My New Year's Hope

By John O'Donohue, sent to me from my old, dear high school friend, Lael: "To Bless the Space Between Us"

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.
And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The gray window
And the ghost of loss gets in to you,
May a flock of colors,
Indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
In the curragh of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so, may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you, an invisible cloak
To mind your life.

I feel this love and support and comfort, even on the days of my greatest ineptness and inability. I feel this cloak of love from you all cover my mind and my heart and I embrace it and wear it.

I rejoice in the small pleasures--today I wore jeans for the first time! I also took a 3-hour nap, one of those coma-hit-by-a-train naps where you can sense things are going on around you but you have no ability to participate in the present. And you enjoy it.

Plus Jessica and Janiece are here. Oh my. Dear friends fill my heart.

And, for the record, I totally survived Friday's chemo--the one I was really anxious about because of the anaphylactic reaction last time. This time was in the form of a shot with plenty of steroid and anti-nausea premeds. It sure burned going in, and the ativan totally snowed me, but I slept it off and am alive! No pictures of puffy red steroid cheeks.