welcome and goodbye

Hello, dear followers and dear stumblers-upon:

I began taotechu in November of 2009 in the turbulent wake of my diagnosis of breast cancer. Navigating through double mastectomies, the swamp of chemotherapy, the rapids of BRCA2, and the general current of life, this little blog has helped me keep my nose above water. It has offered me a place to reflect, to rest, to play. I've poured my quirky little heart into this blog, and I am grateful to have had your company.

I know through the years a good number of people have been referred to this blog following their own cancer diagnosis. You will always be welcome here. You might want to start here in 2009, where I began with surgery. January 2010 marks the beginning of several months of ACT chemotherapy for triple negative cancer. Some of the toughest times were after treatment, when people expect you to feel great, but you feel exhausted and more vulnerable without chemical weaponry. It is not until March of 2012 that we learned about my genetic glitch of BRCA2, which led to immediate oophorectomies (ooph is a good term for this) and a hysterectomy while we were in the neighborhood.

It was difficult not to talk about it for the months after BRCA2, but we were in the thick of getting the kids and my siblings tested for quite awhile. It did not feel like I could share about that until 6 spiky shoes had dropped, each with their own excruciating bit of suspense. Tests were negative for one, two, three, four, then five of my beloved family members. We felt crazy lucky each time someone's results came in. But the last one bopped us all on the head, hard, when my sister came up positive for BRCA2. I note that with sadness here, but again, it has not been my story to tell.

Throughout the taotechu blog, you can read some pretty intimate stuff. You can see the guts of my mind and the veins of my heart; it's not for the squeamish, unless you kind of like that feeling.

Some of my favorite posts have been about my life with Laura. For those you need to scrounge. I must publicly mention here how much I appreciate Laura's willingness to serve amuse, bemuse, and be muse.

I am going to suspend taotechu for the foreseeable future. I may post something at the 5-year mark of my cancer diagnosis, some 8 months from now, since I imagine at that point I might feel the need to pipe up, much as you would check in with an old friend on an important occasion.

I appreciate your listening. Special thanks to those who have expressed encouragement and support.

sometimes the Universe listens REALLY closely

I've been hesitating to tell you this, but...I think I killed the blog. I didn't mean to! It was just a draft I made -- the same night I posted about the carn-sarn meditating cat. Just writing about the end of taotechu in draft form made it happen.  I'm telling you: be careful where you point your minds, gentlefolk.

Ever since I wrote a closing, I haven't been able to write in the blog. The "dinner conversation" I posted yesterday wasn't writing as much as it was transcribing my thoughts. I wanted to see if the blog could be resuscitated. Apparently not.

"Keyboard mightier than cannon." I dictated that into my phone in the middle of the night not long ago as I pondered the power of my draft to bring this blog to a halt. It was a sleepy, half-baked update (cannons not being tremendously du jour) about the pen being mightier than the sword. In the morning I check my notes, and the phone's autocorrect has written "Keyboard mightier than Canon."

For a moment the English major within me stirs. I muse on the meaning of this auto-misconstrual in the context of the literary Canon. Since the keyboard (pen, typewriter, whatever) created the Canon, isn't there something true in there -- that the individual's written truth is mightier than the collective whole of the Canon?

It takes a moment to realize my phone is not being witty or erudite. It is thinking of its buddy -- Canon. Like the printer or the camera. Its fellow technological device. Comrade in arms. Partner in crime. BFF.

What I meant about the mighty keyboard was this: Even though I didn't post it, when I wrote that I was ending the blog, the Universe heard. That's mighty. It's possibly mightier than the cannon.

I'll revisit the draft and see if it still speaks truth. If it does, I will post it sometime soon.

dinner conversation

     So I says to myself as I massage the kale with the olive oil, "It's so great. I actually like this shit. Yay. Yay for that."
     I continue to massage and tear, massage and tear.

"I mean...pretty much."
"Yeah. I guess it's not always the best tasting stuff in the world."
"And it takes a lot of work -- cooking food that's good for you."
"That's true."
     I load up the pan.
"But that's okay. 'Cause it's a good thing that I am willing to go to the extra effort to put good food into my body."
"I know, right?"
"Yup. It's cool that I really do think in terms of what my body wants in order to stay healthy. It really matters to me. It'd be so hard if that weren't the case; so depressing. You'd feel kind of meh all the time. Tired. And you'd be eating shit that's really bad for your body."
"And the earth, for chrissake."
"Yeah, it's cool that I really am guided by what's best for my body."
"Most of the time."
     I scrape out the seeds of an acorn squash.
"But not in a weird way."
"Right! Not in a weird way."
"Pretty much."
"Anyway, it's so good! It's so cool that I really want to do what I can to live. To not die of cancer."
"Essentially."
"Yeah, well, to not die of cancer."
"Or something."
"Not because I'm scared of dying, but because I really want to live this life well and long."
"So cool. So lucky! Lucky to want to."
"Mm. Needs salt."
"Argh, these Himalayan salt crystals are too big for this salt grinder."
"Why don't I just throw out those last few gigantic crystals?"
"That'd be a waste of good, pink salt crystals."
"Shit. They've come all the way from the other side of the world."
     I arm wrestle with the salt grinder and get out a few pink crumbs.
"Ach. What a gigantic carbon footprint I have. Salt from the other side of the world. Jiminy cricket."
     I peek at the kale in the oven and stir.
"It'll be good for my footprint when I'm dead. No more guilt about these kale chips being a ridiculous amount of carbon, just to end up with this." I pull out what had been a huge pile of kale and now is a crisp tuft of dark green on a cookie sheet.
"Mm. It sucks to have to feel bad about these. They're so good and good for you."
"Yay. How happy am I that I want to take good care of my body?"
"Happy. Lucky."
"So lucky."
"But my footprint! Gee."
"I know. Ugh."
"Ugh."