EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL PAIN

Last week was not a good one---at least calculated by any standard of my life, though when I consider the problems in this world, mine seem very small.  The emotional toll came with a broken business relationship---one that had seemed so promising but has just not worked out.  We are committed to ending things amicably, but it still hurts an awful lot.  I have another partner who will pick up the slack.

The physical problems didn't help matters, all culminating in a kidney stone (that passed very painfully on Friday), a hard fast fall on the ice on Saturday morning (that wracked my body from the back of my head to my jaws, neck, shoulders, ribs, hitting hardest on the tailbone), a flu or virus that caused chills, and now a cold, passed on to me by John.  I was in bed most of yesterday.  Dear John read to me despite his own raspy voice.  We had read a poem on Walt Whitman in the latest issue of The New Yorker.  That led us to my old American Literature textbook.  He read introductions to poets and their poetry, including Walt Whitman and his "Leaves of Grass," Edgar Allen Poe, "Ulalume," "The Raven," William Cullen Bryant, "Thanatopsis," and poems by Robert Frost.  What incredible wordsmiths these men were!  How they soothed my soul during an otherwise miserable day.

Today I'm back at the business, not feeling well, but hopefully on the mend.