Patchwork

I am acutely aware (and more than rarely am - though not often enough) today of how our lives are a patchwork result of the people who touch us, their experiences flowing into ours. No man is an island, even the man who is sure that he is.

My news came this morning, in rapid succession - one friend facing birth, one facing death. The juxtaposition is breathtaking and awe inspiring. My usual emotional agility (insert hearty laugh here) completely replaced with the utter rigidity of shocking heartbreak, then instantly supplanted with wonder, then bouncing back to the emptiness that engulfs when feeling such a gentle, good heart pass. Today I am more them than I am myself, channeling the experiences of people I love. In the end, I am wrapped in this patchwork of pressed aluminium tiles that becomes a soft and welcoming blanket of life's twists as I and wish I could fold both friends in it and hold them tight, celebrating and comforting. I am not wrapped in the patchwork. I am the patchwork.