I ate beets but a full day had passed and I'd had a few quarts of water in the meantime and so had an elongated moment of dread when I peed dark urine in the shower that night. Not a lovely rosé like the usual beet piss, something more ominous. Sure, there were beets a day ago, and coffee and cocoa powder two hours ago, but, to be sure:
"This is it," I thought, with dread and possible melodrama. And then I did something that surprised me: I felt sad about dying AT THIS MOMENT in life. WHA?
I thought about what I was going to miss. Very little, it turns out, and very simple things, but nonetheless. Mostly it was on par with watching 3/4 of a movie and then having to leave for errands. How will it end? You'll never know.
I got a phone call from a woman telling me her husband, my customer, died, and she was calling to understand his business here. We talked for maybe ten minutes. She cried, and then cried a lot and never stopped. We didn't talk details, and I assured her all would be well tended to, don't worry. I googled her husband and read through the posted go-fund-me's the details of his death. 53 years old, a seven year old daughter. Diagnosed with cancer early November, dead mid December.
I know this is an anomaly, sort of. The time line. Usually everyone gets to suffer longer, allowing for time to adjust. Not this family. I didn't want her to feel self-conscious about crying through the conversation, she had every right to it. Two accomplished people, a young child, a whole life on the horizon. I was late in life when I heard the phrase, "Man makes plans, God laughs."
Whenever anyone references karma, I counteract with Dick Cheney. Five heart-attacks is just the appetizer. Still alive while this customer is not. Trump: alive. Giuliani: alive. They will live forever. My brother-the-extraordinary-human did not. No one I know who got the cancer lottery ticket was an asshole. Of the assholes only Rush Limbaugh didn't make it. The rest prevail.
Every day I live is another day I did not win that lottery. Also, every day I live is a day I could already be dying and just not yet know it. Every day I live I age one more day until the day I am so with age I can no longer maintain this existence solo. Every day I live I think about death, suicide, and when.
I go out on my bike at night and know this risk and I think, well, okay, this is okay, I am not entirely dissatisfied to leave now should that happen, the movie is almost done, the rest is details. It was not until peeing darkly in the shower that night that the sadness of leaving showed itself to me.
I've always loved earth. I'm not nature-centric, I've camped only once, miserably. I prefer to ride on cement than dirt. I've no desire to backpack, hike, canoe, climb. But I love Outside. I love the whole amazingness that all we need already exists, and in plentitude. There are 7,500 species of apples. Obscene! I could do with six, were I indulgent. All that grows, veg matter, so much deliciousness, excessive, really. I love the cycles of food. I am gay with delight when meyers lemons come to the farmers market, you get them maybe a month each year. I love air, sun, the day, sky, moon and stars, darkness, warmth, other planets far away. Rain, clouds, fog, the first snow, the silence of it. Silence. The only time I don't wear a mask is when I ride at night, and I'm overwhelmed by all the smells along the way; fire, eucalyptus, dampness, cold, orange blossoms, wet soil. There is so much to love, to have, to hold, and I live with the eternal sadness of disregard. I watch the carnage of what we do prefer, and at what cost. The daily parade of ego, privilege, entitlement and lack of conscience decimating the wonder of being here.
No, thank you, I think. This is not for me, this daily parade I cannot evade. That will not leave me alone, that seeks me out when I am keeping to myself, that is not happy enough to ruin within reach, it needs to knock on doors, too. Sometimes I get to slip away, between molecules, invisible, outside, breathing it, smelling it, in beautiful silence, sometimes I get to.
I watched the dark urine wash down the drain, a moment of internal panic, maybe this was it, I thought, a pang, almost like hunger, for what was about to slip away: the painting not finished, the meal not cooked, the coffee, the ride, the movie, the plan.
