How 'Bout Those Mets?!

"How 'bout those Mets" is what you might say in New York when you're looking to make small talk with a baseball fan, but here in my life it's what I say to every doctor I see. Every one of them has a different opinion about the 2 mysterious findings in the CT scan of my pelvis. Whether or not the fracture and the lytic lesion (which looks like a marble-sized hole with a crust around it) in my pelvis are old or new, benign or metastatic, my treatment remains the same. Since none of these findings pose an emergency we will just use the scans that we have as a baseline and move forward. There's no reason to do a biopsy. "Let go of trying to understand what happened in the past and get on with living," is what more than one doctor has advised. Being a doctor doesn't make it any easier, in fact, I think it makes it more challenging to not get caught up in the rat's nest of thinking about the unknown.

I don't have any symptoms or pain in my pelvis, in fact most of my pain is not where I have bone mets, it's in my joints (almost all of them) and has nothing (directly) to do with cancer.  Joint and muscle pain are the main side effects of my treatment. So, after one year of toughing it out on Arimidex (anastrozole) I have switched to Aromasin (exemestane). This estrogen blocking drug should be equal in anticancer action, and will hopefully have fewer side effects.  It should take about six weeks to know how well it's working.

I was looking for some words of wisdom about living with the unknown and unknowable and I flipped to P.145 of my book,

"The nature of time and “reality” is unknowable, but it is helpful to question the conclusions we have drawn about how we perceive and respond to how we think things are. Suspending a definitive opinion about the way you think things are might give access to a different possible outcome.

When a physician examines a patient with the intent to make a diagnosis, he or she might conclude that something happened in the past that altered the physical properties or functioning of the body. When any of us examine our own lives with the intent to analyze, understand, or have insight about a problem, we might draw the same type of conclusions about the influence of the past. When this type of judgment is made, it tends to get named, labeled, and interpreted. At worst, generalized conclusions are drawn based on it. Diagnoses get dragged around and applied to the present and the future. Identifying with your problem, with something that happened to you, with your diagnosis or pain and using it as the reference point keeps you bound to it—thus keeping the residue of the past in your view of the present and future.

The mechanics of the past may be interesting and useful in order to understand what happened, but we don’t need a map to get back to the territory of the past. We’ve already been there. We want to enter the new territory of the future. Holding on to the residue of the past and projecting it into the future does not leave space for the full expression of the potential held in the future. We can become misinformed and misled about the prognosis for the future by the remnants of the past. Health and the therapeutic process can only be expressed fully if the path to the future is held clear and open for what has yet to happen, to unfold and reveal itself. Health transcends time; potential is always accessible. 

The map of the past is not the territory of the present. The actuality of the future cannot exist until it emerges, and once it does so, it is not in the future anymore. It is an event that has already occurred. Once the action that was dictated into the present from the unfolding future produces a result, the effects of the process exist as an event already in the past. In this view it becomes clear how healing—as a creative act of the organism creating its future—can only happen to its fullest extent and potential if we hold the space for it to emerge and not clutter the field with attempts to fix and resolve the past. The philosophical view of life unfolding in this manner can be seen as more fully expressing itself if the future moves into the present, rather than attempting to fix or resolve the past and move it toward the future." 

I know this last paragraph is somewhat wordy, but read it slowly, one line at a time, and try to feel what happens in your body when you take a breath and allow yourself to experience the present as the space between your past and future without any judgments or preconceived expectations. Instead of plowing ahead into the future, allow yourself to sit in the stillness, and let the events of time unfold, as if the future is approaching to meet you where you are.

Finally, You Can Subscribe To My Blog

I finally got someone to help me activate the "Subscription Feature" on my blog. You can automatically receive an email each time I post an entry, if you don't want to have to check it periodically. Just enter your email in the box to the right.

I have an update brewing, as I sort through all my test results of the past week. Stay tuned this weekend. . .

