you say this is christmas

It's actually christmas plus four days. I'm sitting inside our glass castle, just cat and I, awaiting another sunrise. Sometimes I wonder; sometimes I try to guess or estimate how many more sunrises I'll get. How the numbers range: doctors don't/won't tell, "you understand that each cancer patient and their prognosis is different", research: one year to two stats suggest...time, worry, distractions. Pulling me away from this day, this morning's edge of grey skyline, these blended mute shades of desert scrub and distant butte. Pale blue ceiling of star empty sky, lighter now than when I even began these words. I wonder, does another sun rise inside us, an awakening or early light that sets the long day of our life with the same hope and beauty and promise I find in each dawning day? Sometimes I feel, in memory, a similar dawn. My warming families by birth and marriage and parenting, my childhood of dreams and endless, sky-infinte words, how I discovered that reading was the spreading wamth of a sun's illumination with a light that strikes all our reasoning, all our future horizons and shows more real the desert scrub and distant buttes that we reach for and wander thru later in life. I love sunrise. And I'll have as many as this long day of life allows. Sunlight dismisses distractions, worry and time.
Ok, the light is off the the edge and it's time to talk about what was most recently good and interesting. Isn't that why you read these blogs?
What's that song? "I went to a canyon party, and much to my surprise, memories and near retirees' dancing to old rock n' roll?" Maybe it that other tune? "Saturday night at the ET, who cares what picture you see?" So much fun. Peg, after spending a day with Laura and Wendy and Sheila primping and pimping, reminded me of the power of a little black dress. Peggy sue you looked beautiful. i wanted to strut and sway like a lusty young peacock. But hey, at the party, "The joint was jumping, and we went round and round" - thru dinner and dessert and a few drinks, I danced half of every third song, thank you very much. I felt good. Later in the evening, I tired. So I sat, and chatted and shared stories and smiles with so many happy folks, that I thought I was sitting at a happy, happy, joy, joy banquet. we stayed late and after a late burst of energy, like a shadow of Ken ( I can lift you higher!) Phillips, I danced like there was no tomorrow, no sunrise ahead of me or any of the dancing devils, feeling only a liviness of laughter and love that shared moments of joy create.
I know Precious Peggy and I are lucky; cus dog-gone it, people like us. Thank you canyon cousins, your love is as real and deep as the wonderland you live beside. I will be at the Christmas Rotary dance, next year, and that's lot of sunrises isn't it?. I'll stop off here as the bright light of memory is making my eyes feel funny...
See you next sunrise, laughter and love, marcus

ho, ho....where'd the other ho go?

Celebrate. Ya' teeh kess-messh. I Feel Good. Laughed until my cheeks ached. How to do that when you're dealing with powerful disease like Kancer?
HERE IS HOW IT'S DONE: Be one with: family, friends and phone calls. Sunday morning, the sun yet to stretch its warmth and light here at home, and the house is quiet despite nine sleeping relatives here from Iowa and Ill. They are scattered about the house at this hour and not a relative is stirring 'cept my little mouse--er. Lucky-Cat Friar Brian here for 4 weeks now and this kitty's a keeper. He lays quietly on my lap, eats but little, mimes his meows and hides for thirty min. when company comes over and yet he still receives constant attention and pleasantries. Makes me jealous.
But jealous might others be from how I've being treated. Ten days or so ago I was invited to a "blessed, blessed night" at our neighbors, Lisa and Pat Horning, where scrumptious food and festive planning had been afoot. Early evening - school night and Peg-and-I and Mandy walk into their kool haybale homestead. Low and high I see a huge banners, with a funny pictures and paper cut-out snow flakes writen with "Get better", "We miss you at school", and "The Bestest?" Standing around the Horning's southwest wonder-room are dozens of my students from Page high school. They greet me: cheering and laughing and hugging me with smiles if not smilies. Other snowflake cutouts carry other memories: High Fives, Most Awesome Music, You Go Girl, Ight, waz up G? and my favoirite: "Will you please stop your excessive blabbering?" I guess they must of learned something in all those years, more true now are what I underestand of Louie A's lyrics "They're really saying 'I Love You'". So for a short slice of this wonderful life I was treated to 2-3 hours of sharing, laughter, spagetti, salad, garlic-cheese bread, and dessert after dessert after cookies. And the school night played on. The roses I received still smell as sweet! Students,(that includes all of us humans) time to take some notes. Write this down in your heart. It's important, not for school or a report card but it will help for living the "A" life. Students, friends and family you gave me an evening that fill the tip-top of my misty, happy heart. Filled me to the tip-top of my contentment and satisifation quotient. You gave me strong medicine even if it limited my thanks to one, teary eyed sentence..."Laughter and learning is the best combination". That thought is what brought us together and binds us; that is the receipe for creating love and caring. Thank and bless each every one of us.

