Last year my husband was diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s primary bone cancer. Although he is in remission and doing well, every day we have together is a blessing. It reminds me that life can change anytime so I savor every day. It’s hard to imagine him not in my life after 36 years of marriage.
What great questions these are, Susan, especially for someone like me in a period of transition, from working to being retired.
What is golden in my life, and maybe I don't appreciate enough, is just being with my family, enjoying our moments together, without thinking about what could be better.
I think, after being retired for 1.5 years, I am still trying to find out how to not be productive but live a life that makes sense for me. And I experience that time is not on my side, that days run away very quickly, and that I want to much to be a human doing, instead of a human being.
I need to welcome a life with more quietness, for sure...
What has gone from my life is playing music. I used to play the piano, although I am not very talented; it made me happy. Due to life, my piano moved into a room where it is covered with storage boxes. Sometimes, when I hear "Les Marionettes", by Zbigniew Preisner, from the film "La Double Vie de Véronique", I so long to play that music. Music on which my wife said in those times, she fell in love with me...
One thing that's not fleeting here in the Northeast is winter! Frost on the cars three mornings this week – aggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!
1. What’s golden in my life is savoring every moment, and a sense of fun, especially on the Page. It's become a work rather that fun. Very necessary, difficult work.
2. For me, the “new form” of life is leaving the workforce. I do welcome that, I won’t have an elaborate “retirement.” It's a major life event...
3. What hasn't stayed in my life is having a sense of adventure and being active that way, camping, hiking, etc. That's what gave me verve, the stuff of life. Not engaging in it is a death...
I just read this post re: Jungian Psychology - worth reading... RE: #3 and adventure - what I really did was stopped paying attention...
… brings sadness that I didn’t always fully appreciate wonderful experiences and relationships in the past while they were happening, and a desire to be more present in enjoying the richness of those day to day experiences and relationships now.
I like to joke that since my wife and I have become empty nesters a few years ago, we are less parents than we are “personal assistants”. While maybe an overstatement, our relationships with our kids, though still very loving and on the whole wonderful, it’s a different and well, bittersweet. And the same goes regarding our parent who are at ages where health can become a periodically struggle. The reality for myself of being much closer to death than birth
Lovely, reflection, present is truly all we have, and within every bitter can we teach ourselves to find beauty, a sweet... Struggle not going away it always comes and goes but our perception, expansion of how the seed grows, blooms, withers, sail in the wind defiantly can make thy navigation more or less pleasant ... Love always be with you! Kind, beautiful souls...
We prepared for the empty nest quite some time ago. It happened, and one after the other, all three of our children came back for a time and a season. And today, we have a beautiful relationship with all of them, their partners, and our three grandchildren. The gold never vanished completely.
We lost all our relationships outside of family but two when we were expelled from our church. It seemed as if our gold had vanished. Our relationship with God deepened, and new gold was discovered in new relationships. And while the old gold was valuable for a season, it turned out to be fool's gold over time, shiny and faux.
My health was a gift, pure gold, until it wasn't. And still, there are deeper and more valuable treasures in life itself.
I can honestly say that all of my losses have opened paths to gains that would never have been possible without them. I trust that this will continue even unto and past death itself.
Love the poem and art. Had not heard that one by Frost, and I really like it.
I am working on letting go of some things I love that my body not longer keeps up with as well - snowboarding in the backcountry all day, long trail runs, hours lost on my mountain bike (first world problems for sure). Maybe cold will give way to AZ camping trips and canyon hikes. I am still so grateful I can hike, occasionally run, and bike while making better choices on length and terrain....and for my curious brain that will figure out what is next as I let go of those in another cycle of change. I am trying to live with as much grace, presence and acceptance as I can muster. The alternative is a dark place.
Life is asking me to slow down, rest and recover more, reflect more, and open to new things. To pay more attention to my body, health, and all that is important in this precious life. I have started to meditate more and more on impermanence, illness, and death, which comes to us all in time, anytime.
I have let go of all unhealthy relationship and work settings that don't serve me - that has been good. I really miss our last two living parents my wife & I lost 1-2 years ago and my dear little friend Bella, our cattle dog, who I held as she passed in January. I would give anything for more time with them all, and the loved ones we lost before them. What did I learn: spend more time with your loved ones while you can - it will never feel like enough once they are gone! Be present, love unconditionally, savor it all while it lasts.
