I have made a commitment to three things: finding time for Blue Space (beach, sky), Green Space (earth, woods), and the responses I have to poets & writers. I seek to discover the art of being.
It's a beautiful Sunday morning, and my mind is on prepping the Titanic Project and thinking about errands I have to run. There will be 2 hour crystal bowl meditation to attend his afternoon (yay!). So as I looked for inspiration, I stumbled on something I loved and decided it needed to be commemorated here.
I don’t think any of us can look at Ryan Gosling without thinking of Ken, and this SNL monologue addresses that, and is hilarious. I don’t think I have ever posted an SNL video on any of my blogs, so this is a first.
This morning in my journal I was reflecting on watching a documentary called The Last Repair Shop, a lovely film about a shop that repairs instruments for the Los Angeles Unified School District. It’s one of the last of its kind.
One of the repair people was a woman from Mexico. She talked about coming here for the American Dream, and how hard it was to find. She went through some really tough stuff, and was crying.
I almost turned it off.
But then I heard the voice inside me say: Stay with her. Don’t run from her suffering. Be one with it.
And I’m so grateful I did. The film was uplifting and I couldn’t stop smiling when it was over.
I was glad I took the step to practice once again how to be in the moment even when it’s uncomfortable. It was interesting to see how I processed through it. And it was worth it.
*
I read a poem called “The Self We Share” by Rumi, and it fit right in. He speaks of little quarrels people have, but that they forget they are part of something larger. He caught my attention with this line:
But look, fish, you are already in the ocean:
just swimming there makes you friends with glory.
What are these grudges about?
As I return to work today after a wonderful break, I take this idea with me, as well as this prayer Rumi ended with:
I heard it from Dr. Shah (the oncologist). He said even after these rounds of chemo, Jim will be on chemo/immunotherapy…
INDEFINITELY.
The thing is—I expected to hear that kind of thing last week. But he said at that time this chemo would be followed by “2 years of immunotherapy.”
Pardon me if I’m confused here, because I truly am.
I tried to hold it in, but finally broke open to Jim about it last night and cried. He is confused as well.
The bottom line, of course, is what matters — and that is accepting. A huge part of this reality is what acceptance really means.
A lot of times we say we are accepting, but in reality we aren’t really.
We resist.
**
I watched the final 45 minutes of American Symphony, and in it Suleika hears from her doctor that after the bone marrow transplant she will be on chemo…
INDEFINITELY.
They cry. I cry with them.
We all know what that really means.
I’m finding this part of the journey hard to accept. And I tend to tell myself it doesn’t matter, or I’m just looking at things wrong.
But it does matter, and I’m not wrong to feel what I feel.
This is when I come back to call on the angels surrounding us and tap into my deeper soul knowledge, and not let outer influences change what I know to be true.
Tap into that and stay there.
**
Today I decided to listen to Johnnyswim’s album Georgica Pond and I knew there was a song waiting there for me. I finally found this one that had the words, and it was a necessary reminder that what I’m feeling DOES matter.
Today in my readings, I came across the word “improvisation” and it stood out to me. But I couldn’t think about what I wanted to say about it.
It was a busy morning, with Jim having surgery to get the mediport put in. Once everything settled down, I got us some lunch and went back to watching American Symphony on Netflix, which I started yesterday.
The movie is about Jon Batiste and his partner Suleika. In the film, he has just been nominated for a ton of Grammys at the same time she was told her leukemia had come back. She had a bone marrow transplant ten years earlier, and so coming out of remission came as a shock.
While watching the part where they got married before she went in for a second bone marrow transplant, the word “improvisation” came up. After the wedding Suleika said:
Jon has the greatest capacity for change and improvisation and growth of anyone I ever met. This is a moment that calls us to embody what our relationship is. It’s not, you know, all champagne and beautiful things. But it’s the hard things.
The word “improvisation” signaled me to write these words down. I was right there with her!
Later, when Jon seems to be talking about the symphony he is writing, but could be he’s talking about the health challenges they are facing, (it is ambiguous), he says:
You have to confront the brutal facts of the reality that you might not pull it off. But at the same time have unwavering faith. Complete unwavering faith. And you have to do both at the same time.
I decided then the important thing was to record these messages here, and then sit with them. Listen to his We Are album some more. Take time for letting our journey be what it is.
