The Faith of her Friends

 A crazy thing happened to me this spring.  At the beginning of April, I learned (by accident, in fact) that I had been dropped from Medicaid and lost all my benefits without notice, warning, or reason. That meant an immediate cut off of funding for my daily medicine, my nightly caregiving, and my new wheelchair that I had ordered four weeks prior - none of which I could afford to pay nor afford to be without. To this today (and probably until Kingdom come) no one can explain what happened, and some have simply chalked it up to "a glitch in the system." It resulted in an insanely frustrating and wearying month of hours and hours on the phone, trying to find one person in the state of Indiana who knew anything and who had any authority to do anything. It convinced me that Medicaid is now fully operated by AI and no one had autonomy over it... but that is a whole rant in itself that is for another day, or maybe never.  As crazy as that was, it wasn't the truly crazy thing t...

(This is a little glimpse into my life this past year, when I started going to regular appointments with the greatest counselor ever.) I hold my hot cup of tea between my hands, letting the warmth relax the feeble muscles in my fingers and wrists until they tingle. (Friends tell me that my weird superpower is that I can tolerate extremely hot temperatures.) I let the steam gather moisture on my cheeks and the end of my nose and close my eyes to breathe in the scent of lavender and bergamot and vanilla.  "It's just that I have all these dear friends who I see throughout the day, and caring family members who are just a phone call away, and yet I don't feel like I have anyone I can talk to, at least not about this..." I've been talking out loud, but with my eyes shut, focused on the comfort of the tea, but now I open my eyes and look at the chair sitting on the opposite side of my dining room table.  (Before you think I am delusional, I'll clarify that I do know...

Lately, people have been asking me what was my favorite part of my trip to England. I have a hard time answering that, because I had favorite aspects of everything we did! My snarky response is: "England. My favorite part was England. Just all of it." But if you were to ask me what the most impactful thing was, I would say Westminster Abbey. So far, there hasn't been a day that has gone by since I returned when I have not thought about that remarkable place.  I mean, first of all, it was visually stunning, more so than I could have imagined. The architecture was breathtaking, the colors and light were inspiring, and the height of the vaulted ceiling just made me want to look up and up and up... The artistry of the vivid stained glass, icons, furniture, and chandeliers... and then the detailed and preserved sculptures and sepulchers and sarcophagi... things that required a lot of time and attention and care to create! It felt like each piece was an act of worship, an artis...

While in London, we took a river boat tour down the Thames. Even though the captain told us he was not a professional tour guide, he did share some interesting anecdotes, clever jokes, and entertaining stories along the way, which he said he had just collected from years of living in the city. Near the end of the ride, the captain announced (in his heavy cockney accent) that after the tour, he and his first mate would be going to the local pub, "strictly for research." There are a dozen places in the world that I have wanted to visit for years (Buenos Aires, Cyprus, Paris, Seoul, and Venice, just to name a few), and part of the reason I haven't yet is because I couldn't decide where to begin. But about five years ago, something started to happen in my life that set me on this trajectory to make Scarborough, England, my first overseas destination.  I love Jane Austen books. I can't tell you how many times I've read Pride and Prejudice and giggled at Mr. Bennet...