River

(For Noadiah, whose wisdom is gold)

Been traveling these wide roads for so long
My heart's been far from you
Ten-thousand miles gone

Oh, I wanna come near and give ya
Every part of me
But there's blood on my hands
And my lips aren't clean

In my darkness I remember
Momma's words reoccur to me
"Surrender to the good Lord
And he'll wipe your slate clean"

Take me to your river
I wanna go
Oh, go on
Take me to your river
I wanna know  --River, Leon Bridges.

Lines across the page, pen and paint dipping back and forth to ferry color in bits, I sat letting my mind wander through so many things while listening to Leon Bridges' song River on repeat. It's been a grey day full of that thrust that wants to keep things moving forward, reaching, but the tug of the grey is strong and the deep soul of this song will not let my mind rest. I've been thinking about the river all day, about friends who will observe Yom Kippur tomorrow, about the cleansing and healing power of gathering up shame and guilt and attendant sadness and casting it upon the water so it can fan out and away. Tonight over dinner, friends and I were talking about the ritual of bread taking in the quality of those emotions and, in turn, nourishing the aquatic life beneath, the movement of that energy from harmful to nutritive. There is a surrender to the water, be it nightly as I shower or sitting beside the ocean listening to her crash and call. My nightly showering ritual started in a ramshackle college dorm in Rome, Italy where I was living for the summer, two short months after Hunter died. My grief was unmanageable and unmooring, stuffed down by copious wine and a distancing from myself that had gone into overdrive with my dad's death four years before. Nightly showering was a way to strip off the day before I crawled into the twin bed in my lonely room and let tears stream into my ears while I stared at the ceiling. So many years later and in the weeks before I got married, I stood on the shore of Whidby Island and held hands with my girlfriends as they all wished their peace for me before I threw myself into the water of the Sound. I wanted that water to wash me anew, a clearing between what was and what would be. Tonight in the shower I was thinking how beautiful it would feel to be baptized now, at this age, not so much into the realm of the church, but into the light of joy. To receive the intention, to be held and plunged back, to come up for air in the shattered sunlight, cleansed. There is something I crave about that feeling. Perhaps it's surrender. My chest draws toward it. My heart has a need.

Listening to Leon Bridges reminds me that we are most resistant to coming to peace when we feel our most unworthy, when we have blood on our hands and our lips aren't clean. We want to put the pain down, to let the sins and feelings flow away but we feel too broken to ask. And this is precisely why these rituals exist, to allow us to release the shame and the shit and the static that keeps us from one another and from moving forward in our lives. My friend Noadiah told me that his beloved minister once said "Prayers aren't being answered? Well, who are you still mad at?" When he said this, a face lept to my mind as clear as day, boom. There are others, but this is the mad that is sticking the Universe in a loop for me. And it's my own atonement to do, not because I have wronged this person, but because I have wronged myself in holding on to so much anger. 

It's humbling and messy and I'm making my list of things I want to think through as I walk to sit by the water and be present to this idea of giving some of this a rest.

Join me.

This is the Sea

Crouched on the dusty floor of my new studio, light streaming through the huge casement windows, I took a deep breath and lifted the first plastic lid off the first randomly selected box. I'd brought all of the archives into this new space, the boxes and bins of my college and high school history kept for years at my childhood home, my compulsion to keep scraps of notes and cards and pictures and random fragments of my life come to roost in a city so very far away from the ones where I was from. I'd decided that it was finally time to sort and parse, to try to make sense and to try to remember and to be in what was my history at that time as I had recorded it through pieces.

The first piece of paper held my best friend's signature scrawl, the words of a song that sang in our souls at the time, nailing me between the eyes.

Damnit. 

I walked over and dialed up the Waterboys This is the Sea on my iphone and let the music wash over me.

These things you keep
You'd better throw them away
You wanna turn your back
On your soulless days
Once you were tethered
And now you are free
Once you were tethered
Well now you are free
That was the river
This is the sea!

One verse in and the irony of standing in the middle of this excavation hit me.

Now if you're feelin' weary
If you've been alone too long
Maybe you've been suffering from
A few too many
Plans that have gone wrong
And you're trying to remember
How fine your life used to be
Running around banging your drum
Like it's 1973
Well that was the river
This is the sea!
Wooo!

Verse two and I couldn't read the page for my tears.

Now you say you've got trouble
You say you've got pain
You say've got nothing left to believe in
Nothing to hold on to
Nothing to trust
Nothing but chains
You're scouring your conscience
Raking through your memories
Scouring your conscience
Raking through your memories
But that was the river
This is the sea yeah!

Three and my heart broke open.

Because that's really what this excavating was about, the finding, the sensemaking, the retracing steps and remembering who, what and why. Recounting, recontexualizing, renaming what has been lost and forgotten and erased and left behind over the countless miles. The who I had been back then made me the woman I am today.  

