The shoreline and the sea

So much to say.

On my last trip (Baltimore-Chicago), I noticed a right axillary (armpit) node. Was it there for a long time and I just hadn't felt it before or was it a harbinger of a lymphoma on the march? My CT scan showed a .5 cm node. This feels bigger. Nothing else I can feel. We will see what Dr. Forman says.

Another thing: The morning of my lecture in Baltimore, I woke up with what looked like a small black eye, without the punch in the face to cause it. No other bruises or bleeding from gums or nose or petechiae (small red dots that appear when platelets go missing). That is a trail I know too well and I have no desire to revisit. My platelets were a very normal 425,000 last week , and I will check them again tomorrow.

I ignored them both until my return.

So do the node and the bruise mean anything? Probably not, but in the land of remission, where whether I am listening or not, the sound of the hoof beats while not always apocalyptic, might be heard pounding at anytime, and demand that I stop what I am doing and pay some attention to the thunder in the arena.

This is the place I wanted to avoid. That was the reason for the transplant. This is the world I didn't want to enter.

I guess it is just one more trial. One more tug and push that I won't allow to upset my balance for long.

The CBC tomorrow will give me  reassurance about the bruise, but not the node.

Today with the full moon, the tide was so high, I couldn't walk under the pier. The old fishermen's village, normally 30 feet from the water's edge, had waves beating against its footing. If the fishmongers still went out in their dories, their work would have been made easy. I love the way the beach is always different. Yesterday, Patty and I saw our shadows in the mist. Our shadows in the mist. How strange and surrealistic pillowed is that?

Everything changes. Like the shoreline and the sea, as you said so many years ago,Mr. Cohen. I just keep walking and remembering what really matters.

My friend, rabbi Haim Beliak send me a link  http://modernhaggadah.com/CHAG/   for a downloadable Haggadah for Passover for Jew-Boos ( Jewish- Buddhists). Preparing a new service every Passover is a labor of love, and when it works well, of redemption. This year again, I pray we all can leave behind our personal bondage.

Before that, tomorrow I get to see my all time favorite Jew-Boo, fellow ex Montrealer now leaving in SoCal, Leonard Cohen. I last saw him when he last toured 15 years ago. He was a child of 57 years on that tour, my age now. I was a meager 42. My oldest child was 13 and the youngest who graduates from college next month was in kindergarden. Dylan was right: Time is a jet plane. Will Leonard tour again at 87? Why not. I would pay to see him. I'd only be 72 and I understand the grocer of despair is rocking out at that age. 

I was in my early 20's in Montreal the first time I saw him. Suzanne was in the audience.

I am so excited about the show, about Pesach, about walking on.

I am so lucky.