I am finally back in my writing chair; this doesn’t always
mean something pithy will be written, but it is a start. I have had so many experiences in the last 6
weeks that I am a little lost as to where to start. So I’ll just start. My husband and I have been collecting
statements that we have made to each other that highlight the surreal aspects
of our lives at this moment. We have
truly asked each other these questions:
“Honey, can
you go to CVS and get the decadron and some eggs?” Really?
Or how about this one:
“What are you doing Thursday?” asks
my lovely husband.
“Oh, I’m leaving it open in case I need a
transfusion.”
The craziness of these statements, asked and answered as if
they were normal statements, has made us stop and laugh hysterically as they
come out of our mouths. But the reality
is that they are our normal, even if they are kind of horrifying, too. I most recently came home from Rockport, Mass,
after a lovely week away seeing all of Chip’s family, celebrating the death of
his mother on Easter, seeing Will’s team lose to a bad Williams team, and then
watching them win a nail-biter with my sister in full sunshine and 30 degree
weather in Maine. By leaving time, I was
exhausted and literally had to drag myself up the stairs. I got 4 units of blood when I got home; think
I over-did things just a little.
I also had a wonderful retirement send-off party, my sister
and I took our mother to St Augustine for a week (where she and dad used to
live half the year), I formally separated from MetroHealth (where I spent my
training and most of my doctorly life), and I had significant talks with both
kids about the reality of my disease and its spread that were both so hard and
sad but also so right. They showed me
the goodness and love in their hearts as well as the resilience I know they
both have. Again, an amazing experience
that makes me weep just thinking about it, and it makes me so proud too.
Everyone will be home this summer, and I suspect the summer
may be challenging in many ways. The
reality of my situation is that my counts are quite low all by themselves,
although they may be getting a little push down by some radiation, but not
much. I can’t get chemo unless my counts
rebound into an almost normal range.
Look at me wanting chemo. But I
do, a lot. I want the chance to hold
some of this disease in check, and it is not easy to think about what might
raise my counts (except that this thinking helped me justify getting a Vitamix). We will also have 2 teenagers in the house….many
of you know what this means! Luckily, we just added air conditioning—this will
help. We’ll just freeze them.
Oh, I should talk about the dream here. I had a dream a week ago where there was an
unidentified man yelling at me. He was
saying, “Stop being so passive! Why
don’t you do something! You will never
get better this way”. In the dream, I am
quite taken aback by this. I ask him
what I have to do to get better. He says
something like this, “Only you can do it.
You have to go inside to change things”.
Ok, I was (am) just a little freaked out by the dream, but I
think I get some of what it was trying to tell me. I think I believed that I had to go and do
everything I can think of in the next little while before I can’t. I wonder if my inner self is telling me
something quite different. There is
still a “doing” needed here, but it is an internal doing. Perhaps this means allowing myself to find
some stillness in my life and focus there.
What questions would arise if I let myself be still, really still? I think I might know, but I need to go there,
and I really haven’t been. I have been
working with a mindfulness meditation tape and daily meditations on the web,
but I haven’t just sat down and allowed stillness to fill me. I think there might be questions down there
that need answering right about now.
Maybe they would be questions about the end of life, what do
I really want to have happen and not happen.
What is a good death? What defines a good life? How do I find peace with
what is happening? Can I outline my own
funeral (even if it doesn’t happen for years) to express exactly what I would
like to have happen, and make it more truly mine, and a celebration….and let’s
have a picnic afterwards! The remarkable
thing about all of this is that I have time to think about these things, and
they don’t feel morbid; I have to trust my gut here, and this all feels right
and the time is now. Who knows where
that dream came from, but I’m running with my interpretation!
I think I have talked enough; let’s find some poetry. I admit that I took all of these from Panhala
over the last few months, but I really like them. Hope you do too.
Ripeness (Jane
Hirshfield)
Ripeness is
what falls away with ease.
Not only the heavy apple,
the pear,
but also the dried brown strands
of autumn iris from their core.
To let your body
love this world
that gave itself to your care
in all of its ripeness,
with ease,
and will take itself from you
in equal ripeness and ease,
is also harvest.
And however sharply
you are tested --
this sorrow, that great love --
it too will leave on that clean knife.
Everything (Mary Oliver)
I want to make poems that
say right out, plainly,
what I mean, that don't go
looking for the
laces of elaboration,
puffed sleeves. I want to
keep close and use often
words like
heavy, heart, joy, soon,
and to cherish
the question mark and her
bold sister
the dash. I want to
write with quiet hands. I
want to write while
crossing the fields that are
fresh with daises and
everlasting and the
ordinary grass. I
want to make poems while thinking of
the bread of heaven and the
cup of astonishment; let
them be
songs in which nothing is
neglected,
not a hope, not a
promise. I want to make poems
that look into the earth
and the heavens
and see the
unseeable. I want them to honor
both the heart of faith,
and the light of the world;
the gladness that says,
without any words, everything.
Hope (Czeslow Milosz)
Hope is with you when you
believe
The earth is not a dream
but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and
hearing do not lie,
That all things you have
ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at
from a gate.
You cannot enter. But
you're sure it's there.
Could we but look more
clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere
in the garden
A strange new flower and an
unnamed star.
Some people say we should
not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just
a seeming,
These are the ones who have
no hope.
They think that the moment
we turn away,
The world, behind our
backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the
hands of thieves.
