{"id":14204,"date":"2015-07-22T09:30:29","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T13:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=14204"},"modified":"2015-07-22T09:30:29","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T13:30:29","slug":"this-good-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/this-good-life\/","title":{"rendered":"this (good) life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photoA<\/span> mid-summer Monday morning. After a weekend away, I\u2019ve spent a couple of hours setting the house back to rights. Emptying jars and vases of their dead flowers, vacuuming up the scattered petals, watering plants and deadheading lilies, gathering laundry into a hamper and getting the first load going in the basement.<\/p>\n

The kitchen is quiet. Beyond the windows, which are all cranked open to their fullest on this steamy day, cardinals and blue jays vie for turns at the feeder — unaware, for the moment anyway, of the blueberries ripening on bushes just a few feet away. As always, it\u2019s a race between me and the birds to see who will get there first to harvest the small crop. (Usually, I lose. A watchful catbird is already hopping along the top of the chaise lounge in the yard, taking stock of the bounty.)<\/p>\n

I must confess I\u2019m feeling a bit unsure about what to write here after a few months of not writing at all. No excuses for the silence, other than that I\u2019ve been busy elsewhere. To offer a full \u201creport\u201d would be impossible for me \u2013 and tedious for you. Yet, sitting quietly on my kitchen stool, I discover there are a few thoughts that have been waiting their moment to emerge after all. I can\u2019t say everything that\u2019s on my mind, but I can say this: I feel softened by the season, slowed down in my thinking but perhaps a bit more raw and open in my emotions. Life has been tender and lovely and bittersweet, suffused with beauty, laughter, and tears.<\/p>\n

There have been no big revelations, but rather countless variations on this one small truth: joy and sadness are not opposites. In fact, they co-exist, all tangled up together in the same day, the same moment, the same unguarded heart. Knowing this, it\u2019s become a little easier for me to trust that where I am is exactly where I\u2019m meant to be: open to what life hands me, feeling my feelings (even the painful ones), sensing what needs to be done in any given moment, doing it, and moving on.<\/p>\n

\"photoT<\/span>he view that greets my eyes when I look up from my writing — a panorama of delicate, blue-tinged clouds and hazy, shadowed mountains — is silent but insistent, drawing my attention away from the screen in front of me to the pulsing, irresistible world of living, breathing things.<\/p>\n

So it has been for months now.<\/p>\n

Given a choice between my computer keyboard and the weedy, burgeoning garden; between making a good meal for hungry loved ones or holing up alone with my thoughts; between taking a long walk with a friend or sitting at my desk crafting sentences, I\u2019m pulled inexorably these days toward love and life and shared moments. The world beckons in all its intoxicating beauty. And I\u2019m reminded with every passing shower, with every unfurling\u00a0and fading daylily or blooming\u00a0nasturtium, with every candle lit and extinguished, with every summer dinner prepared and eaten on the porch, with every golden sunset and every soundless moonrise, to be even more deeply present.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2552\"M<\/span>y friend Lisa, diagnosed just over a year ago with an inoperable brain tumor, has been having a good summer. After months of worsening symptoms last fall, she responded remarkably well over the winter to a drug that works for only a few. Her tumor stopped growing. There were no side effects. Most of her symptoms disappeared. It seemed miraculous: she danced at her son\u2019s wedding, visited her mom in Florida, planted flowers in the spring, went to the beach with her husband, reorganized the guest room and created a photo collage in the hallway at her house.<\/p>\n

Week by week, she even began to feel like herself again. Like herself, but different, for living with a terminal diagnosis changes everything. Illness demands\u00a0a subtle but profound shift of attention. No longer able to race from one thing to the next, we have little choice but to slow down. Relieved of the constant pressure to produce and perfect and display our achievements, we are free to tune in to a different frequency. Knowing time is short, we begin to take heed, to appreciate the little things, which of course are not really little at all \u2013 a hug, sunshine after rain, a cup of good coffee, a poem read aloud, a hand to hold. We have a clearer sense of what really matters and a powerful yearning to more fully inhabit the moments we do have left. Instead of taking life for granted, we\u2019re suddenly stunned by the simple, inexhaustible miracle of being. The great, gorgeous dance is ongoing. And yet now we know this one thing for sure: we ourselves are here but briefly — and only once.<\/p>\n

\"photo\u201cI\u2019m never bored,\u201d Lisa said one afternoon from her spot on the living room couch. \u201cI could look out this window and watch\u00a0the sky forever.\u201d I think I understood what she meant. Paying attention leads to wonder. And wonder gives birth to reverence. When life itself hangs in the balance, even the familiar becomes precious, imbued with beauty.<\/p>\n

