DYING TO LIVE ...

DYING TO LIVE …
Every subtle scent, sound,sentiment, stance, sorrow, sensation and surrender to all that processes through my six senses is what is brightly evident to me most days.

If life passes before one's eyes at death, I am certainly dying. Each day is flooded, with a-horn-of-plenty of memories and feelings, all crushing up against one another like colorful fruits and flowers and vegetables; some bruised, some shiny, some still fragrant and sweet; and a few, very bitter. As these fruits of my life spill out before me, I must certainly be dying.

I am dying to see my loved ones. I am dying to give them kisses, and to love them up in ways I was perhaps unable to then; when the rush and strain of growing up, and habitual busy-ness blinds one to simpler things. 

 I’m dying to float on the rolling waves of the Sea of Cortez on the funky "ship" of my dreamer lover, the California Rose, on Valentine's Day in 1984, rolling in the bliss and bloom of love, and longing, and California dreaming at its absolute best.

I'm dying to see and kiss a love long gone in Mexico, on the rooftop of our engagement villa, in the setting sun.  I'm dying to splash in the surf at Manzanillo, Mexico in 1997, on Valentine's Day again, where my handsome, muscular, blue-eyed, kind-hearted love; my knight in shining armor gets on his bended knee in the breaking waves and asks me to marry him.

I'm dying to spin around, my baby resting on my right hip, one small hand on my bare shoulder, on a beautiful spring day in Taos, New Mexico, singing and dancing to Johnny Clegg, awaiting my best friend Stacy to pop in the door, dropping her bags and  immediately begin dancing with me.

“We're going to live forever, Dar!” She shouts out, laughing in her oh-so sonorous voice, as we move and groove to the music. Klee, my little boy, nearly one, is  laughing and hanging on to my shoulders, balanced perfectly on my side between us. Little do I suspect Stacy would be dead a few months later.

Poof! A truck, two drunks, a bridge … She disappears just beyond these 3 dimensions, just out of reach enough  for me too long for her laugh, and her dance, and her joyous heart. My Stacy, whom is the only reprieve I have from my loneliness those years raising my baby, alone in the woods and wilds of Taos, is now gone.

The horn of plenty is so bursting full and rich with vivid colors and tastes of times slipping away, its fruits pass through my fingers, moist, palatable; and quickly evaporate as I try to linger or cling to any one of them. Old worn out notebooks, and dozens of VHS tapes litter my storage boxes, in my endless attempts to piece it all together in my writing. Where is the through-line? What is it all about? 

My memoir attempts to string together a time, a life, other lives, music, events, and that amazing bond called love that glues us . And I know from all these pieces, I might construct something timeless, something that could comfort someone, somewhere.

I die each day to the past, as I climb into the bounty of my present; my beautiful baby, growing, wide-eyed, full of wonder and life: my amazing, supportive" love beings;" my mother and father are still there for us as my son grows from infancy into his teens, always a call away. The enormity of natural beauty in New Mexico, and the never-ending comfort of my romping, happy dogs, Chance and Georgia engulf me and my loneliness in those early years. The cup is full as the world opens even wider to me after so much loss. I miss those  days today, as all passes into the future, into the Now.

It takes 12 hours to cross the Pacific, and there are moments under the full moon, I see the deep blue mystery of this vast body of water out of the little window of the airplane; this vast unknown known world far below illumines the timeless aspects of Earth as compared to our brief lives. One feels so vulnerable in these metal and steel capsules 35,000 feet above an ocean too large to conceive. I’m to meet more soul-connected people from other lands. I’m about to land in Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, and explore the people, food and foliage. I’m 64. My life experience has more surprises than I can imagine in store for me. From that height I have no idea the bonds to come, the magic of these new worlds and how much will grow out from them.

This year, 2016, I explore new continents, new countries, new inner landscapes of people; their homes, their secrets, their sorrows and their 10,000 joys.

There is Stacy,  my muse; and my knight in shining armor, my fiancé Jeff. My California dream-man, David: all precious memories I thought nothing can replace, yet as life moves swiftly into the future, life reveals even more. Who knows? Is there room for one more great love?

My, aging, ever-loving parents, and my reliable brother comforted me once. In every new experience all my heart people linger as shadows. I grieve not being able to share my newest wonders with them now.

Life goes on, and on, and on, and on. Indeed, life goes on. “Mama how that life goes on …”

The fruits in my basket multiply as my past melts into the future. I understand deeply that inside every beauty and wonder, live the seeds of goodbye.

Accita: impermanence... The Buddha asks we accept life as suffering. One of the causes of suffering is that nothing lasts; everything changes. 
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I try to adjust to loss and to abundance at the same time. One step in front of the other, along the tightrope of NOW.
 
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