We all got to take an hour of time out of savings this weekend.

I suppose I am putting it to use and I’m happy to wake up more rested. But when I try to redeem that hour to increase it, the bar is very high.

Across the table from me—sitting one seat over in the truck—my girl is using every minute on the hardest schoolwork she can find to chase down her goals. Not a single complaint as she works and reworks the physics problems that want to defeat her.

She has the high school experience that I never did, and she’s chasing it down like she has a machete in her teeth.

I’m support staff, not competition. And yet I feel shame that I pursue my goals with a fraction of her intensity.

Last Friday, SpaceX launched the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space force base. It went up during the day, otherwise I could have seen it from my yard. The burn it takes to reach velocity to leave the planet’s atmosphere lights the sky for more than a hundred miles.

My daughter knows the score, and is pushing as hard as she can at this start of her launch. She’s been at it for longer than I remember. It’s been a while since I cheered to see her walk across the room independently.

She wrestles with physics and I am relieved I don’t have to learn it. On the ride to school I tell her about how I struggled with statistics in college and was so relieved with the C on my transcript.

She likes the story.

I drive back home, coasting downhill. There are things I have to do today, and still I could coast past most of them. It would matter. Who would know?

The atmosphere of my personal launch is behind me. I can remember it.

And I’ve done big things since.

I said it, I’m coasting. I made the effort to achieve momentum. I could do it again.

Seeing my child gather herself together for one of her very first lift off is nostalgic and a re-run

Am I ready to bite the machete again? Maybe I can put it in the holder and check out the map first. I’ll get moving with a little more preparation.

NOTE: last week’s offering inspired a few reponses. Thank you! I love to hear from my readers.

My cancer diagnosis and treatment plan unfolded like the petals of a flower in the sun. At first it was a tiny manageable bud, ready to be nipped

Then the petal opened up, and slowly the magnificent structure of the careful slow poisoning of my body—the enemy cancer was the target, but there was collateral damage. The baton relay of specialists who managed the stages of the assault was unexpected and continuous.

After I was handed off the team of surgeons and I video-met the oncologist, while I still had a drain in from my mastectomy, the oncologist with patience and kindness told me the new news:

The next phase was going to be 4 months of chemo.

FOUR MONTHS

I asked my questions, in a state of groggy shock. My husband was there too. “Thank you, that’s all.”

Click

I stood up and grabbed my husband and sobbed . I had come to terms with the diagnosis, and the surgery.

But 4 months of misery broke me.

Heh. It was way longer than that in the event.

The tear-drenched shoulder on my husband showed my despair and the value I place on celebration, adventure and joy.

2 and a half years ago, I heard what sounded like prison doors slamming from my oncologist..

6 months ago, in the twilight of my last cancer treatment, groggy and weak I took a leap of faith in the future and bought the plane tickets I to New Orleans.

My dear friend had a house there and I had a standing invitation. I’d thought of her and of that city while I lay abed dreaming of my chance to go.

As I write I am flying home— I had a full week to realized all those sleepless night dreams.

I didn’t go on Marti Gras, the famous celebration. I went on a Tuesday in October–an ordinary day.

And even so, the expression of joy music and fun was pumping.The machine was primed to keep going with celebration.

Musicians had learned the music

The people in the kitchen knew th4 recipe.

They didn’t forget after the parade was done.

My host took me to a gorgeous old bar, and the fourpiece band (Mostly brass) played all the songs.

Joyful and jumping.

And Then…

Witches—women in elaborate witch costumes—with all their friends walked into the bar. The band played on.

It seems that once they got the habit of dressing up, the people take any occasion to do it again.

Through the whole weekend, more costumes showed up as we went around town—a fabulous pirate, a green Poison Ivy. One older couple came to the Zydeco show in full body penguin jammies.

I tried to liven up the cancer treatment. Theses guys have tught me something.

Wear the costeume. Play the music. Yes, order the drink. Celebration is a habit I can pick up.

It is fall and cold has snapped. Only at night, some days are still too hot for long pants. But at night the calendar and the weather are agreeing that it is nearing winter.

We even had a full day of rain last week. My daughter said “I spent half of my life in a drought. Rain is startling.”

There is a nursery rhyme:

Rain Rain

Go away

Come again some other day

But we lived through the drought and longed for rain. We know that rain is a blessing.

We also know it’s cold and wet.

Blessings aren’t always comfortable.

Rain does not come every year but fire does.

