I am glowing in the dark, radioactive from Ultra sounds and Ct Scans.
But I have a reprieve. The breast lump is probably OK. Dr. D., the surgeon is treating me without surgery.
It's not cancer. He gives me a hug.
I will be here for Christmas. I will cherish life.
I will walk the last park trails.
December 25, 2015 Where Are You Christmas
Faith Hill, from The Grinch
Where are you Christmas
Why can't I find you
Why have you gone away
Where is the laughter
You used to bring me
Why can't I hear the music play
My world is changing
I'm rearranging.
Does that mean Christmas changes too
Where are You Christmas
Do you remember
The one you used to know
I'm not the same one
See what the time's done
Is that why you have to let me go
If there is love
In your heart and mine
You will feel like Christmas all the time
I feel you Christmas
I know I've found you
You never fade away
The joy of Christmas
Stays here inside us
Fills each and every heart with love
Where are you Christmas
Will your heart with love
December 25, 2015
We are gathered around the table once again. We take turns reading verses from Amazing Peace, the Christmas Poem read by the poet Maya Angelou, at the lighting of the National Christmas Tree on December 1, 2005.
...we clap hands and welcome the
Peace of Christmas
We beckon this good season to stay a while
with us
We, Baptist, Buddhist, Methodist, and
Muslim, say come
Peace....
Peace my brother
Peace my sister
Peace my soul.
Monday, December 28, 2015
November 23, 2015 "It's Howdy Doody Time"
Buffalo Bob: "Say, kids, what time is it?
Kids: "It's Howdy Doody Time"
It's Howdy Doody time
It's Howdy Doody time
Bob Smith and Howdy Doo
Say Howdy Doo to you.
Let's give a rousing cheer
Cause Howdy Doody's here.
It's time to start the show
So kids let's go.
Dr. S. looks truly upset as he tells me that I have a large mass in my abdomen and a lump in my left breast.
I am stunned. He gives me a hug.
I go home to settle my affairs.
The next day is Thanksgiving and I look around the table at my much loved children and grandchildren and wonder if I will see another Thanksgiving.
On Black Friday I buy all the Christmas presents, put them in separate large cheerful Santa Claus bags for each family in case they have to pick them up because I am going to be in the hospital. Maybe they can have Christmas dinner in the cafeteria when they visit me, I think. I take nine boxes of books to the Goodwill. For some reason, I feel a temporary rush of happiness and exhileration. I am singing the Howdy Doody song in my head.
My father bought our first TV when I was in elementary school. We watched Kukla, Fran and Ollie and the Howdy Doody Show. There was a transitional screen on Howdy Doody, round like a kalidoscope which would spin around and around. One night I dreamed of that spinning screen and awakened, knowing what the meaning of it was: I was dead. I jumped out of my bed and ran to my sleeping parents, announcing that I was dead.
"No, you are not dead" my startled mother said feeling my forehead, "You are burning up with fever".
My father called Dr. Bundy and he came in the middle of the night and gave me a shot of penicillin. I slept peacefully under my soft quilt.
I have three more hikes to go and I will have hiked each of the forty-seven states parks. I wonder if I can do it.
Kids: "It's Howdy Doody Time"
It's Howdy Doody time
It's Howdy Doody time
Bob Smith and Howdy Doo
Say Howdy Doo to you.
Let's give a rousing cheer
Cause Howdy Doody's here.
It's time to start the show
So kids let's go.
Dr. S. looks truly upset as he tells me that I have a large mass in my abdomen and a lump in my left breast.
I am stunned. He gives me a hug.
I go home to settle my affairs.
The next day is Thanksgiving and I look around the table at my much loved children and grandchildren and wonder if I will see another Thanksgiving.
On Black Friday I buy all the Christmas presents, put them in separate large cheerful Santa Claus bags for each family in case they have to pick them up because I am going to be in the hospital. Maybe they can have Christmas dinner in the cafeteria when they visit me, I think. I take nine boxes of books to the Goodwill. For some reason, I feel a temporary rush of happiness and exhileration. I am singing the Howdy Doody song in my head.
My father bought our first TV when I was in elementary school. We watched Kukla, Fran and Ollie and the Howdy Doody Show. There was a transitional screen on Howdy Doody, round like a kalidoscope which would spin around and around. One night I dreamed of that spinning screen and awakened, knowing what the meaning of it was: I was dead. I jumped out of my bed and ran to my sleeping parents, announcing that I was dead.
"No, you are not dead" my startled mother said feeling my forehead, "You are burning up with fever".
