The electric fence is clicking away telling me it is still working. Just got it installed last evening. I’m out here early work amongst my little baby corns, aren’t they cute? And I am also writing this post from out there in the early morning elements.
My hands are awfully dirty but I don’t think my I Pad will abject. A hummingbird just buzzing around next to me, checking things out. A friend just called with some Hebrew wisdom. He heard I was out in the corn and he said, “You know the Lord is wherever you are thinking about him.” Thank you Stephen. I’ll have to admit that I really wasn’t thinking about him but am fussing over the thinning and transplanting. OK, back at it.
Well, there a quarter of it is done and it was the worst quarter. I got high hopes for this crop and of having a good looking roadside stand. I missed doing it last year but there was so much going on with chasing around the country with the film. OK, back at it.
Late afternoon now. I was gone for a while but just got another quarter done, thinning and transplanting. I am trying to water the heck out of it to helps those transplants.
Mass tomorrow morning and then I will come back and tackle the last quarter.
Well let’s see, I can watch the sprinkler go around or I can get back to the house and watch Stanley Cup Finals and sample a beer. What to do? Actually a third alternative occurred and fell asleep in the shade. OK, enough of this, I’m getting thirsty.
I’ve got two things on my mind this morning. That’s not uncommon, right? One is about the beginning of life and the other about the end.
First, I am very excited to announce that the corn is up! It is just shooting out of the ground. I just soaked the seed a few days and planted it last Saturday and the stuff is mostly an inch tall. Yeh! Now it is a race with the deer. I see tracks out there but I don’t think they recognize it as food yet, too small, knock on wood. The race being get all the fence installed before the deer recognize the tummies. So this is a story about the beginning of life. This field was a soggy mess a month ago and now look, new life.
And also, I wanted to give you a letter from author Brian Doyle who passed away recently at 60 from a brain tumor. My Rebecca saw him at Seattle U at a writer’s conference and raved about him so he is on my radar. I read one of his books also, although can’t recall the title. Anyway, it is very elegant and quirky, just the way we like things.
“Dear Coherent Mercy: thanks. Best life ever.
Personally I never thought a cool woman would come close to understanding me, let alone understanding me but liking me anyway, but that happened!
And You and I both remember that doctor in Boston saying polite but businesslike that we would not have children but then came three children fast and furious!
And no man ever had better friends, and no man ever had a happier childhood and wilder brothers and a sweeter sister, and I was that rare guy who not only loved but liked his parents and loved sitting and drinking tea and listening to them!
And You let me write some books that weren’t half bad, and I got to have a career that actually no kidding helped some kids wake up to their best selves, and no one ever laughed more at the ocean of hilarious things in this world, or gaped more in astonishment at the wealth of miracles everywhere every moment.
I could complain a little right here about the long years of back pain and the occasional awful heartbreak, but Lord, those things were infinitesimal against the slather of gifts You gave mere me, a muddle of a man, so often selfish and small. But no man was ever more grateful for Your profligate generosity, and here at the very end, here in my last lines, I close my eyes and weep with joy that I was alive, and blessed beyond measure, and might well be headed back home to the incomprehensible Love from which I came, mewling, many years ago.
But hey, listen, can I ask one last favor? If I am sent back for another life, can I meet my lovely bride again? In whatever form? Could we be hawks, or otters maybe? And can we have the same kids again if possible? And if I get one friend again, can I have my buddy Pete? He was a huge guy in this life–make him the biggest otter ever and I’ll know him right away, okay?
Thanks, Boss. Thanks from the bottom of my heart. See You soon.
Remember–otters. Otters rule. And so: amen.”
OK, Alperfect once again, beginning and ending loves, Felipe.
Twice this last week I actually put in a good word for cancer. Or I elevated it to its rightful place. Or I tried to be truthful about it without the usual all out fear that we give to it. I can’t articulate my attempts exactly but they come from a need for clarity. Yes, clarity is a good start I think.
A friend had said that cancer causes your hair to fall out. I countered, no chemo makes your hair fall out. I suppose he was right if you lump the whole problem together, cause and side effects. But really our hair falling out comes from our clumsy attempt to fight cancer. I often say twenty years from now we will look back on chemotherapy as a primitive and barbaric practice but it is all we have right now. Well it is one of the important tools.
Just a side note that it is always funny how the hair falling out is the side effect that people in general focus on. There are so many things that a patient contends with and hair is not one of the hard ones. I know women have a harder time with it but men, heck it is style now for us.
And the other instance of me “sticking up for cancer” is someone asked if my cancer was in remittance. I have never heard that word come out of a doctor’s or nurse’s mouth concerning me. Not that it isn’t a possibility but the chance seems remote at best. But I laughed at the person’s question and said no it is my copilot. It was said jokingly but really it is in some ways accurate.
This all may seem strange and unusual to someone not armpit deep in this problem but after years of thinking on it and reflecting and dealing with it I am lead to many unusual places. None of it is normal, in the sense that normal generally equates with cancer free. But strangely enough, now I see, it also equates to “fighting cancer”. Those may be the old fight or flight categories. Somehow I am dwelling in a third space .
I hope that this makes slight sense. I have to go. Of course we will continue this at some point. Thanks, love, Felipe.
