A shot at redemption

T-10 days until I board a plane for Miami, dragging my pale skin and winter-worn smile to bask in the light of warm weather and friendship. This is no ordinary trip, but a reunion tour with one of my oldest and most important friends. Yes, this is the friend of my heart that I haven't seen or spoken to in years. Yes, we have been in contact.

In weird ways, it's as though things never changed, that the five years we spent out of each other's lives simply erased when we met at the glass door of her apartment building in Seattle. All of the sadness, hurt, bewilderment and anger that I think we both felt got crowded out by a feeling of coming home. She looks the same, has more gorgeous children, her sweet and hilarious husband is the wonderful guy I was friends with for years. We sat and drank mimosas and talked for hours before they packed up to go be Seattle's 12th man.

And this has all made me realize that I hate things that are unfinished. I used to think that the best/worst thing I could do at the end of a friendship or relationship was just to simply remove myself from the other person's world. But the truth is that it's painful, these unfinished things. It's harder to lose someone to living than to dying. Bereavement is different when what you have lost is walking around in the world.

The hardest thing to tease out is what keeps you from taking the plunge of reconnecting. Mostly it's pride, I think. At least that's what kept me from my friend for years. Pride and not wanting to be the first to extend the olive branch. That and the very real likelihood that things had changed so radically that it would never be the same. Or, like in so many other situations, it can't or shouldn't be the same. It's something impossible to know. It's only by making yourself vulnerable and by understanding what you are trying to resolve in your own heart that you will get to what you need.

Sunshine, cuban food, so many memories at the ready. Wish us luck.

This one.

[I wrote this piece ages upon ages ago when I was really struggling with how to be a good mom, how to be present and attentive and there but still be here, with myself, in my own being. It felt right to post tonight].

She is my girl, this one.

This girl is all lanky limbs and big brown eyes and a witty retort or an observant question. When she wraps her arms around my waist, I can feel her little bird heart beating double time against me.

She's got her eye on everything, she cackles with laughter one minute and pulls the saddest face ever the next. Being with her cracks my heart right open with love. I fear for things that will hurt her, moments when she will bump up against sadness or loneliness or hurtful words dished out by mean women who take delight in pummeling her tender and precious heart.

I carry a lot for this girl.

It's an intense thing to be the mother of a daughter, here in this space of being a motherless daughter myself. I remind myself that everything she sees gets imprinted. I remind myself that I don't have to be a perfect mother, but one that she can rely on. I remind myself that the most important things I can give her are love, proof that I have her back, willingness to sit and talk and work things out, insight into the myriad of things coming her way. I remind myself to tell her that she's dynamite, because she is and nobody needs to hear that more than a small girl.

There is a little part of me that wants to run away from this responsibility. I'm not sure if it's the fear of disappointing her or screwing up or not being the woman that she needs me to be. I'm not sure if it's the desire to balance my one precious life with hers, to give her a legacy of a mother who didn't have to follow the conventional path of sustained sacrifice but found a middle ground.  I don't live the life my mother led, so how do I know how to do this and do it well?

Her small back curved to my side tonight as we read a book, talked and mostly just sat in each other's company. Little spine, hair a tangle down her back, eyes flashing. My heart is so full with love.

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.

Fat With Promise

One of my favorite memories from childhood flickers in my mind in dappled 70's film light. My friend Jill and I roaming her family's farm, playing in her treehouse, eating a picnic her mom made for us, fighting imaginary crimes. The group of  kids we played with at school were avid fans of superhero play, shaped mostly, if not entirely, by our television experience of the comic book stories.

I was thinking of this memory the other day as my work partners and I were talking about our favorite characters that we had growing up. Those days with Jill had a funny pattern for me. As would be expected, Jill would want to be Wonder Woman. And, of course, I would want to be Wonder Woman too. I mean, who didn't want to be Wonder Woman?
Or, rather,who didn't think that she was supposed to want to be Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman was good, she had a strong spine, she did the right thing with a very focused look on her face. She stood tall.

Catwoman was bad. She had a whip, she enslaved men's minds, she wore that damn hot suit that would forever shape my fashion choices.

