I am so grateful to you, Jenny, for helping us understand your sweet husband. And, I wonder about the toll of all this on you. As I type, and after, I hold you in the light as you serve Michael and all of us.
Thank you Dear Michael ( or maybe I should say ”Deer” Michael. ) Seriously, that is an amazing adventure you were on with the deer— actually every day sounds like an adventure. I am so incredibly happy the cancer is “sleeping.”
I can relate to your feelings when going to the extremes and coming back. I am grateful to know you and to be part of your journey. Thank you Michael !
Thanks to you, Jennifer, and Higher Power for this beautifully written post! Somehow you capture just enough of the essence of your experience that I feel that I can walk alongside you for a few moments as a I read. I love the account of the deer! Accompaniment from the world of nature!
This posting just gave me permission for my words to not have to make sense right now. Maybe things are known that are not transferrable in words and maybe words are sometimes just colors to mix together to paint something indescribable (something may be fully known by someone who is not me). You-Michael can feel the pulsing sensation of the weird Optune device on your head whether or not you could ever describe it fully enough to me that I can imagine your experience;– and maybe you-Jenny know that pattern of Michael’s scars so well that you see the bulging of spinal fluid where it didn’t used to be...and that is not something I will ever know as you do. The feel of the Optune and sight of that bulge may never be known by another but that doesn’t mean we don’t get to try to spill our verbal palette onto the canvas to see and share what shows up – what if we get to be fully known in all our incoherent confusions? Words – red, chartreuse, obsidian, ochre, burnt umber, charcoal, neon yellow… What if we don’t have to effort and work so hard trying to be known / to be understood? What if, when you-Michael take the risk-of-doing-public-talks-even-though-you-don’t-know-if it’s-going-to-make-sense-when-you-say-things-in-front-of-people you actually give the rest of us all a little more freedom to take the risk of going public even though we don’t ever really know what’s landing in the hearts and minds on the other sides of the room? What if your incoherence is a key to my freedom to know and express a wisdom that is beyond reason and language? One of my favorite practices over the past year was inspired from a line in a novel - “everything has a secret name and that name is nothing other than the thing itself”. The secret name of the pulsing Optune gizmo is the sensation on your head; the secret name of Jenny recognizing the bulge of spinal fluid is Jenny recognizing the bulge of spinal fluid. The secret name of me sitting here with my legs folded underneath me while listening to the clickety-clack of my fingertips tapping out letters on my keyboard is nothing other than the experience of sitting here with my legs folded underneath me while listening to the clickety-clack of my fingertips tapping out letters of my keyboard. What is the secret name of reading this post? It is nothing other than the experience of reading the post, itself. Thanks for permission to go beyond the linear sequential flow of language that this society privileges over other ways of knowing. YEE blue – mustard – gold – cerulean – YEE-HHAAAWWWW!!!