Hi folks, after five weeks or more of relative silence I wanted to let you know where I am and what’s happening. So I did a short podcast on Buzzsprout. That’s all for now. Be well, hang in there!
Back from Covid–a Personal Note from Cary
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Hi folks, after five weeks or more of relative silence I wanted to let you know where I am and what’s happening. So I did a short podcast on Buzzsprout. That’s all for now. Be well, hang in there!
So glad you’re recovering!
Sending you blessings for a speedy recovery!
Thanks for the update – I was wondering. Best wishes for a full recovery!
Wonderful to hear you’re on the mend, Cary. Please be well and all our best wishes from me and Bob Calhoun.
Cary, that was so beautiful. I’m so glad to hear you’re recovering. Be the guy in the lawn chair in the sun. In a couple of years (or less) I’ll pull mine up alongside of you. The lesson of Covid is: protect the planet and try to be happy.
Thank you, Joan. We were part of something great and unprecedented, a work of joy, a gift I will never forget. Now for that lawn chair … Ciao!
Hey! Thank you so much! After several days away from the ‘net, I just pulled my head out from the covers and found this treasure trove of your uplifting thoughts and emotions. I am grateful. I’m also super teary-eyed! It’s definitely one day at a time. I am getting stronger each day but still wandering the halls with the use of a walker, still struggling with daily routine. (“Can you help me put this sweater on? I can’t get my arm through this hole …”)
Each minute is precious! As long as it’s approached with a sense of humor.–CT
(Planning to send another episode this Thursday.)
Wishing you peace and good health, now and always. It’s so lovely to hear your voice.
Dear Carey,
Thank you for letting us know about your ordeal. I’m so happy you’re recovering and really appreciate your new orientation and that you shared that with us. Enjoying life sounds brilliant! I think I’ll go ahead and join you even though I don’t have Covid. Love and all the best to you and we’ll see you around.
How awful!! Hope you can recover at your own pace at home and enjoy all that Italian goodness over the holidays in peace and good health. All the best to you and Norma.
Oh Cary, that sounds like a nightmare. I’m so glad you’re healing. And your lawn-chair vision sounds like just the thing. It’s been years since I last saw you at our weekly Café La Bohème writing group, but the fond memories of your sense of humor and imagination remain. Be well!
It’s so nice to hear your voice Cary. I’m really sorry that you went through that, but so happy and grateful that the doctors were able to help you. It sounds like a really difficult time, and I hope you’re on the mend and have a steady recovery. Be well and be happy. I hope we hear from you online now and again, your voice is essential for many of us. Love to you and Norma! xo
I’m so sorry! I hope you are starting to recover and that it resolves fully.
Thank you so much for finding the energy to post, Cary. I’ve followed you for years and have been missing you. Your idea of taking a break, sitting in the sun, enjoying your life in Italy, is a terrific one — take all the time you need to recover fully and figure out what it means to be 67 (which is also my age). As usual, I’ll look to you for insight. All the best to you.
Thank you Cary Tennis for the kindness of sharing yourself with the world and for having the strength to send out word on what has happened to you recently. And as long as we’re being reflective and circumspect, sensing a shift, I just want to say that I have LOVED your writing, so poignant, and your advice for many years. I hope that you continue to enjoy the life that moving to Italy promised you and Norma, especially now, in this crazy, scary time of the pandemic. But how could you not? You’re in Italy, the land of poets and artists and cooks, where the whole culture is imbued with being present and sentient, making the simplest thing sacred and joyous. Heaven really. You are truly loved.
Hey Cary, so scary! Glad that you had good medical care and that you are back at home. I have missed your installments these last few weeks and am glad to know you are okay.
I read your column in Salon for years, and it still resonates with me. Your work figuring out how to be a writer, how to do the work, what it meant, has mattered to me, and has helped me in my own process. Reading you online since you resurfaced has been a big help to me in thinking about how to manage my own relationship with writing and creativity and identity.
So thanks for all that. I am grateful for your work. Keep taking good care of yourself, be careful, sit in the sun, listen to the church bells.
