Something was in my eye. IT was the middle of the night. Flicking on the light int he bathroom in the middle of the night, I stared at my sleep-swollen eyes to see what it was.

My eyelashes were missing.

The humiliation of losing the hair on my head wasn’t enough. No, my girly curly lashes had to go too. It’s a new kind of naked.

I’m trying to keep it together. I have to make a presentation –a shape and a shading–in the world in order to be safe.

Cats do this. If she is startled or threatened, kitty with arch her back, puff her fur and look big. I didn’t make this up, and I’m already deep in it.

In the dark of 3 AM, I ask the internet what I need to know aboutfalse eyelashes, hoping I can string together a passable substitute to keep face.

In my weakened state the internet serves up a lot of stuff. The Barbie movie slips in.

Barbie.

As a toy, Barbie is provided with a car and a dream house, with clothes and shoes. The movie has brought out the women who see Barbie and her world as something to aspire to.

I know some women who have a sense that their path to the car, house and
party time is the same as Barbie’s:

they are gifts because they are beautiful. And men are the givers.

In my life, I learned early to mistrust men and I only relied on myself to
get what I needed with no strings attached.

But I ran into women who had a different expectation. They see men were the
source of stuff. And for these women beauty is the currency to exchange to get stuff.

This was so foreign to me that it took decades for me to understand it. For
many women, that system of exchange is more real than compound interest.

The gift economy is an old way of surviving. Some people—some women—get a
lot of benefit from it. It’s a way to be safe.

I’m not as skilled at it, and since my eyelashes fell out I’ve lost some of that value.

It’s a small thing. Only the idea of a thing, really. It’s part of my reaction to what my eyelashes mean now that I’ve lost them.

Less silly is that things fall into my eyes more. The eyelashes protected my eyeballs in a real way.

I got some false eyelashes. They aren’t so easy to get the hang of, but they do add a lot of Barbie power to my eyes.

And they protect my eyeballs from particles. I guess I have to add on all the unnatural pieces until the real things come back together. And trust that I’ll be safe.

In the sleepless hours of the night—morning really—I am reaching for things to listen to. I’ve run through a lot of audiobooks, but the other night I picked up the end of a lecture series on Russian History.

Other than my own country I have spent the most time in Russia. I lived there for a year and a half, shared meals, laughter, and lots of worried and doubts. It changed my life. I was eager to finish the Russian history lecture.

The second to last lecture started by talking about the Sixties in the Soviet Union. The iron grip and terror of Stalin was past. The obsessive push to be a communist and comrade was getting weaker.


The ‘60s in America had a music revival and the Vietnam war to protest. The 60s and 70s were full of consciousness raising and re-examintations. The soviets had a War in Afghanistan first.

They even got pundits together to talk about what just happened with that whole Stalin thing The Soviets had a folk music thing too. They started to pass around a word “Lichnost”—the Russian word for “person.”

Personhood. Individuality. After decades of uniformity and lockstep indoctrination in the Soviet mission, the soviet people wanted to chill out and have a good time with family and friends. To enjoy themselves with what made them happy.

I even learned of a wildly popular ballad called “My Arbat.” The Arbat is a street in Moscow which holds an open market. Around here we would call it a swap meet or a flea market. In opposition to the tight control of goods that the Soviet government.

The lyrics say “ My arbat—my religion—” A strong pushback against conformity and toward personal taste and individual preference. A return to acoustic guitar music, to individual preferences and allow for a single perspective.

That was 50 years ago. It was a spirit that swept throughout the world.

In the dark hours of the morning, it struck me again. Right now in my own country I am feeling a resistance to the conformity of opinions and actions. There has been a tightening of acceptable opinions, and I have had things erased off my social media by the tech lords.

I am longing for more personal connections—for individuality and family. It is meaningful to see where this has happened before, and how things might move in a different direction. People have been here before and come out of it. I am looking for the way to connect to the arbat of ideas and personal tastes again.

Human beings have a very common fate. Though we all have unique experiences and adventures, much of our lives are the same. We are born and walk thought our time at the same pace.

