I woke up this morning overwhelmed with grief … at being old.  Hours later, I’m in Izy Coffee and Bryan Adams is singing “Cuts Like A Knife”.  Yes, that fits.

In bed I felt into the aspects of my life that are touched by this despair, by being 76.  I won’t go there with my words.  I will face the sadness and walk towards it.  In its own time, it will leave.

I’ve mentioned my grief face-to-face with four people this morning.  They’re kind folks.  Each of them searched for something to say that would make me feel better.  I understand, but that’s not what I need right now.  I need to express what is true.  I need to feel the flood inundating me, and in some strange way to welcome it.  The journey is long … we humans get to experience it all.

A wise woman named Barbara Marx Hubbard asked us before her death to reframe “becoming old” as “becoming new”.  My mind senses the truth of that but the recommendation feels so far away right now.

A few minutes back, I asked myself if I was swimming in “Poor Me”.  The answer came back “No”.  Something deeper, something universal, has taken me.

Three hours ago, my Music Theory class started at the Poel school.  I dreaded going.  And the amazing thing was that I was able to focus into the precise thinking of rhythms, the intervals between notes in both the treble and bass clef, and the major and minor key signatures.  “How is this possible?” I uttered to myself as the black continued to descend.  I don’t know the answer to that question.

All these rapid-fire tasks were expressed in Dutch, where the key of Ab Major is known to my mind but “la mol groot” is in the realm of “Huh?”

Now it’s cappuccino time, and there are specks of white in the black.  I have no idea why I’m smiling.

And so I am immersed in the Mystery