Where you can come to
I sat on the porch this evening, it’s beautiful outside. I had a glass of rose and my neighbor came over to join me. I had just come back from a lovely bike ride, T was teaching, and the sun was about to set. A friend rode by and we beckoned her over. We sat there and talked about things – this summer and the woe it has produced – we talked about the episode with my sister and we talked about anything and everything on the tip of our tongue.
When Arlene was about to go, the nun said afterwards – oh you put that dog down, I could tell when I looked at her she needed to be put down. Something about the Irish accent let the coldness of that statement go by me. But when she learned of my mom’s plight recently and said “i remember envying the other nuns whose parents were already dead when I went through what you are going through” I cringed, a little.
Today I got a note from a friend who is dealing with her aged father and his cancer. She said, it’s a privilege to care for your dying parent. That’s an interesting way to think of it. Our parents changed our diapers and gave up a lot in their lives to make our lives. It is a debt we owe, no doubt.
Sitting on the bayou and listening to my friends tell me about what they have learned about themselves in the past years through their travails tells me that life is a continual study lab – every day seems to bring with it a depth we haven’t plumbed, a height we haven’t scaled, a dream we haven’t dreamed.
And so it is. But I must say learning these lessons on the bayou adds a dimension to my life that makes my life seem that much more worth telling about. T told me not to give up the blog. She forbid it in Caminho when I brought it up.
I write because here in this spot, in this microdot, I am living and breathing and I’m telling you what it feels like in the only way I know how.