No one wants a fire. Almost a year ago, the world watched as the terrible fires along the coast in Los Angeles destroyed so many buildings and history.

I cannot remember a year without a fire.

Rain is gentle. And we can work around be careful with the water that remains so we can get through the years of none.

Fire is not gentle. It consumes and roars through the hills faster than people are ready for.

I hear the stories of homeowners who don’t get out fast enough. Some of them get caught behind the fire or in the crush of evacuation and perish.

Some will stay to pour water on their roofs to keep the flames away.

The ones that make it are the heroes.

On this terrain—any terrain—life brings harsh choices. What’s the right one? The drought says be careful and conserve. Cut out extras and do the small things to conserve.

Fire demands immediate action. GO! RUN! GET OUT!

Or

Get the hose, and use all the water to spray the roof. Don’t Stop, don’t hold back.

As devouring as the fire, consume everything in reach to fight.

Fire and Rain

Each a calling.

When they come they require from me a response.

When it comes the choice is in my hands

Am I ready?

Two weeks ago I realized I’d hurt my neck and shoulders. It took me an absurdly long time to figure it out.

There wasn’t a moment of OUCH. It was a whole lot of things that led me to realized that I’d been injured for several weeks—months?—and I didn’t realize it until it reached a crisis.

There are sensitive nerves in the shoulders and neck. Nerve damage results in weakness. I thought I was tired when I felt like my head wanted to nod down.

My physical therapist friend helped me figure it out. I wished I’d seen him sooner.

Why is it that I always find what I’m looking for the last place I look?

Once I find it I stop looking. See, I thougth I had found the answer. I thought I wasn’t getting enough rest. I’d been going to bed early ole time, based on that theory.

I was totally wrong.

For hundreds of years, the best medical treatment was based on the four humors, Doctors check their patients for how choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine and melancholic they were. Leeches were part of the treatments then.

It was a working theory. Everyone knew you had to watch the humors.

Until a better theory came along.

That’s not giving the right picture. The first theory—that one that everyone agrees on—does not let go without a fight.

It’s predictable. I’ve talked about The Structure of Scientific Revolution before. Theories about how things work, and what is going on, they are very sticky. People keep to their first idea very persistently.

I was really sure that I was not getting enough rest. I wondered if I needed to eat more vitamins or something. Why was I so TIRED all the time? I couldn’t keep my head up.

It wasn’t a bad idea to get extra sleep, I’m sure. But it wasn’t the root cause of my problem.I didn’t suspect that my neck muscles were weak, yet in hindsight I see I should have thought of it.

I have more energy now that I’m letting my shoulders heal. Since I clearly was hanging on to the wrong end of the stick on this, what else am I doing wrong?

I’m pretty sure there are a lot of things I’m wrong about. I just don’t know what they are yet. I should not stop looking.

I’m unemployed and I don’t have any office to go to every morning. I used to have a different place and different faces as part of my day. Not anymore.

I have to create a space of my own, separate from my home. The usual thing to do is to go to a coffee shop with my laptop, buy a coffee and a sweet and settle in.

I tried that, even going to a coffee shop a bit off my usual path. But after the second time I signed the check I started thinking: did it really have to cost money to leave my house?

The small town is so peaceful and pastoral. I walk my neighborhood every day. After all my travels this summer I’m seeing possibilities in the public spaces.

It could feel too pastoral, like there is so much nothing going on I might lay flat and join in the nothing.

And as soon as that thought appears, I think about the stuff that has happened in my life while I have been in this town. I am not great at doing nothing. RIGHT NOW it is peaceful, but I remember so many things that happened in this place.

It reminds me of those small incredibly peaceful villages in the countryside, typically England but it could be anywhere, which somehow provide the resident detective with regularly occurring murders to solve.

Murder, she wrote. And my favorite, Masterpiece mysteries from the BBC. For many years those were my favorite to watch as I fell asleep. Britain doesn’t have gunshots (as much) so it is peaceful to watch well-spoken people walk about finding clues and solving things.

I am giving it a try. I have a metal coffee cup with a lid. True, no one is here to refill it for me. But with my notebook, laptop and pen at a table by the park, there is some life in my morning.

Squirrels are chasing each other up the tree. One has a fat acorn in its mouth.

Two men are separately walking tiny dogs across the basketball court

A group of gray-haired women in knit leggings and athletic shoes are intent on getting the dance moves synchronized, as a graybeard runs the camera and sound system.

