Tempus Fugit

When I was a kid, growing up in an Irish-Catholic enclave in Manchester, the year had a rythme dictated by the church and the seasons. Seasons in England are movable feasts at the best of times, and in Manchester it tends to be warmer rain in summer, colder rain in winter, with two weeks of non-rain in spring and autumn if you are lucky.

Church every Sunday, then a family walk to the paper shop to pay for the week’s papers (and our comics), and maybe get a quarter of cola cubes or pear drops or a sherbet fountain. Easter and Christmas and Holy Communions and Confirmations with Baptisms and Weddings and Funerals interspersing the year. It was always moving forward to the pattern of the ages.

I spent hours in the garden watching birds, slugs, beetles, worms, caterpillars, tadpoles and my cat. I grew peas and beans and potatoes, and set fire to stuff in autumn, baking our potatoes and picking up a few burns, blisters and splinters along the way. A lot of time alone. A lot of time with friends. A lot of time to simply be.

As I’ve grown older, the years spiral down and take on a new rhythm. Children and terms and semesters drive one beat. Anniversaries of birthdays, weddings and deaths sound out another. And still there are the seasons, and still I want to be that kid who watches it grow and bloom and dry and decay and rest and grow again.

Ten minutes outside isn’t much, but without that time where would we be? We need to feel connected to world around us without the need of technology. It’s nearly summer, did you know? The irises and grapes are flowering, the peas are sprouting and time is marching on. Make sure you really do stop and smell the roses.

Winter is coming.

Randomised by Mary Higgins

How many people are writers?

I would say most people. But, I could be lying. Or be mistaken. And what is a writer, anyway. Or a person? Computers and apps write letters, words and even books (and films), so are they writers?

I have lost count of the number of people who talked about how they used to write but they don’t do that anymore. How life, living, and their lack of progress got in their way. Who used to write for fun, for joy, and because they we compelled to, but don’t because what is the point? And why bother? And, anyway, I’m too old and tired for that crap these days.

I am one of those people.

For the longest time I wanted to be a writer, whatever that means. Some vague ideas about producing worthy prose on numerous topics. Books, plays, stories, reviews, short-form, long-form, poems and songs. I would create and nurture and finish and bless these missive and set them free into the world. And there they would encounter their true love. The reader.

A long time ago someone told me I should read On Writing by Stephen King. Every writer should read this. If you want to be a writer, you have to read this.

Guess what? I didn’t read it. If I was to be a writer then I was writing from my soul, my intellect and my heart. No damned book from a two-bit multi-best selling author who haunted my teens with his scary, addictive and world-changing books could possibly tell me anything about how I was going to be a writer because only I could know that.

It turns out, that I was right.

And also, dead wrong.

Ripples and tracks by Mary Higgins

Do you know what it’s like to leave your friends, family, home and move half-way across the world with only a few suitcases and a rag-tag collection of children and adults? To a country where you have no family, no friends, no home and only the promise of a job for one of the adults? Who would take such a risk? And why?

What if you spoke the language, the job was secure and the country stable? What if the prospects for you, and your kids, were so much better? What if you were ready for a new challenge and a new start, and the thought of staying where you were was worse than the thought you might not make it in your new country? Would you do it then?

Decisions are tricky things. Not making a decision is still making a decision. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Who is in control, anyway? I could decide to travel into Vancouver for an appointment, get stuck on the bridge and miss my chance. Or get lost trying to negotiate the streets of downtown and get stuck in the one-way system and end up driving around for the rest of the day, trying to catch up with myself.

Man plans, God laughs. We set our goals and watch the world chip away at the edges until we can’t even remember what it was we were supposed to be doing.

But not at work. At work there are goals AND deadlines AND people around us AND consequences if we mess up. And also, if we’re lucky, some sort of financial reward at the end of it. We get paid. We get paid for results, and also just for showing up, most of the time. If we show up and don’t produce, we will, sooner or later, be on our way. But there is routine and people and stuff around us to keep us on track.

We want to work. Mostly, we want to work hard. And by that I mean devote ourselves to the task in hand so that, when we have finished it, we feel satisfied a result was achieved. Much of work, either at a paid workplace or even cleaning your house, is not satisfying. We trade our precious, one-chance-only time to push paper, pixels or matter around from done place to the next. But that trade is worth it because it keeps a roof over our heads, food in the fridge, our home free from dust bunnies and we maybe have a little money left over to enjoy ourselves.

