Gratitude

Diary 11/25/19

I can hardly believe it is Thanksgiving week. Of course, I have been in surgery and recovery mode which took a chunk out of the days passing as anything but usual. Now that my head is emerging above the water, I shake the drops out of my eyes and look around to see it is fully late November. Warmish days, sunny days, cold, gray days, snow piles from the plow melting in the corners of the parking lots- all of it speaks of November. Outside my windows, the grounds people here have been busy planting new shrubs and trees to fill around the skimpy garden I tried to start last spring. This spring, Kendal will provide more perennials that I helped to choose, and my small patch will blend in with this whole side of the building that holds our six-year-old wing of assisted living. It was never properly landscaped before this and now I will be able to observe it come to fullness along with my own growth.

I am delighted to be back in my own room. Being inside my room makes it clear that I have a way to go to undertake the hundreds of small activities I did more easily before. I can stand up without holding on for a minute at a time before I get a still unhealed nerve zing that weakens my leg muscle and have to reach out to hold on. First thing in the morning I am at my strongest. The other day I got up and took an unaided normal step or two before I noticed and quickly had to grab the handles of my rollator. If I have to walk more than twenty feet, I wear my sturdy new back brace and my old foot/ankle orthotic from the time MS had caused bad foot drop on my left side. That condition has returned due to my disrupted nervous system. I work on that every day on my own and I am back to twice-a-week PT sessions now that I am out of rehab when I worked with PT and an OT every day.

My weak back can just handle sitting up for an hour for my meditation groups and the Sunday Quaker meetings, and I hope to get back to my committee meetings and writing groups after this week. Of course, I am mostly focused on the coming grandchild. My lovely waddling daughter is a happily expectant mom, still teaching her classes on the Oberlin campus last week and this. There were indications that her babe may arrive earlier than the December 20th due date, but now it is up to the mysteries to decide when another particular human being will appear in our turbulent world. After this week he is considered full term. As my younger daughter is taking the train here and back from NY state for Thanksgiving, we can hope he waits until after all the plans are fulfilled, a family meal and reunion is concluded, and the activity runway is cleared for his safe and healthy landing. May your own Thanksgiving be full of less obligations and full of more opportunities for gratitude.

This is a love poem for my pregnant daughter and her babe.

Message

You are swimming

in the dark belly of the mothership

the ocean that bore us all

silently awaiting cell by cell

powerful waves of mystery

wave after wave after wave

will launch you towards our bright shore

Love to love

and you will inhale

your First Breath alone

your latest message from Home

will touch many hearts

all the years of your life

“Gather all the Kindling”

When the light around lessens
And your thoughts darken until
Your body feels fear turn
Cold as a stone inside,


When you find yourself bereft
Of any belief in yourself
And all you unknowingly
Leaned on has fallen,

When one voice commands
Your whole heart,
And it is raven dark,

Steady yourself and see
That it is your own thinking
That darkens your world.

Search and you will find
A diamond-thought of light,

Know that you are not alone,
And that this darkness has purpose;
Gradually it will school your eyes,
To find the one gift your life requires
Hidden within this night-corner.

Invoke the learning
Of every suffering
You have suffered.

Close your eyes.
Gather all the kindling
About your heart
To create one spark
That is all you need
To nourish the flame
That will cleanse the dark
Of its weight of festered fear.

A new confidence will come alive
To urge you towards higher ground
Where your imagination
will learn to engage difficulty
As its most rewarding threshold!

                                    John O’Donohue

John O’Donohue says it best. What schools my eyes today is the innate resilience of my body that has been lurking under chronic pain for so long. I am slowly healing. Through this healing time, I am in less and less nerve pain, and the pain from the surgery itself is not hard to handle. Connecting nerves to muscles is an ongoing lesson plan. With the help of a wonderful back brace and my old left foot/ankle orthotic from when my MS was much worse, I am walking longer and farther every day. I must be very careful because sudden nerve spasms can fell me if I am not holding on carefully to my rollator. I cannot twist around my low back and can lean forward only with great care. Otherwise I am becoming more self-sufficient and expect I will be able to leave the rehab area of the Care Center and return to my own room next Thursday. I look forward to having my own space and no longer having to be checked for levels of various body functions at all times of the day as is necessary for skilled nursing care.

