Labels, Boxes, and Stories ... Oh My!

Labels, Boxes, and Stories ... Oh My!

The Dragon is learning to name everything. All day, “Momma, wha dat?” and he points. People and machines mostly, he is not asking about plants or the clouds. He is learning to name because we that is the way our language functions. He is learning to name because he is separating himself as an autonomous human being and giving shape to his personality through language.

In order to name something you are placing a label upon it - a label that can often morph into a box shored up with accompanying stories. This is a glass. A glass is to drink liquid out of us, usually they are fragile.

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Just in case... letters to my children

A few months ago I was talking about a woman who had died. “The worst part,” her closer friend shares with me, “is that her kids keep on asking me if I have a letter or a note from her for them - and I keep on having to say no.”

So here we go, my winter project, write letters to my children. Just in case. Why not?

Letters for their birthdays, letters when they graduate from college/run away from home/join a cult, letters when they get married. Letter when it is a random Tuesday in March 2042 to tell them I love them.

You never know in this life. Isn’t the idea of doing this now, in health, with facilities intact, without the cancer industrial complex breathing down my neck, make it seem more of a gift than a chore?

I think so. I feel so. I know so.

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Grateful

A whirlwind 7 days in Germany to have an ultrasound with Dr. Herzog, sweat in the sauna, wander around Weihnachtsmarkt/Christmas markets, and meditate with John of God. It was very full and very wonderful - not least of which was the Ultrasound and Herzog's assertion that all is well (confirming what I had gleaned from the PET scan)

I am going to spend a moment reveling in gratitude for that news.

I am grateful for all of the people who supported me so I was able to spend 3 1/2 months in Germany. I am grateful for all of the people who do research in oncology and decide that certain medicines, treatments, dosages, radiation levels, therapeutic agents, cleansing routines, etc are better for me than others. I am grateful for the doctors, the nurses, the techs, the people who cleaned the floors of the clinics and the hospitals where I spent so much time this year. I am grateful for those who cooked for me.

I am grateful for those people who pack the needles, the bags, the saline solutions. I am grateful to those people who donate blood so that I was able to receive infusions and have enough red blood cells to walk up a hill without pausing every 5 feet. I am grateful my doctor here felt comfortable with me heading to Germany. I am grateful that we are once again in the monitoring stage of my physical doings.

I am grateful the gentleman across from me is using a green pen to write on his pad, I am grateful I am heading to a conference on farming for the rest of the week. I am grateful for the timing of my most recent trip to Germany because Christmas markets are wonderful. I am grateful John of God was there with me.

I am grateful for my family, friends, Universe, friends I haven't met yet, and for the world of amazingness we spent our time floating in.

I am grateful grateful grateful.

Thank you Universe.

(Here is a wonderful poem by ee cummings about the infinite yes for you to peruse, as well.)