Living with Scleroderma

Reflections on the Messy Complexity of Chronicity

Sight

As the Leaves Begin to Turn

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It always surprises me this time of year to see leaves already dropping from the trees on our street. I mean, come on, it’s still technically summer here in New England! But the days are growing noticeably short, and less sunlight means less photosynthesis. So, yes, the leaves and other green plants are shifting into autumnal mode.

Al and I took a short hike on Sunday afternoon along a trail by a mill pond for a long-abandoned cider mill not far from our home. It was a bit too buggy for my taste, but the foliage was lovely and the air was moist and rich with the scent of forest duff. Here are a few photos. Enjoy (without the mosquitoes)!

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.

The Best Medicine

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On Sunday, I got totally out of my comfort zone. I’ve been taking acting classes for several years, now, and over the past sic months, have also joined with some acting friends in an informal group working on scenes. This evolved into reading a play by Selina Fillinger, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive.

And reading this very funny, raunchy play together led to a decision to do a staged reading of said play, directed by our wonderful teacher, on Sunday in a theater space. I played Stephanie, the President’s personal secretary, who is the comic foil, a role that included running around in a pink rubber ducky inner tube and rapping the introduction to the Declaration of Independence. Yes, you read that correctly.

I have never done anything like this before, and it was a hoot. I got a lot of laughs and had a blast. My acting friends were all terrific, our director was a dream, the audience totally enjoyed it, and we just had fun. Al smiled through the whole play.

There is a lot of stress in this world. There is nothing like joining with great, talented friends to put on a show and making others laugh for a few hours. The best medicine, indeed.

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.

Image: Caleb Woods

Back on the Block

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It was perfect weather for the beach on Sunday, sunny, in the 80s F, and given that we hadn’t made it to the Atlantic this season, we grabbed the chance for a day trip to Block Island. An hour’s ferry ride from the Rhode Island coast, it was our favorite vacation spot for years with our daughters, until everyone else discovered it, too, and the rents became ridiculous.

So Al and I try each year to get there on a Sunday. As luck would have it, however, given the beautiful weather, a lot of other folks had the same idea. Even as we left with plenty of time to catch the 11:30 ferry, we hit beach traffic that kept adding minutes to our arrival time. I took a GPS-recommended detour, only to have traffic get worse. Needless to say, it was not a relaxing arrival. When we finally got to Point Judith, there was no parking available, so we took a chance of parking in a four-hour spot and risking a ticket.

As it turned out, I had managed to read the ferry schedule backwards—the 11:30 ferry was the return ferry from Block Island—and the ferry to Block Island was actually departing at Noon. We got to the top deck of the very crowded boat with about 10 minutes to spare.

The island was hot and crowded. Still, we made the best of the afternoon, grabbing a good lunch at Persephone’s and then walking to the Town Beach, where we rented chairs and an umbrella. The tide was coming in, so when we took our walk up and down the shore, waves rushed and splashed. My pants got soaked, but I didn’t care, because the sand was cool and the surf, refreshing. And given the heat, my pants dried out quickly. We had our favorite dinner at the Beachcomber, Al got his ice cream at the Ice Cream Place, and we made the 6:15 ferry back, once again with about 10 minutes to spare. When we got to our car, well past a row of similarly parked cars with orange tickets on their windshields, ours had not been tagged. Hurray!

But the highlight of the trip came, surprisingly, on the ferry ride back. We were sitting on the top deck, once again, because there was no room on the other two decks. All of a sudden, people on one side started pointing and raising their phones to take pictures, standing on the benches to get a better view. I was able to get a glimpse of the phenomenon—a pod of dolphins, maybe a dozen or more, leaping through the water, heading toward the island. Everyone was thrilled, like a bunch of little kids. It was great. In that one moment, we were all in awe of Nature’s wonders. Everyone was smiling.

I’ve never seen wild dolphins before. Glorious. May your week be full of magnificent surprises.

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.

Dappled

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There’s a word in Japanese for the light that filters through trees:

Transliterated as komorebi (kō-mō-reh-bee), it is made up of the Japanese characters for tree, leaking, and sun—meaning, literally, the sunlight that leaks through trees. Komorebi refers to the ever-shifting way that sunlight filters through tree branches and boughs, creating dancing patterns on the ground and illuminating the backside of leaves. It’s one of my favorite things to discover when I walk outdoors. And I love the fact that there’s a Japanese word to capture that sensation.

So, when Al and I took advantage of perfect summer weather on Sunday, we went to Garden in the Woods, a 45-acre refuge for native plants in Framingham, Mass., and I tried to capture komorebi with my iPhone’s camera, as well as some delicate plants—and, of course, some turtles. It made for a lovely, peaceful afternoon. Here’s what I found. Enjoy.

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.

And the Winner Is . . .

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And now, a detour from scleroderma and related complexities . . .

As I shared back in March, my World War I historical novel, Line of Flight, at long last has found a publisher, Köehler Books. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been working with their excellent team, preparing for publication on November 17. We went through two rounds of manuscript edits, which turned out to be a productive, painless process. In fact, the text remains largely as written. Kudos to my editor, Joe Cocarro, who caught some important issues with foreshadowing and other details that needed fixing. I was grateful for that and for the vote of confidence in my work (and for learning that when the word ‘then’ is used to denote order of actions, it is not preceded by a comma.)

Recently I have been reviewing text layout and cover designs by Catherine Herold. It’s wonderful to see my words shaping up into book format, and she has been very skilled at creating covers that realize my vision.

Now, here comes the fun part: You get to vote on your favorite cover design! We’ve narrowed it down to two. You’ll see a summary of the novel as well as the two choices in this link.

Your input matters! I really appreciate your participation.

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.

Image: Hkyu Wu