It’s the kind of thing people do in the face of a crisis: plan some kind of indulgence, a luxury vacation to relieve the pressure of events out of your control. After my cancer diagnosis, ours was to be the Mayan Riviera, and we began planning in February.

I didn’t take into account the accumulated toll of multiple chemos, or treatment glitches. And pacing myself to my needs has become so second nature, that I hardly realized till I gave it special thought how much I have altered my behaviors. If I want to garden, I get out the four-wheeler Donn has taught me to use and drive it up there. If I garden for five minutes and then lie down by the machine in the only patch of shade among the leafless trees, the neighbors don’t complain. You can eventually get the peas planted that way if it is something you really want to do.

But when I began to imagine stopping halfway from the resort to the beach, I kept hearing little children’s voices saying, “Mommy, why is that lady lying under the bushes?” and I realized that some behaviors might not adapt to public places.

Then along came the flu pandemic and nobody was going to Mexico anyway. We got realistic about my health and canceled our trip, much to the relief of family and friends who kept calling to warn us to stay home.

But I was bummed. The sun and the warmth and the turquoise sea instantly disappeared. My new sun dress would stay in the closet and there would be no warm sand squishing up between my toes.

I wanted some compensation.

Donn and I had been talking for a couple of weeks about homemade doughnuts. I’d gotten the classic plain cake doughnut recipe used by my friend Bob, to whom it had been passed from a line of old Maine camp cooks. We decided to have a doughnut party.

The night before, I measured the ingredients and set them aside, and the next morning the dough was rolled out and resting on the kitchen table when Bob and Rita arrived. Bob brought his doughnut cutter and Rita set to work with Donn over the hot fry kettle, determining what would be the right golden shade for the ideal doughnut. Russell walked in just as the doughnuts were emerging.

Sometimes details conspire to create perfection, and this was such an occasion. At that time of the morning, the kitchen is flooded with a beautiful light. Everyone was happy to be working together and sharing this treat. While Donn was scrambling the eggs with fresh chives from the garden, Russell looked out the window and we all stepped out to the porch to watch two does and their yearling fawns cross the field. And the doughnuts were more delicious than anything but a homemade doughnut still hot from the fat has a right to be.

We lingered most of the morning over the coffee and crispy bacon, eggs and fruit salad, and the persistently alluring doughnuts.

That would have been enough, but it was only the morning.

After a nap and a late lunch, I stepped outside to find Donn finishing up some firewood he’d been bucking up. He had before suggested that we go down to Wilson Stream along the hayfield and see if there were any wildflowers. We took out the four-wheeler and made a slow tour. At the north end where the stream cuts east, I saw a spot of yellow and asked him to stop.

It was a trout lily, and as we wandered into this little wooded flood plain, there were more. I had trout lily in Temple, but the masses of the beautifully mottled leaves produced only a few modest blooms. Here, there were a couple of hundred. Early as it is, there were also red trilliums in bloom, small patches of the delicate lovely wood anemone, two colors of violets, and tiny spring beauties.

We rode slowly south toward the woods, discovering more patches of trout lily and clumps of trillium. Donn tasted the pungent ramps and I munched on “frog’s bellies,” our vitamin C rich native sedum. We stopped near the edge of the stream. I sat down to contemplate the beauty of individual flowers, and Donn set off to scout the wood lot. I found I was sitting at the edge of an early patch of fiddleheads, and picked a small mess for supper.

When Donn returned, we sat on the bank and watched the stream ripple and flash in the good, Maine spring sunshine. I laid my head on his shoulder. “Mexico and its turquoise waters have nothing to add to this day,” I said.

For months I have been waking each morning and staring into the cold eye of my own mortality. I’ve thought I ought to have something to say about this experience, something meaningful to pass on. Now I think I know.

It’s not the distant, the exotic and the luxurious that grounds us in meaning. It’s the every-day-ness. It’s the love and support at your elbow, connecting with friends, finding small indulgences and examining the daily wonders outside your own door: small things, which add up to a life worth living.