It’s been a while……. I’ve been busy, crazy busy.   I have had so many opportunities to learn and develop and found it hard to say no to any of them.  So I said yes to everything and now I have to make choices to let some things go because I don’t have time for it all.  This is important because of the struggle I currently find myself in.

Years ago when I started writing these blogs I had a need to share the many gifts my sister Cindy gave of how to love unconditionally and purely.  She was a master at love and shared her wisdom freely.  Unencumbered by an ego that  separates the rest of us with a binary belief in good and bad, Cindy simply was who she was.  She was tender with a simple view of how relationships work and life can be, if we are open to love.

Though I spent years writing about her and her influence on me,  there is no way I have been able to shed my dualistic perspective of life.  ‘I am bad or good, (insert any other distinction, right/wrong/rich/poor, smart/stupid, etc….)  I am one or the other.  I am this or that.  That’s become a problem for me especially now.  That dualistic way of thinking has been harmful to my psyche and heart and led me to a very dark place in myself.

For the last 2 months I have been pretty much isolated at home.  I got sick for a couple weeks with a monster virus and then had a knee replacement.  You might think that having to stop for a while would be a welcome rest after years of being too busy.  For the past two months I have been fearing  I am getting old and becoming irrelevant.  At 66 that’s scary.  It’s too close to home as they say.  My mother was bedridden for years and addicted to narcotics.  She spent the last 10 years of her life completely dependent and isolated by choice.  The fear that I could repeat her end of life story has been overwhelming and led me to feeling depressed.

What does this have to do with Cindy and why is it important to question?   Unlike me, Cindy didn’t lay around thinking about her significance.  She never questioned her place or relevance in the world wondering if she had enough value.  Cindy simply lived each moment fresh.  She didn’t obsess about how much she mattered.  She never even considered the question.  She simply lived in each moment as if that was the only moment in the world.  If someone walked into the room Cindy carried no emotional baggage needing validation from anyone to exist.  By being alive, she mattered to herself and others.  By being Cindy she mattered.  She didn’t have to do anything to prove her value and she never concerned herself with what others were thinking.  She simply loved and accepted life as it was.  Love and acceptance was returned to her.

As I still lay around with a desk piling up with to do’s and a calendar quickly filling again I realize I have been missing one of the most important gifts Cindy shared.  Presence.  Because of Cindy’s openness she was free like no one I have ever known.  Her simplicity and grace allowed her to live in a state of peace very few people ever experience.   Many of us spend lots of time meditating and/or reading about meditating to be available to the present.  Very few probably ever achieve the kind of peace Cindy experienced every day of her life.

I have recognized a few moments of beauty and grace in the last two months even though extraordinary kindness and love have been shown to me.   I am intentionally not going to go down my habitual dualistic path and make this a bad thing or a good thing.  I am going to be like Cindy and appreciate that I am aware of this moment and the beauty of being able to share with you what is true.

It snowed here last night and the trees are covered in a soft, white powder.  The sky is turning blue and my crazy rescue dog Bodhi is laying here next to me in bed.  I watched a great movie in front of a fire with my husband and slept under warm blankets all night long.  I woke up to my favorite coffee waiting for me to drink.

What was that again about feeling depressed because I have not been out there ‘mattering?’

Presence.  Here and now in this moment is where beauty lives in abundance.  Perhaps with this memory of Cindy’s gift I will see more moments of beauty and experience more peace in each moment.  Maybe you too will look out the window or in the mirror and see beauty staring back at you reminding you to open your eyes to what is truly here.  That would be a gift.

Thank you for listening and sharing a bit of your life with me.  If you want to share your thoughts about any of this I welcome hearing what is important for you.

Melody