It was a question that first began hounding my consciousness during an English class last year. The class was beautifully intense and more lovely than words could describe. I wanted to be in the kind of learning environment that made me feel like my head was going to explore from the sheer weight of my own thoughts blending with what we were learning and my wish was fulfilled. At last. So, as the semester progressed, I realized yet again something that I had learned from my own writing endeavors over the years: that the Muses come when they wish. I knew they were a particular lot, only appearing at the party when they wanted to-- and usually fashionably late at that.
Lightning doesn't usually strike twice, but I was fortunate to take another English class this Spring that built on the foundation of last year's inspiration. The reading selections were some of the most engaging I've had and the weekly writing assignments tempted the Muses to reveal their new talents. But, about five weeks into the semester, the Muses performed their parlor trick: a disappearing act. I had a dialogue with my professor about how to entice the Muses to show up to the dance not just on occasion, but every single time. I've always possessed the kind of personality that lends itself to home runs or nothing at all. I would rather hit my target or just hang out in the grass meandering around, exploring what's around me. My professor offered wise insight-- that is may be impossible to create from that deep space of inspiration every single time, but it is our task to create the space, to create the kind of life that the Muses want to visit. Since then, in every way possible I have been seeking to make my spirit, my body, my home, my life the kind of space where inspiration wants to be. I've always thought that as creative beings we are vessels anyway. It is never really fully just about us-- that's narcissism. True creation is taking part of the world, some energy from somewhere else, allowing it to blend with you whether through intellect or emotion and letting it flow forward through you through the expression of choice-- art, writing, music, dance. . .
My life has had a plentiful dose of irony for a long time, but it's interesting to me that while my health has been at a particularly stubbornly low point, my creative drive and willingness to bring my talents forth into the world has never been stronger. Perhaps, I just got close enough to the point where I had lost so much-- my life as I knew it, my health, my financial stability-- that I no longer had anything to lose by doing what I came here to do.
I don't know if the Muses will forever honor my request of their presence in my life, but I know that I've set the table and I'm keeping a light on inside for them. And if there's a heaven, I'm pretty sure it has a lot of books and maybe even an English class or two.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
That Was Then... The Best Is Yet To Be
Last year, I spent Memorial Day in the small trattoria near the train station in Venezia, the very same place where I had a meal on Thanksgiving Day in 2007. The trip was filled with so much joy, it spilled forth from me freely (as evidenced by the photos taken there). My mind easily drifts back and forth between the days past and those to come. I struggle to remind myself to come back into the present moment, to be strong through this, to be weak, to be whatever I am right here and now because in the end, this, this, this moment is all I have. The journey through unexpected serious illness is charting the unknown where every step is now one carefully placed. I miss running through the night with others who felt the same creative drive and passion I did. I miss seeing the dawn through sleepy eyes, happy for a million and ten reasons and none at all. I miss having too much to do and not enough time. I miss being a sweaty, relaxed, hot mess after yoga, running home, turning around like Clark Kent and putting on my metaphorical Superwoman cape, grabbing my camera and being at a concert to shoot my little heart out an hour or two later. But, for as deeply as I immersed myself in the life I created, it disappeared just as quickly. And for now, my journey is different yet again-- and nothing that I expected. I had another epiphany the other day. No matter whether I am sick or well, rich or poor, my task in this life is to create and add beauty and love to the world. For a long time, I felt that my ability to do so was held by the leash of conditions. I was shy about having something to say, quiet about the fullness of my abilities. Being smart as a kid, too smart for those around me to handle, left me lonely and restless, forever waiting to find my "people." I knew they had to be out there somewhere. Now, I seem to find those I connect with easily. I just wasn't ready for it before I started finding them.
I catch myself saying "I want my life back." But, with each passing sunset, I know there is really no going "back." I will never be able to reclaim or redo these months. I don't get to fix or amend what has been or relive the days as I wish they had been. But, I do get to carry the inner gifts this intense challenge has provided forward into my future, into my art, into my life. There is a kind of beauty in surrender when it is without giving up.
So, when my mind drifts to what has been, I know that was then and this is now. And, just as I think that sentence is complete, a tiny, determined voice from my heart says, "But, wait, the best is yet to be." Yes, the best, the very best is yet to be.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Letters To Eva
I met my best friend by accident. One afternoon on the way home from school, my mom, my brother and I stopped at a local drugstore to drop off photos to be developed. Still wearing our school uniforms, the lady behind the counter recognized my brown jumper and mentioned that her daughter had just begun attending the same school. A single mother, she needed someone to pick up her daughter on the upcoming half days we would be having and called my mom later that evening to ask if she could help.
