Dears, my sister Abby has been visiting and making life good, so I haven’t updated you in a while. This is just a quick note to say we are all still here. Val is very tired and weak these days, often not leaving her bedroom, but now and then she is still able to get out for an assisted field trip to the grocery store or, last week, to lie in the grass at Mount Tabor. The weather this week is supposed to get warm and lovely, so I hope we can get her outside some more.
As Val’s body rebounds a little from her recent radiation’s side effects, she needs fewer drugs to combat the pain and nausea. Therefore she is alert and at home in herself more often. She relies on the physical support and the companionship of our affectionate circle, but she is more able to be alone, and she desperately yearns for peaceful time to think, write and reflect on the shifts of the last few months. A current challenge is to keep her supported and safe but make space for the spirit-healing solitude she craves.
I find that healing solitude at my nearby pocket canyon. This week I took Abby there to watch the geese brooding on their nests. A few mornings ago we were watching a mama goose on her nest, and then she shifted her wing, and a little gosling head popped up! By the end of the week, six goslings and sixteen ducklings could be seen cruising the springs, the goslings gathered between their parents in well-bred order like Madeleine’s boarding school buddies, and the ducklings madly zinging in all directions from their harried mamas like the fuzzy sparks of an aquatic firework.
Warm weather and ducklings make the spring. Throw in a few pink dogwood blossoms and a few peepers in the evening and you know May is here. Glad you both are able to get out and enjoy some of it.