The wheels are in motion and travel is in the offing – for the next phase of my recovery, my pilgrimage towards fuller, or better yet, total recovery. During these past few days, I’ve managed to pack a lot in, perhaps to as a way of marking yet another transition:
A friend and I drove through a neighborhood billowy cherry blossoms and non-fruit-bearing pear trees in their finest mid-bloom moments. As per tradition, children were posted at lemonade stands on sidewalks and gardens, adding a note of whimsy to the floral festivities.
I spent part of the weekend with OJ at a retreat in the country, where we hiked in the woods; I, sans cane (!). Then I spotted a snake – and subsequently found a tic crawling up my leg. We played Bananagrams, napped under the shade of the magnolia, dined on scrumptious food and walked in silence through the garden’s labyrinth.
I visited my distant cousin yesterday to say goodbye, not entirely sure if and when I would see him again. Leon, at 95 years old, still reads without glasses, sports a tightly-wound silver bun tucked neatly under a golf cap, engages me in intelligent and thought-provoking conversation, inquires about my rehabilitation and plans and offers snacks, photo albums and a big send-off hug.
This morning, as I swam towards the pool’s deep end, I looked up as I always do to the blackboard on the side wall – on which lifeguards and swimmers usually scribble jokes, cartoons and race-times – and saw the word Thailand written across the bottom in large letters, partly framed by a Buddhist script symbol that I could not decipher. How odd, because here I would have expected to see that someone had written Florida.
And tonight: A homegrown cello performance, a sleepy karate demonstration, balance ball exercises to build more core strength, laundry, homework, packing and a late-night winding-down, we are heading slowly but eventually to bed.
The healing-adventure continues still.
Healing Pilgrim 