With or without art, sometimes. Solve one thing and while you are holding that thing together something else creaks and crumbles behind you. I remember vowing no negativity and next thing you know my last type here was mid-October. Day by day we measured whether or not to go on vacation later that month...I was sick in one way or another all the time...we went and didn't regret it. Cape Cod has a healing effect for me, and has served as cure more than once, and I haven't been able to spend much time with the photos I took to add to my "sketch later" pile, but it is the quality of light that brings me back to North Truro, year after year. I could feel it even through my closed eyelids in those short days, but it shines through in the photos, and I am glad I opened my eyes long enough to snap the shutter. As always I got my falling stars, and a sunrise, with the ocean at my feet. This year's Christmas card from the cottages' owners, the Greenes, has a photo of a stubborn wildflower dug in stairs up the dune, and that is who we are this year too. With CT gay marriage legal it seemed a good time for us to set a wedding date. Our plans are modest...a close few to share. After more than a couple of decades "out" it seems sentimental but still important to speak a vow, though none are needed. Unspoken has served us well too.
November brought the election of a lifetime and news and news and news...I wept the weekend of my birthday when I found a way to make wedding rings for Donna and I and 2009 (rings up to my standards!), and wept more that month in sorrow and joy than in a very long time. Sharing our news (and dealing with the reprocussions) made me set the modest wedding plans aside, and weeks without decent sleep due to more and more severe back pain took a huge toll. Several people were the recipients of long, rambling e-mails. To not stretch my electronic ties further, I stayed away from the computer until today. It has been the most insane of sane times in my life. Maybe I even courted madness briefly...desperate for an excuse to get away from myself.
December has brought the gift of cards and letters, updates from our all-over people. December brought much-needed back surgery, and we will have a very quiet holiday. Let me just say that medical technology is amazing and I am recovering spectacularly (time to get out of the chair now, though), and our health-care system is insane. The surgery was the 17th. On the morning of the 19th a passing doc gave me a quick nod and I caught the fast train...my folks and our van...to recovery OUTSIDE the haunted hospital halls.
Cassandra is starting to make her meows louder. If I am up she wants a lap. So Donna can keep sleeping for that one more day of work before she can be home for a week I will quiet her by quieting me. There is too much fun for kitties here and this is not my office!
2009 will be as amazing and more productive than ever...with only physical recovery for me...and whatever else lies wait. I have hope...even in uncertain times. Hope will carry all of us.
