One year on

One year on from a serious heart attack, I am:

• Down from the six post-attack meds to three (if you include aspirin); the three drugs I will take every day for the rest of my life.

• Eating well and exercising, which is good; except that I was doing that before.

• Back to a full work schedule, which is good; except that it is, by its nature, as strenuous as before.  Something to think about there.   

• On the back side of a season of softball with the boys, in which I never told them.

• Not writing, or taking pictures, as much as I would like; something to think about there, too. 

• Having an outstanding martini, which Rachel likes to make for me, and which she invariably makes better than I do, while a chicken roasts in the oven and the innards and vegetable scraps and spices simmer into a nice stock on the stove, and the house, or at least the kitchen, smells like that.

• Also on the back side, just last weekend, of three terrific days of skiing in Vermont; not that the snow was so tremendous, but it was quite good enough, and skiing again at Pico, with Phil and his family, and BJ and hers, and my kids, too, was one of those things that I thought about while I was knocked down and spending all of my days on the couch, my heart still stunned and fluttering and jumpy, worried how long that would last, exhausted from walking twice twice around the house, or doing emails for 15 minutes, and worried how long that would last, and thinking about the road back to long walks again and running again and fishing again and skiing again, and I am going to tell you, nobody ever enjoyed skiing for three days at Pico more than me.