Don’t be so afraid of losing life that you forget to live it.

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Poet Andrea Gibson died on July 14, 2025 at the age of 49 from Ovarian cancer. Here’s some excerpts from an essay written by her friend and fellow poet Amber Tamblyn from a NY Times article titled: “A Poet Who Advocated Radical Tenderness“.

“Andrea had a unique ability to offer their readers and listeners a way of living, to show us how much we need tenderness, and how to be tender as a radical act. One of the last poems they wrote, “Love Letter From the Afterlife,” was written…for a fractured world. It asks us to do what might feel impossible right now: Soften toward, not away from, one another, even at such a heightened time of vitriol and hate. It was written by a poet who lived their brief life with a consciousness of something bigger than themselves — a collective belief, whether we are aware of it or not, that all of us long to feel less alone. […]

In a poem titled, “How The Worst Day of My Life Became the Best,” Andrea wrote:

When I realized the storm
was inevitable, I made it
my medicine.

Took two snowflakes
on the tongue in the morning,
two snowflakes on the tongue
by noon.

There were no side effects.
Only sound effects. Reverb
added to my lifespan,
an echo that asked—

What part of your life’s record is skipping?
What wound is on repeat?
Have you done everything you can
to break out of that groove?

[…} In 2023, a video Andrea made on lessons they learned after learning their cancer was now incurable, went viral. On a drive, they said, they had done the bravest thing they had ever done. “I picked my head up and I loved the world that I knew wouldn’t always be mine.” They went on, “I think many of us are doing it almost all the time; we are not allowing ourselves joy or love or peace because we are afraid to lose it. Don’t be so afraid of losing life that you forget to live it.” […]

Photo: AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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The days were quiet.
They’re still here. I never thought they’d last.
Through them, ran the sense—like an underground river…
That there would come a time when these days would be looked back on as happiness: all that life could give of contentment and peace…

It still feels like we just live here, day to day.
But isn’t that the beauty of it?…
You know the rain comes down, the sun shines, grass grows. Children grow old, and die.
That’s the holy all of it.
We all know it full well, but can’t even whisper it…

So, you’re happy lad, is that what you are saying?
We have our health.
Peaceful life.
Work that suits us.
What more can you ask for?

— That They May Face The Rising Sun (2023)

Notes:

  • Loved this movie. Great watch on a peaceful easy Sunday.
  • Movie Reviews:

Walking. Sunday Morning.

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4:00 a.m. Another restless night. Deep sleep, waits for another day.

It’s time.

I walk.

It’s been 1,902 consecutive (almost) days on this twilight walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row.

I’m walking at the top of the Marina, warily making my way around rocks, glistening and coated with algae.

I hear soft murmurs.

What is that? I stop, to listen.

Continue reading “Walking. Sunday Morning.” →

Beauty — finding it, making it…

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But like all utopian visions, theirs had its contradictions. They’d sold all their belongings to build a boat. They were abandoning everyone they knew to live afloat, alone, unshackled from obligation and community, from all the things that bind a person to a place or its people, from the day-to-day indignities of ordinary life and the unseen rules whose weight perhaps you feel only in the place you were raised. After all, what is more self-interested than running away?

— Sophie Elmhirst, A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck (Riverhead Books, July 8, 2025)

Notes:

  • One of the best books I have ever read. Highly recommended.
  • NY Times Book Review: “Stranded at Sea, Would Their Marriage Survive? A Marriage at Sea” tells the stranger-than-fiction story of one couple who traded their lives for the ocean — and almost lost them.”
    • “Beauty — finding it, making it — has always been an act of defiance against despair. In Elmhirst’s delicate, humane depiction of the couple, her choice of narrative framing, her pacing and her compassion, she renders “A Marriage at Sea” an act of beauty in its own right. I found myself, alternately, holding my breath as I read at top speed, wandering rooms in search of someone to read aloud to, and placing the book facedown, arrested by quiet statements that left me reeling with their depth.” — Blair Braverman.
  • Sophie Elmhirst official website.

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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Six ribs broken in 14 places. Three breaks in the lower pelvis. Right and left ankle broken. Left tibia broken. Left wrist fractured. Left toes, three breaks. Right clavicle broken. Right shoulder blade cracked. Eye socket, jaw, mandible, all broken. Major laceration back of head. Lung collapsed. Liver pierced from rib bone. The inventory of Jeremy Renner’s injuries, documented by the twice Oscar-nominated movie star himself, was exhaustive. It was a miracle that the actor had survived; he had no right to. Renner had been crushed by his own 14,000lb (6,350kg) snowplough on New Year’s Day 2023. A neighbour who helped him at the scene believes he died momentarily. So does Renner. He tells me it was a very special moment.

“What I experienced when I passed was this collective divinity and beautiful, powerful peace. It is the most exhilarating peace you could ever feel. It’s the highest adrenaline rush. Everything stopped … maybe for 30 seconds, maybe a minute. It was definitive for me. It all made perfect sense.” Does he believe in God? “No. My dad’s a theologist and I studied all religions growing up, so I steer away from religions.” […]

But, of course, there was more to it than willpower. Last year, he released his second album of largely self-penned songs. Love and Titanium is about the accident, and so called because these are another two things that have helped him pull through – the love of family and friends, and the titanium that has helped fix all those broken bones. He was also extremely lucky. Nobody gave him much hope at the time. […]

The first song on Love and Titanium is called Lucky Man. “One day you just wake up / And finally realise / Life is so god damn beautiful / And I ain’t got nothin’ left to lose.” Renner tells me that it took him the accident to realise just how beautiful life was. Now, he says, he wakes up and knows he’s not going to have a bad day. No day alive is a bad day. But it didn’t used to be like that.

— Simon Hattenstone, from “How being crushed by a 14,000 lb snow plough made Jeremy Renner a nicer person: I’ve never been more vulnerable, open and loving‘” (The Guardian, Jul 12th, 2025).

My Next Breath: A Memoir by Jeremy Renner is published by Flatiron Books in April 29, 2025.