Yesterday our beloved cat Bella was in pain.  As she lay on the carpet in the sun, I watched her breathing which seemed shallow and she was lying in a strange position.  If I touched other than her face, she howled. I took her to the vet. The pain was in her hip. He gave her a shot and home she came, and we lifted her onto the bed and she’s still resting now this morning, healing.

I’m with the breath, remembering watching my mother breathe when she was in the ICU, and thinking of how she waited for and watched my first breath.  Now I was doing the same with her, concerned each breath might be her last. 

Breath is caress.

I’m so aware of my lungs these days, front, back, and sides, so grateful for their functioning, their embrace within the basket of my ribs.

I’m wanting to re-read children’s books: Wind in the Willows – Winnie the Pooh.

I want to return to simpler times, and yet, my husband reminds me we lived, as children, with the threat of nuclear war, and then, there was Vietnam, so yes, and yet, this feels close and personal, ingested with every breath.

And so today as I wait for the sky to come to light, I sit with the words of Pema Chodron.  

You are the sky.  Everything else is just the weather.