Join Me In Being Alive & Breathing Together Right Now

I have good news and some not too bad news. The bad news is that I do have a spot of metastasis in my pelvis (in my "sit bone," to be exact). The good news is that there is a possibility that it's not really new. It's most likely been there a while and just wasn't discovered earlier. My first CAT scan last year didn't extend far down enough to show it. At the time they were more interested in looking for cancer inside my pelvic cavity, than outside in the bones around the edges. So when the scan stopped an inch short of my sit bone, no one seemed to think it mattered. This means I have no way to know how long it's been there, and even though I can't feel it, I have a feeling it's been there a while.

This information doesn't really change anything, except my mood. It doesn't change my treatment. It doesn't change my prognosis. A few more specks in the bone don't mean much in the big picture. Regardless of what I think or feel about how long I've had this, my life in this moment is exactly the same.

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.

Quote Of The Week

Here's my favorite quote of the week, from my gastroenterologist,

"Your colon is beautiful and perfect."

The dermatologist gave me a clean bill of health today, as far as my skin is concerned. Growing up in Miami in the days of baby oil sunbathing, I was sunburned until I was 15, so I'm serious about having my skin checked. So far the only diagnosis is terminal freckles!

Tomorrow's my big CAT scan, so it's seaweed and miso with every meal and snack for the next few days. My bone scan got postponed until next Tuesday.

Thanks for all the recent cards, emails, and letters. I'll keep you all posted about the test results and won't make you wait a month for my next entry.

Stage 4 ½ - A Portal To Another Dimension Of Life

A young friend (by young, I mean 30) recently asked me what comes after the Stage 4 cancer with which I'm diagnosed. I didn’t want to tell him that mainstream medicine considers Stage 4 a terminal diagnosis and that death is considered the inevitable next stage. There is no Stage 5. I paused, grasping for words, and an image from the ridiculously wacky film, Being John Malkovich came to mind—the “7½th” floor. In this floor-between-floors in an office building there is a portal into John Malkovich’s consciousness. In a similar spirit, in an attempt to digress from the linear progression of the 7th floor to the 8th, or Stage 4 to death, I’ve decided to rename my present stage of cancer “Stage 4 ½".

I believe I've found a portal to a new stage of consciousness that lies between Stage 4 and oblivion. Naming my chosen alternative to the next stage of this disease seems like a perfectly empowering use of terminology. I love being a pioneer, an outlier, an explorer, so off I go into the unknown, forging my own word for the state or stage I'm in.

Compensation and adaptation is a full-time endeavor for me these days. The nuts-and-bolts of self-care, eating and sleeping well, breathing, moving, meditating, laughing, crying, etc. take up a good part of my day. I like to think that I'm not just coping, but transcending my affliction and transforming my life. I am making up for lost time, lost abilities, lost possibilities, and creating something new from the uninvited imposition of cancer.

On this Thanksgiving weekend, I think back to a year ago and know how much I have for which to feel gratitude. Last year at this time, I wasn't sure I'd live to write another Thanksgiving blog entry. 

Those of you who know me and my family are probably wondering what exotic non-turkey item we had this year. (For the rest of that story scroll back down to my Nov 24, 2009 entry and read about our history with alternative Thanksgiving meals.) Since I'm not eating any animal products that ruled out our previous choices of duck, quail, goose, guinea hen, pheasant, emu, ostrich, squab, partridge, ostrich, kangaroo ribs, alligator, crocodile, turtle, frog, llama, elk, venison, antelope, rabbit, rattlesnake, yak, and wild boar.

Since metastatic breast cancer has caused me to have an aversion to animal fat, I started with a vegan version of my stuffing. I replaced butter with olive oil and chicken broth with veggie and mushroom broth. My husband Steve made the bread for it. He just came home from a week at the San Francisco Baking Institute – and he is so inspired to bake. Wow, am I grateful I am not wheat intolerant! I made fresh mushroom broth to use in the stuffing and in the shitake gravy. Most of our ingredients came from our local Farmers’ Market. I mounded the stuffing on a giant upside-down portobello mushroom, stuffed some delicata squash, and then topped it with shitake mushroom gravy. My 18 yr-old step-son Ben made 2 kinds of cranberry sauce. My 16-yr-old step-son Luke made (seriously non-vegan) pumpkin pie, including the crust, which I had to have a tiny bite of, then pass on the rest of it. I made a salad with greens, roasted asparagus, artichoke hearts (I made them fresh, not from a jar), toasted almonds, and a ruby red grapefruit juice reduction salad dressing. Wow! Any carnivore would have agreed this was a fabulous feast. My guys actually made a plain, old-fashioned turkey (with my stuffing) for themselves. Ben can actually claim that he made it through his entire childhood without having turkey for Thanksgiving with us. For some odd reason, this fact amuses me.

