Recovery is slow, but I believe it is on the upswing as I have added many
tasks to my daily life by now. Each day I add a few more...each day the vision
returns with more clarity. The past month has been difficult for me...often I
find myself just sitting and thinking or dreaming. Wouldn't it be lovely if
this were spread out over the course of a year and not just thrust into my
life? I have enjoyed the quiet conversations with friends, the lovely dinners
that arrive, the cards and letters that now fill a large basket...what has been
hard is to be alone so much of the time, even if I find myself good company to
keep. I hope I have learned how to be a better friend...a better daughter,
mother, sister, neighbor.

My young gardener, Shawn, shows up almost daily to check her work. It is
difficult to not be digging in the dirt...although confession be told, yesterday
I potted and weeded along side of her..as she mowed and moved things around
for me. I am lucky to have found her...she cares about the garden as much as I
do...even dragging "home" pots of delphiniums yesterday. My peony bush is
heavy with flowers...I have bouquets all over the house and the fragrance is
pungent in each room. They are white with a tinge of pink and so make me think of
my Grandmother and her gardens. She would be so proud of me with my gardens
(and my brother Jack, I might add, who is building rose gardens, and picket
fences for his cherished wife, Denise. Who would have thought??? I hope to get
there to see your gardens, by the way, little brother!!). One of my friends
brought me rhubarb pie the other day....When we were little Jo and I would sit
in the back of the patch with our tin cups of sugar. We would just pull the
stocks out of the ground, wipe them on our dresses, and dip the sour rhubarb
into our sugar. We always had belly aches, but oh how I wish this very
afternoon to be hiding under the rhubarb leaves. I think about all of us scattered
all over the country and sometimes I just miss you all so much I can't even
think...what I wouldn't give to have us all together, somewhere, some place, some
time.

This week brings a little more movement for me (although I still can't drive)
but school tomorrow to wrap up few details that I had to take care of, on
Tuesday my college roommie, Sally, will be here for the day! We were so
different then. On the first day of college she called me Nancy Knee Socks, with my
prim and proper clothes, and she much more in style. I am sure she is still
in style, and I am certainly not the prim and proper one any longer!! A
doctor's appointment on Wednesday...my list is full of questions...most he will just
raise his eyebrows over, but the most important...would I, could I, should I
go to North Carolina next week (to finish my recovery, of course!!) I'll let
you all know next Sunday what he has to say!

Family news: Brandy and Jason just bought and closed on their new family
home. Congratulations to them...oh, and they sold the one they are living in so
double good news!

Something new! I have a blog site. A blog is an on-line diary in which
readers can (if they choose to) make comments. I am trying to write each day (no,
it won't replace the passage.) It is not quite so long, and it is full of
stories, and poems and just thoughts about life. Maybe you could just bookmark
it and then check it out every few days.....make a comment now and then if you
would like: http://auntieannsattic.blogspot.com/

Let me know what you think!

Well, as Sunday afternoon drifts into early evening, droplets of rain still
drip from my Bradford pear tree and the waltz music keeps playing, I should so
like to dance this afternoon, maybe soon!

Don't forget to watch the night sky for the first star which actually in
Venus and the sliver of a moon. Today's poetry is by Gerard Manley Hopkins,
1844-1889. (He died of typhoid fever.)

So to all....Take time for moon watching and a wish on Venus...and someone to
waltz with, if only in the recesses of your imagination. Lou Ann

Moonrise June 19, 1876

I awoke in the midsummer not-to-call night,
in the white and the walk of the morning.
The moon, dwindles and thinned to the fringe
of a fingernail held to the candle.
Or paring or paradisaical fruit,
lovely in waning but lustreless,
stepped from the stool,
drew back from the barrow,
of dark Maenefa the mountain;
A cusp still clasped him
a fluke yet fanged him
entangled him, not quit utterly.
This was the prized, the desirable sight,
unsought, presented so easily,
Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me,
eyelid and eyelid of slumber.

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