Three years ago I wrote a post about boundary conditions, those irrevocabilities that set limits on our lives. (You don’t like having limits? you want to negotiate limits? too bad. Boundary conditions like uncertainty and change, for instance, you want security? too bad; you want to make plans? too bad. Or old age, too bad; and of course death comes to mind.) Anyway, I illustrated that post with an errant phlox that just showed up in the amsonia, that seemed to be a sign of something good. That phlox: even with all the non-negotiable boundary conditions, boink! here I am anyway!
Anyway, today, after a few days of staying inside because the smoke-soaked air came with excited public health warnings, I went outside. The air was better, not green yet but yellow and at least not orange let alone purple. So I walked around the garden, looked at the amsonia, and boink, there was the phlox again, only not just one phlox but two. The phlox had doubled. What could this mean? Was it good? It seemed good.
I’ve been having conversations in the last few days about boundary-condition-type things — living with cancer, troubled children, neighbors with cognition problems — and in these conversations, we found little rules, little ways-around, little tools, that I thought you might be happy to know. So I paraphrase these conversations below.
The friend with the troubled kid: People say they don’t know how I do it every day, they say I’m so strong. I don’t feel strong, I want to kick and scream. Kicking and screaming is deep in me, I think it’s a way to get somebody to come take care of me and make it all go away. And yes I can kick and scream if that’s what I really want to do. But after the kicking and screaming, the problem will still be there. And I will still have to take care of it. So I just view kicking and screaming as an extra step that just uses up energy. And I cut out the extra step and take care of it. And if that means I’m strong, then I am.
The friend living with cancer: It’s out of my control, I can’t do anything about it. I do what the doctors say and I fill out all the forms and go to all the appointments. But I’m not in charge of what the disease might do next or what it’s already done. And I’m still living, I’m travelling and going to concerts and eating out. And I don’t get out of touch with the people I love. I hold those people close. And I look at the birds and the people on the sidewalk and the things going on in my neighborhood. The doctor said to go live my life and that’s what I do. And I appreciate every minute of it.
Me, getting old: It’s more like adolescence, when you know your body is changing which means that life is also changing, but you don’t have one single goddam clue what the new life is. For now I do know it means physical changes — things I can’t lift, shorter times in the garden, naps before parties, shelves I can’t reach, and most enragingly, the number of systems in my body that are degrading, going haywire, working weirdly or hardly at all. So I teach myself work-arounds — lifting in increments, working with breaks, walks only near my house — and when I feel poorly and have to take to the couch, I regain robustness with baby steps. Baby steps, improvements every day that are tiny but relentless, every single day the next little improvement, no breaks. With baby steps, I can do anything, anything, I say. I’m making my peace with boundary conditions.
But then yesterday I was walking past my open front door, looked out on the porch, and saw a kid sitting in a fall of sunlight on the tiles, writing up clues for a scavenger hunt. I was enchanted, profoundly delighted, I wanted to light a candle to God. When did this happen, when did a kid on the porch stop being just a kid on the porch and start being an epiphany, a sign that life even changing is a pure blessing? When did a kid on the porch in the sunlight become a phlox in the amsonia? Boink! Here I am! I can do it! Isn’t it good? Isn’t it all so good?
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Photos: me, obviously
