strange carnival

what to say?  the last night before the fun begins.  i guess i got pulled out of the crowd and strapped into the cancer ride a couple weeks ago.  i sat there with no way to push that bar back up after it got locked into place.  there was that moment of feeling stunned, then quickly i realized i had a whole company of friends and family waving from the sidelines, with enthusiastic, if still tentative smiles.  i listened to the stories of the people who'd been on it before me.  i toyed with the idea that it might be a dream, but i started writing matter of fact emails about mastectomies and head coverings and in writing them sometimes realized, this is crazy, why am i thinking about any of this stuff?  as in, why am i thinking about this stuff?  why me, exactly?  i was hiding under pretty good cover, i thought.  but it doesn't matter now.  it is me.  it's my reality.  right now, that expectant moment just before that lurch which tells you the ride is starting.  that's where i'm at.  and the bar doesn't come up until it's finished.

and yet, as greg said... amazingly, life goes on through it all.  i am strapped to this cancer in one sense, and yet somehow blessedly free to take in each and every moment of my days, just as before...

case in point:

and if that wasn't enough to convince you how sweet life can be...

thanks friends.  you will help me get through this, waving from the sidelines, but more often i hope, in shared exchanges of the joy that exists in our lives.