It’s been an uphill battle for a long time now – hard to step through all the obstacles real or perceived. Sometimes I ask myself that question. Is what I see, think or feel real or perceived? And the answer always remains the same. Is there a difference?

Until this moment, I’ve been able to find a spark of hope. It’s so beautiful outside. I keep hoping to sit in the cool with the sun on my skin and just feel the life and the love and the peace of just being here. So many of those moments would come and pass in the years behind me. I never imagined they could end. I never realized just how valuable those moments were.

It’s hard to imagine that day won’t come again. There’s a feeling I get when I stand in a breeze. There’s a comfort that comes because I’m reminded of how beautiful it all is. But I don’t know how to touch the hope that used to wash over me. It’s not there anymore. Every day is a battle. Every morning I wake up in pain. I know it doesn’t look like I try but I’ve moved a mountain before I’ve even opened my eyes.

I burst to tears a thousand times, at the idea that I won’t ever have that sensation again. The chill of a warm breeze turning cold, at that perfect time of year that all it takes is the sun behind a cloud to swirl the cool – and the light on your face pouring honey thick warmth in a drenching stillness chasing a tide of shadow away. I feel like both the beach and the sea – the desert and the sky – the hummingbird and the flower – just me alone.

Have you ever lay by a tree and let it all wash over you? The sound, the scented confluence of competing and ever blending perfume – your senses trying to seize each one like biting off chocolates in search of just one … only to relent. You submit to the symphony, as the futility of
chasing a single note reminds.

Did you ever learn something from a dog in the grass and recognize in that moment how profound her wisdom and how foolish your own? Did it stop you for just a moment from looking back without seeing the future or looking ahead without seeing the past? Did you finally understand why she wouldn’t leave her spot in the grass on her very last day for that moment in the sun – to hurry back to the busy world where nothing is really ever done?

She told me to sit and I did. She said to me without a single word. Now is all you have. Now is all there is.