For days I have been intending to write a post on expansion and contraction. Expansion and contraction in sitting hospice, in trying to work while life challenges with grief, in trying to watch 60 movies in 90 days in order to prepare for a writing seminar in October. This post is a little expansion. Enough [...]
Archive for July, 2010
July 28, 2010
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July 20, 2010
Posted in Uncategorized on 07/20/2010 | Leave a Comment »
Although I have stumbled through work the past few weeks, I am behind. Although I have been in contact with a few people, exhaustion arises when I think about catching up on work and social life. I am behind on catching up because 24 hours before Boris fell ill, the months-long season of the huge family [...]
July 18, 2010
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Storms ripped through the metro area again last night. When the tornado sirens went off, the folks on the television said that a storm with 75 to 80 mph straight-line winds were 7 miles away and traveling at 55 mph. I wrapped Boris in a fluffy bath towel and we sat in the basement for [...]
July 15, 2010
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What does one do when one is in the middle of not knowing, of not knowing what is next, of maybe being down or depressed? One accepts that this is the moment. One accepts that even if this feels like shit, that shit passes, that the moment passes, that this is what mediation teaches us. [...]
July 11, 2010
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Boris the beautiful kitty is still alive; testimony to the unrelenting tide of change and more evidence that each wave brings uncertainty. It is wait and see now. The infection is under control. It is the wait until it is time to test the kidney function numbers next week stage. We are both sleeping through the night again. I can [...]
July 8, 2010
Posted in Buddhism, Meditation, Spirituality on 07/08/2010 | Leave a Comment »
One form of meditation is to notice the blank spots instead of the activity. One phase in meditation changing your life is noticing that in any change we have two lives, the old and the new. The two lives take time to merge. In the middle time, we live them both alternately and simultaneously. I [...]
July 7, 2010
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I am forgetting to eat. Boris is not eating. I am using a syringe to squirt water into his mouth every hour. He doesn’t mind it, and I think it makes him more comfortable. For both of us, all of the attention of which we are capable has consumed us here. I have more ability to pay [...]
July 5, 2010
Posted in Buddhism, Meditation, Spirituality on 07/05/2010 | 1 Comment »
Boris in his winter basket with his wool sweater and kitty heater The crisis has averted, and I am sitting hospice for my dear, sweet kitty companion of almost 20 years. Boris has been the only constant in my immediate space for those years. The house has changed, the state in which the [...]
July 3, 2010
Posted in Buddhism, Meditation, Spirituality on 07/03/2010 | Leave a Comment »
The biggest benefit of meditation practice is then having the skills to stay in the moment during the times when it is almost impossible to do so. Beloved Boris is dying. It may be today. It may be in a few days. He is more than 19 years old. I am told that is about [...]