And a toddler give me side eye before she runs giggling to her person—Mama? Big sister?—by the playground.

Like ripples on a water’s surface, disturbances stay small in the larger context. I enjoy the bustle but it leaves me space to find my own drama. The clues can be seen to solves the mysteries of my life. I have my own personal murder village if I choose to look around. What excitement would I wish to experience. That’s what the pen and notebook are for.

Sitting at a table where we could see the band with our drinks in front of us, and a man passing by says “I like your shirt.”

I turn around, but he’s clearly talking to my friend. I love her, but I had spent a lot more time on my outfit. She was wearing a t-shirt. She smiled up at the guy, “Yeah, my brother used to work a Space X.”

Oh. Now that I think about it, the Space X t-shirt is worthy of notice. That’s a group I’d like to be associated with.

When I was a teenager I tried to build my identity with whatever scraps were lying around, and clothing choices were very significant. I got whatever cast-offs I could find and assembled my look carefully. I wore mismatched socks every day as a signature look. The goal at the time was to be different. I didn’t want to be like everyone or even anyone else. I wanted to fit in by standing out. On my own terms.

But my T-shirt wearing friend had a philosophy I’d ignored. Advertising what sort of group I did want to join.

As I’m doing the job-hunting thing again, I advertise what group I’d like to join as I carefully phrase my resume. ”Pick me for your company!” I don’t like how I choose to (have to?) portray myself to the market to get invited to join the sort of business I want to be part of.


When I was a teenager, socks and underwear the only new clothes I got. I have more resources now. I could wake up from the old script and signal what I’m hoping for.

We are grownups at the table, drinking our adult beverages as we scan the people nearby and the far horizon. It is clear to me now that I every person is unique. Now I’m looking for ways to categorize people.

A slogan on a t-shirt is a good way to show it. In a wide world of unique individuals, obvious signs help.

I think about my sad little ankle socks back then.

I can find old versions of my resume on my hard drive. These are snapshots of my attempts to be relevant. Cringe.

And yet the saving grace is that I’m not the only one with awkward attempts. Any high school year book shows the experiments with style. Nobody come out looking the way they imagine.

Each day is a new canvas upon which to sketch the outline of who I’m trying to be.

The choices life presents are mostly humdrum.

Should I have coffee or tea?

This parking spot or that?

And really, even those decisions are often made and continued in perpetuity.

I’m a coffee drinker.

This is my parking spot.

..so routine that I can be distressed when I DON’T get my usual.

Who took my parking spot!?

Until then the jolt comes that disrupts my whole life.

“You have cancer in your body.”

The tables I had carefully set are turned over and smashed. My life is disrupted.

No, let me be clear:

My life is threatened as truly as a gun to my head. All alarm bells are sounding. And sleep is a stranger.

And the day comes when it’s my normal. Normal, as I’ve learned, it more elastic than I realized.

My faith reassured me and I held on to it. I focused on the choice for life, narrowing my attention to this moment and the next. The cancer wasn’t the only thing in my life, but it got first consideration for most things.

This weekend I went to a women’s cancer retreat, which I renamed cancer camp. It was led by counselor/social worker group leaders. Talking with other people that had already passed through the alarm-bells situation was helpful.

Hey, I drink coffee. But there are choices within coffee. Sugar? Stevia? Decaf? Iced?

Living with cancer or post-cancer treatment has choices too. Hearing other’s choices and experiences was so refreshing. Most people don’t have to enter the lair of cancer and tame that monster. It’s hard to even think about. But my fellow campers have and do, every day.

My cancer monster had to be harnessed, and shrunk. I put it on a leash and carried it with me, rather than it pushing me around. It can now fit in my pocket and quietly travel along with me. I’d rather it had not come, but since it’s here I want to make peace with it.

In front of thousands of people, Charlie Kirk was shot in the neck and murdered a week ago. I and many others are so impacted by this assassination and the death that happened in front of everyone.

His goal in his life was to ask questions and get to the answers through discussion. Some people, most significantly the man who shot him, didn’t like his conclusions. I find myself returning again and again to the act and the fact of his murder.

I didn’t want to write about it. But I can’t write about anything else. I tried hard.

What can I say? What do I have to add?

Then I remembered: I have my story. Literally.

It took me 12 years to write The Russian American School of Tomorrow. The climax of a story that builds its layers is not meant to be shared out of context. But as I grieve what has happened in the world and the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I remember.

