Gone Fishin'

For awhile, anyway. Maybe I'll catch me a tiny rainbow trout. Maybe a rock fish. Maybe a mermaid. Perhaps a miracle.

Who knows? Peace.

My Place

Once again, one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems speaks to me about present circumstances:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

I am spending time with my dear L., who has always affirmed my basic goodness as a human being. I don't have to walk on my knees for this woman, nor she for me. We are who we are.

She was taken off the steroids and her mental functioning has improved greatly - turns out all the paranoia, mental hyperactivity and visual hallucinations were steriod induced. We've got her back again - for awhile anyway. She was moved to a lovely hospice facility since we lost electrical power during the storm.

I am deeply aware that the world goes on. So is she. She wants the news, she loves having the newspaper read to her. The world is still offering itself to her imagination, and she is willing to still go there and engage. It is a humbling experience to watch the body fail....Puts things into perspective and surely announces our place 'in the family of things.'

The dear woman still has a gleam in her eye when a friend walks through the door.

Rare Winter Tomato in Arkansas!

Or so I thought. Funny what the mind does on overload.

Thank you all for your sweet comments. I went into a cleaning frenzy last night just to shake off all the nervous energy. The missus hid in her room (smart move). My mind was flying all over the place - just like L.'s mind is doing. I tried and tried to focus my thoughts, or my breathing, or something, just to bring me some amount of stillness. Wasn't happening. I resorted to mass-produced chemical band aid assistance. Sleep. At last.

Keep on truckin'.

Stormy Weather

So far, dear friends, January 2008 has been wild.  Storms have knocked out electricity to about 350,000 locally.  Lots of trees down, fences blown away, cars smashed.  I've been in Carmel Woods for 4 days with no power.  After 4 days of it, the 'kids' and I decided to move L. to hospice care so she could stay warm and well cared for.  It was an easy decision -- Friday night was her last lucid time.  We had a great dinner with my parents, and she drank and ate and laughed and had a jolly time.  Since then, she's gone pretty loopy mentally.  It happened so suddenly...a bit frightening actually.  

I'll probably not be posting for awhile...too much going on and my mind and heart are trying to process so much information.  I am working on staying in the moment, and not projecting too far out there in any direction.  Going with the flow is the order of the day.  Not a bad way to approach this crazy life.

Be well.