Improvising

1.
My friend Lynne spins, dyes, and creates knitting patterns that delight many. This summer, she experimented with leaves, making beautiful skeins on display and for sale today at the fall craft fair on campus.

When the fifteen-foot limb pierced my car's windshield a couple of months ago, I called to see if she and her husband had  a chainsaw. "Sure," she said. "Why?" When I told her, she said James would come later and take care of the limb, but she wanted to have a look first. She pulled off as many leaves as she could carry and made something beautiful from them.

2.
At home after dropping by the fair, I decided to break one of my own safety rules. On Thursday, I confirmed what I had suspected: my elderly cat is in the beginning stages of kidney disease. Why not let her do what she has longed to do? I thought. Now she has nothing to lose. I set up the zero-gravity chair on the deck, so she and I could spend the second half of the afternoon under a perfect fall sky. 

When deer raced through the trees to our left, she jumped, eyes dilated, and when a leaf flew through the rail supports opposite us, she leapt off the chair and batted it as a kitten would (as she did once, in fact). She sniffed spider silk and mold on the table legs, she investigated the concrete gnome, she attempted to descend the steps but always reconsidered at my stern warning, and she slept in my lap while I read and stroked her fur.

3.
An elderly friend told me last night I should go to North Carolina, where I had planned to drive today to visit my niece and her family for the first time in over a year. "I couldn't do that to a cat sitter," I said. "What if there were a crisis? I should be here." She said, "You could put her down then. You should go!" 

That comment shattered me like the limb did the windshield. Yes, I miss my niece, her husband, their children. Yes, I think of them every day. Yes, I wish I were there.

But I know they know I'm just making the best of a bad situation.