August 6, 2013

ISIQ-0217

As I sit here, my nose dripping like a tap, my throat twinging each time I swallow, and my eyes watering for sleep, I contemplate my future goals.

I consider if I shall fail, be struck down, incapacitated, by rhinopharyngitis. Or, by some freak chance, have my nose drop right off from excessive running, blowing and wiping.

I wonder if this might happen before I achieve my magnum opus.

And then I realise: it is already written! I have already achieved it!

My wife and my two children, lights of my life all three, through their presence alone strike a mark onto the pages of history so indelible I cannot erase it despite my best convoluted efforts. What more could I ask or desire?

The hardest work has already been done. They are alive, whole, perfect and complete. They each fly their own course, navigate their own journey of success and failure alike. I can only watch, and guide, and enjoy.

So now, with the pressure of my biggest achievement in my past, what adventures await? What impossible dreams may I consider, what crazy visions might I entertain, for the remainder of my years?

How might I live, so that, in dying, I am content to welcome the embrace of the void?

Today’s quote is part aspiration, part respiration (hah geddit?) and mostly defiance:

“I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.” – Willa Cather

I hope you, too, die of having lived. Compassionately, courageously, and completely.

With love,
Israel. xo

 

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