Goldilocks

In Japan today people still lay buried, dead under building ruins, under towns and communities lay lives shredded to pieces and left hanging on some rope of the world like torn clothing strung up on the line. Survivors are living minute to minute in what I can only imagine a most surreal and unbearable existence. Tragedy in all of its forms, whether it affects one person or thousands or millions like all those battered souls in Japan, does in its own twisted way, hold one gift for us; the subtle reminder of life's both precious and fragile nature. An urging to remember who we are and why we are here, a gentle nudging to recognize and cherish the many gifts those of  us who are left behind in the mortal world do have, top amongst these being the people in our lives and the love the grows in between.

This morning I meditated in the tub, slinking down deep into the water and in this moment and that, all the world fell silent. Now I am sitting with still wet hair that curls in the way you like, the house smelling of cinnamon and cloves, and I am reading articles and looking at slide shows about unimaginable devastation half way across the globe. Flashes of my own loved ones deaths dance quietly in the periphery of my vision and all the while I find myself thinking of you. You know death better than I and have survived more tragedy in your short thirty something years than any one life ever should. Perhaps this then the reason for your wisdom, for the perspective and faith that radiates from your every pore, for the deep love and appreciation of everything around you, the gratitude that seeps out into the world and the hearts of those around you with every preciously earned exhale you take.

It's sprinkling outside and the clouds are hanging heavy and thick in the sky, pressing the weight of the world down onto these shoulders that despite their breadth, can sometimes not bear life's strain. I'm wondering if the stress you spoke of so briefly yesterday has passed yet, if you are wading through mud in the forrest with a dear friend and letting a multitude of responsibility escape your body for even just a few moments. What sort of awe for the world are you finding there as you wade underneath piney bows older than my grandmother? I wonder, if even for a second, as you admire the raindrops clinging to tree limbs like a million sparkling pearls, if you have thought if even for a moment of me? I suspect our time together will be short, your life too full to fit a creature as needy and demanding as me, into it. Rest assured that this morning under warm lamplight will only be one instance among many that I sit swaddled in green with a dog you love by my side wondering where this sweet life has taken you.