I was talking with a friend...

I was talking last night with a friend who had a “health event” 3-4 weeks ago that stood him right at the edge of eternity. He told me shortly after the event that he felt very fragile and uncertain. Last night he blew my mind in a very good way when he went on at length about the beautiful support he received from his partner. There was such joy in his voice. To me it was like he had fallen in love all over again and stronger than before – he seemed scarcely able to believe how she had loved him through his uncertainty and fear. I was responding along several tracks: one was that Leslie is gone and from her, I no longer have that beautiful support, at least in a physical, earthly sense - so that was sad. The other track was happiness that my friend knows such deep and affirming love. And it made me happy that he knows me well enough to share these joyful things with me in this time of grief. 

Here is to Love, to Beauty, to Hope, to our Beautiful Fragility. 

On a train in Burma. The man in the blue shirt had malaria;
the woman is taking care of him, her arm around him. 2007

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I was reading back through some older journal entries. I took these words from something I wrote on our last trip through Bangkok and Chiang Mai a year and a half ago:  

You call it liver-but I call it karma (link) 

As I said in an earlier post, we seem to be mostly repeating ourselves on this trip, going where we’ve been before, eating tried and true things… Oceans of memories memories memories memories….oceans… of memories… together.

These are the days.

Bangkok: at this point in the trip everything is a big effort. Basically we’re just being in BK, eating fabulous food, having “happy hour” every evening on the porch of the hotel… 50 years on…

Here is a really pretty song - You... wait here in my arms as I shake. Yeah, I know about waiting as I shake, as I tremble. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPJLu_wcTKc

If you must wait,
Wait for them here in my arms as I shake
If you must weep,
Do it right here in my bed as I sleep
If you must mourn, my love
Mourn with the moon and the stars up above
If you must mourn,
Don't do it alone

If you must leave,
Leave as though fire burns under your feet
If you must speak,
Speak every word as though it were unique
If you must die, sweetheart
Die knowing your life was my life's best part
And if you must die,
Remember your life

You are
You are
Oh, you are
You are
Oh

If you must fight,
Fight with yourself and your thoughts in the night
If you must work,
Work to leave some part of you on this earth
If you must live, darling one,

Just live
Just live
Just live