Monday

There are many hours between breakfast and night time. And without moving much, you can run through a hell of a lot of emotions in that time period.

Start then with breakfast.
Will you eat something this morning?
No.
Sure?
A slice of mango then.
Want to come down?
(pause) Maybe...
Don't. I'll bring it up. Along with mine.  Call it breakfast in bed. We've been together for nearly seven years, but this is a first.



(my portion of it)


Then comes the wavering, the shifting of the winds, the uncertain positioning of all that matters: will it be this way? Will it be that way?

It's cloudy and even a bit chilly outside. Ed stays put. In bed, upstairs. Wedged into a pose that at once he fell into but, too, he is now fashioning for himself.

I'm off to yoga. At the studio, I try to pick up those stellar moments of calm and yes, the stretches and poses are good, the teacher is quite excellent and after, I'm zipping home on Rosie hoping (and succeeding!) to beat the rain...


 
(just to the east of us)


... but at the farmhouse, it's as if we're on square one.

You okay?
Fine.
Need anything?
No.
Even as I see the eyes sag and the skin pale.
Can I suggest?... I ask this as if I were some neophyte. You, readers, know better: how effective was that last querie?


So I go to my daughter's. Monday is my day to work on classes and I surely have classes: I haven't taken any days off for the wedding -- not this week nor next, but the crunch is suddenly there: she needs help. I push off lecture work for the night and I spend a most lovely set of early evening hours folding, pasting and ribboning wedding programs...

...while the blue heron outside her window does his wonderful "curl into my own self" movement and I'm thinking -- I know that gesture. I've seen it. At the farmhouse, not too long ago.



(by Wingra Creek)


I return home. First the report from there is on the dismal side: he sleeps, wakes, offers an inconsequential comment, sleeps again,  but then, in a sudden turnaround, he speaks wistfully of chicken noodle soup. In a flash, it's there, he's eating it and I'm thinking -- maybe we'll pull out of this unscathed after all.

Maybe.