“Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again…”
No real reason, just a wonderful song to sing to yourself when wide-awake at 3 AM after little more than 3 hours of sleep. This is my first night of insomnia since coming to Johns Hopkins. My mind is racing with thoughts of home, thoughts of the office, thoughts of family & friends all far from here. I am bursting at the seams to be anywhere but here.
I wonder how my orchids are doing on the windowsill. I am not entirely certain what I’ll be returning home to. I’ve resigned them to their fate in the hopes they may be well-cared-for during my brother-in-law’s infrequent visits.
I wonder how Amitabh, Sam, Andres and the rest of our team at the office are doing. I felt so far-removed from office life being at home this past year for 16 months of chemo that their “telepresence robot (laptop)” felt like a ray of warm sunlight on a cold afternoon. We truly do have a wonderful team at what was once Invincea and now Sophos. I hope that I return to the same wonderful team, but both our office and our team has been through so much?
My mind often returns to Brad, Christina, Kiyomi, and Toshirō, but I feel like a character in a Peter S. Beagle novel when I try to form the words. I feel like Prince Lir in The Last Unicorn when I say:
I’ve had time to write a book
About the way you act and look
But I haven’t got a paragraph
Words are always getting in my way
Anyway, I love you
That’s all I have to tell you
That’s all I’ve got to say
And now, I’d like to make a speech
About the love that touches each
But stumbling, I would make you laugh
I feel as though my tongue were made of clay
Anyway, I love you
That’s all I have to tell you
My mind bounces and aches at Mo, Heather, Onalee, Julia, and others who live, love, and struggle through their lives. Phoebe & Corky were as much a beloved pair as Kiyomi & Toshiro. My heart is still missing a piece since I heard of Phoebe’s passing. Mo and Geo were extraordinarily loving parents. Vicky and I should be so fortunate to be as loving a family to our Shelties as Mo and her husband were to theirs.
And so many other thoughts from the phosphor glow on the other side of your monitor screen. I feel caught and helpless here; an animal stuck in amber awaiting his escape into life again.
I can read about others. My heart can leap with theirs in joy or ache in compassionate sorrow, but there is so much I wish to do and to give thanks for once I finally leave this most terrible time and place. 💕✌