To be on a healing path with the obstacles removed and my spine revamped is a true joy. Boredom, fatigue, and irritation are small passing squalls that do not temper the underlying momentum of healing that my beleaguered body has shown during my days here. I know I will be stronger after I recover, and I will return to my life with renewed gratitude.

“A new confidence will come alive
To urge you towards higher ground
Where your imagination
will learn to engage difficulty
As its most rewarding threshold!”

Home

11/9/19

I am back at Kendal in the rehab area of the nursing center that encompasses my own room in the Assisted Living wing. The surgery went well. Four and a half days in a small local hospital was hard, and I experienced the worst physical suffering of my life for two of those nights. Off the chart post-surgical pain, nausea, and a pounding headache created a harsh mix of sensation. Drugs both helped and didn’t help, but it is what I had to work with. After my last surgery, a Kendal friend of mine who used to be a nurse gave me a get-well card that said, “People who say that laughter is the best medicine have never tried morphine.” I say, first the morphine, and then the laughter.

There is something very pure and clarifying about undergoing intense pain. The urge to disassociate from my body was strong. It was not a “near death” experience, because my pain was not signifying life or death. Nonetheless, I had to summon something that insists on life not usually called upon from deep within. It happens during childbirth, on the battlefield, extreme athletics, or at any time the body is threatened at that level. I kept breathing, and the pain receded by degrees. I know I went through an ordeal, but the body memory fades it from view as soon as it passes. I remember sobbing on the toilet (sitting up at all was hard) with a nurse calmly standing by without judgement as I wailed, “I can’t take this anymore.”

My pride was in shreds. I wanted her to know that this is not my usual reaction to pain, that I am very strong, that I am not some flaky wimp. I calmed down and staggered back to bed with my rollator. I was glad she held neutral ground. My pain meds were adjusted, and then I could laugh at the picture of helplessness of me weeping all exposed in that hospital bathroom. That reassertion to live is a gift and, I begin to realize, so is the pain that precedes it. I have worked on embracing chronic pain for many years. Though I never would call it my favorite teacher, I see now that it is, in fact, a gifted teacher. Pain is an immediate humbler of the ego. It is paint stripper to the personality, creating an opportunity to see what else you are made of beneath the carefully cultivated images we strive to maintain.

At Kendal, the nurses here know me, and I know them as well. They know me as a person, not just a patient. We work together as a team and exchange helpful dialogue where my personal perspective counts as much if not more than theirs. That atmosphere in and of itself is healing. I do not need to push for self-advocacy. We all need to be truly heard and seen. It is Love in action. Hospitals are filled with professional strangers and do not provide a nurturing environment. Nurses run from room to room filling out endless paperwork, running meds, checking stats and have little time to give compassionate care. For the last three nights in a row I asked my three different new young night nurses how they liked working at Kendal. All three gushed that they loved it. Here they get to care for patients as people. I am beyond lucky to be here.

I learned something else. In my humbled vulnerability while waiting for the ambulance to transport me, I couldn’t wait to come HOME. I hadn’t realized how significant that thought was until I was back in my rehab bedroom. Once I was settled down, people kept dropping in to see for themselves that I was back. Some were friends, some were members of the community I know only a little, but everybody knew that I had been gone and had now returned. I hadn’t been wishing to go to back to my former house and home. I wanted to be here at Kendal with my community. These people are my home now. The transition from my former life has already happened. Home is not a particular room or a house, or a specific time of your life. It is the interactions of the heart cultivated with others around you. Corny, but true- home is where the flexible, spacious heart is. Home is not a static location. It includes all friends and family, the beloved old ones, and the shiny new ones still to come.

Exile From Home

10/27/19

Exile is such a brutal word. Many of us have decided that self-imposed exile is the best choice to disentangle from an impossible situation. We may exile ourselves from toxic families, spouses, jobs, a former community of colleagues, or friends. Wavering between the context of cowardice or courage, we finally may choose self-exile as the better part of valor. To be exiled by others is that much harder. To forcefully lose your home and the country of your heart through catastrophes, natural or manmade, is heartrending. When your reasons for wishing to return to the country of your origin are benign, but opposing forces conspire to prevent that from happening, it appears as grossly unjust.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk from Viet Nam, experienced political exile for forty long years. I read his lovely book of short stories and essays, At Home in the World. After practicing Buddhism since the age of sixteen on his way to becoming a monk, he credits this painful obstacle of exile from his country for helping him to attain his True Nature. There is a Buddhist saying, “The obstacle becomes the path.” Most of us search to find meaning in our own obstacles, and acknowledge the growth required to have met our challenges. In the end, gratitude arises when we find that we can now bear the apparently unbearable.