It was 1989 and in a Philadelphia suburb that had the feel of a small town, the world was still a place safe enough for kids to play outside on their own, go trick or treating and actually eat their sweet spoils and for a mother to call a stranger and ask for help. It was through that initial connection that Leese and I became fast friends. While many of the classmates I had grown up with had either left to attend other schools or who turned into the most temporarily evil of creatures-- insecure, preteen girl, I was left to my own devices. The boys didn't know what to make of me because I was the first in the class to "develop." The girls didn't like me because I was smart, far too shy for my own good and not superficial enough to fit into cliques. I cared more about writing, wandering around in nature, listening to music and daydreaming of my future than owning a pair of Tretorn sneakers or the latest Swatch watch. But Leese was different. Creative, witty and kind--she had three of the qualities I still value most in a friend.
Over twenty years later, Leese and I have saved each other a thousand times over, despite our very different life paths. She's been married for over a decade, has two of the most well-behaved, exquisite children I've ever met and with her husband, runs a family business in the suburbs. I moved to New York City to chase my own destiny of words, music, images and adventure. Distance has never been much of an issue. Our friendship easily stretched to conform to our lives-- the opposite of what happens to many relationships in life.
Last summer, Leese, her husband and kids came to NYC for the day to visit. It was a magical time for all of us. Seeing the kids discover the city was a joy. Walking down the street with seven-year old Eva's hand in mine was one of the most special moments of my summer.
A few months ago, I sent Eva a fluffy pink scarf that I had. It just reminded me of her and when I can, I like to give gifts for no reason. From this, Eva and I ended up becoming "pen pals." When I recently sent her a birthday present for her 8th birthday, she wouldn't let her mother read my letter to her. And, when she was in the office with her mother a few days later, she promptly told her mother that she wanted to "write to Aunt Lauren." Leese provided her with a piece of paper and an envelope and Eva wrote me a beautifully composted letter that could rival some I've gotten from adults. Our correspondence has continued and it's become part of Eva's secret-garden-world, the kind of world I believe that every little girl needs-- where a trusted adult who is not a member of the immediate family shows them their worth, their beauty and unconditional love. Having a strong role model, having a role model of kindness for any child of that age can be life-changing. I remember as a kid receiving letters from my grandmother's good friend. She didn't have a grand-daughter and so I filled that void. For me, she offered not only the joy of receiving mail that made me feel cared about, but she gave me the beginnings of my vocation and avocation: writing.
With the stresses of adulthood entering childhood earlier and earlier, it seems vital to fill up children as much as possible with all of the tools to navigate it, including an unshakable sense of self. While Eva's letters make me smile, I know that there is something more significant about the connection and as I watch her grow from afar, I can only hope that she will be as lucky as I have been with finding friends who add so very much to her life.
It was 1989 and in a Philadelphia suburb that had the feel of a small town, the world was still a place safe enough for kids to play outside on their own, go trick or treating and actually eat their sweet spoils and for a mother to call a stranger and ask for help. It was through that initial connection that Leese and I became fast friends. While many of the classmates I had grown up with had either left to attend other schools or who turned into the most temporarily evil of creatures-- insecure, preteen girl, I was left to my own devices. The boys didn't know what to make of me because I was the first in the class to "develop." The girls didn't like me because I was smart, far too shy for my own good and not superficial enough to fit into cliques. I cared more about writing, wandering around in nature, listening to music and daydreaming of my future than owning a pair of Tretorn sneakers or the latest Swatch watch. But Leese was different. Creative, witty and kind--she had three of the qualities I still value most in a friend.
Over twenty years later, Leese and I have saved each other a thousand times over, despite our very different life paths. She's been married for over a decade, has two of the most well-behaved, exquisite children I've ever met and with her husband, runs a family business in the suburbs. I moved to New York City to chase my own destiny of words, music, images and adventure. Distance has never been much of an issue. Our friendship easily stretched to conform to our lives-- the opposite of what happens to many relationships in life.
