Fugit Irreparabile Tempus

... whether or not you're having fun.

On June 24 2013, I was treated to a nice lunch at one of my favorite restaurants with a few people from my workgroup.  After lunch, I went back to the cubicle, took one last walk around the facility, chatted with a few people, then turned in my laptop and security card and walked out the door for the last time after thirty-two years of daily cubicle attendance in the same location. That was a moment I had been contemplating, planning for, and eagerly anticipating. Yet, having arrived at that moment, I realized that contemplating a thing is not the same as experiencing it.  A phrase from an Emily Dickinsom poem played in my mind: 

"For heaven is a different thing

Conjectured, and waked sudden in,

And might o'erwhelm me so!"

As I walked to my car, the realization of what I was doing at that moment swelled in my mind. I was closing the door on thirty-two years of time that had irretrievably passed; thirty-two years of stable employment with a middle-class salary and benefits; thirty two years of professional development and continuing education; thirty two years of life experiences, raising a family, growing older. A lump formed in my throat, and I was overcome by a a wave of nostalgia as I faced the fact that so much of my life was now behind me.

A warm, bittersweet feeling rose in my chest, tinged with anxiety about the future, but without any feeling of regret. I had looked forward to this moment with great expectation and had spent hours dreaming and planning and looking forward to it.  Now it was time to move forward and embrace the fall season of life.

Now, six weeks later, I can report on how it's going so far. So far, so good. No big surprises or disappointments at this point. The time has passed quickly, it seems. I'm enjoying the freedom to take life more at my own pace, and I haven't yet felt like I need something more to do to fill my days.

Healthwise, I've completed a 22 session cardiac rehabilitation therapy program, and have settled in to a daily exercise routine. I've grown accustomed to my new vegan no oil diet, and am back to doing all the normal physical activities that I was engaging in BHA (before heart attack).

My wife and I are continuing our French language courses, and we spend considerable time together studying.  We are also taking a free online course from www.coursera.com called "The Science of Gastronomy".  

I also have a new occupation as a financial manager, caring for a small portfolio of investments that is now our livelihood. I'm not really qualified to do this, but I'm too cheap to pay a professional fee to someone else for doing it. My wife helps out a lot with this.  Before retiring, she did a series of prototype budgets which we did test runs on and refined them to get something we were confident would work for us.  Now is the first real "production run" of our plans. It will be an adventure to see if it works out - too early to know at this point.

Part of each day is dedicated to vegetable gardening.  Gardening has always been one of my main hobbies, and it's nice to have more time to dedicate to that pursuit.  I was given new gardening uniform as a retirement gift: a pair of denim overalls and a big straw hat. I wear a bright red and white Hawaiian shirt with it. It's my new daily work uniform, and I've discovered that it hardly ever needs to be washed... just hang it up on a nail to air out overnight, and it's ready to wear again the next day!

I spend considerable time planning meals and cooking, incorporating garden produce wherever possible.  Everyone who eats here is subjected to the vegan experience. My wife endures it stoically, even saying that she likes it at times. However, relatives who have come to visit for a few days have left complaining of too many beans and uncontrollable flatulence. I tell them that they're welcome here anytime :-)

We have a new granddaughter who was born on August 14, and another grandchild due to arrive sometime in November. So, as it turns out, there is life after the cubicle.

I'd like to sign up for another twenty years or so of this kind of living, but I don't know who to ask, or where to subscribe, so I guess I'll just take it a day at a time and embrace what each day brings.

Please Pass the Seitan

I've always adhered to Aristotle's philosophy of "moderation in all things". I believe that the process of perfecting and optimizing involves searching for the right balance point, rather than pushing toward the extremes.

A few years ago when I saw the need to move to a healthier diet and lifestyle, I began to search for exercise and diet options that might help me lose weight, lower cholesterol and control blood pressure. What I found in my search was a bewildering array of advice from a multitude of sources about diet and lifestyle options for achieving my goals.  I read most all of it; from Atkins to Weil and everything in between. I studied the USDA's new "Food Guide Pyramid". I read about the ancient Ayurvedic method of selecting diet based on body type. I became educated about the evils of inflammation, gluten, refined products, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, GMO, salt, fats and oils.  For every advocate of a given diet, I found an equal and opposite detractor.

