The "Sitting with Uncertainty" discussion is available now for everyone to benefit from the collective wisdom of the people who have been a part of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. You've only ready my contribution. There are about 10 other people's responses in this blog. It is rich. Please check it out.
The link is:
http://cchpalumni.wordpress.com/
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
Happy Belated Ground Hog Day
After Thanksgiving, Ground Hog Day is my favorite holiday. Few, if any of us have emotional baggage around this holiday. Those of us who celebrate it don't seem to be burdened or stressed by the rituals surrounding the day. Perhaps the people in Punxsutawny, Pennsylvania are under pressure to put on a good show, but I'm not. Aside from re-watching the Bill Murray film which made the holiday famous amongst us quasi-Buddhist English-speaking philosophers, I utilize the day as a catch-up for what many people do during the other winter holidays. I take time to call people and reconnect, send people cards, notes of gratitude, or bake cookies. And like the character in the film, I remind myself that "I'll do it 'til I get it right" and that "right" involves accepting the present moment and being open to love.
I'm in the middle of my 6-month follow-up battery of tests. I should have all my results back by the end of next week. I promise to post a report soon thereafter and not make you wait with uncertainty and wonder. So far things look good. The bone scan is next Wednesday and that's the test I struggle most with in terms of waiting and wondering. Several months ago, my friend Terri Mason from Commonweal posed the question about how to sit with uncertainty to the alumni group of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. She is compiling all the answers into a blog to share the wisdom and coping skills of this extraordinary community of people committed to living with cancer with a refined state of awareness. I'll post a link to the full text of responses when she's done preparing the blog. The following was my answer, which appeared in a longer form in a previous blog entry, but it's worth repeating:
I'm in the middle of my 6-month follow-up battery of tests. I should have all my results back by the end of next week. I promise to post a report soon thereafter and not make you wait with uncertainty and wonder. So far things look good. The bone scan is next Wednesday and that's the test I struggle most with in terms of waiting and wondering. Several months ago, my friend Terri Mason from Commonweal posed the question about how to sit with uncertainty to the alumni group of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. She is compiling all the answers into a blog to share the wisdom and coping skills of this extraordinary community of people committed to living with cancer with a refined state of awareness. I'll post a link to the full text of responses when she's done preparing the blog. The following was my answer, which appeared in a longer form in a previous blog entry, but it's worth repeating:
My challenge in all of this is to remember I’m the same person I was before the CAT scan. This result doesn’t change my actual life; it just changes what I think about my life. I had an old Indian teacher who used to say, “Your mind is a bad neighborhood. Don’t go there. You’ll get mugged.”
This is the reality of this disease. It is chronic. It will most likely come, and hopefully go, for the rest of my life, regardless of how long that ends up being. I can’t help but want to be special, be a miracle, be an overachiever, be an outlier, and I don’t want to feel like a failure or that I am to blame if things don’t go as I prefer.
This is as close as I get to positive thinking. I acknowledge my desire to live a long life and to have a chance to re-invent my life if I ever go back to doing something other than caring for myself full-time. I want to have more adventures. I want to be with my loved ones and be a part of their lives unfolding. I want to be of service to people again someday. The intensity of these desires and my longing for life feels like my life force expressing itself. How do I maintain this passion for life and yet let go of what I can’t control?
I don’t believe in positive thinking because I don’t believe that thinking is the way to guide our lives. Positive or negative thinking is still thinking, and thinking is not the most powerful force in us. The harm that’s done is obvious when people get caught in repetitive negative thinking, but positive thinking can also make a person blind to that which they really need to be responding. There’s a fine line between positive thinking and denial. And regardless of what we think, our unconscious still exerts more influence than our conscious thoughts. I believe that people who say one thing and unconsciously harbor the opposite are ultimately at much more risk of serious consequences, because they are in internal conflict and discord and not in touch with the necessity of the moment.
So I let myself feel the disappointment, the sadness, the grief, but I don’t dwell on it. It’s like bad weather; it will pass. I try not to let fearful scenarios take up space in my thinking because they are clearly only one possible future. I also try not to dwell on my desire to have my life be mended, because my desires are not reliable either. If I get too attached it makes it harder to cope with not getting what I want when that eventually happens. Inhale. . . exhale. . . It’s good to be alive and breathing as I sit here typing on this Saturday morning knowing that you all will be reading this and joining me in being alive together right now.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Loving The Dark Days
The sun sets in Vermont around 4:20 these days. That means it's getting dark at 3:30. Many people seem to be upset by this natural occurrence. I find it the ultimate invitation to be cozy with a cup of tea, a fuzzy blanket, and a good book. The dark days of late Fall/early Winter make it even more evident that most of the world is on the wrong speed. I yearn to slow down even more and be as internally-oriented as I can be during this time that the earth and the sun are in cahoots to impress us with the need to rest.
This year I say, "Heck with the cards and presents and candles!" I'm sitting at a window or lying down by a window and watching the river flow. It keeps me present and aware of something other than my own internal drama and suffering.
Cancer is my proving ground for how serious I am about living. It's become my life's work to learn how to be with this disease and all that it brings and find a way to make peace with it. I'm in less pain when I am in a state of internal acceptance (not to be confused with "giving up"). It is in this state that I make wise choices about my life. Every little move - how I lift a pan, how I reach for a roll of toilet paper on a high shelf (a challenge living with 6 foot 4 inch Steve who puts things away in places I don't know exist) what I commit to do when invited to a party, how I exercise, how many errands I run in a day, and what I plan to do with my future effects my daily pain level. Consciousness is potent medicine! I'm continuously learning how to cultivate the consciousness that allows me to live and thrive. My most challenging struggle is giving up being an overachiever.
I have just not been motivated to write for other people for a while. I'm trying to respond to everything that comes up inside me that feels like a "should." I'm sorry if you've been waiting to hear from me. My tempo is unbelievably slowed down and I haven't been able to crank out blog entries that meet my literary standards, or even just report on current events, but I will try...
Our apartment is feeling a lot more like home. Having a couch (we love our new couch) and proper lighting helps. 15 foot ceilings with no ceiling light fixtures makes lighting a serious challenge. We've had to be creative in figuring out ways to light up the house effectively. The people in this building, especially the poor college students, joke about what happens to the vision of Woolen Mill tenants from living in dim light. Those of us who face the river get some pretty bright light in the daytime when the sun rises over the river, but by 2 pm it's fairly dim inside. We're still in search of a few lighting fixtures for some dark corners.
We did our first little dance of apartment living celebration when it snowed and someone else shoveled. Apartment life is the best!
This year I say, "Heck with the cards and presents and candles!" I'm sitting at a window or lying down by a window and watching the river flow. It keeps me present and aware of something other than my own internal drama and suffering.