Where have I experienced self-imposed exile? Most of my struggles have been placed within the geography of my own body. I was another sexually abused child. Growing up in my small world of dance, I was once famous for the fastest footwork known to young females, unconsciously trying to escape my body. Later I endeavored to transcend my unidentified suffering by living with my spiritual head high up in the clouds. I choreographed, and performed in, potent dances highlighting separation and wholeness. I wrote songs that spoke to the unfulfilled longing of the human heart. I tried to ground myself in my body and heart while I tried escaping it through artistic expression at the same time.

I finally understood how much damage was behind the need for these semi-successful strategies and spent years in therapeutic practices and spiritual searching to uncover and heal my wounds. I seem to have laid down neurological tracks utilizing my genetic inheritance of MS to erase my bodily sensations from the ground up. That I also had degenerative disc disease was not identified until recently, when stenosis and bad arthritis in my spine began to cause the kind of pain at a younger age than is usually the case.

Honestly addressing causes of lifelong stress does not necessarily lead to a cure. In my case, I have applied and studied a wide variety of therapies and disciplines, including both allopathic and Western medicines to heal my mind/body issues. I have long been actively returning from exile, welcoming the tattered refugees of various bodily ailments into my loving care. I now see myself as a co-creator in the country of my life. I see that I am responsible to, not solely responsible for, what occurs within my boundaries. I love this home which life manifests within and around me. I respect my past choices for survival and current choices for revival. The spaciousness of unbounded spirit as I know it, is one and the same as my citizenship of this planet. Exploration and celebration of the full range of the human condition feels like Love in action. I, too, am slowly learning to be At Home in the World.

For My Next Act…

I will have a laminectomy on November 4th. The surgeon will be fusing vertebrae L 3-5 which means he will drill through the presenting lamina bone to reach behind into the interior area. He saves the bone dust to fill in the hole later. The interior is where my discs should be cushioning between each vertebra. But they are not, resulting in bad arthritis. The discs are disintegrating, and one is bulging out causing pressure on a root nerve, which is responsible for much of my pain. This arthritis also allows one vertebra to slip back and forth over another which increases the inflammatory pain with the slightest movement in the wrong direction. The discs will be removed and I will have new titanium springs to replace them. I never imagined that I would be someone with double sets of metal in her spine. A metal cage will hold the three vertebrae in place. I am assured I will not lose too much range of motion and anyway, I am barely moving my back now.

            It is amazing to me that modern medicine can clearly see inside the human body to address this problem. It is further amazing that they now can fix it with only two small incisions on either side of my spine, which is why it is called Minimally Invasive Surgery. MIS it may be but having undergone my cervical surgery, I understand that while reducing the impact on healing cut muscles and nerves, MIS does not change the internal assault on the spine. I know it will be excruciatingly painful for a few days, and in a week’s time it will be tolerable with fewer and fewer painkillers. I am willing to trade my never-ending unstable back pain for a different temporary pain that should totally heal within a few months.

            At first, I had no idea how to time this operation against the reality of becoming a grandmother in late December. When I walked into my doctor’s office last week, he said that he had just gotten a cancellation for the 4th and did I want it. I figured it was my sign to go for it, that the timing was as good as it could get. I should be fairly functional by Thanksgiving, and free of still anticipating a medical intervention after the baby is born. I can’t quite remember what it is like to be free of constant pain in that specific area in my back anymore. To deal with a pain that is always changing as it heals sounds like a wonderful alternative to me.

            I like my surgeon, I got cleared for my pre-operation testing yesterday, and I have a new primary care physician whose office is right next to my surgeon’s. They even like each other, which is a good feeling. I am confident the outcome will be successful and am practicing staying in the moment when I start to spin out into fear of further pain and “what ifs.”  

