Currie's Gratitude 30 September 2014

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.   [Franz Kafka]

I’m exhausted. Spent. And having slept 8+ hours, wish I could fall back into a delicious sleep. The fun part of that idea is that in a few hours I will BE confined to a comfy bed for transfusion #2. For 5 hours. Who am I to complain?!

I have learned I can always wait, quietly, all by my own little self.

And while I don’t completely understand it rolling “in ecstasy” at my feet or anywhere else, for that matter, I DO understand the idea tucked inside of Kafka’s words.

Yesterday, for someone who does NOT drive anymore, I did a LOT of driving. It was Gracie’s Spa Day and she is Now a nekked little girl who is still NOT eating much but eating a little again. I also took my mum for an emergency appointment to get a biopsy of a wound she has in a place I am sure she would prefer I NOT mention in public. Enough said.

And I am grateful.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 September 2014

Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.  [Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: A Story from Different Seasons]

It is hard, this time straightaway after chemo. It reminds me of how hard I have always tried to hold on. How when I’ve had something or someone wrenched from me, I have wanted nothing so much as to curl up in a ball and call it a day.

But Life has taught me new and other lessons about Letting Go. It’s never MY first choice, I promise you that, though often I have wished I could claim BEing the instigator. But each time, Now, I am able to lean into last times and times BEfore that.

Letting Go isn’t so hard as it is difficult. It asks so much of me, far more than I think I could possibly have to give.

So I try always to stay prepared.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 September 2014

Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you - sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever.    [Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium]

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.   [Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories]

Time really is rather illusive. And yet we KNOW  certainly it exists. But we are never in more than this one nanosecond of it. I suppose I am thinking about Time a lot lately.

I am aware of Time’s preciousness. Its possibilities. Even its impossibilities.

And another thing about Time is this internet stuff. Our advancing technology makes it possible for weird and BEautimous Time to almost fade to black. And yet, truly, it’s always THERE.

I love how bizarre and unwieldy Time can BE. And NOT BE.

And Time with YOU especially much.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 September 2014

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.  [Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button screenplay]

Sometimes people say I will “beat” this cancer. That I will make it.  I simply won’t focus on what is NOT Now. I am NOT living for tomorrow, or any moment BEyond.

Such talk seems to say that what is Right Now in this moment is somehow inferior to the possibilities in the future.

Future and Possibility are two things I think I grasp fairly well. Beating, NOT at all. I won’t compete anymore. I never want to win if someone has to lose. Those were different things to me earlier in Life.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 September 2014

The conclusion I have reached is that, above all, dogs are witnesses. They are allowed access to our most private moments. They are there when we think we are alone. Think of what they could tell us. They sit on the laps of presidents. They see acts of love and violence, quarrels and feuds, and the secret play of children. If they could tell us everything they have seen, all of the gaps of our lives would stitch themselves together.    [Carolyn Parkhurst, The Dogs of Babel]

I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.   [Willa Cather, My Ántonia]

Today is my last chemo, for this round. I don’t depend on this; I’ve learned that my “progress” determines the “process” and there’s litle “progress” to BE gleaned from the crazy whacky dance of How Chemo Affects Currie, save by blood tests and what they indicate or prescribe.

So it goes.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 September 2014

We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.   [May Sarton]

Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.    [Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are]

NOT long ago, I was having a conversation with a new friend. It was her birthday and she was thinking forward, about WHO and HOW she wants to BE. #1 on her list was BEing Authentic. This really resonated.

I’ve noticed with myself that as I grow older, or as I simply spend more Time here on Planet Earth, that I am always discovering Who I AM. I couldn’t BE authentic, at 42, the way I am at 61. This is BEcause I hadn’t yet walked through what I have walked through these past 19 years.

Every step of the Journey of Life is essential. There are no shortcuts that DO anything other than turn us inside out and upside down. We just have to choose and dare to BE ourselves.

Each day. Each moment. Each opportunity that arises.

