It’s one in the afternoon, I’m in Fresno, California, seeing relatives, and the world of visiting and catching up has stopped so my great-aunt can watch Days of Our Lives. (This addiction apparently runs in my family, as both my dad and my aunt “can’t miss” this show.) Anyway, as I plan to start my way back to Albuquerque tonight after dinner, I’m giving myself fifteen minutes to blog, then I’m going to try to take a nap. We’ll see how it goes. Currently I have a lot of thoughts running around in my head, and it may be difficult to shut off my brain.

I’m thinking a lot about my grandfather (my dad’s dad), whose sister I’m visiting. He’s dead now, as are all of his brothers and sisters (there were eight altogether), except my great-aunt. I guess I’m thinking I wish I’d know him better, wish I’d known all of them better. But–obviously–he’s gone now, and most of them were gone before I was even born. So what do you do?

Personally, I try to be grateful for the time I did have.

Last night in my history of alchemy and mysticism book, I read a phrase that described life and thought it was spot-on–“the terror of the situation.” Joseph Campbell talks about this–how honestly horrifying life is, since it quite literally feeds on itself. One thing–one person, one relative–has to die in order for another to live. It’s simply the way it is.

Terrifying.

Another phrase used in the book that I’m stuck on is “the yes and no in all things.” This phrase was used in the context of life being an interplay of two polar opposite forces–love and conflict, yin and yang, coming together and tearing apart. To me it means that we’ll always find things we like and things we don’t like in any given situation because this is the world of duality. Here’s there’s up and down, give and take, regret and acceptance. It’s not one thing and not the other; it’s always both.

“So are the days of our lives.”