wedding

If you recall the movie Father of the Bride, you'll remember the scene where the party is over, the guests have left and suddenly all is quiet. Well, we didn't have a party at home, there is no mess but for the odds end ends that were carted over here last night and still, I feel that sense of quiet. And I mean internal quiet as much as the absence of noise. All went well. Day is done.

And only now do I understand that there is a load of worry that accompanies each big event, transition, move -- there, because you know how much can falter, how quickly  a small thing under normal circumstances can become a big thing if it comes at the wrong time. A fever, a flat tire, a lost shoe, a lost opportunity, a stumble over words, the wrong words, the wrong gesture, a wilted flower -- the list is long.

So I reel in the quiet of the day, with memories throwing me back to the wedding. A wedding that, initially, in the planning stages, I was mildly amused with. I'd never been part of such a large affair before and I wasn't sure that the essential element -- that the maximum possible number of guests enjoy themselves -- could be easily accomplished.

After all is behind us, I think that I misunderstood up to this day the purpose of the whole thing. Yes, sure, the ritual, the celebration, the good time to be had by many, yes, that. But as I watched my daughter's radiant smile the whole day long, as I watched my younger girl's tear-filled eyes -- filled with that emotional joy you have when someone you love so terribly much is embarking on a good path in life and as I watched the willingness of so many to come from all over the country and from all neighborhoods and places in and around Madison and Chicago to cheer my girl and her now husband on to their next stage in life, I understood how affirming this was, how important and strength giving to think of your world as standing behind you in this and whatever else you do in life.

So sit back, if you want, and watch the reel of photos and if you think that it's too much about the people rather than the art of the surroundings or presentations, well yes, you're right, it is about the people. I'll try to fill in the relevant information, but see if you can just take in the joy of the day from looking at the faces of friends and family, of my girls, their dad, their loved ones, and of Ed, and of me too.


The day began, for me with mild concern about the weather. How could it not? The temperatures have dropped significantly. And for this one day in the month of September, the forecast has been of rain.

And yet, you can hope, right? So I wake up too early, hoping, and hoping.

And sure enough, the chill is in the air (it never topped 60, I don't think), but it doesn't matter, because the sky is like this:





Okay. A calm morning. My little girl goes off to be with the bridal party. Ed and I sit down for our breakfast routine.






My turn to go do something with my hair and face. I stopped wearing makeup (lipstick doesn't count) years ago. Today, I want a pro to take a stab at it. So, at a tiny hair shop just a short distance from here, I let two young women transform me into something suitable for a wedding.






And now it's time to put the motor on. Hold on, not yet. We need food. You can't ignore nutrition. Ed and my little one's boy friend and I head for Paul's coffee shop.






But, but -- you're asking what's Ed doing there? Many of f you know that Ed asked that I choose one wedding event for him to go to and the girls and I chose the reception. But on the morning of the wedding day, he changes his mind. I'll go to the service, if you want -- he tells me. I'll walk you down the aisle. 

I hadn't admitted to him or to myself how much I wanted him to do this. He knew, of course and even though he isn't quite himself yet (the fever of last week really knocked a lot of oomph out him and he remains terribly weakened by it), he is willing to put in a good many hours to a day that is going to be filled with traditions and events that are so much not part of what he loves in life. But, Ed's good soul comes through so often in these times where either my girls or I are made better by his presence and support. And he is there for us on this day.

Pick out something for me to wear, he tells me, opening his drawer of ragged t-shirts and wrinkled pants. And I do. A black t-shirt and chinos that have seen better years (and if you notice that he's in jeans at the reception, it's because he goes home, rests and changes between one event and the next). Very fitting for him and, therefore, making me very proud.


We arrive at the church early. I want to make sure things are smooth with the bridal party. That everything is in place. That no one is unhappy.

One o'clock. The church is empty still, but for the quartet setting up off to the side.





