Beating the heat

Now is normally blogging time, right after my Saturday morning AA meeting, which I'm enjoying doing out here on the porch in the morning cool while the lake shuffles into gear.

But oh, the morning cool, most precious of all summer commodities! How quickly it abates. My new rhythm is also getting on my bike and out on the road before it is crazy hot. At least last night I had the presence of mind to stick Gatorade in the fridge so it would stay cool a little deeper into the ride.

One quick reflection. A good friend of mine, an internal medicine guy who works out West and who's had an interesting path through life including getting Bar Mitzvahed in his 50s, likes to refer to his patients as "The Faces of God." He has a very big panel, measured in thousands, many of whom he sees once a yearish, so he can't remember the granular details of each of their life. All he can do is listen to their problems as attentively and holistically as possible, give them the best guidance and advice he can, sometimes very clinical and targeted to a particular condition, often about the general rules and best practices of healthy living, and move on. I have run into clients with him on the street and its a beautiful thing to see.

AA and Al Anon on Zoom, is kind of like that, a very brief window into where someone is right then, and they're really doing their best to reflect where they are, and you see it, hear it, process it in reference to your on life, and move on. We are not called upon to offer concrete guidance to one another right then, as a doctor is, but we reflect and echo back, and then fragments are filed and drift back to the front of our consciousness later when they are needed.

But now, to hit the road.