This Substack is the newest version of the Wonderblog, which I started mere months before I graduated with a BA in English. I graduated later than I thought I was should have. And as soon as I graduated, I started thinking I didn’t need to have graduated at all.

The reason I wanted a BA was to start writing.

I started this blog before I graduated–proof that I never needed to wait for the diploma.

I have kept up this blog—founded in 2002 and blogging no less than once a week. I’m beginning to see that consistency like that is one of my superpowers.

But this week, I’m having trouble.

I’m past the hurricane of cancer treatments, and sick to death of talking about it. I’ve been stuck under that storm so long I’m not sure who is left as I crawl out. What remains?

I kept hold this blog

Because as long as I’m writing

I’m a writer.

I didn’t need the university to give me permission, and I regret I waited so long to give myself permission to write my first book.

Then again, I did –and still do—the work to keep creating. Stacking words into sentences and seeing if they stand up. 

Looking back at the origin story, I’m reminding myself of who I am.   It’s  what I need right now.

The world has changed since this blog began. I asked GrokAI for a writing prompt, which was a self-aware attempt to engage with AI as a new technology.

The answer was not helpful. I tried to reverse engineer his style “Grok, why did you use an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence?”

“Exclamation marks add excitement and energy to writing!”

They are fake emotion, Grok. Using metaphors and examples for what emotions a writer is trying to evoke is what makes prose beautiful.

He defended his choices, and continued to use exclamation marks after I explained that they were the sign of an inexperienced writer.

Me and the AI went back and forth as I responded to prompts about how writing should be done.

I’m not gaining anything by teaching an artificial intelligence how to write about feelings it doesn’t have.

Then again, I was able to quickly express the mechanics of writing, proving that I do know this craft.

As I’m trying to find a way pick it up again, it’s nice to realize I’m not starting from zero. I’m still in here and I know a few things.

THE END

“…and they lived happily ever after.
The end”

This is the classic wrap up and the end of a child’s story. So satisfying, so calming. It lets everybody know that the world and everyone in it is safe.

Very soon we grow up and know that ending is way more complicated. The ever after has a lot of wrinkles and surprises.

I’m at THE END of my cancer journey. I beat breast cancer, then thyroid cancer
TWICE

Am I at the end? I don’t know. A lot of people stay attached to the worry of it, carrying around a burden about whether it makes a comeback.

I’m reminded of Mr. Incredible saying “Sometimes I just want [the world] to stay saved! You know, just for a little bit?”

I made the intentional choice NOT to hoist that worry burden. However, a negative leaves a vacuum. If I don’t worry, what will I do instead?

I first wanted to hide during the time of weakness, and then I went very public. I was scary to be public and show my changing visage while I went through it.

People ask “How are you doing?”

I can say with justification, “I’m done now.”

And all those within hearing can feel the calming warmth of that “happily ever after” we’ve learned to expect. Still as grownups we see the shadows at the end of the firelight.

I’m a writer and an artist. How do I creatively express this story I’m in? It’s mine to tell. Real life gave the gift of an ending. A conclusion, for whatever that means in the long years of my life. If Joseph Campbell’s hero has a thousand faces, this hero has faced a thousand epic adventures.

I get to craft how to tell it. I think for the moment, I’ll side with Mr. Incredible and let my world stay saved for a little. I look forward to another day when I get to tell more of this story

I finally called my friend—I hadn’t called her at all this year. It was high time to catch up. I was telling her about the work I’m doing at the new job.

There is this document for the inspectors. Every 5 years, the inspector come and inspect. They last inspected 5 years ago. After the last inspection, the inspectors gave us a list of things that should be improved and corrected.

I was not there 5 years ago. Since I am here now, I can read the report and help the team verify whether any of the items still need to be done.

It’s a very common task for a project manager.

There are records that some of it got done quickly after the inspection, and that some things they asked for more time.

I took on the task to review and confirm which was what and help the team to do as much of the work left as they could.

As I explained to one of the engineers,

There is the doing of the thing

Then there is the documentation of the doing of the thing.

They are separate and different.

We’d been concentrating on the doing of the thing. Until now, when the time has come to catch up with the documentation of the doing.