Downstairs, in the dressing room, I encounter my girl. The bride (with the little sister of the flower girls).






...and her own sister, the maid of honor, attending to the rings.






These are the last minutes, the final checks before the ceremony.






Wait, what's that in the background? A flurry of activity, as the big sister of the flower girl fixes the hair and the mother notices and removes the remnants of old finger nail polish, while other sisters look on.






My girls' dad comes in, casts an approving glance.





And now it's very close to two. I'm upstairs and I hear strains of music. The quartet is playing and they are so good! You could come in and listen to them alone and it would not be time wasted.






I greet Diane and Ernest -- Ocean friends will remember them from many many previous posts.






Ed is napping in the car still and I hurry him inside. I tease him that as between Ernest and Ed, a bystander may think that the other guy is the partner to the mother of the bride.






And now it's just a few minutes after two, and the quartet begins to play the Ash Grove -- a traditional Welsh song, my own childhood favorite. The groom's parents walk down the aisle. And then Ed and I walk, holding hands, as if it were a country walk through the woods, casually, slowly.

We sit down and the quartet switches to J.S. Bach (Sheep May Safely Graze). This is the time for the bridesmaids and the groomsmen to walk down. And for the best man,  and the maid of honor -- my little maiden, with the prairie flowers in her hands.






After the flower girl, out comes the ring bearer, her sister.






They join their family. The quartet now launches into Sondheim's 'Being Alive' and eyes turn to the the rear.






 ...because this is the time when the bride walks down with her dad.






And now the set is complete.






The priest has instructed the audience to watch it with the cameras (he said 'flash,' but he was severe about it). I had to restrain Ed from groaning then. (Bossy. He whispers, barely under his breath. Less quiet was the moment he chose to crack his knuckles a few minutes later. I have to think he did not realize sound carries in such vast spaces.) Mostly, I keep my camera well under cover and let myself sink into the sequence of rituals. But, my girl had told me earlier that she wants people to do what they are comfortable with throughout. Besides, I do not use flash. And so toward the end, my camera is out again. So that I can catch this moment:






And this:






And this:






Yes, that's her spark of blue. Color is everywhere, but you have to look for it. I suppose it's most obvious in the early fall flowers.






...and in the bracelets. And in the sash. And in the shoes.






And now the wedding party goes off for a photo shoot and Ed goes home to rest for an hour or two and I take a coffee break with Diane and Ernest and my other good friend, Barbara -- the third prong of a triangle of closeness that has held solid through many years since our first meeting more than thirty years ago in law school.






There are buses that take guests to the place of the reception, but I ride in the luxury of my friends' car. The weather plays with us now, sending gusts of wind and an occasional gray cloud our way and it's clear that the planned hour of outdoor mingling and snacking should take place somewhere where it's warmer. We're just half an hour out of Madison, in an old mill (The Old Feed Mill in Mazomanie) -- a setting that is just so pretty and rich with the colors and forms of the Wisconsin palate.






The staff do a splendid job of readjusting: the many many appetizers -- from cheese and tomato bruschettas to stuffed mushrooms to phyllo asparagus and mini Wellingtons and pulled pork -- are placed in the corridors between the upstairs rooms and we mingle and eat and drink as if we hadn't done anything of the sort for ages and ages and we now have to have our fill.






The groom has reproduced imitations of airline tickets which give directions to destinations (places that the couple has traveled to, including Fitchburg!) that happen, too, to be tables. Instead of place cards, there are farmers market honey bears with names of each guest. My friends look for theirs.






Ed is here now and we sit and eat -- foods from a buffet of chicken, mushroom strudel, veggies, baked potatoes...






And I look around and here is where I see the goodness of coming together like this. Here behind the  prairie bouquets, you see my girl's two good friends: one now in Davis, the other in D.C, joined for this one evening at a table in Mazomanie.






