It’s mid-July and farmers are trying to get in a second haying. Trying because we’ve had rain every day for about the last month, with some rainfall significant. This is their window of opportunity as we’re promised a dry spell for a few days.

I always feel like getting back into finishing my book about Anne whenever I smell the freshly mown hay and see the rows lying in the fields, waiting to be bundled into bales or rolled into those gigantic marshmallows that have become the norm. In the book, that’s when Anne feels close to Christian. After “Fifty Shades of Grey,” I’m not certain his name will remain Christian but that’s what happens when it takes you 27 years to complete a project—someone else steals your characters’ names–even your ideas.

Not to imply that I am anywhere near completion. Actually have no idea how much more work it will take for me to finish it but I certainly won’t be able to write “The End” (and mean it) without spending time every day working on it. I keep saying once I get the Chamber tax information to the accountant and all of the visiting family has returned home and the books are closed on the sold apartment building I will have entire days spreading out before me in which I will be able to attack Anne. Sounds so violent. But at least it implies expending energy, which I’ve been lacking. Or is it simply motivation?

Saturday was the Prouty, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock event to raise money for the Norris Cotton Cancer Center—my cancer clinic. Visited the SAG (Stop and Go) site in Newbury that’s sponsored by Wells River Savings Bank for the bicyclists. Katie, herself a breast cancer survivor, had written my name at the top of the memory board. In large letters with an “S” next to it for survivor. Not something I ever expected to see. I don’t mean the “S” of course just my name on display as a victim of cancer.

I was proud to be standing there as a survivor. Weird.

Why should I be proud? I’ve really done nothing to be where I am at this point. It’s the doctors and other health professionals who have gotten me here. And they are the ones we should be honoring.

Tagged: cancer survivor, Haying, Norris Cotton Cancer Center, Prouty