Just a Note – November 2, 2015

Hello …

I would like to thank everyone for being close to me and my family in these difficult days.

We held my husband Luciano’s commemoration ceremony Saturday morning and then invited the participants over to the house so that they could toast him, celebrate his life and see his art work.  It was a by-invitation only commemoration.    He didn’t like funerals and always said he’d prefer not to have a funeral at all … but we felt a commemoration ceremony accompanied by Erik Satie’s music giving his family and friends the chance to say goodbye was an acceptable compromise.  We’re sure he would have enjoyed the at-home exhibition.

Life and death walk hand in hand with us on this earth. We often try to ignore death, thinking that it will just go away … but death is always with us and it would be better to make it our friend rather than our enemy. Death is a counsellor, a constant reminder that our days on earth are numbered and we don’t know when they will end.  Realizing this, we should also realize that so many things that we think are important are in fact just so much dust with all the weight and importance of chaff. Life is a one step at a time affair, our goal is to be doing what we’re doing here and now.

“…it’s like this. Sometimes, when you’ve a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you’ll never get it swept. And then you start to hurry. You work faster and faster and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before, and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you’re out of breath and have to stop–and still the street stretches away in front of you. That’s not the way to do it.

You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.

That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that’s how it ought to be.

And all at once, before you know it, you find you’ve swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. what’s more, you aren’t out of breath. That’s important, too… (28-29)”
― Michael Ende, Momo

 “Whatever the world dishes up, we take it on–not on our own terms, but on the world’s.”
― Steve Hagen

  “Po: Maybe I should just quit and go back to making noodles.
Oogway: Quit, don’t quit? Noodles, don’t noodles? You are too concerned about what was and what will be. There is a saying: yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the “present.”
― Kung Fu Panda  😉

@)->—> —-

a single morning
the sun rises over the mountains
a bird sings out
walk in this here and now
without was or will be – peace

© G.s.k. ‘15