A New Week

Hey guys, a week with no additional troubling news from the doctor's office. Am not on the experimental drug, but have started the next standard one that's not so tough on the bone marrow. Most folks tolerate it well. As the doctor says, if I want to boogie, now's the time to do it.

Yesterday I superseded myself by putting in six hours of writing. Am now up to page 29 of Magda, the Divine. Here's a line from Magda's becoming aware of her destiny matching up with that of the parasailing gringo who came to woo the young woman next door:

Magda felt a tug at her chest as though she, too, were airborne, tethered to the speed boat by the same great rope that kept Sr. Karl from floating off into the universe like a lost balloon.

As I mentioned last week, Mama Linda, who inspired the character of Magda, was here to visit us from Mexico. She's almost eighty, speaks no English, and is a dynamo. As always, she cooked for us as part of her love made visible, insisting we buy eleven pounds of corn tortillas from the tortilleria to get things rolling. She also prayed unceasingly for me, asking God to "take that illness and cast it into the depths of the ocean."

I'm looking forward to having the kids home at spring break the end of March for a work party to tackle the basement where my accumulated "stuff" hulks. We'll be sorting, saving, reminiscing, letting go, with evenings reserved for eating out, going to plays and generally cozying up as a family.

May the birds be chirping out your window as they are out mine--reminds me of a line I made the kids learn in order to get a popsickle when the popsickle truck came round: For lo, the winter is past. The time of the singing of birds is come.

Diane