The weather is cooler; the days are shorter and in my family, this year, it turns out that this means illness passes through the house like rapidly cycling flash floods. We are bleary eyed, hot then cold, irritable, weary, achy and mean. A teacher of mine told me “sickness regresses you emotionally, don’t make any major decisions while you are sick”. . .  I have found myself fantasizing about another life. Packing up and starting anew – but then who will make dinner? I’m all at once angry, self-righteous, over responsible and self-pitying.  Luckily the flip side of this coin is that between tides there is a moment when I see clearly, when the relief washes over me and I breathe again and think “I can do this. This is awesome”. I heard once that the happiest a person can ever be is if say you were lost in a snowy wood and you stumbled upon a warm cabin with free beef stew. I’m that kind of happy today. Relief happy. So, when I can breathe in those awful bits I can say to myself “this is just money in the bank for the equal and opposite of this” – because that is a law of nature: everything has its compliment. Like it or not. And that the dance we do between these extremes is the great game. When we can just be with it, the full kaleidoscope of things, we are living. When we can’t, we grab on to each other and get by the best way we know how until we can get back on with the business of living, evolving and growing so that it becomes easier and deeper and more meaningful all the time.