But, with another girl around, there was the option of being Catwoman if I wasn't Wonder Woman and I really, really, really (although fairly secretly) loved being Catwoman.  I remember wrestling with this idea constantly.  Not wanting to be Wonder Woman must be bad...you should want to be the virtuous, good, solid character; the person who does what is right. Wanting to be Catwoman was definitely bad...it showed that other side that nobody gets to see, the side that likes to be naughty, shades of grey between the stark black and white of Batman. Delicious.

Thinking through this little-person-starting-to-grapple-with-fucked-up-whore/virgin-bad/good-guilt line of reasoning and all of the fallout that has gone with it, something just finally clicked. [I mean, Jesus, I am 42 years old and it finally just clicked.] This warring of my two sides has been with me for as long as I can remember. I live with it in spades every day. It's the me that wants to get up to go to yoga every day but hates the virtuous air of what yoga seems to be about. It's the side of me that likes to drink bourbon until late in the night and shake my ass to funk, even though I know I should be home. It's the me that wants to be a perfect mom, but the me that loses track of time and shows up late. It's the chaos muppet in me that my order muppet tries to corral. But, in truth, it is the manifestation of intense creativity that lies within me that must be allowed to prowl. It's the me who comes up with irreverent ideas, the me who speaks her mind, the me who is passionate and fierce and loyal. The one that the more she is constrained, the more she needs to claw herself free.

I am not sure why it has taken me years and years and years to come to terms with this idea and the bigger question is what to do with it. I'm fairly sure this is as common as dirt and that a million dissertations in feminist theory have been written on this experience of young females along with the gazillion theories of why young girls love horses, but I'm going to play here, unlock it a bit, try to find that place where Diana and Selina can co-exist; lighten each other up or calm each other down.

They Gather Their Courage and They Give It a Try

You can’t buy a simple pad of paper in the New Orleans airport. Paper as it exists here is either the kind of list pad that has “hot & spicy!” or “Jazz!” written at the top, or comes in the form of a lined journal with biblical quotes at the bottom of every page. So I’m destined to write this post with my thumbs. Maybe God is telling me I should have gone with the journal.

Another door closes today as my treatment in New Orleans comes to a end with the embellishment done by a guy named Vinnie from Baltimore who has a penchant for beautifully made hats. We talked about home tattooing and PCP trips and stories about his youth as he tattooed my tits. Tittats. Tittats™ could be a great marketing schtick except that Vinnie is known as the Michelangelo of areola tattoos and needs no marketing help. Vinnie, who is incredibly cool and lovely to talk to, is flying to Memphis to check out a hat store tomorrow. Tittat™ business is good when you are talented. Thank God for the likes of Vinnie. Maybe there is a bible verse for that in one of those little lined journals.

I’m feeling all sorts of sassy and consternated here in New Orleans, gathering all of my memories to tally them up and close them out in a last-chapter roll finale my experience here. It’s humorous that I went from flashing my tits in this fair city to getting flash-worthy tits in this fair city. That’s something I’ll put in the thank-you note to Vinnie who tells PCP stories but not likely to my drs who might find my tit-talk a little off-putting, a tidbit I gleaned not only from their demeanor but also from the Romans 5:1-5 quote in my parting gift. And so it rolls.

There are things that wrap with this trip. Now the next four years stretches out before me as I am done fiddling with things. I have to put all of this fiddling aside and live in the present because being in the space of still having medical things to distract me is over. I have to dig in and realign where I am. I have to settle into the reality of now. On the way back to the airport today, I listened to my cab driver speak about his life. He poured out his story, this man, about his daughter who had cancer, about his wife who was depressed for losing her mother a year ago, about the spot they found on his lung that he’s not sure what it is. And all the while he holds out hope, this man who had lost his restaurant to the hurricane and who was driving a cab even though he was proud to mention that he had a college education. This man who came from Iran and was delighted to tell me that the Persians prefer butter to olive oil in their cooking. He told me about Jesus and hope and his confidence that I would be fine. “Eat oregano and garlic and onions!” he said. “I believe you will be well!” he shouted as he craned his neck out the window. “And Jesus! Don’t forget Jesus!”

I’m eating blueberry granola on the plane and wondering if there is really gin in my G&T. I’m winging my way back to Michigan, leaving all of this behind. I’m flying without net. I’m flying onto what is next. I’m flying.

