Beaches, Patience, Bones, and Hands

Good morning everyone!  I am in Connecticut getting ready for my flight back to Cleveland this afternoon.  Yesterday, we said goodbye to the lovely beach in Mass, even though our weather hadn’t really been so terrific all week.  Oh well.

First of all, let me check in.  I developed a few new symptoms over this 10 day vacation.  My L lower teeth and jaw are numb, that is one.  Also, my left arm sweats profusely.  Yup, that’s weird, but that’s it.  Not my L face or my L leg, just my L arm.  Also, I have to say that I was/am a bit more short of breath this week--just a little more short of breath.  Even so, my sister really made me walk, and I am able to walk a lot farther than I was 5 weeks ago, that is for sure.  I am also slowly turning down the steroids, but my round face and proximal muscle weakness hasn’t changed in any way I can see, but I was told that would take awhile.  I will gladly wait.

In the mornings, Brent would walk a big 3 mile walk and I would start off with her and go down all the little streets just next to our house.  Finally, I would walk down Elder Brewster (our access to the beach), and walk onto this glorious beach with no one there.  The tide here moves horizontally a very long way because it is so shallow, so it is really fun to see where the water is every morning.  The first several days, the weather was lovely and we got some sunbathing in.  But what I loved even more were the mornings sitting on the beach, occasionally greeting a dog with its person, or a group of kayakers, etc.  But mostly, I loved just sitting on the beach, listening, watching, and sometimes even writing.  I think all of us—mom, sister, me—recognize that we might not have this place much longer, and we all want to be there more mindfully, I guess, and recognize what it gives us.  I certainly do.

We had even decided, with tremendous help from the senior center, to leave mom up there for a week by herself (without a car) as they would drive her to meals, grocery store, etc, and we have wonderful neighbors who were willing to help.  On our last day there, mom told us that she really didn’t feel safe by herself.  Good girl; we didn’t either.  So we all came back to Brent’s house.  Mom and Brent will get back up there a little later, and that will do.  I am hoping to get back up there a little before my family does after summer jobs are over.

 I had no idea how the water on this wonderful little beach would call me and make me so happy, but it does! And I’m convinced it has healing powers!  When was the last time you watched hermit crabs fight each other off?  How about the last time you saw a horseshoe crab?  These are the most ancient-looking creatures I’ve ever seen alive, and they are everywhere here, knocking into your toes, running away with those crazy feet with no pinchers…..amazing and prehistoric and worth slowing down, slowing down, slowing down for.

So here is another thing that is happening.  My sister is staying at her own house and I am going home.  She has been my driver and right-hand-gal for the last almost 5 weeks, and I feel her absence profoundly already.  While my family is clamoring for me and I for them, I will be alone again while everyone is working, and I will have to call in my lovely friend group to help me get places and get back into the art I haven’t been doing!  I have never had someone at my side for so long; it has been more than wonderful, my dear sister.  Thank you, B, for navigating so effectively and being there when I really needed you.  My family is richer for getting to know you so much better.  And now, she and I get to do a little planning for her sabbatical that starts in the fall.  Ok, we won’t do a huge amount of planning, but we might do a little.  I think the planning starts with getting back to the beach and sitting on it while writing in our “sabbatical book” together……yes?  Yes.

So, we have had a whirlwind trip, and I’m a bit tired.  I am really looking forward to restarting my meditation/stillness practice that I didn’t do every day in Mass, but that I want to return to and build on in Cleveland.  While my insurance didn’t cover hospice in a different state, believe it or not, I am really looking forward to checking in with my wonderful hospice nurse, as she is practical and no-nonsense and I feel safe when she’s around.  Funny how I can feel this way, but I think this is exactly what hospice should be when it is working right.  I know hospice also makes my family feel safe as well, and that is an even bigger bonus.

How about some poetry?  I really like these:

Patience (Mary Oliver)

What is the good life now?  Why?

look here, consider

the moon’s white crescent

rounding, slowly, over

the half month to still another

perfect circle—

the shining eye

that lightens the hills,

that lays down the shadows

of the branches of the trees,

that summons the flowers

to open their sleepy faces and look up

into the heavens.

I used to hurry everywhere,

and leaped over the running creeks.

There wasn’t

time enough for all the wonderful things

I could think of to do

in a single day.  Patience

comes to the bones

before it takes root in the heart

as another good idea.

I say this

as I stand in the woods

and study the patterns

of the moon shadows,

or stroll down into the waters

that now, late summer, have also

caught the fever, and hardly move

from one eternity to another.

Taos (Jillena Rose)

Bones are easier to find than flowers

in the desert, so I paint these:

Fine white skulls of cows and horses.

When I lie flat under the stars

in the back of the car, coyotes howling

in the scrub pines, easy to feel how those bones

are so much like mine: Here is my pelvis,

like the pelvis I found today

bleached by the sun and the sand. Same

hole where the hip would go, same

white curve of bone beneath my flesh

same cradle of life, silent and still in me.

Loving the Hands (Julie Suk)

I could make a wardrobe

with tufts of wool

caught on thistle and bracken.

Lost—the scraps

I might have woven whole cloth.

Come watch, the man says,

shearing sheep

with the precision of long practice,

fleece, removed all of a piece,

rolled in a neat bundle.

I’ve been so clumsy

with people who’ve loved me.

Straddling a ewe,

the man props its head on his foot,

leans down with clippers,

each pass across the coat a caress.

His dogs, lying nearby,

tremble at every move—as I do,

loving the hands that have learned

to gentle the life beneath them.

Cheers,

Lissa