I wake up and smile.
It’s the first thing I do, before the thoughts and realities of the day enter.
I do most mornings now, it’s a thing*, it shifts something.
This morning, I remember thinking,”I’m so grateful I get to live life, thank you.”
Blake walked in with a steaming cup of tea, in a cup I made.
I smile again.
The ebbs and flows of a fifteen year marriage finding a new rhythm, a new groove. What I mean to say, is things there are good, real good.
We talk, giggle, laugh, kiss.
He heads out the door with our oldest teenager – his new shadow, apprentice, we are learning how to guide her into her unknown to us future.
I step outside. It’s a blue sky, sunshine day, no wind, warm. We’ve had so few of those this year, we don’t take them for granted.
By the time I get to my phone, the first thing I find is another death notice. Yes, another.
I text it to Mom, those who are passing are getting closer and closer.
A morning walk with a dear friend – we talk for hours and hours, talking more than walking, easily sharing it all and ending with gratitude. “I’ve been making a point to slow down and appreciate,” I end our conversation, “I couldn’t have imagined being here a few years ago.”
I ride my bike home marvelling in that energy, taking in the green green grass and the blue blue sky, grateful, so grateful.
I walk in the house to the girls sitting at the table with a teapot and snacks between them, one helping the other with her math, another deeply engrossed in her most recent research project, I smile. Check my email.
An update. A young girl, the same age as our youngest, is being prepped for her bone marrow transplant next week. They condition and prep her body with radiation and chemotherapy and intense drugs … My chest caves and my shoulders slump. Whew.
Light. Dark.
It’s the last day of school today. I think of all of the kids excited for summer, for the accomplishment of another year. I smile allowing the images of this year’s graduates that I taught as ten year olds to swirl in my mind, wondering and imagining where their futures and lives will take them.
I receive a note from one who I sent a small offering last week, one who lost her husband suddenly, one whose life has taken them into a future she could have never imagined.
A friend texts to check in, sending love, sharing excitement that their current book offering has been approved and a contract signed with her choice publisher today. I celebrate and send love. Lots of hearts in the text.
Another checks in to say they are having a tricky day, how does one continue to live with the sorrow and agony of grief that arises after such deep loss? I grieve and send love. More hearts.
The girls run in to share with me the latest thing the baby kittens have done and to urge me outside into the sunlight, to see the puffy clouds against the deep green, the plants so plentiful as a result of all of the rain we’ve had, so welcome after a few very dry summers.
Yesterday, we received images of our friends in Thailand wading through flood waters that have damaged their home … too much rain.
Energetic young people branching out into the world.
Tired and weary olders managing aging and aching bodies and the certain uncertainties ahead.
A Facebook update on a bridal shower, a beautiful young woman.
A Facebook update on a cancer journey, a mid-life mother of three.
A text message from thousands of miles away sharing the growth of amazing produce – fruits and vegetable, gigantic mangoes, delicate peppercorns.
A text message updating on the growth of an infection, an emergency ambulance ride and dialysis three times a week miles away, delicate procedures on the heart.
Delivering a meal to friends who’ve just had a baby.
Delivering a beautiful piece of art honoring a baby gone without a breath.
The hope of the most bountiful crop in a long while, followed by the blast of a hail storm.
Watching a seven year old gain more capacity with a pencil in her hand, scratches turning into neatly rounded letters.
A piece of paper with handwriting of one now gone, stopping me in my tracks.
We celebrate a ten year old’s birthday, and the sixth birthday without him.
Maintained rural cemeteries in the middle of nowhere places, where unknown people diligently cut the lawn and closely snip around each headstone.
Locked washrooms at the public library, permission and accompainment required to use the bathroom. I read between the lines.
And so it goes. On and on and on.
Back and forth. Up and down. Round and round.
Hope and sorrow, reality and possibility, joy and ache.
Letting go, letting in, letting be.
Life.
This is life. All of it.
This is what life does.
“It’s not fair,” so many of us lament again and again, when Life doing what Life does, finds us.
Remind me
all my prayers were answered
the moment I started praying
for what I already have. ****
To live is to be guaranteed heartbreak.
To love is to be swept up in the blowing winds of change, of constant movement, of the isness of it all.
I’m learning to bend with the winds, but not be blown over.
To seek beauty in it all.
“Let your heart break … so your spirit doesn’t.” ***
We have a hard time being where we are, a friend said to me a few days ago.
Here I am. In it.
I wake up and smile.
I love this life , I whisper..
Please let me remember. ****
Until Next Time …
N
Lots of help in this one:
*Daniel Hoffman – 5 Golden Rules for Starting Your Day Perfectly
*** Andrea Gibson “In the Chemo Room I wear mittens made of ice so I don’t lose my fingernails. But I took a risk today to write this down.”
(un)becoming ... with wonder & possibility 