Over the course of this last year, I\u2019ve had the incredibly moving, humbling honor of being at my friend\u2019s side through good days and hard ones. And so I\u2019ve also been privileged to observe this deep, essential transformation as she adjusted to living in<\/em> the present rather than for<\/em> an imagined future. Bearing witness to her soul growth, seeing her gradually let go of resistance and open to a quiet faith in things as they are, I\u2019ve sensed a kind of subtle, internal shift in myself as well. Thinking about mortality, confronting the truth of it, inspires here-and-now living. Why waste any more time and energy regretting past mistakes or fearing what\u2019s around the corner?<\/p>\n

I notice it\u2019s become easier to let a lot of inconsequential stuff go. Things that once annoyed me are surprisingly easy to ignore; there are more important things to think about. Worries that used to keep me awake at night no longer do. I feel less need to control, a bit more willingness to trust that my own life, too, is unfolding according to a pattern that\u2019s perfect — but that is also beyond my understanding or design. As my yoga-teacher friend Pam used to say at the beginning of class, \u201cThings have already worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

They have. They do. They will. Meanwhile, everything I need today, I have.\"IMG_2557\"<\/p>\n

A<\/span> while back, Lisa asked her doctor about the possibility of returning to work this fall. Gently, he reminded her that the drug that was working so well right then could offer her only temporary respite. It was a treatment, not a cure. \u201cI think you should use this time,\u201d he suggested, \u201cto go home and do the things that make you happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

What an assignment.<\/p>\n

I suspect I\u2019m not the only one who would struggle with that. Don’t most of us\u00a0spend too much time trying to figure out what we\u00a0should be doing and how we\u00a0should be feeling, rather than listening to and trusting our\u00a0own inner compass? We live in a culture fueled by the notion that happiness is \u201cout there\u201d somewhere — something we need to earn or acquire rather than quietly cultivate from within. Happiness, we\u2019re led to assume, depends on our accruing certain possessions, living in a particular place, advancing in a chosen career, landing in the right relationship, being recognized for our achievements and good deeds, piling up some savings, having a clean bill of health, and going somewhere nice\u00a0for vacation.\u00a0\u00a0 Just keep reaching for it<\/em>, every advertisement churned out on Madison Avenue insists, and someday, just maybe, if you work hard enough and play your cards right, happiness will be yours.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lisa\u2019s task these days is a bit different. There is nothing to buy and nowhere to go. There\u2019s no job advancement or fancy vacation in the offing. There\u2019s no magic pill that will make her brain tumor go away, either. Yet I think it\u2019s fair to say she has fully embraced the challenge the universe has sent her. Each day, she wakes up and finds joy in living.<\/p>\n

Everyone who loves her wishes our friend\u2019s prognosis could be otherwise. She is held in the hearts and in the daily prayers of many, and there is no denying the sadness and pain of this journey.<\/p>\n

But pain can also an invitation to be present. And joy, as poet David Whyte suggests, is not only a \u201cdeep form of love,\u201d it is also \u201cthe raw engagement with the passing seasonality of existence.\u201d In allowing herself to be joyful — here, now, and in spite of everything — Lisa is giving all of us a tremendously powerful lesson in how to find meaning and purpose in today<\/em>. What matters, she reminds us by her own quiet example, isn\u2019t what happens, but how we choose to respond. We can let today unfold. We can feel today\u2019s feelings, solve today\u2019s problems, enjoy today\u2019s gifts. We can laugh and scatter darkness. We can smile and make someone else\u2019s day better. We can choose happiness over despair, joy in the moment over fear of the future, faith in what is rather than fantasy about what might have been. To live this way isn\u2019t just courageous, it is profoundly, extraordinarily generous.<\/p>\n

The sun is high in the sky. It\u2019s hot outside. And suddenly my cell phone is ringing. \u201cHey, we\u2019re going swimming at the pond,\u201d Lisa says. \u201cDo you want to meet us over there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do,\u201d I say. \u201cI’m on my way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A mid-summer Monday morning. After a weekend away, I\u2019ve spent a couple of hours setting the house back to rights. Emptying jars and vases of their dead flowers, vacuuming up the scattered petals, watering plants and deadheading lilies, gathering laundry into a hamper and getting the first load going in the basement. The kitchen is […]<\/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":[17,25,26,29,30,31,32,33,14],"tags":[144,225,247],"class_list":{"0":"post-14204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-acceptance","8":"category-courage","9":"category-faith","10":"category-friendship","11":"category-gratitude","12":"category-grief","13":"category-healing","14":"category-impermanence-soul-work","15":"category-soul-work","16":"tag-david-whyte","17":"tag-illness","18":"tag-joy-2","19":"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\/14204","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=14204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14204\/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=14204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}