I woke up this morning to a young man in our cherry tree, picking the cherries. I have no idea how young he was (at my age, almost everyone is "young") but he was certainly agile enough to have shimmied up the tree and made a safe perch for himself in the crook of one of the branches.
Apparently he'd rung the doorbell or knocked, but we slept through it (thank you, magical gummies) so we hadn't given permission. Still, no part of me wanted to reprimand him for "trespassing." He looked so natural, and so happy, up there that all I wanted was for him to be safe and not fall.
I waited for about five minutes, then went out to introduce myself and tell him how pleased I was that he was making use of fruit that would otherwise lie fallow, or feed the squirrels (not that there's anything wrong with that, either.)
There was something so perfectly "summer," so perfectly natural, so organic, and so perfectly beneficent, in his presence there. Youth is, among other things, for being limber and deft and athletic enough to shimmy up a stranger's cherry tree and harvest. I was glad for his presence, and honestly felt blessed by it.
The goodness of the day continued apace with the magnificent news (and complete surprise) that my best friend, whom I have not seen in two and a half years is not only in this part of the world, but that we will see each other in a matter of weeks when he flies up to Toronto from his film set in Ottawa for a visit. Next week is set to be a fairly medicalized one, so having a reunion with Ron to look forward to is yet another gift that fell out of the morning sky, entirely unexpectedly.
I got a haircut this afternoon. I'm not anticipating hair-loss on this chemo protocol, but they tell me it can get thinner and drier, so I thought I might get a jump on the whole mess. Joe, who cuts it, has been my friend for longer than I've been married, so a check-in with him is really a visit with an old friend at least as much as it is an exercise in making me presentable.
After the haircut, I took a cab downtown to get something to eat. The cab driver was a New Country fan, and we drove down Yonge Street incongruously blasting Paul Brandt and Brad Paisley and I took in the signs of summer at every turn, particularly the wonderful ease and speed of the youth as they move through the month. Like the boy in the cherry tree this morning, I was unaccountably and powerfully moved the rush of life all around me, and it fed my soul in a way.
At the restaurant, I re-read May Sarton's Journal of a Solitude and had a brief check-in phone conversation with my family in Nova Scotia, which always anchors me to who I am, who I love, and what my history is.
When I arrived home, I took Beckett out to the park. The temperature has mellowed and the humidity was gone, so it was intensely pleasurable to be outside again. We went to the top of the hill brow overlooking the Riverdale Park bowl and parked ourselves there on the grass. I combed his fur with my fingers and we both watched the dogs and frisbee players below as the sun started to set.
To my delight, I was joined by an old friend I hadn't seen in awhile. She's a woman I've always admired for her intelligence and the dryness of her delivery. I hadn't known that she was also a cancer survivor, and we had one of those marvellous talks I'm growing used to with women who are either survivors themselves, or in treatment as I am, where useful and practical information and advice is shared as naturally as our mothers' generation shared recipes.
It's almost 9:00 p.m., and I'm wondering why today feels like one of the best days I've ever had.
One of the surprising side-effects of this cancer has been the shredding of several layers of numbing "protection" between events and my reaction to them. Tears seem much more at the ready, but so is laughter, so is tenderness, and so is pure wonder at the beauty and preciousness of life, and how lucky I am to be in it.
I'm not high, or drunk, or even especially tired, so I have to assume that the good feelings I have right now are legitimate, and that everything between the young man trespassing in our cherry tree and Beckett and I watching the sun set at the top of the hill was as good and wholesome and nurturing as it seems to have been.
Today's lesson? Look for the gold in your waking hours. It's most likely there, but if you're not open to it, you'll walk right past it, lost in self-indulgence, or self-pity, or even just clueless, harmless ambivalence.
There's so much beauty out there, and it's all free.
