Reconnecting Reawakening Reunion

This weekend I was at my graduate school reunion. Three days with writers and artists--people who use their creative energies daily in their work. People I have not seen for ten years. People who are ten years older than they were the last time I saw them. People who mirror back to me who I was and who I am now. We talked about the kinds of work we are doing. We compared that to the work we thought we’d do when we got our graduate degrees ten years ago. After several meals and after several layers wore off we also talked about marriages that failed, marriages that struggled but stuck, children doing well, children struggling and children that died. We talked about relationships that took odd turns: the friends-to-the-end friend we made at school that no one has heard from in years, and the unexpected friendship that clicked after we all left Vermont, and the friendship that became a love affair and the ones that began to bloom this weekend.

I found that some people remembered me married and some did not, some knew of John from this blog and others got the full blow by blow of love in the time of cancer. What was surprising and comforting and made me believe in myself and others again was the kindness and caring of old friends and strangers.

Testing

Tomorrow I take my ex-husband for his colonoscopy. In the past this would have just been an errand, a way to help a friend, a companionable thing to do. Over 50, we all have this test and you need an escort—a driver. So, over the years I’ve done it many times. But is it so changed now because of John. That one time sitting in the small curtained cubicle waiting for the post-colonoscopy discharge, expecting to hear, “A few polyps; we’ll see you in five years” but instead heard, “You have a problem.” and then the year of cancer, chemo, surgery, the pump, numb hands and feet, and fear of his death—which has never really left.

Already I have this fear again for my husband. Not wanting those words for him or me or anywhere near us. One test—not even mine—changed my life.

If You Like it then You Shoulda Put a Ring on It

Last night we went for a walk in the rural cemetery where we have walked and talked for years. We had been there before we were lovers and after too. It was the place we had each gone alone during the time when we had taken our break from the relationship.

We sat on the stone wall remembering our conversation from years ago. That first day he told me that if we fell in love, “my sons, who love their mother, will hate me forever.” He knew.

Last night, on that wall, he said, “Baby, will you marry me?”
And I said “Yes”.

And then I put on the ring.

The Other Woman

The past two days Dear Abby, the advice columnist, has run letters from and about the “other woman” (OW). Most are scathing—the hatred runs so deep. A few are guilt-ridden, apologetic, defensive. Some are from men—the “other man” and the guilty spouse who is having an affair with OW.

I read them. I make myself read them and I make myself feel the anger and shame all the way through. I don’t want to pretend I was not the OW and I don’t want to defend it. I can explain it to myself and I can rationalize and now—years later—I can say that this is what became of the relationship, and I can enumerate all of the reasons and “issues”. I have lived all the parts of this equation. None of them are good, none of them are faultless, none are without pain.

Obsessed by Dress

“What shall I wear?” is society’s second most asked question. The first is, “Do you really love me?” No matter what one replies to either one, it is never accepted as settling the issue.

--Judith Martin b. 1936

Happy Birthday Day

John’s birthday today and it has been fun. The gifts are all golf-themed: balls with his name and special red tees and a book of golf and grammar and new golf shoes. We played 18 holes this morning then both went back to work. I made a cake—chocolate and coconut, my own recipe. Birthday dinner tonight. It feels normal and natural and the very reality of that—after a year of cancer—makes this day quite special.

Brad and Angelina

When I teach writing to 10th graders we always begin with current events. In their world those events are celebrity and music based. Every year for the past six years Angelina has delivered the goods and made my teaching life easier.

Now, today, in the car I heard the news: Brad and Angelina are over!

Is it an omen?
Should Jen take him back?
He’s a dad now.
What a mess!

This Fish Needs a Bicycle

I am 55 and I have decided that even though I do not completely understand my relationships --or myself in relationships--they are important to me. I was raised in and influenced by the unsettling mixture of Helen Gurley Brown and Gloria Steinem so I enjoy being in love but always with that odd guilt or shame for liking to have a man in my life and in my bed. I have decided to not care what others think--or in truth, to care a bit less--and I have decided to accept that it may be a past life thing, or a dysfunctional family thing, or maybe it’s a social construction of reality and gender relations thing, but I like men. I have pretended, dissuaded, defended and confounded myself and others because of these men certainly. But it’s true. I do. I like having a man in my life.

Summer Plans

We sit with calendars and block out vacation. It is a mixed blessing though. If I don’t claim some definite time off from work the summer will fly by and I’ll never see the beach or have real vacation as a couple. But when we sit to plan and mark off the days: this one for the beach and that one for the city and that one for the family event and then times to go see dance and theater and music –and now we add golf and swimming...suddenly we are turning the pages and saying "save that date” and we are looking at Labor Day. I do not want to wish—or worry—or plan my summer away. Where are the lazy, hazy days? Where is genuine leisure?

Triangles and Words That Heal

This morning in church we prayed, “But only say the word and I shall be healed”, and I laughed out loud. This week it was words that jump-started some healing for me: The Karpman Drama Triangle, a psycho-social theory developed by Stephen Karpman. In it he describes the cycle or triangle of how we move from rescuer or persecutor to victim—always cycling thru to victim, victim, victim. It came to me seemingly out of the blue in some unrelated research but there it was, the very “word” I needed to hear and heal.