Last summer, Leese, her husband and kids came to NYC for the day to visit. It was a magical time for all of us. Seeing the kids discover the city was a joy. Walking down the street with seven-year old Eva's hand in mine was one of the most special moments of my summer.
A few months ago, I sent Eva a fluffy pink scarf that I had. It just reminded me of her and when I can, I like to give gifts for no reason. From this, Eva and I ended up becoming "pen pals." When I recently sent her a birthday present for her 8th birthday, she wouldn't let her mother read my letter to her. And, when she was in the office with her mother a few days later, she promptly told her mother that she wanted to "write to Aunt Lauren." Leese provided her with a piece of paper and an envelope and Eva wrote me a beautifully composted letter that could rival some I've gotten from adults. Our correspondence has continued and it's become part of Eva's secret-garden-world, the kind of world I believe that every little girl needs-- where a trusted adult who is not a member of the immediate family shows them their worth, their beauty and unconditional love. Having a strong role model, having a role model of kindness for any child of that age can be life-changing. I remember as a kid receiving letters from my grandmother's good friend. She didn't have a grand-daughter and so I filled that void. For me, she offered not only the joy of receiving mail that made me feel cared about, but she gave me the beginnings of my vocation and avocation: writing.
With the stresses of adulthood entering childhood earlier and earlier, it seems vital to fill up children as much as possible with all of the tools to navigate it, including an unshakable sense of self. While Eva's letters make me smile, I know that there is something more significant about the connection and as I watch her grow from afar, I can only hope that she will be as lucky as I have been with finding friends who add so very much to her life.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
The Art of Thin Ice
I'm always writing in my mind and soul even if my fingers aren't bonding with my computer-- the one with the keys that have partially faded letters from having been touched so many times-- sometimes joyously, sometimes painfully, but always by necessity. I did not choose to be a writer as much as it chose me, but I am slowly learning the art of choosing the gifts one has been given.
For nine months and thirteen days, my life has been a source of great anguish, hope, frustration and well, the visible unknown. Without the foundation of good health, every surface is slippery, unweildy and fragile. Every step reminds me of the time my childhood best friend and I decided to try walking on a frozen creek in the middle of winter. She fell through the ice; I did not. I merely covered for her when she stealthily entered her home in order to change out of her wet, freezing clothes before her mother found out what had happened. We were ten years old. It remains a mystery why some of us fall through the metaphorical ice and some can skate beautifully on top of it. I've never been able to be much of a skater in that respect, but I would like to learn.
Perhaps because my life has been so atypical in for all of my adult life and much of my childhood, I never acquired a habit of comparing myself to others. While there have been times in the heat of a moment, I have wanted to have a certain quality or ability of someone else, in the grand scheme of things, I've always felt that everyone gets his or her own path. Apples and oranges. That's just how it works.
I have spent so many moments trying to trace back my footsteps, my trail of breadcrumbs, to figure out where things went so very wrong. I don't have very many regrets at all in my life, but I still carry the weight of profound regret for going on the trip to California last August. I wish with all my pointless might that I had never gone to the desert, never eaten that meal at that restaurant, never been over-medicated (though necessarily though), never ended up with a life that feels like it is no longer within me, but circling around somewhere in the ether while I plead for it to return to me, to merge back within my body. I dream of things that I have done and remember long-forgotten memories as they arise in my mind, in that state between sleep and wakefulness. For an instant, they are real and I am aware that all that separates us is time.
I miss the music and my friends most of all, but I carry both within me and in some ways, now that so many illusions that come simply from being immersed in a life have been driven away, there is a purity that remains and it feels strong. I feel the love of the people in my world who care about me. And, for the first time in a long time, I don't care about trying to acquire the love of those who don't freely offer it. This feels like one of the greatest lessons-- the art of letting go of what is not.
And so, while I am not able to indulge in so many of the things I would like to right now and my body feels so very fragile and like I could fall through that ice at any moment, instead of being in the sea, I'm alternating between floating on my back and fighting every wave. Sometimes, the art of swimming is not just in the way you move water with each stroke, but how you allow water to move you. Right now, I'm learning how to swim through life all over again and seeking the warmth that comes only from knowing that while you can't always stay off of thin ice, you can climb out from under it and have a friend watch your back while you get dry clothes.