That’s all…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 September 2014

Every faction conditions its members to think and act a certain way. And most people do it. For most people, it's not hard to learn, to find a pattern of thought that works and stay that way. But our minds move in a dozen different directions. We can't be confined to one way of thinking, and that terrifies our leaders. It means we can't be controlled. And it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them.    [Veronica Roth, Divergent]

Like many, I’ve been watching The Roosevelts. To think of my past, and my past’s past often finds me scrunching up my face and scratching my head. I have watched, actually discovered large chunks of my history by watching and listening to programs like this.

And you know, I was simply NOT aware of history so much while growing up and older. I think there is too much news Now, for awhile Now, that tries to BE “group-think” and requesting us to pick a side.

As though there were only that way and my/your/their way. Which is just wrong.

Anyhow, watching this series is helping me understand what happened and how people saw that. What they did.

But it is less about Right and Wrong. It’s willingness to understand HOW such thinking happens.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 September 2014

Whenever there is stillness there is the still small voice, God's speaking from the whirlwind, nature's old song, and dance...   [Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters]

I’ve been getting better at BEing Still. I’m NOT saying I've got it, but after a period of stillness, I always feel more made to fit in my own skin. I am gentled. Quieted. Eased.

I never could BE Still, for a long stretch of Time, though I could make-BElieve I was. I don’t know that anyone else was fooled. Surely I was NOT!!

I may have thought that BEing Still was like BEing held down or going away somewhere, in my mind. Now I know Stillness better. I can BE in it and I can plan my Life and days round it.

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.   [Terry Pratchett, Diggers]

When it comes to thinking things through, I envision myself a fair bit slow with a tendency to hurry myself up. I usually assume that I need to hurry up and figure out whatever I’m trying to think through. But that is NOT what thinking through is at all.

Learning keeps happening. I just try to keep up.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 20 September 2014

I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me, 'I love you.' ... There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.    [Maya Angelou]

Maya Angelou said a lot of good things to remember. I was thinking this same sort of a thought yesterday, in fact.

The saying goes that hurting people hurt people and that has always helped me find a foothold in such times.

I notice that there are a lot of people in my World whose minds are all made up and stick a fork in them BEcause they are D O N E. Well, I’m NOT sure of much of anything. And I am very curious and want to know how people came to these conclusions. But sometimes that can BE heard as a challenge. And that is never how I mean it.

Anyway… I am still going a little batty here with my brain. Somedays it discourages me from even trying to write.

But then each time I DO write I feel energised. Happier. More curious. And then something out in the World will catch my hummingbird attention span and I will want to write about it or of it and then I forget. Completely. It is gone.

Somewhat of a hindrance sometimes…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 19 September 2014

We’re stars, you know. Different, distant, young and old, but we’re all made of the same stuff. We all shine just as bright as the next.  [Dannika Dark, Five Weeks]

It’s hard sometimes to just remember this simple truth. I am made of the same stuff as everyone. I shine on my own way, as YOU DO your way. And she does her way. And he does his way. And so it goes…

Somedays I am, well, I suppose I am resistant. I want to BE a snowflake, NOT a star. I want to shine, but I might want NOT to shine too brightly. Or mayBE I want to shine a little brighter.

And then I come back to Planet Earth and realise that I am shining as I am meant to shine, even if it is NOT totally to my liking!!! These are the days when I canNOT help but laugh at myself. Loudly. Bodaciously even.

I’ve been sorting through my art. I have every intention of giving it all away. Little by slow bit that is happening. It is fun to imagine it living on someone’s wall or shelf. It makes me remember I will always leave a little stardust BEhind, wherever I go.

There are so many ways to shine.

A brilliant and wondrous Plan.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 18 September 2014

“Because," explained Mary Rommely simply, "the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe. She must start out by believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination. I, myself, even in this day and at my age, have great need of recalling the miraculous lives of the Saints and the great miracles that have come to pass on earth. Only by having these things in my mind can I live beyond what I have to live for.   [Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn]

Those who I feel myself writing to, have some remarkably amazing minds. I have been having such a struggle adjusting to the changes in my thinking, my mind, yet recently reminded myself how storytelling has always helped me round and through this sort of setback.

