"Don't anticipate. Just participate." ~ Keith Jarrett in the liner notes to his trio album Inside Out
Although I don't like to talk about myself, once in a while I venture to write in a more confessional mode, mostly because it helps me understand myself but also because friends have told me that they appreciate my personal insights. So here goes.
Six months ago I was in a dark place, turning inward while I grieved over the death of my wife Elisa. As Michael Cholbi explores in his book Grief: A Philosophical Guide, much of the grieving process consists in forging a new identity under radically changed circumstances. That's certainly been the case for me. As previously mentioned, one discovery I made over the summer is that freehearted giving is central to my personality - and that, for someone like me, the best way to grieve is to give. Going even further, lately I've noticed that I spend a great deal of time connecting with friends, family, neighbors, and other people who are important to me; every week I have hours and hours of phone calls, video calls, lunches, dinners, walks, and in-person visits. It's a truism that in the end all we really have is the people in our lives, and I've come to realize that in a very visceral way. Far from continuing the inward turn that oppressed me six months ago, more and more I've been turning outward, with overwhelmingly positive results.
Holding a celebration of life for Elisa also settled me in ways I didn't fully expect. I wouldn't exactly call it closure (a concept that I find somewhat suspect), but I have come to a kind of peace with the 35 years of my relationship with Elisa, which I see as something like the organizing principle underlying the second phase of my all-too-brief existence on this earth. Saying farewell at the celebration of life has freed me to focus now on the final third of my life in a spontaneous way - welcoming and nurturing the beautiful possibilities that have come into view over the last few months. At the same time, I'm trying not to anticipate too much about where things might be leading, but instead to participate wholeheartedly in the magical experiences that are unfolding for me. Admittedly, at this I am not always successful since I am tremendously inspired by an extraordinary person who, through what feels like destiny, has come back into my life after a gap of several decades. However, I won't say any more about her because I'm a very private person who keeps strict limits on what I share in public. Suffice it to say that, quite possibly, I have never been this happy.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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