Update from the Cloister

See enough and write it down

Joan Didion

Can I tell you who Sophie is and how I know? Can I tell you that she looks directly at me, her eyes dark pools her life behind them something vast even as it is cloistered? She loves the way trees blow in the wind the feel of beads slipping through her fingers like water and water, the ebb and flow of ocean tide. These days, even as she struggles to move, her left leg dragging, her eyes are as piercing as they've ever been. What is that?

Here's the plan: Wean the Onfi. She is over-medicated with it, the drug that I suspect is the culprit in her decline. Order The Ashton Manual (thank you Christy!) Play with the CBD oil and add in a bit of THC.  Be grateful for the grace of friends, for mindfulness meditation, for love and resilience and the strength of the heart. 

Onfi needs another name, a moniker of dread and dependency. I took away a small bit nearly two weeks ago, and this weekend was an extraordinary one. Sophie ate well, swallowed well, reached for her cup and drank well. She walked down the street with me and always her gaze -- her clear and resolute gaze. No seizures.

What Wings Sound Like

Fra Angelico: The Annunciation
Florence, Italy

I have always wondered whether Mary heard Gabriel's wings when he landed in the courtyard and what sort of sound they made. Was it a rustle belying sinew and skin pulled tight over cartilage and bone until he landed, a skid and thud? Blue-bled at the tips, fading inward. She drew back, then, afraid. Or did they whisper like the drapes pulled out of marble by some sculptor insistent on revelation?  She leaned forward, then, resigned.

The hedge outside my bedroom is full of nests. I have never noticed just how many birds live among us. I am drawn to the nubs that emerge from human backs, wings not yet pointed with only a suggestion of flight.