Going With The Flow . . .

In the last week, I’ve learned a lot about giving what is needed—as opposed to what I want to give. In other words, it’s not about me. Peter lies curled up on the futon at the moment. exhausted from sitting at the table for lunch. He had some ambitious idea that he would get outside today, but that’s another day, I think.

In the beginning, I would present five options to him – soup, steamed vegetables, pureed vegetables, fruit, chocolate. The sad story is that he seems to have lost his taste for sweets, including (yes!) chocolate. He seems to prefer pizza, not fruit, and calls for water, not juice. If I didn’t know better, I might think he was pregnant!

He knows better than I what he needs and desires. If he says Republican roe, then so be it!
It’s lonesome like this. He’s in his own world, sweet as he is, detached and dreamy. I wander around with so many unfinished sentences inside of me. He can’t tell if his hair is falling out. Most of you know that he’s had a slight head (if any at all) for years. He shaved what he had before his first chemo treatment. Nothing looks any different, although he asks me with regularity if it’s gone.

It’s all in your point of view, I’ve decided. This is my time to get some things done. When it warms up a little, the old dianthus in front of the yurt is coming out to make way for new. The front lawn is coming up, with or without help, and we will inch toward our garden plan. Our environment is beautiful and green at the moment, belying the parched clay of summer here. But that’s months down the road. Mañanaville, my dad used to call it here.

As a Virgo, I’m a manic list maker. I found one recently that Dad had saved from my childhood. It read, “#1) ride bike, #2) wash Beulah (my platinum blonde cocker spaniel), #3) brush Beulah, #4) visit old Mrs. McGillvorie, #5) learn to cook.” Alas, I didn’t get to #5 until Peter and I married, but that dog looked like the Jayne Mansfield of dogs, Mrs. McGillvorie was sublimely happy and my bike wore out the next year.

Looking around the house, I must have found five lists today. Not a one had something that could be done in a day, including #2, written on pink, lined paper—“get Peter up for a ride to Sonoma.” Mañanaville, indeed.

I am looking out the yurt window. Outside, the cool sun has yielded to gray skies, lowering as the frigid wind blows. It was 26 degrees when I got up at 6 a.m. We shivered and drank our coffee hot. I dialed up the heat and heaped a blanket on Peter’s shoulders, and brought his red fleece watch cap to cover his head. Tomorrow morning, I will swim in this weather, which is my only real release. I am so glad I learned to swim! As cold as it will be on the morrow, I will put in on my back and draw my arms and feet in the pattern proscribed. The world will go silent and the flapping flags over the pool will call my name as I think of the one I love—who lives in a world nearly as serene.