A friend and fellow writer has (literally) a spot of lung cancer. That shadow that shows up on the scans and makes the doctors frown. I take the camera out and take her for a walk to see the trees and the burn and the mares. Snow has fallen and I want her to see the beauty.
I don’t want her to see it because I think she’s not going to make it. I have complete faith in her and her recovery. I want her to see the beauty because that spot, that shadow, reminds me that this moment is your life. This moment, right now, with the snow and the wild sky and the gentle mares and the burn, making its little silvery murmuring noises, with a brave human on the other end of the line, hundreds of miles south, with my voice giving her the guided tour - this is life.
She laughs and exclaims and when I get to the field with the ravishing mares, who come right up to the camera and say hello, she says, ‘That fucking field. How dare you live in a Christmas movie?’
‘That fucking field,’ I cry, in delight, and we laugh and laugh and laugh.
I had a visit yesterday from Mabel, my lesser self, and I’m working like a lunatic, and there is never enough time, and it’s vastly satisfying because of all the dear clients, and it’s a little bit stretching because there is so much to do, but here is the thing - there is always balance. Balance is there, waiting for all of us, if we choose to step into it. We can chase our tails and have a Lesser Self moment and fret a little over the whole time management thing, and we can go for a walk in the snow and talk to a friend and feel the love and stand in the fucking field and make our very own Christmas movie.
We - we funny, flawed, goofy humans - can do all those things. And that, I think, may be the secret of life. It’s all there. I open my arms to it all.