Big Arm Birthday!

With 7 treatments left in my radiation therapy, today I'm celebrating my 52nd birthday. A very happy day, all in all. Really, I wouldn't trade in a day of my life to get out of experiencing what I'm experiencing now. You may ask why, given that I get irradiated 5 days a week, have a tricky surgery looming, and don't have the cancer-free body I did a year ago.

The answer is very simple - I view my life as a wonderful and wonder-filled gift. Every day I find myself learning something new, exploring new possibilities, moving ahead. If boulders roll in my way, it just means I have to find a way around them, they are just a part of the grand journey through life. And it is this experience of the grand journey, which is my life, with all its ups and downs, that so enthralls me and fills me with gratitude for being able to experience exactly what I have experienced to this day.

For lots of people, each day may seem to start the same way (waking, bathing, coffee, work, etc.), but if I truly pay attention, I can't help but notice the fluctuations from the seemingly normal routine. Have you noticed (if you're up early enough to hear them) what types of bird songs you hear early each morning - are they always the same? The color of gray or blue of the sky - how are they different every day? The quality of the light coming through you windows - bright, muted, nonexistent? The coolness or mugginess of the air? The state of your mind and your mood upon awakening? The other sounds your house makes as you move about your morning routine (the creaking of steps, the opening of doors, the running water in the bathroom and kitchen)? These and a hundred other things, taken collectively, may at first seem like the same thing, day after day. When looked at more closely, they are never the same two days in a row. The question is - can you hone your ears, your eyes, your sensibilities, to experience them as new every day?

That's what I've worked on for years, learning to pay attention to the people and places of this world as if I had never experienced them before. It's very hard to take for granted something or someone you've never met before. This newness makes you see things with a refreshed perspective. And it's only because of all the experiences in my life, happy and sad, uplifting and depressing, that I have come to this point of being able to work in the world this way. So I am very happy and grateful to have had exactly this life. I look forward to many more birthdays exploring the amazements to be found living life with this kind of awareness. So here's to a very happy birthday as I move, day by amazing day, towards my next birthday.