Looking into the new year

It is the dawn of a new year, a new decade. A time for reflection and planning, a time to prepare for the challenges ahead. As it is likely that this year will be Fig's last, I am thinking both of how to ensure that the time he has left is as good as it can be and what it will be like when he is gone. When I do this, I realize the futility of straddling the fence between the present and the future - while it offers a vantage point for both, one cannot take action from that position. To move forward we must make a choice and get down from the fence.

Reflecting upon if or how we might live differently if we knew we were dying is a theme well explored in literature and film, and it offers a useful exercise for evaluating our priorities. While my assumption may be wrong, I doubt that Fig knows he is dying, so for him his days will continue as long as possible in the pattern to which he has become accustomed - long naps in his favorite warm spots, punctuated by meals, short periods of play or affectionate interaction with his people, gazing out the windows, and visiting the litterbox. Against the day when his cancer progresses to the point that he can no longer enjoy his daily routine, I hope to find someone who can administer the required injections at home, where he can pass from this life in familiar surroundings, attended by those who love him and have cared for him.

As for the human side of the equation, today I am drawn to the words of Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet: "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions." At this moment, it is good to draw a map for the future, based on priorities that become clear under the lens of a hypothetical one year left of life, and tempered by acceptance that life is filled with unexpected turns and ambiguities. Time then, to chart my course and to live each moment as it unfolds, savoring the ambiguities as part of the journey and keeping enough emptiness within that wisdom can enter.

May we all have a fruitful 2010.