sojourn

For more than two months, I sat on the waiting list for a week-long meditation retreat that begins tomorrow. One hundred people will spend a week in silence together, alternating sitting meditations and walking meditations. I've been looking forward to it. But I haven't been able to get excited about it because of the waiting list thing.

After you pay the retreat fee, you wait to see if others bail. I start off somewhere around number 30 when I sign up, and soon am number 26. By late October I'm 13th in line. Then I don't hear anything ever again. I begin to wonder if this is a test. You clear your week, and wait to see if you are called. It's a game of Zen chicken.

I'm doing pretty well with it, I think, though the suspense is driving Laura nuts. Last night she reaches the end of her rope.

"You haven't heard from them??!! I'm going to call them and pretend I am you."

"No, La," I tell her. "We're supposed to wait. I'm on the waiting list."

"But this is ridiculous! You've cleared a whole week and you have no idea if you're going to be able to go."

"But it's kind of interesting," I try. "It's like those trips where people aren't told where they're going until they get there."

"This is ridiculous," she mutters.

I start to itch, like you do when you see someone else scratching. I kind of would like to know where I'm pitching my tent next week. I'm up for the retreat, but I'd also like a week of writing. I've been imagining both with equal interest and anticipation. Which will it be? And what if I could choose? So often I don't choose.

So last night I write to the retreat center. "Uncle!" I say. "Please take my name off the waiting list for the retreat which begins any second now. I fold. I am not Zen enough to wait any longer."

Actually, no. I don't say that. I do say Uncle, though, and then after I send the email I worry that they won't understand that. I'm afraid they'll think I'm addressing them using the Chinese term of filial piety. (This reminds me of how my beloved brother Lee once advised us younger siblings as we entered a large party of mostly Chinese adults: "Don't worry. Just call the men 'uncle' and the women 'auntie' and you'll be okay.")

So I lost the game of chicken. And now the world is my oyster!

I hate oysters.

Laura and I begin to scramble to find the right thing to Occupy me next week.

I don't want to stay at home, as much as I love home. Give me a totally unscheduled week at 15 Main Street and I will spend it oiling squeaky doors, taking out the recycling one yogurt container at a time, checking out The Messiah flash mobs on YouTube, and cooking for the masses.

"Don't stay here," says Laura wisely. "You'll end up buying a dishwasher."

I start looking at B&Bs within walking distance of grocery stores. Laura is looking at yoga retreat centers in Puerto Rico, beach rentals in Florida, a small island off the coast of Brazil. When I look up from my computer, pondering a B&B run by Fred and Ethel and their three dogs, Laura is on her computer looking at Club Meds. Club Meds, she's looking at!

"It doesn't cost anything to look," she says without batting an eye.

"La," I tell her firmly. "I am not going to tell my clients that instead of the meditation retreat I went to a Club Med. I won't be able to face them."

Here my mind gets stuck on how it is that Laura loves me better than I love her. Not more; just better. If I break something, if I leave the oven on, if I screw up somehow, we all agree that it's a good thing it was me and not Laura. We laugh about it, but deep inside I hate how true that is.

If Laura had a week to play with, I would try to make it seem like a fabulous idea to do it on the cheap. Hey! How about you go stay with your mom? It's so comfy there. Or: how about you curl up near this cute, little, shedding Christmas tree we picked up at Lowe's? You could sit right in front of a warm fire. I would dig up lots of reasons not to go whole oyster, while hoping it sounds like her happiness is my top priority.

I have so much to learn about being a good person.

I am leaving Sunday morning and will write more from the retreat I have chosen.

november 30 2009

A year ago yesterday my breasts were sliced off and carried to a lab without me. I still miss them, miss the nerve endings that enveloped them. Not so much for the fun reasons you might be thinking of, though those fun reasons would be frosting on the (cup)cake(s). I just miss being able to feel anything at all in my chest. I miss having breasts as a visible identifier of membership in the female gang.

