Dear Friends, Spring is always a strange time for us, and anyone will know this who has a seasonal worker in the house. A key member of the household who was pretty much always here is suddenly gone for days determined by jobs whose length depends on weather, site conditions, fire marshals, operating machinery, etc etc. Add to this is the fact that I need more care than I did last fall when the season ended. The cancer still seems pretty stable, all things considered. But the cancer is much more present, sometimes with symptoms I don't understand. Day by day has more meaning.

We're incredibly blessed and lucky to have Steve's sister Tina able to be here and help out, particularly with giving me meds while Steve sleeps, but also food during the day and keeping things running. We are very aware of what most families must face-- without a family member OR TWO able to provide 24/7 care on shifts, well, how does it work? It is challenging even for people who love each other very much,  but we know so many people have to pay a lot of money to hire people they don't know at all, often in a night and day shift. I can't tell you how much I admire those folks.  And if you can't afford it, the option is the hospital. I admire those people, too, those who make the very difficult choice of putting their sick loved one into the skilled hands of doctors and nurses on call 24/7. 

My cognitive abilities are also definitely affected. Focus, memory, length of time I can use my brain for something, including in some cases visiting on the phone. 

This will be a short update. I would say we are all here looking forward to warm weather. The idea of being on the porch instead of the bedroom, even if just to sleep there instead, or listen to music or possibly have the focus to read a book. I haven't read a book in months, in part due to holding a book up, but also found I just can't do books on tape, which was my last attempt. I fall asleep and can't find my way back in the text at which I've forgotten too much. I started a long and complex poem which has a very rich image at its center, one connecting my body to a very old, rare tree, one that appears on first glance to be dead but is alive, one that appears to be very, very strong but is rejected by not being beautiful. I can't make the poem work and need to strip the poem itself bare and just tell a story I know about the tree as simply as I can, but it refuses to be simple.  Instead I maybe need to find another way into poetic materials and actually go read some of the old favorite poets, Mary Karr's recent work and Adrienne Rich's 1980s-90s work has come into my hands as possible sources of inspiration or modeling, which would build on the work of EXAMEN, that worked with other writers and their work. 

Do continue to pray for me, and thank you. One of my SILs dropped off some daffodils after Easter and they are the ones with the tiniest flowers, yellow and white, like the tree they almost seemed dead before they'd gotten born/bloom. But now 5 days later they are definitely in full bloom.. 

Thank you all for remembering me and reaching out and staying in touch. Such faithfulness you have shown me!

xoxo Susan