5d • The Hearth
Waiting for the Future
About 1990
At some point, I decided to quit waiting for the future. I don't know how many books of wisdom I had read by then. Sufis, the Buddha, Don Juan, all have the same advice: Be present in the moment.
I had a friend who had been briefly my lover. I barely remember the love making, except for an escapade in the Taco Bell parking lot. He was an innovative photographer on the cusp of a successful career.
What I do remember is his fastidiousness, his using a paper napkin to pick up the salt shaker at a diner. He seemed to be a bit of a hypochondriac complaining, about little things like a sore in his mouth that wasn't healing. He kept touching it with his tongue and talking about it. He went to the dentist who sent him to a doctor, who sent him to a specialist, who sent him to someone at the UVA hospital, who sent him to Memorial Sloane Kettering because he was not a hypochondriac. He had malignant melanoma with life expectancy of nine to fifteen months. I was sad and frightened when we were together. It was as if there was a huge damp, ugly, grey cloud that enveloped us. Then, at some miraculous moment, I thought, "What is going on? He isn’t dead today. Save your mourning for the future.” He actually survived another nine years.
1
0 comments
Waiting for the Future
Suggested communities
Powered by