Pensando en morir-Thinking about Dying

Acrylic on canvas, 7.5 by 10 inches.

Soon this space will be too small

And I'll go outside

To the huge hillside

Where the wild wind blows

And the cold stars shine

Soon this space will be too small

And I'll laugh so hard

That the walls cave in

And I'll die three times

And be born again

In a little box with a golden key

And a flying fish will set me free

Soon this space will be too small

All my veins and bones

Will be burned to dust

You can throw me into a black iron pot

And my dust will tell

What my flesh would not...

excerpts from Lhasa's song “Soon this space will be too small,” on the album “The Living Road.” Friends will recognize the laughing hard part ;)-

Thoughts about dying came as I was rolled into the operating room and was being prepared for my breast cancer surgeries. I thought, soon I’ll be under anesthesia and I’ll “fall” out of my consciousness, and then as suddenly as with a snap of the fingers, I’ll be in it again. Whether the surgery lasts for four hours or ten, it doesn’t make any difference. It is truly “lost” time, where the “I” doesn’t exist. I got to thinking that’s what may happen when I’ll die: I'll fall out of my consciousness, abruptly, but I won't fall back into it., no more snap of the fingers, I'm back. I myself won’t suffer from being dead, “I” won’t even know. Those I leave behind will.

It’s that absolute fragility and unbearable abruptness of the moment of dying that makes life itself much more precious to me now. It makes my loved ones’ lives and my friends’ lives much more precious as it does the moments in which there is “real contact” with people I meet along the way of living. When in that meeting, they’re present in the moment and I’m present, something intensely beautiful can happen. Another thing I realized is that I now have a heightened respect for bones. Bones sum up all the precious fragility of that specific person. The bones contain it all.

I based this piece on Frida Kahlo’s painting, “Pensando en la muerte.” She puts the insertion on her forehead above her magnificent eyebrows. I wanted to put it near my heart. With every existentially important moment I got/get a physiological sensation that my heart “opens up.” I’m not talking about the psychological impact or about emotions, maybe rather the physiological fiber of that... So, it seems only right to put the insertion there. The heart marks the spot.