A foggy morning, and cool. Is it really August in St. Louis? I hear my husband breathing peacefully in the room across the hall and am grateful. It has been a long week- surgery on Wednesday, ER on Thursday night but on the mend now. He has ever been a fast healer. When I waited at the hospital during his surgery I realized that I lead a very quiet life compared to what others may consider normal. The TV was blaring in the waiting room and no one paid attention to it but I could hardly think for all the inane conversation and false laughter in the background. I finally asked the nurse in charge if I could turn it down. I was reminded also this week how difficult it is to witness the distress of someone I love, feeling so powerless, having to trust people I don’t know to care well for him- doctors, surgeons, nurses. I had lots of anxious energy to expend in house cleaning, grocery shopping, fixing up the bed for his return. I was reminded, too, that help is always there if I only ask for it, something I am not historically given to easily. Friends who came to hospital to take my mind off the gnawing anxiety, friends who brought dinner over, friends to just talk with. When Dennis got home on Thursday Britches stuck very close to him. Today we may take a walk in the park, get him moving again, get out and see what nature’s doing today. The sounds now are fall sounds- the locusts screaming loud at dusk, then the katydids and crickets later, yesterday a lone katydid at 4 AM. Crickets are hanging out in the doorways, trying to find their way in for the cooler months. This morning several of them came inside as soon as I opened the door, Ishmael in hot pursuit. Time flies by.

From our walk- we saw a wading/shore type bird, haven’t identified who it is yet.

Also a great blue heron- he’s on the left side of the river, perched on the dead brush.