What to do? Well, I took refuge in Aristotle's philosophy of "moderation in all things". It seemed like there was a general consensus that a move toward less salt, less meat, less processed food, and more whole plants was a good thing.  So I began walking daily for exercise and following a balanced diet called the DASH diet to help me lose weight, lower my cholesterol and control my blood pressure.  I rejected the extreme ideas and opted for something moderate.

It worked.  I lost 30 pounds, my total cholesterol level came down by 45 points, my blood pressure dropped by 10 points, triglycerides came down to the normal range.  I was proud of myself. I wrote this accomplishment down in my little book of successes and was feeling good about my health.

... but it failed.  Now, after about 4 years of this new "healthy" lifestyle, I have suffered a major heart attack.

Humbled, disappointed, and incredulous, I went crawling in to my cardiologist and asked him if he had any recommendations for diet and lifestyle changes that would help address the cause of my heart disease.  He said "Well, there's a general consensus forming among cardiologists that moving toward a whole foods, plant-based diet can help.  There's a book by Dr. Esselstyn, a well respected doctor from the Cleveland clinic, that is a good reference."

I read the book.  It's extreme.  No meat. No oil. No fish. No nuts. No Avocado. No animal products. Only whole plant food.  Esselstyn seems to think that this diet can prevent and possibly cure heart disease.  A few others sort of agree.  Lots of people think it's ridiculous.  Some people say it's just impossible to follow this diet.

This extreme Esselstyn vegan no oil diet is my new way of eating.

What would Aristotle think of me now?  By way of explanation I could at least tell him that my total cholesterol level is now down to 76 from 198.  Take that, Aristotle.  Maybe I should have abandoned your philosophy years ago.

My new mantra is: Vegan. It’s not who I am, it's just how I eat.

On a lighter note, I leave you with these corny vegan jokes:

Q: Did you hear about the vegan devil worshipper?
A: He sold his soul to seitan!

Q: What do you call a Vegan with diarrhea?
A: A Salad Shooter

Q: Why are vegans detrimental to the earth?
A: Because they produce immense amounts of methane.

A vegan has a carrot sticking out of one ear, celery out of the other, and a mushroom up his nose. He goes to the doctor and asks him what's wrong. The doctor tells him, "Well, for one thing, you're not eating right."

This is the big one, Elizabeth!

Back in the 70s, there was a TV sitcom called Sanford and Son.  If you remember the show, or have watched an episode or two at some time in your life, you probably remember how Fred Sanford (played by Redd Foxx)would look up (as to heaven) with his hand across his chest in times of distress (and he was always in some kind of self-imposed distress) faking a heart attack and addressing his departed wife with these words: "This is The Big One, Elizabeth! I'm comin' to join ya', honey!"

Back in the 80s, there was a man named James Fixx whose best-selling book "The Complete Book of Running" led tens of thousands to take up jogging and made him a guru of the running world. One day, while out running, Jim collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack. Friends described him as being in fine physical condition and said he had not complained of any symptoms while running 10 miles a day and pursuing other vigorous physical activity. An autopsy revealed that Mr. Fixx's left circumflex coronary artery was almost totally blocked; only trickles of blood could flow through the pinholes that were left of the inside of that artery. About 80 percent of the blood flow in the right coronary artery was blocked. The chief nourishment to Mr. Fixx's heart came from blood flowing through the third artery, the left anterior descending, which was less severely affected. Nevertheless, half that artery was blocked in places.

Not so far back, in March, 2013, I had an experience which brought memories of Fred Sanford and Jim Fixx to the forefront of my mind. Let me explain.

On March 26, I was standing at the bottom of the stairs in the lobby of Alliance Francaise Paris, where my wife and I were attending French language classes.  This was the penultimate class in the four week series we were enrolled in.  We were in two different classes. Hers was on the fourth floor, mine was on the third. My class usually got out a few minutes before hers, so I had a few minutes to wait before she came down the stairs.