My Mantra as of late when by phone bell chimes, I pause, unhook from mind, take at least three mindful breathes or one or more with each line until they become me:
I recently lost my brother after a six-month battle with lung cancer. The grief was jarring. However, as death breeds a rebirth, and loss bids a find, I notice my inner landscape evolving. While the emptiness quickens my heart to behold the awesome amidst the awful and live more fully in the present, it also heightens my mind to seek meaning for the future. Simplicity becomes my North Star when I pare down, peel off, give up, and hollow out the nonessentials - perfection, attachment, and control - and center on, instead, what truly matters, such as goodness, depth, beauty, and love. Grieving can also rekindle the past.
Fondly remembering my brother's gift of a hand-me-down system - a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder accompanied by a tape of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony - I wrote him a letter expressing my sad-sweetness. I recently streamed a performance of the Pastoral, and it now holds deeper significance and a more heartfelt connection to him. When I hear those opening strings playing the bright melody, it evokes images of his spirit roaming freely beyond this world - in meadows, up hills, and along streams, taking in the fresh air with deep, full, and easy breaths. Embracing this loss allows me to rewrite the story, giving this memory renewed life with a sense of immediacy and poignancy that is both freeing and healing.
What's on my mind may not directly relate to this post but it certain fits the bittersweet/old soul perspectives. I've been watching the 1970s sitcom All in the Family. I watched it almost every night on reruns during the 1979-1980 school year and it is bringing back so many memories and is just as funny as a remember. My eyes were welling up at times when watching it last night. Who else feels these things? I swear, sometimes it feels as if I was born on another planet. Another TV series I plan to order is Kung Fu that I watched on reruns in the early 1980s. "When you can take the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave.”
In nature, and in my garden, I know my most precious and prized plants, some of which may only bloom for a day or two, will return next year. No two years are ever the same.
"The only constant in this world is change" So said Heraclitus of Ephesus about two and a half thousand years ago. Coincidentally around the same time, the Buddha was teaching about impermanence. The teachings say that all conditioned existence, physical and mental, is in a constant state of flux, arising and ceasing. Nothing is permanent or unchanging. Accepting this reality helps dissolve attachments, reduce suffering and encourage presence.
Everything is temporary, from physical objects and natures cycles to thoughts, emotions and personal relationships.
Life is a continuous process of change, rather than a collection of static, unchanging entities.
Suffering arises because we crave permanence in an inherently transient world.
The way I look at things now as I am getting older is that change is inevitable but I try to plan for the changes that I know are coming, and be more resilient for the ones that are unexpected. Life is full of twists and turns, we just have to equip ourselves to deal with them better.
I am grieving the sacrifice of time in order to respond to the “times” we’re in. For the past year, I (a highly sensitive, introvert, selfish of her time) have taken the form of activist. I’m leading teams and campaigns as part of our local Indivisible chapter. I’m phone-banking and writing letters to the editor. I’m making protest signs and showing up at rallies in an inflatable rainbow unicorn costume. What I thought I’d be doing after I left my career, was doing all of the things I didn’t have time for — writing, being in nature, savoring a quiet afternoon with a good book and a nap — but no. I’m trying to save democracy (as if I had that power), and I’m really pissed about it.
What feels “golden” and definitely fleeting now is being able to have my father and grandparents still around, being able to have laughs and conversations with. Even though I already valued them because of a complicated family situation that’s been swirling around me since before I was a child, and has been present throughout it so far, recent developments over the past month have made these moments even more worth savoring.
As for what’s “not stayed” in my life, my mother passed away suddenly last month, which was an incredible shock, as there were more than a few loose ends that I still needed to address with her, and amidst the grief, confusion, and questioning, there is also the gradual realization of how I’ve been or not been showing up for people and how others have or have not been showing up for me and I need to draw closer to those I feel safe with, especially when it comes to releasing emotions that have been stirring within me for over 2 decades.
More and more, the fleeting golden entities I value most are the physical and emotional and mental lives of m'lady and of myself. I'm less and less in denial about our decline and passing, and more and more grateful for what time we've had.
Last year my husband was diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s primary bone cancer. Although he is in remission and doing well, every day we have together is a blessing. It reminds me that life can change anytime so I savor every day. It’s hard to imagine him not in my life after 36 years of marriage.
I so understand this, Judi. And, may he remain in remission for a long time to come.
What great questions these are, Susan, especially for someone like me in a period of transition, from working to being retired.