Cancer is my proving ground for how serious I am about living. It's become my life's work to learn how to be with this disease and all that it brings and find a way to make peace with it. I'm in less pain when I am in a state of internal acceptance (not to be confused with "giving up"). It is in this state that I make wise choices about my life. Every little move - how I lift a pan, how I reach for a roll of toilet paper on a high shelf (a challenge living with 6 foot 4 inch Steve who puts things away in places I don't know exist) what I commit to do when invited to a party, how I exercise, how many errands I run in a day, and what I plan to do with my future effects my daily pain level. Consciousness is potent medicine! I'm continuously learning how to cultivate the consciousness that allows me to live and thrive. My most challenging struggle is giving up being an overachiever.
I have just not been motivated to write for other people for a while. I'm trying to respond to everything that comes up inside me that feels like a "should." I'm sorry if you've been waiting to hear from me. My tempo is unbelievably slowed down and I haven't been able to crank out blog entries that meet my literary standards, or even just report on current events, but I will try...
Our apartment is feeling a lot more like home. Having a couch (we love our new couch) and proper lighting helps. 15 foot ceilings with no ceiling light fixtures makes lighting a serious challenge. We've had to be creative in figuring out ways to light up the house effectively. The people in this building, especially the poor college students, joke about what happens to the vision of Woolen Mill tenants from living in dim light. Those of us who face the river get some pretty bright light in the daytime when the sun rises over the river, but by 2 pm it's fairly dim inside. We're still in search of a few lighting fixtures for some dark corners.
We did our first little dance of apartment living celebration when it snowed and someone else shoveled. Apartment life is the best!
I found a wonderful Tai Chi teacher (http://greenleaftaichi.com/about/), who does Tai Chi as if it were standing and walking Continuum. He teaches the form or sequence of movements along with some principles that describe the movement of chi. Then he has us make up movements of our own, feeling the chi and using the imaginal mind to apply principles like, "walking under water," "pushing clouds," or "pushing a beachball under water." Sometimes we play the childhood game, "Red Light Green Light" in which he has us move on our own and stop randomly with a call of "red light," and we see if we can sense the energy and suspend right where we are in a balanced way. We pause, feel what's moving and what's not, make a little adjustment if we need to fine-tune our balance, and then after calling "green light" we start moving again. In 8 weeks we will learn the "Wu" style or "art of the water school" short form. He hopes we integrate the principles into how we move in our daily mundane life. He's quite young, but he totally "gets it," unlike many young people who seem to primarily be in search of "Buns of Steel" or some other useless bodily transformation. He's got a great future as a teacher, and I'm happy to have discovered him now.
I love the movement studio across the bridge. If you look at the photo taken from my living room on my Facebook page, it's the building across the bridge in the distance in the center of the photo. It takes 3 minutes to walk there. There's a walkway under the bridge that feels like a magic gateway to get to the other side. I go there once or twice a week for some class. My current favorite is this one:
Total Body Connectivity: The best way for students seeking to integrate and enhance body-mind connectivity. This class combines Bartenieff Fundamentals, Delsarte System of Expression, and Laban Movement Analysis for essential Awareness, Balance, and Coordination practices.It may sound more "structured" than you Continuum folks might think I would enjoy, but it isn't. It's very spacious and inner-directed. That's how Lucille approaches all her teaching, acknowledging that everything, hence all movement arises from "nothing." There's no better place to be!
I also found more than one great massage therapist, a wonderful Hakomi practitioner/therapist, and an acupuncturist who has a special interest in treating people with cancer. I've assembled quite a team, all within 15 minutes from home!
We have seen/heard some great live music: one-woman solo marimba, Gogol Bordello (gypsy punk rock), Cuban jazz, and Regina Carter, a fabulous jazz violinist at the UVM recital hall, a room with some of the best acoustics I've ever heard, and only 300 seats. UVM actually stands for Universitas Virdis Montis, latin for University of the Green Mountains, not University of Vermont, although that's what it actually is. Regina Carter is a MacArthur Fellow this year and has done an amazing job researching African folk music and synthesizing it into her jazz. Check out her new album: http://www.reginacarter.com/
Burlington has so much for such a small place. The indoor winter farmer's market is in full swing and our little Winooski downtown has some new "pop up" stores and a gallery that will probably just be here for the holiday season. The downtown landlords rent out empty store fronts very inexpensively to artists and artisans in attempt to stir up interest in the growing groovy neighborhood. I am sure this place will make it, and although I wish it "were there" already, at least there is the excitement of watching it turn into an interesting place. The food coop has plans to open a branch here in a building that's starting construction in the spring. Yay! Great food just around the traffic circle, about a 90 second walk from home.
It's been dipping into the single digits at night and I'm loving getting bundled up. I go into one of my favorite stores downtown, Outdoor Gear Exchange at least once a week asking advice about some winter weather garment that didn't exist 15 years ago. It's amazing how the technology of keeping warm has improved. Remember my Norwegian friend's advice, "There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing."
No big snow yet, just a few inches one day and a few dustings that melted quickly. We had a mallard couple (they are known to pair for life) who moved in to a calm spot on our river for almost 2 months. They swam in circles all day together, seemingly unfazed by the treaturous waterfalls on one side and a dam on the other. They were my heroes and the subject of many staring-out-the-window-at-the-river meditations until they flew south a few weeks ago. We have a fair number of non-migrating seagulls here that huddle on the rocks in the half-frozen river and some small dark birds that fly in swarms and swoop over the river. I could watch them all day, and sometimes I do!
My 17-yr-old step-son Luke is arriving tonight from Santa Cruz. Won't he be surprised when he feels single digit weather for the first time?! We have extra layers ready for him. His 19-yr-old brother arrives next week from Berkeley. Luke goes back first, so that we'll have time alone with each of them on either end of our time together. We'll be off to listen to more music, see some movies, play Settlers of Catan, snowboard (I'll read and drink tea in the ski lodge), go to Montreal for the day (90 miles north across the border), splash and scream at Vermont's new indoor water park (http://www.jaypeakresort.com/#/water_park/), and eat lots of great food. I'll rest a lot while they run around, and enjoy being with them, even if I can't keep up with their pace.