My little girl checks in on us often. She loves it when we smile back. And that's easy to do on this day.



photo by Ed


I glance over my shoulder frequently as well. It's so satisfying to see your kids this happy, this loved.






There are some 175 guests, seated at long tables, but just for the dinner. Later, they'll mix and move between rooms.





The meal, of course, includes the wedding cake. Topped with a koala couple (does anyone remember that eventually they will travel to Australia for their honeymoon?).






We, the guests eat the most heavenly cupcakes from Bloom Bake Shop. The New Glarus Raspberry Ale chocolate one is absolutely the top of the top.





Oh, almost forgot the cake cutting:





Ah, the formalities are almost over. Time to exhale.











Wait. Some of us are still focusing on the cupcakes.











There are a few more memorable moments. One especially is important from my point of view -- the toasts given by the parents, the best man and the maid of honor. I have to say, mine is only three minutes long and yet, the memorization of it, so that it is exactly as I want it, has been my preoccupation this whole past week. It's insignificant in the scheme of things, but I want it to bring out so much of what is profoundly emotional without it being emotional in the choice of words and, indeed, with as few words as possible, and with the occasional smile inducing two line story that we all wish we could insert into our public speeches.

It all goes off without a glitch, including my sung rendition of a favorite verse of Oh Susannah, and we end the toasts with a beautiful one delivered by the maid of honor, whose love and wit and humor are so evident that it would put a smile on the face of the most dour person.






The bride and groom lead off the dancing (I'm in Love With You). The Gomers play and they play very very well.





I miss the father - bride and groom - mother dances. (They had been scheduled for later and I go by the schedule!) But I hear they went well. And in case I haven't mentioned -- the groom's parents, traveling from Buffalo and the groom's sister and brother in law, traveling from Cleveland and Chicago, are enormously kind and good people. My girl's family grew and it grew in wonderful ways.

And now is the time that I can let go of any last wisp of anxiety about things working well for my girl, for her husband (!), for everyone who came this far for their wedding event. I dance to all three 45 minute sets of music (carefully chosen by the bride and groom). The only ones who threaten to keep up with me, dancing along until 11 p.m., are the little flower girls and their even littler sister. Ed watches in the background.






When the music slows, I look around and I pick out my daughters. (I keep on dancing. I do not mind moving alone to slow music.)






And then it picks up again and we're off and spinning and jumping and doing who knows what.











It all must end, of course and it does, but it is an ending that comes with the greatest satisfaction of knowing that those you most love are happy.






We are given warm fried cheese curds for the ride home (a bus stands ready to take weary people back to their Madison hotels and destinations). But there's one last thing: the send off. With sparklers.



the groom's family




hearts, fashioned out of twirling sparklers







The couple goes off to their overnight destination. Ed drives my girl, her boy friend and me back to the farmette. I had thought that I would just give in to sleep, but it doesn't come right away. For a few last minutes I think about all the good things that came with this day. There are many.

day of the rehearsal

As predicted, we wake up to a gray and cool morning. Well, let me correct that: we wake up before we can see much of anything outside. Isis is at it again -- fussing upstairs (even as the mouse ran free downstairs). My girl has the young person's attitude toward sleep -- it just sort of happens. I wait, mark the minutes and eventually give up and pick up something to read.

It's good to eat breakfast as a threesome (if you call Ed's recent morning diet of mango a 'breakfast'). We delay getting up from around the table. It will be a busy day. Let's ease into it gradually.





A real frost warning is ahead of us and Ed tells me he'll harvest all remaining tomatoes -- green or otherwise.
No! No time for harvest this weekend! And still, wedding or not, the last of this year's crop must be brought in.





Time to get going. Ed asks -- as long as you're driving out, can you take the mouse and release it along the way?
We throw the container in the back of the car and promptly forget about it.





As we come into the city, I mentally check off things on my to do list. Oh, oops!  The mouse! Okay, little guy, you've got to make do with a city park...


