One

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . . I wonder if Charles Dickens  realized that he was putting an archetypal thought into words people could quote for the rest of eternity?

Tonight, as I sit here breaking my good eating plan, watching the sun go down on my beautiful ferns that always seem to grace my life in the best of times, and contemplating how the family of my birth and the family of my heart are slowly coming together, I am afraid to really believe any of it.

I am also in the process of losing a baby tooth that should have been gone nearly sixty years.  What was frightening, but exciting back then feels frightening and grizzly now. Frightening because I might have to go to a dentist and have tooth pegged into that hole. Grizzly because losing a body part at my age feels a bit prophetic.

I have been losing things all my life. By three we had moved and I lost my first friends. They were followed by many others as my family continued to move as I grew up. Then I got married and it wasn't long before I realized that I would lose my husband, the man I thought I would be with forever.

It was about that time that I began to think about the word forever and come to the conclusion that forever only exists in the head and the heart. It never really lasts in the physical world.

Another word for growth is dying.

Shiva dances away the old moments to make way for the  new ones. Nature allows for most things to let go of their seeds so that propagation can take place. Christ died so that he could rise again. It is an old story, but a familiar tale and in the age of wisdom it makes itself clearer.

I watch time slowly melting away the physical person I have always been. Dropping off one tooth at a time, a little eyesight at a time, a bit of muscle mass, or the elasticity of my skin and it is like a horror movie I can do nothing about. At the same time I feel the beauty of love manifesting around me like a light that warms me through and through.

The connection we all have is a miracle hidden so deeply in misconceptions that I don't know if it will ever rule the world, but just glimpsing its existence now and then is glancing enough to keep me looking for more.