After they are gone, I enter a whole new phase of life. Steve goes back to work on January 17th. Check out his new website, even though it's still under construction you'll get an idea of the face of his new practice: http://stevepaulus.com/Office_Website/Home.html. I begin a mini-retreat/training at the Burlington Shambhala Center (http://burlington.shambhala.org/
and I go for my 6-month oncology work-up. I'll keep you posted as the results of my scans come in late January. By then, I'll be immersed in my favorite paradox of the year; as the days are getting lighter, the temperature and snow are still falling. I will be rising to the occasion to discover and honor the rhythm of this next phase of life.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
November: The End Of Survivor Guilt & The Beginning Of Metamorphosis
November is quite unpopular in the northeast. A friend of mine calls it "stick season," but I find it magnificent and I feel truly welcomed Home by this time of year. The last of the leaves are falling, and the palette of the earth is simplified to shades of brown, blue, gray, and white. If you recall the artwork in my old offices, there wasn't any green. I like having a break from green, yellow, pink, and red for several months. It's exhilarating to be "back east," as they say in California, to have the contrast of changing temperatures, and the sensual shift of the colors of nature, and to shift gears in concert with the earth's cycles. I finally start to cool off in November. I've been overheated for 14 years in California.
I became weary of the October Breast Cancer Awareness Month pink ribbon epidemic - another good reason to celebrate the arrival of November. My friend Julia, a fellow adventurer in Stage IV living says,
What's the point? Are companies making money and getting tax deductions on the backs of women with breast cancer? Do people alleviate their survivor guilt by spending money on products with pink ribbons?
I don't think that our culture has a deficiency of focus on and awareness of breasts. Breasts don't exist as separate from the body of a woman. Breasts are not "assets" and if a woman with breast cancer is told that they are then she can't help feeling like damaged goods. I actually went to the Pink Party Zumba class (kind of like an anthropological expedition) and I cringed as the sweaty young scantily-clad participants drank out of plastic water bottles. I think they missed the cancer part of breast cancer awareness. I commend them for attempting to promote exercise as a way to prevent breast cancer and increase the quality of life in women living with the disease, but they missed a few other important points.
In this realm, Vermont is no different than California, they just wear more clothes here for most of the year. Objectifying the body is a rampant distortion that disrupts our experience of being embodied. The body is not an object; it is a process. (This is what my book is about - please buy it and read it if you want to dive deeper into exploring this. In fact, please buy 10 copies; they make great stocking stuffers!) I am moved by the way David Abram describes this sense of things in Spell Of The Sensuous,
I became weary of the October Breast Cancer Awareness Month pink ribbon epidemic - another good reason to celebrate the arrival of November. My friend Julia, a fellow adventurer in Stage IV living says,
"Thanks Safeway/Yoplait/fill in the blank (multinational bizzillionaire company) that’s helping me be aware of breast cancer. I’m quite aware. I’m so happy my disease is helping to sell your products."I am happy that someone is raising money for the cause, although I wonder about who gets that money and how they spend it. I reach my limit when every wine list in town has pink ribbon specials, the local recycling and garbage pick-up company has a pink truck that drives around town, you can buy pink ribbon snow tires, the local Zumba fanatics throw a Pink Party Zumba class, and the local students can be seen wearing, "Protect My Assets" t-shirts.
What's the point? Are companies making money and getting tax deductions on the backs of women with breast cancer? Do people alleviate their survivor guilt by spending money on products with pink ribbons?
I don't think that our culture has a deficiency of focus on and awareness of breasts. Breasts don't exist as separate from the body of a woman. Breasts are not "assets" and if a woman with breast cancer is told that they are then she can't help feeling like damaged goods. I actually went to the Pink Party Zumba class (kind of like an anthropological expedition) and I cringed as the sweaty young scantily-clad participants drank out of plastic water bottles. I think they missed the cancer part of breast cancer awareness. I commend them for attempting to promote exercise as a way to prevent breast cancer and increase the quality of life in women living with the disease, but they missed a few other important points.
In this realm, Vermont is no different than California, they just wear more clothes here for most of the year. Objectifying the body is a rampant distortion that disrupts our experience of being embodied. The body is not an object; it is a process. (This is what my book is about - please buy it and read it if you want to dive deeper into exploring this. In fact, please buy 10 copies; they make great stocking stuffers!) I am moved by the way David Abram describes this sense of things in Spell Of The Sensuous,
To acknowledge that “I am this body” is not to reduce the mystery of my yearnings and fluid thoughts to a set of mechanisms, or my “self” to a determinate robot. Rather it is to affirm the uncanniness of this physical form. It is not to lock up awareness within the density of a closed and bounded object, for as we shall see, the boundaries of a living body are open and indeterminate; more like membranes than barriers, they define a surface of metamorphosis and exchange.I am on the fast track of "metamorphosis and change." I hardly recognize myself, which is a good thing, just occasionally disconcerting. I'm looking forward to winter, when everything slows down (except the diehard skiers) and hibernates or looks like it has died, only to be reborn in the spring. Ice may form on top of the water, but it is "more like a membrane than a barrier." Ice insulates and protects the deep dark waters beneath, so that the fluid intelligence continues to unfold and express its creative potency. The bare trees of "stick season" may look barren, but they are cooking up a new expression of creativity that will burst forth from the deep live roots in the spring.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Coffee and "The Hidden Discipline Of Familiarity"
Everything is Waiting for You
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
-- David Whyte, from Everything is Waiting for YouThis poem by David Whyte inspired me last year when I was struggling with coffee withdrawal. I love coffee, and now that I've admitted this publicly I can show you how I work with this embarrassing urge. I theoretically feel like I'd be better off without it, but like anyone with a charged relationship to a psychoactive substance, I struggle. It was actually my mother who introduced me to this sacred elixir when I was 10 years old. My mother and I would share a cup of instant coffee (yuck!) and eat cookies together after lunch when no one else was at home. That rush of energy and alertness, combined with the secret we shared that we were a little naughty drinking something that we shouldn't be, imbued it with even more appeal.
©2003 Many Rivers Press
I've always felt that it is a dietary transgression, and I wish I didn't like it so much. I've always had rules about drinking coffee, and felt that if I could stick to them, I wasn't a "coffeeholic."
- I wouldn't drink it on work days.
- I wouldn't drink it past noon, or maybe 3 pm if I had to stay up late.
- I wouldn't drink too much at once.
- I wouldn't drink little bits all day.
- I wouldn't drink it if it tasted bad.
- I wouldn't drink it to override my natural bedtime, except if I were driving a long distance and my safety depended on it.
- I could have a little, but only in the morning, and not every day.
- It would have to be organic.
- I'd learn to love it black, to avoid the additional evils of half-and-half or soy milk.
- It would have to be freshly ground to preserve the valuable antioxidants.
- I'd have to roast it myself.
I drank a cup one day last year before I went off to my Santa Cruz writing group, where Carolyn Flynn read the David Whyte poem that introduced this entry. I was inspired to write the following scenario about my beloved beans to sanctify our personal relationship and pay homage to their origin. I'm filled with gratitude for their journey across the world, and for their ordeal of transformation which results in giving up their life for my alertness and euphoria. Perhaps it's just another excuse to make me feel better about my tiny transgression, but I want to believe that cultivating a conscious relationship to what I eat and drink somehow augments its potential benefits and dampens the deleterious effects.
“Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity,” was the only line of the poem they could hear from inside the burlap bag. Many a poem was uttered by heart, by the clerk who worked at the Berkeley coffee supplier while she filled green coffee bean orders over the internet. Most people who work here have at least a master’s degree. Many have PhDs in subjects that make them virtually unemployable, like vertebrate paleontology, seventeenth century Dutch painters, or Aramaic, but this makes for profound small talk over the coffee, which the beans deeply appreciate.
They arrived last Tuesday from Guatemala, then on to Oakland, and finally Aptos, before preparing themselves for the ritual roasting. As their small pale green bodies began to tumble and dance in the roaster, under my careful eye, they rose like the Phoenix. As they began to heat up and darken I inhaled their toasty aromatic essence wafting from the top vent of the roaster. Our joining was ecstatic.
Their small round bodies plumped and darkened, sizzled and popped telling me they were ready to rest and cool. Later they would surrender their individuality to the burr grinder who would bless each of them as their fragments blended into a dark pile of coarse grounds.
They met a sacred stream of hot water as it poured into the cool glass container of the French press pot, and dissolved into their final realization of their destiny. I poured this potion into my blue cup with the Celtic knot etched into the glaze covering its rounded sides, and felt the familiar mingling of spirits from across the world feed me this elixir of alertness. No longer a tiny hidden transgression, this state invited me through the doors of alertness and filled me with anticipation of the everything that is waiting for me.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
We're All Just Passing Through
I picked up Jack Kornfield's newest book, A Lamp in the Darkness: Illuminating the Path Through Difficult Times, looking for some grounding guidance and inspiration during this challenging phase of moving and unpacking. He opens the book with the description of a cartoon he saw in the San Francisco Chronicle which shows a nomadic family crossing the desert on camel-back. The daughter must have just asked her father the classic childhood question and he replies, "Stop asking if we're almost there yet - we're nomads for crying out loud!"
This made me laugh and lighten up. It is an illusion to think that any of us are anywhere permanently. Even if we live in the town where we were born, we're all just passing through. Life in essence is temporary.
I've made some big moves in my life: Philadelphia to Miami, Miami to Sarasota, then on to Gainesville, New York City, Brooklyn, 10 days in Jamaica, Queens (that was a terrible mistake), then back to Brooklyn, Woodstock (NY), Santa Cruz, and now Vermont. Perhaps moving gets harder as I get older, or maybe it's that pesky cancer-thing that slows me down. This move has been the hardest thing I've ever done in terms of sheer endurance. With my impaired and painful hands, my sore chest, and limited energy level, I have to rely on Steve and others to do all the lifting and gripping, as well as many other things. It's challenging for me to be so much more dependent than before.
It took 6 weeks to sort and pack to come to Vermont, but the task really began when we decided to close the office last February. It's actually been 7 months of shuffling "stuff" around. Feeling the simplicity and lightness of having rid ourselves of a great volume of stuff is the reward for all the grueling effort. It is beyond a profound relief to be here and be almost settled.
Arriving here was somewhat wonderful, but moving to a state that's been declared a disaster area put a damper on the excitement about being some place new. Although Hurricane Irene did no damage in our part of the state, we could see the frightening height of the water marks on the bridge footings, and everywhere we went the first week or 2 people talked about the floods. The water was still high when we got here. The river was so raging that we could hardly sleep with the roar. In the 4 weeks that we have been here the waters have receded and quieted a bit. The sound of the river is always there in the background. I'm hoping it never gets so low that it can't be heard.
It is so beautiful here - lush and green and full of life and rushing water. There are the first signs of fall: a few orange-tipped trees here and there, that rustling sound of dry leaves in the wind, and flocks of birds en masse flying south. Yesterday was the first day I wore a scarf - very exciting for a woman with a scarf and boot fetish! In 1985, I was given the "Jane Jetson Little Black Boot Award" by my medical school class in honor of having the most pairs of black boots anyone had ever seen (they must not have known Imelda Marcos). I look forward to regaining my title.
Everyone drives much more slowly here. Even on the highway (I-89) the speed limit is only 55 mph, and it's not uncommon for cars on the entrance ramp to merge while driving 40mph.
There are so many great radio stations, we've run out of preset buttons on the car radio. Our refuge and rest from the chaos at home has been the movie theater. There are 2 fabulous theaters here that show a mix of independent films with some mainstream movies. They show all sorts of interesting things, like live HD simulcasts from the Metropolitan Opera (my mother's old stomping ground), a live lecture by Jane Goodall, The Rolling Stones in a concert from Texas, and Phantom Of The Opera live from Royal Albert Hall in London. Every time we see a film the theater is packed with a wide array of ages ranging from teens to elderly - definitely a wider demographic than in Santa Cruz where young people are often mysteriously absent from the audience. And for some strange reason, the people here are like me; they don't get up and leave while the credits are still playing. I feel like the music and the credits are part of the complete experience of a film and I always stay until the end. In my 14 years in Santa Cruz, the only film I saw after which the people sat through the credits was The Lives Of Others. What's that about?!
We may have missed Hurricane Irene, but we do have a flood story. However, the only water involved came from our hot water heater. We sent our stuff cross-country on a 28 foot truck. They delivered it to a terminal about 20 minutes away and we had to shuttle it on a smaller truck to our apartment building. The movers who were supposed to unload us had to cancel to go south and help with the flood relief effort. So instead of having 3 men for a full day, we could only find 2 men for a half-day. Steve rented a U-haul and did the rest himself. It took 3 days (in the rain) to get all the stuff off the 28 foot moving van and into our apt.
At about 11pm on the night we did the majority of the move, a strange sound emanated from somewhere in the house. I thought I had left an alarm clock set and packed it inside of a box or my dresser, which was still wrapped in moving blankets. We searched for the beeping and discovered that it was the water alarm on the floor at the foot of our hot water heater, which had sprung a leak. I crumpled in a big chair in the living room, cried, and passed out as Steve dealt with it. Thank goodness for apartment living! The night property manager came and drained it, and by 8 am the maintenance crew were in here installing a new one.
And now, almost a month later, it's still not over; we have to finish unpacking and make a nest. I actually enjoy unpacking, organizing, and setting things up, but I'm exhausted. There's an important distinction between wanting to have things set up so that I can relax, and being patient and relaxing in the moment, regardless of the mess in the external environment. Isn't this always a struggle? I get concerned that I'll spend too much of my life trying to complete my illusory list so that I can "relax" and that I'll never be done. I don't want to live like that!