For nine months and thirteen days, my life has been a source of great anguish, hope, frustration and well, the visible unknown. Without the foundation of good health, every surface is slippery, unweildy and fragile. Every step reminds me of the time my childhood best friend and I decided to try walking on a frozen creek in the middle of winter. She fell through the ice; I did not. I merely covered for her when she stealthily entered her home in order to change out of her wet, freezing clothes before her mother found out what had happened. We were ten years old. It remains a mystery why some of us fall through the metaphorical ice and some can skate beautifully on top of it. I've never been able to be much of a skater in that respect, but I would like to learn.
Perhaps because my life has been so atypical in for all of my adult life and much of my childhood, I never acquired a habit of comparing myself to others. While there have been times in the heat of a moment, I have wanted to have a certain quality or ability of someone else, in the grand scheme of things, I've always felt that everyone gets his or her own path. Apples and oranges. That's just how it works.
I have spent so many moments trying to trace back my footsteps, my trail of breadcrumbs, to figure out where things went so very wrong. I don't have very many regrets at all in my life, but I still carry the weight of profound regret for going on the trip to California last August. I wish with all my pointless might that I had never gone to the desert, never eaten that meal at that restaurant, never been over-medicated (though necessarily though), never ended up with a life that feels like it is no longer within me, but circling around somewhere in the ether while I plead for it to return to me, to merge back within my body. I dream of things that I have done and remember long-forgotten memories as they arise in my mind, in that state between sleep and wakefulness. For an instant, they are real and I am aware that all that separates us is time.
I miss the music and my friends most of all, but I carry both within me and in some ways, now that so many illusions that come simply from being immersed in a life have been driven away, there is a purity that remains and it feels strong. I feel the love of the people in my world who care about me. And, for the first time in a long time, I don't care about trying to acquire the love of those who don't freely offer it. This feels like one of the greatest lessons-- the art of letting go of what is not.
And so, while I am not able to indulge in so many of the things I would like to right now and my body feels so very fragile and like I could fall through that ice at any moment, instead of being in the sea, I'm alternating between floating on my back and fighting every wave. Sometimes, the art of swimming is not just in the way you move water with each stroke, but how you allow water to move you. Right now, I'm learning how to swim through life all over again and seeking the warmth that comes only from knowing that while you can't always stay off of thin ice, you can climb out from under it and have a friend watch your back while you get dry clothes.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Renew and Rejoice
Marathons are usually twenty-six miles long, but the one that recently has consumed my life is best measured by time than distance. If the past 365 days were a race for the survival of age 33, I just crossed an imaginary finish line as today, May 18th, is my 34th birthday.
Last year, my birthday week was ushered in during the midst of a beautiful whirlwind of activity: the end of a semester at school, shooting my friends' concerts, staying out until the streets welcomed the kind of golden silence that only happens in NYC at 3AM, celebrating my birthday with friends where I play platonic cupid and shoot arrows at will so that the amazing people I know can know each other and packing for my upcoming trip to Italy. My energy level, my vitality and the expansiveness I felt when I thought about my possibilities were seldom greater. Life, it seemed, had finally let me find it on my own terms.
Waking up in Venezia a few days later with the breeze dancing through the window that was slightly ajar and kissing my feet while church bells and Italian voices echoed in the distance was a taste of heaven. Visiting my brother and his family in his adopted home of Slovenia and seeing what a smart, beautiful child my niece is was a joy. Meeting with one of my friends from my early days in NYC while in Vienna and then, going to the former homes of Mozart and Freud all in one afternoon felt like life was as it should be. Trying to find a vegetarian meal in Munich was its own special adventure until I stumbled upon an amazing small restaurant where the chef was willing to cater to anything I needed. I have a special fondness for being in foreign countries where I do not speak the language. I like expanding my mind, my understanding of the world and frankly, for beating the odds. And, in so many ways, being able to travel to Europe for a second time was, in fact, proof that one can overcome much and still find a way to live and love life.
I did not know during that trip that I was about to get another opportunity to overcome obstacles, gigantic ones at that. As many are aware, my life drastically changed in a single instant yet again in August of 2009. After spending a day in the desert in southern CA (the creepy, horrible desert), I ate dinner at a Thai restaurant. Almost immediately after finishing the meal, things began to feel very wrong and half an hour later, I was in an ER in a small hospital in the middle of nowhere. In that room, I faced down death and again said, "No, not yet." The conviction that I had not finished my work was overwhelming and that, coupled with the look in the doctor's eyes, was enough to draw me back to the land of the living. But, in those moments, in addition to my soul changing, my body did as well.
