Ripeness, Everything, and Hope

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.