Time waits for no man.

I am thinking of a Greek myth of Tiresias, a blind oracle for Apollo. He was a prophet, a seer and had unique wisdom that others wanted.

Tiresias popped out of the uniform path of humanity though, when the gods changed him out of his fate of being a man and he was changed to live as a woman for about seven years.

He was granted this experience and insight into humanity that no one else ever had.

If I try to imagine what it was like for him, I suspect it was jarring and inconvenient. It’s a good thing he was a seer and valued wisdom and insight.

Tiresias is on my mind. This Chemotherapy is working on my body and I believe it is giving me the early out-of-sequence experience of being elderly and frail before my time.

All my systems are weakened, just like an 80-year-old body. Muscles, stamina and even memory are affected.

Oh! Just like Tiresias I am pursuing wisdom and insight. What can I learn from this trip into a different experience than the ordinary?

It’s like a tesseract (nod to the Happy Mediums from a Wrinkle in Time) making a shortcut to this part of my life that wasn’t accessible to me before. In my momentum of daily life and short-term goals I was barreling forward at speed and complacency, making plans and tracking was possible and what I could expect.

I’ve popped out of that rut. Speed, distance and progress changed scale and my expectations had to do the same.

Me and Tiresias could both be annoyed with the change in circumstance in our fates.

But it’s a curious new land. What does it have to offer? What can I learn from this unfamiliar situation? In this new scale, what is important? Connection is growing in importance and progress is less important.

Tiresias discovered his change was a gift. I’m seeing where my insights can appear. I’m still exploring

I always bring work when I have to wait. I have stuff to write, or at the very least something to read when I am early to a meeting room or in a waiting room.

My life now has a lot of waiting rooms. The average week has 2-5 doctor visits. I’ve got a book on finishing writing, so I’m trying to move the needle on that one.

I had the third chemo last week. The three hour chemo. That’s three hours not including the wait time.

Naturally, I had a doctor visit the day before, and I noticed a couple sitting together. Both looking at their phones, but cheerfully were chatting about what they were reading.

Chris comes with me on chemo days. I am grateful for his companionship. I hadn’t even mentioned the companionable couple from the day before, but he pulled out his phone.

“Are you ready to learn things?”

I gave him a huge smile. “are you going to tell me things?”

He is very good at finding interesting things for me.

There is, right now, a surf-jacking otter in Santa cruz. Otters are so very cute and cuddly. I know I’ve seen ton of cute otters swimming on their backs and holding hands.

Otters are wild animals though. They can grow to 6 feet long. This otter in particular is going up to surfers in Santa Cruz and knocking them off their boards. This otter Bites!



Things have gotten weird over in the Bay. This otter is not kidding around. She is coming after surfers and not giving up.

But where did she come from? It turns out her mother was getting involved in surfers too, and that otter was captured. Over at the Monterey Bay aquarian, this original surfer-interfering otter was put for rehabilitation. See…it turned out she was pregnant.

The child of this family of crime turned to surfer violence on her own. This Otter Daughter is the one terrorizing the surfers, permanently harshing their vibe.

There is more to the story, I know. And I don’t know if this otter is a girl, but I like to think so because otter daughter is fun to say.

We delved into this story while I went through my treatment, and this is what I get to have as my partner and companion in hard times.

We can laugh, be kind and do silly things together. Cancer is not the only thing that’s happening. I have a wide world I’m still a part of and many adventures—even if they are only ones to read about—to enjoy while I’m going through this.

Early on I heard the advice: “Don’t let the cancer become your identity.”

At the time I thought, How ridiculous! I have a million things that I regard as more important and interesting that this silly disease. Why would I make it my identity?

Some identities are thrust upon me. I did not choose this, but I have to carry it. And it’s an immersive experience. It seems every part of my body and mind, as well as major parts of my schedule are consumed with grappling with this hated disease.

It’s a long army crawl to get to the other parts of my identity.

Is there enough left to cover the scraps of my denuded self? What dignity can I scrape together in this time?