"Dysrhythmic" is the word Steve uses to describe this strange feeling of being out of synch with time and place. After a month, we're starting to feel like maybe we're not on some strange vacation, and we don't have to pack up and go back to Santa Cruz. We can't believe that we bought a one-way ticket. We're still in shock that we live in such a new and different place.
Each day brings more feelings of being at Home. We are slowly replacing the furniture we left in California. It's amazing how much a couch makes a living room feel like home. We bought a new one and it's not here yet, so we're managing with some comfy chairs. We know where to go for most things we need. We don't need a map to get everywhere anymore. We are starting to know the people in the building and the neighborhood people, like the mail carriers and some Farmer's Market vendors. We went to our first city council meeting and were welcomed. I am checking out the movement scene and I went to a class taught by someone who went to UCSC in the late 70s and took dance classes with Beth at Cabrillo. Small world!
We have no lack of entertainment possibilities. We saw a fabulous Cuban jazz trio (Alfredo Rodriguez) and we're going to see David Sedaris, Richard Thompson (solo guitar), and Gogol Bordello in the next few weeks. We're in week 2 of a conversational French class. Steve is signed up for a bread-making class so he can get some new sourdough starter. I'm off to my old Osteopathic study group, which meets in November, after my 14 year absence. We went to the monthly open-house at the Burlington Shambhala Center and found it a very sweet place to meditate with a group. They have open meditation sessions 6 times a week. They are quite laid back and flexible - they even serve coffee!
Today I had my appointment with my new oncologist. She's wonderful and in total agreement with the treatment plan and how I've been caring for myself. Today I attended a wonderful retreat for women with metastatic breast cancer, followed by the yearly Breast Cancer Conference sponsored by the Vermont Cancer Center. This year's topic is, "Being Well Throughout The Cancer Journey". http://vtbreastcancerconference.org/
I am hoping to start feeling settled and have more regular writing time. Sorry about the long wait and then this rambling post. I'll aim to make them shorter and more frequent. I have a few pieces of more "literary" entries almost ready, so be on the lookout for them. Subscribe, if you haven't already, so that you get emailed automatically when I post an entry.
I think back to that crazy week that began with my comment about not wanting to die staring at the back of that damn bush and I am so profoundly grateful that I made it here. I have the Health, hope, creativity, and curiosity to make it through this transition gracefully. I have Steve, who is wonderful beyond belief in his sense of presence, love, and commitment to making a new life together here. And I have all these old friends and colleagues who have surfaced to welcome me Home, even though we're all just passing through.
This made me laugh and lighten up. It is an illusion to think that any of us are anywhere permanently. Even if we live in the town where we were born, we're all just passing through. Life in essence is temporary.
I've made some big moves in my life: Philadelphia to Miami, Miami to Sarasota, then on to Gainesville, New York City, Brooklyn, 10 days in Jamaica, Queens (that was a terrible mistake), then back to Brooklyn, Woodstock (NY), Santa Cruz, and now Vermont. Perhaps moving gets harder as I get older, or maybe it's that pesky cancer-thing that slows me down. This move has been the hardest thing I've ever done in terms of sheer endurance. With my impaired and painful hands, my sore chest, and limited energy level, I have to rely on Steve and others to do all the lifting and gripping, as well as many other things. It's challenging for me to be so much more dependent than before.
It took 6 weeks to sort and pack to come to Vermont, but the task really began when we decided to close the office last February. It's actually been 7 months of shuffling "stuff" around. Feeling the simplicity and lightness of having rid ourselves of a great volume of stuff is the reward for all the grueling effort. It is beyond a profound relief to be here and be almost settled.
Arriving here was somewhat wonderful, but moving to a state that's been declared a disaster area put a damper on the excitement about being some place new. Although Hurricane Irene did no damage in our part of the state, we could see the frightening height of the water marks on the bridge footings, and everywhere we went the first week or 2 people talked about the floods. The water was still high when we got here. The river was so raging that we could hardly sleep with the roar. In the 4 weeks that we have been here the waters have receded and quieted a bit. The sound of the river is always there in the background. I'm hoping it never gets so low that it can't be heard.
It is so beautiful here - lush and green and full of life and rushing water. There are the first signs of fall: a few orange-tipped trees here and there, that rustling sound of dry leaves in the wind, and flocks of birds en masse flying south. Yesterday was the first day I wore a scarf - very exciting for a woman with a scarf and boot fetish! In 1985, I was given the "Jane Jetson Little Black Boot Award" by my medical school class in honor of having the most pairs of black boots anyone had ever seen (they must not have known Imelda Marcos). I look forward to regaining my title.
Everyone drives much more slowly here. Even on the highway (I-89) the speed limit is only 55 mph, and it's not uncommon for cars on the entrance ramp to merge while driving 40mph.
There are so many great radio stations, we've run out of preset buttons on the car radio. Our refuge and rest from the chaos at home has been the movie theater. There are 2 fabulous theaters here that show a mix of independent films with some mainstream movies. They show all sorts of interesting things, like live HD simulcasts from the Metropolitan Opera (my mother's old stomping ground), a live lecture by Jane Goodall, The Rolling Stones in a concert from Texas, and Phantom Of The Opera live from Royal Albert Hall in London. Every time we see a film the theater is packed with a wide array of ages ranging from teens to elderly - definitely a wider demographic than in Santa Cruz where young people are often mysteriously absent from the audience. And for some strange reason, the people here are like me; they don't get up and leave while the credits are still playing. I feel like the music and the credits are part of the complete experience of a film and I always stay until the end. In my 14 years in Santa Cruz, the only film I saw after which the people sat through the credits was The Lives Of Others. What's that about?!
We may have missed Hurricane Irene, but we do have a flood story. However, the only water involved came from our hot water heater. We sent our stuff cross-country on a 28 foot truck. They delivered it to a terminal about 20 minutes away and we had to shuttle it on a smaller truck to our apartment building. The movers who were supposed to unload us had to cancel to go south and help with the flood relief effort. So instead of having 3 men for a full day, we could only find 2 men for a half-day. Steve rented a U-haul and did the rest himself. It took 3 days (in the rain) to get all the stuff off the 28 foot moving van and into our apt.
At about 11pm on the night we did the majority of the move, a strange sound emanated from somewhere in the house. I thought I had left an alarm clock set and packed it inside of a box or my dresser, which was still wrapped in moving blankets. We searched for the beeping and discovered that it was the water alarm on the floor at the foot of our hot water heater, which had sprung a leak. I crumpled in a big chair in the living room, cried, and passed out as Steve dealt with it. Thank goodness for apartment living! The night property manager came and drained it, and by 8 am the maintenance crew were in here installing a new one.