Exactly what transpired that changed the internal landscape of my flesh remains a mystery. But, most of my doctors now agree that I was given doses of life-saving medications that were too great for my already-sensitive body. While I thought that I had escaped from the chains of Lyme disease that had held me for much of my life, the effects of carrying such chains do not release easily. And so, during my experience of a life-threatening allergic reaction, a new disorder emerged: dysautonomia. I will spare sharing the details at length, but the autonomic nervous system controls all of the things we don't think about, like heartrate, for example. Usually, the two parts, the sympathetic and parasympathetic, work together in harmony and one goes about his or her day none the wiser. But, when something goes wrong with it, you begin to have encounters with doctors like I've had in which they sit and stare at you like a deer caught in headlights when you ask how to get well from such a thing.
It has been nine months now and peace has been elusive and no longer is a companion to my being. Ironically, I've had to make peace with living without it. There has not been one single day in which I have not felt like my time here might very well be far shorter than I thought. I know the feeling of death in tangible ways and my body reminds me of echoes of that-- physically-- daily. So, to welcome another birthday is not just a chance to have cake that I probably couldn't safely eat anyway, but it is a triumph.
When I was a few years more naive, around my birthday I would choose a word to practice living for the next year. Words like bravery, strength or last year's-- equanimity-- would color how I chose to move through the world. I did not realize how key cultivating equanimity would be when I selected that word last year. I just thought it sounded cool.
Now, on my 34th birthday, it is time to choose a new word and I am torn. Health is the first that comes to mind, but others rival it. Grace. Hope. Patience. These seem even more crucial to my life. It is excruciating to live without health, to be locked into a body that does not do as it should or as you wish. And, it would be inaccurate to say that I do not feel terribly imprisoned by what my life has become or to say that I do not grieve for that which I have lost. But, it seems a worse fate to live without hope. Or, to face something like this without an element of patience, content-- even if only a tiny bit-- in the knowledge that everything changes. I have endeavored to face this challenge with grace. I don't believe that I have always been able to maintain this, especially when I am being separated from so much of what I love or when I edge closer to greater and greater losses, like that of my home. But, I remind myself that this is just a moment in time. A tiny, little moment in all of a great, big, majestic universe.
So, I seek the gifts at my feet-- they are ever present. I do not pretend to know if there are reasons for experiences, though I like to think there are and try live as if there are if purely for experience's sake, but I am trying to let my life be enriched by whatever comes. A year ago, I only knew of starvation in abstract terms, but now due to my severe food allergies, I know what hunger, deep hunger feels like in my own body. I understand what many people in our world suffer on a daily basis, but in different ways. One can't help but be changed when suffering is no longer abstract, but tangible.
On the brighter side, if there was one thing I have done right in my life, it is in selecting my friends. There has been such an outpouring of love and support from so many people during the past nine months that my gratitude feels inadequate when measured against it. And, I would be remiss not to mention that the strength of my parents aids me every day.
As I begin the journey of age 34, I stand before it with a simple truth: each day is the unknown. I don't know what this next year or even this next hour might bring. But, I make a single promise to you, to me and to the world. Whether I possess health or not, I will offer the best of what I have to give: my love, my words and the beauty I see all around us. Living this vow is my own little celebration of the life I have and so my words to live this year, come what may, are: renew and rejoice.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”—Oliver Wendell Holmes
Last year, my birthday week was ushered in during the midst of a beautiful whirlwind of activity: the end of a semester at school, shooting my friends' concerts, staying out until the streets welcomed the kind of golden silence that only happens in NYC at 3AM, celebrating my birthday with friends where I play platonic cupid and shoot arrows at will so that the amazing people I know can know each other and packing for my upcoming trip to Italy. My energy level, my vitality and the expansiveness I felt when I thought about my possibilities were seldom greater. Life, it seemed, had finally let me find it on my own terms.
Waking up in Venezia a few days later with the breeze dancing through the window that was slightly ajar and kissing my feet while church bells and Italian voices echoed in the distance was a taste of heaven. Visiting my brother and his family in his adopted home of Slovenia and seeing what a smart, beautiful child my niece is was a joy. Meeting with one of my friends from my early days in NYC while in Vienna and then, going to the former homes of Mozart and Freud all in one afternoon felt like life was as it should be. Trying to find a vegetarian meal in Munich was its own special adventure until I stumbled upon an amazing small restaurant where the chef was willing to cater to anything I needed. I have a special fondness for being in foreign countries where I do not speak the language. I like expanding my mind, my understanding of the world and frankly, for beating the odds. And, in so many ways, being able to travel to Europe for a second time was, in fact, proof that one can overcome much and still find a way to live and love life.