And for this I’m grateful. And for what I CAN remember. And even for what seems lost forever. To me.

Without the capacity to tell myself stories, I would simply NOT have the oxygen necessary to keep showing up.

All the parts of My Life deserve my attention.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 17 September 2014

An end result, clearly acted upon with expectation, will always force the circumstances necessary to bring about its own manifestation, no matter how unpredictable, unlikely, or even “impossible” those circumstances my have previously seemed. [The Universe, www.tut.com]

Somedays my perpetual calendar is the first place I BEgin to think capturable thoughts. This one, this has stopped me BEfore, too. And NOT in my favourite way.

There is Big Trouble in Expectations. I used to feel far differently. I used to think one day I would train my mind to BE what I thought it should BE. And somewhere along my way I lost that desire.

Nowadays I like to imagine possibilities. And, after 2+ really good days with my brother last week, I am opening up to the possibilities of visitors or even some visiting. On my own. But NOT driving. With Gracie, preferably, but Now that she has second homes and a growing extended family, I can go solo.

I am ready. For what’s up. For whatever. For colouring outside the lines and for making “strong offers.” I might lose all my steam in a blink, but I am up for Life as long as it is mine to enJOY.

Life can BE astonishingly full with possibility. Just use those eyes inside your heart.

Yeppie-doodle. Those. ;~D

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 16 September 2014

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.    [Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum LP]

The past few days have been a bit of an obstacle or collision course for me. Whether chemo-related, spina bifida-instigated, or just BEing knocked down and out for 3 full days, it is good to BE back to my writing. Making a little art. Reaching out BEyond myself…

We, none of us, ever expect to BE broken. Or BEtrayed. And we DO all seem to expect ourselves to pull it together, come back from the edge, and pick up our lives.

I am glad I know that I am NOT so different. Strange, perhaps, but NOT so different.

I am tentatively “back” today. A little shaky. But I’m here.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 12 September 2014

If you can sustain your interest in what you’re doing, you’re an extremely fortunate person. What you see very frequently in people’s professional lives, and perhaps in their emotional life as well, is that they lose interest in the third act. You sort of get tired, and indifferent, and, sometimes, defensive. And you kind of lose your capacity for astonishment — and that’s a great loss, because the world is a very astonishing place.

What I feel fortunate about is that I’m still astonished, that things still amaze me. And I think that that’s the great benefit of being in the arts, where the possibility for learning never disappears, where you basically have to admit you never learn it.   [Milton Glaser]

For someone, like me, words like these are a balm. Words have always had this effect on me I think. It is extraordinarily delicious to NOT know, yet WANT to; and the possibilities for learning are infinite.

Nice design, this Life.

I have known myself to BE indifferent, definitely defensive, constant crankypants, and cynical. I’ve also been sarcastic, dismissive, and outright rude.

Yet I never meant to BE rude, unkind, or even horrible at all. That is the big lesson for me. I can DO wrong and BE able to learn from it. To change. BEcause of it.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 11 September 2014

Writing, painting, singing- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.   [Ally Condie, Reached]

It is essential to cherish journeys. I didn’t always nor often enough when I did BEfore Now. This is why I decided to make living with cancer a welcomed addition to the party called my Life. I have one more chemo round to go in a couple weeks, then a Time of waiting to see what, if anything, has “changed.”

And you know, whatever is is going to BE fine with me. I have willingly chosen to try radiation and chemo, just no surgery. I BElieve this has served my Present Journey well. Is serving it well.

I was able to set clear lines in the sand. I was able to explore boundary stuff and choose to accept that the “horrible” [at least to me] isn’t actually The Very Worst Thing in the World.

I have to say, I DO like to BE awake. To BE BEing. To BE Here.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 10 September 2014

“Remember to delight yourself first, then others can be truly delighted."

