The Smallest of Sunny Signs

I don't mind saying it's been a turbulent fourteen months or so—outrageous fortune has been working the slings and arrows pretty hard, and my flesh has been subject to a thousand natural shocks and my spirit as well, although nothing all that unusual, the typical stuff. I lost a friend last fall, and I do miss her. The other stuff—I'd have spared other friends the hospital stays, if I could have, but they got better. I'm not complaining. They got better. You can't ask for more.

With any luck, you begin to claw your way toward the water's surface again, you start to feel better about things, and I'm glad to report I do. Just this morning I was finishing up a bunch of chores, getting ready for a very interesting new endeavor, and I went out back with a tea mug in hand and a soggy tea bag in the other. I dropped the trash can lid on the porch and tossed in the bag.

Then I stood there, looking at the lid. Hmm. And with the cup in my left hand, I put the toe of my right foot inside the rim of the lid and flipped it into the air. I caught it with my free hand. Clumsily, oafishly, but there was still an element of the juggler in the deal, that whimsical defiance of gravity. I don't know if the tide of trouble is turning, although I have hopes. What I do know is that I'm still me, in a very good way. I stood there, thinking that, and then I went back into the house.