“So the truth was he was dying. That’s what they were saying. He would be dead before the end of summer. By the beginning of September the dirt would be piled over what was left of him out at the cemetery three miles east of town. Someone would cut his name into the face of a tombstone and it would be as if he never was.” – excerpt from Benediction by Kent Haruf

There is the thunking of overhead baggage compartments, the mutter of passengers, the outside hum of engines and the steady shush of air being forced into the cabin. We are on a Boeing 777-300ER. I know this because I’ve just pulled up the safety card, not to familiarize myself with how to survive a crash (because surely they must realize we know the odds of that scenario) but so that I could name this particular Air Canada beast for what it is.

I also know that, like so many things in life, I am making sure not to think about the logistics of a massive shiny tube successfully hurtling us through -66.0 Celsius space to land on a completely different side of the earth (which also happens to be a big blob of dirt and salty seas that is concurrently spinning wildly whilst orbiting through infinity).

So yes. I’m not thinking about how this is at all feasible.

But, then again – obviously – I am.

Somehow we manage to do this all the time. ‘This’, being the holding of such incredible dualities and contrasting thoughts and realms. Within our minds and bodies we hold incredible joys and sorrows. No matter who we encounter, it is possible that they are facing some form of pain. Perhaps even a death, either the realization of their own or someone they love, and yet too, they are somehow, impossibly, politely proceeding with the more mundane day-to-day business of life.

These thoughts hit me again as we danced at a family wedding on Saturday night. I looked at the circle of family, arms waving, smiles large, feet flying and I thought of everything each one of us had gone through. The individual horrors borne were real and true and yet there we were, dancing, laughing and proving once again that life has many manifestations.

We were all sharing that dance floor but also carrying within us our own unreachable solitude.

People often yearn for a quiet life. I’m beginning to understand why. Enough drama and pain will always find us. Perhaps, in between those incredible tears in the fabric of our lives, it is enough to just absorb and enjoy the quiet pulse of the day, gathering the strength necessary to once again face the inevitable.

In yoga, most sessions end with shivasana, or corpse pose. We lie on the ground, still, receptive and bearing whatever needs to be borne, knowing that there is nothing that should or shouldn’t be. It is the time for the body and breath to knit together and integrate all that has been experienced prior. Those quiet moments of reflection carefully cup the joys of connection with the bleeding ruptures of loss. Some spills over, some leaks out as tears, but all of it simply is.

Shivasana reminds us that we are here to simply bear witness. Sometimes that bearing is to notice a private smile of love shared between a new bride and her groom. Sometimes it is in those terrible moments when I watch my own grief and have to remind myself to have faith that I will come out the other side; a reminder too, to have faith in the power of life to be all things.

And now, I type this final sentence after arriving in London. Somehow that airborne monstrosity defied gravity and potential tragedy and delivered us into this beautiful new, yet very old, world.

The act of flying still staggers my imagination. And yet, here we are. What surely seems impossible is actually very possible.

Life’s funny like that.