REJUVENATING JUNE

BLUE WILDFLOWER

Robins sing the final notes of their goodnight song.  Firefly sequins pulse in the shadows.  Rose and lemon thyme perfume the garden.  I love this time of day-into-evening as the sky goes dark and everything is quiet and soft. I like to sit out on the porch and gather it all in. 

During the last few days of May I had to go to the ER.  I was feeling extremely light headed and weak at my grandson's preschool graduation. I stayed until the end of the ceremony, but then started feeling even worse.  My husband was at work, so I asked my good friend, who is my daughter's godmother, to take me to the ER.  I called my husband and he met us there.  It turned out that I was experiencing an irregular heartbeat (atrial fibrillation).  I spent two nights in the hospital while they did tests, then shocked my heart back into rhythm, and monitored me.

I was overjoyed to come home so I could get some rest in my own comfortable bed.  My little pom, Fuzzy, was overjoyed when I came home, too. He was rubbing against me, sniffing, licking, spinning, running away and then leaping over his doggie bed to get back to me, and then start all over again.  It has been more than two weeks now and he still doesn't want to let me out of his sight. The first day I was home he insisted on staying in the bathroom with me as I took a shower.  He usually just guards outside of the door.  

I am feeling really good now, but during the past week I had to wear a portable monitor for 48 hours to record my heart rhythm.  The monitor was returned to the hospital yesterday and I should get the the results of the monitoring some time next week.  

Some of the most mundane household chores seem almost like "fun" to me now.  Funny how a few days in a hospital room hooked to monitors,  with a needle taped into the vein in the bend of my arm "just in case", etc., make such tasks as cleaning the toilet at home feel almost like a festive occasion. Perspective.

Last weekend, after I had been home from the hospital for one week, I had some of the BEST MEDICINE there is: Fun, sweet times spent with dear, long-time friends.  It was my husband's 45 year high school reunion.  Class of 1970.

We got together with a group of our close "Class of 1970"  friends on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday.  I was in the Class of 1972 at the same school.  It was so good seeing everyone.  With each story of high school adventures, misadventures, mischief, and romance, we all laughed and remembered, and I believe, felt how much we have all changed, yet are still the same.  

With every story told and every round of laughter,  I felt better and better.  I could feel my strength coming back.  By the end of the weekend I felt refreshed and renewed.  It was as if I had been on a long, rejuvenating trip. And I am sure I really had been.... I had been on a nice, long visit to Memory Lane.  

DAVID AUSTIN-CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE ROSES
FROM   MY  YARD