(photo of the sunrise on frozen Lake Ontario on 5 Feb 2022)
There is light at the end of the chemo tunnel! Today's treatment was "easy peasy," with the minor exception that the first IV insertion didn't work out and the nurse had to do a second. She explained that the veins start to get more fragile as treatment goes on. Makes sense. Most of the infusions have been in the same vein. After Carolyn got the IV working, gave me the pretreatment IV drugs, and started up the chemo infusion, there were no problems. Everything ran smoothly.
AND - I scored another window seat, another chair with a remote and another lovely nurse, Carolyn. WOW! How'd I get so lucky? The window seat this time was in the corner of the "back" row, not the front row of window seats. So the view was more of the street, not the lake. Not as scenic, but the light was lovely. Here are a couple of photos of the view from my chair. I was pleased to realize how complementary the colours are in the slippers that my Mom crocheted for me, and the wrap knitted by my deceased colleague, Geoff. The slippers and wrap warmed my body, and my heart.
Speaking of hearts, I made heart-shaped Valentine's sugar cookies for the nurses, which they appreciated. Apparently they are not supposed to accept them because they are not individually wrapped (a COVID rule). But they took them anyway, and enjoyed them very much. (To my knowledge, no one has caught COVID from food.)
Like many of our holi- holy- days, Valentine's Day has commercialized into something not so appealing to me. But I like what Kayleen Asbo has written about the roots of Valentine's Day in the Ancient and Medieval practice of learning to see with the eyes of the heart. She says:
Historians disagree on exactly who this holiday is named for. There are several different candidates, but my favorite possibility is Valentinus, a second century philosopher and mystical theologian who founded a "school of love" that existed from the 2nd- 9th centuries. Valentinians believed that what was truest and most real inside of us was the seed of goodness. The royal pathway to our fulfillment in life lay in pursuing the things of beauty, depth and meaning that would allow us to blossom and bloom in our fullness. (...) They believed the pattern of nature was beautiful-- and the deepest pattern inside us is beautiful, too. Trouble arises when we forget who we are, and so we needed practices ( music, silence, poetry, friendship) that would re-awaken us to the possibilities that are always before us.
Learning to see with the eyes of the heart. Believing that what is most true and real inside us is the seed of goodness, and that the pattern of nature is beautiful. These sound like Valentine traditions to reclaim!
So, for anyone who would like it, here is Aunt Joan's sugar cookie recipe. It is a very old recipe - one of those early 20th century recipes that only gave the ingredients because it was assumed that everyone knew how to combine them. I've made them for Valentine's Day for years, and shared the recipe and a photo on FaceBook many years ago. Two of my first cousins, who hadn't seen each other for decades, and probably wouldn't have talked to each other in person, reminisced about eating Aunt Joan's cookies - shared happy memories among all of us. The Trump-supporting first cousin who lives in the US has since unfriended me on FaceBook. I guess he doesn't talk to many of his first cousins in Canada anymore. Maybe sugar cookies can help heal our divides?? Or maybe we need more Aunt Joans. She would be horrified at the hatred and divisiveness in our world right now, and would be praying determinedly for healing.
Aunt Joan's Sugar Cookies
1 cup butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
3 cups flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
Mix together. Roll out & cut with cookie cutter. Bake in hot oven, 400 degrees, 8-10 mins. Watch closely as they will burn easily.
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Thank you, as always, for reading, and for your continued love, care, kindness, and support. Knowing and feeling that loving support has been the one of the greatest gifts of this unusual time.
Heart-shaped stone, in the light of sunrise, on the snow-covered beach.
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