Now I need to spend a few days laying low and recovering from all the food prep before my week of CAT scans, bone scans, and other medical poking around, in honor of my 1 year diagnosis anniversary. I expect it all to look good and hope that I don’t glow in the dark after all the radiation. Miso and seaweed are on the menu for my post-radiation ordeal. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki they have found that the people who ate miso and seaweed after we dropped the bomb on them lived longer and avoided radiation sickness. I try to find a food-related answer to many of the challenges in my life. It seems like a helpful and wholesome coping mechanism.

In the meantime, I am curious about my how my life in the realm of Stage 4½ will unfold, not necessarily in a linear progression. I hear the jumble of messages arising from deep in my bones - cancer and life intertwined in my dark marrow. A light cannot shine in such an enclosed space, but a river can flow in the darkness. A message can emerge from this darkness and I can listen and feel for the ripple in the stream of my consciousness. This distant Voice has tendrils that reach out across time and space touching many possible futures. The Voice whispers an as yet unimagined message assuring me that a tendril of my future can find its way to move into the present.

My Internal Parallel Universe of Cancer

I read in this morning's New York Times,

"Perhaps if we looked at cancers using appropriate conceptual lenses, we might find that tumors possess their own anatomy and physiology — a parallel universe to that of normal cells and organs. Such a tumor can hardly be described as a disorganized group of cells. It is a cellular empire, with its own sustenance, grammar, logic and organization. It is a growing being within a growing being."

Here's a link to the entire article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/magazine/31Cancer-t.html?pagewanted=1&tntemail1=y&emc=tnt

What is the appropriate conceptual lens for what sometimes feels like my evil twin? I struggle with the way to view my cancer. Is "my" even the correct term? Does it harm me to think of it as evil? Is it bad to call it "it"? Does it belong to me? Is it actually me since I grew it out of my own cells? Or have I been invaded by an alien? If this cancer is "a growing being" within me, another growing being, does that mean I am its mother? I don't feel maternal or protective of it. In fact, if I had a chance, I'd get rid of it! (Perhaps this is another good reason I'm not a mother. Sorry, Rose - see my Nov 9, 2009 blog entry for that story).

Choosing a conceptual lens feels important to me. I spend a lot of time in meditation, visualization, or what I prefer to call creative imagination inquiring about the nature of my physiology and anatomy, exploring the state of my body as a host for this unwanted visitor, and hoping to find a way to make my internal environment unwelcome for cancer, while being very welcoming for the rest of me.

I have never resonated with battle analogies. It doesn't feel right to spend a lot of time trying to kill my cancer. There might be too much collateral damage. I feel violated enough; I can't withstand any more violence. I tend to be more comfortable with the idea of withholding the unwanted cancer's main fertilizer (estrogen) and making my internal milieu unwelcoming for cancer. How can I feed myself, but deprive my tumors of what they need? I feel like I'm doing this with my diet, my supplement regimen, with hands-on work, with Continuum, with movement and breath, with mindfulness, with acupuncture, and I have sacrificed my own desire and need for estrogen in the pursuit of eradicating or controlling things. So far it all seems to be working.

Jim Jealous, an Osteopathic teacher of mine used to say, "When you find yourself in a rat's nest, don't play with the rat." I'm minding his words, and attempting to address the atmosphere or the environment in which the rat lives. Maybe if I turn on all the lights and air out the nest, the rat will choose to leave.

