Dithyramb

Well, we’re all pretty excited for Melissa to come home. Hopefully Monday is the day. She probably could have come home yesterday, but the doctors want to be careful and sure to send her home well. It has been a long year so far.

But sometimes the weather cooperates. That is, Melissa went into the hospital for bone marrow transplant a year ago this coming Wednesday. The cancer had spread to many, many places in her body. There was even some discussion about whether to go on because it was in the brain. Cancer-free since August, and we are blessed. But back to the weather. She went in in spring, stayed thru almost to the beginning of summer—all those days when it seems right and perfect to be in Kentucky—warm and sunny. The heat is ok; things are growing all over the place. It did not seem that good weather could help our mood much!

But now, the days are bright and warm.

I have always liked my outside jobs best—winery, helping out at my grandfather’s ranch, construction, landscaping. There’s a special time in the morning if you’re outside and there are plants growing. There’s a certain smell, a smell I have imagined is the scent of Eden, of creation. It’s not just ozone or dew or dust. Maybe it’s all of them and who knows what else. But for a few minutes early in the morning, it’s a perfect smell: muted, subtle, everywhere.

It’s also the smell of boys. There is no better smell than dusty, sweaty little boys. It’s a shame to give them a bath! It’s a moment of recognition: we smell like each other when we’re sweating. The sun, fresh air, and life combine. You hold their heads and breathe in deeply, to catch the dull smell.

I suppose that part of what makes being a child such a wonderful time is that it’s ok to not be clean, to smell like life.

Right now, Joseph is playing with the red Radio Flyer wagon my mom got John for Christmas 4 or 5 years ago. What a memorable wagon—putting the boys in it and carting them around the church in Winchester; using it to go to the garden, and watching the boys loading it up with vegetables. In the garden, you invariably get dusty.

John has got some crazy putty on his hands, and he has stretched it across his fingers like a glove. “Look! A frog foot!” Yes, the days when you can be anything, and not worry if you smell like fresh air! Wild days! I had a friend in college named “Hair.” He was a stout fellow, reddish hair, down past his shoulders. One Christmas break, he didn’t go back home. He packed some gear and camped in the De Soto National Forest in South Mississippi. Some people can hold on to being boys longer. Some days you wonder if it’s worth growing up, or if you had to.