Reading · T r u l y R e s o n a n t

Greetings to you, from near-mid-June already.

I had a largely ridiculous time of it since I last wrote, + I don’t think I’ll spell all that out here. Some, maybe. Let’s see what transpires.

I have some fine photographs to share, and what feels like ‘at last!’, some very recent artistry on paper.
I did a bit of stitching in May, but stitching + painting don’t scratch quite the same Soul itch. Stitching had again become ‘too slow’.
It’s a Thing, to get into stitch-mode, and that Thing wasn’t around, these last weeks.
I wanted the immediacy of the liquid colours.

Too many hours, days, weeks, were tied up with legal + official demands, with no room for splashing paint, ink, whatnot.
And then… fierce intentionality… carving space to just paint…. brought the joyous relief of realising I had not, after all, in the interim, forgotten how to paint.
As I wrote to pal M, afterwards: ‘The Stillness is Incomparable.’

I lived to turn 62. Born in ‘62, it’s a familiar number.

The world does not make end-of-Life preparations simple, or easy. But since I got the signposts to get on with those preparations while I more easily can, off I went, down the trails of DNACPR, ‘Respect’ forms, LPA, (Lasting Power of Attorney), Will-writing, Advanced Directives + Decisions; on and on the requirements go.
Absolutely not things that come naturally to me, but since Death will, when it’s ready, I figured it had become essential to tackle the big pesky jobs immediately. And so I did.

There are still a small mountain of less-legalese Things that I would like to attend to, to make things easier for the people who will appreciate that - so it’s an ongoing project. ‘EoLP’ I am calling it - End of Life Preparations. Who knew how enormous the job of wrapping things up for a good end has become? Anyways, I’m learning, daily.

Please don’t be overly concerned - the moments that brought me to this urgency have passed, and I am being given a perhaps seventh wind. Kind of.
I’m still dealing with the sore + time-restrictions, which after 6 months are becoming normalised. But the sense of ‘not long to Live’ has settled somewhat.
It was quite the Initiation, really.

Enhanced appreciation of the Love and Support that is here for me, was, and is, a great big gift of the experience.

Nothing like Death to bring me to Life, I have found, along the way. So here I am.

And. As for all of us, you, reading this: ‘our days are numbered’ -
as I have long joked with pal M - it is just that we don’t yet know that number.