Have been peering out my murky windows at the ocean, the beach-line shrouded in grey -- (this is northern California in the summer, after all) -- and have been watching the movement of my mind, realizing that I'm torn between restlessness (you must get out there and walk on the beach, after all!), and listlessness and apathy (it sure feels good to just sit and bear witness to all the Labor Day visitors hanging out, to the egrets swooping in, the kayakers bobbing about, to just BE in this moment). Being alone allows me to do exactly what I feel like doing anytime, and there are moments when that freedom is difficult, when I feel I become quite static. The do list is long: walk, knit, play the piano, make jewelry, do some writing for my website, clean up the house a bit, appreciate my abundant garden. The NOT to do list is short. Just breathe and sit and become aware of yourself. When you plunge into the doing, the time races by, and at the end of the day you feel as though you've accomplished something... But you have simply passed another day, another tiny piece of your life which is shortening gradually each day. If you choose to sit, the minutes and the hours stretch slowly before you, and you may even feel as though you're not functioning, as though you are instead floating in water, carried along by its energy - or the energy of passing phenomena (and hours).
I have been thinking about mortality a lot, and wondering how much time is left for me to wrestle with these things. The fragility brought on by the accident has forced me to realize that we have very finite and yet mysterious life span, and that in the blink of an eye, every single thing can (and will) change. Just in the last few days I heard news of accidental death, and the onset of a fatal disease, and I know more will be coming my way... My 100 year old ex mother in law's ashes will be be laid to rest next week in Illinois and my daughters will go to join family and take part in this eternal ritual. Putting to rest... I told daughter #2 that we do this for ourselves, and that it is a good thing, for it allows us to move on with our lives in the realm of the living; when I say things like that I hear my teacher's brain kick into gear, issuing information that I think is useful.. As I remember looking down on my own mother's gravestone many years ago, I wished for relief and a lightening of the grief load. But in my life since (and I suspect in many others), I have been continually saying goodbye to this troubled woman I spent my childhood with and even loved. So, the rituals of funeral and memorial are just the beginning of the farewell process. There's truth and there are the stories we tell ourselves... In order to persuade my kid to travel to take part in an event she seemed to dread I had to put on my know- it -all hat. This will be good for you, I imply. Being a part of family is a good thing, I assure her, though I know how very painful finding your true place there often is.
The mood is sober, the images and subjects traveling through my mind are dark and sad, except when I see the pair of egrets swooping down to land in Salmon Creek. Except when I sit at the piano and play a Goldberg Variation... or eat a perfectly sweet summer tomato ... Life is this shimmering thing we have for a while, amazing to behold, and also such a lot of work to stay conscious for. Next week I will return to hospice work after over two months away playing the part of a hospice patient myself. I will put myself in the position of actively helping the residents, and I will remember again the extraordinary beauty of our human existence. That we have life at all is such a phenomenal thing, and to reach out and love others -- by sitting, by doing, by talking -- is an opportunity that is unspeakably unique. Touching love is touching the very thing that sustains all beings, no matter where we live, what language we speak, how we look, or how old we are....
And maybe now, a little walk along the creek. I need to get closer to the ocean's roar.