Last night Laura told me stories about the hours around the surgery -- she reminded me of the huge inflatable warmer they cover you with before surgery. Warm air is pumped through this body-shaped balloon and in the last moments before going under you look down the length of your body to see Dolly Parton's buxom outline. The balloon blanket warmed me up, but my mind made the shape meaningful in ways that weren't comforting.

In the recovery room, I apparently was pretty upset. I didn't know this part. I was crying a lot, saying over and over again that I was scared. Laura says I alternated between wailing and saying hello to my family as chipperly as I could: "How's everyone doing?" then "Waah! I'm so scared!"

The nurse was nodding slowly as she mouthed to Laura "NORMAL. This is perfectly normal."

A volunteer was doing Reiki over my bandaged chest. Laura thought she seemed to be faking it.

I've got a client whose mom is about to have her third surgery to finalize the shape of her prosthetic breasts. Her incisions got infected after her mastectomies, and then she got another infection when they put in the tissue expanders, inserted to stretch out her skin to make room for the silicone implants. It is hard for me to absorb needing the illusion of breasts so much that you'd put your body through all that, especially after it has dealt with cancer. It seems like whipping a horse after a long race.

And yet I do miss having breasts. I don't want to want fake ones, but I envy those who get them without this likely-to-be-chronic ambivalence I carry.

For me, hearing about other people and their prosthetic breasts is like watching people heading out to a very fancy dress ball. I feel left out and somehow less than, but I also know I wouldn't feel comfortable if I tagged along, no matter how fancy my get-up.

The past year has been packed with tired horses, hungry wolves, existential sudoku, footy pajamas under a fancy skirt, and nothing, ever again, beneath my shirt. It's also been full of baby giraffes, snowy owls, noble gladiators, and the miracle of a body healing as much as it can.

I think it's been a good year.

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.

you gonna pump those up with something?

I pull into the Lowe’s parking lot at the same time as the car in the space next to mine. The driver is in his 80s, I’d say, and there is more of his dog, some kind of thingapoo, draped outside the car than in. The man pulls in gingerly so the dog doesn’t fall out.

“Come say hello to this guy,” he urges me, window to window. His eyes sparkle with extroverted warmth. He makes no apologies for how he moves through the world.

I walk to his car and give the dog a good scratch. “Hi, buddy,” I say to the dog, whose friendliness matches his owner’s.

“I like your hair,” says the man.

“Oh! Oh, well. It’s just coming back from chemo. It’s not really on purpose.”

“Well, it looks great on you. It’s a good look. You should keep it like that.”

“Well. Thank you.” I rumple what there is of my hair self-consciously.

“What kind of cancer?”

Am I really having this conversation in the Lowe’s parking lot with a guy I’ve never seen before? “Breast.”

He looks angry, on my behalf. “Oh, shit. My first wife had breast cancer. They found this thing in there and it just burned through her like wildfire. She died an awful death. Just awful.” He winces with the memory.

Gee.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. That must have been so hard,“ I remember to say, amidst gruesome, imagined pictures of my own demise.

“Yeah, well. But you doing good?”

“Yep,” I say, suddenly very grateful to have the dog there to focus on. I scratch his head like I mean business.

“Well, good, good.” There is a pause. He looks at my chest.

He gestures toward it with his chin and lips. “You gonna pump those up with something?”

“Nah,” I hear myself say. “I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, okay.” He is nodding thoughtfully. “That’s good. Don’t want to put any more foreign material in there, right?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.” Scratch, scratch.

He is still studying my chest, like a neighbor examines a friend’s weedy back yard. Is it worth reseeding, or do we let it go?

“Well, I think you’re doing the right thing.” He nods. There is only friendly concern, but he expresses it with authority. A farmer assessing a bit of weevil damage. An electrician letting me know it’s okay to leave some old wiring in place. A builder assuring me that I can leave the old shed be.

Suddenly it seems suitable that I am in a hardware parking lot.

“Thanks,” I say. I can’t think of how else to respond.

When I come back out from the store, I am both relieved and disappointed that his car is gone. I have an allergic reaction to the dog for the next hour.