lingering effects

I'm embarrassed to say that I am having a bit of an existential crisis. It's just so trite, so predictable. Cancer focuses the mind, burns off the fluff of one's life, clarifies your sense of purpose. Blah blah blah. It's a tiny but annoying papercut of a narcissistic wound to see how true that has been for me. I grimace here: I am a bit disoriented at this point of the journey.

I am left with some post-traumatic thought-quirks. I carry an acute sense of time running out. That time is running out is no more true and no less true now than it was before I had cancer -- but I think about it constantly.

As I work on my book, a process I want simply to enjoy regardless of outcome, I flick myself with the crop of time. If I don't finish it soon, what? People won't be reading books? People of the future will no longer wonder about the same things we wonder about now?

Both mind and body are still wound up from the trauma of cancer, of chemo, of losing my breasts, of I don't even know what. What was that? What is this? What is this new normal, this back-to-life-as-usual that looks like it always looked but feels like maybe there's a missing step in the staircase, this chair's legs are maybe a half an inch shorter than they used to be, the door knob just a bit to the left. There's no way it could have changed, but it feels like something is different.

The key pieces to my life have not been altered, but the puzzle's picture is different. I am startled whenever I look at it. Is that my life I'm looking at? It's a wonderful life -- one I am not even sure I feel worthy of having -- but I am having such a hard time resting in it. I'm like a dog that walks in a tight circle, over and over again, trying to get ready to lie down just so.

I'm meditating most days. That's good. My private practice is going well, but my emotional center is in writing. Or, often, not writing. When I'm not writing, I'm ruminating about how I'm not writing.

I'm still not sure how I want the book to take shape. I feel like I've bought a barn sold by IKEA. It comes with a 200-page manual of diagrams without words. There is a truckload of wood, bolts, screws, window panes. It's all spread out in the backyard and I walk around and pick up this 2 x 4, that wingnut, this piece of fabric -- could these go together?

Last week I had three CT scans, a procedure that will be repeated annually for a few years. The scans were clear. The doctor left a message saying how clear they were, and had to spell it out: "You are fine. F.I.N.E." I appreciated the spelling. It reminded me of when as a kid you'd hear adults spell out "N.O." They really seemed to mean it then.

But the accompanying blood work shows that my white blood cell count is very low. It's lower than it was during most of chemo. I feel more vulnerable than I would like to admit. I want to feel F.I.N.E., but this adds an I, an S, and an H. The only good thing is that I have been able to extend my agreement with Laura that she will handle the kitty litter, because of cooties. Score.

Until about a week ago, I was running nearly daily, and greatly valuing that piece of my puzzle. It was annoying, though, to find that I was getting weaker and weaker, bruising in weird places, and feeling increasingly tired. Running was depleting my body, pounding my hips and knees (among the many joints still aching from chemo) and not doing doodoo for anything but my mood and my heart.

Learning that running weakens you is like finding out that prayer gets on God's nerves. I thought I was doing the right thing for my little body, but I was hurting it. I've hired a trainer to help with strength training, and have cut running down to once a week. Strength training is B.O.R.I.N.G., but I am committed. Notice that I don't spell that out.

The collateral damage cancer exacts on your body and mind linger long after the surgery, the infusions, the reappearance of health. People ask, kindly, "How you doing? All better?" and you are supposed to say, "Yep! Feeling great." But this is not the whole truth. The whole truth is "Feeling pretty good except I don't know how to answer questions like that anymore."

 

We are very happy with Boone, but are having the dangedest time getting him to stay in the Snugli.

Boone

Walp, one year has passed since the diagnosis. My dear friend Janet, remembers and asks me about it.

"How are you going to mark the occasion?"

"Gosh, I don't know," I say.

It's not like you want to celebrate the anniversary. But you notice it, and the mind works on its meaning.

Janet, whose mind is like a cricket you are trying to catch in one hand, suggests, "Give some money to some non-cancer-related organization. Find a group that is doing something happy."

"That's a great idea," I say, and mean it. I begin to think about happy organizations, looking for something kind of out in left field, where the crickets are.

I turn back to the task at hand. Janet and I are working by phone on the annual brochure for an institute we both teach at. As we are editing together, Janet asks -- from deep in left field, of course -- what my favorite animal is.

"My favorite animal?" I ask. "Gosh, that really depends. Is it going to live in my house? Or is it out there in the world?"

I think for a moment.

Giraffes amble into my mind. I dream of giraffes. Does everyone? For days after a giraffe dream, I feel lighter in my step, or maybe just taller. Either way, I've been visited, touched by Something.

"Giraffes," I say, hoping Bear and Juniper are not within earshot. "When I dream of giraffes, it is as magical as a flying dream."

"Give to the Giraffe Mommy Preservation Society," says Janet.

We go back to the brochure and tinker together. She needs a new example of adolescent emotional pain; last year's is so last year. We need a new name. "Lisa" is too last year, too. Lisa becomes "Madison." Madison is upset because someone tweeted to 300 people that she was a lousy hookup.

I am only half-thinking about Madison. I want to get off the phone and find the Giraffe Mommy Preservation Society. When we hang up, I google "giraffe rescue" and make my way to the African Conservation Foundation. They rescue giraffes, elephants, gorillas, rhinos. You name the fauna, they are trying to save it.

I make a donation and email Janet about it. She makes a donation, too. It is a nice moment for me, for Janet, and for the ACF. But I don't feel finished. I think maybe I skimped on my donation, that there is another one yet in me to make.