This was my mantra when I published my first book in 1990, and still holds true. When we focus on the song of our soul and heart, then others will be touched similarly. Sometimes people wonder or worry whether people will like or approve of their creative expression. It's none of your business. It's your business to stay present and focused for the work of your deepest dreams. It might look crooked or strange, or be very odd-but if it delights you, then it is yours, and will find its way into other hearts.    [SARK]

I have been a little unkind to myself lately. And at the same time, I have given myself a LOT of room. It’s actually always a little more this and a little less that, but the important part is my awareness.

If I am unkind toward me, I suspect everyone else feels similarly. Which is weird BEcause I don’t really reach a lot of other radar…

Anyway, I like what Sark is saying here. BEcause, really, anything I write or paint or draw or piece together, whatever it is, is something that makes my crooked little heart sing. Even just one tiny note.

So for Now I will work to deLIGHT myself.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 9 September 2014

...When you die, the energy that kept you alive filters into the people you loved. Did you know that? It's like a fire you've tended all your life, and the sparks are all scattered into the wind.... That's why we survive as long as we do, because the people who loved us keep us going.    [Kevin Brockmeier, The View from the Seventh Layer]

I get that nobody really likes to talk about when you die stuff. We like to treat it as something too abstract to wrap words round.

And yet, almost any day of any week of any year there are people dying. Sometimes people we know about. Sometimes people we don’t know. And sometimes “our” people.

I’ve spent some time thinking about dying. Sort of have to, to a certain extent, but mostly I think about how I want to live.

BEcause, for as much an ordinary and everyday thing as dying is, how I live is completely up to me. Well, I am sure that’s NOT 100% true, but I like to take responsibility and this equation works for me.

I want to live in such a way that when I am gone I’ve left something BEhind. NOT stuff something, the sort of something that is less holdable and measureable. MayBE there just aren’t words…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 7 September 2014

I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.    [Neil Gaiman]

Birthdays are round the corner. My family, all of them, are September, October, and November people. I have been trying to think of the sort of something I want to DO for them. Each one. And it helps that my brother will BE in town for our mother’s 86^th on 9.11.

I love what Gaiman wrote. It’s the sort of thing I wish for those I love. I’ve so much Hope for everyone. Even if there’s no really good reason to BE that hopeful. Sometimes I think this is mayBE a little weird for my family.

What I mostly want is Kindness to reign supreme through us all. If something is “broken” or even just slightly damaged, what is that up against Kindness?!

I hope we all WILL have wonderful years.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 September 2014

When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time.    [Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak]

It came as a bit of a shock that I so deeply agree with this notion. I mean, yes, I have learned and continue to strive toward always saying less than I used to always. Or so it seems.

Lately I’ve been having some preliminary peace talks within. Very little, and really NONE of that is for public consumption, but it is enough that this is how I am using this Time in my Life.

I realise there is no need for “peace” so much as peace of mind. A peaceful heart. Two peaceful hearts.

It always seems I am assuming that if I don’t say things Now, how long am I thinking I can still put them off?! And at the same second I am leaning into that thought I am leaning, simultaneously, toward NOT disturbing anyone else’s Life and Time with my “things to say.”

We don’t always need to “say everything” but sometimes we feel an urgency to DO just that. I am aware of the possibilities for pain, so I keep refining and simplifying.

I didn’t always DO my best.

That’s the most to the point thing I want to say.

And I hope you may forgive me.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 September 2014

I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not.   [Jean Webster]

Things seem to BE calmer this time. MayBE I am getting better able to accommodate the myriad feelings, physical, emotional, even mental.

I’ve never been much of a goal-oriented sort. I mean, it’s fun to follow a thing well through, but it’s also quite okay to change your mind or simply NOT choose to make anymore effort in that direction.

Sometimes I wish I could lull myself into that delicious complacency of All Is Well. And there’s no good reason I canNOT. In fact I DO it and I make a point to DO it often, but it never satisfies. Never really scratches the itch.

I’m not sure, mayBE this is BEcause I am so much more aware of the JOY in BEing alive?!

