A visit to Edgewater Farm

The ghost of Don Cote ... and my own ghosts too... came out amidst the old barn smells of varnish and wood, and the sawdust well-settled from years of sculpting.
An old saddle still perches where Don and I looked it over and decided it was a child's saddle.
It hasn't moved and I didn't touch it. I saw a horse sculpture, not too bad, though most of the rest was little experimental pieces, or things Don started but never finished, sketches done in wood to prepare him for his greater works. I wanted to have the running horse, which is copied from the windvanes that came from a particular 19th Century Morgan Horse. But I thought even to move the dust would be a crime. It looks like Don's old building south of his own may fall into the river this year, but the house he labored on with his team of workers is still there, still perching strongly. Some of the deck may no longer be safe, but we don't want to go there do we? All of us at one time, listening to the creek, and enjoying Don's company and today seems as near to me as that .... I could relive those days on the sun-drenched deck, but I'll
leave some memories undisturbed. I don't want a new experience to overlay the old one. I'm on tiptoe here, sorting through sweet days past. The new owners have used the barn for their own collectibles and the barn has a new coat of paint. The little building on the hill near the entrance has been rebuilt as a kind of showpiece. Dexter's pasture still remains and the grass grows taller there yet, from years of manure and hayseed. This rather surprised me, that manure could still improve the grass 7 years on. Here and there dotting the property, Don's little greek columns and shrines, mysterious rock piles, and an old fence with a rusty lock, guarding what what was once his cash crop. Fenceposts standing in mute testimony.... a bare patch in the driveway and an oil stain where the blue truck has only recently been removed ... removed from the exact spot where Don last drove it. With Don dying so suddenly in 2001, and the property only sparingly used, there is a perfect time-capsule to open and muse on, to feel timeless penumbras flitting elegantly through the early mist, while the ancient river turns its glacial tills and slowly polishes another rock.

pvs

Came through just fine

I survived my surgery, first 2 days had a slight fever but it wasn't awful. Some neck pain, some changes of sleeping position. I moved too much in the operating room so they had to put me out.... which means I had a trachea tube and my trachea has been mildly sore, weird when I burp. I can't say this is a horrible operation. I started on .125 mcg synthroid already.
I'm feeling pretty much ok, a little tired at times, a little winded going up hill. I thought I should just update my blog for those who are following the thyroid cancer thread and need hope, help, guidance, whatever. I did have to wait 9 hours before they took me into the operating room.
You actually walk into the operating room and hop on the table... that's a novelty. Minimally invasive seemed to be the way to go here... 2" scar or 5" scar... hmmmm. not too hard.
Think they got all the cancer but pathology will reveal whether there is anything microscopic.
Took one parathyroid and several nearby lymph nodes to play it safe. /Paul

Thyroid-3 days and counting

My dream last night was about a large bee shaped likea dragonfly that bites and if it bites, eventually itbecomes an alligator and takes over the body. Onelanded on my mother's back and I swatted it off...then I turned and told her to look too... There was apale white snake with cold eyes but inside the snakewas an alligator walking within the snake's body.I saw the legs and the head sticking out the front ofthe snake. I turned with a stick to fight thealligator and I saw him through a slit in the side ofthe snake, a giant writhing beast. I took the stickand went to stab the gator... then I woke up.Well we all know what the slit is, and only throughthe slit in the side of my body, can they attack thebeast. I've read online where people can have thiscancer for decades and live a normal life. Well you are in rare form. I feel like I'm in the Garden of Gethsemane. The agony in the garden.Oh well, I'm in the last 1/3 part of my life.I remember 30 years ago so well. Images flashingbefore me, sacred images... I just had a flashback to my first day at college... the nervousness and fear.The years roll away and it's a warm day in late Augustin 1976. The dorm was depressing. By nightfall Ihad attended my first party and the first few dayswere no classes and generally fun. But part of mejust wanted to go on with my previous life.It's weird to think that between that day and now, that's the lion's share of my life! Another 30 is notimpossible but I'm feeling very 2/3rd today.I feel like my individual soul will die when I die andit merges with a group soul that keeps spinning outnew lifetimes. Nothing is totally lost, thoughindividual artifacts of personhood that are merequirks of the temporal become subsumed into the one, but forever accessible. Whatever I lose in 3 days, I lose, but it won't stop me from walking this earth and enjoying this Spring. I've been helped along with little dreams the wholeway, 3 so-far. At every major stressor point, a dream comes out to show the way.

pvs