The photographer’s challenge is to find beauty in the world wherever he sees it, not just in beautiful landscapes. The egg is a challenge because it is so common place and mundane a thing, that we don’t really ever look at it or see it. We just eat it or notice it in cartons. My idea is to see the egg as an elegant thing, a jewel in the food chain, miraculous, symmetrical, smooth and nourishing. But I also want to give it some status, so I am photographing it in situations that force us to look at it and consider it. To upgrade it visually.

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Today I continued my personal health care initiative and explorations, the subject of years of research, thought, anxiety and personal experience. I saw a chiropractor I liked very much. She is in her 40’s, open-minded, serious, easy to talk to. I told her I was coming to see mainstream medicine as a crisis option, as an emergency place to go if you break your arm or leg, if you are in a car crash, if you tear your rotator cuff, or if your eye swells up like a basketball. But I see it as a system that promotes the idea of fear and illness, not health, and one which is compromised for me  by money, politics, the shadow of lawyers and corporate entities like pharmaceutical companies and their lobbying arm,  Congress.

I said I was no longer shaping my health care around fear, not getting medications to prevent things far down the road, not accepting notions of aging that promote continuous and lifelong medications at great cost and with many side affects. I will not be one of those people down the road who can only talk about my doctor’s visits, pills and aches and pains. That seems to me viscerally unhealthy.  The more doctor’s visits you have, the more tests, the more pills, the greater reinforcement of the idea that you are sick or aging. You can make it so.

The chiropractor supported my feelings, respected them.

She looked at my legs and my much maligned feet and she said my legs were strong and fluid and my feet needed some chiropractic work and orthotics but were in good shape and would carry me far into the future. She asked me if I was happy in my work and life.

I told her I loved my life – all of it – and she beamed and agreed that this was the healthiest thing any human could say, although it would never come up in any doctor’s office I’ve been to. We talked about medicine, writing, health. She will see me two more times and then as needed and gave me some good ideas for movement and exercise.

She did some minor tapping and thumping on my feet and they felt very good when I left. She called the shoe person and talked about my orthotics, so I will have them for the book tour. I am so happy to have her as part of my health care,which now includes a nutritionist, a spiritual counselor, a massage therapist and a chiropractor. (Also a Tarot Card reader in Brattleboro, Vt.)  If I can find a holistic medical practioner, I will add him or her.  I do the shopping and cooking and have long shed fatty, sugary, hi-carb or processed or packaged foods.  I am thinking about some Yoga. I meditate every morning. Two years from seeing conventional medical doctors, I am beginning to feel very healthy.

I am working hard to understand my body, the food I eat, the connection of mind and soul. And grateful I have chosen this path outside what is to me a dysfunctional system based on fear, confrontation, greed and insecurity. Everybody knows it, but it seems only to get worse.

My new practioners do not frighten me, warn me about my body, or presume I known nothing about my own health beyond what machines and proceedures tell them.  My favorite part of the session was my spirited defense of my feet, which doctors have been denigrating for years and, at various times, tried to cut, break, wrap in painful things. “I love my feet,” I said, “I am loyal to them. They have done so well by me. They walk all over my farm, on walks and hikes. They are very good feet, if flat.”

At this, she laughed. “Well, let’s make you even prouder of them,” she said. “They are very good feet.” And then we talked about our kids, and what it took to be a good parent.

As with all of my new health care practitioners, I am looking forward to getting back  to see them and getting healthier.

From my perspective, the people I trust my health to should talk to me, and listen to me and know me. And above all, they should give me the chance to be and feel healthy. And safe in their offices.

If and when I get sick, I will not fear going to see them. And they will help me.