What led me back to life from despair.

Age 18, I was lost and in hopeless pain after the culty church of my youth had used me up.

Life circumstances meant I still had to attend church, but I had carved out a space of freedom in my mind. I vowed I would not listen or value anything a church preacher of leader said because I’d never heard a true thing from a preacher. The condition was, If I heard something true I would try listening. This starts after that condition was finally met:

Something true had come out of a preacher’s mouth…One preacher, once. Like a gold prospector seeing color in the stream, I was aflame for more…Where could I find it?”

There were still those devotional books mom said were different… There might be one true thing. For even one truth, it would be worthwhile.

I was scared and as excited as a rock concert…the truth I was looking for was not something I should be talked into recognizing.

Could he really answer the questions? I read on.

He talked about Heidegger, Kant, and Nietzsche—named I’d never heard before. This guy knew questions…

He took the questions seriously.

He said they deserved an answer. More than deserved, they required an answer

He affirmed the answer should be honest, with integrity and compassion…

I needed to tear down the building

Answer the questions?

With honesty, integrity and compassion?

NO

ONE

EVER

DID

THAT.

NEVER

NOT EVER.

[They] told me the questions I should have and the answers I should expect.

I quickly realized the futility of writing them down. There were never any good answers.

Here was this guy writing a book back in the 70s, telling people that they should address questions. Those questions should be respected. Where had he been all my life?

This man said it; he explained it in a way I could trust. “Look at the way the world works. Think about it. It is consistent. This is God showing Himself to us.”

Think?

Thinking will lead me to God?

Nobody said to think. The message was: Stop thinking.

Except this guy said God answered questions.

I ate the book like a lit match eats gasoline.

I got to keep my questions. They were God’s gift to me.

Anything I could think of, if truth were true, would stand up to investigation.

If God was who he said he was, he would be able to handle it. The most intense investigation and questions I could imagine were fine.

I could finally live in the world and trust it.

###

Truth is true, and questions will lead us to it. There is a cost, and we have seen. I won’t ever stop making room for the next question to find a higher way.

RIP Charlie Kirk

One time at my new job, I was given a bldg. and room name that needed help right now. The buildings were laid out roughly in a circle and the rooms were named after characters.

I had no idea where I was supposed to be, but the conference started in 20 minutes and I had to set it up. The clock was running and I made a choice:

Pick a direction and go fast. The faster I discover that the next room is the wrong one, the faster I’ll find the right one.

It was a near certainty that I wasn’t going to find what I was looking for right away, even if I took time to try to figure it out. Silicon valley business leaders call it “fail fast.” Start, keep going and then figure out what worked and what didn’t. Sometimes making plans will waste time.

I started a fail fast plan for myself this summer. I want to sing and play songs, and I felt unskilled and incapable. That seemed a sign to plow ahead and do whatever I can. I would love to have a cool band to play with, but why would anybody want to play with the aforementioned unskilled person I am? Plus, scheduling people is challenging.

The easiest thing was just to play and sing by myself. Personal goal: play and sing 100 songs. Do I even know 100 songs? I guess I better learn them.

I’ve been keeping up with it. I thought I had 33 done, which is one third the way through. It’s been a delight to talk with my family about the songs, and the things I’ve learned about the music and myself.

I took the time to make the list. I had to go through my Instagram and listen so capture the names. Two things were immediately apparent:

1. I had finished 35, not 33. Further towards the goal than I thought!

2. I am not happy with my performances. Cringe! Would that I could do justice to this music I love!

But what is not so immediately apparent? With these 35 songs, have I found a theme? Do I have a style? From my seat of cringe, I am judging that I only do easy songs. And maybe serious ones.

Since I chose whatever songs I thought I could learn quickly, easy makes sense. Don’t know about the serious part. Maybe serious songs are the ones that are easy.

Or maybe serious is what does well on piano. I am seeing I would like to practice my skills more and get better. Then the happy songs might come to me.

