Conserving and expending energy

It's been somewhat surprising how good I've been feeling since Thursday's big event. In the weeks leading up to it, I was being very careful about not using any excess energy, as I was determined to be strong enough to go to and to fully enjoy the event, and, in fact, I was feeling very good that day and it met or exceeded my expectations in every way.

Now I'm looking at energy expenditure somewhat differently. Marty and I still have lots of things we want to do, and I don't want to spend the next weeks or months just hanging around here in the house. We've begun to talk again about making the trip to New York; "Guys and Dolls" is long gone, but there's a revival of "West Side Story" which received excellent reviews. If we go to New York, we also plan to do some serious eating--we both want some real New York cheesecake, and Marty is longing for authentic corned beef. We'd love to go hear some good jazz as well. No doubt a trip like that would take a lot out of me, but it would be worth it.

I think we're also going to start looking seriously at the cultural events listings here in the Boston area. We were talking about going to the Hatch Shell concert yesterday (these are weekly events on the bank of the Charles River, where the big Fourth of July concert is held, but attracting much smaller and more manageable crowds). We went twice last summer and it was a lot of fun, but last night it was still hot and muggy--not good weather for me to be out. Overnight the temperature and humidity have dropped and we're in for at least a few days of nice weather.

I'm also trying to use my brain a little more--spurred on by good discussions we had yesterday with Marie, the hospice chaplain, and Katrina, the social worker, I've started working on a piece on the value of hospice care, which I'm going to submit to the New York Times op-ed page (if they reject it, I'll try the Boston Globe). I've been working on it since yesterday and hope to finish it tomorrow.

I have no idea how much time I have left, but I want to use it in positive and enjoyable ways. In one of the innumerable news stories I've read and listened to in the past two days about Senator Kennedy's death, it appears that he was quite aware he was living through his last few weeks of life and felt that he'd completed his work and was ready to go, and that the end came swiftly and peacefully. Of course, there's great irony in the fact that had he not gotten cancer he'd be leading the health care effort, and it most likely would be playing out very differently, but those are the things no one can control.