What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

--From “Days,” by Philip Larkin

This morning I arose early and made rich dark Sumatran coffee just as a splendid pink-and-blue-sky dawn broke over the Superstition Mountains east of here. It was pure sky poetry. I gave thanks to God for this gift of another day of cancer-free life and offered my daily prayers on behalf of others.

I then began my everyday habit of reading, writing, posting, and otherwise engaging via the Internet the world outside of my home. After awhile San joined me and later I made us a Greek omelet – spinach, feta cheese, mushrooms, a little garlic, a little oregano, lots of halved Kalamata olives – and a toasted potato bagel. After breakfast San to writing her dissertation and I completed the most ordinary of chores: folded laundry, cleaned the kitchen, wrote a letter of recommendation, and edited out of a forthcoming book chapter some inspired Beatles’ lyrics from the Sgt. Pepper’s song “A Day in the Life” that were too costly to include. By the time Nic got up – ah, I envy the ability of the young to “sleep in” – I was still contemplating this glorious ordinary day.

Another day when being “cancer free” means I am no longer “that guy” in the blue chair that everyone else worries about.

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