The engineer said, “the doing of the thing—that’s the most important part!”

It might be. If the point is to keep the system working, it certainly is important. I smiled, “There is another possibility. A person could be tempted to skip the doing the thing, and create a documentation of the doing of the thing that doesn’t include any doing. A person could document that they have a plan to do the thing which skips over any doing.

It can feel so much like doing a thing: writing out a plan to do that thing. Or even a plan to create a plan to do the thing.

It’s hard to do things. And that’s the part I like.

I am finishing a physical book this week, The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec. I’m crawling through the last bit of treatments, and I’m trying to read physical books like a person with stamina and strength.
I don’t have much strength, but I will have the stamina to get through these treatments.
The witch heroine of the book is the mythological norse witch that foresaw ragnarok, drawing the painful attention of Odin.
Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods and the end of the nine worlds—she saw it and Odin desperately wanted what she knew.
Odin wanted to control it. And the witch knew fates were not to be bargained with. What would they have done differently.
I am in the twilight of the last cancer treatment, the 2nd dose of treatment for my thyroid cancer. Because I KNOW I am near done I have the room to contemplate. In the storm of the next hard thing and the next I allowed myself no room for what-if or if-only
My ragnarok. That diagnosis and all that came after was fated, right?Odin tortured that witch future seer to find out and control it. The witch also tried to wiggle through the uncertainties
The gaps in fate
To save what she loved most

I look around, thinking what other paths were not taken. What if I had made the inevitable choice, but earlier? Would I have avoided pain?

With the extreme treatments and surgeries ending on March 28, I feel like I am walking out of a crowded fate and into freedom

Odin, king of the gods of Asgard, was jealous to get as much of that freedom as he could. HE lost an eye for it.

Like a memory of a distant sound, I can hear a time when I called that kind of freedom “Tuesday”

It was that ordinary.

What will I do now, without being squeezed between medical tortures? How long will I remember to cherish how good ordinary feels?

I don’t want to squander it.

I’ve spent most of my career in IT, as corporate as it gets. Today, I am in a job for a city government which is very different.

I’m living the life of to a city mouse.

As the men come in and out of our ground floor work area in their high visibility vests, doors can be left open for convenience. Real work has to get done, and our customers—the Residents—call to tell us about water leaks and felled tree branches.

We are not virtual. We are close to the earth.

This week, I was wrapping up my work in preparation to leave for the day when by cube neighbor asked “Did you see the black widow?”

I slowly turned to him—confused and with growing horror.

He nods at me, “Yes, it’s spider season and there are probably a lot of them around.”

Oh, that’s reassuring. “I thought you meant one in this building.”

He smiled, with male delight at my horror. “I did. I’ve been watching it to see where it will go.”

“Why would you watch it? It should be killed! What are you waiting for?!”

“I agree, I definitely want it killed.”

I’m out of my seat now. “Do you know where it is?”

He’s gotten out of his chair too, now that I’m activated. “It’s right there,” he says, pointing to the corner of the room.

“IT’s HERE!? Are you sure it’s a black widow? Show me.”

He cannot hide his glee at my alarm, and he takes me the 20 steps to the exterior door where a fat-bottomed horror hangs between some unused cube shelves in a little alcove.

“See? He’s very happy there, no reason to move. But if he’s gotta be killed, I want to make sure he’s dead.”

Spider was cleverly not in a squishable position.

“She. All black widows are female.”

“Oh, right.”

“She looks like she’s about pop into hundreds of baby poison spiders.”

He chuckles. “I guess I should put in a request in a work request to have the exterminator handle it.”

I’m looking around for some spider killing spray, but nothing is nearby.

“Or I could ask Eduardo..”

I grabbed my stuff and got out of there. I forgot about the spider until halfway through the next day.

I knew what he meant about Eduardo. This guy liked insects, and had a pet scorpion in a cage about the size of a shoebox. Everyone knew this about Eduardo because the scorpion cage came to work almost every day, spending time in different offices. He had trick of glowing in the dark, so people would sometimes turn off the light and admire the him by flashing a special flashlight on him that made him glow even brighter.

