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Laura Davis's avatar

Amanda, I love the way you address the state of limbo we find ourselves in between things. And your honest portrayal of how the choices we make in how we live open some roads and preclude others--or at least make traveling those roads much more difficult. I appreciate both your honesty and your eloquence. And the swing between the joy and freedom of travel, the embrace of novelty, and the desire for home.

But the thing that struck me like an arrow came from the Pema Chodron quote you included:

"Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade in the tidal pools and put our finger near the soft open bodies of sea anemones and they close up. Everything spontaneously does that. It’s not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.”

I'm reading this a couple of hours before I go in for an ultrasound to find out whether the "we saw something questionable on your mammogram and want to take another look" is a smudge, a nothing, a false alarm, or a return of the breast cancer I had 18 years ago.

For the last few weeks, while waiting for today, I've felt quiet and steady. But this morning, as I get close to my appointment, I feel the acute sense of aliveness you described. Everything vivid and sharp in the moment.

It's not a "bad" feeling, per se, just a heightened state of awareness. There is some fear yes, but mostly an acute appreciation for well....everything...how lucky and fortunate I am to have a human body...to be alive. How my life may be changed a few hours from now. Or how I might be dropped back down into my life as it is.

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Andō's avatar

I'm so glad that the post I shared had fruit for you both. May your burden be light and your walk easy. x

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