An End and a Beginning

In my family New Year’s Eve was always a special occasion and wrought with meaning especially for my mother. Every year she would tell us, “Where you are when the bells ring on New Year’s Eve is where you will be for the rest of the year.” As a kid this meant that our house had to be clean, that we had baths and new pajamas, if there was homework or projects they had to be completed, and everything in our house was in perfect order.

Of course, in those years no one paid attention to the things that were slightly out of place like the growing tension between my parents or my mother’s addiction to Dexedrine. There was no thought to putting intra-personal or interpersonal order in our lives.

For years I carried forward this tradition making sure my house was clean, laundry done, hair and nails and toes perfected. I even chose my new years eve activities to meet the law of “when the bells ring”, one sad year locking myself in my room at the stroke of midnight to symbolize to myself that I would indeed end a painful relationship in the coming months. Another year I made sure I was sitting at my desk at 12:01 to ensure a year of commitment to writing.

Today as I prepare for this evening and the change to a new year I have a new take on my mother’s teaching. I will not do laundry and not clean the kitchen. I will leave the to-do list undone and I’ll enjoy John as we relax and make love by the lights of our tottering Christmas tree one more night.

My hope for myself when the bells ring tonight is that I am imperfect, undone and incomplete and that I will accept myself as a work in progress rather than a woman frozen in time. When the stroke of midnight comes I hope to be relaxed, laughing and pleased with John and with myself and that is what I hope will carry over into 2010.

Breast Bumps

When I was a girl my mother would say to be very careful with your breasts. Don’t let them get bumped and later I wondered if that also included letting a boy squeeze them too hard. Even later I’d laugh at the idea that bumping or man-handling could hurt a breast or cause the dreaded—cancer. So unscientific, so old-fashioned.

Yesterday in the New York Times, and excerpted in many papers, the new-old research that an outside agent—bruise, wound or injury—may be the necessary catalyst for a dormant cancer cell to begin its changes. Cancer needs two factors: to exist in a dormant state and to have a trigger. An injury can be that trigger. Also explains –in a very crude way—why it happens that someone feels perfectly fine, undergoes surgery and then rapidly dies of cancer. Surgery may be a trigger wound.

Now isn’t that a scary dish to set before Cancer Land?

Winter Solstice

“Today is the darkest day and the beginning of the light. Pray for peace.”

For many years those have been what I have written in notes to friends on December 21st. I like solstice because it is about darkness and light. But today looking at those words it hit me that I am having an inner solstice too.

I have had a couple of hard days. Stuff with kids and stuff with us. More intimacy becomes more fear; moving closer to commitment sets off deep fears--mine and maybe his too.

So this morning when I heard, “Today is the darkest day and the beginning of the light” I thought, “Yes, this is the day that it shifts—from testing and pulling back to believing and moving toward, and from wondering if he really loves me to knowing we love each other. Any fights now are just us fighting our way to decide the kind of couple we want to be and not us tumbling off a cliff into the abyss.

Darkness becomes light. And peace

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

I’m making a list and checking it twice, and thrice and even nine times: his kids, my kids, his ex and mine. I wonder about all of this, and things like holiday traditions? What are his? mine? ours? Memories: his, mine, ours? The holidays add tension. I feel sad about relationships lost and fear about the complexities in this one as we add kids and expand our circle. Will we make it to a summer wedding, or cave in to their demands and criticism? I keep wondering.

Now, like the sign at the mall, my heart says, “You are here”.

Lost in the upbeat melody of what seems like an innocuous holiday song are these incredibly poignant words: “To face, unafraid, the plans that we made.”

Walking in a winter wonderland.

Life is so good and so Hard

Life is so good and so hard.
The people I have loved,
Those I have left
Those who have left me.
The people he has loved,
Those he has left,
Those who have left him.

"Ly" Day

We’ve had a big snow day today and in addition to dressing for the weather a day like this also accelerates word worries here at the home of a writer and an English teacher. Alas, a snow day is also “Watch Your Adverbs” day. Yes, sadly, on a bad weather day we are likely to hear the grating and lonely adjective that wants to be an adverb. The friendly and well-intentioned, “Drive safe” longs to be “Drive safely”. Ditto for “Drive careful” and its preferred “Drive carefully.”

But in addition to enjoying our word fussiness, we had a great day. John had no school but I had to get to work—my work increases in bad weather—so he did the cars and the shoveling and later brought lunch to my office. Tonight I came home to fresh pasta for supper. On a day like this I know we live happy and happily.

