Saturday, March 24, 2018

Anything can happen, and anything does

 
 
 

I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not IN its inperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds, upstream and down.

One evening, just when I needed it most, a very good friend of mine sent this passage from the book PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK

 by Annie Dillard. 

When I read it, it spoke to me. I read it again and again. I really wanted to share it with you, too. 

A very long time ago I tried to read PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK. It was just a year after she wrote that book that I was living in a tiny old log cabin in Southesast Alaska, reading by the light of a kerosene lamp. But, I didn’t get it then. I wasn’t ready, I guess. Maybe I was too young to understand what she really meant. 

Now I’m revisiting The Pilgrim. 

TEACHING A STONE TO TALK is also new on my night stand. I am enthralled with the essay LIVING LIKE WEASELS.

Everybody knows how the weasel lives. Joyfully, right? 

“I would like to learn, or remember, how to live.”

 I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he should. And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel’s: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will.

                        —Living Like Weasels

Thank you Nikki, for sending me those words the other night. For turning me on to Annie’s writing, again. Now, I know I’m ready.

❁  

Thursday, March 8, 2018

One More Sunrise

 

 “Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”

Thich Nhat Hahn

Monday: Ultrasound. Suspicious lump.

Wednesday: Biopsy

Thursday: Results. Cancer cells present. Surgeon consultation. Schedule immediate surgery. What to expect.

Friday: Lumpectomy/ Sentinel lymph node removal/ biopsy

Saturday: Many visits from friends. Cards filled with kind words and encourgement and the most beautiful cactus terrarium.

Sunday: I am clearly a depressed and hopeless burrowing prairie dog.

Monday: Still tucked away in my lair. Stopped taking the pain killers.

Tuesday: Biopsy report back from pathologist. Stage 1. Tumor is small and has NOT spread to lymph nodes. 

Tears of joy. Relief. Gratitude. The dancing begins. 

Wednesday: Visit with my amazing surgeon. Everything is discussed. Instructions. Treatment plan. Radiation. Chemo? What to expect.

Thursday: I no longer look for Owls. I only see Bluebirds.

💙💙💙💙💙💙💙

 It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living. — Eckhart Tolle