pretty much dead middle

“Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence,
but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence
to something that transcends them both;
this is an observation of the Middle Way.”
Seneca

(Chaple ceiling Museo Delle Cappelle Mediciee ( the De Medici chapel) / Florence, Italy /
Julie Cook / 2018)

For whatever reason, I have always been one who looks up when I go into someplace new.
Especially when traveling and visiting different locations.

When I walk into a massive Cathedral or other historic building…
I have learned that what’s on the ceiling often makes the ceiling more impressive than
what remains at eye level…

And yet so many people miss out as they never bother looking up.

I’ve even been known to look up in elevators wondering why the ceiling is a mirror.

(the elevator to the Luxembourg Parc Hotel in Paris / Julie Cook / 2018)

Early domed temples such as the Roman temple, the Pantheon,
situated in the heart of Rome, whose open oculus continues to capture our imagination,
is an early case in point.

The Pantheon’s opening was not simply left open in order to be some sort of a famous
architectural oddity or simply to allow light to enter into a windowless temple, but was
rather due to the fact that early engineers and builders could not figure out how to actually
enclose such a massive free-standing dome without wooden beam supports..
of which would prevent it from caving in upon itself from the sheer unsupported weight.

Yet the opening was a cool way to follow the sun, follow the time of day,
while watching the rain pour indoors…

(Pantheon oculus / Julie Cook / 2018)

The open niches along the dome’s surface are not only a decorative purpose but rather
work to help solve some of the weight issues.
The decorative openings required less concrete, therefore reducing the weight of the structure.

Yet figuring out how to close the opening was still a conundrum…

That was until the early 1400’s when the artist, designer, and architect Filippo Brunelleschi
was credited with designing the first successful free-standing dome for the Cathedral of Florence,
the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore…
A cathedral that had gone without its roofed dome for over a hundred years as no one could
figure out how to successfully design and execute such a structure without wooden supports.

Services and rainy days did not mix well.

(a viewoncities.com)

Cathedrals and civic buildings all over medieval and gothic Europe have been constructed
with similar massive domes, impressive soaring towers and open barrel vaults complete
with their flying buttresses and ribbed vaults…
impressive engineering feats accomplished by relatively low tech societies.

(vaulted ribbed ceiling of Sainte Suplice, Paris, France / Julie Cook / 2018)

(ribbed vault of Norte Dame Cathedral / Julie Cook / 2018)

Eventually, ceilings would become extensions of their surroundings, lavishly
painted and decorated…
pulling our eyes upward and beyond.

(Chaple ceiling Museo Delle Cappelle Mediciee / Florence, Italy / Julie Cook / 2018)

(Both of these images, with one being a detail, are in the Pantheon in Paris/ Julie Cook / 2018)

(Both of these domed ceilings are found in Les Invalides / Paris, France
/Julie Cook / 2018)

(Santa Maria sopra Minerva/ Rome, Italy / Julie Cook / 2018)

(St Peter’s, The Vatican / Rome, Italy / Julie Cook / 2018)

I’ll be the first to admit that the better pictures of ceilings are usually the ones when
the photographer is able to stand directly underneath the very center…
much like I managed to do for the first image.

Nice, round, equal and symmetrical.

Most of the other shots are taken at angles due to the inability to get smack dab in the middle.
Therefore they just aren’t as visually appealing and just don’t offer that same sense of
dimensional perspective.

And so whereas the middle seems to be a pretty good spot when wanting to look directly upward
while wanting to take a pretty symmetrical photograph, I’m left wondering about the
middle we’ve seemed to have worked ourselves into in this nation of ours.

We’re nearly smack dab center in this ongoing battle of tug of war.
Or so say our last several years of elections.
With this past week’s elections being not much different.

Contrary to what either side wants, prefers or hopes for…
there were no waves…blue or red.

Deplorables came out in similar numbers as their progressively liberal counterparts.

There were no landslides.

No referendums.

Candidates won not by large margins but in some cases, just by a handful of
just enough extra votes.

Several key elections are still, 3 days after the fact, still up in the air…teetering
like a seesaw swaying toward one then swaying back to the other as the numbers are simply
too close to that 50 / 50 mark.

Recounts and runoffs are more common than not.

Candidates are lawyering up, refusing to concede while others are prematurely claiming
victory.