I have to be at work for a while, but before, I stop at wedding central -- my older daughter's home. Everything that's fun is there now. They're picking music, they're filling baskets for out of town guests (Badger State stuff... you can guess what; yes, yes, cheese figures in it in several ways) and mainly, they're having fun. If you stick close to people who enjoy life, it rubs off.



the soon to be bride




the baskets


After work, I deliver some of the baskets to places around town. And then suddenly it's awfully close to evening. At the farmhouse, I pull Ed outside.
I almost forgot! I need to give you a hair cut and a beard trim for tomorrow! He cooperates. Thank God.



before



after


And he plays the helpful guy again as he drives me and my little one's freshly arrived boy friend downtown and to the church.

As we wait for the priest and the wedding coordinator to give instructions, I glance around us. It strikes me how pretty this particular church is. I'd been inside plenty of Madison's churches, but, despite the fact that my girls attended preschool in the building next door, I'd never been inside this one.

The wedding party slowly gathers. The ring bearer watches as my girls have a moment together...





And, with a jovial dig at the habits of others (in our church, we don't believe that the rehearsal ought to be longer than the wedding itself!), the priest spells out the steps for tomorrow. After the walk down the aisle, the dad is to gently push the bride toward the groom. Not that this girl needs any prodding...





A special a instruction goes to the ring bearer.






...and a general one to the wedding party. (And when I wave my arm like this, you go there...)






My little one helps with the unfastened ribbon of ring bearer's little sister...






I look up at the very happy couple...







And we're done! Off we go to dinner on the Capitol Square.






Wisconsin fare at the lovely upstairs room of the Old Fashioned!







(Finished off with a blueberry crumble.)


(Isn't it interesting how guys all take the same pose when they casually stand and chat?) May I present the groom and his groomsmen.






This is the evening for bridesmaids and groomsmen toasts... And good luck hugs from flower girls.






Alright, time to end the festivities. A last shot of the tired but happy couple:







Ed comes and picks me up. It rained earlier today, but for now, the night is calm. A few clouds, a crisp cool breeze... It sure feels like fall. Oh! That's right! Saturday is the wedding day and, too, the first day of the new season.

nighttime update

Late Thursday night, my little girl, the sister of the bride, the Maid of Honor comes to the farmhouse. We stay up late, talking over this and that. Her boyfriend arrives tomorrow, Ed's asleep (with Isis!) upstairs. This is one of those rare moments when you can have your grown child in your arms again and pretend that she is not twenty-seven but maybe two, or seven… But within a short while, she sits up.
What's that?
I smile. My urban child is not used to farmhouse noises. At night we have animals pawing to get in, or merely passing through, alerting us ever so slightly to their presence. Just the usual, I tell her with a yawn.
No, mom, listen!
I indulge her. Yes, sure, animal noises.
Mom, I'm looking at it -- there's a mouse in here with us.

Oh no! The cold air has come, the mice are doing their annual search for a winter condo in a warm spot, preferably with good eating venues nearby.
Hang in there! I'll get the trap and a plastic bin!
But I can't keep it in place for you!

I run to the basement, dust off last year's trap and load it with almond butter (sorry, mouse -- I'm out of peanut butter). In the meantime, the mouse keeps going back and forth from under the end-table to behind the bookcase. I set down the trap, we climb onto the couch and watch.

The mouse runs around the trap, knocks it down and, frightened by the ruckus, runs to the next room.
We're going to lose it! -- my girl groans.
I cannot fail my little one. I grab a large plastic bin and with the determination of a mama bear, I chase the fat little guy, slam the bin on top of it, weigh it down with some heavy cook books (and, being fastidious, wash the floor where the mouse has scampered) and look at my girl's smiling eyes.