Or not.

White Rock Tide by Mary Higgins

Real people, not the pretend people we see on the news or read about on Internet, are in real trouble. Unable to keep that roof over their heads, or food in the fridge and would eat the dust bunnies if there was any nutrition in them. Real people in this country. Not somewhere else, filled with others, people not like us, but right here in our neighbourhood. Homelessness is on the rise, lives are on the edge and fear is real.

So what if your job isn’t feeding your soul? It puts food on the table and you can’t help but feel gratitude for that. When you are tired at the end of the day, you imagine how the ones on the edge feel. You are not heartless. You know people are suffering. And, anyway, making a decent fist of your job means that the rest of your colleagues have a slightly easier job. You can still make a difference. And maybe this week you will bake some cookies and share them. Or ask if you can hold a bake sale for the new shelter that has opened. Because, you know, we need to think about people who aren’t as fortunate.

And you have sat and done all that without even moving to pick up your cup and drink your tea. Because you just thought it in your head and that’s as far is it will get and anyway the kids will be up in a minute and you need to think about what you are going to eat tonight because if you hear that phrase be more time you will probably scream and keep screaming, and that will be bad.

It will all be bad.

But writing can make it better.

I love my garden, or yard, as they say in these parts. I hunger for an acreage, but until that happens I do love to potter and tend to our little patch. We made a new raised bed in the summer, dumped the contents of two composters in there, and planted some snow peas. The compost wasn’t completely cooked, but we’re not too fussy and seeds tend not to be, either. We have had the driest summer since records began, and watering became a twice-daily duty, waiting for the first sprouts.

The first thing to sprout were dandelions, a constant in our garden, but easily dealt with when little. And then came some rather different, bigger sprouts. I checked them out and thought they looked a little familiar, but let them grow more so I could be sure. After a couple of weeks there was no doubt. We had managed to grow pumpkins from an out-of-date bag of supposedly roasted pumpkin seeds. Nice! Pumpkins are hilarious to grow and every day is a new adventure wondering what part of the garden they are going to take over.

Accidental pumpkins 18th July 2012

The snow peas struggled against the heat and drought, but the pumpkins flourished despite being overcrowded and hemmed-in. They just wouldn’t stop.

Accidental pumpkins Aug 9th 2012

No matter how much we neglected them, they carried on growing.

Accidental pumpkins August 24th 2012

Not only did they keep growing, they started to flower.

Accidental pumpkins September 2nd 2012

And they they kept on growing, and flowering, until…

Accidental pumpkins October 7th 2012

..we had five real pumpkins that looked like they might have enough time to ripen, despite their late and unorthodox start. So it looks like we will be able to carve (and eat) our own pumpkins for Halloween this year.

Accidental pumpkins October 16th 2012

Now would be a great time for me to tell you that as the pumpkins grew and ripened, so did my resolve to complete the tasks I have set myself. That my will, and my desire to grow are as strong as my accidental pumpkins. To be honest, it’s more like this:

Tied up, bound, but still trying.

And that’s the point, right?

Because if I give up, I know these accidental pumpkins will haunt me forever.

And no one wants that. Do they, Linus?

TL/DR: Don’t be like me. Or, don’t be like the me that failed to be the writer she wanted to be.

I’m going to tell you a sorry tale of dreams and broken promises. This is what failure looks like. This was my life. This is not our future.

Let’s start at Summer, 2012. The real story begins much earlier than this, of course, but instead of starting there we are going to look at the end. The nadir.

Sixty Days of Creativity?

This summer was going to be the time it all turned around for me-the-writer. After tickling around the edges of writerdom for so long, I was going to really make it work. I would write every day, I would finish editing my book and I would set up the habits I needed to become the person I wanted to be.

It started off well. I even managed to find other people who wanted to do a similar thing and we did the damned thing, made some progress and it started to feel like this might be it. Finally, I would be a Real Writer.

We went away for a few days. No problem. I wrote a little in my notebook and relaxed enough to start thinking about all the other things I would write about once I had finished editing my book.

The weather was hot and by noon it was too stifling in my room to think, so I skipped a few days here and there. I found a new work client and started to get busy, and I had the kids at home.

Someone slammed into the back of my car leaving me with back and neck pain, for which I’m still getting physio and taking pain meds.

Then, after years of dreaming and a year of searching, the acreage of our dreams came on the market so we decided to get our house ready to sell and chase this house.

