Stars in the sky

Finally, a streak of good weather for at least a few days. No rain--just cool nights and warm days.  I will be on the boat for the weekend which is good.  I am needing to get my share of boat days in, which have seemed amazingly short over the past few weeks.

We have been working in the yard and garden quite a bit. The strawberries are ripe, and they have been good with our breakfast in the morning. The blueberries are plentiful but not ready yet.  I ordered some blackberry plants that will be great for next year. It's time to pick them along the hedgerows now.

My cousin continues to languish in an intensive care unit.  Skeletal and with pneumonia now, I am hoping that his slow death will end soon.  I continue to marvel at what we do to keep those we love alive because not having them seems to be the most frightening thing of all. Perhaps, it's because we cut ourselves off from others, give up friends, and become obsessive about a person.  I see that tendency in myself so I recognize it and am all too familiar with seclusions seductiveness.

My father-in-law is much loved by a large African American nurse who cares for him.  She clucks over him, making sure that he is eating something soft, trying to get calorie enriched drinks into him.  He talks to her and tells her things about himself and his wife.  And yet, he still doesn't want to say but a few words to me or to my wife.  I know that it hurts C., but she is resigned to the fact that he was not much of a father to her ever.

Their history is one that had a lot of upheaval.  And she still has flashbacks of being a child in the midst of their arguments, powerless to do anything but hide, scream or cry for them to stop.  I don't know why he has chosen to shun her now.  But we both still go to see him, repeating the same visits over and over, hoping for different results.  The only thing that has changed is that we don't go as often, only a couple of times a week now. Insanity kept to a minimum level of damage.

My home group meeting has even had its share of upheaval lately.  One lady got her nose out of joint about how the meeting was conducted by a person chairing.  And evidently there is still some resentment hanging around, even after an amends.  I can sit still with the tension and share because this ultimately is not my problem to solve.  I simply get weary of the shortcomings that suck the joy out of something that is meant to be healing.

So I am happy with my plants, going to the gym, journaling, doing some photography, and sitting on the deck in the cool of the evening to watch the stars in the night sky.

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” ― Carl Sagan