            I only need to stay in the hospital for one night. Kendal is the right place for me to pursue healing my body as best I can. The rehabilitation nursing staff is just down the hall from my room. As I need less medication and care to see that my wounds are healing, I should only be there a few days before I return home to my own room. My daughter, pregnant as she is, will confer with the doctor when I am in recovery from surgery at the nearby hospital. Back at Kendal she can visit with me when she is done teaching for the day just across from the Oberlin campus. I have many Kendal friends to look in on me. The nurses already know me, and physical therapists know me well and how my body works. I am entirely grateful to feel cared for in all these ways.

            My friends, near and far, shall also be with me in spirit and I am blessed.

Twone

Above is the download button you can press to see the original power point of a poem/slideshow I called Twone. You press on each slide on the left to move it along to display the next one on the screen. I worked with a new resident friend, Rebecca Cardozo, to create this piece which we presented to a Kendal audience in September. She is a like-minded-new friend, and a brilliant wildlife and landscape photographer. She has hundreds of stunning slides from her worldwide travels.

The music committee at Kendal came up with the theme of Tea for Two for this variety show. We were asked to share two people collaborations of all kinds. Ours was the above with me speaking the poem aloud as the slides went by. Of course, the rest of the offerings ran the gamut from four hands piano versions of Tea for Two, a tap dance, a Tango, stringed instruments duet, harmonica/guitar and harmonica/ autoharp duets, and more, all MC ‘d by our local Mad Hatter including repartee with Alice.

Below is both a shaky handheld iPhone video of the live performance and I also include the poem on its own. I borrowed the title from a dance choreographed and performed by my dear friends Johan Kos and Elizabeth Orwig, many years ago. I honor their work and could think of no better title for this new collaboration.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/5Rg4fj7igMqMYXR79

Twone

I lost my most intimate mirror

when my husband died.

Where will I find my reflection now?

Who will rest with me together upon the earth

when no words need be spoken?

Who will confront me

when I am at fault?

Who will be my forever companion?

Who will laugh at my sense of humor?

Who will play with me

like the time we slid down the wintry slope

in cardboard boxes

at midnight

in the moonlight ​?

Who will remember climbing our mountains

swimming our oceans in joyful awe?

Who remembers birthing lambs

from our flock of Icelandic sheep?

Who is milking the ewes

and making our favorite manchego cheese?

Who will grandfather

our first grandchild

to be born this coming December?

Beneath one sky

by day and by night

we are reaching for one another.

Who will celebrate with me

the astonishing

diversity

of scale and claw and hoof and feathers and atennae?

Who mourns with me as species after species disappear?

Now I find you everywhere.

The shortest distance between us

is no distance at all.

We are Twone.

Grateful

Diary 10/8/19

This is a few minutes of a dance piece that a senior dance student from Oberlin and I performed for this past April ‘s Kendal community event, Spring Fling.

I look sorrowful and full of longing in most of it, but end with a grin as butterflies surround us. The end of the actual longer piece indeed had gorgeous butterflies flitting thickly through the air from a clip of a copyrighted film from another photographer which cannot be shown here. You just have to imagine them glowing in all their ephemeral beauty.

It is a sharp reminder to see myself as I was then to compare with how much harder it is for me to sit and move now. Then I was still in recovery from my laminoplasty three months earlier. The symbolism of me emerging from a cocoon was not lost on my audience. Perhaps there will be another emergence of wings after my next surgery. We shall see.

Here are the words of a song I wrote last month. The words were originally written for a poetry class last fall, but the melody driving the original lyrics was not what I wanted so I put the poem away. Watching the Ken Burns series on Country Music a few weeks ago, suddenly inspired a  tune to carry them, which I am sure came from a compilation of any of the hundreds of songs mentioned or featured in his movie. The poem took on a waltz rhythm; rewriting the lyrics as they wedded to the melody. I am so grateful that creativity has a means to be shared at Kendal. I got to sing this song at our bi-monthy gathering called Song Swap, led by a professional folk songstress that resides here with her musical audio-visual technician husband.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

                                                By Judi Bachrach

1)When I was younger, I fed the hunger

to become Somebody that the world could see.

Now I am older, I am much bolder

And daring and caring to simply be me.

Chorus:

Two sides of the same coin

laughing and crying and living and dying

the rainbow of aging is always engaging

with who we really are.

2) Loved ones are leaving, teaching me grieving

my broken heart I am learning to bear.

When I open to sorrow, I open tomorrow

an opening heart has much more love to share.

Chorus:

3) Times I still wander, times I still squander

this gift I am given of being alive.

Time is unending, I am befriending

A body that’s old with a spirit that thrives.

Chorus:

The Baton

10/2/19

I am looking forward to the day when I no longer need to include my medical status to you, my friends and readers. Short and sweet- with my last MRI in hand, my second opinion surgeon immediately said that yes, surgery would relieve most of my pain. I was surprised and delighted to hear this. He can do MIS, minimally invasive surgery, with two small cuts on either side of my spine at the level of L4-5. He will fuse those vertebrae, likely with a metal cage. He warned me as he must, that it could fail, and that above and below the fusion other vertebrae would eventually be more challenged. But he also said I will be up and walking the next day as well as I do now without pain. It will not help the weakness I experience, and it will still take 3-6 months to heal from the surgery itself. Though it is no longer prominent at eight months out, I am still healing from the last surgery on my neck, which was far more invasive. The biggest question is of course: when? A certain baby boy is due around 12/20 and I want to be ready. The doctor already told me he is booked into November and I won’t see him again to schedule everything until the middle of October.

More surrender is involved and so is trusting that somehow it will all work out for the best for everybody concerned. May it be so, whatever the dates on the calendar tell us!

I have been pondering two wonderful quotes that came my way from friends. One is from the poet Hafiz, a Persian poet, who lived from 1310-1390. It says: “Love is simply creation’s greatest joy.”

I love this definition to recall any time my life gets complicated. It is that direct and that simple. It is a surefire antidote to confusion and unnecessary drama.

The other is one from the Dalai Lama, applicable to today and tomorrow as the days fly by tortured by politics. “The planet doesn’t need more successful people. The planet needs more peacemakers, restorers, healers, storytellers, and lovers of all kinds.”

I am confident that therein lies our hope as my grandson enters onto the world stage with millions of other new, young people ready to take the baton, running past us into the future we fervently hope they will save.

Peace

Diary 9/19/19

This year, my birthday falls on the International Day of Peace. What a wonderful concept, and a marvelous stretch for humanity to reach for. May we arrive there one day. I had a deep conversation with my friend about her becoming a member of the Quakers during WW11. As you can imagine, the war was a hot topic for a spiritual community that espouses peace and favored Conscientious Objectors. Is there a right time to take up arms to combat evil? It is a good question to ask again and again. My friend fell on the side of supporting the war effort and was admitted to Quaker membership in spite of that exact split in her particular meeting. The Quakers here in the Oberlin meeting have a very large, honest umbrella which makes for a very diverse and interesting community. Peace is still a mutual front and center concern. In our last gathering, someone sang the song I learned in Girl Scouts many years ago, “Peace, I ask of thee oh river, peace, peace, peace…” Many of us sang along remembering the words as we went.

My body is not peaceful, my back has not been pronounced fixable by surgery, though I see the second opinion doctor again next week. I did not yet have my MRI disc in hand, so with new x-rays, he could only be sure of so much. Based on that, he said he thought surgery would relieve just the specific nerve impingement running down the outside of my right leg. This causes an annoying symptom, a numbing ribbon that includes my three outside toes. It is not the major problem for me. Pain and weakness in my whole lower back is. I liked this doctor very much and if I did do surgery, I would probably go with him.

I left his office realizing once more that my issues are not simple to address- they are a many layered cake. Muscle atrophy remaining from MS, arthritis, which this doc noted as more significant than my last surgeon, recurring bouts of inflammation, which, if not MS, may be caused by another auto-immune disorder, and mild spinal stenosis altogether create this dense confection. It felt as if I was again facing the reality that this loss of functional mobility is not going to improve very much. Reality always wins any disagreement I may have. Going forward is more about managing my body, and I am deep into exploring a variety of hopeful solutions to address the pain. Somewhat lessened already, I am swallowing new drops and using creams of various kinds that have mitigated the worst of it.

It is ironic that the idea of becoming a grandmother exacerbates the battle of accepting my condition. The grandmother who bounces the baby boy as she walks around and sings him to sleep, the one who easily picks up and puts down a squirmy little fellow for a diaper change, the one who chases after a giggling toddler is not the grandmother I will be. I cannot help my daughter with cooking or cleaning or doing errands for her. The grandmother I am is safely sedentary. The grandmother I am cannot sit up for long periods of time. Who Grandmother Judi will be is yet to be revealed and I am working on becoming more content to let the picture unfold as it will, and not as I will it. That leaves more room for joy, a much more delightful state of being in which to anticipate my grandson’s arrival.