My father called Dr. Bundy and he came in the middle of the night and gave me a shot of penicillin. I slept peacefully under my soft quilt.
I have three more hikes to go and I will have hiked each of the forty-seven states parks. I wonder if I can do it.
October 13, 2015 The Mystery Illness
In Columbia, I dropped James off at his school and as I drove away I was struck by the most astonishing pain: my arms, my legs, my body. I got out of the car and sat on a bench in front of Publix Grocery Store trying to decide if I should go to the emergency room or try to get home. A security guard came and sat with me. A native of Camden, he had worked as a fireman in New York and was there on 9-11. He then came home to retire. The perfect guardian. I was comforted by his presence. The pain subsided and I drove home.
The next day I went to the doctor and was seen by a P.A. who diagnosed me so oddly with pharyngitis and put me on an antibiotic. She told me I had a high white count and my throat looked red. As I was going out the door, she said, "Maybe you should go to the emergency room."
I went home and for the next five days lay on my couch under the frayed soft quilt of my childhood watching true crime shows until I became very depressed and switched to the Food Network.
I had planned to go across I-20 to Hamilton Branch for a hike on Oct. 13, but I am laid low.
The next day I went to the doctor and was seen by a P.A. who diagnosed me so oddly with pharyngitis and put me on an antibiotic. She told me I had a high white count and my throat looked red. As I was going out the door, she said, "Maybe you should go to the emergency room."
I went home and for the next five days lay on my couch under the frayed soft quilt of my childhood watching true crime shows until I became very depressed and switched to the Food Network.
I had planned to go across I-20 to Hamilton Branch for a hike on Oct. 13, but I am laid low.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
November 15, 2015 Calhoun Falls State Park: Alons Enfants de la Patria
Down the I-85 pipeline between Charlotte and Atlanta, there is little traffic on this Sunday morning, except for the Highway Patrol searching cars on the side of the road.
I take the exit for Highway 81 South, the Heritage Corridor, through the upbeat small city of Anderson where there is a big AnMed Hospital, Colleges, restaurants, parks, gentle tree shaded neighborhoods.
In Star and in Iva, hulking against the white cool sky are the monoliths of the past-- the abandoned Owens Corning plant, huge, empty, like a great pyramid from the Egyptian desert and beside it, bizarrely appropriate, an acres wide cemetery open to the winds, bare of trees and shrubs, but tended with plastic flowers by those who have not fled.
In little Iva, the Lydia Mill lies in ruins and is said to be haunted. Comfortable old two story white houses of the Southern type with wrap around porches are scattered here and there.
I drive 30 miles to the Calhoun Falls State Park. "There are no falls" the ranger warns me. "There was a shoals before they built Lake Russell." Lake Russell lies along the great rip in the earth that makes the border between South Carolina and Georgia, the seaward path of the Savannah River with powerful dams and lovely lakes full of fish along the way.
Docked beyond the Ranger's office on the lake are a dozen house boats and pontoon boats. "They lease a space for a year and pay $100 a month" the Ranger says, "Only Dreher Island has a similar docking for lease on the lake." There are restrooms here and big stainless steel tubs with hoses to clean your fish.
The Nature Trail is in the Day Use Area across from the tennis courts. Into the woods, we go into a world of evergreen, cedar, pine, brown and orange. The 1.75 mile trail is fortunately well marked with blue blazes as the ground is well covered with leaves and pine needles. Sometimes you can glimpse silver shinning Lake
Russell, an optical illusion of a higher plateau. In the sky above, a brace of tiny birds folds together in the wind like a sail and is blown away out over the water.
The dog and I are alone here. The ground is covered with bright green moss and pale green lichen which reminds me of my grandmother's dish gardens, made with moss, a wild violet tucked in and sometimes a little statue of Chinese mud people bought from the Five and Ten. Once after the trail loops back to the same path we began on, I leave it onto a dirt road, but Boofa pulls me back in the right direction, a good tracker.
Leaving the park, we are immediately in the tiny town of Calhoun Falls where we turn left onto Highway 72. IF you go to the right, you cross the water into Elberton, Georgia.
The abandoned Westpointe Stevens Mill looms beside the road. This little town with the historic name feels abandoned as well. Only the inhabitants know where inside the lights are warm, the scents of cooking are comforting and life goes on. My brother, the fisherman, tells me that not long ago, there was a large plantation house here, a little motel where he and his buddies would spend the night, a restaurant where they would eat a big breakfast and in the evening enjoy steaks cooked on the grill, baked potatoes and salad.
On the car radio, there are constant reports of the 129 Parisians killed by Isis on Friday night, the Russian plane sent down in flight over the Siani Desert with 224 persons inside, again by Isis. France has closed its borders.
