Ah, September… right on cue, the temperature has dropped, the air freshened, and it’s a pleasure to walk outside again – at least for now, I know the heat will return soon for the usual Indian summer…
Speaking of returning, I just got back from a short but idyllic spell up in the Adirondacks. Having got through the first chapter of chemo treatments, I was rewarded with a week off, and hightailed it up to the mountains to stay with friends in their cabin deep in the woods of far upstate New York. They bought a chunk of land up there some years ago, steep and fully forested, logged a clearing and, with the wood generated from the clearing, built (themselves) 3 beautiful cabins. Hurrah for the simple life. She writes, he spends his days on his tractor, when not sculpting, landscaping and husbanding the forest – thinning it out to let in the light, and dragging large boulders hither and yon to create contours and shade for beds of wild flowers. I also witnessed the highly skilled removal of a very tall tree (it was threatening the bath house) with the aid of ropes and pulleys and the great skill of a mountain man tree climber…
Deep blue sky, hot sun in the clearing, dappled sunshine through the canopy of a million different shades of green, the sound of the creek nearby a constant companion – a little slice of heaven. I slept a lot, read a lot, walked further every day through the woods, admiring the endless variety of funghi and shades of green from conifer, maple, oak and birch, and I creek dipped morning and evening. Who needs hot water? (It is there if needed – life up there may be simple, but it’s not primitive, other than the outhouse, which is pleasingly so…)
Session #3 fairly wiped me out, but I feel much more like I do now than I did when I went up there, and am ready for chapter 2 to start next week. One quarter down, 3 to go! Most of my hair is already gone, as I was warned, but luckily bald is a fashion statement, and I plan to shave the rest off on Monday (Labor Day, a suitable day for such endeavours, I think) and will start wearing hats and big earrings – I think I might get me a really fun wig for the Kamikaze gig at the end of the month, perhaps a return to the electric blue Louise Brooks… I also have a wonderful ESP crown to wear during the sessions, courtesy of my fairy godmother, which I am slowly decorating, a jewel for every session – with 12 points to the crown, I will be throughly bejeweled by the time I’m done – if you’ve got lemons, make lemonade…
Meanwhile the political circus continues. I can hardly bear to listen to the news… but I think I must gird my loins and prepare to watch the first debate – this is actually happening, whether I like it or not… I feel like there is a tsunami of change headed our way and am trying to figure out the best way to deal with it… more lemonade, anyone?