On the other hand, maybe I should assemble a playlist of tearjerking songs. That would be within reach. I’ll take requests or suggestions. Here’s the list of what I’ve got so far:

1. Someone like you by Adele

2. Rocket Man by Elton John

3. The Luckiest by Ben Folds

4. Piano Man by Billy Joel

5. Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty

6. Pennies from Heaven

7. Looking out my back door by Creedence Clearwater Revival

8. By the Waters of Babylon

9. By the Rivers of Babylon

10. Chasing cars by Snow Patrol

11. Nothing else matters by Metallica

12. Broken Wings by Mr. Mister

13. Vincent by Don McLean

14. Wicked Game by Chris Isaak

15. Hotel California by the Eagles

16. Star Spangled banner

17. Have I told you lately that I love you?

18. Riptide by Vance Joy

19. Iris by the Googoo dolls

20. Part of your world from little Mermaid

21. Sam Stone by

22. I’ll follow you into the dark Snow Patrol

23. I know there’s an answer by The Beach Boys

24. Nothing from Nothing by Billy Preston

25. Horse with no Name by America

26. Where the streets have no name by U2

27. Ordinary World by Duran Duran

28. Fields of Gold by Sting

29. Pompeii by Bastille

30. Reason to Believe

31. Missing by Everything but the Girl

32. People Get Ready

33. Love’s Divine by Seal

34. Hurricane by Neal Young

35. Let it Be by the Beatles

AND

36 Joy to the world by Three dog night

37 Silent night

38 oh HOly NIght

39 It came upon a midnight Clear

40 Rockin around the christmas tree

41 One by U2

42 Last Christmas by Wham!

43 Wonderwall by OASIS

44 Its Friday I’m in Love by the Cure

45 Everything I do I do it for you

46 Raining in Baltimore

47 Last breath by Plain While Ts

48 Losing my Religion by REM

49 All of Me by John LEgend

50 Dont it make my brown eyes Blue

51 I’ll be there for you (THe friends Song)

52 The River Knows your name by John Hiatt

53 Round Here by Counting Crows

54 Always on my Mind

55 Never been to spain by three dog night

56 Close your eyes by James Taylor

57 Drops of Jupiter by Train

58 high hopes

59 don’t stop believing

60 hand in my pocket

61 follow the sun

62 The Reason

63 Babylon by David Gray

64 Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel

65 Where have all the flowers gone

66 istanbul not constantinople

67 Whatever Lola Wants

68 Blue Moon

69 Bicycle built for two

70 Moscow Nights

71 Yesterday

72 Somebody

73 Gotta be by Desree

74 jobseekers lament

75 you’vegot a friend

76 kiss me by sixpence none the richer

77 youre so vain by carly simoon

78 hey there delilah

79 Why Worry by Dire straits

80 Dimming of the day

81 Danny Boy

82 Time after Time

83 Please don’t go

84 Cockles and Mussels

85 Wellerman

86 Vine and Fig tree

87 Folsom Prison Blues

88. Hallelujah

89. Western Highway

90 daydream by lily meola

91 Head over feet

92 Such great heights

93 Creep

94 viva la vida

95 washed in the blood

96 nothing but the blood

97 Oh the blood of Jeses

98 I’ve been redeemed

99 Victory in Jesus

100 Sing by the Carpenters

With the school year starting, and the days getting shorter, there is a feeling of getting back to the routine. Enough with the vacation out-of-the-office summertime mood, people around me are getting serious. What did I forget to remember?

I hadn’t forgotten everything. I kept some of my stuff going. As my long-time readers know, I have a habit of consistency. I’ll keep things rolling because I’m stubborn like that. I’ve been letting a few things get away from me, but then again I’m still plugging away at most of my internal commitments.

With the fall I’m thinking of getting busy. Like the axis of the earth I’m shifting to a new but traditional season, the long experience of starting school. Get up early, slip on the new shoes and the jacket and start it up.

I remember that person. I was that person. What person am I now?

I am thinking of sci fi episodes that feature crossing timelines. Did the “real” crew members accidentally encounter the “evil” version of themselves? The clue is usually a goatee.

Maybe the “real” me is that eager kid starting the fall with ambition and goals and I have become the evil me. Or maybe just the disappointing me. What are these shoes I’m filling now? And did I really mean to collect all these houseplants?

It seems exciting at the time. I snipped the starts and grew them for years, tending and watering so they would get bigger. Most of them have bigger pots than they started in.

And I am watering them. They are tough plants that can endure a lot. They are even bigger than the second pot and are falling over.

Which leads me back to the intersected timelines. Do I want to stay in the universe that is committed to these plants? I am not sure I want to stay in this time line.

Not sure how to jigger the space-time continuum, but I am looking around with new eyes to see what doesn’t belong here. I do know how to move those habits and objects out of my life. That’s a start.