Its Christmas eve, its not the one I had in mind – in Australia with my family in the sunshine, swimming in the morning, easy and light.
My friend is in a fight. The 2nd round of radiation began yesterday, today he is in the ER because of the pain. I don’t think he’ll be at the lunch we had planned for christmas day, he’s busy fighting the cancer that wants to eats away at his brain and bones, his body, his young life. We have for years jokingly referred to him as the “cornfed country beast” though he’s not really country. He has however, alway been a strong, and powerful man, an artist – a sculptor whose graduating show focused on the musings of masculinity. His work has always thoughtfully questioned the role we play within the world we create. This christmas Im going to celebrate the fight that is life, that we get to fight..
Can we truly appreciate the gift that is our precious lives without having fought for it or an aspect of it in some way? To get to where we want to be, to love who we want, to be free to express who we are, to do something worthwhile. Don’t we grow up fighting -our parents, authority, old ideas /ways that need changing, our forming selves? The worlds current state at the end of 2014 seems to suggest a fight is on – a battle against a system that just doesn’t work, corporate greed, bad government, racism, discrimination, sexism, poverty and of course there is the fight to save our very planet, our home. I need to be fighting more than I am, often I am just fighting myself..
We all need to fight, for love, for life, for a better way.
