I am back. I am very slow.

I'm back from Florida where the accident took place. My mother-in-law was killed instantly; my father-in-law is still in a coma. I'm still going through a divorce. I'm sad. That's an understatement. I've been back for a couple of days. I've slept through the morning alarm twice in a row now. Fortunately, I haven't had to be anywhere first thing in the morning. I've walked out to the studio and have noticed I have several small paintings in various stages. While at the hospital, I kept thinking what it must be like to work in a hospital. I'm not really into bodily fluids, other than my own, so I'm not sure I would make a good nurse, but for some reason I kept thinking about these people who work around sickness and injury all the time.

We brought in a Reiki practitioner one night. We pretended to understand what all the numbers meant on the monitor. We read. I learned than John Smith of Jamestown was somewhat egotistical, to say the least. I struggled with what to do with a box of See's candy I bought at the airport. Should I give it to the nurses? Leave it for other family members coming and going? Take it back home in case I wanted to eat a box of chocolates all by myself? I chose the latter.

Before all this happened, well, not before all of it happened, but some- a friend suggested I read the prologue to The Alchemist. It tells the story of Narcissus, only in the prologue, the author invents another ending, an epilogue, of sorts. In this version of the story, we read that the lake where Narcissus contemplated his beauty, is weeping for the death of Narcissus- not because Narcissus was so beautiful, but because in looking up at Narcissus' eyes, the lake was able to see its own beauty.

Tomorrow I will double up the alarm and get to work in the studio again.