I look again this morning and come upon SanWild, a rescue organization in South Africa. Boone, the six-month-old baby giraffe, needs a sponsor. Here he is:

I haven't told Laura about the new addition to the family yet.

Saving a baby giraffe is a great way to mark a year past a cancer diagnosis. So obvious, and I can't imagine why I hadn't thought of it myself. I'll let you know how our little 200-pound bundle of lanky joy is doing as time goes by.

In the meantime, I am hoping Boone visits in a dream.

Hi, beloved blog followers. The following entry is an example of the kind of thing I am including in the book I'm working on. The book is framed around blog material, the cancer, etc., but I am weaving in some (mostly composite) client stories. I am having fun. Tell me what you think, either here or via email. Thanks very much -- p

I get a call from a concerned daughter. Her mom, Anne, appears to be a hoarder. The daughter came home to visit recently and was blown away by how bad it’s gotten. Anne buys things – dresses, shoes, vases, knick knacks, coats, lamps, throws, mugs -- pretty compulsively, and all the kids are all worried about mom. They are worried about losing her in the stacks of boxes in the house, and worried about being left with the stuff when she is gone.

Anne has more than a dozen full-sized Christmas trees in the basement, dismantled and packed in red and green boxes. Each has its own set of decorations, of course. When they’re all set up, the house is fantastic – a childhood dream of a winter wonderland, tiny lights in every corner. But getting to anything in the basement involves the kind of operation they undertook when those Chilean miners were trapped. It is driving her husband and kids a little nuts.

The Easter items are in stacks of pink and green boxes, and Anne could open a wholesale business selling plastic bunnies, eggs, and chicks. She leases 6 storage spaces for the overage that doesn’t fit in her house.

When Anne comes in for her first session, she is cheery, cranked up to a tightness that I can’t seem to help her loosen. Supposedly this is “resistance,” a way of distancing from her feelings and locking her knees against growth and change. I find myself liking her very much, and befriending the resistant, resilient person with her heart of gold, silver, tin, rattan, crystal, beach stone, Plexiglas, pewter, wood, and fur.

She wants me to know she is okay, that she just loves having stuff around her. She loves that if someone is looking for a Halloween costume, she has exactly what you are looking for. She keeps it all in order, and she loves that she can get her hands on a pair of fangs and have them ready for you by tonight’s party.

Anne’s very fondest childhood memories are of going to the dump with her dad. He would find treasure among the trash and bring it home, his eyes sparkling with delight in the fabulous find. Her dad got caught in his own eddy over time, to the point where home health aides could not get to the back bedroom when he needed help near the end. Still, I find it difficult to pathologize his daughter’s behavior. She needs help with her compulsive behavior and the anxiety that drives it, but geez, so do I.

Anne sees that there is a problem. She sees that she sometimes has more of a relationship with things than with the people she wants to be close to. As we work together, she begins to find another way of dealing with her belongings. She starts giving away huge amounts of it – to strengthen her connection to the people she loves. The dresses, gowns, and boas go to a friend and his collective of drag queens. These guys think they have simply died and gone to heaven when the boxes of booty arrive. It turns out Anne is not exactly a hoarder; she is a giver who has a desperate need to have things on hand that she can pass to others.

I am not sure how long the giveaway will last, and when she might feel the need to replenish her supplies. Plus we haven’t gotten to the storage spaces. Still, the house is getting cleared of large numbers of brightly colored boxes. It is bittersweet for her, and she doesn’t part with everything, of course – of her Easter things she keeps the sheepish wolf in bunny clothing, which seems so apt I can hardly stand it.

I am about to ask, “Is it a relief to get rid of all this crap?” And then I remember that it’s not crap to Anne, so I say, “How is it to be letting go of all these things you’ve gathered over the years?” She tears up, and I realize I’ve made the right choice.

“Crap” was my own stuff about sometimes feeling weighted down by my belongings. I remember being able to fit everything I owned into a VW bus. There is a small but real part of me that misses that. I get that Masahide poem: “Barn’s burnt down. Now I can see the moon.”

All I do is encourage Anne to focus on her feelings before she feels the need to buy something, and to try to figure out if there is another way to address that feeling. She takes the ball (football, baseball, volleyball, soccer, super, croquet, bocce) and runs. She just wants to recreate the sort of moments she had with her dad.

I feel a bit like a fraud working with Anne. She is more proper than I am, for one thing, and has lots of ideas about how people should behave. I feel a little busted as she talks.

She tells me an in-depth story about how she used to be a 5^th grade teacher and taught children about the word shit. She explained to them in great detail why it is ignorant and uneducated to say the word shit. She drew a pile of shit on the board, and described it. That’s a gutsy thing for a teacher to do. Is this what you mean to say? she asked them. Is this what you would like to be talking about? This stuff that comes out of your body? The stuff that smells like this? That has this texture? Can you think of others words to say what you mean?

My mom felt the same way. She once told me that she pictured actual rats whenever she heard the word. Once as we drove along in the VW bus, she cried, “Ding dong dang it!” and I thought something really, really bad must have happened. Like we were in deep b.m., for sure. It turns out she had forgotten her purse. It must have hit her at a weak moment.

My mom and Anne both had strong feelings about expletives being, more than anything, uncreative.

When Anne leaves the office, I feel a wave of relief. Shit, I think. That was a close call.