The gift of spring — it’s the thaw that counts…

buds

Just because spring is here doesn’t mean winter is over.

Such is the message nature seems to send with early spring’s warming days but still freezing nights. The poet T.S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month; the delivery of what we are being promised and afforded samplings of comes a bit later than the moment we feel ready for it — and takes longer than we care to be made to wait.

The delay of spring of another sort accounts for why i haven’t posted here as often lately as anticipated, my own elongated ‘April’ starting months ago, and similarly unkind in its aroused expectation and disappointing deferral. I’m referring to my extended recovery from a serious illness, which i wrote about last December. In that post, i explained why the illness and recovery would not be a primary topic for me on this blog.

I recently decided that doesn’t mean i won’t *ever* write about it…     Continue reading

But if i *were* going to write about it…

When I started setting up this blog, I had lots of ideas for topics I might want to post about. Sometime later, when I hadn’t yet got around to posting anything, I was diagnosed with cancer.

I decided quickly that I wouldn’t post about it, and correctly anticipated that others would inquire as to whether I would. I’ve since then been crafting my answer to their next question, “Why not?”

The first thing that occurred to me is that it’s such an obvious choice of topic, which is reason enough itself to decline. Second, it’s just too tailor­made for heart-tugging and sympathy-engendering, leading to many obvious responses from others as well. “There but for the grace of god go I,” and all that. Third, of course the topic is interesting to me in rather specific ways, but outside of the easy melodrama, it’s hard for me to believe it’s that interesting to others. And even if it were, I would like to think it’s not the most interesting thing about me.    Continue reading