Be Here Now and Other Ridiculousness

There is a fire merrily singing bass on the deck. The fountain and falls in the pond sing harmony in a tenor voice. On yet another note, albeit less discernible, the crickets, our harbingers of fall, sing in a higher key. Softy below it all, I hear the soft rhythm of my dear love's breath as he sleeps. Our sweet Springers curled at his feet and by his side. Every few moments they lift their noses to the air and then run in unison to some indiscernible sound I can not hear out beyond. The coyotes way out back have settled until the 10:00pm train so I do not worry. But perhaps the reality is that I am always on edge caught between Ram Dass' early thoughts in "Be Hear Now" and the actual nowness of one's love with Stage IV Cancer. 

The American heartland

"Be Here Now" was a profound work of the 1970's, aka my early formative adulthood. If you google Ram Dass now you can see his idealism facing life, confronting his bisexuality, his stroke which left him without speech, and late in life discovering he fathered a son 60 years prior. That may be life summed up sweetly. Intellectual idealism put to test. Love honored or not. 

It's been a pretty rough albeit encouraging and hopeful month or so for me. Rough: I'm stepping back from a job and college I love but at the same time that budgets are being cut, hard decisions made, and the college is closing the MakerLab that I founded and direct. Rough: chemo is getting more and more difficult, impacting Jim and my day to day. 

Encouraging: I was asked to and spoke at both Serious Play at U. of Buffalo and MIT's Connected Learning on work I have done as models nationally. Also awesome BREAKAWAY mobile, due to the leadership of an incredible grad student, Dana Steinhoff, and student leadership prior, will be released this fall and is awesome!!! Really fun, engaging, relevant, and timely and powerful at addressing violence against women and girls. In the same vein, due to the efforts of Dr. Helen Wang BREAKAWAY will be published in two upcoming publications.  Likewise awesome Sarah Jerger steps into my role as interim director of the EMC - and she deserves the opportunity! Other awesomeness, I have been invited and will attend a special brainstorming meeting at the UN on "the spiritual dimensions of real transformation and universality in the context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals". This is all so cool. 

Hopeful: Jim bought a camper and a new car! The biggest car I've ever owned, one hefty enough the pull the camper. We drove 3 days out to pick the camper up ing at KOA's and places that could accommodate these behemoths (at least compared to my tenting mindset). Yes I do worry about financially carrying this weight, at the same time, Ram Dass calls, "now is now - grab it". I believe he is right and I believe in Jim. 

Jim and the pups, our first journey

Yet no matter what bucket I put my thoughts into Rough, Encouraging, or Hopeful, my current reality is about love and cancer and looking at life in the "Be Here Now" framework. I have not written for awhile, or created any work, and struggle at times just to keep up. 

But here is tonight—my love lies sleeping having lived a full day. I've fed the pups, I've cooked, I've cleaned. I sit by this glorious fire on this incredible end of summer evening with crickets calling out, "this is what we have", and I breathe in and out, listening to his breath. This is our lives.