#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

So let us pick up the stones over which we stumble, friends, and build altars. Let us listen to the sound of breath in our bodies. Let us listen to the sounds of our own voices, of our own names, of our own fears. Let’s claw ourselves out from the graves we’ve dug. Let’s lick the earth from our fingers. Let us look up and out and around. The world is big and wide and wild and wonderful and wicked, and our lives are murky, magnificent, malleable, and full of meaning. . .

~ Padraig O Tuama

Always fresher after rain. The grapevine frame the river view. The foliage slowly emerges. The ferns are rusting so pleasantly and there are bright red leaves strew over the quiet path. I walked through the wide un-mowed meadow. So many birds in the trees after the berries. I went to the market after and bought a black pastrami reuben sandwich and drove to visit my uncle in assisted living. My cousin, his daughter, told me how much he’d enjoyed the reuben I’d brought him recently when I had a final visit with my aunt, his wife. And I brought his favorite cookies, too, not homemade, but well made, I’m sure. I was very happy to surprise him. We sat in his living room and chatted. He wanted to hear an update on my life, but I really wanted to hear an update on his. I wanted to hear about what he wanted to share. The wedding picture of him and my aunt is framed and sat prominently in the room across from the couch and he pointed at it more than once. Married for sixty-eight years! We took a deep dive into the decades of their partnership. What he noted, more than once, was how they brought such different, and such necessary, and valuable things into each other’s worlds. One very practical thing I got to do for him. Uber. An old friend who visited him the day before had told him he should give up his car, and stop driving. I could tell he wanted to take the advice seriously. So, we got the Uber app onto his phone and all set up, and he was relieved that if gave up driving he would have a way of getting around. So, let’s see if he uses it. After the visit I drove to Farm Pond. Some swimmers are wearing wet suits now, but they are absolutely not necessary. These late September swims are some of the best I’ve had all summer. I swam from the beach out to and around the island, passing my friend’s dock, missing her, and it got very windy and choppy, but it was plenty warm, and I swam through the chop and back to the serene surface nearer the beach. Perfect afternoon, perfect Sunday. And even a long nap.