Until this morning I never considered my cancerous parallel universe from this particular angle. I have to admit it's a bit frightening. But it feels like time to be courageous and go on a new reconnaissance mission. I need to more deeply understand the sustenance, grammar, logic and organization of this growing being within me.

The following paragraph can only be understood by my fellow sci-fi geeks. If you want to understand what I'm talking about, you'll have to watch Battlestar Gallactica (2004 - 2010), starting from the pilot episode and watch all 5 seasons in order, then begin watching Caprica. These must be watched in order, in order to understand the story.
This is where my lifelong love of science fiction pays off. Exploration of inner space is far more vast than of outer space, but requires a similar ability to face the unknown. I have a seemingly unlimited source of inspiration with which to enter this exploration. It's not Star Trek's "final frontier." It's a little more like Battlestar Gallactica where the aliens and the humans look alike, and as it turns out, the aliens stem from the consciousness of a 15 year-old girl named Zoe corrupted by an experiment gone awry. Are the Cylons really the cancer of the human race or their savior? BG was not about battle; it was about adaptation and the making of peace, the co-existence of humans with their shadow, and about the birth and evolution of something new. (BG stands for Battlestar Gallactica, not Bonnie Gintis. . . but maybe we're not that different.)

A Continuum dive is a lot like an episode of VR5 (1995), where the virtual reality turns out to be not so virtual. When Sydney enters the VR of the unconscious, things changed, and when she hung up the anachronistic phone, and passed back through the portal into the present, all of so-called reality was altered. (I'll pass on the conclusion of that series where she gets lost in VR9. I plan on coming back!)

I am on my last day of a week-long Continuum Teachers' Retreat. We have our last 5 1/2 hour dive today. I know where I'm going. . . deep into the cellular empire of the growing being within my being to discover what I need to know to co-exist, co-evolve, adapt, or find an as yet imagined way of thriving into the rest of my life.

Words of Wisdom Are Still Cooking

It's been a month since I posted an entry and I know people are wondering what's up. I've been getting phone calls and emails from many of you who are concerned. I'm doing okay. There's nothing (new) wrong. I'm on the painfully slow boat to recovery, which is still moving in the right direction. The words of wisdom of my next real blog entry are still cooking. I haven't been motivated to write for anyone other than myself.

Here's the current events summary:
Steve and I took our first vacation in 2 years. It was amazing, especially for Steve.
My 54th birthday symbolized a profound passage into this next phase of my life, in which I live beyond the temporal field of my mother, who died at 53. (See September 2 for the story about my mother.)

I am off to a Continuum Teachers' Retreat next week. I long to be immersed in that field, especially the middle 3 days of the retreat where we go into silence. More organizations should conduct professional development in silence. It's the most fruitful way for me to deepen my practice.

I will try to get some words of wisdom on paper before I enter silence.

My Fluid Body Yearns For A Stronger Container

I like to think of the body as a fluctuating, fluid event, rather than a fixed object.  However, this crazy cancer is challenging my ability to stay connected to my fluid identity. I have devoted the past 15 years of my life to Continuum practice and the frame of reference that accompanies this has enriched my experience of life, kept me sane and feeling whole when nature-gone-awry has caused me to (temporarily) feel somewhat deranged and coagulated.

There always needs to be a balance of freedom and stability. Putting water (freedom) in a glass (stability) makes it far more useful. The same is true for the living human body. There is a balance of freedom and creativity that needs to be held within a meaningful structure. We all have different needs at different times, and the balance point between the 2 modes of being is not always in the middle. Some people tend to be energetically diffuse and chaotic. These people thrive with a little more structure. I, on the other hand, have no problem being grounded and linear, so I thrive in a more unstructured environment. Everyone needs some of both. 

In my never-ending quest to understand embodiment, especially my own, I have embarked on a new “exercise” regimen. I put the word “exercise” in quotes because the activities I do that might be called “exercise” are usually somewhat unconventional. I rebel against excessive form. Whether it is yoga, Tai Chi, Chi Gong, or Zumba, I can't stand having someone in front of me telling me what to do. I'm just not a good follower. But due to my extreme circumstances I have had to branch out, receive help, and add some physical exercise that's a bit more "mainstream" to my Continuum practice. I need to summarize a bit of history, so that you understand my context and condition.