I did not know during that trip that I was about to get another opportunity to overcome obstacles, gigantic ones at that. As many are aware, my life drastically changed in a single instant yet again in August of 2009. After spending a day in the desert in southern CA (the creepy, horrible desert), I ate dinner at a Thai restaurant. Almost immediately after finishing the meal, things began to feel very wrong and half an hour later, I was in an ER in a small hospital in the middle of nowhere. In that room, I faced down death and again said, "No, not yet." The conviction that I had not finished my work was overwhelming and that, coupled with the look in the doctor's eyes, was enough to draw me back to the land of the living. But, in those moments, in addition to my soul changing, my body did as well.
Exactly what transpired that changed the internal landscape of my flesh remains a mystery. But, most of my doctors now agree that I was given doses of life-saving medications that were too great for my already-sensitive body. While I thought that I had escaped from the chains of Lyme disease that had held me for much of my life, the effects of carrying such chains do not release easily. And so, during my experience of a life-threatening allergic reaction, a new disorder emerged: dysautonomia. I will spare sharing the details at length, but the autonomic nervous system controls all of the things we don't think about, like heartrate, for example. Usually, the two parts, the sympathetic and parasympathetic, work together in harmony and one goes about his or her day none the wiser. But, when something goes wrong with it, you begin to have encounters with doctors like I've had in which they sit and stare at you like a deer caught in headlights when you ask how to get well from such a thing.
It has been nine months now and peace has been elusive and no longer is a companion to my being. Ironically, I've had to make peace with living without it. There has not been one single day in which I have not felt like my time here might very well be far shorter than I thought. I know the feeling of death in tangible ways and my body reminds me of echoes of that-- physically-- daily. So, to welcome another birthday is not just a chance to have cake that I probably couldn't safely eat anyway, but it is a triumph.
When I was a few years more naive, around my birthday I would choose a word to practice living for the next year. Words like bravery, strength or last year's-- equanimity-- would color how I chose to move through the world. I did not realize how key cultivating equanimity would be when I selected that word last year. I just thought it sounded cool.
Now, on my 34th birthday, it is time to choose a new word and I am torn. Health is the first that comes to mind, but others rival it. Grace. Hope. Patience. These seem even more crucial to my life. It is excruciating to live without health, to be locked into a body that does not do as it should or as you wish. And, it would be inaccurate to say that I do not feel terribly imprisoned by what my life has become or to say that I do not grieve for that which I have lost. But, it seems a worse fate to live without hope. Or, to face something like this without an element of patience, content-- even if only a tiny bit-- in the knowledge that everything changes. I have endeavored to face this challenge with grace. I don't believe that I have always been able to maintain this, especially when I am being separated from so much of what I love or when I edge closer to greater and greater losses, like that of my home. But, I remind myself that this is just a moment in time. A tiny, little moment in all of a great, big, majestic universe.
So, I seek the gifts at my feet-- they are ever present. I do not pretend to know if there are reasons for experiences, though I like to think there are and try live as if there are if purely for experience's sake, but I am trying to let my life be enriched by whatever comes. A year ago, I only knew of starvation in abstract terms, but now due to my severe food allergies, I know what hunger, deep hunger feels like in my own body. I understand what many people in our world suffer on a daily basis, but in different ways. One can't help but be changed when suffering is no longer abstract, but tangible.
On the brighter side, if there was one thing I have done right in my life, it is in selecting my friends. There has been such an outpouring of love and support from so many people during the past nine months that my gratitude feels inadequate when measured against it. And, I would be remiss not to mention that the strength of my parents aids me every day.
As I begin the journey of age 34, I stand before it with a simple truth: each day is the unknown. I don't know what this next year or even this next hour might bring. But, I make a single promise to you, to me and to the world. Whether I possess health or not, I will offer the best of what I have to give: my love, my words and the beauty I see all around us. Living this vow is my own little celebration of the life I have and so my words to live this year, come what may, are: renew and rejoice.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”—Oliver Wendell Holmes
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