a few things i know about......

{death}

i'm going to start this off by saying what follows is a late night ramble.
but all of it is true.
as far as my truth goes.

and also, before you're too turned off by the
                                                                      death word,
                                         do remember that life and death do in fact

revolve around each other. 

need each other. 

depend on each other.

exist within

and of each other.

that each inhale you take must be followed by an exhale

and back again.

one thing i have noticed about death, in the past few years, is that once you start noticing it and paying attention to it, you continue to notice it, to be drawn - as it were - to it. 

{in some way similar to the way that when you become pregnant you suddenly start to notice all the other pregnant women, and teeny little new born life of babies. before you had your own life growing inside of you, none of those other tiny growing lifes existed. not to you, anyway}.

death is the same. 

once you have had death happen around you {within, of, beside you. slip from your hands.grasp your hands tight} you seem to have a heightened sense of it happening to others.

and not only sensing it. but feeling it. 

 you are prone more to the feeling. the being open to that deep rawness. the gash it leaves inside. the clutching with empty hands. the half thought conversations that you can no longer have.

lately i have somehow been reading books.stories about death. of death. after. before. during. 

i do not know why. for some reason i pick them up (from the library, or switch a show on at late night tv) and i'm drawn in. 

i know, immediately, that it's there. to be thought about. dreamed about. 

my heart torn out. 

again. 

and again. 

all over. 

for a new reason. but always.always.always the same reason. 

the same death. 

it's like a vague memory of something you've forgotten. 

you want to ring.talk.call.write.tell something, yet you can't. 

there's no-one to tell. 

sometimes you forget that there's no-one to tell. 

sometimes you even get as far as having the telephone in your hand before you remember that there's no-one to tell. 

sometimes you stop yourself before you get that far. 

but you still forget. question. remember. forget. ask again. remind yourself. 

then look up and wonder. 

did you dream it. 

was it a death dream.

or a real dream.

or just death.

{life}

that flipside of death. you know. one with the other. it's the way it works. 

spend all your life fearing death. 

but what about fearing life.

or living. 

or sometimes you stop fearing. stop remembering/forgetting. 

sometimes you stop right in the centre of life.death. in the middle of the circle. 

the eye of the storm and 

                                                                you 

                                                                       just

                                                                              are

alive.dead.living.dying.laughing.crying.happy.sad.forgetful.remembering.

{some stories* to read when you want to think about death include, but of are not at all limited to}

Moon River

Little Bird

Unaccustomed Earth

*these are simply the few i have read in the past couple of weeks. i will, of course, let you know when more as they come into my hands.eyes.mind.heart.life.

**of course this post is combined with photos of flowers and other such things of life and living and death and dying. of course.