From the archives, May 8, 2022:
On a Saturday in early April, we gathered at the Unitarian church to celebrate the life and mourn the death of a friend who died in January. She had been in our community for a long time, and so had led many lives in the same place. She seemed to know everyone. She connected closely with everyone she knew.
We arrived early to help with the reception setup. In the relative quiet before the gathering, we could embrace our friend's spouse. Another old friend, whom I rarely see these days, clasped my hands and told me how dear I am to her and how often she thinks of me.
The sanctuary filled with over a hundred people. Some I loved. Some I barely knew. Some I had pulled away from, and couldn't remember why. At the end of our lives, the old feuds become meaningless (they always were), and we long for healing. We were threads once woven together, then separating, now intertwining again.
We were all older. This still comes as a surprise to me.
We celebrated our friend with remembrances, poems, music, song, and her beautiful artwork. The afternoon was a testament to a life well-lived.
I was brought to the exquisite edge of living, where I mourned a great loss and treasured everyone who was dear to me.
On that ephemeral April day, the wind moved the tender green tips of the trees. Spring sunlight shone down on us.
In the evening, I attended a chamber music concert by Quatuor Danel. They played works by Mieczystaw Weinberg, a Polish-Russian composer whose music, that night, laid open for me the complicated emotions of the day - the suffering, joy, tenderness, grief, and yearning.
Every day is a gift or a burden. Every day holds a story. On that Saturday in April, I felt as though I were living on the bright edge of life, where everything is at its most profound. In my clearest moments, I try to remember to stay there, balancing, with a view in all directions. On this edge, I am intensely aware of fragility - mine and everyone else's - and treasure what I will lose. This is where warriors and artists live, unafraid of being present, unafraid of feeling, unafraid of understanding.