Now

So all week, we have been wrestling with hope, hovering in the uncertainty of Juke's condition. Hope. Greg has described it as a "necessary and dangerous" thing. Necessary, because without it, we'd be all nihilism and despair. Necessary, because without it, we wouldn't bother to love. Necessary, because it is all we have to offset uncertainty, which is perhaps the most basic condition of life, the lowest-common denominator of our existence, no matter how much or how little else we have in common.

And dangerous. Because hope sets us up for loss, for pain. But isn't there loss, anyway? Isn't every breath a kind of loss, loss of this present moment, never to be repeated? Maytbe hope comes in gently, saying, "Honey, you are guaranteed uncertainty. You can put all your money on loss." Maybe Hope comes, saying, "I am the wild card in this equation." Maybe she will open like a flower - maybe we will have a fleeting glimpse of some intricate design inside that bloom, the kind that makes us marvel at nature, or God, or whatever name you have for that great mystery of creation and beauty. Will that peek have been worth it? Will we regret having seen it when it closes again?

Juke's life has been like a bloom. Sharing a life with him has been such a blessing; because of him, I know how to play. Because of him, I know how to rest. Because of him, I know how to forgive. Necessary and dangerous, this hope we've been holding all week is finally giving way to goodbye.

Solstice. Stand still. Long, dark night.

Like most people, I'll be unplugging for much of next week to spend time with family playing in the snow, eating too many cookies, getting stuff we don't need, and appreciating the fact that birth and death (ok, and taxes) truly are all we can count on in this life. The rest is largely up to us; how we choose to live in the gray zone, the interim - no matter how long or brief - of our time here in these bodies, these pathways we travel, these families we are born into or forge over time. What risks we're willing to take, which is to say: How willing we are to love (and lose).

On my run the other day, I found these words: My time is coming; my time is here. Later, I was telling a new client that I haven't had a watch for weeks now; I seem to have bad watch karma. Same pair of shades for eleven years, but watches break, fall apart, get lost. I have gotten used to not wearing one. Then she pulled out a catalog from her bag and showed me the watch I want, the one we should all wear. The watch has no batteries and the face has no numbers or hands. It simply says: NOW.

It is now. It is now again. It is always now. Now is my time, and yours. Ours together, to make something of this liminal zone called life.

As for me, I want to keep writing, to keep coaching, to keep pushing against (or into) my own self-imposed limitations and narrow beliefs about what's possible for me. To keep opening and closing like the flower that I am, without judgment.

As for you, whoever and wherever you are, may you find your own words and images, your outlets or inlets for hope, for expression, for risk-taking, for love. May the memory of those you've lost be a blessing. May you be peace and bring peace to those around you.

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

- Raymond Carver, "Last Fragment"