And in and out of weeks and through a day

For my friend Lara Turchinsky, with whom I have sailed vast oceans. Thanks, my friend.

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“And [he] sailed back over a year
and in and out of weeks
and through a day 
and into the night of his very own room
where he found his supper waiting for him
and it was still hot” 
― Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

My mother used to remark that every time she sat down in a movie theater, she would fall asleep. These were in the post-Dad-dying days where her burdens were heavy and, I suspect, nights restless. We would load into the car during that hot Oklahoma summer and in the cool dark of the theater she'd drift off until one of us would gently nudge her as it was time to go.

In the darkness of the music auditorium I have a similar experience. Away from handheld devices and computers diverting my attention,  from conversations and questions and things needing to be done, I let my mind drift and wander. I visualize my life in snapshots and pictures. I let the music seep in and replenish the dry landscape of my harried mind and heart. Within this space, I have learned to let go.

Tonight I spent a good long while with a blue-period painting projected on my mind. Eyes upon the back of a woman sitting in a small boat, the water is flat, the sky and the sea enjoined in one monotone color. An arial view shows no land. There is no wind for the sail. There is no obvious way north, south, east or west; no clear direction and nothing propelling the boat forward.

It's not a frightening scene. Just dead quiet glassy water, humidity so thick you can feel it in your throat, close. It's a scene that is wistful for a cool breeze and for the clouds to part. It's waiting. It's not knowing how to get moving or which direction to go. It's not knowing what land will look like when you hit it. It's not being afraid of what you will find but confused about how you will get there. It is being alone in a vast sea, and either waiting for someone to come and tow you in or figuring out how to do it yourself. It's a lot different than being a leaf on the stream.

This is what my life feels like now. I can blame it on cancer and its aftermath. I can blame it on the stress and pressure from every side I feel so acutely that it pools upon my skin in bumps. I can blame it on loss and distrust and the feeling of being alone in the world. But the reality is that no matter the cause, it is a long journey of sailing back over these years that will take me to the place that I can call home.

Beginning Again

This is dedicated to my girl, Chapman, because she kicks ass even in the middle of the storm. 

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It takes about 20 sessions of practice before your body falls naturally into the pattern of the asanas, or so my yoga teacher tells me gently as I stumble through poses, remembering four moves down the road that I'd forgotten a critical counter-pose or grounding stance.

What this reminds me is that it takes time for the muscles and neurons to remember work that you did long ago, that starting again simultaneously means reaching back and stepping forward. This metaphor is not lost on me every practice that I wobble through some poses and feel strong on others. But each day I notice new strength, each day I have to push myself to dig a little deeper, each day I wonder when it's going to be easy to do this work with the grace and agility I see all around me.

There have been a number of images stewing in my mind for awhile now. One is of a plastic ball made of interwoven black loops. The ball is a mass of contradicting tensions, you try to pull one loop and the others all resist. Work, children, relationships, love, finances, health, creativity, place, home...all so tightly interwoven that one cannot meaningfully shift without affecting all the rest. A few weeks ago I withdrew from a position I had applied for a few months earlier and the ball relaxed a bit. This week I moved truckloads of stuff out of our house and the ball relaxed a bit more. The kids are getting up 15 minutes earlier to have breakfast with me before work and I feel the ball shifting more. The chain reaction caused by letting one thing go has been tremendous.

Another image is of closing loops, finishing things that started long ago and need to come to a close. Next month I make my last and final journey to New Orleans for my final phase of reconstruction surgery. I've come to realize that this is it, that after this surgery I need to be done, that the space my body will occupy at that time is what it is, that it is time to just let it freaking be. I am thankful that this is coming to a close, thankful to turn the page on that particularly shitty chapter of my life and healing. Another loop to close will be making peace with what my body has been through in the past two years. That one will take longer, no doubt. This idea of closing loops comes from my dear friend Jenn who talks about eating the elephant one bite at a time. Yes, indeed, one bite at a time.

Finally, I have the image of D as a baby flash in front of my eyes from time to time. When we would travel with D as a baby, we would marvel at the most amazing leaps in growth he would make when we were away. It was as though leaving his regular environment and engaging with new surroundings would allow his mind and body to open up in remarkable ways.

My (fantastic, oncology-focused) therapist talks a lot about post-traumatic growth and how living through major life crises like losing your mother and having cancer can trigger positive shifts, perceptions, opportunities, connections and growth. It's a time where I feel like I need to recut the puzzle of my life, to bring in new ways of looking at things, to create the life that is compelling to live, to grow and shift perspectives, to answer the question "what are you going to do with your one precious life?" And like those periods of growth for my tiny boy, this time is counterbalanced with deep emotions and the need to sort and sift and figure while others have to be patient with you as you fuss and stretch and try to consolidate in this new space. It's learning to wobble on those shaky baby legs that, in time, become strong.

