August 26, 2007
A good friend in Santa Barbara remarked that Nebraskans seem to obsess about the weather – since Santa Barbara resembles paradise to a far greater degree than our own Sanctuary, it seems logical that here, the weather topic would provide much fodder for chewing through. As this week begins, the storms seem to be resting and our hot and humid summer days have eased up a bit. Trees seem to hold a stillness within them as they begin to retract their essences from the leaves in preparation for the coming winter; their formerly dark green foliage is starting to show yellow hues in the afternoon sun. The cricket chorus is a constant background accompaniment to the rising and falling cadences of the cicadas and the sound of recurring blue jay squabbles. In the mornings, I see birds that are strangers to our place, pausing in their travels southward. How very fortunate Charles and I are that we don’t awaken to a given slant of the sun’s rays and feel compelled to hit the road for other climes no matter what the obstacles!
I have had “down” days since coming back into the Chemotherapy cycle, with its sickness, etc. Now autumn is advancing with all the plans and changes in the air, and I am contemplating my life – the breaking back over and over again, climbing back up toward feeling well only to be flattened and having to start again. Then, on a morning, I sat on the edge of the bed and imagined that my legs were gone. . . or my hand, or arm or other bodily parts as is now the reality for thousands of the young people returning from Iraq, and I thought about being young, and having THAT until death does part, and I got over my sorry feelings. These young people do have their moments of communal gratitude as they return, but then, life goes on. They must return to the fabric of their towns and villages and become a part of it, and that means every day, they sit on the edge of a bed and have to either strap into some device to walk, or brush their teeth, or whatever, and manage. I know it is an oft used mental exercise, to think of all the lives that are not as fine as one’s own, but it does help to stiffen the upper lip. (There’s another of those sayings. . . I have never heard commentary about people’s upper lips being floppy, or twitching, or unstiff in any manner – more to think about while viewing the morning mirror.)