I CAN ONLY IMAGINE

It was head and neck. They were neck and neck racing to a diagnosis. Head is nothing without neck, an odd shaped thing that might roll away. Something the dog would play with like a big chew toy.

Inside Head, the little thoughts grew. Thoughts like Why me? Thoughts like What Happened? Thoughts like Who Am I Now? Thoughts like Where Will I Go on this big adventure. Thoughts like When, which is the God of Expectation.

Really a useful exercise, all of these little thoughts, but they don’t help get Head ahead.

Neck holds the voice, the song, the breath that inspires. Essentially a hallway between In and Out. A bridge to Higher Learning and a dark tunnel filled with fear and pills that were caught in Throat.

I like this dispassionate exam of body parts, giving them voices. Every cell has a story. Some stories just get on with it. Some stories begin on a high note, perhaps a morbid reflection, moving onward to exposition and conflict, ending in tears or on a high point.  They have to play out in their own time.

I am in a reflection, the state of reflection, which is North of Idaho, South of Alaska, East of Hawaii, and West of Montana. I have been here most of my life. For the most part, I am happy, even now, as I embark on this adventure.

I am learning to lose regret and say thank you. Learning to listen better. Trying to eat better and sleep better. I am learning to let go.

It is no use to dwell on things, regrets, plans. I must enjoy the moment and create moments that I can enjoy.

My Mother, in her final days, lost in her mind, connections broken, sporadic feelings of love and anger, both jarring, and empty. I can only imagine.

In her final days of dementia, no tears, just a little girl lost, her children have left her, her Husband is dead and gone. Does she sense the other side of life? Is she speaking to spirits in the great hungry void?

I can only imagine.

But she lived in the moment in her final years, more than eleven years of ever degrading in the moment experience. I can only imagine.

Yesterday at work I told a few colleagues of my diagnosis and the plans now for treatment and how the future, which is unknowable, might play out. It’s funny when you hire someone, who you instantly feel a connection to, a sense of a friendship that is to come. This new woman is so intelligent and qualified. She has a calm demeanour, but also a sense of wonder. You can tell if somebody still loves learning. 

I made her cry. I told my story and I made her cry.  I could not cry with her, could not let myself cry, cannot go there. But I was genuinely touched by her concern. And so felt bad that telling my story made her cry. Sometimes I am too transparent. I feel myself disappearing, all that remains is diagnosis.

There is another co- worker who is over in China helping his mother and sister. The sister is struggling with mental issues brought on by the isolation of the pandemic. It can be a horrible cruel world at times. Our intelligence is challenged everyday with real evil, and bland evil, and now artificial evil in the hands of real evil.

Neck keeps his voice to himself., refusing to comment. Head is trying desperately just to be, to empty his mind of scurrying rats, mood changes, fear management, anticipation of impending weather changes, like what is the difference between a rainy day and scattered showers. Should he live for breaks in the weather or learn to just be and love the moment?

Breath is all we have, until we don’t.

No sense in shallow breathing, or dwelling in a tight chest.

Breathe.

Open your lungs from your feet to your head and breathe.

I can only imagine.

And that’s ok for now.