September 8, 2008 – Izzy and I read from the new book, “Izzy & Lenore,” at the regular Washington County Hospice and Palliative Care Volunteers meeting last night, Keith Mann genially presiding. I read from a passage describing one of our first visits, to Timmy, a young boy dying of cancer, and I had a hard time reading it, remembering how intense the hospice experience has been for me, Izzy and Lenore, and how many people we have met along with their families, and have seen die.
 I am grateful for this experience.
 I got in a bit of photography before the meeting and then reread Pearl Buck’s wonderful passage about creativity, and how the creative mind is abnormal, and not really alive unless it is creating, and about the overpowering necessity to “create, create, create.” Walking the dogs, I happened across this leaf, catching the very last rays of the afternoon sun, peeking through the forest. This is always a race, as the sun is moving rapidly and you need a tripod with so little light, and I got it, and it was very good. I thought of the symbolism of this dying thing, lit up by the last of the sun. And I thought about life and the people in it.