The past 5 days seem like a blur. More chemo, more side effect management, more sleepless nights. Yet, after 5 long days and nights, grace returns. So does my energy level. So here I am sitting upright and with my spirits up as well.
My hair has been shedding generously for the past two weeks.
Hair falling,
For days and days,
Like dry needles from pine and fir in the fall,
Ever so gently, yet wow, how much has fallen,
Making our living space a bit of an autumn garden
Some in clumps out from the comb,
Then into the trash bin that already hosts the earlier fallen soldiers.
Still enough attached to the head,
Hanging on for its dear life.
I wonder whatever for?
There are always hanging-oners in our world:
People who won’t quit while complaining about their relationships or work conditions liberally and consistently,
People who hang on out of loyalty, even when it is not mutual
The truth is hanging-oners don’t feel that they can be better off elsewhere. We will never know since we never give ourselves the opportunity to find out. Fear keeps us hanging on.
Settling for security and even worse, ‘less’, has never been my thing.
I am a trained bell curve reader – do we go into the market or do we leave the market? When a job or any relationship starts giving us a diminishing return, we know that the curve has turned and from here, there is only one direction. One can continue to follow the downward trajectory or leave.
Back to the hair falling,
The past two weeks I have acquired a new habit of picking off hair from my clothes and floors. I thought to myself how meditative it is.
The impermanence of hair
The impermanence of our lives,
The impermanence of health,
This picking up hair act too will soon cease one day,
Yet, it’s the impermanence that makes this life so much more precious.
From the floor to the bin, then to the mirror
I see bald patches on my head.
My well-trained judgment reflex suggests the word “unsightly.”
Still meditating my better self counters it, “Is it, really?”
It looks like it is ‘in transition’.
I can dwell on the in-between mess that my head is currently in.
Or I can choose to get curious about my ever-changing look.
I see me in the mirror now
For an instant, I look like a stranger,
Soon, I see my soul looking back
Equanimous, strong and grounded
Hints of a smile even.
There,
All is good. I am here!
