To stay an open channel

It was a great day for loving conversations. First Sue and I met Michaela for brunch at a café, and we talked about the rising tide of fascism in the USA, the relationship of fear and confidence, gender identification, and how tenderly we value our friendships with each other. Michaela is waiting to be assigned a date for major surgery, acutely aware of life’s impermanence and, for her, the importance of being authentically the woman she knows herself to be.

Then we visited Sarah, who has a broken lumbar vertebra and seems to be fading gently away. We took Sarah a copy of Mark Nepo’s latest book, and she immediately started reading it aloud to us. As we were leaving, Sarah said, with an air of farewell, “I’ve had a great life. Great joy, great sorrow, great love, great effort.” Then she added, chuckling gently, “I haven’t missed a thing except the pain of childbirth. I always knew I didn’t want any part of that.” 

Mark Nepo says this:

Like it or not, we’re asked to let everything in and through, trusting that it’s the passage of life through us that is renewing, not what we accumulate or accomplish along the way. As blood must pass through organs, as rivers must empty into the sea, our thoughts and feelings must pass through our being, if we’re to stay fresh and changeable. After all these years, I’ve come to see that the aim is not to be empty or full, but to stay an open channel for everything life has to offer. I’m still learning how to do this.
--Mark Nepo, in Things that Join the Sea and the Sky: Field Notes on Living (2017).