No Day But Today
The heart may freeze or it can burn
The pain will ease if I can learn
There is no future, there is no past
I live this moment as my last
There's only us, there's only this
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss
No other road, no other way
No day but today
What an amazing day yesterday. I forget just how many times those weather people told us the thunderstorms and hail and more were coming, but they never did. It is a beautiful morning as well.
There was no rain for AIDS Walk, just enough cloud cover to make the day amazing. And again, all those hundreds upon hundreds of people together in solidarity.
Another day or so and there will be pictures, but this post was for something else.
Last night I finally sat and watched my DVD of Rent; The Final Broadway Production, and it was a wonderfully emotional and fitting way to end my day. I don't know if it was my unconscious mind or not that grabbed that DVD on the way to spend the evening with my dear friend John, or not. I mean, what a coincidence! And I think you all know I don’t really believe in coincidences. But maybe on an unconscious level I knew what a perfect choice the movie would be?
RENT, a movie of people living with HIV.
The beauty and heartbreak and then the very heart soaring of the music and story! I never get tired of it.
Watching those characters go through all the human things we all go through, plus the burden of living with a disease that has such stigma attached to it. And we all live with it! Don’t you have to be a monk living in a cave to not know someone who has HIV or who has died due to the disease?
But the movie and play give such hope.
Because we all live with something, you know? I figure one day I will clutch my heart and just drop. It will be over.
I remember being in the hospital once, and coming to the crashing conclusion that one day my heart my very well kill me. This huge blackness swept down over me and I was about to start crying when I heard an inner voice tell me something.
Good. So you know. You know how you are going to leave this world. So what are you going to do with the time you have left?
It was a shock. But I knew that I knew that I knew that voice was right.
I could live the rest of my life in fear, or I could live my life living! I’d rather die parachuting or hiking through a beautiful woods than never taking a chance so that I might live a life in the dark of my room.
And just like that I felt myself lift, and the darkness sweep away. To the astonishment of the techs, a moment or so later, I snapped out of afib. Right in front of them. Instantaneously. BANG!
The heart may freeze or it can burn
The pain will ease if I can learn
There is no future, there is no past
I live this moment as my last!
And that was the beginning. I’ve had back slides, I’ve forgotten the Path, I’ve been bitter and continued to make mistakes.
But more and more and more those dark times are shorter and shorter and shorter.
I embrace life! I love my life!
How Ben Got His Groove Back!!!
So Rent; The Final Broadway Production, was a perfect way to end my day!
We started Walking to show that we believe this disease will END and to remember all those who have gone on before us!
And I ended it remembering the same thing, and knowing that I have to live my life as if every breath might be the last, and to not waste one single breath!
Namasté,
Ben
I can't control my destiny
I trust my soul
My only goal is just - To Be
There's only now, there's only here
Give in to love or live in fear
No other path, no other way
No Day But Today
Rent: Book and lyrics by Jonathan Larson.
The pain will ease if I can learn
There is no future, there is no past
I live this moment as my last
There's only us, there's only this
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss
No other road, no other way
No day but today
What an amazing day yesterday. I forget just how many times those weather people told us the thunderstorms and hail and more were coming, but they never did. It is a beautiful morning as well.
There was no rain for AIDS Walk, just enough cloud cover to make the day amazing. And again, all those hundreds upon hundreds of people together in solidarity.
Another day or so and there will be pictures, but this post was for something else.
Last night I finally sat and watched my DVD of Rent; The Final Broadway Production, and it was a wonderfully emotional and fitting way to end my day. I don't know if it was my unconscious mind or not that grabbed that DVD on the way to spend the evening with my dear friend John, or not. I mean, what a coincidence! And I think you all know I don’t really believe in coincidences. But maybe on an unconscious level I knew what a perfect choice the movie would be?
RENT, a movie of people living with HIV.
The beauty and heartbreak and then the very heart soaring of the music and story! I never get tired of it.
Watching those characters go through all the human things we all go through, plus the burden of living with a disease that has such stigma attached to it. And we all live with it! Don’t you have to be a monk living in a cave to not know someone who has HIV or who has died due to the disease?
But the movie and play give such hope.
Because we all live with something, you know? I figure one day I will clutch my heart and just drop. It will be over.
I remember being in the hospital once, and coming to the crashing conclusion that one day my heart my very well kill me. This huge blackness swept down over me and I was about to start crying when I heard an inner voice tell me something.
Good. So you know. You know how you are going to leave this world. So what are you going to do with the time you have left?
It was a shock. But I knew that I knew that I knew that voice was right.
I could live the rest of my life in fear, or I could live my life living! I’d rather die parachuting or hiking through a beautiful woods than never taking a chance so that I might live a life in the dark of my room.
And just like that I felt myself lift, and the darkness sweep away. To the astonishment of the techs, a moment or so later, I snapped out of afib. Right in front of them. Instantaneously. BANG!
The heart may freeze or it can burn
The pain will ease if I can learn
There is no future, there is no past
I live this moment as my last!
And that was the beginning. I’ve had back slides, I’ve forgotten the Path, I’ve been bitter and continued to make mistakes.
But more and more and more those dark times are shorter and shorter and shorter.
I embrace life! I love my life!
How Ben Got His Groove Back!!!
So Rent; The Final Broadway Production, was a perfect way to end my day!
We started Walking to show that we believe this disease will END and to remember all those who have gone on before us!
And I ended it remembering the same thing, and knowing that I have to live my life as if every breath might be the last, and to not waste one single breath!
Namasté,
Ben
I can't control my destiny
I trust my soul
My only goal is just - To Be
There's only now, there's only here
Give in to love or live in fear
No other path, no other way
No Day But Today
Rent: Book and lyrics by Jonathan Larson.