Two inches down and I found an envelope containing melted coins from my brother Hunter's car wreck.

Another layer and I found a cache of old love notes.

Another brought a rough letter from my mom.

Another offered hilarious cards from friends sent in the days before texting and email and iphones.

Hot, tired from the sorting and feeling, I was about to close everything up when I looked over to see that unmistakable handwriting once again, this time written across the entire swath of the envelope headed with PLEASE READ THIS.

oof.

My heart went zooming back to 1990, standing in my summer sublet, staring at this envelope from my clever-as-hell best friend. Months earlier, we had a bitter break, one so deep and severe that it felt it would be impossible to overcome. I refused her calls and wrote Return to Sender on every card even as they continued to show up. I was hurt and that hurt felt so huge that I had to throw gasoline on it, light it up and take it all down, even if it meant losing the most important person in my life. 

But she kept at it until one day this letter showed up with her message on the outside, her knowing damn well that I would be powerless not to read it, the message explaining that she refused to give up, that she was standing for me and for our friendship. That she wasn't going anywhere, for life. 

It also taught me a lot about myself: that friendship and loyalty are not light things for me, that maybe I expect too much or don't communicate clearly enough, that sometimes my favorite flamethrower is on deck with trigger finger poised. But also that I am there to extend the olive branch to work it out, show up, be there willing just as she was for me. 

I have never forgotten that act of love, just as I have never forgotten her patience and willingness to put herself out there again and again to rescue something that, decades later, is deeply precious to us both. That day, and the miles with her before and after, taught me about trust, what is earned, what friendship means, about not giving up. That people stay. 

These things you keep. Eternally grateful. Love you, sister.

Into the Waves

White Water was a huge water park in Oklahoma City, a place where legions of children, dressed in all manner of swim and floating gear, and adults, tugging large coolers of processed food and Capri Sun, would convene to escape the boiling summer heat. Our family would make the 40 mile trek to OKC to spend hours running wild, season passes clutched in hand, so exhausted by the end of the day that my mother would have the sweet relief of a carful of sleeping children on the ride home.

White Water had all of the features of a regular water park: the lazy river, the stories-high White Lightening slide, the kiosks where you could get sizzling hot french fries that rested salty against your chlorine-soaked tongue. But the strangest and sometimes most wonderful part of the park was the wave pool. It was enormous, hundreds of people packed into it's football-field like expanse just waiting, waiting. Suddenly the bell would ring, a scream would erupt from the crowd and the water would start moving, great undulations of waves roiling from deep within its man-made ocean.

I've been thinking about the wave pool lately as it applies to life, this wave pool in particular because unlike the ocean, there was a certain rhythm to the waves. You could sit atop of your raft and ride, or stand closer to shore and slam your body, back turned, against them. And there was that middle ground where you weren't quite tall enough to touch the bottom without the waves washing over your head. This was the thrilling, sometimes terrifying space, that space in between feeling solid and feeling the rush of danger. And, depending on the day, depending on how crowded the wave pool was, depending on the strength of your skinny legs to buoy you up, you sat on the edge of being plowed under or keeping your head above water. The rhythm of the waves had not changed, neither had your expectation of them being there, but the circumstances and your place in them became the variables of remaining above or being sucked below.

I've held this metaphor in my mind a lot lately, as friends have struggled with some pretty deep loss and sadness over the past year, as I myself negotiate my own place in the world, as we as a community lean in to lift one another up when we aren't feeling so strong. I think sometimes it's awkward to ask for help, that metaphor of being in a situation where you know that the waves are coming, but you just don't have the strength in the moment to kick yourself above them, or where how hard and disorienting it may be when everyone else seems to sit atop the water on their own raft while you can barely keep your head clearing the water's roiling plane. And, to extend the metaphor, the folks sitting atop the rafts likely don't even know you are struggling, because their gaze is shifted outwards toward the horizon, their perspective raised above what is happening below. But there is room on the raft for two, maybe three even. I know this, and I know the hospitality of that space if I just ask. Why is it sometimes so hard to do so?

I want to keep working with the raft metaphor, or to talk about the strength of pushing off of the bottom and riding the wave, that powerful feeling of not so much the wave striking your body, but the ride of catching it as it comes and not being swept under by it. To push up and engage, the timing of it coming and you being ready, the sheer thrill of knowing that something can drag you under but using your energy, your life force, to meet it and unify, to roll into it and wait for the next one.

Because the truth is that the waves stop until they start again, and they do start again because life is not static and change happens and shit happens and hard things happen all the time. But the key is this: you are not alone in the pool, although you feel that you may be, and your position in the pool is based on your own negotiation. That's the thing I need to remember most. I choose how I work with the waves.

