The Way of Life - Part One

Several weeks ago my brother, Jim, filled up the back of my van with boxes of discarded books and magazine/journals after I accepted his offer to search through them for altered book or collage work projects. It took a week or so to go through them, passing many of them on to coworkers, leaving some for the recycling bin and the remainder to the local Veteran’s Hospital reading table.
There were a few books and journals I kept for myself, one of which I kept and read and then proceeded to tear up and work in to the above picture. The Book is called The Way of Life and so my work above is also called The Way of Life.

The Way of Life according to Lao Tzui, a sixth century B.C. Chinese philosopher was considered the Father of Taoism. I was intrigued with this book, the musty smell of yellowed pages, the art work, the sketches, the words were poems, verses, song-like. Of note, I found some really beautiful, very short videos on YouTube on Taoism which had wonderful art work and photography.

So, where am I going with this? I am thinking about my experience of having my first colonoscopy in mid June. I consider myself to be a humble person, however, this experience made me more so, or should I say, the preparation for the procedure did. This was followed by another procedure, a barium about 2 weeks later, as the first one was rendered incomplete.

You know I swore I was going to have a sense of humor about delivering and raising two babies at one time and I’m sure I asked my mother during my pregnancy how she did it. She had an 18 mos old and then twins. I do not know.It’s all a blur. You just do it (like the Nike saying goes) and maybe try to have a sense of humor. I am not sure my mother really had a sense of humor as she was going through it. It’s always easy to tell someone after the fact. And while I would like to think I had a sense of humor through some of the raising of my twin son and daughter, I know for sure, as most parents, it was not possible at all times.

I set about trying to make sense of these very timed instructions the day before the prep day. When I went to pick up this “Go -Lightly” at the pharmacy the technician was confused as to why he could not find my prescription in the drawer. I whispered that I thought my RX was probably TOO BIG for the drawer and pointed to the large white paper bag on the top of the cabinet. He grinned just a wee bit.