phoenix in the house

I feel like a woman who was hit by a truck and had a near-death experience--and now all I want to do is live! This is manifesting as a desire to do all kinds of new things. In the past month I've had a number of firsts: first rounds of golf, first time to the horse races, first time to a boxing match. At each one I realized that so much skill is involved. I have a new, growing appreciation for the abilities of the human body.

And I also have a growing appreciation for fun! I have so many loving friends who've been inviting me (the single gal!) to join them for the activities I've described above, as well as meals, swimming pool & wine afternoons ... And this isn't just about fun, but it's about human connection. I'm coming out of the cave of grief and into the light of celebration of life.

I'm also feeling the desire to write again. It's been a few months since I've had the focus or drive to write, but I can feel stories and poems swimming in my veins.

As my friend Sally said, life is amazing; it wants to live.

Here are a few words from Walt Whitman on that score:

O LIVING always—always dying!
O the burials of me, past and present!
O me, while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever!
O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not—I am content;)
O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at, where I cast them!
To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind!