a journal of...

A journal among friends...
art, words, home, people and places

Saturday, June 30, 2018

In the meantime


So much has happened in the month since I have written that I wonder where to begin, or indeed if to begin at all.


Our shore stay turned into a hospital stay and convalescence; my uncle, on his very first early morning there, mistook the stairwell for the bathroom door, and down he went, injuring pieces of his right side from head to foot.  The best laid plans of mice, men, and shore goers gang oft aglay, as a countryman of his once penned, mostly.  Thank goodness for the rescue of children, family, and friends who, scrapping their own vacations, took over nursing, watching, shopping, cooking, running errands while I braved the parking deck at the community hospital for a week and then, realizing that rehab centers were not suitable for nonagenarians (or vice versa), brought our invalid back to the ocean breezes and sunned deck to recuperate.

My college friend Pat wrote, Nothing like dear friends to hold your pieces together.  Yes.

We're home now, and still recovering slowly, wounds healing quickly, pain continuing to dog him.

There.  That's said and done.  What next?


Ah.  The gift of rain.  We came home to a dry, dry landscape...no rain but a drop or two the whole half month we were away.  My kind neighbor Anna and a caregiver took turns watering for us, but the yard greeted us sadly, especially my hydrangeas, which this year bloomed a spectacular pink, and were shrunken  until, two days later, the rain came, pitying, and drenched us for a whole day and night, and they revived.   It was a gift I was grateful for and said so, frequently.

So you see, there was quite a bit I could have written this past month.  About making assumptions.  About life changes.  About hopeful moments and jarring wakings.  About meeting challenges head-on.  About resilience and about rain.

Though blog inspirations floated to me from the wind and waves, alas, the internet connection was out, as it often is there.  Frankly, part of me saw that as a gift, too, though I was sorry to leave you all behind, verbally.

Instead, I put my thoughts as best I could into pictures; on the days when I could steal a walk, I took my camera to illustrate what the shore is about, even when catastrophe strikes.  (Indeed, it has stricken before, so we are practiced at it, and even so remain grateful to be ocean-side to heal us.)

 On the last day, we closed the umbrella against rain, welcome even there.






AT THE SHORE II