Infected

Driving back from visiting with my family in Orange County the other night I was listening to the music that has orchestrated my life, Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Carole King. As I drove I started thinking of friends, family, loved ones no longer here and how much they still exist in my world on a daily basis. As I wandered through my thoughts Joni sang, "you're in my blood you're like holy wine, so bitter and so sweet," and I started to think how life and our experiences within it are similar to inoculations, little doses of all that life has to offer from love to loss and everything in between, toughening us in some ways, softening us in others and turning us into the humans we choose to be. I started thinking about how, when we are with a group of friends, family, loved one's on a regular basis we are literally breathing them in, becoming them as we breath the same air, share the same space, feel the same emotions. We breath them in, we commune with them, and we are left with a warmth that is singular and incredibly special. No wonder so many people inhabit my thoughts and my heart, I have been so blessed with friends, with men whom I have loved and who have loved me, with experiences so vast and varied. Life doesn't come to us, we have to reach out to it. We have to be brave and expose ourselves to all of the things life is, happiness, sadness, heartbreak, love, loss, joy, beauty, ugliness, all of it. . . it won't knock on our door, we have to be infected by life