THE BIRD AND THE SCENT OF SUMMER RAIN

"Like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free." Leonard Cohen

First let me say this: I love summer.  I love everything about summer. Roses in June, heirloom tomatoes and sweet corn, crisp white wine and tart Cosmos at sunset.  I love sitting on a porch and talking late into the night as candles flicker and burn low, concerts under the stars, flea markets and farmer's markets, fresh figs, watching the NY Yankees play a home game, and open-toed sandals. I think there's nothing better than peach juice dripping down my chin after a first bite, the smell of newly mown grass, and bike rides along the ocean.  But summer storms are the best. I get a thrill when I see clouds start to gather in a stark blue sky and hear the rumble of thunder. Most of all, it's the scent of the warm earth after the first few drops of rain that makes my heart thrum.  But I was dealt a detour this summer and had to spend a good deal of time away from what I love.  No matter: I understand that this was my season of getting well and it's a full time job.  So instead of splashing in the surf or having cocktails at a tiki bar I filled my time writing.  It was my way of tuning my senses to a higher note, to something sweeter and more positive.  

Before this experience of cancer I didn't really know how much I loved all the things of summer.  Yes, I felt them, yes, I experienced them, but I didn't understand that my soul craved them.  It wasn't until I had a conversation with a nurse who worked with patients who'd overcome life threatening illnesses that I started to understand more about what I was feeling.  She told me that it was as if these people had become more attuned to the life experience.  It makes sense, right?  Who wouldn't?  But here's the thing, it's an almost inexplicable difference. You don't just wake up one morning and become Julie Andrews singing on an Alpine mountaintop.  It's much more subtle. From the first moment you're dealt "the news" to when you're finished, it slowly becomes part of you.  I'm not quite sure what that "it" is, but I know it has something to do with gratitude.  Gratitude for getting the opportunity to see what life looks like on the other side.

As for me, I may actually be grateful to my cancer for allowing me to see that I was too wrapped up in the wants of life.  I wanted to own a house, but that house didn't make me happy because I worried too much about how to pay for it.  I wanted to live in a city again, but when I did the city seemed more foreign than I'd remembered.  I wanted to travel the world, but when I was away I often felt homesick.  These wants went and on and on.  I guess I was suffering from The Grass Is Always Greener Syndrome.  What a waste of time.  Now I've learned that time is not a currency you spend without consequences.  If my illness hadn't been caught, I would have run out of time way too soon. So for me time is now as precious as the rarest element, but life seems so much simpler.  My daily life has been whittled down to the little things.  The get-up-and-do-the-day-right things.  These things may not be sexy, but they're satisfying.  I revel in a good cup of Stumptown Coffee, I photograph a rich blue morning glory in my garden, I celebrate sunrises at the ocean.  There are so many small things in the day that make me grateful, and each every one of them is brilliant and beautiful.

When I was younger I was on a search for a connection to the universe.  I found myself at an ashram in Upstate New York getting up at four in the morning so that I could chant for hours while sitting on a cold marble floor with five or six hundred other seekers. I would look around and see people with their hands to the heavens as they experienced the ecstasy of chanting and wonder why I wasn't having the same feelings. I was numb. Why were they able to connect to the great universal "I am" when I couldn't?  I felt like such a failure.

One day I took a walk with a friend through a beautiful wooded section of the ashram.  It was the peak of fall and the trees were awash with color.  We got into a deep, or so we thought, existential discussion.  It all felt very important.  Hadn't we come to the ashram to discover the answer to this complicated question?  As we talked we wandered into a clearing.  There, standing tall and majestic in flowing robes of orange, was one of the guru's monks.  My friend and I were quite literally stopped in our tracks.  The monk greeted us and asked what we were talking about.  "Oh, nothing important, " I responded.  "Ah," he said with a smile that curled at each corner of his mouth, "you must be talking about life.  And have you come to any conclusions?"  Well, I don't remember who, but one of us launched into an extremely serious regurgitation of what we'd been speaking about.  "It is good that you delve into these questions," he told us. "But see that bird in the tree?" Both of us looked up to where the monk was pointing and saw a small brown bird perched on a branch.  "That bird wakes, finds food, builds its nest, flies, and sings.  It does not question why it does these things. There is no ego there.  No need to know why.  It just is.  Enjoy your day."  The monk then turned and walked up the path leaving my friend and I dumbstruck.  Was it that simple?

I can tell you now that that explanation has stayed with me for all the years since, but never have I comprehended it more than at this moment of my life.  I'm not trying to preach; everyone comes to their own understanding in their own way.  But for me, it has been my cancer that has given me some of the clarity that I was seeking. Sure, I'm prepared for more questions to come flooding in when I'm done with my treatment, but I no longer ask why this happened to me.  And for right now, I am that bird.  I get up in the morning, I tend to my nest, and I sing.

Photo/Text Copyright 2014 Diane Garisto