Warmly,
Stephanie
So glad to hear you’re doing better! I love your attitude & also the way you write. Thanks for keeping us all in the loop!
Nice to hear your voice, Cary. Keep getting better. Your voice is still very important to us.
Okay, I know you wanted to promote the podcast and advice column in new and wonderful ways, but this is taking it too far!
Being serious, jaysus, what an unplanned, undesirable journey of terror for you and Norma. Thanks for updating us.
Wishing you a precious recovery. Enjoy life, enjoy YOUR life. It’s a good thing you are in Italy. Time to embrace that Tuscan lawn chair. Time to hold your own hand in the sun. Chi va piano va sano e va lontano. He who goes slowly goes safely and far.
We love you, Cary.
So glad to hear your voice 🙂 Lawnchair, Italian sun, joy of life. Love. You have everything you need.
Hey Cary,
Happy you’re back home. Take care of yourself – whatever that means to you. You have been through so many physical challenges!
Warm well wishes,
Liz
Glad to know you are home. Heartfelt thanks for sending your thoughts about this.
Postcards from a Survivor is a great name for a podcast or column! That aside, it was wonderful to hear your raspy voice letting us know you’re home and doing better. I cannot imagine how frightening the whole experience was for you and Norma! Very happy you received such excellent medical care, too.
Sending you lots of positive thoughts from the East Coast. Enjoy the view from your lawn chair.
Dear Cary, Thank you for sharing your journey. I’m so glad you’re back home. I wish you a restful, quietly joyful time as you continue to mend – and transition to a new phase of life.
Wow, Cary,
So sorry to hear of the illnesses. Thanks for this update. Glad you are on the mend and I look forward to seeing you again in the spring in Italy! Hang in there, my man.
So glad you are on the mend. Chris wants to be in your next writer’s workshop.
Cary, it was a relief to see you had a new podcast today. Rest up, and heal.
After I listened to, “BACK FROM COVID–A PERSONAL NOTE FROM CARY” I walked to the corner mailbox and, slipped my letters through the slot. This time, for the first time in months, I glanced up and looked down the block to the yellow house. Reassuringly, it looked just the same. It jogged memories.
Dear Cary,
I’m so glad that you are recovering from your storm of illness! And it gladdens my heart to hear you paint the image of you on the lawn chair in the Italian sun, feeling proud of your work so far and resolving to enjoy life. Bravo! Thank you for your generosity in the world and for taking good care of yourself.
Kindest regards,
Diane Caudillo
a fan from way back
So happy to hear this from you, you are a treasure and I’m sending all my best wishes and prayers for your full recovery and ability continue to push those limits! Best Christmas wishes to you, your wife and your dog children!!!
Cheers from Tucker, GA
Hey Cary. So glad that you beat the Covid monster. Did not know that you moved to Italy. I design a lot of shows there. Will be designing My Fair Lady in Napoli next fall (I hope). I don’t know where you live in Italy, but would love to see you. Stay healthy.
Hi Dave, Likewise, I did not know that you were designing shows in Italy! I live in Tuscany, luckily Italy is not a huge country, we like to move about its boundaries and contours when allowed … so please keep me informed. I’m fascinated! My Fair Lady in Napoli! Amazing! ciao–ct
So good to hear from you! Keep on taking care.
Your big fan in Toronto. 🤗
Hang in there and take it easy, Cary. I was in your January 2010 writer’s retreat in Tomales Bay and remember how brave you were back then. Sounds like you haven’t changed. Rest up.
OMG, yes, for you I seem to be playing the perpetually just-survived-a-vital threat … yes, it was a bit early for me to do that retreat but I did it! Yes, great to hear from you.And I must stop with this survivor thing, or it will become a kind of schtick, a routine! Seriously, I’m just going to try to take care of myself, take no risks, visit the doctor at the slightest twinge, and outlive everyone (oh, there I go again getting competitive … now there’s the rub! that American competitive spirit … even in matters which it ill-serves) — ciao
I still have a tiny scar on my upper lip where I kissed the asphalt on my way to breakfast one morning. It might as well be a tattoo, insuring that I will always remember. 🙂 Give my best wishes to Norma.