Writing is a big part of my identity. Writing and sharing it. The sharing gives the writing a different quality.

I thought of two different things to write and then hated both of them.

Then I realized I could be honest. How I hate writing about this cancer AGAIN. But that I am deep in it and can only describe the many many trees in I am encountering. I know it’s a forest

I keep hearing it’s a forest. And I believe I will get to the end of this forest.

I have to see a lot of trees before I get there.

Other parts—the WAYYY more interesting parts—of my identity are on mute. They are there and I’d love to let then roar forward.

Maybe I’ll find a way. Or maybe I have to get through more of the forest.

I cannot give in to frustration or resentment. I have to far to go. Maybe This is a new part of my identity that I’m growing into. Not as “cancer victim” or even the more palatable “cancer survivor.” But as the person who can go through a long fight. This is my campaign…my battle line. That’s the identity I’m putting on. A way will be found, and I will find it. It will take time.

When I’m looking for a job, I pay a lot of attention to how I look. My clothes, my face, my HAIR, I want to impress. I want that new job, so I grasp for anything I can think of to get a boost.

I will change my outfit, and preen and look at myself from different angles. I am trying to make myself the ONE that interviewer wants. I’ve never met him before, and I’m hoping I can make the connection and get what I’m hoping for.

I’m not the only one who spends time carefully preparing an exterior for the world. I’m trying to show who I am so that I will gain favor and advantage.

But did my hair-do really make the difference?

I’m not looking for a job right now, thank God. But I am wondering about my hair do.

The lease has ended on my hair. It’s mostly gone and will be all the way gone for the rest of the year. The old ways I used to put myself forward in the world are different now. As I submit to the chemo procedure, I’m realizing I have less ability to be impressive in the world.

It’s not so easy. I have to learn new tricks. I have to be satisfied with less.

Or at least something different. If I am clean and decently groomed, that is enough. It’s not required that I be the MOST beautiful. It’s enough to be enough.

It seems my concerns even while I had all my hair may have been superstitious anyway. Enough is as good as a feast.

I’m weaker and less polished than I was. I will have to believe that I’m enough even though I’m less than I’ve been.

I’ll have to focus on being my best in less superficial ways. My thinking—though slower—is still the important part for my job. I can be careful and thorough and not be distracted. That’s the part that I can move my attention to.

And..as I am not feeling good and I am receiving the attention and help of those around me, I want to make sure I give attention and help back.

My value is not just in how I look, but how I can give love and concern to others.

I don’t’ have to do it all. In fact, it could be better if I amplify the efforts of those who want to do more. I could try out how it feels to not do everything. There is something to be learned in that too.

At my job, I’m trying to work on KPIs—Key Performance Indicators. It’s a way to define how well my team is doing their work.

For this kind of things, numbers are very appealing. They are so easy to manipulate and analyze. Truly, numbers are hypnotic with all they can do. Children learn very young to tell others how old they are. It’s part of who they are to other people.

There are other times when numbers are like the gaze of the sphinx. I cannot look away. Election nights can keep many people up to see the tallies.

I will never forget spring of 2020 and how the numbers of covid deaths were so compelling. I couldn’t stop checking the websites that reported them all over the world. Then my city. Then my state. Then the world.

I could not look away. The sphinx’s gaze was turning me to stone.

For work my KPI numbers are meant to be a way to support decisions. Are we spending our time and money they way we want to? Can we track it and make sure we are being wise?

Numbers help. And they can also stop us.

On a podcast, I learned something about Jewish prayer practice. I already knew that a Jewish prayer group requires a certain number of men, about 10. Which is a strange way to put it—is it ten or not?

On the podcast I learned that they are not supposed to count the number of men. Yes, there are supposed to be ten, but they are not supposed to be counted. The lecturer, an Orthodox Jew, said he used a verse from the Torah that had ten words and ticked off the number of people against the words in his selected verse.

I am staggered. How could it be required to count people without counting people?

And yet, the wisdom seems so profound I have to check myself.