It wasn’t until I saw Eduardo in the coffee area that I remembered the Widow.

“Good morning!” I said with a big smile. “How’s you pet?”

He gave me a dark look, “Which one?”

Oops. Had I stepped in something? “Your scorpion..”

“Oh, the scorpion. He’s fine.”

“Is there more to the story?”

“My centipede hasn’t been doing so well.”

Curiouser and Curiouser. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He’s not with us anymore.”

“oh no. Did anybody talk to you about the Spider?”

Eduardo bobbed his head up. “Oh yeah. I said I didn’t want to get involved with that mess”

We both separated with our coffee and I wondered about Eduardo’s definition of a mess when it came to insects. It was clear why my co-worker thought of him as a place to home the spider.

I went over to the spider’s lair and found an empty web.

This increases my concern.

Now I am worried about multiple baby spiders crawling out of unexpected crevices.

I suspect this won’t be the last unexpected surprise in my life as a city mouse.

There was a Japanese language professor at my junior college. He’d been there a long time. I didn’t’ take his classes, but I was friends with his son.

In my mind, the professors were high above me. It was hard to imagine such a rarified person could be as familiar as someone’s dad.

I went to that school ravenous for the secrets it could teach me. I wanted to go deeper and increase my skills and expertise.

I assumed the professors also wanted to go deeper, and they had found a way to make learning pay them a living.

I was surprised to learn—second hand—that he found teaching the same lessons tedious.

As I look back now I can understand that professor better. I have had a chance to get more education and experience.

I’m still hungry for it though. That’s part of the drive that keeps me moving.

I’m about the age of the professor now. I can see that it’s harder to learn when I have to be my own teacher.

It’s easy to double my skills when I start with nothing.

After I have achieved a critical mass of expertise, the new things can be tucked into a framework. They are manageable.

So manageable they might not seem work the effort.

Or so small they become insignificant and unimportant.

So the hunger for learning gets dull. And so does my life.

I am still keen to know, and I have not forgotten my appetite.

I can still stretch for the finer point. If I sharpen the edge of a narrow point of knowledge, I can find satisfaction. Precision and clarity are the new frontier for my well-known territories.

A master can review the tools and look for sections to polish. That will keep me moving for a long time.

I am willing to feel better finally, after my surgery

And the lymph system complications

And THEN the flu

I am willing to feel better.

I had falling in a hole of misery, honestly. I had been feeling like I was never going to get out of the part where I felt horrible.

And it reminded me of other times I felt horrible.

I certainly have a lot of experiences to remember as I’ve gone through the cancer treatments of the last two years.

As I tossed around tired and restless on my bed  of sickness I would remember these other times and feel like they were happening again.

Or that they had never stopped

Or that they never would stop

Did I mention the hole of misery?

I am willing to feel better. I am trying to feel better. At the beginning of the year, I am hoping for positive things. Or at least I am willing to try to hope.

This seems like a good time to get out of my  own head.

But how do I do that? My head is where I live.

I had a friend talk to me on the phone. She had good news, and I was able to celebrate with her for a good while. That was a wonderful break from the doom rolling around in my head.

Then today I called another friend, because she is going through a challenging time. I figured she’d be too busy but I could leave her a message wishing her well. TO my surprise, she picked up and we had a long catchup call.

Two days in a row that I managed to leave my negative thoughts for a while.

It seems that while I live in my head, I can also invite others to use the space there more productively.

It would be good for me this year, to think of others and give myself a break.

Happy New Year! This is Twenty-Twenty Five

And I knew it was coming. I was planning, I was thinking for months ahead of how I’d be fabulous and celebrate. My plan was to bounce back from the surgery and use the skills I’d earned as a Sensei. That was not how it is happening.

I did use my Sensei skills to endure. I would far rather have used them to celebrate.

What laid me so low?

A bad cold. Everyone got it. And I did too. I was so mad; somehow I thought I had paid my dues and didn’t have to do that thing. But no, I’m human.

And the good news is, I am human and I’m on the other side of the sick now. Mostly.

I’m human. I’ll be bringing that into the new year too.

I have some time—a whole year—to celebrate. It doesn’t have to happen today.