And now, almost a month later, it's still not over; we have to finish unpacking and make a nest. I actually enjoy unpacking, organizing, and setting things up, but I'm exhausted. There's an important distinction between wanting to have things set up so that I can relax, and being patient and relaxing in the moment, regardless of the mess in the external environment. Isn't this always a struggle? I get concerned that I'll spend too much of my life trying to complete my illusory list so that I can "relax" and that I'll never be done. I don't want to live like that!
"Dysrhythmic" is the word Steve uses to describe this strange feeling of being out of synch with time and place. After a month, we're starting to feel like maybe we're not on some strange vacation, and we don't have to pack up and go back to Santa Cruz. We can't believe that we bought a one-way ticket. We're still in shock that we live in such a new and different place.
Each day brings more feelings of being at Home. We are slowly replacing the furniture we left in California. It's amazing how much a couch makes a living room feel like home. We bought a new one and it's not here yet, so we're managing with some comfy chairs. We know where to go for most things we need. We don't need a map to get everywhere anymore. We are starting to know the people in the building and the neighborhood people, like the mail carriers and some Farmer's Market vendors. We went to our first city council meeting and were welcomed. I am checking out the movement scene and I went to a class taught by someone who went to UCSC in the late 70s and took dance classes with Beth at Cabrillo. Small world!
We have no lack of entertainment possibilities. We saw a fabulous Cuban jazz trio (Alfredo Rodriguez) and we're going to see David Sedaris, Richard Thompson (solo guitar), and Gogol Bordello in the next few weeks. We're in week 2 of a conversational French class. Steve is signed up for a bread-making class so he can get some new sourdough starter. I'm off to my old Osteopathic study group, which meets in November, after my 14 year absence. We went to the monthly open-house at the Burlington Shambhala Center and found it a very sweet place to meditate with a group. They have open meditation sessions 6 times a week. They are quite laid back and flexible - they even serve coffee!
Today I had my appointment with my new oncologist. She's wonderful and in total agreement with the treatment plan and how I've been caring for myself. Today I attended a wonderful retreat for women with metastatic breast cancer, followed by the yearly Breast Cancer Conference sponsored by the Vermont Cancer Center. This year's topic is, "Being Well Throughout The Cancer Journey". http://vtbreastcancerconference.org/
I am hoping to start feeling settled and have more regular writing time. Sorry about the long wait and then this rambling post. I'll aim to make them shorter and more frequent. I have a few pieces of more "literary" entries almost ready, so be on the lookout for them. Subscribe, if you haven't already, so that you get emailed automatically when I post an entry.
I think back to that crazy week that began with my comment about not wanting to die staring at the back of that damn bush and I am so profoundly grateful that I made it here. I have the Health, hope, creativity, and curiosity to make it through this transition gracefully. I have Steve, who is wonderful beyond belief in his sense of presence, love, and commitment to making a new life together here. And I have all these old friends and colleagues who have surfaced to welcome me Home, even though we're all just passing through.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Earthquakes & Hurricanes Welcome Me Home
Contrary to what some people are suggesting, there is no causal or mystical significance of my move back east and the recent natural disasters. The earth is not quaking at the anticipation of my return, and the hurricane that is ripping up the east coast has nothing to do with my penchant for spirals. I am amused, though, by the metaphorical implications of cataclysmic change in my life.
We are quite consumed with the last phase of packing and loading the 28 foot truck that will carry our worldly possessions across the country.
I dream of the moment the truck drives away with all of our belongings, wondering exactly how I would handle it if I never saw the stuff again. Somehow, putting all of my things in boxes and stacking them up in one spot makes it easier to imagine losing it all without attachment.
Here I am, posing as a "fragile basket case" in the staging area for boxes in our garage. Someone I spoke to last week called this the "loose shit" phase - the time when miscellaneous loose shit gets randomly thrown in boxes that defy labeling.
We are quite consumed with the last phase of packing and loading the 28 foot truck that will carry our worldly possessions across the country.
 |
| Steve & Luke = testosterone! |
Here I am, posing as a "fragile basket case" in the staging area for boxes in our garage. Someone I spoke to last week called this the "loose shit" phase - the time when miscellaneous loose shit gets randomly thrown in boxes that defy labeling.
I am trying to rest and pace myself. I lay myself down in bed at least twice a day, and it frequently turns into a full-fledged nap. Steve won't let me lift a thing (I'm not sure I could if I wanted to), but my hands still hurt from all the handling of little stuff. I have sorted, shredded, or tossed unimaginable things from the bowels of my closets: report cards from elementary school, journals from seventh grade, recipes from my 1973 college dorm, hundreds of casette tapes, anatomy notes from medical school, my father's death certificate, hideous tchotchkies from my childhood, countless rocks, feathers, and crystals, and a jar with some lump of tissue in formaldehyde that was removed from my arm sometime in the 90s - good grief!
We fly out on Thursday, well after the storm will have passed. A soggy Vermont will welcome us. We have shipped some boxes ahead so that we have "indoor camping" supplies to hold us over until the movers bring our stuff: a blow-up bed, kitchen stuff, some clothing, sheets, towels, blankets, and other basics. We sold one of our cars and shipped the other. We'll rent a car at the airport and will keep it until ours arrives. In our new life we hope to only have 1 car. With Steve's office 1/2 mile from home, and living "downtown" on a bus line, we think it's worth a try. We kept the Subaru, so we're prepared for the winter, but there's no way for us to prepare for any other natural disasters while in transition. Let's hope that Mother Nature calms down and lets us get settled in our new home before another cataclysm.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
An Unexpected River
I was sitting with Steve, staring out our living room window a few weeks ago, drinking what we jokingly call our morning "hot brown liquids." Hot and brown describes the range of morning brews, from coffee, tea, and hot chocolate, to coffee substitutes like Dandy Blend. I was staring out our picture window that faces the back of a hedge, and the following sentence popped out of my mouth, "I don't want to spend the rest of my life staring at the back of this damn bush!" In that moment, I could feel that something unexpected was about to unfold.
Steve was profoundly unhappy in his new mainstream medical job. It just wasn't working out (no one's surprise). It was becoming evident that he was going to leave the job imminently, and we were dumbfounded by our seeming lack of options. I keep in touch with many old friends from all over the northeast, and one day while chatting with one of my oldest Osteopathic friends, he explained that he was doubly in mourning: for the death of our dear 89-year-old teacher Stan Schiowitz, and for the loss of the family physician with whom he shared his office, and that he was just going to wait for the perfect Osteopath to come along. We wondered why he was telling us this now. It just wasn't quite the right time to even consider such a big move.
