Summer and the Summer Moon Above
Wednesday gratefuls: Rebecca and her 45th high school reunion. Joan and her son who has started to receive social security. Alan and his tenderness. Abby and her passion. Deborah and poetry. Tal and his sweet empathy. Deborah as Wonder Woman. Acting class last night. Working on Herme. Growing, changing. Taking shape. The purpose of life. Figuring it out. Letting the anxiety through. Letting light in. Anxiety opened a Leonard Cohen crack.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: The purpose of life is to burn away everything but love.
One brief shining: Drove down the hill to pick up my new hearing aid at Mile High Hearing, saw Amy and left for Dave’s Chuck Wagon Diner over on Colfax seven minutes away anxiety bubbling after having given myself two new cancers and one autoimmune disease then deciding that was ok I could handle it when all of sudden the purpose of life bubbled up and I knew what it was: to burn away everything but love.
Usually the first and loudest critic of my own work I believe I’ve found the purpose of life. Kinda hubristic, yeah? Still. The purpose of life is to burn away everything but love. Sounds right to me. Ha. How bout that? Nothing like having decided cancer(s) were on their way to claim my body but not my soul. That got the old philosophical engine cranking over then purring.
I even give myself a pass on the anxiety. I’ve been sick long enough and spent enough time placing it into perspective, one foot before the next, that sometimes a bit of new data can upset my inner balance. So. You’re ok, Charlie. Or as Dr. Gonzalez said when I sang the worried song in an e-mail to her: You’re fine. I see this all the time. Oh. All right. Zip up and trust your doctors. Kate’s right there with me.
Emotions have been close to the surface for the last couple of weeks anyhow. Not sure why. Kate coming into memory and tears almost there, too. Joy at seeing Luke and in the acting class last night. Deep curiosity reading a one volume history of contemporary Korea. Expansion of my heart at seeing blue Sky. Satisfaction with my home. Awe at the beauty and wonder of the Mountains and the Wild Neighbors.
Life has begun to take on a magical component. How to describe it? The ordinary shifts subtly toward the extraordinary. That Lodgepole. Is it waving at me? The mist rising from the road last night. Transported me to an Other World. Kate’s Creek now has a mystical presence in my life as place of healing. The Wild Neighbors who share their lives with me on occasion I see as spirit messengers. Even the anxiety I felt over the last few days. A crack that let the light shine in. How can I keep from singing?
Perhaps the transition from this world to the next lies not as far away as we think.
