SPRING - NEW BEGINNINGS

What a day! Spring is everywhere here on the side of a mountain in western NC. I talked with Dr. Gene Hirsch, poet and generous man who lives and works in Pennsylvania most of the year, but comes to his cabin in Cherokee county as often as he can. He said he envied us the pretty weather. "Rain every day here," he said. He is coming south as soon as he can and will be teaching poetry at JCCFS.

I couldn't resist planting a few things this morning - some cucumbers and a few flower seeds. I hoped to get out and work all afternoon, but ran out of steam after lunch and took a long nap. After that BB, Rocky and I went down to the lake.

Peace and quiet supreme. Only the lapping of the waves broke the silence. Water soothes the mind and spirit like watching the flames of a fire dissipates anxiety.

After two extremely busy years, I'm ready to lead a life of quiet and stillness. As a writer, I miss solitude and silence. Sometimes I think I fill my life with busyness to keep my mind from burrowing into those dark holes where I've buried feelings I can't handle at the moment.

I walked alone by the water while Barry, who still limps and walks with a cane, sat with Rocky near the car. The solitude left me wide open to the grief I've tried not to face. Without warning, tears flooded my eyes and hurt slashed me like a dagger. Empathy for Nancy, my brother's wife, mushroomed inside me and almost choked me.

My guilt over avoiding the telephone so I can't hear the loneliness in her voice, didn't help any. As sad as I am, I know her sorrow is a hundred times deeper.
She still expects him to come in the door, she turns to tell him something and he isn't there. When the phone rings, for a split second she thinks it is her husband calling to tell her why he isn't home yet.
And while I know she suffers alone, I can't visit her in that grief, for I know it could be me suffering the same loss.

Tomorrow we will go out and enjoy Spring. We will drive the convertible with the top down and take photographs, eat at places we've not been to before. We'll play lively music and laugh. We will try to pretend for tomorrow that we will never leave each other. We won't think of endings, only beginnings.