On 98.9 there is Christmas Music, the Trans Siberian Orchestra's Pacobel Canon, like a dirge.
I take the exit for Highway 81 South, the Heritage Corridor, through the upbeat small city of Anderson where there is a big AnMed Hospital, Colleges, restaurants, parks, gentle tree shaded neighborhoods.
In Star and in Iva, hulking against the white cool sky are the monoliths of the past-- the abandoned Owens Corning plant, huge, empty, like a great pyramid from the Egyptian desert and beside it, bizarrely appropriate, an acres wide cemetery open to the winds, bare of trees and shrubs, but tended with plastic flowers by those who have not fled.
In little Iva, the Lydia Mill lies in ruins and is said to be haunted. Comfortable old two story white houses of the Southern type with wrap around porches are scattered here and there.
I drive 30 miles to the Calhoun Falls State Park. "There are no falls" the ranger warns me. "There was a shoals before they built Lake Russell." Lake Russell lies along the great rip in the earth that makes the border between South Carolina and Georgia, the seaward path of the Savannah River with powerful dams and lovely lakes full of fish along the way.
Docked beyond the Ranger's office on the lake are a dozen house boats and pontoon boats. "They lease a space for a year and pay $100 a month" the Ranger says, "Only Dreher Island has a similar docking for lease on the lake." There are restrooms here and big stainless steel tubs with hoses to clean your fish.
The Nature Trail is in the Day Use Area across from the tennis courts. Into the woods, we go into a world of evergreen, cedar, pine, brown and orange. The 1.75 mile trail is fortunately well marked with blue blazes as the ground is well covered with leaves and pine needles. Sometimes you can glimpse silver shinning Lake
Russell, an optical illusion of a higher plateau. In the sky above, a brace of tiny birds folds together in the wind like a sail and is blown away out over the water.
The dog and I are alone here. The ground is covered with bright green moss and pale green lichen which reminds me of my grandmother's dish gardens, made with moss, a wild violet tucked in and sometimes a little statue of Chinese mud people bought from the Five and Ten. Once after the trail loops back to the same path we began on, I leave it onto a dirt road, but Boofa pulls me back in the right direction, a good tracker.
Leaving the park, we are immediately in the tiny town of Calhoun Falls where we turn left onto Highway 72. IF you go to the right, you cross the water into Elberton, Georgia.
The abandoned Westpointe Stevens Mill looms beside the road. This little town with the historic name feels abandoned as well. Only the inhabitants know where inside the lights are warm, the scents of cooking are comforting and life goes on. My brother, the fisherman, tells me that not long ago, there was a large plantation house here, a little motel where he and his buddies would spend the night, a restaurant where they would eat a big breakfast and in the evening enjoy steaks cooked on the grill, baked potatoes and salad.
On the car radio, there are constant reports of the 129 Parisians killed by Isis on Friday night, the Russian plane sent down in flight over the Siani Desert with 224 persons inside, again by Isis. France has closed its borders.
On 98.9 there is Christmas Music, the Trans Siberian Orchestra's Pacobel Canon, like a dirge.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
October 12, 2015 Columbia
"...they give us those nice bright colors
they give us those greens of summer
makes you think all the world's a sunny day
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So, mama, don't take my kodachrome away..."
Kodachrome by Paul Simon
Today, homes destroyed by the floods are being totally taken down and leveled.
Colleen and her neighbor, Liz are gathering photo collections from the ruined houses and attempting to preserve and reclaim them from the waters which have drenched them. (Colleen teaches photography and Liz restores documents for the library at USC).
I have seen some of these snapshots of graduates in their robes holding their diplomas, new babies stretching out on their blankets, yearly Christmas celebrations, the same people getting older, new ones joining, some disappearing, sweethearts hugging in front of their cars, family chronicles beyond value.
they give us those greens of summer
makes you think all the world's a sunny day
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So, mama, don't take my kodachrome away..."
Kodachrome by Paul Simon
Today, homes destroyed by the floods are being totally taken down and leveled.
Colleen and her neighbor, Liz are gathering photo collections from the ruined houses and attempting to preserve and reclaim them from the waters which have drenched them. (Colleen teaches photography and Liz restores documents for the library at USC).
I have seen some of these snapshots of graduates in their robes holding their diplomas, new babies stretching out on their blankets, yearly Christmas celebrations, the same people getting older, new ones joining, some disappearing, sweethearts hugging in front of their cars, family chronicles beyond value.