Checking in

Day three in the hospital down in the Big Easy and things are going really well. This experience is so different than the last. I feel safe and secure, comfortable with what is happening. And, the weirdest thing is that I have boobs again. Seriously, it's weird. You get used to what you have, what has happened, what you know. I'm not sure how they did what they did, but they are less Frankenboobies than I thought they'd be. We'll see. I came here hoping I'd have a Mardi Gras-worthy rack :)

So, things are going well here. Thanks for all of the love, support, positive vibes. Lisa comes in on Sunday, Nick goes home for a few days.

Begin the Begin

Today was an end and a beginning.

It was my final appointment as a cancer patient. It is the beginning of my life as a person who is, in some ways, managing having a chronic disease.

We sat with my doctor as he spoke about the rules of the game going forward, about the inevitable worries that crop up, about when to call and what not to worry about. And then it was over.

Over. And so very strange.

Nick and I both walked out almost feeling like "what happened to us these past 10 months?" When you aren't in the middle of it anymore, it feels a little blank.

I had cancer, now I don't.

Or do I? Or will I? Life is back to normal, stuffed too full of things to do from family to projects to dust bunnies. In many ways, it was like it was all a dream.

This ending is almost more strange and sad and bizarre than the day they unplugged me from chemo. The finality of it is confusing.

I was not sick, then I was, now I am not.

I didn't know I was sick before and I don't know if I will be in the future. Part of me still doesn't grasp the fact that I had cancer. Isn't that strange?


Part of me does not grasp the fact that I had cancer.

I keep repeating that in my head, trying to get it to sink in.

How do you survive something you've never really accepted?

This is all part of the restarting. I can floss my teeth again. I can exercise in real ways. I don't have to use so much hand sanitizer. My hair is growing back in.

In 6 months, will I remember any of this?

Let's begin again, begin the begin...

The Buzz

I am shedding like a Golden Retriever. The floor of our bathroom is a mess of grey and brown hair. It's on my clothes, it's in my eyes and on my face. When I shower I lose so much hair the water can't get it off my skin. The 14th day after chemo hit and, man!, they weren't kidding about the hair taking a hike! I am dying to shave it off but I am worried about trying to do it myself (god, can you imagine?). Besides that, Nick and the kids are in Oklahoma for the weekend and I think it would slightly freak David and Ava out if they came home to me with no hair.

I've been sitting a lot with this today and realizing that there is a rhythm to the readiness of getting things over when you are standing on the edge of a big change. Part of me is really ready to get the port put in and get on with the treatment, although I'm glad we are waiting and testing and trying to figure out why I got this blood clot. It's the same part of me that wants to shave the damn hair already. For as unprepared as I feel to face some of these things, the anticipation is worse. This applies to the reality that in a week I will be shooting myself in the belly every day with heparin, which for a needle-phobic person like myself is akin to, I don't know, putting one's hand in a rattle snake bag. So I sit between the anxiety that comes with anticipation and my mother's no-nonsense "get it over with" attitude, not knowing which way to swing sometimes.

This weekend I elected to stay in Ann Arbor by myself rather than get a last minute ticket back to Oklahoma for our annual 4th of July celebration with my family. I needed a little head space, needed to buy some new clothes, drop off my wig to get cut (still on the to-do list), find some hats and cotton scarves (half-way done, need help on that one!), and send things back to people (dishes, gifts, etc).

I also really needed to be able to sit and think for a bit, re-arrange my brain and heart and mindset around this chemo phase. Chemo is so less tangible than surgery or reconstruction. At my stage of cancer, it's not as obvious why you are doing it as you are treating something that *might* be there instead of something you can touch, feel and see. Watching friends and loved ones go through chemo (and, frankly, still die), I have only seen chemo as a barbaric thing that lays waste people's physical and mental being. I have to keep reminding myself that breast cancer is not lung cancer, that this step helps me be here longer, that my disease is not my mother's disease or Bruce's or Julie's or... This is a different treatment and I know that, but I can't seem to shake the sinister feeling that chemo gives me.

My friend Kim gave me some really good insight the other day that has really helped to shape my thinking today. She told me that I had to stop thinking of the chemo as a caustic, poisonous invasion of my body and instead think of it as healing nectar. Yes, nectar that makes you feel like shit, but a nectar to welcome in to do its work so that I can live a long and healthy life. That is a major adjustment in my thinking, honestly, but one that I know deep in my heart is important. I know in order to make this work I have to ask my body to welcome this substance, to take advantage of what is can eradicate, to allow its presence to do its job. While I think my body doesn't love the chemo, it hasn't reacted to it in all the worst ways (yet? please no.). So I am going to spend today getting in touch with that idea and visualizing how that matter of acceptance could work for me next Friday.

So the next post will be a picture of the shaved head. I've been reminiscing on my fascination with Sinead O'Connor and Grace Jones as a teen. Who knew I'd be mimicking them at 40? Forty and sporting a buzz cut. Call me GI Jane.