I spent most of November, 2009 through February, 2010 lying down. My only form of physical activity during that time after I stopped working was quite subtle. I spent a great deal of time in bed doing meditative, creative imagination/imagery-based Continuum dives. I was in too much pain to move very much, and I was unable to rest in any position other than flat on my back. I would bring my attention to my breath, and attempt subtle wave motions throughout my body. But mere breathing was excruciatingly painful. I couldn’t focus on spinal motion, because it disturbed my tumor-ridden sternum, ribs, and clavicle. My hide-in-a-cave-and-don’t-move survival mechanism immobilized me. To top it all off I was petrified (literally hardened and immobile) of fracturing something. My doctors had warned me to not cough or sneeze or roll over in bed because I could easily fracture one of my diseased bones.

As I began to respond to all my various forms of treatment (removing my ovaries, taking an aromatase inhibitor to inhibit estrogen production, acupuncture, various supplements, hands-on work, meditation, etc.) I began to be able to do simple things, like taking a walk. By the time late January rolled around I began to panic at my degree of deconditioning, but I still couldn't do much about it. Walking and subtle Continuum weren't enough. I didn't yet realize that I hadn't hit the bottom of my atrophic decline.

It really wasn't until about a month ago that I fully got how much physical ability I had lost. Part of the 25 pounds I have lost is muscle. By April I realized that in addition to being immobilized by pain, I had developed pain from weakness and lack of support. I didn't have the strength to lift my arms over my head. My knee pain and difficulty getting out of a simple chair was in part due to my wasted quadriceps muscles. To make matters worse, joint pain is the most common side effect of Arimidex, and I have a whopping case of it: neck, back, shoulders, hands, hips, knees. Thank goodness my feet and elbows have been spared, but that's about all. With all my medical knowledge and understanding of how the body works, I couldn't believe this was happening to me.

I'm not sure why, or if understanding even matters, but it took until mid-August for me to really get what I needed to do. Perhaps it wasn't until then that I was able to do what I needed to begin the climb out of my predicament. Even if I had understood what was happening a few months earlier, I'm not sure I could have done much about it.

What I realized last month was that I was suffering from massive atrophy and deconditioning. Since it happened in a very specific way for a very specific reason, I needed to address it in a focused and specific way. I am normally not a reductionistic fan of isolating muscles, but I have come to understand that this is exactly (part of) what I need. I have begun doing what I used to think was dreaded, linear, and repetitive; I am riding a stationary bike, using a stair-stepper, and an elliptical trainer. At first, I could only go about 3 minutes. It was painful and exhausting, but I realized the only way to get over feeling this way was to do it and move through it. I committed to riding 3 minutes, 5 times a day, and by the end of a mere week, I was able to go 6-8 minutes at a time. It has taken a month, but now I can go 20-30 minutes at one stretch. My entire body, particularly my knees are feeling considerably better.

During this past month I sought out the help of a physical therapist who helped me hone in on my rehab needs. I began strapping on wrist and ankle weights and doing some mainstream  strengthening exercises. I got a pole (a broom stick with the broom detached) and at first had to use my decent arm to help lift my useless arm. After a few weeks with the pole to guide my arm up, I was lifted to the next level of new-found abilities, even if my hands were buzzing from holding on to the pole. I do love good exercise toys, so I've enjoyed playing in the PT gym.

Since I can't handle too much structure, as soon as I was able, I began making up my own exercises, doing "made-up Chi Gung," and turning all my exercises into a Continuum Jungle Gym Dive. (If you don't know what this is, get my book and read Chapter 7 and go find a class.) Isn't this what it's really all about anyway? Isn't this (part of) what Continuum is - following inherent movement and allowing it to guide you? I follow my own Chi and allow it to move my body, which unlike a mere month ago is now a bit more able to move where the Chi wants to go. I used to think this "made-up Chi Gung" was a goofy rebellious activity that I invented, and then I met a master of Ba Gua (a Chinese martial art) who said that this was the ultimate practice of this art.

