A good friend speaks glowingly of the value of meditation, and I completely believe her assessment. Meditation probably would help me make progress toward achieving some of the serenity I hope to find. At least temporarily. But before I even begin, I can feel a tangle of random, unrelated thoughts ricochet through my brain. When I try to calm them, corral them, keep them from interrupting what little peace I can muster, they assert themselves even more aggressively. Soon, my attempt to empty the thoughts from my mind has, instead, invited into my head a cacophony of noise and frenzied ideas. The idea of learning how better to meditate by joining a group of more experienced meditators has little appeal. Listening to recorded guided meditation has more interest to me; now, if only I can muster the discipline to pursue that guidance…
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If I had not already gotten dressed, I would seriously consider going back to bed right now, though I doubt I would be able to sleep. After I woke sometime around 3:30, I tried to get back to sleep, but by 4 it was apparent that would not happen. So I got up and got dressed. But now that I have consumed my first cup of intense caffeine in the form of dark espresso, sleep seems even more appealing—not necessarily attainable, though. So, I will simply chill for a while.
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Now is the age of anxiety.
~ W. H. Auden ~
So far, the side-effects of last Thursday’s chemotherapy have been relatively mild. The most significant and most annoying has been, and is, the pain in my left knee—which periodically wanders up and down my leg and then changes to the other leg. That allowed sleep to come only occasionally last night. Fatigue has not yet—and I hope will not—set in. Several other modest irritations, though, combine to remind me that I can expect several days of enough discomfort to remind me that I am in the midst of a scuffle to try to beat back the recurrence of lung cancer.
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I have whittled away at the morning for more than two hours, with nothing of consequence to show for it. The official sunrise will take place about five minutes from now. Daylight spreads across the sky, filling the bits of darkness between leaves and under branches. Soon, the silence and solitude of early morning will be replaced by the obligations of engagement.
