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| Evening walk last week. |
I'm alive and I live in paradise.
For more than a year I've been wrestling.
Swollen joints.(They went away; yesterday the swollen knees and ankles came back) A hoarse voice.
Grief.
Musing over Dan's central tenet. You're doing the best that you can. Really, you did the best that you could at the time. Really really, you did the best that you could at the time with what you knew at the time.
Really?
I am alive and I live in paradise.
My voice is unreliable. Is that the same as an unreliable narrator?
Why am I not working on a writing project right now?
Some days I can barely make myself understood. In places that I go regularly, people know to lean closer. Other days I clear my throat a million times. The phlegm lady.
Yes, I've been to doctors.
Hooray, I'll be on Medicare in November.
The lungs are the seat of grief, the acupuncturist says. Okay.
The Integrated Medicine doc says no dairy and gluten. Sometimes I cheat on the dairy.
What do you do with grief when you're grieving over a dead person while taking care of a dying person?
Wow, wasn't that like, a long time ago?
No.
I am alive and I live in paradise.
Paradise itself is struggling.
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| Starting in the lower right foreground, notice the white bumps, and follow them into the distance. These are the breasts of western grebes, poisoned by domoic acid. The Pacific loons, cormorants, and pelicans are darker and cannot be distinguished in the photograph. |
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| The beach, early morning, after the winds have subsided. |