That morning, we left our apartment as usual and took the twenty minute walk to school.  Along the way, we passed now familiar places near our apartment on Rue de Sevres - Le Bon Marché department store and Le Grand Epicerie supermarket. After turning the corner and heading down Boulevard Raspail, we passed a Mini Cooper dealership on the left and a Smart car dealership across from it on the right.  In the center median of the boulevard was the city's major marché biologique (organic market) where we had shopped for fresh produce, meat, and cheese on the weekends. We were living a long-cherished dream of mine to spend a month in Paris and learn a bit of french via immersion.

The classes were held three days a week for three hours each, with a short break somewhere around the midpoint.  That day, I began to feel something funny in my chest part way through the first half of the session.  By break time, I was feeling moderate discomfort, but walked down the stairs and got a café crème, then back to class to learn some more french. By the end of class, I was convinced I was having a heart attack.  I had the classic symptoms of chest pain, with pain radiating down my arm and up into my neck and lower jaw.  However, It wasn't intensely uncomfortable, so I walked down the stairs and waited for my wife to come down from class. When she arrived, I told her I wasn't feeling so good, that I thought I was having a heart attack, and that we needed to call for emergency help. We went to the front desk, found someone who could speak English, and explained that I was sick and needed emergency help. (I have since learned that "crise cardiaque" is passable french for heart attack. I hadn't learned that in class.  All I could think of was "coup de coeur".  If had gone around saying that and holding my chest, I might have ended up in a  psychiatrist's office instead of a hospital.)

The lady at the desk summoned the school security person, who escorted me to his office, where I sat on the floor and waited while he called the pompiers.  The pompiers arrived within a few minutes, asked me a few questions, and hooked me up to their portable heart monitor machine.  Blood pressure and pulse were normal, and at first, they were indicating that there might not be any serious problem.  They hooked up some electrodes and did a quick EKG, which showed some problem.  They then called for an ambulance with a doctor on board.  The ambulance arrived within a minute or two, they carried me out to the ambulance, and the doctor confirmed that I was indeed having a heart attack and needed to be transported to the hospital.

So off we went to the hospital, with my frantic wife riding in the front of the ambulance and me in the back.  WEE-OOH WEE-OOH.  Our first (and hopefully last) ambulance ride. That was the beginning of five days in cardiac intensive care in Hôpital Cochin Paris, complete with two angioplasties and three stent installations.  We extended our stay in Paris for an additional two weeks before getting a doctor's release to travel back home.

Overall, it was quite an experience, and gave me a first hand view of the French health care system.  In terms of quality of care and cost, I would recommend it to anyone who is contemplating having a heart attack.

After arriving back home, I took one more week off work, and then came back to the cubicle with a whole new perspective on life, or what's left of it for me.  This experience has been a demarcation point. I feel like my old "cubicle career" life is over, and I am ready to launch into a new phase of living.  After thirty-two years of corporate cubicle life, have decided to retire from the company.

In a serendipitous turn of events, the corporate overlords have rolled the "restructuring/work force management" guillotine out of the closet and are preparing it for another round of job cuts. This time the plan is to cut two percent of the workforce, or about four-hundred fifty people. I was notified today that my head will roll.  (It also means that I will get a fairly generous separation package, which is a nice surprise.)  My last day of employment here will be 28 June 2013.

With this post, I plan to return to more actively posting in this blog.  I expect to follow this post with some reflections on my cubicle career, followed by more tales of a transformational journey through a new, post-cubicle phase of life.

As someone who is approaching the autumn of life, I leave you with this little verse to contemplate:

I like spring, but it's too young,
I like summer, but it's too proud.
So, best of all I like autumn.
Because its leaves are a little yellow,
Its tone mellower, its colors richer;
And its golden richness speaks not
Of the innocence of spring nor
Of the power of summer,
But of the mellowness and kindly wisdom
Of approaching age, and knows the
Limitations of life, and is content.

- June Douglas 1919 - 2008