Interior: On Writing

I struggle with this idea of writing. There is a part of my heart that loves it, that loves the release that I feel when I put together something that resonates with me, with others, brings others to tears or laughter or whatever it is. I feel like sometimes this will be my mark if everything falls into the shitter and I leave this earth earlier than anticipated, something for my kids and my friends to hold onto. 

And there is another part of my heart that understands the weird precarious nature of writing, the part that doubts that what I do is useful to anyone that doesn’t know me, that pieces are touching because the people that read them are people who already love me, and that for those people it’s like reading a piece torn from a diary from which you can identify parts and pieces that make sense. But I wonder, really, if these things I trace onto the paper make a difference to anyone outside of the circle of my friends who hold me and my experiences close. I’ve had amazing feedback from people that I have loved and I’ve been really wounded by people I have loved not giving me any feedback. It’s an interesting and tender spot that I don’t want to care about, but I do.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, wondering if that is why I have chosen the rapid-blogging format I use (I don’t know if this is such a thing or if I made it up, but this it’s writing all in one shot, less-than-miniscule-to-zero revisions before posting, get it out and get it up style). If I do it quickly, nobody can remark on the quality. If there are no revisions, I can blow off any mistakes or feedback. If I don’t put in the effort and if I only rely on the whim of the moment, I can’t be expected to be serious about this in any real way. In short, I avoid all of the conflict of criticism or the reality of feedback by being 13 again. My mother would laugh out loud at that idea.

So I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’ve been thinking that I still only really want to write to get things out that I notice, that I love just writing thinking that people I know on Facebook will read it, that I am not a “writer” and I have no aspirations to make this any more than it is. But I need to take this to another level, maybe work in a longer format or build in revisions or begin to take things out of this stream-of-conciousness format that it lives in (as I am typing now) and into something more coherent and cohesive. There is part of me that loves things raw and I have experienced my friends transitioning their gifts from raw talent to tutored and trained talent with mentorship and help and sometimes the transition is rough. I’m not sure what it means to lose your edge and some of the authenticity either. Maybe I’m trying to convince myself already that this is not a good idea, so I’m going to say it before I back away from it completely… I think when I get to Providence, I am going to find a writing coach.

There, I said it.

Now I have to do it. Or come up with a really freaking good reason why not to (which may be, well, I’m not writing coach material).

So wish me luck, friends. I’m peering beyond the edge on this one.

Each for what they are

“Sometimes you meet someone, and it’s so clear that the two of you, on some level belong together. As lovers, or as friends, or as family, or as something entirely different. You just work, whether you understand one another or you’re in love or you’re partners in crime. You meet these people throughout your life, out of nowhere, under the strangest circumstances, and they help you feel alive. I don’t know if that makes me believe in coincidence, or fate, or sheer blind luck, but it definitely makes me believe in something.”— unknown


I have a fool's understanding of the beginning of the Universe, my untutored lens on the nature of its existence peppered with romantic ideas about particles and their attraction. But I love my ignorance, as it allows me to believe what I believe to be the electricity of deep connection, particles from the beginning of time reconnecting, people finding in another something elemental, fundamental, paired, true. It's a coming together of things long ago separated. It's attraction that is undeniable, electrifying and real. 

There is little in the world that matches the feeling of finding belonging in another, and little that matches the exhilaration of allowing yourself to open up to make that connection of deep friendship. This, for me, has happened with only a handful of people in my life and, as my life has progressed, I've grown less available to that possibility. I've been less willing to put myself out there, more afraid of investigating a connection to a new friend that may not fit and to have to back away, awkwardly, from relationships that aren't meant to be. There is a fitting to intimate friendships, as if your heart is made more whole upon connection and diminished in multiples upon loss. If you let it, the losses cause your heart to calcify; to look with a prejudiced eye at the attempts of others; to resist your own awesomely joyful and open nature; to tamp it down, lock it up, seal it off.

But the truth is that they are there, these connections well-worn and those not yet hatched, even if you try to keep yourself from them. Sometimes they last a lifetime or two, sometimes they intuit when you need them, sometimes they are moments in your life stitched together just for the moments that they are. You leave the ones that don't work out behind and relish the ones that stay. You chip away at the calcification and warm up the veins. You recognize each for what they are and for what they bring to your life. And you are grateful.

Grief is a Sneaky Thief

Sluggish from the cold and cranky from not eating, I bolstered myself for the inevitable acres of ugly shoes I would find on the other side of the department store door. I was looking for shoes for a trip the next day, my least favorite past time when "shoes" meant boring, flat, uneven-pavement-appropriate foot coverings that also had to work with suits. Bah.

The ugliness of the shoes did not disappoint. Laps and laps around tables of tricked out clogs and pilgrim-buckle flats was proving to be fruitless and frustrating until I heard the sound of laughter coming from a section of chairs. I looked over to see a grey-haired woman in her mid-60s walking away in a pair of shoes, her daughter near me with a half-laughing, half-exasperated look on her face.