I think part of what helped me during the past year was my ability to lie there on my back and imagine myself, like in Avatar, moving painlessly and gracefully. I would fade in and out of my pain-ridden, half-sleeping state imagining myself running through a forest, swinging through trees, swooping down a mountain on skis, ice skating on deep edges, or swimming like a dolphin under water. The power of our creative imagination can keep the body going when we are unable to go there in the literal physical sense. This is one aspect of the bridge that Continuum creates that allows people to access to healing.

I have devoted the past 15 years of my life to a very unstructured Continuum practice and now I need to integrate a bit more focused, structured rehabilitation into my self-care. I can't do one without the other. My fluid yearns for a stronger container.

Strengthening Bones By Squeezing Their Fluids

In preparation for my next entry, here is a NY Times article that discusses something I've always suspected about the way bones behave during exercise and movement:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/phys-ed-the-best-exercises-for-healthy-bones/

In my book (pp. 179 - 183), I discuss how using your bones creates forces of stretching, pushing, pulling, twisting, compressing, and bending. Every time you exert any influence or pressure on a bone there is a corresponding change of shape and an accompanying electrical charge, called the "piezoelectric effect." This influences the bones to remodel to accommodate the motion and weight distribution that they are being asked to support. Connective tissues will thicken where support is needed and thin where they need to yield. Minerals will be laid down to allow for support in areas of strain and weight bearing. This is generally how bones are thought to be strengthened by weight-bearing exercise.

This article explains how during the movement of exercise, bones bend, and fluids are squeezed from one part of the bone matrix to another. The extra fluid inspires the cells bathed with it to respond by adding denser bone.

I've been wondering how this applies to my tumor-filled bones. Pain in my sternum, ribs, and clavicle initially immobilized me and prevented me from exercising, but now I think I have more fear of pain than actual pain (I'm talking about the pain in my chest; I still have actual pain in my hands and several joints.) Do I want/need to stir up the matrix of a tumor-filled bone? Will this help my immune system have access to the tumor to break it down? Or will squeezing the fluid through the cancer infiltrated matrix potentially spread it? There is no medical expert who can answer this question, so I just have to live into the answer as I act according to what feels right to me.

Making Sense With Stories

Nothing happens quickly in my life these days. I’m on a slow boat out at sea with no view of land and I can’t tell if I’m moving. I’d go mad if I tried to figure out where I am, so I surrender to the pace of how life is right now, and let go of the need for reference points.

I have nothing new to report about my physical health.

In this limbo where I live these days I feel compelled to tell stories: stories of my childhood, stories about my family, stories about people I've known and loved, strange things I’ve seen and done. Since I can’t make sense of my actual life, I enjoy making sense of the stories I like to tell about my life. I love to find a thread of connection and weave it through multiple scenes.

I’m particularly interested in stories about my mother. She is a mystery to me. Gone nearly 32 years, I’m not sure if I remember her or if I only remember the stories I like to tell about her. I’m not sure if it matters which it is. Whatever the case might be, I enjoy memoir writing, so here is my latest:

My mother called out from her deathbed, “Be sure to get something to eat before you get on the plane,” as I exited her hospital room for the last time on the way to the airport. I assured her that I would, and I realized that this would probably be my last exchange of words with her. She would die a few days later from the ovarian cancer that had ravaged her for the past 5 years. We began and ended our life together with great concern for nourishment. I've been trying to get enough nourishment for "the long ride home" since that day.

