I have been having a busy week. I had my six month checkup for my lung cancer surgery last September, with a CAT-Scan with contrast media, and follow up with the surgeon. I am very aware that breathing is a different experience for me, and not for the better, but I am adjusting. I even gained five pounds, which is a significant for me.
My chronic anorexia, and the experience of being inexplicably abandoned by someone who swore his love and commitment to me, only to be followed up by ghosting me, made the recovery almost impossible. Without love, it took away my strength to recover, and my will to live. But I am made of tougher stuff and survived in spite of it.
Today is very early spring, and I have reason for optimism and looking ahead. I am attaching a photo of my son and my grand-daughter, Piper Starling Connolly, who visited me a week ago, making me very happy. Kensie is standing by my side, where she can always be found.
I am reminded of Mimi’s aria in Act. 1 of the opera, La Boheme, set in Paris, my favorite city in the world. I would like to share it as an ode to spring for all of us, and to my own victory over death and despair. Mimi is forced to face her own mortality by the end of Act 3, as shall we all. But in Act I, there is flirting, laughter, and the hope that only comes in spring. Find it on YouTube to listen to the beautiful melody. The words follow:
“They call me Mimi, but my name is Lucy.
I embroider flowers, roses and lilies on silk.
I am peaceful and happy; it is my pass time.
I like these things. They have so sweet a smell,
They speak of love, of spring, of chimera, these things
That have poetic names….. do you understand me?
Yes, they call me Mimi, why, I do not know….
Alone, I make my lunch for myself,
I do not always go to mass.
But I pray a lot to the Lord.
I live alone and cook for myself. Alone….
But when the thaw comes, the first sun is mine!
The first kiss of April is mine!
Rose buds in a vase, leaf and buds
I watch them. The flowers I make,
They do not have an odor
Rose buds in a vase,
Leaf by leaf, I watch it
The gentle perfume of a flower!
But the flowers I make
Ah me, they do not have any odor!
About me, I would not know how to tell.
I am only your neighbor come to bother you!”
From Act I of the Italian opera La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini
Libretto: Giuseppe Giacosa
