Almost at the end of The Art of Racing In The Rain. What a lovely sad book. It has put me into a melancholy fugue. It’s raining, the first soaking September rain and we need it.

I remember the sad unbearable days so well. I don’t live there anymore but this book allows me to visit again until I shake the sorrow off like a dog and go on.

You see, we all have our animal selves that like to communicate wordlessly.

Love and death are intertwined so skillfully that when we first love we miss the death part. Oh, we say the words, but glibly and youthfully.

But the piper has to be paid. For every step of love we dance, a backward step will be taken. Everything in eternal balance. For every smile a tear until we learn detachment. But love is not detached when humans experience it; it is wound tightly round bodies. Bodies that sicken and die.

Spirits thrive on love; human beings walk hand in hand with death. These days I cherish simplicity and favor solitude. For in solitude is my true companion, the Self.

I once loved a man and a child that went on before me. Now I stay behind and linger with the Self until it is my turn to drop the body. If I could not laugh, I would become brittle and bitter. As it is, writing softens me just enough to survive.

You will never find me teaching intellectual theories of enlightenment. If anything, I will offer up little stories and confessions. On the last day of someone’s life, something in YOU dies. If you are lucky, it will be resurrected on a higher level. That is all anyone can hope.