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