Ancestors (Harvey Ellis)

chemo cycle 4, number two


posted by Lissa mcKinley on Friday, October 16, 2009 Edit





Hi Everyone, I'm here sitting in my chair watching miss steam shovel continue to help cover and uncover holes in the road below. I was sure that my counts were too low today, but they were much better than last week.....I cannot explain that. I thought I could read the way my body feels, and oops, I'm completely wrong.



Something had me thinking about my father's mother yesterday. She was short, but could fill up a room. I hear that booming laugh and feel her press a Vernor's into my hand and a cheese puff. She was very feminine, too. Maybe that was it. I still feel a little shock when I look in the mirror and realize that I have no hair. Last week, I found a scarf in the sale bin at Nordstrom's that has long fring all around it. when I have it on my head, I have long pink hair! somehow, as I looked in the mirror as I tied this scarf on and felt the pink hair fall around my face, I felt Grandmarnie smile at me. Very nice.



Yesterday, Chip and I met over at our daughter's school for a very dry talk on paying for college and filling out forms and scholarship applications, etc. As I told Betsy F this morning, here's what I took away:



You have to be a homeless, dying, retired, abusive step-parent who has hidden all his/her assets in innumerable expensive cars to readily pay for college! oh, on that front, sounds like Will has decided that he wants to play lacrosse and go to Bates, so that's exciting too. Now we just need to cash in those porsches!



Speaking of ancestors, try this:



ancestors



by Harvey Ellis



my ancestors surround me

like walls of a canyon

quiet

stone hard

their ideas drift over me

like breezes at sunset



we gather sticks

and make settlements

what we do is only partly

our own

and partly continuation

down through the chromosomes



my son

my baby sleeps behind me

stirring in the night

for the touch

that lets him continue



he is arranging

in his small form the furniture

and windows of his home



it will be a lot like mine

it will be a lot like theirs



thanks everone for signing up for food this week. If I feel we need more help next week, I'll ask and send a message.



cheers!



Lissa