Where I've Been
Of single-mindedness, fevers, and kites
Warm greetings at the close of this Easter Sunday from the Hallelujah Book & Hope Letter, where once a month I share luminous lines from companionable books, and once a month we consider stirrings of hope in the world.
Or rather, that’s the plan. This past month I broke the rhythm. Weeks have passed — the first gap of such length since I started sending out regular messages on this platform more than two years ago. (Paid subscriptions have been paused.)
When last you heard from me, we were chatting back and forth at The Hope Library over books that gave us hope in troubled times. Little did I know that a small trouble was even then sniffing out my household. Three days later, my son texted me on a Monday morning from school: How soon could I pick him up? He wasn’t feeling well.
Since that day more than a month ago, I have started several times to share with you some sign or another of hope, joy, or gratitude right down in the swill of trouble, but then I stopped. The impulse of our age is to put every experience online at the first opportunity. To hold back - to give my attention fully to my family - seemed an act of reverence.
I will tell you another time about the book I read aloud to my son in the hospital once we realized that his illness was caused by an infection. Set during World War II, the novel was gritty and filled with uncertainty, like our days, and also hopeful and frank about the need to grasp at every joy. To do it justice, I’ll save it for another day.
I will also tell you another time about a talented female artist from the past whom I discovered when, one day, it occurred to me that I could not think of a single female composer of waltzes. One day during our medical odyssey, it suddenly felt important to me to know of such composers. I’m saving one for us to enjoy together.
For now, my attention is too divided to finish those posts with my accustomed care. My son’s infection responded to treatment, but some effects still linger, so we continue to see specialists and take tests to make sure we are doing everything we can to get him back to normal activities as soon as possible. The long-term prognosis is good. In the short term, he is not recovered yet.
This newsletter will continue a lower-frequency publication schedule for a short time.
For now, I will leave you with a poem I wrote during my son’s hospitalization in March. I posted it to Substack Notes by way of explaining my absence from regular publication. Most of you read this letter in email and are seeing this for the first time:
Our Spring Break
From the fourth floor - Pediatrics -
one can watch
earth-movers, heavy cranes, and men
many stories down. Our growing
city needs more hospital beds
Like this one where, turning, I adjust your pillow,
the one I brought from home
that does not overheat
your neck.
You stopped protesting against the tubes
of blood taken by vampiric nurses.
You have come to appreciate
antibiotics and, for that matter,
showers.
Everyone here is smart and kind. It’s not
such a bad place, except
you miss your cat. You are missing
spring break, and friends.
You point out to me the lights
on the taller crane. You watch them
in the nights, when I am gone.
I tilt the slats of the window blinds
to show you how the foothills
tip their white hat to you,
the snowy horizon beaming
with secret knowledge
of the hour I will bring you home.
Back to Easter and the present …
If I could package up some of today’s blue sky, or the buoyant steps of pedestrians passing our house on the way to urban trails, or the soft evening shadows playing on the rocky slopes behind my neighborhood, I would send you a box of a prime April day.
Last night we had dinner with friends. My son managed a long walk with his oldest pal past purpling shrubs and neat yards. My daughter spent almost the whole evening sequestered with her friend, free of medical talk. The other mother and I played Scrabble and snuck into the Easter candy. Her best word of the night was KITE, well-placed for a triple word score.
Where are the kite flyers this spring, I wonder? We have had windy days enough. The yellow balsamroot flowers bob with it on the hillside. The spruces sigh like surf on sand. The cats come and go through the open door, frolicsome and frisky.
We are, all of us, kites.
There is no other way for my children to learn what you and I know except to suffer through it. They will discover how kites twist, buck, and plunge; how effortless flying is mostly a myth promulgated by picture books.
We are held up in the hands of caregivers, doctors, and friends. They are patient and we are grateful while we wait for smooth air.
Far overhead, the faintest clouds pass like a formation of geese, steady on the wing, as in the picture books.
Until next time,
Tara
Comments are disabled on this post, as I will continue to be mostly offline in the coming days, so will not be able to respond to you as I like to do. I carry your good wishes with me and look forward to regular posts and regular conversation soon! - Tara