This next synchronous detail is one that I couldn't have made up if I tried. I got a random spam email from apartments.com announcing the availability of a 2BR, 2 bath loft apartment a half-mile from our friend Jonathan's office. The apartment is as big as the house we live in right now (1700 sq ft) and has 12-foot-tall windows that face the cascades, several small waterfalls on the Winooski river.
There's a health club in the building, complete with pool and sauna, and a canoe launch right behind the building. We continued to wonder, "why now?" but we were starting to feel the inevitability of the momentum of what was about to unfold.
That night, after Steve returned home from work, we called my friend in Vermont to tell him about the cryptic coincidences. By the end of the conversation, he offered Steve the opportunity to share his office and develop his own private practice. Jonathan deeply appreciates Steve's unique blend of Osteopathy and primary care and offered the possibility of making it a reality.
In the past, we had toyed with the idea of moving to the east coast "someday," but we would never have rationally chosen to do so now. It seems as if we've been called by some mysterious force and we've surrendered to an attraction that feels involuntary, like magnetism or gravity. In a matter of about 6 days from the time I blurted out that prophetic statement, a perfect storm landed us unexpectedly on the shores of the Winooski River, just 2 miles from downtown Burlington, Vermont. We're moving on September 1st. Here's what it looks like:
Although "Winooski" sounds Polish, it is not; it means "wild onion" in the Native American Abenaki language. Here's a story about this unique town:
http://www.7dvt.com/2011winooski
If we were there this weekend, these are some events we'd be checking out:
http://artmapburlington.com/winooskipops/?p=89
http://monkeyhousemusic.com/
http://www.highergroundmusic.com/
http://www.7dvt.com/
http://www.cvfest.org/
If we want to see a film, we'll walk down to the local independent theater:
http://merrilltheatres.net/
There's even a performing arts center for music, plays, dance, etc: http://www.flynncenter.org/performances-events/2011-12-season.html
Vermont is quite politically progressive, including valuing universal health care (to be implemented by 2014 for all 600,000 people in the state) and respect for same-sex marriage. And we'll have Bernie Sanders as our Independent Senator, the first US Senator to openly identify as a "democratic socialist."
We'll have a fabulous food coop: http://www.citymarket.coop/
And a farmer's market around the corner, in addition to many others within a 10 minute drive. The Burlington Farmer's Market runs year-round! Vermonters are serious about good food:
http://www.vermontfresh.net/index.php
There's a large population from Viet Nam, Somalia, Bosnia, and Iraq in our town and with that comes all sorts of great little restaurants, grocery stores, and some welcome diversity in the otherwise fairly Caucasian culture. We're staying at The Tibet Inn the first night we arrive, owned by a formerly Tibetan family, who call Burlington their "land of the snows," which in Tibetan implies that it is their spiritual and emotional home.
There is a huge movement and meditation community with many options:
http://www.uvm.edu/~CHWB/psych/?Page=mindfulness.html&SM=mindfulnessmenu.html
http://burlington.shambhala.org/
http://vermontzen.org/index.html
The Winooski River feeds into Lake Champlain, the 6th largest lake in the US, with the Adirondacks Mountains of New York (the largest national forest in the US) towering in the distant view west. Burlington is called "The West Coast of New England." Winooski has been called "Burlington's Brooklyn." It's a lot like Santa Cruz or Woodstock, for those of you who live in one of those place and know what I mean.
If your east coast geography is sketchy and you're shocked to realize that the Canadian border is only 45 minutes away from our new home, and Montreal is 90 miles away, here's where it is:
View Larger Map
In terms of my health care, I discovered an annual Breast Cancer Conference less than a mile from our new home: http://vtbreastcancerconference.org/ I found a fabulous oncologist, an MD with a PhD in nutrition. Her research has been about the relationship between breast cancer and inflammation, and the effects of exercise on survival in cancer patients - sounds like my kind of gal! My beloved Oncologists at Stanford have set me up with referrals to Dana Farber Cancer Institute (Harvard Medical School's cancer center) if I need a big university-style back-up in Boston, 3 hours away.
Steve and I decided that we want several months to be together and not working now, while I'm healthy and feeling relatively good. Why wait until we're forced to take time off? Life is too short and too precious to wait for what we want to come in some unknown future. No one says with regret on their deathbed that they took too much time off of work! We are going to go on this crazy adventure September 1st and we'll be there for my 55th birthday (9/26) and the fall colors. I desperately miss the seasons - all of them, including winter. My Norwegian friends say, "There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing." I say, "Let's go shopping!"
I've loved living in California, but I've always felt like California is a somewhat like a foreign country where English is conveniently spoken. It has just never felt like home.
I want to go "home," and even though I believe that home is where the heart is, I want to be in the familiarity and sensuality of the seasons, and near the people I have been missing for the 14 years I've been in California.
I am filled with the whole spectrum of emotions; I'm sad about being far from the people and resources I love in California. I'll miss the tall redwoods, the Pacific ocean/Monterey Bay, the amazing food and wackiness of San Francisco, and in the same breath, I'm overjoyed about doing something crazy like moving 3089 miles at this stage in my life to a place that calls to me.
It's not a totally random choice for a new home. I have many friends nearby, some of whom I've known for 35+ years, and a huge support network within a fairly short distance. There are "sub-tribes" of all my communities here: Continuum, Commonweal, Mindfulness, and Osteopathy. Steve and I have visited Vermont many times in the past few years, and I have been going there since I first discovered the town with my dear friend and colleague Hugh, with whom I co-directed the 1993 Cranial Academy Annual Conference on the Burlington lakefront. (There's a picture of a bunch of us there on my facebook page, in the "Great Moments in Osteopathic History" section of my Photos, if you're interested.)
For those of you who want to stay in touch, please keep me in your address book and check out my blog periodically, or just drop me an old-fashioned letter or phone call. My email and cell phone number will stay the same.
I believe it's a sign of my thriving life force that I have this surge of energy to expand and explore. I've been resting for 2 years, and it feels like now is the time to have a great adventure along this unexpected river.
Steve was profoundly unhappy in his new mainstream medical job. It just wasn't working out (no one's surprise). It was becoming evident that he was going to leave the job imminently, and we were dumbfounded by our seeming lack of options. I keep in touch with many old friends from all over the northeast, and one day while chatting with one of my oldest Osteopathic friends, he explained that he was doubly in mourning: for the death of our dear 89-year-old teacher Stan Schiowitz, and for the loss of the family physician with whom he shared his office, and that he was just going to wait for the perfect Osteopath to come along. We wondered why he was telling us this now. It just wasn't quite the right time to even consider such a big move.
