Last week, after all the mishegas with my roller-coaster blood pressure was mostly resolved (no, thank goodness, I was not experiencing scleroderma renal crisis, which would be a rare but very serious development at this stage of my disease), Al and I went to Cape Cod for a few days.
I had planned this trip for several months as a writing retreat on my own, to dig into Novel 2. Given that I was/am still adjusting to my new BP med, however, I did not feel comfortable making the long drive and staying alone. The cottage I had rented was a small. renovated barn next to the home of two artists in Truro, which is way up on the Outer Cape, a short drive west to the Bay and east to the Cape Cod National Seashore.
And so, once settled in, we visited a beach each morning, where Al then stayed to walk the shore all afternoon, while I went back to the cottage to write. It was the perfect getaway. He reveled in nature, and I cleared my head, felt the healing moisture of sea air on my too dry eyes, and made some real progress on my novel.
I also discovered that Apple’s Pages software, which I’m using for this draft, includes a dictation feature that comes in very handy for transcribing my handwritten scenes into my document, as well as mining material from my first draft. My left ring finger remains a problem (requiring yet another doc visit, this time to an ID specialist), so this feature was really a hand-saver.
There is nothing like the ocean to calm my nerves, lower my blood pressure, heal my eyes, clear my lungs, and just enable me to recenter myself. And there is nothing like the Cape off-season, with hardly any people or cars around, just the waves pounding and receding, to give me the clarity I need to write fiction.
Here are a few pictures from the beach and environs. Be well, Dear Reader.
Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.
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