It is perfect and perfect timing. I realized this week that I have been trying to out-victim the victim in my relationship with John and in other parts of my life as well. Karpman would simply say, “Uh huh.”

Here’s where it get’s tricky: cancer care. People with cancer—those in the throes of chemo and surgery are kind of victim-y and cancer caregivers—those in the midst of physical and emotional exhaustion are wonderfully victim-y, and those surrounding both of them make perfect persecutors: “You should”, “One should”, “You never should”, “You must”, “Do it this way, and “Well…”.

Cancer care is loaded with victims, rescuers and persecutors all vying for top billing as best and biggest victim. It’s so easy to say don’t do what you don’t want to do, or take care of yourself first—God knows we preach that crap all the time--but in real life and real caregiving theory is honored in the breach.

Maybe the Karpman Triangle can be taught to caregivers. Maybe we can give out little triangles as a reminder. Maybe I need a triangle tattooed on my right hand.

Hester's Dress

The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side…. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward; until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day….

When the young woman-the mother of this child-stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbors.

On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold-thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.

The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was lady-like, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which is now recognized as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more lady-like, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison.

Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. .. But the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer,-so that both men and women, who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne, were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time,-was that Scarlet Letter, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.


---Nathaniel Hawthorne

Rainy Day

It’s cold and rainy inside and out today. In therapy I talk about my family—again, and my father--again. I feel distracted at work, not focusing on things that matter. My friend Liesl calls to say she is exhausted. Her mother is dying of cancer and there are so many doctors and so many appointments. Another friend is deciding whether to take a big job. It’s the top of her career but it means a move. Another friend is at the end of her divorce process---three years after many more years of finding out in painful layers that her husband had a secret life. Maybe it’s a rainy day for everyone. I want the sun to come back and I want my own joy and peace to return. I am wondering if I have to leave this relationship to find that sun again. I can barely breathe when I think about that.

Mind Body

Last week I met a man on the train to New York City. One of those “I hope he doesn’t try to talk to me” moments and then I noticed that he was reading a Kindle and I blurted out, “You have a Kindle!” So then all hope was lost for trying to stay cool and aloof and send “leave me alone” vibes. So Kindle always leads to, “What do you read/are you reading?” and an hour later we were talking about the mind-body connection and Candace Pert’s work on neurophysiology. Well, he was talking and I was taking notes.

I finished the book last night and in addition to making me want to try meditation again I really want to try not scaring myself to death all the time. I see—from this neurophysicist’s point of view-- what I am doing to my body when I terrorize myself. All thru John’s cancer and even now as I unpack and repack this relationship—I go straight to fear. That’s not new; it’s a lifelong habit. But what that adrenaline and coritisol are doing to my body. …well, I guess now I am interested in saving my body too. Yeah, I’m feeling like it’s time to take care of me.

This week I’m not sure where we are going or if we are going, but I am going forward in any case.

Golf Lesson

Golf Lesson

It’s the little things. Shifting my weight to my right foot. Not dropping my left shoulder. Leading with my hands. Trusting that I will hit the ball. Going for it. Staying focused. Laughing.

Sex Lesson

It’s the little things. Shifting my attention. Not worrying what he thinks. Loving my body. Loving his body. Trusting that it will happen. Going for it. Staying focused. Laughing.

Memorial Day

It’s been one of those perfect weekends. Weather. People, Relationships. Work.
It began with dinner out Friday with old and new friends. A conversation that flowed from theater and books to business and travel. Sex. Then Saturday began with a meeting and some planning for the summer. Sex. A day trip to Hudson New York. Looking for art for our apartment. Mexican Radio for dinner and a movie with Audrey Tatou. Sex. Sunday brought writing time and schoolwork for both of us. Lesson plans and thinking through creative projects and possibilities. Procrastination. And sex. Out to the movies to see “Sugar”, a surprise but powerful in the truth it told rather than the fantasy I wanted to be told. Home to ice cream and almost sex but really sleep. And today, Monday, began with a parade for him and website work for me. Then book shopping. Playing golf. and a shower a deux. Ice cream at McDonalds and yes, almost sex.

Again and Again

Take out the repetition
They all said.
I said, “No”.
But you repeat yourself,
Yes, I said, Yes, I do, I said, I know
I do.
But you have to pull this together, they said.
And again I remember Gloria at Joy’s grave
telling me to pull myself together,
And I thought, What’s the point
of death if we
pull ourselves together?
But of course, it’s for them that we must be
together.
To see it raggedy
unfinished, unformed, disconcerts; “breaks the contract”
Is that so bad?
This contract broke so long ago.
But you repeat yourself, he said again
“Yes” she echoed, “You’re repeating here, do you see that?”
I hear you, I repeated, I responded, I replied.

