Progress and Patron Saints
When this year began, I harbored grand dreams of blogging more frequently as I delved into editing the chapters of this book, wrestling with the concepts, retracing my journey a bit more publicly this time. Life, it seems, has had other plans.
A catastrophic health event in the life of my father completely rewrote my family narrative, and after months spent with him in the ICU, in a sub-acute rehab center, he is finally home and beginning treatment for Stage IV cancer. What little time I had at the end of these long days has been spent blogging about his journey on a CaringBridge to keep friends and family up to date on the latest. The fact I’m still posting about his recovery is, in itself, a miracle walking.
I have spent many nights and days sitting by his side, navigating these chapters, and they are the richer for being exposed to the hospital’s psychic chaos, to my own struggle for compassion in the face of crisis. Surely it was no accident that the chapters of aging and dying were those next in queue when I picked this manuscript back up.
I am continually the richer for continuing this journey of Enrichment.
And I grow ever nearer to being able to share my words more broadly. As of this afternoon, I am 94.62% complete with writing and a first edit of this draft. I am conducting integration interviews with the Enrichment participants– that’s 14 interviews in total, including the three honorary participants– and I’ve completed the first six.
Most of my editing now takes place in my writing nook again, instead of medical settings, which is a fact heartily approved by my Siamese cat Tiki, who has vocally declared herself to be the Patron Saint of this project. An office which apparently entitles her to the length of my lap. I must balance my iPad percariously atop her purring frame, as evinced by the photo below, where she twisted towards the camera to sniff at my tapping fingers.
It is entirely possible that I will have a completed draft by the end of this year to begin circulating with editors and potential publishers. As autumn takes over the skies and the trees, I’m even more acutely aware that the next phase, the next chapter of my life, is about to begin.
Tiki: The Enrichment Project’s Patron Saint