Endings and Beginnings, Living and Dying

They say, “Begin at the beginning.” As I was lying in bed this morning before it got light out, and beginning to compose this blog entry in my head, I realized that the first poem I ever wrote was about death.

However, They also say “Begin with the end in mind.” How to reconcile these two? Part of the “end” I have in mind with this blog post is that it should be a cliff-hanger, because I want to encourage everyone to go directly from here to my new blog site to finish reading this entry, and sign up to follow it. (Yes, I’ve decided it’s time to switch to a “real” blogging site – since Post Hope has been bought out and I don’t have any idea whether the crowdfunding site that bought it will maintain this functionality and archive!)

So, this entry is both an ending, and a beginning, as with many things at this time of year. And before I return to my childhood poem about death, I’m going to share some other musings about beginnings and endings, dying and living.

In the Fall things are dying, yet it is the beginning of the school year. It is the time of Halloween/Dia de los Muertos/Samhain when the pagan tradition holds that the “veil between the worlds” of life and death is thin, and we should honor our dead. This transitional time, this liminal time between the fullness of summer and the deep cold of winter, is both ending and beginning, a time for both living and dying. Autumn also brings the Jewish High Holidays, which include Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of a new year, and also two of the four times in the year when we recite Yizkor, the special prayer to remember the dead (on Yom Kippur and on Shemini Atzeret, 10 days and 3 weeks after Rosh Hashanah, respectively).

The last day of Shemini Atzeret, and the last in the high holiday cycle, is Simchat Torah, which is all about ending and beginning. The holiday celebrates the end of the annual cycle of reading the Torah and the beginning of a new cycle. There is much singing and dancing, and our congregation has the tradition of doing the rolling of the scroll from the end back to the beginning on a series of long tables so that everyone can gather round it and large swaths of the traditional calligraphy on animal parchment can be taken in at once.

As the weekly Torah portion is chanted aloud, people are “called up” to stand near the Torah in honor of life cycle events, good deeds, and the like. On Simchat Torah, it is traditional for everyone to be called up, and this year our Rabbi invited up anyone who wanted to celebrate an ending or a beginning. Now, the group assembled last Monday evening wasn’t large to begin with, and the folks with younger children had left after the singing, dancing, and dessert. Still, it was remarkable that in this season of endings and beginnings, none of us remaining could think of any endings or beginnings in our lives that we wanted to mark in this way! I attempted to ease the awkward moment by quipping, “It’s a Buddhist Simchat Torah – no beginnings and no endings.” I did succeed in making the Rabbi laugh, and she then said, okay, anyone who wants to come up for any reason!

I did take some time during the 3 weeks of the High Holidays to reflect on the past year, and the year to come. I recognized that I have been in a period of transition this whole year – done with cancer treatment, but not yet fully re-engaged with living a “business-as-usual post-cancer” life. The year included a lot of activities of recovery, and discovery – traveling to Israel, hosting my new Palestinian friend Saeeda… trying out Aikido and Trapeze, and falling in love with the latter….Taking on a new diet…. Exploring new interests and commitments, and practicing surrender when they didn’t necessarily unfold as anticipated. And, I spent a lot of time late summer and early fall supporting the dying and the bereaved; when my stepson Sam’s best friend Will Simmons died unexpectedly, I helped plan and officiated at the funeral; and when a colleague and friend James Murrell was diagnosed with lung cancer, I acted as fundraiser, coach, and facilitator of online communication between his wife Yvette and their wider web of support.

Attempting to look ahead, I am a bit baffled about what will come next. Of course, none of us can see the future, but I’m used to living with intention, and I’m recognizing that I’m confused about what story and what intention to hold. As I deal with the array of new symptoms brought on by chemotherapy, the resulting abrupt menopause, and general aging, I notice that part of my mind is trying to get the story straight: Am I sick? Or am I well? Is this bump on the bottom of my foot an expansion of my previously-diagnosed Morton’s neuroma (a painful but non-life-threatening nerve thing)? Or is it planter fasciitis? Or is it metastatic breast cancer? I’m experimenting with a new mantra when I notice myself trying to figure this out: instead of trying to decide whether “I’m sick” or “I’m well,” I’m saying “I’m living and dying.”

And, on the intention front: Am I working to shift some of my older commitments in order to make room for some big, new thing, one of the things I thought maybe I’d do “someday”? Or am I working to support the increasing independence of things I’ve begun, so they can be a more lasting legacy if I do get metastatic cancer? Or am I shifting towards viewing what I’ve done already as enough, working to leave more spaciousness in my life as an ongoing practice? I guess here I’m attempting to live, and love, the questions, as Rainer Maria Rilke suggests in his Letters to a Young Poet. (I just read the whole 4th letter, it’s quite interesting to read the famous quote in context, which I’ve never done before. It’s page 13 in this digital version).  It will be a long, slow cliff-hanger, for me as well as you, dear readers, to find out the answers to these questions!

Meanwhile, back to the first poem I wrote, the one about death. I was 10 or 11 years old I think. I was on a visit to Buffalo, NY, where both my parents grew up, and we visited a woman I was told to call “Aunt Estelle.” This was the one and only time we visited her as far as I can remember, and she was only indirectly my “aunt” – I think she was the sister of the ex-wife of my great-uncle. Apparently she was labeled "crazy" by most of my family. Not knowing that at the time, I was free to appreciate her, and she seemed wonderful.

Two cousins and I ran upstairs (or was it down?) to her flat during a visit to our Aunt Betty. Estelle was an artist, and she told me that I was one too, that she could tell just by looking at me. As far as I knew she didn’t say anything like this to my cousins, and I took her seriously. Whether she recognized some truth, or called it into being, I’m not sure, but I was so inspired that I started writing poetry immediately after my visit with her.

The first poem, responding also to a drawing on her wall, was called The Tombstone. I can’t seem to find that early notebook of poems right now (perhaps this will inspire a purge of boxes in my basement!) but I think the poem began like this:

Rest in peace, beloved one

Who lies beneath the grass

… then there were some other lines I don’t remember

… and I think it ended like this:

Rest in peace, beloved one

For your soul shall never die

I’m betting this meter, and the idea of repeating a line, were both in my head from a poem I memorized, that was in a book by Jean Little called Take Wing. I haven’t been able to remember the whole poem in years, but took the occasion of this entry to look for it, and finally found what I think is the whole wonderful poem here.

Okay, so, here’s the cliff-hanger: Will Becca sort papers in the basement and get so distracted that she doesn’t finish this blog? Will she find the notebook of poems she wrote as a child? Please go here now to find the answer, and to sign up for my new WordPress blog, Toward A Naked Heart.