Ah, to be a hero to my kids again!

the Thursday before the Saturday

Even if you are like me -- a person who never entertains huge crowds if she can help it -- you'll understand that I can't help but get excited by the descent and congregation of friends and families for the event of my daughter's wedding. And I don't mean just my friends (though their coming to town is monumentally important to me -- hear that, Diane, Ernest and Barbara??). I do also like my girls' friends. Maybe because they make my daughters happy or maybe because they're all so damn spirited and funny and incredibly loyal to each other that I find myself wondering why it is that one loses the ability to pump joy so quickly and spontaneously into every hour when one gets older? It's as if it becomes an insult to the severity of our various hardships to let out a giggle every now and then.

Thursday is a hellishly busy day for me and this one starts way too early, as Isis -- whom we (unfortunately) did not kick out of the farmhouse last night -- asserted himself now and then in the middle of the night. Still, it was good to feel Ed closer to his old self. His getting up for the cat, or picking up the laptop in the middle of the night and smuggling it to bed -- these are things I'm used to and I can groan and sigh, but none of it bothers me really. Sleep is something to make up the next night if you don't get enough the night before.

I ride Rosie to work on this cool but bright (almost) fall day, feeling like maybe life isn't so complicated after all.





By the time I am into my fourth hour of lecturing, I am horse and I explain to my class that in between today's lectures I spent time rehearsing my (short) wedding toast in the quiet of my office. They want to hear it, but I decline. I need to save the freshness of it. I need to keep it tightly in my heart until I let it go after the wedding.


And then the day is over and I am at my girl's home again, finishing cuttings and pastings, now in the company of my littlest one (who is up from Chicago for the festivities and to fulfill her Maid of Honor obligations) and in the company of their closest friends.


I'm writing now from the farmhouse, after a repeat of a meal I've now had too many nights in a row (see last post and the post before that).  Ed is snoozing again, but I can't be surprised. He spent time on building closet shelves in the Lemon Room (where my little one and her BF will be staying) and he went up to his place of business and, as if that weren't enough -- he picked (the last?) tomatoes again. Here they are -- being wheeled in in the dark of the late evening.






That's more than he's done in the last ten days put together.





Tomorrow, after work, we have the wedding rehearsal. I've never been to a wedding rehearsal. Let the weekend festivities begin!

not like childbirth

Why do we have slow, dull days, weeks, months even? So we can store and then call forth saved energies for the other weeks. Like this one.

It could be that I'll have trouble posting this -- I came home to no Internet and so far as I can figure out from my landlord (Ed), I'm not likely to have it until someone comes to investigate the problem. My landlord is not sure when that may come to pass. I see myself driving around at midnight looking for a bar with WiFi. Perhaps I'll be posting from such a bar.

When the day began, I'm thinking we have finally switched to the lighter road: one with sparkles and smiles, without the anxiety that had been so evident in the farmhouse this past weekend. It is a cold morning, but hey, we're good with that. The farmhouse has a functioning furnace. It's on.





Still, Ed tells me we lost a good three-fourths of the tomatoes to overnight cold. On the upside? Finally! Diminished pickings! I am no longer beholden to the tomato harvest!

The sun bursts through the morning clouds and I am there to revel in the wonderfulness of the moment. Yes, finally, we're forging ahead!





Ed is terribly weak but he's slowly expanding his eating repertoire beyond Campbells chicken noodle soup. Slowly, but surely. I can see a future for us again. Thoughts of a wedding and funeral have morphed into just wedding. No funeral.

Life is is indeed golden.





Memories of this past weekend are erased. Like childbirth: you forget the pain when you finally get to hold the swaddled newborn kid. Fever? What fever? We are on the upswing!






But not trouble free.


I eat breakfast alone still, though I run up some mango slices to the once-sick-one who is feeling a tad too comfortable to come down.






As the day progresses, I note (from afar -- I'm on campus all day) that Ed is returning to tasks -- at a price. He's like a falcon that soars and then plummets for lack of strength. Up and sown. If you hit him at the right moment (and only then), you'd never remember that he was ill.