"She can be so difficult with these things," the daughter smiled. I looked up again to see this woman, so like my mom with her jeans, her silver-top short hair, her sweater and vest, sparking eyes and great smile taking another lap to test out her selection. My breath caught and a lump swelled in my throat. "Your mom reminds me of my mom, actually," I said. "My mom's been gone for two years. She was a handful too." It was all I could do not to add "Treasure these moments because you never know what is going to happen next."


The jealousy I felt for that daughter in that moment was completely overwhelming. I walked away, trying to fight back the tears and compose myself, all of the angry thoughts about my mom dying too early rushing into my mind and heart. I wanted to run out the door, leave so I could get rid of the visual as quickly as possible. Instead I circled back around and struck up a conversation.


True to my initial perception, this woman was every bit as spunky and fun as my own mom. We complained about the ugly shoes, talked about how people don't dress for work any more, giggled about how shoe shopping in such conditions nearly drove one to drink and agreed that a drink this early in the day would surely be fodder for the gossipy nature of our smallish town. And then, they picked up and walked out with gracious goodbyes, a twosome together on to their next stop.

It was, for a moment, a strange sort of contact high. In a parallel space, my brain kept saying "It's like I can be with my mom, but not really. This is like being with my mom just for a minute. Is this good, or is this bad?", both taking me out of the moment and drawing me deeper into it. I bought my ugly shoes and stumbled back out into the rain, a bit fogged as to what had just happened.

I sat with these mixed emotions all night, trying to talk myself through the roller coaster of feelings I was having. It was an unusual night, my family away and friends that I usually turn to not available. For the first time in a long time, I had to sit with it on my own and deal, just deal, with my feelings and sadness. I just had to be with it.

Grief is a tricky thing. Sometimes it's a rubber ball let off in a room, zinging and flying all around without any sense of continuum or trajectory. Sometimes it's a sneaky thief that catches you unawares and tries to take something from you. Most times, you have to fight the urge to run away from it, instead standing with pain borne of loss, but borne of good memories and deep longing. Standing with grief, leveling with it, exposing yourself to it is the journey of anyone who has suffered loss. It's the path to recovering from that suffering. It's the way to begin to heal and move forward. It's a bitch of a job.

I like to imagine that at some point in a department store in Oklahoma City many years ago, someone else had the experience I did yesterday with a woman and her three daughters and the laughter and love that showed through. I like to imagine that the woman and her daughter I met yesterday somehow knew that they made a difference in my afternoon. I like to imagine that we provide spaces for each other in this reconnecting to things we have lost along the way. I like to imagine my mom would have found a certain beauty in this story.

Our Table

Sunlight danced like diamonds on the swimming pool. Mia was doing this crazy nose-and-mouth above water thing as she traversed the pool, Jakey was all love and jumping in and splashing around. Deb's kids and my kids and Marie's kids were in the malay too, shouting and cheering each other on as they made up games on the fly. We women (and one man) sat around the edges of the pool sipping the most divine gin and tonics with extra lime made by the fabulous Lisa while Lynn's spicy concoction of meat sizzled on the grill. It could have been a scene from my own childhood...the savoring of occupied and happy children, the mellow buzz of a perfectly made cocktail, great friends and a beautiful summer day. I think back on this day, and so many days like it, with total relish.

I think of another day, a day that I remember so well because the beauty of it hit me in the moment. Lynn and Lisa and Jake and Mia were over for dinner. Crowded around the table theirs and ours were quite a whirl of animation, amazing food, great wine and fun. Our children were deeply entwined with Lisa and Lynn's children telling stories, arguing, laughing. Nick and Lynn were talking gardens, Lisa and I talking shop. I remember catching the moment, it freezing for a second and thinking "My kids know this as totally normal. My kids see Lisa and Lynn and their partnership as no different than their dad and myself." Huge tears sprung to my eyes as I looked at Lisa, my friend from so many journeys who grew up in a conservative oilfield environment like I did in Oklahoma, and thought "In a generation we've changed things, just a bit, just in our corner of what we can change. But it's something. It is."

I'm pausing here because I just don't know what to write next. I want to talk about how wrong it is that we systematically discriminate against gay and lesbian families in this country. I want to rail against the hetero community for believing they own "marriage" when we do such a tremendous job fucking it up. I want to ask why people feel compelled to mandate how other people live their lives. I want to ask all of those folks that point to passages in the bible for their bigotry to bring me proof that they follow all of the bibles other statements or "laws" and then we can talk.

My children are surrounded by loving families in this community. Their best friends are bi-racial, many of our closest friends and family members are lesbians. As much as my children know that there are many places to feel at home in this world, they know that a loving community is built by enabling people to love who they were meant to love, to partner with the individual that they choose without fear or condemnation. I hold in my heart that this "normal" for them will give them the power of their convictions. That they will have high expectations of the world. That their current shock and disbelief at laws they see as "stupid, mama, just stupid...that makes no sense at all" will propel them to tidy up what will, ojala, be a relic of a past we are eager to leave behind.