Obituaries

I have always read obituaries. I knew, even as a kid, that they were little stories. Now, as an adult I know they are often mystery stories. The writer is rarely the subject. Someone else is telling his or her version of the main character’s story. So, when reading them, I wonder at the focus, proportion and how reality would hold up if we could later interview the dead person.

The past few weeks I have read more closely noticing how many deaths in our region are of people under 65. I tell myself: please notice this; please live your life. None mention the fear at work or the love of clothes. One this week said “he had a perfect marriage” and I said “Uh oh” and read that one to John. He said, “Uh oh”. His marriage was described as perfect until a few years ago when he walked away admitting to himself how deeply unhappy he had been all those years.

So we know it is entirely possible that the final scribe, the writer of our obituaries, might describe a person they only know through random details: He always checked the box scores first thing in the morning. She loved to shop. She was a tireless volunteer. He was crazy about his car tending to it for hours every weekend. Who would know that these honorable behaviors masked unhappiness and avoidance of something or someone?

Who will know us when we die? It’s hard enough to know ourselves when we live. To get still enough to listen deeply to our own insides. We should be so tender with these fragile human lives, ours and the dead people in those little stories.

Tiger Time

What do baby seals and Tiger Woods have in common? They both get clubbed by Norwegians!

The jokes, the jokes. But also the questions. Why do men cheat? Why is it more upsetting that Tiger Woods cheats? We want to believe that this perfect golfer, perfect son, perfect athlete is a perfect human being, and so we hate to have our belief in perfection taken away? Maybe. And maybe it’s also telling us that men do not cheat to have sex with a prettier or sexier woman. After all Tiger is married to one of the most beautiful women in the world. Is it entitlement? Evolution—a specimen like Tiger is unconsciously driven to procreate? Is it access—athletes have women propositioning them all the time? Perhaps also we are seeing that a man as cerebral as Tiger didn’t think this through. He’s not a dope but he cheated and left a trail of texts and messages and evidence. He’s a better golfer than that if not a better person.

What will happen next? Will she stand by her man? Will we now see a wicked, expensive public divorce? And what does it mean for the rest of us?

And am I alone or are many woman really mad at the perfectly ordinary man in their life today just on principle?

Win One for Cancer

In our local paper today there was a story about a high school football rivalry. In the story the reporter says that Team A was playing “for” the coaches eight-year-old son being treated for cancer, and that Team B was inspired in their great play by a former teammate seriously injured a year ago. It struck me that neither team was—apparently—playing for themselves or for the joy, excitement or for actual competitive spirit of winning the game.

When did we start doing this and why do we do it? And how often are games played “for” or won “for” someone with cancer? You can find this in each sport. Last year in golf we followed the player-narrative of Phil Mickelson whose wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Yes, the pink hat came out immediately—but also this sports/cancer/illness/winning narrative about using someone else’s cancer or illness to inspire good play.

It’s not new. We know, “win one for the Gipper” and we recall Babe Ruth’s famous point to the outfield to indicate where the next pitched ball would leave the park--the story says that he picked that homer for a sick kid he had visited.

But what does this say about athletes? They need a cause to play their best? They play better when someone is sick? And the point of this for the sick person? Ok, fifteen minutes of fame maybe. But does winning the high school game save the sick boys life? What is it we are really saying about cancer and sports and the myth and magic we roll together when they collide?

Cancer, Cancer Everywhere

Cancer, cancer everywhere and not a drop of info that makes sense.

Ok, mammograms are out—or they’re not. Pap tests are out—or they’re not. Prostate cancer. Whew- if you had surgery and are now impotent or incontinent maybe you and your doctor moved too fast. How does that make you feel? Ditto for mastectomy based on a mammogram interpreted as risk but now, maybe, the risk wasn’t quite what they thought.

Women are cancelling mammograms and lumpectomies. Men are baffled and even more afraid of a prostate exam. The fear goes way beyond the snap of the glove and “Is it really ok to let a man touch my bum—and what if I like it?”

What’s a human to do?

Combine this with the inverse economic incentive in healthcare: the more machines a hospital invests in the more radiologic services they have to sell. The more screenings we do the more cancer we’ll find. Yep. But what if some (a lot or a little) of what is found isn’t really a threat.

After age 50 we all have cancer cells in our bodies. So do we all “have cancer”? Do we all need treatment?

