What Sustains Me
On this first day of April, I’m sitting in my studio looking out on what remains of this week’s latest spring storm in the Sierra Foothills. But onward I go, knowing that one day soon the wildflower seeds that I raked into the ground last fall will come alive and explode in a riot of color. And iris tubers planted around the base of trees along our meditation pathway will shake off the last of the spring snow and rise again. I tell myself this will all happen as I put one foot in front of the other and take on the challenges of each new day.
Two weeks ago, Kit fell at home for a second time. In his journey to regain mobility and memory, Kit is at Golden Empire Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Grass Valley just 10 miles from our Nevada City home. Our daughter Heidi and I have made it our mission to be with him as much of each day as we can. It is hard, but we know it is where he needs to be right now and must remain until the way opens and we can see the future more clearly. For now, every day of April will take hard work if he is to progress.
What sustains me these long days and nights is hope, the promise of spring, friends near and far and gifts of food when I am too tired to cook. Neighbors arrive with their snowblowers and plows to clear our driveway so I can drive into town on my daily visits to be with Kit. Without asking Jim clears the mountain of snow blocking access to our mailbox. Ben delivers a plate of incredible homemade salted caramel cookies, and Kendal trudges up our driveway with her adorable doodle puppy Jujube and a warm frittata baked in a heart-shaped porcelain dish.
Larry and Heather, friends from my distant past who live in VA share light and news from the veranda sunroom where they take their morning coffee. Paul from another distant chapter in my life sends pictures of cherry blossoms already in full bloom in the San Francisco area just two hours to our west. These sunny images prompt me to send a picture of daffodils that I rescued from our Missouri garden one year before a late spring freeze. I tell myself, someday the daffodils I planted here a year ago will return, spread, and surprise me in springs to come.
Joyce sends me an image of hellebores (Lenten Roses) from her Missouri garden that she has snipped and set afloat in a lovely dish. Eager to see if my hellebores are still alive, I put on my snow boots and climb into our raised flowerbed. Finding them wide awake under inverted flowerpots, I snipe a few and bring them where they are now bathing in the great room’s morning light. Yellow and burgundy Ranunculus that I couldn’t resist at a local market and a bodacious bouquet of Alstroemeria (Peruvian lilies) that Kit’s niece Katharine sent have opened and come alive, oblivious of the wintery landscape and 30-degree temperatures on the other side of the great room’s sunny window.
In the early morning hour before dawn, I sit in Kit’s chair by the fire, open my +Babbel app and am greeted by “Bonjour” as my daily lesson in conversational French gets underway. For the next 30 minutes, I follow word prompts and am transported to Paris. In this peaceful dreamscape, I am sitting at a café table ordering a croissant and café latte in fluent French. I then pick up Remarkably Brilliant Creatures—a novel that my friend and webmaster Sunitha Bosacker has assigned her “Daring Minds” book club in Columbia, MO to read this month. How could I resist a book about a giant Pacific Octopus and a 70-year-old widow who meet and spiritually bond at the aquarium in Puget Sound where she works the night shift. Together, they work through grief and learn what happened thirty years earlier when the woman’s 18-year-old son mysteriously disappeared.
Eager to sustain me with nourishing soups, my friends Pat and Gary send recipes to use with the heritage Rancho Gordo beans they share with me. One for Zuppa di Lenticchie e Funghi (Soup of Lentils and Mushrooms sounds like just what my body and soul need right now. This recipe from Southern Italy is prepared with a combination of dried porcini and fresh oyster or cremini mushrooms that I will gather at the market today. Simmering in my mother’s copper soup pot, its earthy aroma and wonderful rich taste transport me to a place in an Italian forest where wild mushrooms are being collected. Their essence will be shared with our son Hayden and granddaughter Cata when they arrive from Madrid later today to visit Kit.
(Heidi and Kit)
What will sustain me on my journey with Kit throughout April? Friends, family, food, flowers, faith, French lessons, the compassionate staff at Kit’s rehab residence, and a novel about a remarkably bright great Pacific Octopus named Marcellus.