. The board chose to move to a national corporate model instead. Out went the devoted doctors & down came the building—just in case you didn’t already suspect more big, changes were coming.
During that same 20+ year period, I was just two blocks up the street, first as a doctoral student whose department was housed in a former frat house, then a research professor housed in the next door former uni-high, then a dean in what were always the “administration” offices—said so carved into the stone facade—until even that wasn’t accurate.I then split myself between the deaning space & went back to also teaching & publishing out of the uni-high faculty offices—all with our three school kids always within easy bicycle or walking distance of both parents, & us of them. We did not understand how quickly big changes would come for all of us. A hospital erased. Tennis courts became a “temporary” parking lot, which became the site of another building, presumably not as temporary as those old tennis courts. I took the pic down.
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