I've been thinking a lot about death lately.
Not death, precisely, but about life, and how much of it I may have left.
I'm not sick. In fact I feel wonderful-I can complete a crossfit class, facilitate a meeting, then go home and parent my kids. I fit so much into a day!
It's just that I'm not certain that I'm doing it right, this life. How much time do I have left? How many healthy, capable years remain- years in which I might travel and write and take that improv class? Ten? Thirty? Is that enough time?
Am I spending my days in the way that I should?
Today I heard an episode of Radio Lab- my favorite podcast- in which they played tapes of Olier Sacks in his final months. In these tapes, I could hear Sacks writing furiously.
He wrote until he could no longer hold the pen, then he dictated. When he no longer had the strength to dictate, he rested.
It seemed heroic to me- writing furiously until the end. They say that Sacks did his thinking on the page and I believe it. Writing is how I make sense of the world. Shouldn't I be writing furiously right now, every day? Or baking furiously, or tangoing furiously?
What is all this activity that takes all my time? Do I really need to DO all these things? What can I just stop doing?
It seems important to get this right.