A few years back when my youngest was doing odd jobs, she came home with four strawberry plants someone had given her from a garden she weeded. Naturally, I planted these in our garden. The plants spread and have produced beautifully this year. I crouch beside these weedy plants and devour red berries. The crop is so small no berries ever make it into the house. Since it’s usually just me here these days, I eat in the garden. I’m famished for this sweet food. I devour the strawberries, juice dripping down my chin.
I’m ravenous for the sharp June sun, for this morning’s cold dumping rain, for my daily midday reading break, for the purring cats who clamor across my keyboard. Healing from cancer, I’m supposed to sleep (get seven to nine hours!) but, come that glimmer of gold at the horizon, I’m finished with bed, hungry for coffee, oatmeal, maple syrup. Eager to finish my novel revisions.
In those months of chemo, I’d worried my mind and imagination might dull, my fierceness lessen. Six weeks out from surgery, I’m diminished in body but a peculiar power blooms in me. A determination to do what I want. An impatience with artifice. Don’t waste my time.
And yet, the old haste that plagued my days and nights has quelled. Stopping by my neighbor’s, I sink into her armchair, set my feet on her footstool, listen, let the day’s exhaustion drape around me. That fatigue is now familiar to me as the blanket a stranger gifted me at the beginning of this cancer journey. We talk and talk, then wander outside and keep on with these conversational matters, the color of paint she’s considering for her house’s clapboards, how to encourage Columbine to grow among the phlox.
This time, I really want to listen…. I’ve spent my life mistaking instinct for fact, subjective experience for reality. What a waste of time here on earth to spend it as a slave to one story, how boring and repetitive, how many of our days are spent in chains.
From Sarah Gilmartin’s Service.
Stony Soil Vermont 
Grow strong in that calm vigor, my friend.
Thank you!
A couple things, at least, make you more aware of living right now, and what’s important: aging and illness. The older I get, the less I care about minutiae.
So true…. And if you’re going to live, you will age.
So much to enjoy in your words during your convalescence. I wish you well… Those strawberries and the short breaks you took with feet up ‘read’ like mini vacations for me, too. You’ve captured summer, and are thriving with your inability to waste any more moments/time/energy. Inspiring, too.
Happy you enjoyed these mini-vacations. The strawberries were delicious.
I really love this — this resonates with me:
I’m on a similar timeline; my last year was also dominated by cancer treatment (chemo, radiation, two surgeries). To actually be done with all that, with clear scans, and the port recently removed from my chest — I am profoundly grateful. My mind definitely dulled during chemo (unfortunately it really seemed to impact me on a cognitive level) but I do seem to have waken up from all that. And yes, I too have come out the other side with a sort of energy that wasn’t there before. Post-treatment vitality: I’m trying to make the most of it!
My best wishes to you on your recovery journey, too…. And that you’re on the other side.
I love reading your reflections! Millicent Flakehttp://www.maflake.com 706-260-8665
Thank you!!
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We used to have farms here where we could get all sorts of fresh crops. Now, we’re too built up.
Tonight, on an evening walk with Waelyn, as thrush song echoed through the woods and woodpecker chicks squawked for their dinner, I thought of how lovely it would be to share those moments in nature with you. Words are an amazing gift. Thank you for sharing your gifts with us! 💗