Writer, interrupted

All my plans for writing went out the window, and the truth was, I was happy to be busy doing something else because at least when you are weeding the garden or scrubbing doors or writing code other people can see what you have done at the end of the day.

I didn’t follow up with the other people who were trying to write and create, and I lost the will to even try. I didn’t even apologise to them, and for that I am sorry. It just all slid away.

I didn’t blog, or post or even use any social media much at all. I stopped using my computer except for work, and that was not a bad thing. How could that be a bad thing? I had fun, played with the kids and my house sparkled.

And yet…

Excuses, excuses

Yes, I’ve used them all. The neck pain is not an excuse because that really does hurt, but taking breaks, doing exercises and taking those tablets mean that I can get by. If I want to.

I have lost count of the articles and essays I have written in my head about politics, religion, economics, feminism, web TV, Buffy – and so many more. They were all really good. Promise.

The point is that you will never know because I didn’t write them. And that hurts.

My novel (now actually a trilogy) still needs editing enough to send to my beta readers. That aches.

That new webseries, the drama that will rip your heart out, is still just an outline. That burns.

That short story, that poem of love shattered, is incomplete and wanting. That stings.

I have failed at the fundamental part of writing, the #1 writing tip from Joss Whedon  - I didn’t FINISH IT. It hurts so much because I know I can do it, but on some level I have chosen not to.

Past performance is not an indication of future returns

How did ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ get written, produced, filmed, edited and uploaded? Because it was a team effort. Paul was there every step of the way and we did it, slowly, painfully, together.

Writing on your own is a solitary activity (obvious sentence is obvious). As soon as you start talking about it rather than doing it, you are not writing any more. You might be preparing to write, or clarifying your ideas, but you are not writing.

If you are part of a team, you have to talk about it. Writer’s rooms are so successful because they give you the chance to talk through your thoughts and ideas and give you a break from your own head.

But my failure to write is just that – my failure. It isn’t on anyone else but me. Which, at the end of the day, is a good thing. Because it means that I can also fix it.

Writer, know thyself

I finally figured out some of the reasons why I am a failed writer.

• I am afraid of articulating my thoughts and ideas.
• I am afraid of not being able to construct my arguments well enough so that they are indisputable.
• I am afraid that I will be ignored and ridiculed.
• I am afraid of committing the time to write when I could or should be doing other things.
• I am afraid that I can’t actually write. That the words will not come or if they do, they will be lacking.
• I am afraid.

This last point is the crux, the heart, the centre of my pain. I am afraid. Every time I write. Every time I don’t write. Fear has been winning so convincingly that I didn’t even realise I was in the ring.

From KO to OK

The only solution, it seems to me, is to carry on regardless. I have tried to write to imagined deadlines, and I’ve tried not writing at all. Neither has made me productive as a writer or happy as a person. As soon as I set a goal I become crushed by it. It makes me feel weak and powerless, and I don’t want to play that game anymore.

The obvious solution is to step back and write about writing, and not-writing. Redemption by proxy? I can jive with that for a while. Helping others to help myself.

And so I stand before you, a paragon of failure, ready to help you achieve your writing goals. You would do well to read this, ignore it and then find your own way.

Here are my writing tips:

1. Don’t live in your head all the time.

Get those words onto paper, your hard drive, your phone, ipod,  tape machine – anything to you available to you! Make your ideas real by committing them to a medium you can examine, probe and develop. This is the only thing that really matters. Write every single day.

Do the damned thing and FINISH IT.

2. Write for a reason

Tweeting is writing if you do it with purpose. Same goes for blogging, doodling, editing, notes, bullet points and 3000 words posted on a role-playing forum. It is writing if it has a purpose. Make this your mantra.

If your writing has no purpose, if you are just filling your time and pretending to be busy. You are not writing. You are wasting your time.

OR – WASTE YOUR TIME ON BEAUTIFUL PROSE, well-turned sentences or notes of interest. Keep doing this long enough to figure out what you are writing and why.

3. Make yourself accountable, in a way that works for you.

Some people need word counts, or writing sprints, or someone checking on them, or a combination of these things. Follow a method for a week. See if it made a difference. Be honest about whether you really followed the program. Decide if you need to give it more time and then do it, or follow another program.

OR – DON’T DO ANY PROGRAM AT ALL – just write. Often. Messily. Without a clear goal. If you keep going long enough all those bits and pieces will start to make sense.