Language and the way the question is framed drive all of this. The best words I have read recently are Robert Aronowitz in his New York Times op-ed called, “Addicted to Mammograms” published November 20, 2009. What he shows us is that the way the argument is framed pre-determines the possible answers.

Resentment

It comes around again. No matter how much I know and how much I change this one comes around again. Sneaky too; I call it by other names: I’m “annoyed”, “hurt”, “challenged”. Sometimes I play the “I’m too spiritual for my shirt” game and think about how sad it is that he or they are less spiritually evolved than me. Yes, I even bring God into it. And then I realize, “Oh, this is resentment—and it’s mine!”

Last week I heard a woman talking about her resentment for her ex and about his ex who was the reason they are now ex and how when they were together she was resentful at him for not being more resentful of his ex. Hearing that made me laugh—which, gratefully began to help me take a step out of my resentment. The other thing that helps me is this saying that I heard in an Alanon meeting:

“Resentment is like setting yourself on fire and hoping the other person dies of smoke inhalation”.

Who Would I be Without this Thought?

A few weeks ago I did a workshop with Byron Katie—a woman who developed a personal growth and change method that teaches us to question our habitual thoughts. It makes for some challenging new thinking and for me some surprising insights and shifts.

The centerpiece is: Who would you be without this thought?

I’ve been trying to apply this to life at work, what—I think—people think of me and to my relationship with John.

Last night—listening to him cough and cough—and thinking “flu or cancer? Flu or cancer?”
Byron Katie’s question came to me: Who would you be without this thought? And the answer: I’d be at peace and I’d be asleep.

Aching for a daughter

I ache today. My step-daughter is pregnant. Her life moves forward. Our lives move apart. I understand but I cry. I write my prayers on paper. I sob them to God. Talking doesn’t work. I drive to the shopping place and touch soft things. I choose a sweater: soft, lavender, baby-colored, teary. In the dressing room mirror I look in my eyes. Crying has made them shine. I soothe myself. Lavender: Boy and girl combined. A baby. Mine.

We All Have Cancer

I’m reading the new book, “Anticancer: A New Way of Life” by David Servan-Schreiber. He was one of the founders of Doctors Without Borders and an accomplished neuro-psychiatrist when, at 31, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. His book is about what he learned about cancer, cancer treatment and cancer prevention.

Some of it is not new: exercise, diet, alternative treatments etc. But what is new is his description of roles: the patients role in his/her own care versus the doctors. And how to sort medical info, nutritional info and much more on physiological impact of stress.

But this is the fact that blew me away: “One hundred percent of people have cancer cells in their bodies after the age of fifty.”

We all have cancer. Again: We all have cancer. In some people it develops into tumors or wild growth that becomes life threatening, in others it does not. But after age fifty we all have cancer cells.

That’s wild info to ponder in terms of prevention and what it means to maintain your health but it’s also a way to get our heads around our denial of death.

I think of Mary Oliver’s poem: “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”

Red Light Night

I’ve completed my Scarlett Letter month. I re-read Hawthorne and watched the public TV made for movie recreation, and then, reluctantly decided that I had to see the Demi Moore version that was a movie a few years ago. So we rented Demi’s version—the title caption says, “Loosely based on Hawthorne’s Scarlett Letter”. And dear God it is loose and base.

The movie stars Demi as Hester and so she is spunky and feminist and bold from day one. Her strength does not come from her trials and tests per Hawthorne but instead she’s a fancy dress puritan who boldly flirts with the naked swimmer of a minister and she wows him with her beauty, physical strength and sharp mind. They both love to read! Wow! And yes it’s true that Demi took the liberty of changing one of America’s greatest novels to give it a happy ending—no death for the Reverend Mister Dimsdale—instead he gets to start a new life with hottie Hester and adorable baby Pearl.

But now I know—and you know –don’t rent this movie.

The fun part of our night was the rest of the scarlet theme. We included red foods, red lingerie and red light bulbs in the living room. At least Demi/Hester wasn’t the only one having great elicit sex.

After the Wedding

We had a great time in Baltimore. Stayed with an old friend who is like a sister. I am at home in her home and that makes visiting so easy. Feet on the coffee table, raid the fridge, read her books and dissect our lives in detail. That’s comfort.