Friday, October 9, 2015
October 8, 2015 The Columbia Canal
"I have known rivers
I've known rivers ancient as the world
and older than the flow of blood in human veins"
Langston Hughes "The Negroe Speaks of Rivers"
Now where I have so often walked between the Columbia Canal and the Congaree, the canal has broken and flowed over its banks in two places. The banks of the canal where the bodies of the Leetmen workers are burried are exposed and bare. The canal flows into the water treatment plant and is the source of drinking water for half of Richland County. Workmen have tried to shore up the banks unsuccessfully so far and are making efforts to force some of the Congaree flood into the water treatment plant.
Those fortunate ones on higher ground who have not been evacuated have been forced to stay home from work and school are boiling their water and and having neighborhood cookouts. The children think it is fall break and are playing with the friends. There is a communal spirit of survival. From all over the state and far away, clean water is being shipped in.
It is not over. The flood waters are moving quickly down to the Low Country. Georgetown is bracing for the flow of the Pee Dee and Black Rivers into the Waccamaw. Wynyah Bay will be flooded.
I've known rivers ancient as the world
and older than the flow of blood in human veins"
Langston Hughes "The Negroe Speaks of Rivers"
Now where I have so often walked between the Columbia Canal and the Congaree, the canal has broken and flowed over its banks in two places. The banks of the canal where the bodies of the Leetmen workers are burried are exposed and bare. The canal flows into the water treatment plant and is the source of drinking water for half of Richland County. Workmen have tried to shore up the banks unsuccessfully so far and are making efforts to force some of the Congaree flood into the water treatment plant.
Those fortunate ones on higher ground who have not been evacuated have been forced to stay home from work and school are boiling their water and and having neighborhood cookouts. The children think it is fall break and are playing with the friends. There is a communal spirit of survival. From all over the state and far away, clean water is being shipped in.
It is not over. The flood waters are moving quickly down to the Low Country. Georgetown is bracing for the flow of the Pee Dee and Black Rivers into the Waccamaw. Wynyah Bay will be flooded.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
October 2,3,4 Columbia, the One Thousand Year Flood
"All the springs of the vast watery deep were broken and he floodgates of the heavens were opened"
Lying in my bed on Friday night, I listened to the pouring down of water, pouring, pouring, pouring, not driven by the wind, coming straight down in torrents. During the day on Saturday, the downpour lessened, but again on Saturday night, the pouring continued, lessening again during the day Sunday but continuing into the night. On Monday afternoon, there was a space of blue sky and on Tuesday, the rain stopped and the sun appeared over the soakened ground. Across the road from my house, the Lawson's Ford roared over its banks and crashed down the spillway.
The rivers of the Upstate and the mountains are carrying the vast flood to meet in Columbia where they have had two feet of rain. I dreamed that the ghost of my sister came to help with the flood that is enveloping Columbia where Michael and John and their families are staying home, boiling their water and under curfew from 6 pm to 6 am. John takes shifts with the Emergency Staff meeting 24 hours a day in their office near the Farmer's Market on 321.
The watersheds of the Edisto, flowing to the South and The Great Pee Dee flowing from the North are carrying the water to the sea and flooding the towns along the way. Manning is underwater. 19 dams have broken.
The Edisto at Givhans Ferry is calculated to crest on Sunday at 16.5 feet.
In recorded history, there has not been a flood like this in South Carolina. The devastation is worse than Hurricane Hugo
Lying in my bed on Friday night, I listened to the pouring down of water, pouring, pouring, pouring, not driven by the wind, coming straight down in torrents. During the day on Saturday, the downpour lessened, but again on Saturday night, the pouring continued, lessening again during the day Sunday but continuing into the night. On Monday afternoon, there was a space of blue sky and on Tuesday, the rain stopped and the sun appeared over the soakened ground. Across the road from my house, the Lawson's Ford roared over its banks and crashed down the spillway.
The rivers of the Upstate and the mountains are carrying the vast flood to meet in Columbia where they have had two feet of rain. I dreamed that the ghost of my sister came to help with the flood that is enveloping Columbia where Michael and John and their families are staying home, boiling their water and under curfew from 6 pm to 6 am. John takes shifts with the Emergency Staff meeting 24 hours a day in their office near the Farmer's Market on 321.
The watersheds of the Edisto, flowing to the South and The Great Pee Dee flowing from the North are carrying the water to the sea and flooding the towns along the way. Manning is underwater. 19 dams have broken.
The Edisto at Givhans Ferry is calculated to crest on Sunday at 16.5 feet.
In recorded history, there has not been a flood like this in South Carolina. The devastation is worse than Hurricane Hugo
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