10:51 a.m.

Miraculous recovery! One day of misery, and I feel normal again. Could it be the six cups of water I’ve faithfully drank for each of the past two days? Could it be the four or five doses of echinacea/goldenseal extract I took throughout yesterday? Could it be the colour lamp I dozed under for one out of every three hours thoughout the night? Could it be all that sleep yesterday? I don’t know; I’m just happy to feel human, to feel like going to town today, to feel like being alive is a good thing.

I cancelled my morning appointment with the doc, and postponed it till next week. It was just to get the results of the mammogram, and if it’s pressing she’d surely call me and say so. I was starting to feel rushed. I’d spent the first hour of the morning answering an email, and the second hour on the phone with my sister, and would have had to hurry through bathing, eating, dressing. Who needs it? This is why I live the life I do: because I don’t want to have to rush around unless it’s absolutely essential. The appointment can wait.

Instead, I’m going to relax in lavender-scented bathwater. Then I’m going to take Barney out for lunch, and deposit a couple thousand dollars into my bank account. Then if I’m up to it I’ll go buy groceries. And if I don’t feel like it, I’ll go tomorrow instead, when Don can come along. He loves a trip to the Co-op store, where he can cruise the aisles for people he knows. Unlike Barney, who is interested in the food on the shelves and likes to push the cart, and couldn’t care less who we see.

Farmbeau wanted me to stop on the way back from the doc’s office and take pictures, to send to his cousin in Sweden, of the building he has just constructed. I hope he won’t be disappointed if I don’t get there today, but after the doc visit a week from now. He will be expecting me today and may be a little put out if I don’t show up. He asked me twice to stop in there, so it must be important to him. The first time, I said Why would I do that? Stand there in the cold and watch you work? I can do that right here in our own yard. It was this morning he said he’d like me to come and take a picture. So I guess that was the reason.

He came in about 7:00 last night. I was laying on the couch, reading, resting. He takes off his big boots in the porch, then comes down the stairs and takes off insulated overalls, jacket, and lays them along the side of the wide steps or hangs them over a door. I watch him appreciatively as he removes his outer workclothes. His body is so solid and vital, his movements so graceful, purposeful, strong. My eyes feast; my heart warms; I love the man.

I wish I had his energy and ambition, his urge to accomplish, his drive to work. Even a little bit of it. I seem content to just ‘be’ and hesitant to tackle anything requiring staying power and elbow grease.

It’s the way we were raised. He had to work hard as a child and as a teenager; I got to play. It’s what we expect to give to life, and life to give to us.

It’s our natures. He is a Virgo; I am an Aquarius. His spirit is of the earth; mine is of the air. He moves physical things around; I fly on dreams and thoughts.