April 15, 2008
Daffodils in a little blue vase on the table and a fierce fast wind from the southwest define this April day and completion of the Income Tax ritual is also a part of the texture. John-paul returned from his European travels last week so we get to hear tales of adventures in London, Paris, Barcelona, Lisbon and points in-between. We got out our own dairies of long ago travels to these places and compared favorite sights and sounds. As in everything, some things are very dynamic and some things remain unchanging and ageless.
Because I have not been able to identify the less obvious and more secretive birds that live at Sanctuary, I determined to take a class in “birding”. The instructors are a man-wife team who appear to be in their late 70’s and the class that gathered was made up of about twenty women. This meant that there was one male in the room, and I think that the teaching was influenced by this; one got a sort of “rooster in the henhouse” feeling as the gentleman gave us stern warnings about not dressing in bright or shiny clothes or in garments that “swished” for trips out into the wild to look for birds. He spoke with great disdain of a young woman who not only wore a red coat (!) but who ran ahead and exclaimed about the birds she was seeing, causing them to fly onward before he and others had a chance to get out their binoculars. As he went on and on I found myself slipping backwards to a junior high mentality and beginning to think about rolling a few spit balls. When I looked down at my notes toward the end of the evening, all I had written down was, “Don’t wear red to look for birds.”
Last week I was a reader at a Hymn Festival here in Seward, and afterwards, many people greeted me with delight and told me how well I appear and expressed joy at seeing me again. I was surrounded by many familiar smiling faces and getting hugs for just “being”. What a grand experience – quite likely in the scheme of life, it is this sort of ingredient that helps to hold illnesses at bay.
Tomorrow I go to see the oncologist again with very little news for him. He will have the gastroenterologist’s report in hand and the blood readings will show that the various cells are holding fast. As these lovely days come and go, perhaps there is someone in a lab somewhere having an “Aha!” moment discovering a new chemotherapy that is specifically directed toward this bone marrow cancer. With springtime’s rapid arrival here at Sanctuary, miracles and new beginnings abound, and it is easy to contemplate the wonderful possibilities.