More jealous others may be. Two days later my brother, Peter< and Richard from France, putted across Lake Powell for a 3 hour tour. Boat ran perfecto; weather outside was frightful, water dead-flat and wind calm but the atomosphere a chilling 30' and threating snow. I did my tour spiel and a dam drive by, told the usual flood story of 1983 and blah, blah, blah...but wait, is that a bald eagle watching from the red sandstone hoodoo? Yep. Sitting still as the stone, and posing for photos as we idled past. 20 min later, on the return, he still sat and we still putted by and we still shot him with kodak-ammo. Steered passed a few tumbling, half sunk tumbleweeds, avoided the nearly exposed rocks jutting out and then spied another tumbleweed from the warm cabin of our crusier..."But it looks like it's moving to the left", I said to Peter. So again we stopped and we stared and we finally recognized a coyote in mid-lake swimming toward the cliffs and beaches below Lakeside Drive. Whoa. Doglike, with its head level and his bouyant tail looking like a floating rudder, Coyote paddled its best coyote-paddling, deliberately, slowly, in quiet cold water, always making headway to shore. We followed for 20 min. or so and watched him successfully waddle, limp and hobble onto the red sand beach. Coyote turned and looked at us, stumbled a little and tried to climb up a stone bench about 20" high. Half frozen, he half jumped and fell down; cyote jumped again, fell again, and on the third try, the same clumsy faliure. Turning up the slope, coyote found a gentler incline and wound around the step. Now 10 min from water's exit, and having warmed its hypothermic limbs, coyote began a slow lope toward a distant tree shelter. Minutes later we noticed a large bird overhead and as it's shadow covered the boat my first thought "Tyradatycl"! Ancient animal, huge wing span and an extended neck that that rivaled a giraff. My scientifically-trained brother Peter, corrected me and tagged the bird a "Swan". We looked to each other, thinking of the bald eagle, the water-logged coyote and the soaring swan. We smiled and I said "Pretty nice episode for "Wild Kingdom, don't you think?". Nice day on the lake.

Even more jealous you may be. Same week, Saturday at Grand Canyon, annual community holiday party in the El Tovar...more on that party later, time to wrap this up and send it off and bid all a toasty two days till christmas...love and laughter, marcus

back to normal?

of course NORMAL does not exist but we all share it and know people who are not.

I am watching, feeling the sun rise as it normally does, far to the south, peeking out behind this latest line of grey storm clouds. This a.m. it's cat and I, awake two hours and tackled the usual normal sat. chores: straighten up the front room, build warming fire, wash dishes from Fri. night popcorn and ice cream, watched cat play with window blind cords, ground and brewed fresh coffee, put stuff away. Peggy's still knocked out, not normal, sleeeeeeeeeeeeeping and that's a great thing, because the stress on me is different than my closest,intimate care-givers. I deal with my immediate condition/s and know and am able to act on pain, unusual changes in my systems. I can accept and feel directly the treatments and chemo, but Peggy, and Mandy as well, are a step away, less defined and less deliberate. I'll bet it must be more uncertain for them and all the others: wes/alena, jules/pk, ct, dan-oh/tt shell/tom and more people than I could ever list here; this disease is more uncertain and, thus for all of you, more difficult to manage or keep a grip on. Me, I just get to be the disease, and I think it's harder to watch than participate directly. I am lucky to have such wonderful women with me now; so how do I rate and why do I deserve them? How? Easy, I just chose well 27+ years ago and found a mate, a partner far beyond normal. Which, naturally leads to children of the same ilk.

Went to Flag for treatment, counts were low, so got my BOOOSTER meds and drove home to a wet, windy homestead. I've felt much better last few days, digestion is starting to jibe and there is so much to be said for a NORMAL digestive tract...think of your metabolism as ideal traffic flow where you drive everyday, no long jams, bumper to bumper, stop and go; and no racing speedsters in a hurry to get through. Traffic here in s. utah is occasional and easy to get used to, just the way my metabolism wants to be...so much to be said for being normal.
Hey you should all know about Mia-pa-dia, cousin/niece from colo. (Thanks for the hook up, Normie, your reward is coming soon) Mia stayed an extra week and helped with all kinds of tasks, helped lay a few tiles, mixed and put down grout,and best of all, chopped loads of kindling for our nightly fires, check out the pix, her greatest success, however, was the the chocolate pie from scratch (the 2nd one)simply delicious and tasting better than normal.
I dropped by the high school to see and say hi to staff, was a tender moment, I do miss teaching, especially after I watched Nutcracker with all the local kids. I felt sadness, sadness, sadness, as I took in all the beauty around me, around us all: a classical piece of music, young people in fantastic costumes, dancing a ballet, the stage and settings of drama and how plays have always had power to move and refresh what is best in us. I was sad for the pleasures that have been mine since college, the community theatre in Iowa, helping with the student theatre groups and of course, helping high school kids perform awesome renditions of Romeo and Juliet; guess I felt sad just remembering the power of immortality in all that stuff that Shakespeare left us. So I felt sad, but it' weird, I still found myself smiling through the bittersweet beauty in all our lives, but hey, that's normal isn't it?

love to all, marcus