North Carolina's new constitutional ban is every indication that this is not going away any time soon. But old ways of thinking die, literally, with the passing of generations. I'm investing my time, love, energy and money in what is to come.

Lisa and Lynn and Jake and Mia, our table is set for you always. It's one of joy and love.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

I'm pretty sure that it wasn't a day like today, where the sun is shining through the windows and my beautiful girl is playing "Ode to Joy" on the piano just feet away. And I am pretty sure it didn't even occur to me when I made the biopsy appointment that my official "diagnosis day" was going to be St. Patrick's Day. And I know exactly where I was on March 21st, 2011, the day I will always think of as my own personal "D day".

It's been 365 days since I sat at my desk and heard the words "cancer", "Invasive Ductal Carcinoma", "grade 3 tumor", and "breast surgeon". The capable side of my brain had clicked into gear and I was dutifully writing down everything the radiologist said, asking the right questions, knowing that my husband would want to know the details so he could launch his own fact-finding mission.

And then there was the call to Nick, which brought it all to the surface and the second call to my dear friend Ashley who was wired for Ann Arbor breast care doctors and the third to my sisters. And then the numbness of that hour and fifteen minute drive home when I just didn't know what to do, think or feel.

I sit here a year later, feeling like it's been more than a year and in some ways wondering where the time has gone.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.
365 days.
12 months.
1 year.

When people told me it would be a year of my life, I screamed. I was furious. "I don't have time for this! I have a new job! I'm turning 40! It will NOT BE A YEAR!"

But it turns out that it's taking more than a year of my life. There is the year of fighting cancer, of re-arranging your body to keep it safe and re-arranging your life to up your chances of survival. Then there is the next year of your doctor telling you that you have to lose weight, that you have to get back in fighting shape. Yes, fighting shape because you are still fighting. And one year stretches to five and your "illness" becomes something to manage long term.

And the only thing that gets you through, the only thing, the ONLY thing is the love of people around you.

So today I am thinking about those five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes that have moved through my life this year. As I am typing this, the beautiful song "Seasons of Love" from the musical RENT keeps running through my head.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, a year in the life?

How about love?
How about love?
How about love?
Measure in love

Seasons of love
Seasons of love

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand journeys to plan
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?

In truths that she learned
Or in times that he cried
In bridges he burned
Or the way that she died

It's time now, to sing out
Though the story never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends

If I could to add my own minutes, they would be measured in:

special dinners delivered with love
minty rosemary spray
threats of pink jumpsuits
wigs from friends
Hermes scarves
sisters' love
rides to chemo
hugs from co-workers
cinnamon rolls
special bracelets
I love yous from my children
strength from my husband
curiosity from Kindergarteners
stolen hours at chemo
breakfasts at Zola
understanding bosses
cheers from my wise elders
missing my mom
love of the fuzzle from my niece
laughter
laughter
laughter
thoughts of fairy-dust shooting nipples
worry
sadness
fear
joy
strength
courage
beautiful parties
hugs from friends
clipping shears
coffee between labs and infusion
the smile of lab techs
occluded veins-because they should be
learning to accept appreciation
carpool talks
deep conversations with total strangers
hearing everyone-knows-someone's chemo story
cake appearing out of nowhere
looking forward
looking back
looking forward
looking back
looking forward and forward and forward again.
more things than I could ever describe here

So I end today wondering what this means for this blog. What started out as a quick way to update people on what was up with my health quickly morphed into a space for me to get out what I was feeling about working through treatment and all that went with it. It's been amazingly cathartic for me. But is it over now? It feels incredibly ego-centric to keep writing. Surely this has been enough about me to last a lifetime. Or do I say "screw it" and just keep writing about this next phase of rebuilding my health and not worry about burdening people with more stories? It's hard to decide. Part of me wants to keep writing so that there is a time capsule for my kids to reflect on when they are old enough to wonder what happened in those days. Another part of me recognizes that this year has come to a close. I just don't know. Maybe you could let me know.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand journeys to plan

Here's to the planning. Thank you for every minute...
that I can measure in love.

Holding On

"You know, I really like this song," Dad said as he reached over to turn up the volume. It was Blondie's The Tide is High, a groovy beat with instrumentation that would have totally appealed to my dad's love of big band music. And, Blondie was one of my favorite bands so the thought that Dad and I had a connection through this song was a bit of a trip. We sat there for a minute just really enjoying the song, driving together as we had for so many years, sometimes talking, sometimes just staring out the window.

