Cancer, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain

Push Cancer Back

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Thursday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Tara and Eleanor. Marshdale Burgers. Ana. No winter winter. Shadow and the puzzle.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Women

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

Tarot: #11, The Woodward. Cancer requires an unflinching acceptance of hard truths. Not easy.

 

One brief shining: Disturbing news. PSA went way up. Surprised everybody. Especially me. Bupathi says we’re so close to the trial, maybe April 8th for first treatment, that it makes sense to go forward. I hope actinium is a wonder drug.

The trial has three arms. It matters, a lot, which arm I get assigned to.

Randomization. An ugly word. Happens probably tomorrow. That’s when I’ll know. Or soon after.

A high PSA with multiple new metastases. Not a place I want to be. But. It’s where I am. I’m in need of something to slow down this latest run.

An ornery beast, this cancer of mine. Hiding, biding its time. When a treatment fails, it leaps out with a roar. As oncologist Kristie said, “This disease will run its course.”

I want my PSA lower, much lower. I want my cancer pushed back. If I can get a year, a year plus before having to change protocols, I’ll feel good. May not happen. I fear a minimal response.

My weariness peaked last week.  How do I get through this? I’m not alone.

 

Yesterday. An accidental confluence. Ana came first: dusting, vacuuming, cleaning sinks and toilets. Tara came second, bearing cheeseburgers from Marshdale Burgers. Tater tots, too. Dr. Josy came, too. She had dog poop removal equipment.

Ana has been cleaning my house since before Kate died.

Tara I’ve known for over ten years. She brings her black Doodle, Eleanor, over to the house for a Shadow play date. While the dogs play, we talk.

Yesterday, in addition to bringing lunch, Tara brought in my canned water and put it in the fridge. Then, she unloaded my dishwasher. She also brought soup.

Dr. Josy scooped up all of Shadow’s poop deposited after the dog run went into effect. She also walked the perimeter of my fence, finding two trouble spots. Which Tara volunteered Arjean to fix.

Key elements of my resilience.

Love
An empty dishwasher.
A clean dog run.

Garden, Great Work, Greenhouse, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Hands in the Soil

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Wednesday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Heirloom Tomato Farms. Pine. Artemis. Starting the day. Trash pickup. House cleaning. Rain.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Heirloom Tomatoes

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

Tarot: Nine of Stones. Tradition.    I find value in the Shema, teshuvah, tikkun, talmud Torah.

One brief shining: Set chatgpt to work on this query: I want to buy heirloom tomato plants. Can you find places? The first entry: Heirloom Tomato Farms specializes in them. Where is it? Pine, Colorado, about 20 minutes from here.

 

In Andover Kate and I grew exclusively heirloom vegetables: garlic, tomatoes, carrots. No pesticides. Careful attention to soil chemistry. Daily care.

We came to love heirloom tomatoes in particular: Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim. These plump, heavy tomatoes– some weigh more than a pound–had a meaty interior that shamed store bought tomatoes.  What tomatoes were like before industrial farming.

It gave me pleasure to imagine a nineteenth-century gardener weeding around these same varieties. Probably in a kitchen garden on a farm. Kate and I were their hands and feet in not only a different century, but a new millennium.

I’m drawn to Heirloom Tomato Farms. In fact, I sorta want to jump in Ruby and drive over there today. Just to see their operation. Online sales begin April 12th. It’d be nice to have already developed a relationship with them before then.

Tomatoes do well in Artemis. As she proved last year. Night time warmth. Daytime temperature control by exhaust fan. I’ll have to restrain myself, not purchase more plants than I need.

I do plan to order at least two heirloom cherry tomato plants since I have all these sheetpan meals in my repertoire. We never grew them in Andover.

Soil. Hands in the soil. Seeds planted in the soil. Heirloom tomato plants. Transplanted in the soil. Water. Sun. Time. Yield: nourishment, excellent taste, abundance.

I saw a youtube video on the release of 5,000 bison on a 150,000 acre reserve of Texas panhandle scrubland. I watched twenty minutes of it, fascinated by the multiple effects a bison herd could have on that much land.

I wanted it to be true. It wasn’t. Yellowstone has a four thousand plus bison herd, by far the largest in the U.S. I don’t know why people would make such a video, but I do know this: My heart wanted it to be real.

