this day

A night of storms

It flashed and rumbled all night long. Some time early in the night the power went off and my bedside clock went into perpetual flashing midnight mode. Too sleepy to fix it, I left it alone and so I had a "Groundhog Day" night of waking up to thunder again and again, as the clock flashed midnight.

Eventually daylight made the midnight reading completely absurd and I reached over to set the thing straight.

Oddly, it felt very still after the storms. And muggy. Isn’t it supposed to work exactly in the other direction? Where is the whiff of cleansed air, the fresh smell of pine and clover and phlox? It smelled more like mushrooms – not unpleasant and not unusual, given the truckloads of woodchips we have down here, at the farmette, but I was looking for something more... sweet and crisp.

Equanimity

I need to get off the couch and get going... I tell Ed. We are both with our laptops, Isis is curled between us. You have never seen such a contented look on an animal’s face.
No, no. Relax. This is why people with pets live longer – they don’t rush. They settle in with their animal and let go. Equanimity.

People who sit all day on a couch do not live longer, cat or no cat.

For an hour. Just let it go.

Things are not what they seem

Let go? Yes, it’s easy now.

The week had been so challenging and one’s inclination is to feel bummed during such times, especially after the doctor tells you you probably have cancer. Even if everyone reassures you that 'most likely' it wont kill you. Still, you shift perspectives. For example, I stopped making plans for the month before me. Or beyond.

But this morning, I got the message that blew me away. I mean, I was adjusting to the 'one day at a time' routine and then I get the words: you’re clean. Things are not what they appeared to be. Like, you’re looking at flowers, they look like lavender fields, they should be lavender fields and then they turn out to not be lavender fields at all.





So, it appears I’m not a lavender field.

I didn’t think I’d get off lightly this time. There are reasons why I could be sick. If you were playing Clue, you’d figure it out: it was the dentist, with a machine, in his Fifth Avenue office that did it. When I came to the States as a kid I had Eastern European post-war teeth. Someone recommended a dentist on Fifth, off of Washington Square. I went to him twice a week my entire first year in New York. He x-rayed everything, every time. Before and after. Like a horrific photo display of his talents. I must have had that machine pointing at my head and neck fifty times that year.

But, right now, I’m clean.

I do have to join a club of irradiated children with thyroids that tick loudly and glow in rage,  and there are decisions to be made in the years ahead, but so far, so good. I tell Ed: it was the blueberries. He grunts. You can’t make an antioxidant believer out of a guy who still extols the virtues of ramen noodles. (Cheap.)

You didn’t use raspberries for breakfast this morning, Ed chides me.

Well sorry, I was concentrating on other stuff.

Like what?

Arranging my affairs, so to speak.

People said I didn't look worried. Yep, I’m excellent at ignoring the negatives. Sometimes that’s a good thing.
I had to pick my own raspberries.

Poor you! Oh fine, I’m going out to harvest the rest. It may rain later.

I’ll help.

Great antioxidants...

The Show

Neither of us is hungry. The coffee break, with a pb&j quickly slapped together, came rather late in the day. But, the cloudy skies notwithstanding, it’s such a pleasant evening! A summer evening, of warm winds and warm feelings.
Let me grill, I say to Ed. We can eat on the porch and watch the bats over our chicken brats with sauerkraut. And corn. It is the time for corn. And peapods and tomatoes. A good time.