4. Check your goals every week.

Most successful writers are incredibly focused on their goals, deadlines and output because that is how they became successful in the first place. Plan what you want to have finished by:

• this week,
• this month,
• in the next six months,
• by the end twelve months,
• in two years

Make sure you assess how you are doing every week and update your plan accordingly.

OR – DON’T SET ANY GOALS AT ALL. Just do the damned work for now and figure out your plan later. Once you are getting somewhere, you will know. That’s the time to decide what you want to do with your stuff.

5. Read writing blogs and books.

Learn your craft from people who know, or can tell you what to do. They have been there, taught that and know what they are talking about. Structure, grammar, pacing, flow – you can learn how to do these things.

OR – DON’T DO ANYTHING EXCEPT WRITE. Find your own voice, your own style, by simply writing. And finishing what you are writing.

It’s easy to not be a failed writer. Just follow these steps to the letter and you will be golden.

Today I am not a failed writer. Today I decided to write this article, edit it quickly and post it.

I finished it.

And that’s the real point.

POST SCRIPT

In my haste to actually finish, I forgot to mention why I wrote this today. My friend, Shevonne, posted a link on Tumblr to ‘Five Realizations that Helped Me Write Regularly‘, which got me to thinking about how I could easily write five ways to fail at writing. Thank you, Shevonne!

There are myriad reasons why I want to do this but the overriding factor is that I want to get my discipline back. Setting aside one hour every day for writing (or other creative endeavours) is a small commitment, but I know that in the past few months I struggled to keep to that even that small time frame. A couple of days ago, I saw an article entitled Are You Trapped in a “Shadow Career”? The Artist vs The Addict by by Jocelyn K. Glei, which really resonated with me. The article talks about ‘ Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life’s Work‘  (by Steven Pressfield) and what separates those who are artists only in their imaginations from those that actually work towards their goals. Have you lived in the shadows long enough? I know I have.

Taking the plunge
If you don’t know whether you are cut out for the life as an artist or creative, join the club! But the only way to really know is to  start doing it, and don’t stop until you are sure one way or the other. The Sixty Day Challenge is one way to find out, and I’ll be posting updates regularly here with milestones, feedback, triumphs and mistakes. I would love to hear from you about how you motivate, reward and inspire yourself and other people, and I’ll share all the advice as we go along. I don’t know exactly how this is going to play out, but I do know that I’m excited to find out.

Some ground rules for the challenge:

• The Sixty Day Creative Challenge is open to everyone, and you can start it at any time. I will be starting on Thursday June 28th 2012, the first day of summer vacation over here in Abbotsford, BC.
• If you are doing the Challenge please let me know! I’d love to link to your work, tweets and posts about what you are doing.
• Twitter tag will be #60daysCC, use it and let people know you are using your summer to build your creative muscles.
• ‘Creative’ is a very broad description deliberately. It might be writing, singing, making furniture, crafting, photography – ANYTHING that requires you to step into your creative/artistic space to achieve a goal. The goal can be small or big, it is up to you.
• The Challenge should be challenging, but not impossible! Be realistic. Stretch yourself but make sure it remains enjoyable. If you need help – ask!

Did I forget anything?
I probably did, so let me know and I’ll do updates as we go along. Good luck, and see you on Thursday

Summer: a time for relaxation, fun and enjoying the great outdoors!

And yet…

This year, it’s all about you, me and the tyranny of the blank page*

Writing is easy. In theory. You write one word after another, and keep on going until you are done. Let me list some of the ways I can fail at this most simple of tasks:

Never starting
There are myriad reasons to never start. Here are some of the excuses I have used (and will use again):

• I am too busy with life.
• I am building up the backstory of the characters/setting/story.
• I need to do more research.
• I got distracted by a book/website/all of the internet.
• I was meaning to, but THE WHOLE WORLD got in the way.

Never finishing
Even if I start the work, there’s no guarantees I’ll finish it. Here are some of my current favourites:

• I need to rewrite the whole thing, and that’s too daunting.
• I can’t find a way to join these bits up.
• I’ve got quite far with this thing, but this new idea is so much better – I should start that instead!
• I should blog about that stuff that happened, because that will be done quickly. Then I’ll get back to this.
• I should write, film and edit a webseries**. It’ll be good for my platform. Then I’ll get back to those other things.

