{"id":14173,"date":"2015-04-11T12:47:44","date_gmt":"2015-04-11T16:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=14173"},"modified":"2015-04-11T12:47:44","modified_gmt":"2015-04-11T16:47:44","slug":"moments-of-seeing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/moments-of-seeing\/","title":{"rendered":"moments of seeing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photoF<\/span>or a while now I\u2019ve been receiving letters from readers asking if I\u2019m ever going to collect my blog pieces into a book.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t sure about the wisdom of that.<\/p>\n

Would they hold up? Would anyone actually want to buy such a volume? And perhaps the question that was hardest for me to answer: Could I even bear to go back and re-read all those pieces, well over two hundred of them now? For five years I\u2019ve been writing here as the mood strikes me, writing about whatever happens to be in my heart or on my plate, so to speak, without thinking about posterity or publication. Although I write slowly and revise even more slowly, these essays were penned in the moment: snatches of life as it was being lived, my thoughts as they came, glimpses of ordinary days, fleeting beauty, family moments, inner struggles, small revelations.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to sit down and go back to the very beginning. I would read through all the old posts with as much objectivity as I could bring to my own work. And I would find out if the person who began writing here in August of 2009 is someone I still recognize and am interested in today.<\/p>\n

The answer is yes \u2013 in ways that are both humbling and reassuring at the same time. And so for now I\u2019ll just say that I\u2019m going ahead with this project. There will be a book and I think I\u2019ll call it Moments of Seeing: Reflections from an Ordinary Life<\/strong>, for that\u2019s really what these pieces are. Of course if you\u2019re here now, reading, you already know that.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m editing as I go, working toward a\u00a0late spring\u00a0deadline so we\u2019ll have finished books available in the fall. The process of pausing to look back,\u00a0and reading through this work one essay at a time, is emotionally akin to paging through an old photo album — a combination of sadness\u00a0for what\u2019s over and gratitude for what was, for what is, for what lasts. Already, a few days into it, I find myself reflecting on the passage of time in a different way, with perhaps an even deeper awareness of life\u2019s fleetingness, its infinite beauty, its preciousness.<\/p>\n

This morning I got up early. My mom and I are spending a few days alone together in Florida. It\u2019s quiet here by the canal where her house is. There are baby mourning doves in a nest by the front door. Hot days and still nights. Bird song from dawn till dusk and bougainvillea in bloom. We have no plans for this time and so I have hours each day to work. I love taking a walk as the sun comes up, before the heat of the day settles in. And then returning to coffee, oranges, toast, and all these old pieces to edit. Here is one I came to just now, from August 2010. The last line is still true.<\/p>\n

\n

one good thing<\/span><\/h3>\n

A young father lay dying.\u00a0 Our sons, then in third grade together, had been playmates since kindergarten.\u00a0 When word came that Richard’s cancer had returned, I\u2019d brought soup to the door, then lemon cake.\u00a0 They were small gestures, just a way to say, \u201cI am thinking of you.\u201d\u00a0 One day I stayed on to chat with Richard in the quiet house and later his wife Jane called and asked if perhaps I could come again.<\/p>\n

\u201cRichard is comfortable with you,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we are going to need some help here. I think what he\u2019d like most, really, is someone to talk to.\u201d<\/p>\n

So it was that in the midst of my busy life with two small children, I was invited to pause and draw close to death.<\/p>\n

Richard\u2019s decline was slow. There was time enough for the work of letting go.\u00a0 As the months went by he moved from the sofa in the sun-drenched living room to the darkened bedroom upstairs. He went from recounting anecdotes of his childhood into a tape recorder for his boys to hear when he was gone, to listening while my friend Lisa and\u00a0I took turns reading the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying<\/em> aloud at this bedside. Festive meals shared at the kitchen table evolved into sips of coffee and bites of cake amongst the bed pillows.\u00a0 There was nothing to do day after day\u00a0but show up with an open heart.\u00a0 The lesson, I came to see, was all about being there \u2014 allowing, listening, learning to be less afraid of what might come and more accepting of things as they were.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow are you doing?\u201d I asked him once as the end drew near, not sure at all how to ask my real question:\u00a0 \u201cHow can anyone suffer so, and yet go on?\u201d<\/p>\n

I think often, still, of Richard\u2019s answer, given with a smile.\u00a0 \u201cAs long as there is one good thing in every day,\u201d he said, \u201clife is worth living.\u201d<\/p>\n

One good thing. \u00a0Most days, I lose count by breakfast time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a while now I\u2019ve been receiving letters from readers asking if I\u2019m ever going to collect my blog pieces into a book. I wasn\u2019t sure about the wisdom of that. Would they hold up? Would anyone actually want to buy such a volume? And perhaps the question that was hardest for me to answer: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,20,30,31,42,14,49,15],"tags":[146,198,297],"class_list":{"0":"post-14173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-acceptance","8":"category-books","9":"category-gratitude","10":"category-grief","11":"category-moments-of-seeing","12":"category-soul-work","13":"category-writing","14":"category-writing-and-reading","15":"tag-death","16":"tag-gratitude-2","17":"tag-moments-of-seeing","18":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}