Opening the Door

Last fruit and flower gathering before going.

Today we leave the California farm. Next up: Nearly two months in the Pacific Northwest.

A friend of mine asked if I ever feel sad about leaving a place I have fallen in love with.

It can be bittersweet. I think about leaving our routine of berry picking and animal feeding and  pie baking. I think about saying goodbye to the beauty of the redwood trees and local friends and comfy couch where I read each morning.

And I realize in two short weeks this farm morphed from foreign to familiar. From unknown to home.

That's been the case with most every place we've stayed in the past year.

So when it comes time to go, I acknowledge the impulse to cling. Then I ease myself into letting go, softly, through appreciation of everything we experienced. Then I turn my attention to curiosity and excitement about what lies ahead.

What's ahead?

Always a new adventure. Always new doors opening. Because change is the nature of life.

If I'd known this when my marriage of fifteen years ended, I could have saved myself a lot of grief. Can you imagine letting go of a person you love? Accepting that the person wants to move on? Accepting that we own no person, no place, no object? Accepting change--meaning the nature of life?

Can you imagine fear morphing into excitement?

Yet the clinging and rending and devastation taught me so much. Nothing is wasted.

This nomadic life teaches me more and more every day about letting go. About what serves me better: viewing something as an ending, or a beginning. Viewing an obstacle as a hardship or an adventure.

One of my greatest teachers is this regard was my mentor and other-mother, Gabriele. She viewed her dying experience as an adventure. Her heart was not filled with fear. It was filled with curiosity. Even joy.

I've always been a creature who liked change. But that was on my own terms. Now, I'm more radically embracing "letting go" and "letting be." Life feels more rich that way.

As Mark Nepo says, you have to put down what you carry to open the door.

Goodbye, Hello

What's left.

For people who supposedly "got rid of everything" last year to live a life on the road, we still had lots of stuff. Our stalwart and kind friend, Mark, let us keep it in his garage. Who knew what our nomadic ways would lead to? Maybe we'd return to Northern California to nest again. Maybe our traveling ways would turn out to be merely a migration.

And now we are owners of almost nothing.

We have Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, our blue Subaru. Two suitcases of clothes. A mermaid costume. Shampoo. Skis. A partially-built casita in Mexico. And a few boxes of kitchen stuff for when we head down there.

It's the first time in my life that I haven't owned mountains of books--or boxes of old letters, journals and photos.

I have one task: To finish sifting through the last box of journals.

I started keeping a diary in third grade. So many words on thousands of pages! I'm taking pictures of some of the pages I want to "keep"--and tearing out one here and there, stashing them in a file. Then I thank that journal and release it into the recycle bin.

It's been a time-traveling experience for Dave and me as we've revisited all these things that have been with us for so many years. It's been profound, bittersweet and freeing as we've let go of everything: each letter, picture, object.

So many people's lives have touched mine in 51 years. As I read, I accept it all, bless it all: Words written to me (and by me) that are funny, kind, compassionate, perturbed, unsettled, angry, joyous, reconciling, affectionate, informative. All of it meant to connect. All of it is part of who I am today.

It somehow feels like the natural order to release these things on the heels of having finished my memoir. 

The memoir.

Every goodbye is a hello. At the yard sale, friends and former students dropped by. Since we've been mostly away from the Bay Area for a year, it was lovely to see everyone. We also met a bunch of Mark's neighbors.

Most everyone left with an object, a piece of us. I love how people are weaving into their lives bits of ours.

By the end of the day, when almost everything was gone, people stood around chatting and drinking cold beer, while little kids--wrapped our feather boas and Mardi Gras beads--raced around the lawn.

We stuffed the remaining odds and ends into boxes on the curb. I posted them for free on Craiglist, and within an hour a woman hauled them away in her truck.

In the release of the old, space is created for the new. What's up next, world?

Operation: Seize the Day

“Illness can be a catalyst for developing self-compassion, softening our egos, 

trusting our intuition, defining what’s truly important to us. 

It sets the stage for the opening of our hearts.” - Judith Orloff

Another lovely dinner at Janelle and Bobby's.

This tumor is old news.  It’s time to get rid of it.  It’s been growing in my noggin for a long time, apparently.  It started in response to something that happened a long time ago--who knows what? I’m not worried about a cause. Because worry never solved a problem.  I don’t want to try to “get to the bottom of this.”  Because there is no bottom. Besides, trying to get to the bottom means facing backward.  I want to face forward.  That means being firmly planted in the here and now, in this beautiful eternal moment.

Getting rid of no-longer-necessary stuff seems to be a theme of Dave’s and my life recently. First, I decided to retire. Then we decided to let go of our house and live a traveling life.  Getting rid of many of our things was an adventure within the adventure.

A couple of months before we hit the road, Dave experienced two bodily castings-off of his own. First, a cherry angioma (one of those little red dots) on his inner lower lip began to bleed profusely and spontaneously at inopportune times, like at a party or while eating a big sandwich. After the surgical removal, he was reminiscent of an Amazonian with a lip plate. His lip was barely healed when he need to have a patch of basal cell skin cancer removed from his scalp. The zealous doctor cut out quite a chunk (gotta get those margins). Then he plunked the offending flesh in a basin right next to my face where I sat in wifely support.  

Fortunately blood doesn't bother me that much. It actually kind of fascinates me. I thought about that yesterday when the friendly phlebotomist drew three vials for my pre-surgical tests. Fascinating that what had just been inside was now outside. Fascinating that inside our bodies blood is black, while outside it’s red. Fascinating that a certain amount of blood can be removed from a body without much effect.

Although yesterday it seemed to affect me more than usual. I was tired and had a raging headache, so I honored my body by spending most of the afternoon and a long night in bed. Here’s the funny part: I think the headache had nothing to do with my brain tumor. I think it had to do with a triple whammy of:  

a) killer period cramps (what, at age 50?!)

b) the sadistic medical directive disallowing me from taking pain-killers until after surgery, and

c) caffeine withdrawal, also a pre-surgery requirement.

I’m not a lay-around-in-bed-all-day kind of person. But it sure felt like the right thing to do. And I’m so fortunate: I don’t have kids or a job to tend to so I can actually respond to my body’s requests. I mean, really, my blessings are beyond counting. Right now I’m writing on my laptop poolside while Dave does yoga and Janelle works on her novel in her office. In a few minutes I’ll be floating dreamily in that azure water.

The number of people who have emailed, texted, called, Facebooked, and visited me to offer their love, healing energy, and practical support is staggering. Life is taking on a precious glow. It’s like my seizure opened up an even greater carpe diem capacity in me. A greater desire to be in this moment, facing forward. This is why my friends and I are calling this experience  “Operation:  Seize the Day."

My literal and symbolic operation is about living fully. It's also about not living in fear. We will all have our time to transition to the next thing--and who knows when? So why not be right here, right now, cherishing this. The past is old news. Now is where it's at: the beauty, the love, the unfolding possibility. The choice to love it is ours.