Peace I ask of thee, oh river, peace peace, peace.

When I learn to live serenely, cares will cease.

From the hills I gather courage, visions of the day to be.

Strength to lead and strength to follow, all are given unto thee.

Peace I ask of thee, oh river, peace peace, peace.

Written by Quaker Gwyneth Van Anden Walker in 1947

Grief Stew

8/24/19

I inherited an older office chair for my desk, the one piece of furniture I had left to purchase for my home. I am on the Quiet Room committee, where six of us have decided how to transform someone’s old office into a space for grieving families, a meditation spot for staff and residents, and an official calm room for anyone to rest within the bustle of a day. When I first arrived at Kendal, I was astonished to discover that there wasn’t a non-denominational chapel of some kind. I heard there used to be a Quiet Room designated for this purpose, but when the new Memory wing was built, that space had gotten absorbed. Six years later, with the help of others who also felt this to be a glaring lack at Kendal, we now have another Quiet Room. I got the old office chair from there, just for being in the right place at the right time to inquire about its future destination.

The chair is not pretty, and is rather tall and imposing, but it is very comfortable, and adjusts every which way. The two reading chairs I brought with me here from Richard’s Manhattan office are sleek and comfy for those of us who can still rise in and out of cozy low chairs with lower arms. Many of my Kendal friends require the sturdy high arms of my new acquisition for better leverage. It will also nicely accommodate my tall and lanky son-in-law. He has not yet had the honor of sitting there but perhaps he will later this week when he and his mother, who is here for a two week visit, and my daughter, will come to take me home with them for an overnight. I am looking forward to having a broken English/Bosnian chat with his mom on becoming first time grandmothers together in December.

Here is a journal entry from last month. Grief arises at it does, when it does, on its own time.

Diary 7/20/19

Recipe for Grief Stew

serves one:

2 cups tear broth (comes salted, don’t add more salt)

1 small handful of disbelief

2-3 chunks of seasoned sorrow

Distilled years of shredded future dreams (to taste)

½ cup of sweet memories and acceptance

¼ cup of dried loneliness

½ teaspoon of astonishment

3 heaping Tablespoons of loving gratitude (optional, but highy recommended whenever available)

After bringing to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for 1½ years. Store in fridge. Eat as necessary when the mood strikes.

Recommended for dessert: a sweet memory.

You are sitting outside on the deck, covered in sweat and the confetti of sawdust from working down in the woods at your portable sawmill. Morgan, the dog, is panting at your feet. Walking in the back kitchen door, you had filled a 12 oz. tumbler with water and brought out a plate with an apple and a chunk of our homemade manchego cheese for lunch. Overlooking the sheep in their paddock, source of the milk that made last year’s cheese, you take off your cap, showering the Adirondack chair with more wood chips.

Drinking down the water in one long chug, you gaze below at the ewes nursing large lambs and chewing their cud, and then up at the mountain across from ours. The cicadas are buzzing, so it must be August. Morgan waits patiently for the apple core that is sure to come, delicately taking it from your fingers at your “OK” command. The cheese is gone to the last crumb. Slapping your cap against your leg, you replace it purposefully on your head. Wiping your resinous hands on a paper towel, after brushing dirt away unsuccessfully from your overalls, you stand up and walk back down the hill to complete what you began. Morgan dutifully tags along behind having lapped up water from his bowl.

Not wanting to track more sawdust in the house, I come out to collect the plate and the glass you left behind, listening closely for the sawmill’s whine. I am relieved to hear the motor is still behaving for you after tinkering with it in the early morning. When it is nearly dark, after feeding the horses and sheep, you will trudge back up to the house and tell me of how many boards you cut from that particular dead oak, and that tall pine you culled last fall. You will list the 2×4’s and 8’s, and 10’s, if they were straight and free from knots, and tell me how you will use them to build the future barn. You hauled the milled wood by tractor to our east facing plateau where you stacked it to dry under the slanted roof you made for the growing pile of lumber.

The barn never got built, but the memory of you is sturdy and clear as day.