Distillation

As the defining features of my identity -- place, work, people, routine, physical strength, mental acuity, and "stuff" -- dissolve and disappear in the rear view mirror, I have to wonder what it is I can hang onto. (Simone the cat is not happy about the new arrangements, but I want her to come along for the ride.) What I find is simple, and, to some minds, a tad trite. The first truth I find is that all I have is right now, the present moment. (This has enormous implications if you think about it. Everything that is past -- all the habits, the stories, the noise, and self-imposed limitations -- do not really exist unless I buy into them.  And, yes, the past is persistent, and,as Faulkner says, it isn't "dead." Old habits die hard.) The second is that the highest state of being is joy. The third is that I know I have to act on what I believe, and that doing so requires that I dig so deep into my courage that I can escape the gravitational pull of fear. So, today as the all that is familiar slips over some past horizon, I carry on, one breath at a time.I have to see a way through and around the habits, the old clothes that I no longer need or want, find the joke in whatever situations present, lift my heavy body, and rise to make a difference.