This next synchronous detail is one that I couldn't have made up if I tried. I got a random spam email from apartments.com announcing the availability of a 2BR, 2 bath loft apartment a half-mile from our friend Jonathan's office. The apartment is as big as the house we live in right now (1700 sq ft) and has 12-foot-tall windows that face the cascades, several small waterfalls on the Winooski river.
 | ||
| This is the view of the cascades on the river, outside the apartment building in question (the fisherman is seasonal). |
That night, after Steve returned home from work, we called my friend in Vermont to tell him about the cryptic coincidences. By the end of the conversation, he offered Steve the opportunity to share his office and develop his own private practice. Jonathan deeply appreciates Steve's unique blend of Osteopathy and primary care and offered the possibility of making it a reality.
In the past, we had toyed with the idea of moving to the east coast "someday," but we would never have rationally chosen to do so now. It seems as if we've been called by some mysterious force and we've surrendered to an attraction that feels involuntary, like magnetism or gravity. In a matter of about 6 days from the time I blurted out that prophetic statement, a perfect storm landed us unexpectedly on the shores of the Winooski River, just 2 miles from downtown Burlington, Vermont. We're moving on September 1st. Here's what it looks like:
 | ||
 |
http://www.7dvt.com/2011winooski
If we were there this weekend, these are some events we'd be checking out:
http://artmapburlington.com/winooskipops/?p=89
http://monkeyhousemusic.com/
http://www.highergroundmusic.com/
http://www.7dvt.com/
http://www.cvfest.org/
If we want to see a film, we'll walk down to the local independent theater:
http://merrilltheatres.net/
There's even a performing arts center for music, plays, dance, etc: http://www.flynncenter.org/performances-events/2011-12-season.html
Vermont is quite politically progressive, including valuing universal health care (to be implemented by 2014 for all 600,000 people in the state) and respect for same-sex marriage. And we'll have Bernie Sanders as our Independent Senator, the first US Senator to openly identify as a "democratic socialist."
 |
| Bernie Sanders! |
And a farmer's market around the corner, in addition to many others within a 10 minute drive. The Burlington Farmer's Market runs year-round! Vermonters are serious about good food:
http://www.vermontfresh.net/index.php
There's a large population from Viet Nam, Somalia, Bosnia, and Iraq in our town and with that comes all sorts of great little restaurants, grocery stores, and some welcome diversity in the otherwise fairly Caucasian culture. We're staying at The Tibet Inn the first night we arrive, owned by a formerly Tibetan family, who call Burlington their "land of the snows," which in Tibetan implies that it is their spiritual and emotional home.
There is a huge movement and meditation community with many options:
http://www.uvm.edu/~CHWB/psych/?Page=mindfulness.html&SM=mindfulnessmenu.html
http://burlington.shambhala.org/
http://vermontzen.org/index.html
If your east coast geography is sketchy and you're shocked to realize that the Canadian border is only 45 minutes away from our new home, and Montreal is 90 miles away, here's where it is:
View Larger Map
In terms of my health care, I discovered an annual Breast Cancer Conference less than a mile from our new home: http://vtbreastcancerconference.org/ I found a fabulous oncologist, an MD with a PhD in nutrition. Her research has been about the relationship between breast cancer and inflammation, and the effects of exercise on survival in cancer patients - sounds like my kind of gal! My beloved Oncologists at Stanford have set me up with referrals to Dana Farber Cancer Institute (Harvard Medical School's cancer center) if I need a big university-style back-up in Boston, 3 hours away.
Steve and I decided that we want several months to be together and not working now, while I'm healthy and feeling relatively good. Why wait until we're forced to take time off? Life is too short and too precious to wait for what we want to come in some unknown future. No one says with regret on their deathbed that they took too much time off of work! We are going to go on this crazy adventure September 1st and we'll be there for my 55th birthday (9/26) and the fall colors. I desperately miss the seasons - all of them, including winter. My Norwegian friends say, "There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing." I say, "Let's go shopping!"
I've loved living in California, but I've always felt like California is a somewhat like a foreign country where English is conveniently spoken. It has just never felt like home.
I want to go "home," and even though I believe that home is where the heart is, I want to be in the familiarity and sensuality of the seasons, and near the people I have been missing for the 14 years I've been in California.
I am filled with the whole spectrum of emotions; I'm sad about being far from the people and resources I love in California. I'll miss the tall redwoods, the Pacific ocean/Monterey Bay, the amazing food and wackiness of San Francisco, and in the same breath, I'm overjoyed about doing something crazy like moving 3089 miles at this stage in my life to a place that calls to me.
It's not a totally random choice for a new home. I have many friends nearby, some of whom I've known for 35+ years, and a huge support network within a fairly short distance. There are "sub-tribes" of all my communities here: Continuum, Commonweal, Mindfulness, and Osteopathy. Steve and I have visited Vermont many times in the past few years, and I have been going there since I first discovered the town with my dear friend and colleague Hugh, with whom I co-directed the 1993 Cranial Academy Annual Conference on the Burlington lakefront. (There's a picture of a bunch of us there on my facebook page, in the "Great Moments in Osteopathic History" section of my Photos, if you're interested.)
For those of you who want to stay in touch, please keep me in your address book and check out my blog periodically, or just drop me an old-fashioned letter or phone call. My email and cell phone number will stay the same.
I believe it's a sign of my thriving life force that I have this surge of energy to expand and explore. I've been resting for 2 years, and it feels like now is the time to have a great adventure along this unexpected river.
Happy Anniversary Bone & CT Scans
I have a lot of big news and I'll begin by letting you all know that my recent work-up showed that my tumors continue to shrink and there is no new spread. I'm 1 month short of my 2-year anniversary and I'm obviously, officially, a statistical outlier. There was an 80% chance that I wouldn't make it this far, and now that I have, I'm in uncharted territory.
There are no statistics on women who live 2 years past their diagnosis with the type of cancer I have. At this point, anything could happen. I have had the honor to meet many, who like me, have outlived predictions. I have other Stage IV friends who are up to 25 years post-diagnosis. I know that I could be hit by the "proverbial bus" and die tomorrow, but barring something unforeseen and random, I now join the ranks of those who mystify their doctors.
I am devoted to the exploration of that which guides my self-care and attentiveness to the preciousness of life. . . and in my next entry, coming very soon, you'll hear about my next piece of big news.
There are no statistics on women who live 2 years past their diagnosis with the type of cancer I have. At this point, anything could happen. I have had the honor to meet many, who like me, have outlived predictions. I have other Stage IV friends who are up to 25 years post-diagnosis. I know that I could be hit by the "proverbial bus" and die tomorrow, but barring something unforeseen and random, I now join the ranks of those who mystify their doctors.
I am devoted to the exploration of that which guides my self-care and attentiveness to the preciousness of life. . . and in my next entry, coming very soon, you'll hear about my next piece of big news.
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