I can keep my eye on it, and keep it as a priority to get to. I don’t have to cram every part of what I hope the year will contain into the first day of it. That’s the beauty of a clean slate, there is more room that I can fill.

Yesterday I was carrying a lot of pain and weakness from the surgery and from this stupid cold/flu. Today I am carrying less.

That leaves room for more strength and celebration. There is plenty of room for strength and celebration.

These things build. Like the head of a trail, I look up at the distant beautiful summit, the challenging peak I am aiming at.

I’m at the beginning. It’s alright for me to be weak at the beginning, because I will be strong at the summit and there are some adventures to be had along the way.

I didn’t know my new year’s morning would look this way—feel this way—and here I am. I didn’t know what was inside the gift when it was wrapped.

Now I’m experiencing it. And I’ll keep on living through it every day of the year. I’m willing for the sweet and the bitter to come through, and celebrate it as much as possible.

This is my year. I’m going to make something of it.

Happy holiday season to my fellow wonderers

The regularly scheduled Weekly Wonder is Christmas day. It’s my no-so-surprise gift to you all.

It turns out that for the grown-ups, Christmas is a lot about all the work we put into it before the surprise. I have the experience of to acting surprised when I open a gift I knew I was going to get.

But if it weren’t for the tradition, which could be called the routine, we wouldn’t be surprised. In my family we have agreed to be surprised on this day.

Another thing has repeated itself on our holidays for the last few years is sickness.

Last year and the year before my daughter and I were sick.

This Sunday, my husband was sick. I woke earlier than he did (also tradition) and heard him enter the bathroom in distress.

Of course I was concerned. I was not the only one who heard this unusual circumstance. Our house has another tradition.

The animals receive treats every morning. Can and dog await my husband’s rising in the morning because he very faithfully dispenses goodies. Their morning routine highlights this action.

As the photo shows, they are right outside the bathroom door looking concerned. Are they worried about him?

A cynical view is that they are impatient for their snacks. Is that all they want?

Another view is that they care about their person—my husband—and want to lend what comfort and healing they can to his distress.

Hmm. What if it is a bit from both?

The tradition created an awareness in their animals lives of what he was doing every morning.

I wake up in the same house, but the dog and the cat are not as excited when I get up. The long habit that my husband nurtured with them has created a sympathy for him.

Even after I gave them their morning treats because he was ill, they continued to watch him and stay close.

I could interpret their attention as more than self-interest. It wasn’t just because they wanted their treat; those were already dispensed.

When it comes to gift giving relationships, I can see that the repeated kindness of gifts creates a bond.

It is more than the sum of it’s parts. Looking at it today of all days, I am seeing one how Christmas works.

Being consistent, giving things that delight others with generosity is more than the value of the gift given.

I am going to call it. Yes, my husband and his daily ceremony of treats has shown me the true meaning of Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all!

Christmas is a week away!

Am I ready?

Have I learned to be the Christmas character that I would like to be?

There are a lot of traditional stories to choose from.  I was talking with some lady friends, they were trying to get ready and face the season. I was reminded that Scrooge and the Grinch are among the options.

And when I think about it, the week before Christmas is the traditional time for disaster to strike? Has your disaster arrived yet?

Someone paid extra for that disaster to come exactly at the right time to ruin Christmas.

Because the stories have the arc, the story does come around. Even Joseph and Mary with their total faith—or on the other side with Scrooge’s cynicism—the story comes around to the lesson and the blessin’.

Yes, I couldn’t resist. I was going to say gift, but from the beginning it’s not strictly a gift. The peace on earth, the way-making that Christmas signifies is more than a gift.

Scrooge’s new perspective on life at the end is better than a gift. He questions his values and arrives at a re-prioritization.

Remember how Christmas is only a week away? This is a great time for me to question what I think is most important.  

Can I shed some expectations on myself so that I can spend time with the people I can about?

I’m sure Joseph would have liked to have a nice room and bed for Mary and baby Jesus. That manger was a workaround.

But as it happened, it was exactly as it was supposed to be. And I can let go of what I thought ruined everything. The stars in the sky can look down on my workarounds, Bless all the dear children in my tender care and make me more and more fit to have the responsibility.