Moments like these were big for me as a young person. My dad was a very complicated man and for as big of a personality as he had, he was actually a pretty internal person. He was a guy that went to church every Sunday but sat in the back, often not with us and I never knew why. He loved his kids like crazy, but sometimes had a hard time building a bridge between the way he was raised and the way things had become...and when I say that, meaning that kids could be seen and heard. Reflecting on him now, I see how many conflicts he had and how he handled them. As an adult and a parent myself, I feel compassion and a sense of loss more now than I ever did as a child.

Looking back, I realize that my dad was really the adult in my life that "got" me most. He's the first person I called, crying hysterically, when I found out that I had failed freshman algebra. Crammed into the little payphone booth in the boarding department, I sobbed for a good 15 minutes while he sat and waited for me to calm down so that he could tell me that he himself hadn't done well in school, that he expected me to raise my grades and get some help working through the process, but that he loved me and was proud of me. He was empathetic and kind, which I wasn't expecting but really needed. Later he confided that in those minutes he could hardly breathe, fearing that I had been raped or something worse, willing himself to just wait and let the news come.

Dad was the one that would palm me money under the dining room table before I went back to boarding school, or would come to the Father's Dinner celebrations at school and take me out on the town with my best friend Sharleen and her own crazy, complex Papa who was a kindred soul to my dad in so many ways. We had such a great time together in those moments. He was always my father, but was an ally, someone who understood me even if he wasn't a fan of what I was doing (insert vision of multi-colored hair, etc., etc.).  Mom always said that we were too much alike and that's why we fought when we did. I agreed with her and still do. But I think that is what drew us together, what gave my dad the ability to listen and be a safe place for me to turn. He knew what it was like to grow up where we did, to have to live life in a very small community with a heavy family name and all of the baggage that went with it. We were both dreamers, Dad and I. We liked thinking big and letting someone else figure out the details. He taught me a lot about possibility, belief in yourself, not letting people get you down. They were all things he struggled with himself. I'd love to talk to him about it now.

Like it was yesterday, I remember my 16 year old self walking down the hall of the dorm when one of my friends told me that the hall mother, Millie, needed to see me. Millie was as eccentric as they come, but she *loved* her girls and we had a special bond (because I was a trouble maker, truth be told, and she liked to take the feisty ones under her wing). Millie said "Fran, your mama called and needs you to call her back." "Oh, Millie," I said, "Mom's on a trip to Hong Kong. She left yesterday. This is an Oklahoma number. There must be a mistake." And Millie gave me that Millie-don't-fuck-with-me look and said "Go call her, Precious, she needs to talk."

Dad had nearly lapsed into a diabetic coma and was in the hospital. He needed triple bypass surgery and things were touch and go. Mom told me the news pretty matter of factly and said "I'm going to keep you updated, don't go far. I love you, honey."

I couldn't believe it. I was so angry, so hurt and so distressed...but mostly just really damn angry. So angry that I sat down and wrote a 10 page letter basically laying it all out for my dad. I told him everything I felt from the way he took care of himself, to the way I wanted life to be, to how much I loved him and needed him in my life. My mother said he kept that letter next to his bedside the entire time he was in the hospital and read it often. Seeing and being with my sisters and brother, knowing how deeply he loved my mother...all of these things were the propellant he needed to make major changes in his life. His recovery was amazing and the care that he took of himself, after such a close brush with death, was unbelievable.

And the feeling of being completely robbed when he died 8 short months later from appendicitis is something I think I will never be able to overcome.

I have really been unable to pull all of these threads until now. So many memories that are so good, but were so painful. I think it was easier for years just to ignore the fact that he was gone or to dwell on the times that things were not easy between us. Because losing your father at 16 is quite possibly the worst time, as if there is ever a good one. So I'm going to sit with this feeling, write down the things I remember, celebrate and mourn my dad and what he was and what could have been.

Grief is not a straight line, it's a rubber ball let off in a room. And it doesn't rest for a long time. The tide is high/but I'm holding on...

Solidarity

My bonus mother-in-law Ginny had that Ginny look on her face...the one she gets when she's got something to tell you or share with you. "I have something for you," she said as she slid a black bag across the table. We were sitting in the sunshine, drinking wine and enjoying the afternoon on Federal Hill. "Open it and tell me what you think."


I opened the bag and the box inside to reveal a thin wire bracelet bearing a medallion with a breast cancer ribbon etched on to it. When I looked up, she held up her wrist which bore the same bracelet. "I bought them for us all," she said. "Pat, me, Maryann and Lynne, Katie, Alyssa, Jenn...we all have them. We all just feel really helpless because we aren't there with you during all of this. This way we are connected to you every day and you know that we are with you too." Katie held her's up, as did Jenn and something passed between all of us that remains deep in my heart.


So today, hundreds of miles away, I'm thinking of those special women and how incredibly lucky I am to have them in my life. I'm thinking of how my life is enriched by the time I spend with this family who I was so lucky to gain as part of the excellent husband deal I got. Today I am feeling really lucky.

