This Continuum

I have been thinking a lot about the cycle of life, since I have recently lost one of my dearest friends in the world and because I have been blogging publicly and thinking a great deal privately about Asha Veil, who was murdered nearly a year ago. It has motivated me to keep working steadily on my book, which really is almost done, and get it shipped off. So it goes. Do I sit on this work forever, or do I get past all the self-doubt, the anxiety, the sense that I am not a good enough writer to finish this, all the things everyone goes through as they finish a long creative work, and just send this work out with the belief that it will be okay? Writing is a gamble no matter what.

And so I have been doing editing every day, finishing the recipes that begin each section, working until my body tells me it's time to stop. What does this have to do with all the losses I am experiencing? These tell me that I do not have unlimited time, that one day I too will go into the great mystery that my friend Maudie has entered, and I do not want to leave this earth with regrets about what I have not done. The death of a loved one, especially one I have known half my life, reminds me of that now.

And so, before I go to bed, I am going to take a few minutes and see if there are a few more edits I can make, or one or two lines I can write. And then I will sleep, knowing that I chipped away at the writing a bit more.