where to begin

Spoiler alert: I haven’t begun again.

bardo.

Even in that bad year, the one still sliding out the back door, I did things. I did them with the lights on and I did them in the dark. Even though I had a hard time with measurements against the Godzillas of self-doubt, of feeling smaller than, I was brave and jumped first anyway.

Even in that bad year, I searched for stillness, if only finding it in pockets. I jumped into the freezing cold ocean and found peace there while my heart beat wildly inside my chest, while I smiled bigger than I do on land.

Even in that bad year, I laughed so hard I went completely silent - to think the punchline was something about chronic hiccups and I’m still not sure if that’s a laughing matter, but I would not have taken back the laughter in any case. I would not take back the precious minutes I let pass through me where I dreamt of things beyond the doorway.

Even in that bad year, I found a way to do things I had always wanted to do, and find new things to be good at and old things to let go.

Even in that bad year I danced like it was an emergency. I sang very loudly although I probably shouldn’t have, and sometimes to make that point, Rafi would turn the volume up over my voice.

Even in that bad year I kept trying, as I do, to make it better, or at least hold it all in my arms like I might one of my children when they cry.

Even in that bad year, Fonz is in the best shape of his life. While he’s in a clinical trial, and it’s not the clinical trial, or is it, that makes him so strong. Even in that bad year, having all the facts isn’t always what makes something true.

Even in that bad year, I’ve been honest when hiding would have been easier. Even in that bad year, I took my time, amidst discomfort, to let the next step emerge rather than to force it like I’ve done before.

Even in that bad year, I am still waiting.

Even in that bad year, it was the first of the last few that did not fully organize around illness to the same scale as the years before. Meanwhile, our lives continuously contort around illness so that we’re new shapes now, like shipwrecks at the bottom of the ocean. How we ripple over time with the current no matter how distant the waves above us are. How we’re rising, floating and also sinking; how sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference, so that’s why I’m telling you here.

Even in that bad year, I wrote things that I don’t remember leaving my fingertips. I said things I didn’t know would come out of my mouth. All those words, all of them, came from somewhere else. All of them also came from me. Even in that bad year, sometimes I am somewhere else.

Even in that bad year, the one we all can agree moved like a cheetah, and held us in time like an elephant, I drove away from two gas stations still connected to the gas pump - only one filed a claim with my insurance.

Even in that bad year, I hugged and was hugged hard. I walked in the trees and marveled at the forest floor, watching leaves die over time, and then becoming the earth beneath my feet.

Even in that bad year, I threw my arms up to the skies with abandon. Fell to my knees. Sealed my eyes shut and then stretched them wide open again. Even in that bad year, there are people I love so much that just being beside them while doing nothing fills my body with a sense of accomplishment that cannot be measured by any other metric other than gratitude and the vast, soft and vibrant blanket it lays across my life.