Hoping for Words to Flow Like Water

Eureka Springs, Arkansas is the town that water built. Plaques mark the springs on Spring Street, and their entrances look like shrines, the stone arches set off with carefully manicured topiaries and pristine gravel paths bordered with plants. There are benches or stone tables where presumably once upon a time one might have been served the healing waters. Spring Street boasts bath houses that offer healing massages and steam rooms, and the sound of water singing in the limestone bluffs never seems far away.

I'm here to write, not bathe. But I know that words can also can also heal us.

Or dirty us. I'm trying to cut back a bit on reading our national news--or at least choose to read some things that offer a few drops of hope.

Healing Meals

This is just marvelous, the man who loves me says when he sits down to dinner. He smiles at his plate  and gets a faraway dreamy look on his face. Tonight, day four out of the hospital, we had salmon poached in vermouth with dill and roasted cauliflower with sweet red peppers, garlic, and onions. Last night it was spinach and onion quiche (and 2 strips of bacon for that comfort food feel.) Side dishes were squash and beet greens with garlic, sesame oil, and peanuts. The night before that was meatloaf and sweet potatoes and a green salad. The first night home was lentil soup and sourdough bread. He's been so enthusiastic that I feel I'm now my own hard act to follow. Tomorrow night I might have to make this:

Before word gets out that I am a very lazy cook.

From the children's book "A Medieval Feast" written and illustrated by Aliki,

How to Heal

First this happened.

And yesterday, after nine days in the hospital, this. Welcome home committee included Piper, the ancient cat.

Tonight there was even a little music.

The daughter of the man who loves me is staying here, too--and that has been the silver lining--getting to know her a bit. Today she slept and rested most of the day. The relief crash. I'm feeling it, too. The sweet slowdown. The knowing (as much as we can know) that this will all be okay.

We are all burrowed in. Heads full of song. Bellies full of meatloaf. Present full of wellness.

Hello hearbreak, I'm a little busy right now

"Make me a schedule," M. said. " I  want something to do every hour." Heartbreak makes some people want to burrow into bed, I suppose--but not her. My broken heart wouldn't let me sleep either.  I paced. Walked the dogs. Had middle-of-the-night Google extravaganzas. Grabbed onto the Blogospere as if it was a life raft. It helped a lot that I started grad school less than five months later, though I suppose grad school might have been more productive if I hadn't been in needy "overshare" mode.

So M. will be busy. The weeks that she works full days will be easier. Of course the brokeness will just do its broken thing from time to time. That's okay. It will fit itself into the schedule when it needs to. 

And then one day, it won't.