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I went away for a week and ended up staying a month. Sometimes things happen that you just don’t plan for.

S. is home after 15 days in two hospitals, not quite in the same condition as when she went in. It’s rather disconcerting when the top neurologists can’t decide on a diagnosis, but the suggested one is tranverse myelitis. Transverse Myelitis is a rare neurological disorder for which there is no effective cure. About a third of those afflicted experience good or full recovery; a third are left with significant deficits; and a third show no recovery or get worse. We don’t yet know into which category S. falls. They can’t do a biopsy because it’s IN the spinal cord, and so, way too dangerous to operate. Meanwhile, life goes on … with limited functioning, loss of income and only questions regarding the future. But we are hopeful.

Meanwhile, I got to bond with the grandbubs, especially GB #1.

Kid-facts learned from conversations walking on the way to Kindergarten:

You can put a ladybug in the plastic bag containing your inch-worm collection and not worry about them eating each other because … “They’re cousins.”

If you touch poison ivy, your fingernails will fall off and you will die.

A tennis-ball whose outer skin has gotten wet has forever lost its bounciness and will no longer bounce the same, even if you dry it out. Its bounce-force will never come back.

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I have enjoyed the little morning walks, through shady lanes under towering pines and spruces, past the manicured lawns of mansion-sized houses on the way to the crumbling high-school-turned-elementary-school that is falling apart, for which they don’t have the money to rebuild.

I got to bed earlier, but still woke up exhausted.
I walked more and lost 5 lbs.
I missed my mate and hearing spoken French.
I was torn between needing to stay and having to leave.
The sounds and images of there still play in my head.

Woke up the first morning I was back, disoriented, thinking I was still there, in Massachusetts.

I miss seeing their little faces--I, J, and V--hearing them laugh and watching them play. I miss breakfast talks with S. I wish I had had more time to visit with A. I miss the daily morning walks to the school.

Here, there, here, there, it’s all a big tangled mesh.

Now, four days later, it’s as if I’d never left. Almost. Time and physical distance are such disorienters. So many images/perceptions accumulated, I don’t know where to start—or even if I will. I’ve missed reading and writing. The arrival of Spring in the back yard.

The small notebook I took has not a single space available. It contains to-do lists, budget projections, telephone numbers, grocery getables, hastily scribbled recipes, herbal formulas, contact reminders, overdue library book dates, bus schedules, rideshare references and occasional “jottings” of a more creative nature. Not even one space left even in the cramped margins.

Getable, as a noun. Not "It is getable" (able to be gotten) but "It's a getable" (i.e., a thing that you can get). It sounds like something Abu's creator would say. [Abu is a fictional character created by another fictional character in an unpublished short story, sitting in my desk drawer, begging for revision.]

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