My passion. Visionary projects. I have a list of those projects I support,* but Artemis says I’m in it, too. To plant my own seeds. Reap a local harvest. Stay in the tradition of those nineteenth-century kitchen gardens.

The Andover years put Kate and me in that tradition. With a bad back and limited stamina Artemis gives me a chance to offer an echo of them, but a real echo nonetheless.

We had a no snow winter on Shadow Mountain. My neighbors have built chicken coops and greenhouses. I’m growing heirloom vegetables. Artemis.

I have a passion for radical solutions like perennial grains; but I also have a passion for the wisdom of gardeners past, for the solutions of yesterday.

Artemis.
Hands.
In the soil.

 

*The Land Institute and its search for perennial grains. The American Prairie, creating a large, contiguous prairie restoration where, someday, bison herds might roam. Regenerative agriculture. Restoring the chinampas in Xochimilco.

Dogs, Friends, Shadow Mountain

Paw to the Leg

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Tuesday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Audrey. Shadow’s ear. Marilyn and Irv. Kate, always Kate. Joy. Ahava. Good friends. New friends.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Prairie Grasses

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

Tarot: eight of bows, hearthfire.  Tend to the fires I have already lit.

One brief shining: Shadow of the morning. Vitality. Tail wagging. Ready. A day, take any day, dawn to the first three stars in the sky. My day starts long before the sun appears and ends near dusk. Shadow time.

 

Early mornings belong to Shadow and me. Quiet, sheltered. No cars hissing by on Black Mountain Drive. No barking dogs. Writing into the void of a blank screen. Telling myself a story.

Shadow has breakfast, goes outside. Comes inside sometimes  with no invitation. On her own volition. For Shadow though. It’s not usual. Reluctance. A while ago. Occasional refusal. After boarding school? No refusals.

Later. Breakfast with Marilyn and Irv. Primo’s, our usual spot, suddenly closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Aspen Perks.

Aspen Perks used to be packed in the mornings. Not now. Empty booths, chairs. I hope it’s a seasonal thing. None of the three local breakfast spots have gourmet pretensions.

Back home around eleven-thirty. The neck brace helped. Some. Very far from ideal.

Shadow would occupy the afternoon. She had been scooting her head, ear to the floor. Oh. I know this. Ear infection. I texted Dr. Josy. Whom I missed seeing after her frequent visits during care for Shadow’s cut right leg.

She came with her daughter Audrey. Before she examined Shadow, she asked about my health. The clinical trial. She understands the medical side. Healing.

After weighing Shadow, 36 pounds, Audrey held her down while Dr. Josy got out the otoscope. Right ear. A bit of wax. Nothing remarkable. Left ear. A ruptured tympanic membrane and some foreign body lodged deep in the ear canal. Not an ear infection.

Dr. Josy took Shadow home with her. Sedation required to clear the object from her ear.

After Dr. Josy left, the house went still. No Shadow. No paw requesting my attention. Rubber tires rest where she left them. I felt alone.

This morning, as I write, the house still feels empty. I miss Shadow coming over, sitting in front of my chair, staring at me. Her expressive face serious. Understand me, human.

Communication. We humans use words, too. They’re our paw to the leg. Marilyn and I dissected the latest on the Iran war. Our paw to the leg for each other. Debated the comparative venality of Trump and Netanyahu. Over breakfast. Confirming, again, our friendship with our presence. With our shared political views.

The life of March 22nd. Shadow. Writing and revising. Our morning. Time with friends. Time with Dr. Josy and Audrey.

Shadow away.
Missing her.
An empty house.

Writing

Never. Stop.

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Monday gratefuls: Starting the day. Peanut butter and kongs. Iowa State. Iowa. Basketball. Fantasy. Submissions. Superior Wolf.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dogs

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

Tarot: 3 The Green Woman. I need to lean into my wild feminine. Holding seed, soil, leaf, and wild neighbors in my day-to-day self.

 

One brief shining: A cool morning breeze lowers the temperature. Shadow holds a Kong with frozen peanut butter in her front paws. Licking. Turning. I started this morning with: I arrive in my body before I arrive on the page. Gentle movement. Neck left, center, right. Shoulder rolls. Hip hinges.

 

Writing. Every morning. Every damned morning. Twenty-one years and counting. Let’s see: 7,665 mornings. I could not have set out to do that; rather, I created the space, developed the habit, and here I am, still writing.

