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Monday, February 2, 2015

Day 494: are we human or are we dancer?


I’m sitting and looking over the perfect white billows of comforter onto a completely white window. I am writing because I’m feeling snarky today. Something inside me is starting to burst, or bloom, or explode; pick your metaphor. I’m trying to find out what comes next in this life. I feel a sense of irrepressible energy and yet at the same time some kind of gross hindrance. I tell myself I am getting better every day, though the augmentation is sometimes infinitesimally minute.  A lot of the problem is physical. I feel trapped in a body that doesn’t work well. In a small way, I know, I am beginning to understand a bit of what it’s like to live with disability, or better put: I have begun to understand the true feeling of limitation. I have felt the physical effects (literal inability to do things) as well as the psychological distress of watching your body shrivel. The trauma of enduring a life-threatening disease and an almost equally life-threatening treatment, followed by a year of extreme muscle and bone density loss, GvHD and transplant complications, lung damage, and at times a stagnant brain...it’s aged me. I feel I have the body of an 80 year-old. This must be what aging feels like, but on an accelerated scale. This is life, folks. And I’m especially talking to you, Bekah. This is life. Bodies fail. I have hopes for where I will be a year from now, but I don’t actually know what will happen. People keep saying that I’ll get back. I'll get back to where I was before. No problem no question. But I don’t know that it will happen. I have to accept and love my life the whole way through it; or else I may come to the end and find I was waiting for something that didn’t exist. So I have decided to love even this obstinate and foreign time of my life. I must practice Love. I must practice Love. I must grasp today, and not wait for tomorrow or some body or life that I hope will fall into my lap.
I am managing to type right now; my hand muscle spasms have taken a short respite, perhaps to journey to other muscles that enjoy hosting a good seizure: neck and throat, both legs, abdomen and lower back, pick your favorite. It’s painful. My hands are always slightly swollen these days—in addition to the muscle spasms that make it impossible to do much of anything—so even when they’re not spazzing out, holding or opening things is difficult. I can’t help shovel snow because I have no muscles, and the bitties I do have start cramping if I exert them or stretch them too much/at all. My arms are essentially 2ft matchsticks. And considering my high risk for osteoporosis, this couldn’t be more true.
But even with these new spastic developments (which we can’t seem to find a cause or cure for), I’m still endeavoring to see the world anew. #2015yearofhealth y’all. And I’m referring to whole person health, not just healthy eating or weight. And I would like to take a quick moment to say that I am actually trying to gain weight this year. I’d love it if healthy eating wasn’t always about losing weight. Pinterest can’t help me at all because everything #healthy is low-cal or #bikinibodbound. Maybe people think I’m lucky? Doesn’t everyone just wish they were toooooo skinny? Bah. I just want to be healthy. I want to gain muscle and flexibility and happiness this year. I want to expand my circle of compassion, to revolutionize my idea of Love over and over and over again. These are my goals. For this year, for life.
Every day is a choice. And if I see it as a choice; or at least tell myself it is a choice rather than a chore; perhaps after time I will start to really believe it. I will practice loving the world. I will practice loving myself. Days can go by so quickly without any real accomplishment. And even accomplishments (I did laundry! I did dishes! I took all my pills at the right time! I ate three meals!) can come with with the feeling of it still not being enough. Who rejoices over managing to eat three meals? Who rejoices over laundry? This girl. Today she does, at least. Today, there is enough Love. Today there is enough energy and peace and compassion. Today I can surpass this fragile stupid body. Today I can celebrate this fragile stupid body. Today I will find strength in weakness. The Source is full, its waters are ever-flowing. This is the endless Ocean. Today, we are DANCER. I will raise my stupid matchsticks in the air and stomp my little 80-year-old feet, metaphorically.
The Source is full,
its waters are ever-flowing;
Do not grieve,
drink your fill!
Don’t think it will ever run dry—
This is the endless Ocean!

So what the hell, I’ll put on the Killers and bomb the f@$% out. I’ll read Rumi and weep my endless Ocean of dry tears. And then, I will love the world. This is the endless Ocean. I will love myself. I will love myself. I will love myself. I will love myself. I will love myself. I will love myself. I will love myself. I will love myself. I will love myself. I will love myself.
Peace and joy, kittens. Stay warm, stay happy. Stay Dancer.

Everything you see has its roots
in the unseen world.
The forms may change,
yet the essence remains the same.
Every wondrous sight will vanish,
every sweet word will fade.
But do not be disheartened,
The Source they come from is eternal—
growing, branching out,
giving new life and new joy.
Why do you weep?—
That Source is within you,
and this whole world
is springing up from it.
The Source is full,
its waters are ever-flowing;
Do not grieve,
drink your fill!
Don’t think it will ever run dry—
This is the endless Ocean!
From the moment you came into this world,
a ladder was placed in front of you
that you might transcend it.
From earth, you became plant,
from plant you became animal.
Afterwards you became a human being,
endowed with knowledge, intellect and faith.
Behold the body, born of dust—
how perfect it has become!
Why should you fear its end?
When were you ever made less by dying?
When you pass beyond this human form,
no doubt you will become an angel
and soar through the heavens!
But don’t stop there.
Even heavenly bodies grow old.
Pass again from the heavenly realm
and plunge into the ocean of Consciousness.
Let the drop of water that is you
become a hundred mighty seas.
But do not think that the drop alone
becomes the Ocean—
the Ocean, too, becomes the drop!
-Rumi