It’s become a messy situation from sea to shining sea.

We are a divided nation almost right down the middle.
Divided and exceedingly divisive.

Yet as to what this middle is and as to why it seems so hate-filled, I am uncertain…

But what I do know is that we are standing almost divided directly in half.

And whereas equally divided usually means equally weighted and balanced…
that is sadly not our case.

I don’t understand that despite our being divided nearly equally half in half…
there is such a growing divide of vehemence and discord.

Our symmetry is woefully skewed.

And so I think I’ll just continue looking upward.
Setting my sights up above.
Still lifting my view heavenward as the view upward seems much better than what’s
currently here at eye level…

“I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the
earth and be an atheist,
but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.”
Abraham Lincoln

Today’s awareness

“If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”
― Leo Tolstoy

(image courtesy Phyllis Snipes, Ohau, Hawaii/ 2014)

Today is Friday, Sepember 26, 2014.
Just another ol day for so many of us on this planet.
Yet. . .
for others, today is a day of great significance and importance.
Perhaps it is a birthday, a wedding day, a new job day, a new move day, a new relationship day. Perhaps it is a day offering new joy, a day of wonder, a day of homecomings, a day of expectations, a day of anticipation. . .
or. . .
for some. . .perhaps it is a day of loss, of sadness, of goodbye’s, of grave diagnosis. . .

Today, a day for those who suffer, have suffered or will suffer from the ravages of cancer, in particular mesothelioma, today is a day of Awareness.

September 26, 2014 is the 10th anniversary of Mesothelioma Awareness Day.
And why, you wonder, is Cookie showcasing this day. . .

Flashback two weeks ago.

Imagine my surprise when I received a request on my blog from a certain Cameron Von St. James asking if I would please e-mail him as he had a question. I thought that request a bit unusual as I usually don’t receive the asking of questions as folks typically just comment, reply or like whatever is going on in cookieland.
Curious, I emailed Cameron.

Cameron responded with an introduction.
He is a husband and a father who wanted to ask if I could help him with a particular quest he was / is currently waging.
His wife Heather is a mesothelioma survivor.
He was asking if I could help highlight this vicious cancer by offering some information, etc. with a post on my blog, hopefully coinciding with the official awareness day.
Having lost my mom to lung cancer 28 years ago, I am always more than happy to help bring awareness to the continuing battle we wage against all forms of Cancer.

My first introduction to Mesothelioma came in a rather round about way many years ago when I just was a new young teacher. I was teaching in a school that had already seen a good bit of wear and tear as it had been built around 1963. It was not uncommon for buildings and even houses, which were built early to mid century, to be insulated with asbestos. Asbestos was a desirable building material because it was a natural occurring mineral mined in abundance, it was cheap, it was a super insulator as well as sound barrier plus it stood up to the damaging effects which could be caused by fire, electrical mishaps and or water.

My classroom’s ceiling was coated in asbestos, as were several other classrooms, as well as the school’s cafeteria ceiling. One summer, about my 3rd year at the school, we saw some major work done by the State to rid the school of any and all asbestos as its potential for health concerns had become paramount.

It seems that there is even documentation that the ancient Romans had raised health concerns over the use of asbestos. Even our own scientific and medical communities began raising red flags back in the 1920’s and 30’s. Finally here it was the early 1980’s and the Government was just getting around to ridding schools, buildings and homes of this potential health hazard. Alas the Government has never been known for speed.

That summer long ago, the men in the little white hazmat suits and hoods invaded our school. My classroom, as well as other areas of the building, were sealed and cordoned off complete with warning tape, plastic sheeting and signs with grave health warnings.
It was that big a deal.
Here were these men walking around fully incased in special suits as the teachers, on the other-hand, were milling about in average clothing. A twilight moment of the surreal to be sure.

We were assured however that as long as the asbestos material, in our case the sprayed layer coating our ceiling, was not “disturbed”– scratched, rubbed or agitated to create dust particles, we were fine.
Whenever the Government tells me “I’m fine”—that’s when I worry.

