Journal Entry 9.29.23

I am having a wonderful time here in Kathmandu. Our friends just arrived from Bhutan. I am familiar with this area and comfortable here. But grief keeps showing up. I read a book, it ends up being about the author and her grief. I look in shop window I see dancing skeletons. I watch a movie, it ends up being about grief. Grief is close at hand even as I am enjoying myself, even as I am living my life. I wonder if grief will always be my companion. I wonder if that is the cost of being mortal and living a daring life. What I wish for is to not be free of grief, but not to be a prisoner of grief, to not be its captive, held back and imprisoned by what I imagine its hold on me is. I don’t want to be afraid, I don’t want to look for pain. I don’t want to limit my life. I want to be open and aware and that means knowing grief and loss, but knowing its inevitability is different than being defined by it.