Frank. True. Honest. Real.

I wrote this post about a month or so ago, right on the heels of the dream I described. In that time I had begun to believe that the things I was writing here were too goddamn depressing, that there was no joy in anything I had to say, that people didn't want to read shit that made them cry.

Which lead to me not posting. Which meant that I wasn't being true to myself.

And then I got an email from my friend Lara last night, a long-ago woman with whom I shared a voyage around the world that will forever be imprinted on my mind. Lara is a kick-ass woman and kicked me in the ass to post again. Because Lara is not afraid of scary things. She's not one to need to mark of sunshine and optimism on everything. She just deals with things as they are. At least this is what I remember of her,  and loved about her, those many years ago.

So here we go again. Some things not so lovely, some things will be. It is what it is.
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Every once in awhile, there is a dream so vivid and real that I can't erase it from my eyes. Stark-still morning leaves me reliving the flashes and images that the soup of my brain has created the night before: some delicious and gorgeous and sensual and beautiful; others deep and lasting and disturbing and filled with resonant worry. Last night was one of those nights, delivering to me the dream that I've pushed off and aside for the past three years.

I can remember the colors in the dream, deep sapphire blue, lime-emerald green, white...all outlined in a contrasted black...and the incredible realness of what was going on. Frank. True. Honest. Real. Sitting in this dream, watching it unfold, participating in the scene, I believed that it was really happening.

That's because it can. And might. Which is what I thought of in my dappled-sunlight morning, swaddled deep in the sheets, unwilling to peek open to the new day.

It was the first dream I've ever had about getting cancer again, a recurrence which is pretty much a death sentence in the triple-negative world. See, I've never checked the stats, never typed "likelihood of survival after recurrence triple negative breast cancer" into the google jackpot to learn about my fate. My sister mentioned it once, the likelihood that I wouldn't survive another bout, but I plugged my ears and danced around until that voice in my head was gone.

But this dream was the real deal, it was sitting in the hospital getting the news, it was the reality that I was going to die, not a question of if, but when. Fuck. So real, so very real that I did type in those words and my sister was right. Likelihood of recurrence? Much, much higher than other hormone-receptive breast cancers. Survival rate after recurrence? 10%. Survival time? Average of nine months. Nine. Months.

I can't begin to understand what it means to die from breast cancer. My mind goes into overdrive trying to picture it in my head, what it would look like and comparing it to my mother's death from lung cancer. What happens? How do you die? What happens to your body? Who are you in that space? And in nine months? Nine months...on average?

I've lived the past two years in a daze, half denying that I ever had breast cancer, half denying that it can or will come back. It's comfortable, this denial, until you are lying in your warm bed completely awash in the reality that you very well may. fucking. die.

Die.

That something fundamental has happened in your life that threatens your existence in a way that you can't resolve. That you may be that life cut short that people cluck their tongues and shake their heads about. That all of your bravado and feeling good and pushing past the looks of people who know your story may be total bullshit because you may get this again and have to make decisions that are horrible all to extend your life by months...months, not years.

I suspect this reality check is something that every woman who gets breast cancer goes through. I know friends who have had recurrences who are there and are winning. I know few people who have died from this disease. But I have watched my friends and loved ones waste away from cancer. I have watched the bizarre deceleration and crippling otherness of an otherwise vibrant life.

Honestly, this reality is too much for me to handle. It's bankrupt. It's the end of the road. It's the edge of the universe. I can't wrap my head about what it would mean. And I want to believe it won't happen to me. But I'm not that arrogant and I am just that pessimistic.

So how do you live when that veil has been lifted? Does it change anything? Is it just roulette? Isn't there some huge life revelation that I am supposed to get from "holy fuck, I really may die?"

All I can keep with me is the blue and green of the scene, of the movement of people through the film in my brain, of the feeling of reckoning that stayed with me in the dream and beyond.

Final. It is what it is. No way around it. Real.

I wish there was some big pledge at the end of this post, something that would tell everyone that this was going to be ALL RIGHT and that things will be fine. But I am just going to sit with this reality for a bit because I need to, it's been too long that I've pushed it away.

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.