You might think I would chafe under this routine. Push back, at least at some point. I might have, but I don’t recall it. Like eating breakfast.

500 words. My goal. Some mornings they spill right out, brain to keyboard. Other mornings? Getting there feels mechanical, saying this or that. No flow. A slog. Filler. I’m writing words to see the number count turn over from 499 to 500. I’m not proud of those days. When Kate died, I felt emptied out, nothing left to say.

I’ve written in Cambodia and Korea. I wrote as Kate and I made our slow cruise around Latin America. Many times from Hawai’i. Fingers on the keyboard in the Aegean Sea. Through the Panama Canal.

Loved the Picasso quote I found earlier this year: Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. My habit ensures I’ll be working when inspiration finds me.

I never, well, rarely know what I’m going to write. I start with what my writing coach calls my liturgy: gratefuls, sparks, kavannah, tarot. One brief shining carries me into a starting point grounded in something concrete. Shadow and her kong. A cool breeze.

From there I keep going. The long, unintended journey of Ancientrails.

That sewer grate by the 7/11. Off Yaowarat. The main street of Bangkok’s China Town. Lotsa traffic. Hurrying. Right foot down, body moving across the street. A ruptured Achilles.

Back home. Surgery. No weight on my right leg for two months. Crutches. Mostly? Sitting in a chair, leg propped up. What to do. Read. Watch television. Something proactive.

Ah. A blog. Contacted cybermage Bill Schmidt. He set me up with Microsoft’s Front Page. February, 2005. Fits and starts. Happened on the name. Early on the Great Wheel. Celtic lore. Holidays.

In late 2006 I shifted to WordPress, again with Bill’s help. Somehow in that transition, I lost the first two+ years of Ancientrails. I miss seeing those beginner’s mind posts. Seeing a distracting task turn into a lifelong practice. Since then each entry is in a searchable  database accessible through the Breadcrumbs button.

My writing coach wants me to go back through those entries to find material for a book of short personal essays. Might do that.

I know I’m in the final years of my life. Needing a clinical trial to slow down my cancer.  As my fourth phase continues, the last phase, walking with death as a close companion (neck brace in place), I find myself deep in the rich deposit of past work. Tightening my style, revising, revising.

Working with years and years of Ancientrails, with those novels. Not dead. Still pushing forward. Learning how to write.  Always.

Like Shadow
Turning her peanut-butter filled toy.
Turning.

 

Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Holidays, Judaism, Paganism, Plants

Muscular

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Sunday gratefuls: Exercise. Artemis. Planting today. Tomatoes. Carrots. Beets. Check garlic. Fantasy. Writing. AI. Medical Alert.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Parsha

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

 

Tarot: Queen of Stones, Bear. Strength rooted in Mother Earth. I know mortality in decay, in cancer, in Kate. I choose to live because of these, not in spite of them.

 

One brief shining: Artemis has been through her first winter–what passed for winter this year. Her Japanese lanterns glow at night. Ten bulbs of garlic have wintered in her west-facing raised bed. I will plant carrots and beets in that bed today, check the garlic. Prep the tomato bed, plant the seeds. Flowers of memory in the east-facing bed: gladiolus and stargazer lilies for Jon, purple iris for Kate.

 

Nowruz. The Persian New Year. Passover, the annual reliving of liberation from oppression. Easter, the annual celebration of life’s ongoingness. Spring.

If our Shadow Mountain April has no snow, it will be our cruelest month. Letting us slide into summer with little moisture for lodgepoles and aspens, grasses, dogwood, willows.

Spring holidays acknowledge our deepest fears. Easter. Is death the enemy? Passover. Are we enslaved in our narrow places, with no hope of liberation?

Nowruz. Will the growing season begin well?

Artemis. My nod to Nowruz. Planting in expectation of blood-red beet salads, carrots cooked in butter and brown sugar.

Gardening. A ritual of confidence. A collaboration. Hands, seeds, soil, and sun. I love taking the prickly beet seeds in my palm, pinching one between thumb and finger. Planting it, pressing the soil down around it. Tucking it in. Spring.

Fourth phase. In May of 2015 prostate cancer showed up, death knocking, no longer an abstraction but presence. A shock, yes. Yet not a shock either. Mortality begins at birth.

Health? My body equilibrated, functioning well. What health isn’t: a permanent state. Even for those seeking life extension.