I tapped my pen and said,
This is like a set of boxes, you know, like a telescoping set of boxes, you know,
like inside each other?
You can get them at Pier One”
Glossy shiny blood red lacquered paper boxes.
Big red box, take off the lid
inside a red box, take off the lid
another red box, take off the lid
again red box, take off the lid, and then, finally
red box, small, smaller, smallest, take off the lid.
What’s inside?
A diamond ring? No

If this was a short story
Something would be in the box
But this is nonfiction.
And so there is nothing in the box,
and only the tiniest bit of nothing.
There is nothing inside the smallest, the last, the end of the boxes
You want there to be something inside that box, like a
diamond ring, car key, a rune stone, a plastic charm, even a folded bit of paper
Something, anything we can make meaning with.
There is nothing inside the smallest, the last, the end of the boxes.

“People are meaning making machines”, the trainer repeats,
tapping her pointer again at the sentence on the board.

So we insist there is something in
the last box or we leap:
“He was holding his orange juice and fell over and blood came out of his
mouth”,
I am telling this to a woman on the bus.
I tell the minister, “He was holding juice, orange juice and he kind of fell over and
blood came out of his mouth,
and to my new boyfriend,
“He was holding this juice and then like he fell over and blood was
everywhere.”

This is not how we make meaning.
This is meaning.
we don’t have to make it,
we just have to keep
Repeating, and repeating, and repeating, and repeating.

Perseveration, most beautiful word.
Er, er, er,
It sings its own songs
symptom of itself
tells its own story
But that’s the point,
they all died.
They died.

Like the boxes, they go on
opening
nothing but boxes
Repeating.
Take out the repetition?
I don’t think so.
Anxiety and fear encased in every word
Do you get it? What I’m trying to say?
You see now?
They died you know,
They all died.

New York City Day

Yesterday was a special day. I spent the day at The Met in New York. It was a day of friendship and love. My dear friend of 25 years—who has seen me through so much—and me of her too—was in New York for one day interviewing at The Met. I took the train—then walked to the Met...talked and talked between her interviews. A reminder that I had a life before and that I will have a life again. She reminds me that I am a writer and that I am loved. We talked about all the changes we have each been thru—all the growth from all the hard things and the hopes we both hold for dreams yet to be fulfilled. We talked about relationships and about John. She does not want me to hurt anymore. In the afternoon I walked back to Penn Station stopping in an out of stores, window shopping, running the perfume gauntlet at Saks, and buying a bright green quilted jacket at Orvis. A kind of green that surprised me but it is, now that I think of it, the green of new grass on a early summer day—one much like today. It is new growth and new life and the color of hope.

These Honeymoons

It’s all perspective and experience.

I talked to a friend today whose husband has ALS—Lou Gehrig’s Disease. It’s a horrible illness and a horrible death. I watched my brother die of ALS and the only possible gratitude was that he didn’t make the expected 18 months but rather died in a compassionate ten.

Talking to her we were exchanging “good news”: Her husband is at home and still able to do some work. John has passed one test and we get a breather until others begin. “This is our honeymoon” I said to her. “Yes”, she replied, “ours too.”

No one else would think these are places for laughter, gratitude or honeymoons, but for love in cancer or ALS or other serous illness they are exactly that. And just like any other honeymoon we break out the nice dinner, the candlelight and the pretty lingerie.

The Good News

Yesterday was John’s colonoscopy. We were at the hospital before 7am and he was done by 10. I was pleased that I was finally able to pray for acceptance no matter what the outcome might be and was able to pray to be present for him –and not just think about myself—though that was hard. The fear fantasies and scenarios of how this might unfold had me stuck in a pretty selfish place.

I left him in his room and got a beeper in the waiting room. It seemed like time flew and the beeper summed me to the recovery room. When I walked into an empty room I panicked fearful that they were planning to talk to us in private and I know what that means. But then he was rolled in—pretty drugged and dozy—and the nurses started reading from his chart. She had to say “No sign of cancer” three times before it registered that she was telling me this. I started to cry. I had not realized that I had been holding so tight. “No sign of cancer”.

For the rest of the day I kept saying to him, “So you’re going to live.” And he said, “and live with you.”

That was sweet.

The Prep

Everyone will tell you that “the prep” is the worst part of a colonoscopy. And they are right. John’s next one is Wednesday and he’s getting ready. And so am I.
While he is buying juice and Ducolax and limes (*see hint below) and beginning his fast, I am calling friends, writing lists and making deals with God.

His prep is physical and brutal. He has the emotions to manage as well. We don’t know what the odds are this time. I return over and over in my imagination to a year ago when his routine colonoscopy turned into cancer and spun us in circles.

My prep involves lists of questions, packing for a day of hospital waiting rooms, trying to stay positive and hopeful and dissolving into fear.

We survived this year of surgery, chemo, caregiving and living on hold. We’ve had a few months of peace and taking the tiniest steps toward having a future. But now the fear has returned. In a few more days we’ll know. I want to stop time and speed it up and yes, I alternate deal making with surrender. I ask for favors I don’t deserve from God and every family member we have on the other side.

Limes: I’m told this is the Katie Couric tip: when drinking the lousy flavored colon prep drink you should suck on a lime before and after each big swallow. The nasty flavor will never reach your taste buds and so you’ll not experience the aversion or the gagging that can come when you get to the last bottle.