I HAVE DREAMS

More and more often these nights, I realize in a dream that I have just walked casually across a room before it occurs to me that I have forgotten to use my cane... Yet the freely walking experience feels fully normal to me, unaccompanied by the usual regret at it being only a dream... even though I awaken again to the same status of ambulatory ability.

Nonetheless, the grip in my right hand is growing stronger daily, and my old crippling shoulder pain has diminished to the point that I can almost turn and lie on the shoulder directly, even fall asleep on my right side, for the first time in over a year since the big short circuit! 

Going full circuit, as the final days draw near for completion and publication of The Big Elsewhere -- John E. arrives back from the US today, the final proofing has been done, and following final selection and arrangement of sumie illustrations, the first full-edition pdf, for starters, will be ready to send out.

Deb's welcome idea for promoting The Big Elsewhere by posting Simple Vegetarian Recipes as a stanza series took a quantum leap when I got the special arts crew of Kasumi and the Trio on board, Kaya, Mitsuki and Miasa to do three stanzas each and Kasumi to supervise. The Trio are thrilled by the idea, especially since they're in the book! The first test drawings are every bit as charming and to-the-mark as I expected.

And as though to top it all off, yesterday evening as I was returning here after my usual Saturday visit to the house on the mountain (where  I set new up-and-down speed records on the stairway), I had ambled out the door a leisurely few yards, almost to the car, when I realized I had forgotten my cane, only this time I wasn't dreaming...

Felt pretty normal, too.