Art of Patience

Two weeks ago, I started a new drug treatment to stop the growth and spread of my cancer.  We’ve all experienced these anxious times in life, times when it’s easy to get trapped in feelings of fear, worry, doubt or even anger.  My thriving with advanced cancer for eight years, and surviving multiple treatments and their side effects, has been sustained by my practice of patience.  Looking back at my hospice work, I gained the gift of patience when given the honor to walk last days, hours, and minutes.  There is an art to the practice of patience learned with each life brush stroke, quieting our anxiousness with hope, and connecting us to the wholeness of life.  Practice the art of patience today.  

Life Touch

A golden sunset spreads across my horizon and I am lost in moments brushed with the gentleness of a dying day.  Like most days, Sunday was a tangle of energy and feelings as past, present, and future moments slowly blended as I reflected on life.  Wayne Muller, founder of Bread for the Journey, in one of his early books asks the question, “How shall I live, knowing I will die?”  The past few months I’ve been blessed with insights into my wholeness through the new challenges of my cancer journey.  It is through moments of reflective pausing I’ve begun to untangle who I am, and how our life touch becomes a gift others pass on.  Life touch someone today.  

The Rules

In his book, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life, Mark Nepo talks about learning to live at a level where there are no rules.  Monday, I sat with a friend whose husband was having surgery, as I have with others, but this time it was different.  My cancer journey has brought me to a place where “being” has quieted the rules that questions each word I utter, or move I make to connect with others and myself.  It is through these connections that love and caring are illuminated and we find the peace that moments of wholeness bring to our lives.  Step outside your rules today, and you will find nothing in between you and the next moment. 

Life Rhythm Sailing

The neighborhood I grew up in had a large field where we held a kid organized summer Olympics consisting of running and field events.  My favorite events were pole vaulting and broad jumping.  In high school track, I added the triple jump, which I was not great at, but loved its rhythm and feel of just doing it.  It consisted of a hop, skip, and jump.  The skip was my favorite phase, where the momentum of the hop became a stretched out skip, and you sailed.  This morning I realized the importance of developing a life rhythm that provides a flow and grace through our life journey challenges that ensures we lean forward as we stretch out and sail.  Practice sailing today!

Be Still

Moments frozen in my dreams last night had me back on University Lake in the canoe that brought calm to my life in college.   My path was down Duplanier Bayou, portage across Stanford Ave, and finally slide as one into the water, and wait.  I was a silent visitor waiting to be brushed by the moons glow.  Many nights I’d follow her path to the lakes western edge, past old cypress trees, to where I could see the lights of my church, and be washed in childhood memories and family love.  My solo canoe outings taught me the necessity for still moments in lives that become driven by the fear of missing any or all of it.  Today, take time to be still.  

Trust Life

We share a side of our 4-unit townhome community with Franklin, a Berkeley mathematics postdoc working at Rice, who is job hunting.  This weekend he was preparing for an interview at the Naval Academy, and we briefly talked in our shared driveway.  He was on his way to buy an overcoat, have his shoes repaired, and he asks if I thought he should buy a briefcase.  I told him, “You look comfortable with your backpack and that is important for you need to just be you!”  As he backed his car out of the driveway, I thought how we back in and out of ourselves as we practice who we will become, and how important it is to trust in this journey we call life.     

Morning Gold Moment

Beginning a new cancer treatment usually has side effects, so I took off Friday to begin a new regiment of drugs as a participant in a clinical study.  I experienced no side effects and next week they will check to ensure the new therapy is not too toxic for my liver and heart.  The clinical study world is full of happy terms like “progression-free survival”, which translates into living more days. Last week as I waited for an elevator I took a picture of sunrise, and felt a deep smile as I realized, “The morning gold filtering through the window reminded me of early morning soft lips, shared with a kiss.”  Life is not about living more days, but sharing more moments.  Share more moments today!