Half In Half Out

There's a theory that goes like this: you find the book you need when you need it.

It's been true for me many times.

Before I even knew my father was dying and I would be caring for him in an intimate way, I read my friend Mel Wong's favorite book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. It proved to be a beautiful manual for caring for my sweet father who so desperately didn't want to believe his time on earth was ending, that the doctors really couldn't do one more thing for his survival. That book guided me. It helped me be a compassionate and awake caretaker to a person experiencing such a difficult reckoning, a truth my father called "unfathomable."

This morning, I opened a collection of Mary Oliver's poems. I read the perfect poem for the pre-performance nerves that make me want to hide out as this image so clearly suggests. Here's the first part of that poem that helped me, and is helping me still.

Starfish


In the rocks/ in the stone pockets/ under the tide's lip,/ in water dense as blindness
they glide/ like sponges/ like too many thumbs./ I knew this,/ and what I wanted
was to draw my hands back/ from the water - what I wanted/ was to be willing/ to be afraid.