What is and what is not.

Four days ago I received a call about my father's second-year PET scan after a run in with cancer in summer of 2009. The message from the doctor said that there were "significant findings" and that an appointment needed to be made for a biopsy. I decided that if the results were positive, I would move back to California. Three days ago, my sister drove my father to Stanford for the biopsy.

I have been struggling to keep my head above what has been an enormously overwhelming week. The reality of where I am in my life, everything that I have lost, and what I have left to lose weighs heavily on me. My actions have cost me the most important people in my life and it is a difficult change. I have decided to be frank, here, because I think its important: I know that my choices have brought me to enriching, awakening, beautiful experiences and people that I never otherwise would have crossed. I know that I wake up in touch with every hair on my body and that for the first time in my life, all of my insecurity and anxiety have melted away. Suddenly, I know who I am and that I am meant to be alone during this time in my life. Still, the consequences of this have been devastating and not a day rises that I am not woken by the sorry and sadness of it all.

A very important woman in my life showed me how to have faith. At each crucial juncture in her life, faith has brought her comfort and at the most difficult moments in my life since I have known her, her faith has generously brought the same to me. There is a tree on the property here that stands alone, making a perfect sphere of shade on an overgrown field. The grass inside this circle is smooth and matted from various creatures resting beneath it and so, every day, I sit below the tree and listen. This week, for the first time since I was a kid, I prayed for my dad. I don't know what answers or how it does, I don't know whether I have a right to ask at all, but I know that these moments fill my heart and visit me throughout my days in the garden and around town.

Yesterday my father called me to tell me that the results were negative, and he is still cancer free. Next week I will find a way to Montana to be with my family and then I will return yet again to the road to try to understand these lessons, to find a home, to give every ounce of love I have to everyone I meet, and to appreciate the most generous gift I have ever been given: the understanding that we are a part of something enormous, and that if we trust it, it will help us find our way.