Some mental blurs today. A bad day with good spots.
There is less mystique, as some hurdles are now projecting
out ahead of me versus popping up. For me, in living with cancer, that’s often a
good thing. I can better prepare and cope more effectively when I’m equipped with
a sounder mind redirecting an unsound body. I have more fair warnings. I can
see things coming. Knowledge is power.
But, I also know that sometimes spontaneity and impromptu
discovery are better. Some of my best satisfactions, my life’s best bliss,
excitements and enlightenments happened out of the blue.
The old adage --- the world was made round to keep us
from seeing too far down the road --- has its time and place, but it can be the
harder course when extremes become the norm, temporary or not. True enough, if
we all could see all of what’s coming in our lives, we’d go a little mad, but I
can see much of what is coming for me, and that’s also comforting, even empowering.
Good spots today were attending my nursing home private
duty client, leaving her with a smile, a full belly and a song (I can’t sing,
but I sing along with her, and two people singing out of tune is harmony).
Other good spots:
--- On the Harley and not getting into that accident
near the interstate on-ramp when some manic motorhead cut me off enough to send
me into the rumble strip. A near miss.
--- Finding the perfect parking place at the hospital,
right next to the entrance. This never happens, and it happened today when I
really needed it.
--- Arriving a half an hour early for treatment and
being served when I walked in.
--- Riding home, the shimmers and reflections of the sun
highlighting racing shell crews in the Connecticut River, set against a passing
train complete with a waving engineer and a kettle of turkey vultures circling
in the distance.
All good spots.
The “bad day” part of today was the persistent sore
throat and some tidal nausea, which disaffected everything: appetite,
voice, swallowing, breathing, thinking, dreaming. Nothing trivial, Doc.
Learning how to isolate without losing the ability to
incorporate? Well, it’s not always easy to know when to hold on and when to let
go.
More as we go, muddy or clear, expected or not, El
