16 degrees on this sun-kissed Sunday, my cat considering the squirrels.
In cancer land, still putting my muscles together, I’m outdoors only with someone else these days, the long solitary walks yet a future promise, again. Early mornings, I brew coffee, fill the cats’ bowls with their breakfast. All day long, we’re filling and emptying things: water glasses and soup bowls and cat dishes (again), filling a notebook page with penciled words, a suitcase with my daughter’s clean clothes as she heads back to college, a new lightbulb in an empty socket.
Likewise, this disease has filled my body for months, now emptying; illness has slipped into every crevice in my family’s life, too, like the power of freeze in a river, rearranging the flow.
In a year that’s begun with so many families losing their homes on the other side of the country, the sunlight on this morning, a chilly walk this afternoon, the cold scraping at my cheeks – yes, yes – a scrap of gratitude for January Vermont sunlight. Here’s line from one of my favorite writers, Andre Dubus, who knew loss keenly.
“We receive and we lose, and we must try to achieve gratitude; and with that gratitude to embrace with whole hearts whatever of life that remains after the losses.”
Stony Soil Vermont 
Sweet baby 😘
It was indeed a blessing to see that beautiful sun today – finally!
Hurray for a little sun!
The power of the sun is stronger than what a sunburn might imply. It can raise hopes and spirits as well as plants and temperature.
I so agree!
What a beautiful kitty!
Thank you! He’s our Acer.
I love that quote! So powerful for this moment in time for me, so many…
Andre Dubus is a terrific writer—now passed on. But very much worth reading.
Wishing you only the best dear 🥰
💛
Two books we read when my daughter had cancer: John R. McFarland’s, ‘Now That I have Cancer I am Whole’ and Erma Bombeck’s ‘I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to go to Boise – Children Surviving Cancer’. I copied many quotes out of both those books and still often think of what I learned from these authors!
I’ll look these up. I always appreciate book recs!
Such a darling boy. Glad to hear you enjoyed your sunny walk.
💛🌞