 Hmmmmmmm…  Whad’you think?!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Graitude 4 September 2014

And I figured out that the reason I couldn't get through the day as well as I can now is because I had too many things on my mind, on my plate, you know, for one person to have. So I started to eliminate some of the things that were too heavy to carry and unnecessary.   [Erykah Badu]

I’ve been learning about pain. About how I think and carry my own self away in that process. I am making changes, small course corrections, perhaps, and sometimes these are easy, others more complicated.

Life has had a sort of cumulative effect on me. I’ve always figured that as long as I hold onto something, don’t forget about someone, or keep coming back round to this discussion, situation, or what have you, in time it will sort out. Make a little more sense.

BEing wrong is often the very best thing to BE. And NEVER the thing to keep all to myself.

I no longer think of pain without its part in the dance.

Now I DO think about what my history is with someone BEfore I take any action.

I also remember, BEfore I BEgin talking, that there are unmarked slippery slopes and I must DO all I can to NOT wind up on them. Myself. On my bum.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 3 September 2014

We’re constantly changing facts, rewriting history to make things easier, to make them fit in with our preferred version of events. We do it automatically. We invent memories. Without thinking. If we tell ourselves something happened often enough we start to believe it, and then we can actually remember it.   [S.J. Watson, Before I Go To Sleep]

It is tiring to navigate my brain today. I want things to go quietly and read somewhere. Disappear for Now. Just a wee tiny rest. But today is already set and I must accommodate this brain OR sit here and have a pout like a 2-year old.

The thing I am stuck with is how things get left hanging out there. A call NOT returned. An email with no response. Promises but no deliveries. It is largely Trust and Faith that pull me through the day. Yet I feel dubious and sort of silly leaning on them Right Now.

Why EVER would things change Now?! I’ve quite a few people with whom I would like to connect, or mayBE correct what we remember of each other. Of an instant and even of years and years together with secrets and even lies.

Cancer seems to BE bringing out some other parts of Me, parts I thought long gone. 

Over. Done.

Wrong again.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 2 September 2014

Fortunately, disappointments have little to do with circumstance and everything to do with perspective. Everything.  [www.tut.com]

Gracie and I had the best walk this morning. It’s the first time that I’ve felt my body moving and it did NOT feel weird, foreign, NOT mine.

Then I got irritated, annoyed, bothered by buzzing mosquito-thoughts.

I hate this feeling sick and weak and tired and crankypants. I hate that I have sharp edges and sometimes don’t care about the things and the people I care about. I hate that I worry and try to work things out. [aka control outcomes]

I hate the word HATE. And yet here I have used it 5 times. But that is what is true for me Right This Minute.

It is all about perspective. And when the chemo is DOing its thing and bringing on its myriad circumstances, I am NOT the one in control. AND, I am NOT the one who is pretty awful either. But it is hard to remember that all the times I need to remember that.

And Round 3 BEgins tomorrow… So: I will enJOY this good walk feeling; and this feeling like myself again, where things taste, [and even taste delicious]; and people just make me smile and feel glad we are sharing this Time and Space together.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 1 September 2014

I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.   [Veronica Roth, Allegiant]

An interesting puzzle. I wonder similar things about finding something too hard or even “impossible.” And then, somehow, I DO that impossible and too hard thing and lo and BEhold, I don’t fall into some dark cave BElow the sea.

For some time Now I have been looking at HOW I DO my Life. I am getting rid of anything that is simply cluttering me up, stuff I DO that really is unnecessary. For instance how I was making more work for myself with writing Gratitude.

Even as I DO so, I find fears surfacing. Which pretty much leads me to BElieve that I am more afraid of what people think than I am of asking for what I need.

When you stop living your life based on what others think of you real life begins. At that moment, you will finally see the door of self acceptance opened.   [Shannon L. Alder]

It’s amazing to me how even knowing that what you/they think of me is NOT one bit my business. I always give it more weight than what is true for me.

Change comes slowly, often haltingly. Clearing clutter can leave far more than empty shelves BEhind.

I love you, Currie