June 7, 2006
How splendid it is to come to the morning and realize that the nightly aches and pains that moved through the body with such creative selection of bone and tissue have greatly diminished. (For a time, I became convinced that several of my teeth were dying because of the throbbing in the jaw). I tell myself, “Remember, oh you must remember now that these things will come to an end” because I still have the sixth round of chemotherapy with its attendant havoc to the body ahead of me. Even as I write these words, countless gallons of the chemicals discovered and created to help defer cancer’s dying are being infused and injected into grateful persons because they are the only known route to healing and remission. These same chemicals carry in them toxicity that is strong enough to put nurses behind huge aprons and into large rubber gloves, and the contents in turn can take out hair, give face spots, cause nausea or have innumerable other side effects. The bottom line that brings us all to “do what we have to do” is the grand possibility of life resumed, or life extended. How thankful we are for that!
Sanctuary is moving away from the new bright colors of spring into dark greens and the rich hues of reproduction. Now there is honeysuckle in the woods, with chokecherries, flea bane, elderberries and wild roses blooming along the paths and on the edges of the wetlands. When Alphie and I walked shortly after dawn, the new sunlight was coming through the cream colored bloomstalks on the head-high grasses that line the path on the west side of the forty acres. It brought to mind the patterns in fine laces and embroideries seen on elegant clothing. Perhaps it all began in some meadow long ago when someone figured out how to use needle and thread to transfer the innate beauty of the humble grass’s offerings into the finest decorations and adornments still cherished today.