Day 265 (only 100 more days to go - woo hoo!)

Have you ever loved a crazy lunatic of a black dog?
Have you ever grown an erythrena from a lucky bean seed until it is 10 ft tall?
Have you ever killed a flock of starlings by accident by putting out warm water for them to bathe in, in the middle of winter, so that when they flew off in -20C temperatures, the water on their wings probably froze causing them to plummet to the ground?
Have you ever laughed yourself silly at a funeral?
Have you ever grown a baby in your own body three times, once two babies at the same time?
Have you ever cast the spell of art, showing children how to express themselves with paint and coloured pencils and graphite and clay and wire and papier-maché and all kind of other things?
Have you ever lost your mind, your self, your knowledge of whose breath you are breathing, during sex?
Have you ever spoken in tongues, but not in church?
Have you ever taught your language, so easy in your own head, to children with another language in their heads?
Have you ever cried for so many days that your eyes disappeared?
Have you ever discovered evidence of fireworks in 'your' meadow and hated the perpetrators with all your heart?
Have you ever been accepted into a clan and given another name, from people of another race?
Have you ever been terrified for your life while people threw rocks at you?
Have you ever lived the rollercoaster of the last 55 years on earth?
Have you ever found yourself enchanted, almost every school morning for ten tears, by 1200 students singing Bawo wethu osezulwini (The Lord's Prayer in isiXhosa), with that inimitable South African sun shining on all those heads containing such beautiful music?
Have you ever said something terrible in public and never been able to take it back, to rewind it into your mouth and your memory again?
Have you ever created something no one else has ever created, and been so very proud of it, and then given it happily away?
Have you ever smelt fear?
Have you ever loved someone so much that in that moment you feel as though you will burst into noisy blossom?
Have you ever been struck dumb and wet-cheeked by the beautiful radiance of crimson, golden, carmine-flushed, claret-blushed, vermilion glowing incandescence of autumn trees in New England?
Have you ever sat up with a sick child and earnestly made an agreement with "god or whatever means the good" to willingly die in its place?
Have you ever been capable of cheerfully ringing the neck of someone who hurt your children?
Have you ever embarrassed your children by metaphorically doing just that?
Have you ever taken off on bright new wings after getting divorced?
Have your ever taken a gigantic leap and left your own beloved country for another strange and peculiar one? 
Have you ever felt the delicate thrill of a nuthatch's feet on your hand?
Have you ever stripped your moer (lost your temper utterly) in a public place, like an airport, or an RMV, and been ushered into a little room, offered tea and pleaded with to calm down?
Have you ever made a nest on the couch, settled yourself into it, and read a book all day, from cover to cover, melting into the story, and been surprised and bewildered at the mundane life you were returned to after the final page?
Have you ever fallen in love with a meadow?
Have you ever nearly died from eating a poisonous squash you stole from someone else's field?

Have you ever, on this, the last day of summer, gone swimming in the silvery light of the nearly full  moon in the cold waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, floated on your back like a mermaid and forgotten which was the sky and which was the ocean?
Have you ever kept a new year's resolution for 265 days?