I remember sunrise services, a melding of Christian yearning to defeat death and pagan confidence in the sun. Transform the fallow season into the growing season. Once again. Life after death.

Tara invited me again to her Passover.

A full Haggadah with afikomen hidden, questions about plagues, conversation about contemporary mitzrayim: in society, in ourselves. Mitzrayim. A narrow place of bondage. Egypt.

Ancient myth as contemporary history. Our story of liberation from slavery. Of the heroes and heroines who led us out of Egypt, across the Reed Sea, and into freedom.

What is the evanescence of health against these muscular affirmations: life lived through fallow seasons, life confronting and transforming death, oppression changed into freedom, into a tribe?

Sun.
Soil.
Seeds.
Spring.

Fourth Phase, Memories, Minnesota

Shining Through

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Shabbat gratefuls: Christina. Sam. Jamie. Luke. Two Wendys. Gary. Ayelet. Ode. Tom. Paul. Bill. Neck brace. Writing. Parsha.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Chesed

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable to each other.

Tarot: Five of Bows, empowerment.  Returning to the homeland of your soul. I write.

 

One brief shining:  I have a coffee mug. A male moose stands in shallow water, looking away, toward the boreal forest. Below him is an inscription: The Gunflint Trail. I bought this mug over forty years ago. It has survived moves, constant handling. A Velveteen Rabbit.

 

Legacy cannot be purchased; but it is inescapable.

 

Ruth and Gabe will remember me.  Ancientrails, words and ideas over time.

Legacy arises from life. It cannot be created by a name on a building or a ghost-written biography.

My social worker, Rachel, believes in the ripple effect. She sees  our interactions with others expanding, rippling out. Rachel is a kind and sensitive woman. She treats me with kindness. Her soul expands further into the world when I unconsciously treat another with kindness.

That coffee mug. Has had a ripple effect. On me. Holding it I remember Raeone and a night on the Gunflint Trail when we heard a banging, clanging sound. Opened the door to a black bear, head in our garbage bin.

I remember M.J. We were close, then not.

Holding it I remember the boreal forest which fills the Arrowhead region of Minnesota. Wolves, bears, moose. Glacial lakes. A border with Canada. A long coastline on the Great Lake, Superior.

The ripple effect. Ceramics capture ripples. Over the years since that banging, clanging night I’ve often picked up this mug, filled it with cold coffee, and signed on zoom with my Ancient Brothers, three of whom still live in Minnesota.

The moose has a few spots where its glaze has worn off to reveal the white glaze of the mug’s first firing. Constant use has changed it from a souvenir to a vessel of memory, more filled with Grand Marais and the North Shore than the gallons of coffee I’ve drunk from it.

The mug’s legacy. An emptiness bounded by glazed clay. It’s that emptiness, the cylinder-shaped nothing. That makes it useful.

That’s legacy. Unintended. Yet inevitable. Our lives create an empty space which others can pour themselves into.  At my age much of my glazing has worn off from  constant handling. The self–my neshama–once glazed over by convention and routine, now casts a gentle glow through my long frayed exterior.

Pick up the mug.
Fill it.
Remember.

Judaism, Torah

Final Assignment: Judaism Without Tribalism

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Imbolc and The Moon of Liberation

Rabbi Rami names teshuvah, finding again your true self, and tikkun, repairing injustice, as the core missions of Judaism. I want to add a third: talmud torah, educating ourselves and others.

Tikkun:  When ICE came, three thousand agents to Minneapolis, neighbors turned a noun into a verb: To neighbor. While neighboring, they blew whistles to warn of ICE agents on the street. They delivered food to immigrant families sheltering in place. All while standing as a gentle, angry people against the power of a corrupt regime.

A few hold a guttering lamp–like the protesters in Minnesota–as a light on the path for those who want justice.  Who want light. Who will stand up.

Tikkun. Not charity. Radical change.

Teshuvah:  Teshuvah is a return to the homeland of your soul.

Even after I cleared away the underbrush, a thick veil still obscured who I was. So. Who was I? How could I, how would I find myself?

The plane from India landed at midnight on December 15th, 1981. A blue and white clad-nun came out with a wicker basket. Inside were two tiny boys. I found a parent.

When writing my doctoral thesis, I found myself one-hundred and twenty pages into a novel instead:  Even the Gods Must Die. I found a writer.