What is golden in my life, and maybe I don't appreciate enough, is just being with my family, enjoying our moments together, without thinking about what could be better.
I think, after being retired for 1.5 years, I am still trying to find out how to not be productive but live a life that makes sense for me. And I experience that time is not on my side, that days run away very quickly, and that I want to much to be a human doing, instead of a human being.
I need to welcome a life with more quietness, for sure...
What has gone from my life is playing music. I used to play the piano, although I am not very talented; it made me happy. Due to life, my piano moved into a room where it is covered with storage boxes. Sometimes, when I hear "Les Marionettes", by Zbigniew Preisner, from the film "La Double Vie de Véronique", I so long to play that music. Music on which my wife said in those times, she fell in love with me...
One thing that's not fleeting here in the Northeast is winter! Frost on the cars three mornings this week – aggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!
1. What’s golden in my life is savoring every moment, and a sense of fun, especially on the Page. It's become a work rather that fun. Very necessary, difficult work.
2. For me, the “new form” of life is leaving the workforce. I do welcome that, I won’t have an elaborate “retirement.” It's a major life event...
3. What hasn't stayed in my life is having a sense of adventure and being active that way, camping, hiking, etc. That's what gave me verve, the stuff of life. Not engaging in it is a death...
I just read this post re: Jungian Psychology - worth reading... RE: #3 and adventure - what I really did was stopped paying attention...
https://realbytes.substack.com/p/jungs-final-warning-what-ruins-a?r=1tujo1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
… brings sadness that I didn’t always fully appreciate wonderful experiences and relationships in the past while they were happening, and a desire to be more present in enjoying the richness of those day to day experiences and relationships now.
I like to joke that since my wife and I have become empty nesters a few years ago, we are less parents than we are “personal assistants”. While maybe an overstatement, our relationships with our kids, though still very loving and on the whole wonderful, it’s a different and well, bittersweet. And the same goes regarding our parent who are at ages where health can become a periodically struggle. The reality for myself of being much closer to death than birth
Lovely, reflection, present is truly all we have, and within every bitter can we teach ourselves to find beauty, a sweet... Struggle not going away it always comes and goes but our perception, expansion of how the seed grows, blooms, withers, sail in the wind defiantly can make thy navigation more or less pleasant ... Love always be with you! Kind, beautiful souls...
We prepared for the empty nest quite some time ago. It happened, and one after the other, all three of our children came back for a time and a season. And today, we have a beautiful relationship with all of them, their partners, and our three grandchildren. The gold never vanished completely.
We lost all our relationships outside of family but two when we were expelled from our church. It seemed as if our gold had vanished. Our relationship with God deepened, and new gold was discovered in new relationships. And while the old gold was valuable for a season, it turned out to be fool's gold over time, shiny and faux.
My health was a gift, pure gold, until it wasn't. And still, there are deeper and more valuable treasures in life itself.
I can honestly say that all of my losses have opened paths to gains that would never have been possible without them. I trust that this will continue even unto and past death itself.
Love the poem and art. Had not heard that one by Frost, and I really like it.
I am working on letting go of some things I love that my body not longer keeps up with as well - snowboarding in the backcountry all day, long trail runs, hours lost on my mountain bike (first world problems for sure). Maybe cold will give way to AZ camping trips and canyon hikes. I am still so grateful I can hike, occasionally run, and bike while making better choices on length and terrain....and for my curious brain that will figure out what is next as I let go of those in another cycle of change. I am trying to live with as much grace, presence and acceptance as I can muster. The alternative is a dark place.
Life is asking me to slow down, rest and recover more, reflect more, and open to new things. To pay more attention to my body, health, and all that is important in this precious life. I have started to meditate more and more on impermanence, illness, and death, which comes to us all in time, anytime.
I have let go of all unhealthy relationship and work settings that don't serve me - that has been good. I really miss our last two living parents my wife & I lost 1-2 years ago and my dear little friend Bella, our cattle dog, who I held as she passed in January. I would give anything for more time with them all, and the loved ones we lost before them. What did I learn: spend more time with your loved ones while you can - it will never feel like enough once they are gone! Be present, love unconditionally, savor it all while it lasts.
My Mantra as of late when by phone bell chimes, I pause, unhook from mind, take at least three mindful breathes or one or more with each line until they become me:
And....This
Here....Now
Open....Aware
Allow...Accept
Grace...Gratitude
Smile...Release (ART: attachment, resistance, thinking/trance)
Over and over. Will I ever make it there full-time?
