Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Natural Magic Never Fades

At the top of the Eiffel Tower, 2008.


















In the three years and three days since I've posted to Natural Magic, life has been busy, puzzling, adaptive, romantic, frantic and often completely content. Peter and I celebrated 12 years of marriage this year. Last year, we celebrated by taking a month in Europe--on board a river ship down the Danube and into London and over to Paris by Eurostar--and finally to Amsterdam. We returned home to the U.S. the night Obama was elected. That was some trip!

Unfortunately, when we returned, Peter was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. He went on the Stanford 5 Protocol chemotherapy (a particularly difficult course of treatment) and suffered through a month of daily radiation treatments. Recently, we had good news about his outcome. Click on the link to Healing in Kenwood for more.


Since the last post, I've published two books: Letters to Pablo Neruda (an epistolary exchange between myself and one of my favorite poets long dead) from The Duck Brothers Press (2008);


and Enso: Twenty-four Paintings and One Poem with the talented painter Mario Uribe, Enso is a beautifully made, traditionally styled Japanese book with hand-stitched manuscript.










We welcomed a new grandchild, Teagen (whom we call "Miss Tiggy Winkle"), now two years old. She is sweet and smart and has the best giggle, ever. You will see more of our grands as I build this blog.







Unfortunately, with life comes loss. Within the last year, we lost both Uncle Howard (to Parkinsons Disease) and his much loved wife, Auntie Diane. We'll miss you both, and always think of you!



Our little companions left us, too. Sweet Dashiel, our little Min Pin (miniature pinscher) and Miss Biscottini Zuccharini (also known as Biscott) both passed. Dashiel was 13 and Biscottini was 25.


Biscott on her last day on earth, enjoying the sun and shadows.





Life is precious; we know this. We decided it is time for us to enjoy ourselves. We've thrown ourselves into gardening and landscaping the place in Kenwood. There isn't a day that goes by when we are not delighted by the birds that feed from old sunflowers, radishes popping up, the intensity of sweetpeas, the beauty of strange things like our Yugoslavian squash. Small things are treasured. You are treasured.

You will see many more images of our life together on this blog. You will also see more of my poetry and some links to places I enjoy. Thanks for coming on this journey with me!

2 comments:

  1. I love seeing your smiling faces. It was great seeing you yesterday and I look forward to reading more.

    ReplyDelete