May the force be with you.

for DW and KAH

Years ago, in the late fall or early winter, my sister was moving households. She was driving her fragile items in a van along a mountain road. The van slid on ice, she narrowly avoided going over the cliff, and the van fell over. The sound of breaking (and I'm sure, braking) was apparently quite stunning.

She was injured but conscious. The friend who was following in the car behind stopped and rushed up to see what happened. My sister later said that she envisioned her friend's horror and wanted him to know that at least she didn't die in the wreck. So she started yelling "I'm alive! I'm alive!"

I think about that moment when I come through challenges of my own. I think about being in near-shock but with life coursing through, cherishing that life force and yelling "I'm alive! I'm alive!". I think of my attachment -- to people, to cats, even to things -- and I suspect that my life force will be the last one I let go of.

For me, it exists inside like a small light burning near my solar plexus. It warms me and illuminates my path. I sometimes call it my little grace light. Robert, who briefly experienced Presbyterianiasm as in impressionable youth, was shocked to discover that I believe grace exists within me. It is not an outside command, but an inside motivation, pushing, inspiring, and at times helping me to go on.

Oddly, I feel its power on some of the days that I swim, towards the latter part of a mile, when mind, body, and quiet all come together. I know that it's there when I dance -- I can remember it, but because of the busy-ness of dance, I notice it almost always in hindsight, rarely in that moment. (But, oh, when it all comes together in that moment, it is pure heaven.)

Today I honor two friends whom I notice striving toward the light as they move through the most challenging of times. My thoughts and hopes are with them.