Jim Croce Would Have Written This Better In a Song

I looked at him quizzically as he dashed in, grabbed his jacket and bounded back outside. "Where are you going?" I called after him. "I'm going to go take a walk with your Mom!" he shouted back. Fear and delight mixed in my stomach, I watched as he jogged down the beach with a huge smile on his face and caught up with my mother who was walking in the other direction.

I'd only met him a few months before, a blind date set up by a mutual friend that neither of us thought would go anywhere. The night we met, it took about 3 minutes for me to be completely enchanted by him. He had a wonderful, open smile, an infectious laugh and an incredibly curious mind. We leaned our heads together in conversation, drank bourbons and scotches, talked until late in the night. As he opened the car door for me, I remember thinking "hmmm, this guy may be a keeper."

Ten years later, and many miles between, I look back on that girl and think "oh sister, you had no idea...no idea what an amazing gift you were getting."

When I play back those ten years, there are many points that stand out in my mind. I remember taking him to visit Dad and Hunter's grave and the gentle way he pulled aside the chairs from the marble floor slab bearing their names.  I remember listening to him give the Father's Day talk at our Unitarian church about what fatherhood meant to him, so articulately and with such depth that he brought tears to the eyes of the minister herself. I remember, so clearly, the strong hug and calm reassurances that came when my sisters called to say Mom had lost movement in half of her body, that they didn't know what was wrong but that something, most definitely, was awry. "We'll get through this, honey, go be with your mom and the girls. Everything will be ok. We'll make it work." as he sent me off for weeks at a time to be with my family, never complaining about the extra burden of taking on the kids or re-arranging his life to accommodate my absence.

And I remember, most vividly, making that call, crouched in a quiet room at work, to tell him that the test was positive. "What test?" he said for just a second, then hearing my voice crack, realizing what I was talking about. We had both been assured that it was nothing, certainly just a benign mass, leaving neither of us to believe the news when it all came rushing home.

Standing on the other side of the glass watching him run down that beach, I could never have forseen the amount of love, patience and friendship that that man would show me over these ten years. I would never have imagined the hills and valleys we have come through, nor the mountain we are climbing now. The arguments we've had and the difficulties we've faced as a couple seem minor now in contrast to what we've been able to move through together. Truly, times like these give you a great perspective on the measure of a man. 

I'm not foolish enough gamble on predictions of the future, but I know that no matter what happens, I will never be able to repay this good, solid, sweet man for his kindness and love during this time...never in a million years.

Nothing I write here can really do it all justice. So, I will just say I love you, Nick. And thank you.

There are these days that are the days.

First the health update:  Chemo #3 went rather well for the most part. We switched up the Neulasta situation and moved to the 10-day shot sequence of Neupagin, which lessened the horrible heaviness in my chest. I had a couple of rough days in there, but deal-able. Shooting up Neupagin the parking lot of David's baseball game is something I won't forget too soon. That and the insert says "do not shoot into scar tissue or stretch marks." Um, on this belly? That gives us a lot less real estate, people. I'm just sayin'.

Today is the last AC and then on to the extremity-numbing Taxol (which scares the bejeezus out of me) for four more and then I am DONE. Want to know what I am going to do after? I am going to have a big, fabulous glass of good wine. I am going to eat an amazing meal. I am going to work out. I am going to go somewhere wonderful with my husband. I know I am only half way there, but I can see the light. I can. I just need to remember that it's there.

Now a story:

"No, No, I can do it myself" she says as she pushes off with one foot, wobbles a bit and then clicks into the rhythm of movement. I stand back and watch my sturdy, spirited 5 year old girl grasp and master the balance and physics of the bike. At my elbow, David says "Just one more run, Mom, how about it?" and we move his bike onto the grass and I run beside him, lightly grasping onto his shirt, as he slowly and methodically pedals in a wide circle. Ava likes the flatness of the pavement and working without a net between she and the skin-skinning bitumen. David's skill improved 1,000 fold when we moved onto the field. "It would be like falling during soccer", he says, "or not even that bad." No sooner he says that and he's sailing along, free of the fear that had brought tears to his eyes just an hour before.

I woke up yesterday morning with a head full of steam about teaching the kids to ride their bikes. Tomorrow was a chemo day, I was going to feel crappy next week, time was running out on our second goal (first goal = learning to swim, second goal = learning to ride a bike), SuperNanny Steph was there to help, it was only going to be 80 degrees... so I closed my computer at 5, rounded up the kidlins and Stephanie and off we went.