Evening. I help paste wedding programs at my daughter's place.


 


At home, supper has to be simple -- more roasted cauliflower, squash too, smothered in tomato sauce with kernels of corn.





Ed has a nibble and that's a good thing.

And now I have Thursday before me, a full and bursting with work Thursday so I have to say, that promise of a sun-streaked gold-paved easy path ahead? Misleading. Indeed, I just saw on my iPhone that we're in for storms any minute. Rains, winds and hail, to be continued, possibly through the wedding day.

Eh, not important. The tide has turned, that's for sure. We're well, surely we are and the future looks fine! And, the Internet just came on!

Tuesday

It's very nice to be in a crowd of sympathetic souls. I know you, friends of Ocean, will understand that there isn't much time (any time?) for writing this week.

The morning breakfast, usually a leisurely affair, is indifferently tossed indoors, hurriedly disposed of at the kitchen table. The cereal tastes terribly micorwaved and the fruit seem old news. Brown around the edges.

Ed has had a better night (even as I still stayed mostly awake, too caught up in the anxiety of the entire messy week-end), but I don't dare hope we're completely done with health worries. Ask me tomorrow, when we will have had two solid days of calm.


Later, in my office, I think -- tired. I am tired. Yes, Ed may  have been ill, but I am the one who is just barely keeping on my feet today. Like the guy I see outside my office window, out there on Bascom Hill...






Late afternoon. I finish teaching, I dash to complete and check off errand number one, number two, number three. Then home. I pull into the dirt driveway and I take a stroll around my flower beds. Surely there's an old Polish proverb that'll tell me - when you're tired, direct your gaze toward the flowers...






And, too, toward the tomatoes. Ed has picked a batch in the hours I was away (yes, he's up and moving!) and now I'm caught in the routine of sorting, washing, freezing, admiring them.





Of course, I want things to be just smooth as peaches again --  for us to return to the pre-worry routines where we were like kids, moving from work to play to work to play. It's as if I've already forgotten that only a short while ago, I would have given a lot to continue, even with imperfections, just so long as we could, in fact, continue and not be undone by events of catastrophic proportions.


I cook up cauliflower, eggplant, tomatoes -- with a fried egg on top. (Ed makes do with chicken noodle soup... no curds yet!) The quintessential comfort foods. Yesterday was like this, today is like that, so let's eat and let the world settle down again.

I see that they're warning of a frost possibility tonight. Don't get stuck in summer thoughts. We've moved on to the next stage. Like it or not, we're in a new place now.

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.

night frets

So long as there are tomatoes ripening on the kitchen counter, there will be fruit flies. That's just the way it is.

Ed, who once worked in a science lab with fruit flies reassures me that their life span is very, very short.

And so long as there is an ounce of energy left in Ed, he will persevere in living his convictions, some that I should think need a dusting and an infusion of modernity, but no, not according to him. They are his and they are what they are. This last sentence is really an answer to all those wonderful and kind Ocean reading souls who have urged me to urge him to go to the doctor. Indeed, doctor friends have urged me to urge him. But don't you see -- I can't do it. He takes chances that way. It is who he is.



hummingbird, for once -- resting


And so after a night of high fevers (Thursday), I have a night of relative quiet (Friday) and I think I am done with this illness of his, whatever it is and then boom! The third night (Saturday) he's hot again and I listen to him pant in his sleep and I gently and ever so quietly reach for his pulse and yes, it's high and yes, he's warm and then he wakes up and reminds me that he wants to be left to his sleep.

You can say a million things about the rightness or wrongness (probably the latter) of this approach, but I think I ought to warn you -- attempting to *change* someone is not likely a good starting point. He is determined to follow his own nose on this one, duke it out himself,  and if it kills him, so be it. This, from a man who loves science, fruit flies (or the study of such), loves innovation, loves clever and novel approaches to old problems facing the world. He's been too healthy too long to worry now about being in need of care.



the ever beautiful nasturtium and alyssum


If you're from the Midwest, you'll know that this was one beautiful day -- full of gentle sunshine and balmy warmth -- the last such day we are told and I believe it. It almost felt unreal now, in the middle of September when the leaves are starting to turn dusty greens or worse  -- dusty brown.