I didn’t think much else about that summer or asbestos again until my mom died of lung cancer several years later. If you’ve ever watched a loved one fight and die battling cancer, you, the survivor somehow develop a deep seceded paranoia. Even though I am adopted, watching my mom suffer, I had that whole transference thing going on. I felt doomed to her fate. She was young when she died, 53. Would I ever live past her age?
Stupid, silly and unfounded, but yet very real.
If she was robbed of happiness and of her life, why should I be afforded anything different or better?
That sadly was my mind set.
It was also my dad’s— as throughout the 28 years since her death, any ache or pain, he’s been convinced it’s cancer.

That’s what cancer does—it not only robs those who actually develop cancer of joy and life, it robs the living as well.

When Cameron contacted me, asking for my help, I began to rack my brain on what I knew about Mesothelioma.
I knew it was a cancer that was somehow connected to the exposure of asbestos.
I had seen the commercials concerning the legal rights of it’s victims on television.
The victims seemed to be older men who were somehow connected to having served in the military or did construction work.
Why that was, was still a mystery to me.
I then tried to figure out a correlation between what I knew and how a young woman who was a wife and a mother up in Roseville, Minnesota could somehow contract such a cancer.

Cameron was kind enough to provide a link about Heather and her battle.

http://www.mesothelioma.com/heather/awareness/#.VCWnod6qBUQ

Eight years ago Heather was diagnosed with the cancer and given 15 months to live.
Mesothelioma is a rather rare cancer affecting roughly 3000 victims yearly. It also comes with a very grime prognosis as there is no cure.

When Heather was diagnosed it was shortly after she and Cameron had welcomed their daughter Lily into the world. I can only imagine the tremendous roller coaster of emotions of going from the joy of becoming new young parents, to being handed an out of the blue death sentence of maybe 15 months to live. My mom was given 6 months yet barely survived 6 weeks. Guessing games with life expectancy is never reassuring nor encouraging.

Yet I was curious.
How in the world did a vibrant young wife and mother contract a cancer that was / is more common in those who are older as well as effecting those who have been either members of the military or those who worked in the construction field?

It seems that after watching Heather’s short video, I learned it was from her dad, who was a construction worker who had spent a lifetime working with sheetrock, otherwise known as drywall, that Heather had been exposed. Heather’s dad would spend his days sanding asbestos ladened drywall, only to come home each evening covered, unbeknownst to him, with a potentially lethal fine white powder. Heather, each evening greeting her dad, welcoming him home after a hard day’s work, was exposed to millions of deadly dust particles which in turn insidiously invaded her young body. Heather’s was a type of second hand exposure. She was not the one doing the initial sanding but yet it was from the residual dust that she was effected. Why it affects some and yet bypasses others remains a mystery.

Upon further investigation, I discovered that the damage done to the lungs and pulmonary system can sit for years in one’s body without warning signs or symptoms–as was the case with Heather—she was 36 when she became symptomatic and was eventually diagnosed, yet she had been exposed many years prior.

Heather was sent to Boston for treatment from one of the leading facilities in the Country which works with Mesothelioma patients. She underwent grueling treatments, with the loss of one lung being a big part of her treatment. She was unable to care for her young daughter as Cameron, who had to remain back home much of the time in order to work, was unable to be by the side of his ill wife nor could he be with his young daughter who now was staying with Heather’s family in South Dakota. Cancer does not care whether families get to stay together or not. Nor does it care whether families can financially absorb the catastrophic costs to wage such a battle.

This is in part why days like today are so important. They help raise our awareness, concern, and hopefully the necessary funding to help better fight this stealthy enemy and help work toward a cure.

There is more information available out there on the internet regarding the particulars of Mesothelioma, which I won’t repeat here as it is not my desire to parrot clinical history or statistics but rather it is my desire to bring attention to this cancer and to the faces of those who it effects.

(a recent picture of Heather, Cameron and Lily)

In this case the cancer not only effected Heather, it effected Cameron and their daughter Lily as well as both of their families. . .Just as it continues to affect countless numbers of other unsuspecting individuals and families. That is why, a day such as today, Friday September 26th, is important. This is a day which hopefully will bring more and more awareness to Mesothelioma and of it’s devastating smothering blanket it casts indiscriminately.

May you use today, this day of national awareness, to do a little investigating of your own. May we use today as a day to learn, to teach, to help, to pray and to work toward bringing more focus on this cancer and its gravity- – – so that little girls like Lily may always enjoy living life with their beautiful moms like Heather.