I was 21 and living in New York City, pursuing the adventures of an urban college student and finding exotic odd jobs. To finance my education I searched for work that fit my school schedule. I was a pioneer of dinner-time telemarketing, selling cremation packages to complete strangers over the phone. I drove a truck around Manhattan delivering newspapers and magazines to newsstands. I was a waitress in a restaurant that was a front for selling cocaine. I had nothing to do with the drug deals, but I benefited from the large tips that were often left afterwards. I race-walked the city streets for a foot-messenger delivery service. I worked for a Catholic hospital, who had me removing stamps from envelopes with a clothes steamer so that they could be re-used. I volunteered as a subject for medical, dental, and psychological experiments at Rockefeller University that were well-paying and (relatively) non-invasive. I couldn’t bear the thought of a mundane job.

In 1978, the year my mother died, I was studying psychology and neuroscience, and working in a hospital managing the admissions and outpatient billing departments by day. By night, I frequented music clubs: CBGB, 7th Avenue South, Sweet Basil, Max's Kansas City, The Bottom Line, and The Bitter End in search of the cathartic and inspiring effects of live music that I so desperately craved.

I discovered the dress rehearsal schedule at Lincoln Center and roamed the complex of Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls, The Metropolitan Opera House, and The Julliard School yearning for a free taste of the week’s performers. It wasn’t entertainment I wanted; it was medicine. Experiencing live music penetrated my being and connected me to something greater than my seemingly small, suffering, barely post-adolescent self. I desperately wanted to soothe my tortured soul.

My mother entered Julliard in 1942 to study opera. In addition to the classics she sang 1940s girl-group pop songs in 3-part harmony. She sang jingles for radio commercials. She played the piano, the upright acoustic bass, and the glockenspiel. She had a flare for drama and effortlessly exuded the tragic personas that characterize most operatic roles. Throughout my early childhood she would intermittently and quite unexpectedly slip into character. She might fall to her knees on the kitchen floor and break into an aria from Madame Butterfly after burning a spaghetti sauce. Breaking a dish in the kitchen sink could drive her to burst into a lamenting passage from Carmen. Finding an empty box of cereal she once belted out, “No more rice crispies. . .” to the tune of Pagliacci.

The war came and ended her musical education. There was no money for tuition or for the train she needed to take her from her home in Spring Valley to New York City, just 30 minutes to the south. Everyone was joining the war effort and she took a job at Camp Shanks, an army base near her family home. It was there in 1944 that she met my father. Post-war marriage and motherhood precluded her singing career. She became a caged bird.

I couldn’t carry a tune, but I could perceive music and all its nuances, and I relentlessly searched for opportunities to be immersed in musical performances of all varieties. I discovered the free chamber music at The Metropolitan Museum of Art every Friday evening. If there was a free concert of any sort, I was there in a heartbeat. I am a sucker for a schmaltzy Broadway musical, but couldn’t afford the ticket price as a starving student of the late 70s. Security was lax in those days, and I discovered that I could lurk around theater entrances at intermission and sneak into the second half of shows, which always offered the best and most cathartic and cheesy songs in the grand finale.

The day before my mother died (somewhat unexpectedly) I traveled to Philadelphia to accept an offer from my cousin Rick, a dentist, to extract my impacted wisdom teeth. I awoke from anesthesia to gauze packing in my mouth and the news that my mother had died. I spent the night at my cousin’s home and they took me to the airport in the morning with a baggie full of extra gauze pads and a bottle of pain killers. As the flight took off I could feel the pressure rising in my gums. I bit down hard on the gauze to stop the bleeding, but I couldn’t compete with the change in atmospheric pressure. I began to bleed profusely from all 4 incisions. As soon as the fasten-your-seatbelt light went out I got up to run to the bathroom, and blood poured down the front of my shirt. The flight attendant who met me in the aisle screamed and fainted. Passengers around me began to panic and pandemonium ensued.

I cleaned myself up as best I could and a more composed flight attendant fetched me some ice packs. I landed in Miami 2 hours later looking like a boxer who lost the match.

I arrived at my mother’s funeral after an emergency visit to an oral surgeon who did his best to help patch me up. I was drugged with Vicodin and nauseated from antibiotics on one of the worst days of my life, and I had to get back on a plane to return to work and school the next day. My mother was dead at age 53 from ovarian cancer, my ravaged mouth was swollen and infected, and I had no way of getting something to eat before the long ride home.