Life's bucky horse

Yesterday we went to Boris Jakim's 60th birthday party. I was happy to be there, if only for a couple of hours. Fatigue set in, and I had to go home to rest.

This morning I received an email from a dear friend, Betty, who writes:

David (her husband) had a serious bike accident noon yesterday and is in the Presby ICU (in Pittsburgh). He was riding his challenging route in Highland Park when he had a bad fall involving a dog. Concussion, he understands us but can't speak. They did lots of procedures to assess the damage. Ken (their son) came right over and we went to the hosp. D. was stable at 10 p,m. Amy (their daughter) is coming Tues. evening.

This is more than terrible, because Betty has Parkinson's, suffered from a fall and concussion herself a couple of years ago that took her years to recover from. She needs Dave as much as I need Merwin.

We are (were) expecting these friends to visit us here on the last weekend of this month, but who knows now if that will happen.

It shows, of course, that it isn't only inner mechanisms, like cancer, that can throw you ("Life's Bucky horse" as one writer puts it): we're always fragile and vulnerable. I pray for Dave, Betty and family.

I was thinking of writing today about letting myself go. I got up in the middle of the night to have a snack and to read. I have never done this before. Eating in the middle of the night! I have this "What the hell, why not," attitude. Don't feel any real need to get a mammogram either, or get my teeth cleaned. This is a kind of fatalism that I would like to curb right now in myself. On the other hand, I fully intend to get my wonderful haircut from my dear friend Paul, an excellent craftsman of the scissors!

Anyway, maybe the snack did me good because I woke up feeling ready--Yes!--to go back to my Monday a.m. class at the gym. I hope this lasts long enough for me to get there by 7:40 a.m. Often I wake up feeling really great, totally myself, and then down I go quickly. But I am not going to eat breakfast (I never do before exercise), and will have a cup of coffee, as I always did.

The days are getting short to the big BMB event: tomorrow we go into the City to be there overnight, ready to go to St. Vincent's for the BMB on Wed. morning. I know that INCYTE if it works will only be a palliative, not a cure, but having a smaller spleen, being able to breathe freely, talk without coughing--all those little things will make life easier.

In the meantime, I have finished the essay I was working on and am close to sending it out to a journal, and I have returned to Measure for Measure, which I will edit with my dear friend Laury if all goes well.

More later,
Bernice