Nurture creativity by returning again and again

Doing the work
For me, it’s back to basics time. When I was writing ‘Turning Left at Albuquerque’ I was writing every day, being productive and I drove myself forward using word counts and time spent. Yes, I wish I had spent more time plotting beforehand. Yes, I wish I had not let myself write all around the houses BUT – I did the work and got it done. Now I need to edit it and finish the thing. And get on with the other projects I want to do.

One hour, every day, for sixty days.
So, this is the challenge I’ve set myself. It’s a little bit like Nanowrimo, but I’m not trying to write a book. I’m just trying to create. For one hour. Every day.  My daughter, Emily, has been writing for a long time now and is working on her first novel. Over the Summer she will be completing it and getting it ready for publication and she is going to join in. Another couple of people are also going to try it out, too.

Why an hour, why not a word count?
That’s a good question. I’ve always worked better to time constraints than word counts. I’d rather devote an hour to writing the right thing, than hitting a target of, say, 2000 words. I’ve done the word count part and that left me with a novel that topped 150, 000 words. So I’m trying to be smarter. Also, I can cut myself off from distractions for finite periods of time now my kids are older. They are usually mindful and respectful if I need to get things done, and an hour is a reasonable time slot for both sides.

Jane Espenson (a writer I admire immensely) regularly does writing sprints on Twitter. If it’s good enough for Jane, then it’s good enough for me.

When/where/how?
We’ll be starting on Thursday next week, June 28th 2012. I’ll post more about the details before then, so if you have any suggestions, comments or want to join in – let me know!

The water park will still be there…

* I have tried to find out where ‘tyranny of the blank page’ quote comes from, but it might well be from Jim Coudal at his 2008 SXSW speech. Thanks to LB and Warmaiden for checking it out for me. Librarians are cool.

** To be fair, ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ was not truly a diversionary tactic and was a project well worth doing. In fact, the break away from novel editing was a good thing. But if I do another one before getting this novel finished,  you’ll know I’m really stalling.

My ticket to an exclusive play performed at our house this Christmas, “Life of the Pokemon”. I hope “Bumper to Bumper” is received as enthusiastically.

When I was young radio was a huge influence on me, and I also spent a long time listening to acts like ‘Instant Sunshine’, ‘Hinge and Bracket’, ‘Monty Python’ and Bob Newhart on tape and LP. Writing for radio is a different discipline and you really have to understand how sound works to do it well. One of the comments we received about our BodyLine webseries, ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ was  ”..a radio show with pictures”. That is a huge compliment.

I’m not sure if Radio Slovenia archive their shows, but if they are I will be sure to add a link so you can go and listen. In the meantime I will be writing some new radio plays for them and I’ll let you know more about them soon.

PS I guess I should also say I am HUGELY EXCITED about the fact that my work is being produced professionally by the team at Radio Slovenia! I guess I’m still trying to process the fact that it is actually happening…

Last week Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog: The Book was published that hit a couple of high notes for me:

1. It is the first book about a webseries, and that is definitely something to be happy about since we are in production of our new webseries at the moment.

2. It’s by Joss Whedon and the team he gathered for Dr Horrible – people that I admire and respect.

3. My name and some of my words are in it.

Yes, you read that correctly. I have a whole page in the book!

Next stop – the world?

I admit that I’m pretty happy about having a tiny part in this book’s production. A whole page, in fact. When I wrote to P J Haarsma asking for an interview about the remote control he designed for Dr Horrible I had no idea that two and a half years later parts of that interview would be published. It goes to show that you just never know what happens. You get you head down, get the work done and out there, and sometimes good things come back.

If you are a fan of Joss Whedon then there is plenty to love in this book. I reviewed it over on PinkRayGun.com, so if you decide to buy a copy don’t skip over page 23

Double Rainbow – what does is mean?

I sold a play!

In August last year I received an email that purported to be from a producer at Radio Slovenia asking if I would be interested in selling my radio play “Bumper to Bumper”. To be perfectly honest I nearly binned it as a more sophisticated spam hoax, but it intrigued me enough to reply asking for more information. I have a PDF of “Bumper to Bumper” on this site in my portfolio, so I could see how it possible that it might be for real.

Six months later – profit!

Today, after emails, form-filling and international negotiations the money plonked into my bank account. I’m now a paid playwright! Although I have been paid for writing in the past, this feels different. This is the first major fiction piece I have sold, and it feels…great. When we moved to Canada and I started writing again I spent a huge amount of time on writer’s websites, looking for inspiration, advice and validation. If I spent hours thinking about writing, was I a writer?

