Lest you think I am not in the best place ever to convalesce, here are three things about today.
1. Steve brought back my favorite chair from his collection for me to sit in (there’s an ottoman, too).
2. It snowed a bit…
3. So Steve burned the big burn pile.
Meanwhile, I had a nice, quiet day puttering around the house, writing on the computer, doing a little laundry and tending things, eating what I can manage, and reading.
The good news is that yesterday went fairly well. The anti-nausea meds worked and the Tylenol kept my headache at bay and I mostly slept and rested. Today I woke up feeling much better, even well enough to do some work online. Quite manageable. I continue to feel a deep peace and abiding gratitude for my friends and my life.
Many friends have sent books. Books! I am a reader of course, and I’ve been kind of drifting in and out of the various books. My concentration is off, and I’m not reading in long stretches, but what a stack of beauties. Fiction and nonfiction, essays and psalms and meditations. I’m covered on ALL fronts.
But what I’ve been reading most has been the book Winter Morning Walks by Ted Kooser. I ordered this one for myself the day I was diagnosed. I’d been thinking about it a lot in another context, but suddenly I had to have it. I thought it was a book of poems Kooser wrote while undergoing chemotherapy. Actually, Kooser wrote a poem a day for 100 days after chemo, put them on postcards and sent them to his friend, the poet Jim Harrison. This is a selection of those.
He and Harrison had done a collaboration of back-and-forth haiku earlier, and in his recovery, this seemed a way to enter back into poetry. The poems are very much like haiku, steeped in the nature of his early morning walks, in the moment, and with deep, rich metaphors and imagery.
He begins his walks in November, which is tough. Here I am coming out of winter, and he’s walking into it. This morning I did what you can do in poetry but not elsewhere: I skipped to the end! December, January, February– March! I found the penultimate poem in the book so cheering, I have to share it here.
march 18
Gusty and warm.
I saw the season’s first bluebird
this morning, one month ahead
of its scheduled arrival. Lucky I am
to go off to my cancer appointment
having been given a bluebird, and
for a lifetime, having been given
this world.
# # #
Almost a decade ago, Steve and I had our first date, on a beautiful April day. We live in a small town, so he suggested hamburgers at a bar in St. Anna, 10 miles into the countryside, where it wasn’t lost on me that we wouldn’t run into anyone we knew. Afterward we walked along the road by Pelican Lake to the Pelican Lake Ballroom, which is a pole barn but always sounds like a romantic place to me… and we saw the first bluebird of the season.
So good to read and see photos on this post.
I just read a wonderful Jim Harrison poem
on my daily Poetry e-mail this morning and I love TK.
I have been thinking a lot about the movie
Nebraska and my most favorite series, Longmire, set in Wyoming. The characters in Longmire were with me in my darkest hours in hospital rooms with ray…along with an old rosary that never left my hand and thoughts of Tibet and the DL. So comforting. So bizarre.
Being inside for all those many long
months was so hard — unbearable really. A morning walk = best gift ever.
Everything you write resonates — I loved you at 5 and still do, clearly.
Onward toward tomorrow. ??suzi
Thanks for this comment. Someone pointed out the Harrison poem on Writer’s Almanac this morning– a poem about Ted Kooser, no less! Just listened to it. Lots of resonance. “To be excited about finding a cinder is to be excited about life.”
Your blog is a true gift. Thanks for sharing. My love and prayers are with you daily.
Dear Susan,
I thought of you and your writing (and my desire to keep writing) as I read this in today’s Strib:
“The reason I write is to explain my life to myself,” Pat Conroy (who died yesterday) said in 1986. “Ive also discovered that when I do, I’m explaining other people’s lives to them.”
Thanks for these blog entries…and I can’t wait to talk more about Kooser’s Winter Morning Walks. In Chapter 5 of my first book, I feature my fixation (yes, it is a fixation) with the interview he gave on the NewsHour many years ago. This story about Kooser, and those winter morning walks of his, was the section of my first book I rewrote the most. It meant so much to me, I wanted to do my best to get it right. In truth, I couldn’t quite capture the effect his story had on me.
To be continued….
Love, d
Diane M Millis, PhD http://www.dianemillis.com
Director, Journey Conversations Project http://www.journeyconversations.org
Author of Deepening Engagement and Conversation–The Sacred Art http://www.skylightpaths.com
I am sure it was our discussion– or just mere conjuring mention– of this book that brought it to mind so immediately after the diagnosis. And Conroy, ahhh. I lived in Atlanta from 1986-88 and he was one of the first writers who was real to me. I read Prince of Tides while living in the neighborhood he was writing about and thought a lot about the closeness/ties between novels and life.
I was so grateful to see this post last night, and of course I hope you continue to feel better with each passing hour. It seems as if you’ve found the perfect poetic companion in Kooser, and I love the serendipity of the bluebird!