It was seven years on Saturday. Seven years since we went to urgent care hoping for an easy answer and instead finding ourselves on the receiving end of a fire-hose of information. The past six years, I have anticipated this day. Marking time. I have thought about how I would mark it in a way to share with others who care to know how we're doing. This year, my thoughts just wouldn't rise to the surface. The day came. The day went. We pushed through. My brain could only emit a steady hum.
But then the thoughts started coalescing. An inspiring piece I read here. A nest of birds taking flight there. The things my heart wants to share are all there, just under the surface, swaying like sea grass and occasionally illuminated by sun piercing through water.
This morning kind of threaded the needle to bring a patchwork of ideas together.
Where to begin? Dom remains pretty much the same. I feel like a broken record here. He struggles to breathe. Walking is an issue as he struggles. He still suffers stomach issues on occasion and eating is not always desirable. He's lost a bit of weight again. It's sometimes difficult to center our thoughts. Is his pain normal or disease? Is his fatigue expected or disease? He wants to be productive and yet, his energy is finite. I push him with a paradoxical message. Do more. Don't do too much. Rest.
We've been working hard and resting hard.
I've been reading different pieces that share a theme of wonder. Annie Dillard says (paraphrased) how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.
Alexandra Horowitz wrote a book On Looking: Eleven Walks With Expert Eyes. Reading a synopsis, the book is geared toward urban dwellers who are wrapped up in the grind and it's meant to encourage people to see things they may miss in the hurry and scurry. She takes the same walk with different experts and sees through their eyes. It's on my list to read. But it's just one of many pieces I've encountered on this theme of wonder and the humble question of the meaning of life.
What is the meaning of life when one's life has been so pitifully upended? What would you see if you were forced out of the paradigm of finding purpose through children and career, and achievement? People who claim to know the meaning of life still pursue family and career and achievement. Whether they be Buddhist or Christian, I don't know many people who just are. The Christians will tell you their sole purpose for being here is to worship God. The Buddhists will tell you it's enlightenment. And yet, I still see the hurry and scurry among them. I see the worship of family and achievements and the quest for more. There is no judgement. There is only a gratefulness on my part that at the end of the day, the way I spend my days, is how I spend my life. And it feels right and good to spend them in wonder.
We had a pair of House Finches build a nest in a bicycle helmet hanging from a barn rafter. She laid four eggs on Mothers Day and exactly two weeks later, four creatures emerged. They're not very cute those first few days. You'd hardly know they're alive if you couldn't observe feeding time. Another two weeks and one day later, the first baby vibrated right in front of my very eyes and took flight. The next day, the other three found their wings and the nest was empty. We altered our habits for one month. We left the barn doors open with a gate to deter skunks and such. We marked the calendar to keep kitties away when babies would be fledgling.
I photographed every other day and thrilled over each change. I ponder how four weeks is enough time to go from egg to flight, while I'm over half a century and have yet to find my own wings.
We've lived together in the same house for ten years now. I've been here nearly 30. We still get up for the bobcat. The rabbit. The buck or the doe. Whatever we see from our couch looking through the picture window, we go to the window and watch. We pause what we're doing. We pause the idiot box. We pause the conversation. We pause the cooking. We are always keen to see the passersby.
Dominic called me to the front window the other day. A giant buck was emerging from under the deck around the pool up the hill. I'd have to crawl on my hands and knees to get under. I couldn't believe a 4 or 6 point buck could tiny himself enough to crawl under. But he did. And I was fortunate enough to see him going under the next day. He runs across the field like he's got to clock in to work on time. I follow him with my eyes and as if by magic, he has disappeared under the deck. I don't think he's working. And I'm a little jealous as I tap away at the computer for my job. And I'm grateful I have both the environment and the eyes to see.
I think we're a bit like a person who loses sight or vision. The other senses get stronger. I think, and I could be wrong, when you lose all the world holds up as success, your sense of wonder gets stronger.
I started this little essay with an entirely different thread in mind, and just like that, I stitched together something much different than I envisioned. You see, the events that inspired me to write are the things I most fear. Yesterday, I nearly weed whacked a rattle snake. It was coiled in a little cave of dry grass and looked very much like a cow pie to me. Except we have no cows. I went and got a broom to give a gentle little nudge so I could see its face and all I got was a tongue flick. It was so relaxed and camouflaged, I had no idea if it was a deadly venomous snake or a much desired (rodent eating but not venomous) King Snake. My neighbor came with her snake stick and lifted it out of the grass revealing a very fat snake, With rattles. How brave is she?
I have a lot of anxiety about venomous snakes. I have a lot of anxiety about wildfires. And, just hours after my snake encounter, the skies darkened and my eyes and throat began to sting. A wildfire just 20 miles or so north harkened the very early arrival of "fire season". Two of my biggest fears came together on the same day. I thought about how summer is a very anxious time for me. It marks the beginning of Dom's health odyssey. The transition is tricky for me and I don't know why. The nights are cold and the days are hot. Summer is not my favorite time of year and I find myself counting down the days until the rain returns.
How funny that the next morning, social media would remind me that nine years ago, I also met a rattlesnake. Little did I know that almost summer day how very much I would and could endure.