Pauses and choice points.
They open the doors and windows we need to pay attention to:)
I respond with JRR Tolkien.
The famous riddle from J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy classic, The Fellowship of the Ring (part one of the Lord of the Rings trilogy).
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
https://genius.com/Jrr-tolkien-all-that-is-gold-does-not-glitter-annotated
From Tolkien to Cain. How much better can it get. Thank you Susan.
I recently lost my brother after a six-month battle with lung cancer. The grief was jarring. However, as death breeds a rebirth, and loss bids a find, I notice my inner landscape evolving. While the emptiness quickens my heart to behold the awesome amidst the awful and live more fully in the present, it also heightens my mind to seek meaning for the future. Simplicity becomes my North Star when I pare down, peel off, give up, and hollow out the nonessentials - perfection, attachment, and control - and center on, instead, what truly matters, such as goodness, depth, beauty, and love. Grieving can also rekindle the past.
Fondly remembering my brother's gift of a hand-me-down system - a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder accompanied by a tape of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony - I wrote him a letter expressing my sad-sweetness. I recently streamed a performance of the Pastoral, and it now holds deeper significance and a more heartfelt connection to him. When I hear those opening strings playing the bright melody, it evokes images of his spirit roaming freely beyond this world - in meadows, up hills, and along streams, taking in the fresh air with deep, full, and easy breaths. Embracing this loss allows me to rewrite the story, giving this memory renewed life with a sense of immediacy and poignancy that is both freeing and healing.
What's on my mind may not directly relate to this post but it certain fits the bittersweet/old soul perspectives. I've been watching the 1970s sitcom All in the Family. I watched it almost every night on reruns during the 1979-1980 school year and it is bringing back so many memories and is just as funny as a remember. My eyes were welling up at times when watching it last night. Who else feels these things? I swear, sometimes it feels as if I was born on another planet. Another TV series I plan to order is Kung Fu that I watched on reruns in the early 1980s. "When you can take the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave.”
In nature, and in my garden, I know my most precious and prized plants, some of which may only bloom for a day or two, will return next year. No two years are ever the same.
"The only constant in this world is change" So said Heraclitus of Ephesus about two and a half thousand years ago. Coincidentally around the same time, the Buddha was teaching about impermanence. The teachings say that all conditioned existence, physical and mental, is in a constant state of flux, arising and ceasing. Nothing is permanent or unchanging. Accepting this reality helps dissolve attachments, reduce suffering and encourage presence.
Everything is temporary, from physical objects and natures cycles to thoughts, emotions and personal relationships.
Life is a continuous process of change, rather than a collection of static, unchanging entities.
Suffering arises because we crave permanence in an inherently transient world.
The way I look at things now as I am getting older is that change is inevitable but I try to plan for the changes that I know are coming, and be more resilient for the ones that are unexpected. Life is full of twists and turns, we just have to equip ourselves to deal with them better.
I am grieving the sacrifice of time in order to respond to the “times” we’re in. For the past year, I (a highly sensitive, introvert, selfish of her time) have taken the form of activist. I’m leading teams and campaigns as part of our local Indivisible chapter. I’m phone-banking and writing letters to the editor. I’m making protest signs and showing up at rallies in an inflatable rainbow unicorn costume. What I thought I’d be doing after I left my career, was doing all of the things I didn’t have time for — writing, being in nature, savoring a quiet afternoon with a good book and a nap — but no. I’m trying to save democracy (as if I had that power), and I’m really pissed about it.
What feels “golden” and definitely fleeting now is being able to have my father and grandparents still around, being able to have laughs and conversations with. Even though I already valued them because of a complicated family situation that’s been swirling around me since before I was a child, and has been present throughout it so far, recent developments over the past month have made these moments even more worth savoring.
As for what’s “not stayed” in my life, my mother passed away suddenly last month, which was an incredible shock, as there were more than a few loose ends that I still needed to address with her, and amidst the grief, confusion, and questioning, there is also the gradual realization of how I’ve been or not been showing up for people and how others have or have not been showing up for me and I need to draw closer to those I feel safe with, especially when it comes to releasing emotions that have been stirring within me for over 2 decades.
More and more, the fleeting golden entities I value most are the physical and emotional and mental lives of m'lady and of myself. I'm less and less in denial about our decline and passing, and more and more grateful for what time we've had.
Thank you for the reminder of what's important.