The Mah Tovu taught me. The people I worshipped with made the synagogue a sacred place.  My friends. I found a Jew.

Teshuvah unveils the man in his godly image. Slowly.

Talmud Torah: A third leg to Rami’s mission for Judaism. Now we have a stool that can find balance on any surface.

What is Torah? What is not Torah might be a better question.

Yes, the books of Moses. Yes. The writings and the prophets and the Talmud and the Midrash and works on Kabbalah. Each Saturday morning at ten. Bagel table. Tanakh open to the week’s parsha.

The natural world is Torah. A hike along Maxwell Creek, skiing A-Basin, growing your own food, each cracks open the sacred text of Mother Earth.

You are Torah. Introspection–like the weekly parsha–teaches us what it is to be a self. Who this self of mine is. Who, really, is that white-haired, white-bearded old man in the mirror? Is he the kind grandfather? Is he the human companion of Shadow? A gardener?

We study Torah. On the streets of Minneapolis.

Talmud torah.
Teshuvah.
Tikkun.

 

 

General

Soft Power

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Imbolc and the Moon of Liberation

Thursday gratefuls: Morning darkness. Sleep. Jackie and Rhonda. Hep B. The winter that wasn’t. This nation. Which I love.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Teshuvah

 

Kavannah: Histapkot. Contentment.   Seek what you need, give up what you don’t need.

Tarot: Eight of Bows, Hearthfire.  “(I) celebrate the fact that we endure, survive, thrive and grow with the support and companionship of our chosen tribe.”

 

One brief shining: Intimidating. No, Ruth said, you can’t be intimidating. She said it with love. Took me aback. My reaction surprised me. I can be intimidating, I replied, drawing my old male identity up. Then I thought, what am I doing?

 

How Ruth sees me. Maybe how most people see me? If I can’t intimidate, have I lost an essential part of my masculinity? I looked at myself from her perspective: 5’5″. Barely 130 pounds. White hair and age evident. 79. Oh, I get it.

My power has shifted from the muscled man who lifted 150 pound dogs into the car for a vet visit. I’d struggle to lift Shadow, a light 37 pounds. My power has also shifted from the political partisan who would take on anyone, especially Haislet, the ob/gyn who thought of himself a conservative (reactionary) intellectual. I used to treat argument as a blood sport. No quarter. Win or go home.

Again, Ruth. You’re not old; you’re wise. Oh?

I can no longer cut down trees, limb them, buck the rest. I have to pause to rest while planting seeds. Planting seeds in Artemis’ raised beds. Frequent rests.

Cooking demands more of me than I have to give. Standing up for over 15 minutes? Nope.

Bank. Groceries. Gas. Maybe lunch out. Not anymore.

I have one event in me in a day. A doctor’s appointment. A diagnostic procedure. A hair cut. The drive, with my head drop, wears me out. The brace helps.

Easy to forget. Slowed. Way. Down.

In spite of all this I do not feel diminished. When talking with Ruth and David, I showed up. Engaged with Ruth’s enthusiasm, with David’s hesitant vulnerability.

My mind tracks back decades. Emile Durkheim comes to me. That seminary course in the Old Testament. A tender evening with Kate at the Nicollet Island Inn. Brings in new perspectives. That was our 25th. We bought mugs to celebrate. Red for me. Green for her.

My power has shifted. Enhanced by Tara’s visits. Eleanor’s play with Shadow. By breakfast at Primo’s with Marilyn and Irv. By resilience borne of repeated encounters with cancer and death. By life lived in community. In family.

Soft power.

No intimidation necessary.

Cancer, Health

The Gate of Guarded Hope

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Imbolc and the Moon of Liberation

Wednesday gratefuls: Samantha. Salivary gland tests. CT w/ contrast. So much bloodwork. Ruth and David, taking me to Rocky Mountain Cancer Care.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

 

Kavannah: Histapkot. Contentment.   Seek what you need, give up what you don’t need.

Tarot: #11, The Woodward. Strength found in facing inner darkness. I read the diagnostic reports, reeling, then steady.

One brief shining: I counted eight, no, nine vials when Angie, the phlebotomist, placed them on the small table. My left arm had the sleeve rolled up since the right one had had an IV inserted a half an hour before. The clinical trial demanded the nine vials including tests for Hepatitis B, C, and HIV. “I’m gonna be about a pint low.”

