Today I sat at the bedside of a beautiful woman in her 60's who is dying of multiple cancers, the worse of which is bone cancer. I learned that bone cancer is excruciatingly painful, it erodes the bones from within, and courses through the whole body relentlessly. When I learned that the reason she couldn't stay awake this morning was because her disease was consuming her, I began to feel something inside in my own bones that softened my heart, and brought me into the present.
My god, we humans have so much difficulty to go through in life, AND we're rarely prepared for what lies ahead...
Uncertainty. And just how we will deal with that uncertainty.
All of us want to know that what we do is going to have an effect, that what we dream will become a tangible reality, that those we love will be with us always. And, guess what, that is not the case.
I have seen so many things in my life morph into something else.... I was a lonely child, and then not... I was married and then not ... I was a teacher and then not ... I was a jewelry designer and then..... One of the things I have always been, it seems, is a traveler. And now I am trying to write a story of my own journey from the time I was about 4 to the present moment. I am hoping that this fragmented story will both teach me something and find a voice in the world at large. I want to communicate that all our lives as human beings are ones of change and impermanence. We all dream, and then we see what happens.
Back from my beach refuge and in my little house on the alley in San Francisco, I reposition myself to work on my book, my piano practice, feeding the wild birds in my roof garden, caring for my two cats, and being grateful that I show up each morning for a new day.
"...show up each morning for a new day." I'm going to remember that line.
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