Make that several years later – profit?

Although it has taken months for the money to arrive, I actually wrote “Bumper to Bumper” several years ago when I was working in England. I attended a writer’s workshop at the BBC in Manchester and afterwards determined that I was going to break into professional writing. I scoped out new pieces and started to write every day. Before long I had a decent portfolio of ideas and half-written stories. And that’s when it started to get difficult. Ideas are not the problem. Most writers have a billion plot lines, quirky characters and interesting settings up their sleeves. They probably have a number of scribbled openings, shaky climaxes and lots of random notes, too.

Keep on keeping on – writing is a long game

When we moved to Canada and I started writing again I spent a huge amount of time on writer’s websites, looking for inspiration, advice and validation. If I spent hours thinking about writing, was I a writer? If I wrote blog posts, was I a writer? If I completed a novel, was I a writer? If I described myself as a writer, was I a writer? There are hundreds of articles and opinions on what actually constitutes a writer. I don’t think you have to have sold anything to call yourself a writer. But you do need to have completed something, preferably a few somethings. Don’t let anyone else put you off. As Larry in “Throw Momma from a Train” remind us: “A writer writes. Always.”

Finish the damned thing…

While I was ‘researching’ I found a hugely pertinent quote from a writer that I think will some day make his mark.

“1. FINISH IT
Actually finishing it is what I’m gonna put in as step one. You may laugh at this, but it’s true. I have so many friends who have written two-thirds of a screenplay, and then re-written it for about three years. Finishing a screenplay is first of all truly difficult, and secondly really liberating. Even if it’s not perfect, even if you know you’re gonna have to go back into it, type to the end. You have to have a little closure….”

That advice, from Joss Whedon on Danny Stack’s blog, is his #1 tip – and I have to agree. Finishing “Bumper to Bumper”, editing it and sending it off to the BBC all those years ago was proof to myself that I could do it. The fact that it came back because it wasn’t the length they were looking for was secondary. I had completed a play!

Next step – production

“Bumper to Bumper” is slated to start production very soon. Since we are in production of our new webseries “Mind My Brains, Darling!“, I understand only too well how hard it is to schedule things with certainty! Radio Slovenia has decades of experience so I’m looking forward to hearing the play, even though it will be in Slovenian. Will they use the same music? What will the actors sound like? Do the jokes translate??

The novel approaches

This also gives more fuel to a fire that is growing. Since co-writing “Mind My Brains, Darling!” with hubby and seeing that come to life on set, we have mapped out two more webseries. But my first novel, “Turning Left at Albuquerque” is sitting on my hard drive and it keeps calling to me. Writing that was a labour of love but although it is written, it is not finished. No. I am not done with it yet. We started podcasting chapters but something happened while we were doing it. A stark realisation. Although I love the book, that was the problem. It needs editing, and editing hard. I’m going to have to kill some darlings. I’m sure Joss would approve.

Oh – and Happy Pi Day!

The cake is a lie

Someone I know is sitting, preparing for his brother to take his final breath.

Through the last months his friends have supported, joked, wished, prayed, shared the journey that has brought them to the hospice. Meanwhile the family have worked and toiled to help their brother fight: supporting, loving and lifting each other. Sharing trials, setbacks, progress and now, finally, facing the fact that their brother is now down to his final days.

The cancer that would not be beaten is seemingly the winner. Often the terms we use against cancer are militaristic: we fight, battle, wage war. And fighting is good. It keeps us going, gives hope, shapes purpose.  When the cancer recedes we feel the victory, are triumphant.

What then, when the cancer will not be vanquished? Is this defeat?

No. A thousand times, no.

As hard as it is to face, the simple truth is not one of us gets out of this alive. We will all die. Some sooner than later. How can we live, knowing this is the case? What is the point?

Love.

There is nothing else that matters. Money, career, objects, vacations, houses – all nothing. Even with a breaking heart, it is everything to be able to sit with the person you love and know that they love you, and that they know that they are loved. To help them enjoy the things they want to do. Support them in their passing.

This is the victory.

If we all lived every day in awareness and acceptance of death then life would be very different. Love is everything.

To my friend: love and peace to you and your family. You are not alone, none of us are alone. Together, we can all share the grief and the victory.

And the love.