Day 26 :: Eat a ripe, ripe peach
"Today is my day to die. For 37 days I have lived as I was meant to live. I have overslept, overspent and used up all of the free samples I had been saving for later. I lived these last days without judgment and anger, and my body liked this. I was kind to people who seemed annoyed. I laughed until I cried, and cried until I could see clearly. I practiced dying by giving up a little of myself every day. I left my possessions where they were needed. My ideas grew bigger and my ego became smaller. I wore color and read whatever people I loved recommended.
Every interaction, every conversation was on purpose and intended for me. If I stumbled and fell, it was because I was meant to learn from the ground up. If I made a mistake, I learned how to do it better next time. Language expanded without limits. ‘Yes,’ more often than ‘no.’ ‘And’ instead of ‘but.’ And this is a yes and this is a yes, too. Words leapt from me and danced on paper. I spent most of my time outside because someone was always up for a game of tag or hide-and-go-seek. I ate what tasted good. If someone asked me for money, I gave it. If they needed to be heard, I listened to them. I was everybody’s mirror, everybody’s open arms. Who could not see themselves in me? Who could not love me, love themselves?
Now, on the last day of my life, I am lying still in my yard just before sunset. A great big tree above attends my last moments. The summer sky is crying colors just for me. My two-year-old daughter scooches closer and squeezes my hand for a moment with her tiny, sticky one. She is eating a ripe, perfect peach with such intensity that I think the rest of the world has disappeared for her. I sigh and sink into the earth. Death doesn’t come: only peace."
This essay by Laura Wenner is so gorgeous in so very many ways. The perspective from the last day. The intensity of the rightness, the juice of a peach, the tiny sticky hand of a child. Saying yes. The openess and availability. I want that kind of availability now, that yes, that giving and listening and reading. The recognition that life is a ripe peach.
A copy of LIFE IS A VERB is winging its way to Laura in Pennsylvania with my thanks for opening this up in me.
(If you’d like to submit your answer to the question, "what would you be doing today if you only had 37 days to live," please do. Those posted before the official publication date of LIFE IS A VERB on September 2nd will receive a signed copy of the book!)