I stayed indoors cleaning the farmhouse. Not much of the wedding centers around the farmhouse, but still, it must be ready as we all must be ready, just in case.

And I went to yoga. I had to.



trying on the wedding shoes after slipping into yoga stuff


Child's pose: clear the mind of this undefined menace at home, clear the soul of anxiety, forget about the hours at night listening to that rapid pant next to me, ease into a stretch, inhale, exhale.

The ride back on Rosie is splendid, but as I zip past the tennis courts, I csn't help but think -- wow, how quickly patterns can change and life can take off in odd directions.





In the evening I cook chicken stew (with garden tomatoes!)...





... the young couple arrives -- the last Sunday meal where they are together but not married. Ed comes down and joins us because it is such a happy time right now that even he cannot resist being part of it.





And then he is upstairs and I am downstairs and Isis is with us and I wait for the night to see if finally the fever has disappeared for good and we can return to normal again.

Saturday

A lovely reader from far away writes that she has a problem opening Ocean. And then another writes  and now it's not even breakfast time and I have four people and they have one thing in common: they all use Internet Explorer and they can't read the most recent Ocean posts. So this is the puzzle: Why is Ocean corrupt for them?

Five hours (yes, that long) later, Ed and I locate the issue. I would have felt better if I could have blamed Blogger or Internet Explorer, but really, the problem was me and the way I write my posts (in Word, then I snatch and drag them over to Blogger). It’s much much funner to blame someone else.

But, here’s the good thing. Though I’m still eating meals alone...

...and Ed is still wrapped in a quilt down here on the couch, nonetheless he’s not burning and he’s lucid, lucid enough to work with me on my blogger problem.

And sweet enough not to give it a second thought.

So you take this guy in his rich and varied colors – not much into seeking help from anxious traveling companions or the medics, not much into weddings either, but here, stubbornly functioning under his own set of imperatives and yet... would you deny it? I will not: he is such a good soul.

I go to yoga late in the afternoon – the class with the fast paced instructor who nonetheless lets us pause at the end to think about the people in our lives. And I do.

I do.

denial

At night, Ed is hot, chilled, flushed – in other words, he’s fighting something or other and believe me, it is very odd to see him this way as neither he nor I are especially prone to viruses, infections, fevers and the like. I cannot remember the last time either of us burned like crazy from within.

In the morning, I eat breakfast and listen to his words of denial (Do you feel sick? No!)

That is his approach to most anything that stands to weaken him. And so I leave him smothered in a quilt (on this lovely and sunny day) and go to yoga where I attempt to shake off the feeling of anxiety that always comes when someone I care about is not well.

The ride on Rosie is delightful, the sun is dazzling, the fields are in that stage of golden brown that you come to accept at this time of the year, just as you accept the fact that you’re never going to bend and twist and balance as perfectly as all the young nymphs around you. And you accept that sometimes, people get sick.

At home, Ed tries once or twice to get up from underneath the quilt (I’m going to pick tomatoes!), each time retreating to another long spell of slumber.

A friend with a great deal of medical wisdom comes and looks him over and nudges him to shed his reluctance to be cared for, but he’ll have none of that. 

She leaves. I sit, watch, listen. The farmhouse is suddenly not the focal point of all weekend activity. I water a few flowers, but without enthusiasm. There are projects -- some half started, some yet to be initiated, but suddenly this isn't the time for them.

I reheat soup and mostly eat alone. I’m hoping the medicine called “denial” works wonders and that this whole period of heat and shallow breathing comes to an end just as fast as it came upon us.