an awkward dance...

This weekend I spoke with one of my dearest friend via Skype. It’s the first we’ve been able to coordinate our schedules with healing, time zone differences, general snafus, and brownouts. Maintaining relationships with continents in-between is always an awkward dance.

She is fine. Survived the double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. And will now decide her next steps… with a new-to-her body, which means, a new identity.

We compared notes on doctors, post op medications, physical therapy, living wills, how to plan for death in a way that is simplest for those that remain, the remarkable ways life deepens and simplifies after these tangled moments…

...and we laughed as we noted the irony of having spent a lifetime teaching balance and voice, only to find ourselves completely thrown off balance and reestablishing an entirely new vocabulary.

It’s not the aging or the change (or even the multiple surgeries) that threw us off balance, it’s the shift in depth.

Kind of like when you’re walking in a large body of water, rolling your feet over the ocean floor only to suddenly step down and the seabed is 12 inches lower than you anticipated… it’s a jolt. And sometimes you catch yourself. And sometimes you fall and it takes awhile to gain your footing again.

There is nothing graceful about it. No energy for anything that isn't authentic. 

It’s refreshing to exchange cares and fears, comfort and raw joy with such candor and trust, entirely without judgment or expectation.

To be loved that way...

To love that way...

always in motion,

fia

P.S.  Click here if you'd like a print of 'bumblebee yoga'...