Teeth Cleaning

The only appointment on my calendar today.  And now, an additional appointment for "deep cleaning" on one tooth.  In two weeks.  They assure me it won't be painful. (Oh!)  G had another very bad episode of pain yesterday evening and wasn't able to go into work this morning to do the paperwork.  He also dropped his cell phone in the toilet.  All his numbers are on the phone. Were on the phone.  Words he says "I can't live like this" echo in my head.  And heart.

This (above) is the final page of my journal.  I can begin a new book (always a very auspicious time) and I think I will try to include line drawings with a bit of colored pencil more often.  Each journal has it's own personality and style.  The one I am just finishing had more color, more new techniques, more art supply trials and more usage of Sharpies, especially the colors, than ever before.  There were even black gesso spreads which look amazing.  I can try a black gesso page with a fine white pencil drawing in the new book.

The shoveling of the driveway yesterday was hard on my back.  Heavy wet ice and slush.  Today is another bright and sunny day in the high 30's.  My heart wishes it were Spring and my head realizes it is only the midwinter thaw; Winter's little joke. I need to be out scraping yet another inch or so of slushy ice off the surface of the driveway.  I am resisting that need.

Because I wash clothes in cold water, and have no hot water, I can still do laundry.  I even sorted, folded and cleaned out G's underwear drawer and threw all 100 of his white cotton handkerchieves in the white wash.  To bleach.  I have a cashmere sweater to hand wash.  I have about a dozen of G's work shirts to iron in case he can ever return to work.  This seems less possible each passing day.

Each evening we seem to shift ever closer to a new, painful, reality.  In my 64 years, I have been, somehow, sheltered from close contact with this type of reality.  I have watched from the sidelines wishing the participants best wishes and hopes for recovery.  This is so much more. Hand to hand combat with fate.  I know that I never truly understood what my friends were going through. You want things to get better, with your whole heart and being, but it doesn't make a bit of difference in the way Fate will play out.

The handkerchieves will be bleached white, ironed and in a neat stack.  Breakfast will be served, chicken soup made and served with extra noodles, the floors vacuumed and mopped, the bed made and every comfort available.  And the dog will be comforted, walked and hugged because he just doesn't understand but knows things are very wrong here at home, with his man.