I intend to write my way into healing.
That sentiment came to me once before, in the depths of a life-threatening illness. I came to understand that I also need to heal how I think and how I live. I know that healing does not necessarily mean cure. There may be no cure; there wasn’t and isn’t for my illness, at least not according to the medical authorities, at least if I assume their authority. Giving them authority is what I was trained to do. There are doctors and there are patients, those who know and do, and those who do not know and who are done to. To whom and to what I give my authority and why are bound up with my fear.
Writing has been my lifeline, ever since I was ten years old and received my first diary, the kind with a tiny lock and key and a fake leather cover embossed with a multi-colored jewel-like pattern and the words “My diary.”
Heal (v): to make whole. If I need healing, if I am not whole, am I broken?
There is an old story, a very, very old story about brokenness and healing. In the Kabbalistic tradition, it is said that God created ten sacred vessels to hold divine light. The vessels, however, were not strong enough to contain all that brilliance, and so they broke into pieces that scattered all over the universe. It is our job as humans to restore order and harmony, to gather the shards by living prayerful lives and acting in ways that are of service to the world. In Hebrew this is known as tikkun olam, the repair of the world.
And so, according to the story, the first step of healing is to live a prayerful life. It is what my illness taught me, as well. Before I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, I was already old enough, of course, to be thinking about mortality, but only in a vaguely troubling and distant way. When it got directly in my face, I realized to the core of my being that there was no time to lose. Whatever work remained to be done, whatever gift I carried had to be delivered to the world without delay. In the words of the 15th century Indian mystic Kabir:
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If I stayed trapped, I foresaw being consigned to that apartment in the City of Death. I have heard there is an old saying: When death finds you, may it find you alive. That is what I want. I want life! Mine, others, to see it everywhere.