The wedding was wonderful. Bride and Groom are 30 years old. In love for 6 years. Already a couple with a dog and habits and already family issues nudging at them. But watching them take their vows you could feel it. They have a bond and tenacity. A year of planning a wedding, going to school, working, changing jobs, deaths in both families and health issues of their own. They have built something that the wedding confirmed rather than created.

Many of the guests were older. Relatives of course, but older friends too. At our table everyone had been married, divorced, partnered and unpartnered. Yet no cynicism, no jadedness. I could feel the room pulling for the newlyweds as they were announced as “Mr. and Mrs.” at the reception. Be the couple that makes it, be the couple that never loses the love, be the couple that proves it can be done. Be that for you and for us.

John and I danced for hours. He said, “I don’t dance” and got up every time. He’s an athlete and musician so of course he’s a good dancer. And to seal the deal there was great music and we were all basking in the love of our young couple.

But I had this twinge the next day and even today. I felt some envy or maybe regret, the passage of time for sure. I know I wanted some of what the bride and groom have: The sense of being at the beginning of their relationship, the start of their lives, the opening act of whatever their story will be. I don’t know what act I’m in—third? Is there a fourth?

Today walking at the gym I had to stop and remind myself: Illness and death will come without my help. I don’t need to rehearse that part of the story. Don’t go looking for it. Instead at times like this notice the good, the love and the delights like this wedding.

Wedding

This weekend we fly to Baltimore for the wedding of a young friend. S. was 16 when I met her. I was a staff member at the high school where she was a dancer. Somehow we stayed in touch over many years and many miles. She went to Houston, DC, New York and abroad. I moved from Baltimore to New York and we both went thru many changes. But a connection remained. Now she is 28 and getting married and to a wonderful man who is kind and smart and steady on his feet and in his heart.

We fly tomorrow morning. We’ll stay with old friends. We will be family for S. at the rehearsal dinner and on Saturday we’ll witness the wedding vows and dance like crazy at the reception.

Many kinds of joy in this weekend. Flying—which I always love, and visiting old friends, seeing a young couple take this amazing step toward commitment, introducing John to parts of my past, having play time in Baltimore including seeing the Edgar Allen Poe exhibit at the Museum of Art, and on Saturday night dancing with him. That is the sweetest part. We’ll get to dance together.

Sporting News

It’s been a good weekend. Lots and lots of sports and enough time to enjoy them together. This afternoon the Pittsburgh Steelers—my team. This evening The New York Giants—his team. And added to the mix major league baseball playoffs—his team the Yankees. It hasn’t been my team—The Pittsburgh Pirates-- in many years. But I love baseball enough to even watch the Yankees play.

While we watch we read the papers and talk and touch. We place bets that have mutual payoffs under the covers.

In the background of all of this there is family. A nephew will marry. A niece is pregnant. When do we visit his family and mine? Routines of being a couple form new layers and bonds. And still with all of this love and warmth I read the news of cancer research and the obituaries scanning for the words: colon cancer.

It’s still there. It never really recedes far. I watch his body and the calendar. We place bets on both.

Scarlet Letter A is for Able

I’m re-reading The Scarlet Letter and finding myself most moved by what I did not notice when I read this as a younger woman. Hester is transformed by her experience of being an outcast and she becomes a “sister of charity” writes Hawthorne, helping the sick and dying of the community. In a most moving passage Hawthorne writes that her Scarlet “A” intended to signify adultery became “transformed to mean Able, so capable was she of helping and caring”. It made me laugh; Hester is a caregiver!

Again this idea that we can go through very hard things and come out the other side --changed and transformed—and better for the experience.

As to how Hester’s transformation occurred Hawthorne writes, “Shame, despair, solitude; these had been her teachers. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dare not tread.”

Flu and Fear

Last night we were watching “Finding Forrester” the great movie with Sean Connery as a J. D. Salinger-type writer. And John began to have abdominal pain. Note: See right there, “abdominal pain”…not a tummy ache but “abdominal pain.”

So I begin to ask questions, examine scars, assess levels of pain. No I’m not a doctor or a nurse I just play one in my head. (And yes I did have a Dr, Kildare shirt when I was 13 and crazy about Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey).

Good news: I stayed calm
Bad news: I assumed the worst.
Good news: I packed a small bag; got out the hospital notebook and made sure I had phone numbers and a cell phone.
Bad news: I what?

It was a tummy ache. He slept on the couch. I put myself to bed and made me stay there.

This is what cancer does to you—or to me. I was ready to go, blue notebook in hand, expecting the worst.
It was just the flu.