My final procedure for this round of treatment. After I swished 5 milliliters of lemon juice for a minute, I chewed on a patch of gauze for three minutes. It got weighed. But. Would it support my admission to the trial?

Samantha, Sam, took my medical history. “So. Polio.”  Aortic aneurysm. Arthritis. Labrum tear. Compared to most others in the trial, Sam said, my medical history was straightforward. Oddly comforting. A threshold I should pass.

I texted Done to Ruth. She and David pulled up to the entrance of the Littleton clinic. She had an iced Americano for me and a bag of free beans. As a Starbucks barista, she has perks.

Next week I find out the start date for the clinical trial. I’ve taken all the tests, filled out questionnaires, had interviews. Now it’s the trial’s turn.

Sometime soon, probably next week as well, I’ll be randomized into one of the arms of the trial: one does not hold what I believe I need. I plan to discuss with Christina, a Bupathi P.A. whom I like, what to do if I’m in the arm with no Actinium. Might be admission to a place I don’t want to be.

Gatekeepers. Check boxes. Say enter. Or not.

This latest gate, call it the Gate of Guarded Hope, is the most consequential I’ve had to face in a long time. When we stand, like Kafka’s K, outside, the interior is a mystery, yet a mystery in which we wish to invest. Amelioration of a dread disease.

I’m calm now, having given myself over to the protocols of a phase three drug trial. Samantha. Angie. Bupathi. Guardians. Caring for me, yes, but through the trial, for others yet to come.

Standing at the gate.

Waiting to be let in.

 

 

Family, Memories, Minnesota

At the Capital Grille

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides (2% crescent)

Tuesday gratefuls: Tamales from David’s mom. Ruth smiling. Winds. Melting snow. Final C.T. of this round. The lives of our days.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Young love

 

Kavannah: Histapkot. Contentment.   Seek what you need, give up what you don’t need.

Tarot: #4, The Greenman.  “…he brings order, discipline, and the “organized action” needed to manifest ideas into reality.” May it be so for my writing.

One brief shining: Ruth and David came up, their new, tender relationship feeling its way. David, “I’m nervous.” Patriarchs, eh? We sat, David on the ottoman, Ruth in the chair, me in mine, and talked of many things.

 

Do you remember? Meeting the parent or grandparent? I do. When I met Kate’s mom and dad, Rebecca and Merton, I had had, as Ruth said David had, a pep talk.

I was not nervous. At 42 I knew who I was and what I was doing in our relationship. I loved Kate. We were getting married.

Rebecca opened, “So, I hear you’re weaving a story.” Oops. She had taken that line from her loom. She was an accomplished weaver. Her slightly forced smile, her body language. The tone.

Merton, the anesthesiologist, was quiet. He twisted his ring a bit, one he set with a stone from his rock tumbler.

Part of the pep talk prepared me for this. “Mom and Dad think you’re after my money.” Since Kate made four times what I did as a Presbyterian clergy, I could just understand. An odd suspicion. Without evidence.

In retrospect it may be that Kate had told them that after we married I would resign from the ministry to focus on writing, cooking, Joseph.

See. That proves it! He’s taking advantage of her. I could feel certainty behind her not reaching the eyes smile.

I ignored the implication. “Yes, that’s right. A novel, Even the Gods Must Die.”

The booth at the Capital Grille got smaller. The sound of cutlery on China. I shifted my napkin in my lap. She had heard what she expected. I did not then, nor did I later try to dissuade them.

Moral grounding can only show up in deeds. Words are too slippery. Too often shaped to the ears of the other.

They never changed their perception. I didn’t care. Kate and I knew each other. Who we were. What we wanted.

When she came home from work, I had a hot meal ready. The dogs had been fed. I’d written my thousand words for the day. We could be together.

Our life blossomed. Let Rebecca and Merton stay in their xeroscaped home deep in the labyrinth of Sun City, Arizona. Seniors only. Golf carts mandatory.

Here’s the irony. I got the money. When Kate died. I felt sad about her not getting to enjoy more of it. Relieved that I would have enough. So much more than I ever expected.

Rebecca and Merton died long ago. I scattered their ashes into a river flowing into Burntside Lake, near Ely, Minnesota.

Who knows whether Ruth and David have a future. They don’t, not yet. I don’t. If they do, I hope David sees me as welcoming, trusting of his intentions.

That’s all I wanted.

In that booth at the Capital Grille.