Bless you, Cary. Thank you for taking the time to reconnect with us all with this shocking but hopeful news . I’m so glad you’re on the mend. Yes, enjoy every nanosecond! You’re absolutely right! It’s definitely the way forward. Thank you for your wise words. I miss you and value all we shared at Cafe La Boheme and at your wonderful parties out by the beach. I’ll tell you now what I tell myself every day in the bathroom mirror, “Hang in there, you’re doing a great job!” With love & happy memories, Lucy in San Francisco
Cary–I’m grateful that you are recovering. I was interested to hear of your reassessment of your life backwards and forwards. That’s what I’ve been doing here in relative isolation since March. I keep getting close to figuring it out and then it dissolves. You sound breathless; perhaps you will be forced to just be happy in the moment. I wish you well. –Grace
Cary, it makes my heart happy to hear od your recovery from that doozie of a double whammy! It has made my heart happy to have read your writings over the years, as well! Your writing “voice” is one of my literary favorites, and this is my first encounter with your speaking voice. You sound like a soft hug! Thank you for following your passion and for sharing your truth! Sending love and blessings for your renewed vim & vigor, dear Soul!
Go Cary,
I followed you on Salon and saved so many of your aphorisms to my ‘favorite quotes’ file. So glad to hear you’re recovering and have found the kind of place I hope to find…a village of peace, tranquility and hospitality. I hope you decide to continue writing, your wise and witty thoughts are uplifting.
Warm regards,
Ken Wheeler
Thank you for always using your life experience as an expression of wisdom. I hope you know how much you are loved and admired by everyone who has had the pleasure of getting to know you, Cary. Your innate dignity and sense of wonder — even during your battle with Covid-19 and your other condition — speak to the fact that you always generously share your life’s lessons with the world. Thank you for your “post card from Covid” and take good care, dear one!! Love to Norma!!
Be well soon, Cary, and I hope you will keep writing about and sharing your experiences and thoughts on this world….
Thank you and take care
Julia
Peace and healing be with you. Please know you are loved and appreciated for all you are. Thank you for fighting to stay alive and connected.
good to hear your voice. Heal well,
Thank you for the Postcard from a Survivor. I also chose to leave social media a couple months ago. The downside is that I only recently learned of your perfect storm of devastating illnesses. I guess we can’t leave the beast, only learn to contain it. Get strong-we need to hear your voice. Much love.
Get well, be well my friend. 💚
Dear Cary,
I heard through the grapevine of your critical illness & hospitalization…
I am so glad to know that you are finally out of the hospital & on the mend!! Please be patient with yourself & take extra care of your energy… one day at a time. Find strength in the beautiful Italian scenery all around you.
Enjoy each & everyday!! I wish you all & only the best as you continue to recover from your ordeal…
Thank you, Arynne.
Cary, I am so glad to hear that you are out of the hospital and are recovering. May I recommend a book for you? It’s The Wisdom Years, by Charles Garfield. He’s a brilliant and wise man, (from UCSF), and his book offers many valuable insights into how to make this transition into our older wiser selves – aiming for fulfillment, joy, presence, and no regrets. I think you’d like it..
In the meantime, I want to let you know how much I appreciate your work. You have a way of saying things that so often zings me straight in my heart.
Thanks for you update. Sending wishes for a full and speedy recovery!
I was wondering what happened to your emails! I’m glad you’re out of the hospital – what a wonderful feeling that must be!
Take Care,
Jeanie
I was worried about you! So glad to learn that you are healing after such a frightful confluence of illnesses!
You owe “us” nothing…we are grateful for whatever you have the strength and inclination to give. Sit in the Italian sunshine, breathe the air, be.
Holding you in the light for the healing you seek.
Be well, Cary! I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. Now I’ll listen to your podcast. Adrian