After my daughter Louise died, for a very long time I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. What I could do was spend afternoons at Minnehaha Creek where she and I used to walk our dogs and where her women friends planted a maple tree in her memory. There I could  walk the wooded paths, breathe in fresh air, and listen to the rushing water.  All I could hear then was the wail of my grieving heart.

One June day, my bones aching with missing her, I pleaded, “If I had some way to know you are here, it would help. When you were an exchange student in Japan, you were across the world but I knew how to find you. I don’t even know if you are here now. I don't know how to find you. And I can’t......

It’s summer. My mom is seventy-five. I am 33.

I’m over at her apartment for a visit. She is wearing a short-sleeved summer blouse and examining her wrinkled arms. “Lynn,” she says, “these days I look in the mirror and wonder, ‘Who is that old lady?’ Inside I feel like I’m still 25. It’s always a surprise.” The moment touches me, as I am rarely privy to how Mom feels about things or what makes her tick. I savor her sharing and tuck her words away.

Now, almost 40 years later, I notice that my calves, one part of my body that seemed to be holding up, are now wrinkled. My toes, too. My arms have been crinkly for a long time, but I’ve given up trying to hide them under long ......

A few days ago I rode Blue Angel on the trail by one of the Rio Grande’s deep irrigation ditches. I’d taken a new route that day and was finally on our last leg home. Not many people are out on the trails during the week, but I slung a face mask over the saddle horn in case I encountered someone walking, horseback riding or riding a bike.

Far in the distance standing by the edge of the ditch,  I saw a stocky man with a backpack and fishing net intently eyeing the water. As I got closer, I noticed he wore no mask. Hadn’t he heard of Covid 19?  I put mine on anyway, preparing to go by him, while my mind swirled with thoughts about his carelessness, his political leanings and his intentions.

As I ......

I've been sitting in the pasture with my horse Blue Angel while she grazes, making it a practice to just observe. None of the horses in her herd have free run of the grass this year, as the farm where Blue lives makes hay to sell instead of using the acreage for pasture. So I take her out to a corner of the property where the grass is lush and sit on the ground while she eats. But sometimes, if the fields have just been irrigated or hay is waiting to be baled, I have to find other places where Blue can graze.

There’s one place by the ranch road among the trees called the bosque where mostly weeds grow. If I look closely among the weeds, though, grass born of seeds carried on the wind from the hay fields pops up here ......

As I worked my way through my first bout of cancer, I found a program called Renewing Life put on by Pathways Minneapolis, an organization that brings free alternative health services to people with life threatening illnesses and their support people. Renewing Life is about living fully in the face of trying circumstances, facing fear, and looking closely at how to take care of ourselves, body, mind and spirit. 

Facing a life threatening or chronic illness takes a lot of energy. It’s important to conserve what energy we have and say no to things that drain us. In the relationships module we took a hard look at how our relationships affect our energy.

Renewing Life talks about three kinds of relationships: life affirming, .........