Living Past Her Expiration Date

Last weekend I spent time with a friend of mine. At 91, she tells me that she is living  past her expiration date. There is something inspiring and clarifying about spending time with someone who does not take life for granted.

She lives in a house that her husband built on the San Francisco Bay in Richmond. On Friday, with the cool wind blowing across the bay, we walked to the yacht club next door for dinner. A new friend sat down with us (without even being asked!), and we shared the view while the room filled with conversation and laughter.

Living in the woods as I do in Mendocino County is a wonderful way to live. I get to wake up with the smell of fresh forest air and spend my life in the garden with my hands in the dirt. If I am honest, though, everything has its pluses and minuses. I have a few rants about living on the North Coast. The logging! The cost and lack of good food! It feels like outrage finds me wherever I find myself. When I lived in the East Bay, there were things to rant about too. The traffic! The crime! The summer fireworks! Outrage is surprisingly portable.

On Sunday morning we meditated together and listened to a talk. The teacher spoke about the sacredness of all of life. During the talk, I found myself returning to the idea that our attention is what makes life sacred. What we love, what we truly notice, becomes blessed. 

I love my friend, and I love some chocolate too. It helps to remember that I am owed none of it and that it could all end in a flash (even if I have not yet passed my own expiration date). Remembering that everything is borrowed somehow makes everything shine a little brighter.

It was a superb visit, made all the more wonderful by the reminder that joy is less a matter of circumstance than of attention. Good friends help. So do bay breezes.

She tells me that after she passes, to think of her whenever I see a snowy egret—wild and free.