People are not numbers. That data being collected and aggregated and put in a scroll on the news is not people. I don’t ever want to forget that.

They numbers have to be subjected to care and courage. Those little kids showing their fingers to show how old they are? They know their number is only part of who they are. The numbers have no soul. When it comes to the story of people, numbers cannot be the main point.

I’m a person who has landed in unfamiliar and dangerous territory. It feel like a sci fi novel, landing on a hostile plane with unknown dangers and environment.

I’ve been used to my body for my whole life, and I have a sense of what I can do and what I can expect.

No more. Experiencing chemotherapy means my body is the dangerous territory. And thisis a long journey so I don’t know how things will change, but I’m pretty sure they will.

A podcast today told me a psychologist truism, that progress towards goals are the source of positive emotions, like hope and enthusiasm. That is exactly what I’m looking for.

Enthusiasm is harder to reach. I’m working to set myself up to make progress.

Progress is also harder to reach.

Not impossible though. Just like an alien planet, I feel like I leapt and skipped so far to get here, and now I’m down to inches.

I’m going to have to apprecieate those inches.

That’s where I’m going to get the hope from. Did I move at all? That counts. Many people don’t.

I will.

I shall remember what I’m able to do, and do those things. I’ve been hopeless before, sometimes.

I don’t have to be now.

It takes effort, will, and determination.

And I will have to take care of myself in all the other ways. Eating and sleeping are harder than they were.

Well, progress there counts too.

I’m not going to lie to myself with toxic positivity, but I desperately want to have some lights of hope in this time.

And even enthusiasm.

I’ll have to keep the faith and do the work to give those to myself.

I am making progress. And I can rejoice.

Games are something people do. I’m not sure if animals do it. We set up rules, which are basically constraints to accomplishing a goal.

Look at this ball…It bounces. Can I bounce it this way? How about with only one hand? Maybe I can’t touch it with my hands to move it at all. How hard would it be to get it to the goal then?

Kids come up with little games all the time. They learn more complicated games and pass them on. The common thread is to create obstacles to doing a relatively simple thing.

Sometimes it takes others to do the game. Sometimes it is a game against myself, a personal best. But there is that goal to reach for.

Games are human nature.

Yes, I am chafing against a constraint. This restriction wasn’t MY idea. I am struggling and burning against the boundary.

It’s not a game. It’s an affliction. I did not choose this. It was thrust upon me.

 …

….

…..

I would not have chosen this, but since it is upon me, I can choose how I see it. What if I could make it a game?

What is possible for me in this space? With this time, these resources of strength and stamina, what can I do?

I’d better pick carefully. It will only hold a certain amount.

I am wasting my energy on resentment and anger. I can shift to what is possible.

What can I build? What needs to be fortified?

Taking inventory and tracking my personal to-do lists are part of the game.

Resources I have taken for granted are denied. How do I resupply? What can I do with what I have?

Let the game commence.

As a young mother, 14 years ago, I felt nailed down. This child, this new life, was priority one. I  had to make sure she slept and ate. If she did, then I could.

All my stuff, all the things I wanted to do was second place at best.

I tried to leave the house. I remember Saturday at 5:30 AM trips to mcDonald’s playland frantic to leave my house and be around humans. I had my book in progress and all my side notebooks, working to keep ahold of myself in the wasteland.

When she started kindergarten, some people said “The time goes by so fast!”

Not for me. I felt every moment.

That is me. I feel the moments.

And when the oncologist gave me treatment plan, 5 months of chemo to be followed by another batch of radiation—the rest of the year at least!—all the moments strung together like an impossible cliff.

How could I do it? I had to find a way.

It is not the sickness that I fear the most. Although that is bad enough. The isolation and the lack of productivity is the worst.

And I remember the notebooks spread out at Playland. The notes, the drafts, the road I travelled and what I learned how to do.

Those were hard repetitive days.

As I recall, I need to keep a lot of notebooks at the ready. I had to make the time, make the habit, to string the words together. It doesn’t happen without effort.

I still found a way to be creative and be myself. I will do it again. I will do it still.