My 86 year old friend

I dance with a lot of people who are over 80. One of the regulars weighs what I do even though he's a foot taller. He's steady, reserved, kind. His hearing is going, so he repeats garbled versions of the dance names I announce too quietly, but he still steps on the beat. He's been struggling the last few years with a painful ankle. He uses a cane to walk in, puts on his brace, and away he goes in the dance line.

He worked as a meteorologist, and every so often he drops a useful little weather fact, like, "It gets clear when the wind is out of the north." Not sure how widely that's true, but it works here in Portland!

Lately he's been low energy, out of breath, and mentioning the cough he's had for a couple of years now. They finally did a bronchoscopy, and he's been diagnosed with lung cancer. He wants us to know he's never smoked a day in his life! He seems to be addressing this with his usual resilience.

He sees a doctor Tuesday to discuss options. For him, I want him to enjoy his days and feel good. For me, I want him to come to dancing and hang out even if he doesn't have the energy to get in the line. There's a knot of sadness, resignation, and outrage in my solar plexus. I'm not ready to let go of his presence, and I'm aware that it's completely outside my control.

All on a summer's day

• Carefully unwind and pull out some of the clover wrapped around and through the wooly thyme along my back path. Every year I think about giving up this battle, and then the clover starts to bloom in the middle of where I don't want it, and I work on pulling it out.
  
• Chat on the phone with a friend who's out on his own after a painfully slow-motion extraction from his marriage. He sounds so much more like himself.
  
• Dither about the heat, then attach the bike trailer and bike over to the garden store. It feels great out there. When did I start thinking that 80-90F is oppressively hot? It's not even humid.
  
• Detour a few blocks for a yard sale, and score 2 nice pairs of shoes from someone with who buys shoes for my size feet. Pass another yard sale and get an old style wood frame & canvas bag laundry hamper to replace the worn polyester-y one I got years ago. It's good to have the trailer!
  
• Finally get to the garden store, and buy a 4' by 7' trellis for the raspberries. My trailer is 32.5 x 26 x 22 inches, but it's well designed with lots of tie-down loops. With copious use of bungee cords, stabilize the load and bike the mile home on quiet wide neighborhood streets. It was fine until the last block, when something started dragging. Walk the rest of the way. I meant to photograph the load, but automatically unloaded when I got home.
  
• Put on long sleeves and hiking boots to install the trellis behind the raspberries, and tie them up. Of course, eat a handful of ripe berries along the way.
  
• Okay, NOW I'm hot. Sit around in sun dress, write this entry, and possibly finally write the article for this month while listening to the Shawn Colvin CD I picked up at the first yard sale.
  

It's good to have more energy lately. I felt swamped for a while, but now I'm catching up on a backlog of errands and tasks.