Saturday, March 24, 2012

Happy New Year; Happy Anniversary

Today was the first of Nissan, the first month of the Jewish calendar---so technically, the start of the year. When you think about it, it seems to make sense to think that spring--a time of rebirth and blooming--would be a good time to start the year.

The first of Nissan has additional meaning for me. It is on this Hebrew date in 5762 (it was March 14 in 2002) that I began my dance with chemotherapy. Ten years of non-recurrence of cancer is a good milestone. It's another threshold of that experience that I get to walk through--and the more I leave behind, the better.

To commemorate the day, I went back to my journal from that time to touch those thoughts from a safe perspective. I'd like to share some of them here......
A new year, a new journey starts. 
This morning, walking to yoga, my thoughts came to their own revelation. The thing about having mortality hit you in the face becomes not about death - it brings an appreciation for life. And it's not about doing grand gestures, going on as if you could be gone tomorrow. It comes back to mindfulness - to be present; dealing with whatever thoughts or actions that brings. That's one part of this that is a gift 
I can feel the drugs in my body--although which drugs I'm feeling, I don't know. Is it just an atavan haze or the poisons working their way through -- time will tell. I just feel kind of spacey. I am aware of the flow within my body. And since this is the first time, I have to just experience the process 
Again, it's process...life is process
Another lesson
And process is presence
And as we learn to deal with the presence
We become clearer on the process
               that is life


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