It must have been a pretty funny sight, me in my baldiness/do-rag, skirt and mary jane shoes running up and down the parking lot grasping onto the bike and shouting instructions. Sweating buckets and realizing about 30 minutes in that I hadn't taken off the horrible, weighty foobs which were adding to the slog. In fact, one guy stopped for quite a bit to watch. He had a huge smile on his face so I suspect he was going to offer a compliment, but who had the time to chat when there were kids to push.

Our dear friends, the Leos came over to find us too. Miriam and Andrew riding circles around David and Ava, luring them into their mini biker gang and shouting words of encouragement: "Think of something yummy like chocolate cake! Think of your friends! Think of good things! You can DO it!"  We ran and rode, sweated, screamed our excitement, gave big hugs, did happy dances, encouraged each other. If it weren't such a trip and hysterical to hear and see, I would have been a pool of tears for the gentle sweetness of it all. Delicious.

Standing there with my friend Anne and our kids, I realized it was the first day in so long that I just felt like a regular mom to my kids. Not a sick mom, not a mom who is too tired or busy or down to do something, not a mom with cancer. Just a mom, and a mom who loves being there for these milestones in life, who loves hugging her sweaty, wonderful chickens after they accomplish something they are so proud of.

And then it hit me that by the grace of the universe, an early diagnosis and mostly just plain luck,  I will be standing there for many more.

What luck, and luck it was that I caught this disease when I did.

And that nearly blew my mind.

You never know what will be handed to you. You never, never know.

So today, I am thankful for that little bit of time. The old normal in this temporary "new" normal. And I hope they will remember it too.

Gracious Space

Yesterday, I got off of a conference call, pushed in my chair, shouldered my bag and left work for what may be three weeks. It was really strange and incredibly sad to walk out of the office feeling this ick feeling of not knowing when I was going to be back. I am leaving behind projects that I really love, people who have been incredibly generous and kind, time with colleagues that I find warming and satisfying.  And I am leaving for something that is unknown and scary, a rolling into the inevitable and, worse yet, inescapable that sits just paces in front of me, no matter how I drag my feet.

There is a tension between this inevitable/inescapable feeling of slowly being swallowed by what is coming and the simple grace of letting it happen. In the words of the Cowboy Junkies: "the one thing in my life that these years have taught is/you can always see it comin', but you can never stop it." Struggle as you may to wish it away, joke it away, freeze it out, ignore it, cry it out, scream it away...it remains. Until you realize that it is what it is and sit with it, interface with it, level with it, accept it at your side and create a gracious space that allows you to be both afraid and fearless, loved and alone, valiant and cowering, illuminated and confused.

Because being "sick" is all of these things. With cancer, or at least early on-set cancer, you don't feel it in your body. It's like a little timebomb that over time you forget is ticking. It's the insidious guest that you forget is still staying at your house until the utility bill comes. It's the thing that causes you to chuckle, thinking surely that God has been worn down by the multitude of prayers hurtling heavenward and said "Fine! Fine! Enough! So I'll cure her (ping!). Can't you see I've got a lot on my plate right now?" It's the last minute reprieve from the path lab that comes minutes before the surgery that they perform to alter you forever...except it never comes. It's the three deep breaths and lights out and waking up, feeling around and trying to sort out which way the decision tree went in the OR.

So these anxieties are a little like that song about the boa constrictor...oh no, he swallowed my toe, oh gee he's up to my knee, oh fiddle he's up to my middle...Today I saw a friend and stopped the boa at the toe. I know I will get to Monday and see my sisters, have a little reprieve and keep him at my knee. By Wednesday, no doubt, he will be up to my neck. I keep breathing. I keep finding little things to hold on to (one of my dad's old wallets, mala beads and their 27 count made for me by my friend Molly (that reminds me of my girl Sha), my mom's fading but still present scent, cards from you all, pictures from Ava, hugs from David, a picture of Kali, deep rhythmic music, a smiling picture of my husband) that I can hold in my hand or feel on my skin to keep me grounded and not freaking out about what is coming. I know I will be fine, I just don't like getting there. I am not worried about the cancer (or so I tell myself), I am worried about the surgery. I am lucky, I am lucky, I am lucky. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

There was a song that was on auto-repeat for my sisters and me the entire time that we were living through the end of my mother's life. It has such special meaning for us all, but these lines from "Little Fire" always put the lump in my throat, every time I hear it.

"It says comes rest beside my little fire
We'll ride out the storm that's coming in
My friend, you know me and my family
You've seen us wandering through these times
You've seen us in weakness and in power
You've seen us forgetful and unkind

All that I want is one who knows me
A kind hand on my face when I weep
And I'd give back these things I know are meaningless
For a little fire beside me when I sleep"

So tomorrow is sitting with it, thinking about the religious tradition I grew up in and how there are lessons there about the process of surrender and triumph. Or, from David's wonderful Latin teacher's blog:

'non, si male nunc, et olim sic erit.'
'Even if evil is present now, it will not always be so'
Horace Odes Book 2 x

Amen.