Heirloom Apple On The Tree Photo

Along the crumbling stone wall,

beyond the back fields,

grows the persistent remains of an old Apple Tree

with ripening newborne fruit on ancient gnarled branches.

Fibromyalgia

I’ve always been considered ’sickly’. Now in my mid forties I find the issues of my youth are slamming up against the issues of aging. Feeling a bit battered between the two I haven’t been contributing much beyond photographs to my blog since August.

Brain fog seems to reign these days and my body limps along without ease. I should have bounced back from my bout with Bronchitis in January but most days are still sedentary with knitting in my lap.

Finally, a Fibromyalgia diagnosis fits all the pieces of forty-plus years of pain and illness into one picture that I now see complete . I could only see the edges of a pile of intricate pieces before reading about Fibromyalgia.

Physical therapy, specifically Aquatic Therapy is my saving grace. Twice a week, when I am able, I work out in 92 degree F water. Being released from gravity for an hour in warm water is so beneficial for emotional as well as physical well being.

Well being is the bottom line.

Animal trail in Maine Snow

I have altered this photo to try and enhance the prints in the snow.

You can see that this trail is used by different animals over different periods of time.

Fryeburg Fair: Showstopping Farm Animals

Endometriosis

I had a complete hysterectomy when I was 28 years old. I began having pelvic pain and related issues by the time I was 14 years old, and after many years of medications, surgeries, herbalists, meditation…anything…including six months on a Prostate Cancer treatment…before reaching the conclusion that a hysterectomy was the only remaining answer for me.

I do not have children. I chose not to have children. Having a condition with no cure and minimal relief, plus the enormous fact that Endometriosis is hereditary…I was not willing to pass this chronic, quality of life altering condition on to another woman.

I know the ache in your uterus to have a child, a baby in your belly, a living connection to a lover, but I also am intelligent enough to know the facts. Facts about how deleterious Endo can be to a relationship, a career, responsibilities, joy. I know the pain of Endo that can make you question your ability to remain sane through a bad day.

Wind Beneath Wings

Today, we took a break from work to try to get our kite to fly out in the recently mowed hay field. The wind switched directions several times, and though our kite flew, it was short lived and a struggle to keep the wind beneath it’s wings.

It was a delight to forget the challenges and weights of life while looking skyward and feeling the pull of the wind’s energy wanting to take the kite higher and higher. Alas, the length of our kite string held our colorful toy too low to rise into the currents enjoyed by the gliding birds who were also enjoying a beautiful September afternoon on the cusp of cold weather.

Above and Below

New life for old mills

Old shoe factories and woolen mills  in the northeast are finding new life as studios for artists and craftspeople.

Many are private work spaces, but retail shops are finding a home in these brick buildings as well as Yoga or dance and martial arts studios.

Other defunct mill factories are being renovated as apartments and a growing number are geared towards the baby boomers looking for elderly housing.

Wood warms you twice

We got our delivery of fire wood this week.

Old timers say that wood warms you twice.

Once when you stack it and once when you burn it.

I have already had a couple two or three fires in the wood stove this summer.

With all the rain and being so close to the coast, the damp air can make you shiver in August.

Eulogy

Why is it our society commemorates a man after his death rather than while the physical body is alive. I think it is easier for people to wait until someone has died to rally their feelings and thoughts to the surface. It is easier to put on a black suit and take time from work to attend a funeral than to show up in jeans to the hospital. Just show up. Hold a hand, hold a crying relative, hold your tongue about how you would handle it differently.

We fear death. We fear the face of death that alters the features of a person. We fear the tubes and machinery hooked up to a frail wisp of a person, nearly unrecognizable as being the robust man they had been before death gripped them by the wrist and wouldn’t let go.

The struggle against death is never pretty. It seems the inevitable is denied and hope is a carrot just out of reach that withers along with the condemned.

But death comes to us all, regardless of health care, regardless of choices made, regardless of loved ones who cling to the belief that they are being left. Left an orphan, left missing half of their selves, left without, begging the dying to not leave them here alone.

It is easier to remember him as he was in his strength…but wouldn’t he have filled with peace, with joy, with tears, for all the respect, love, and loss that is felt with the passing of such as he?