It’s not paranoia if they are really out to get you
-Anonymous

Head of the dojo was teaching the class and wanted us to think:

“You love hitting the heavy bag, don’t you? It feels good to get that impactBut I started the class asking you to shadow box. Which do you think is harder?”

I thought striking the bag was harder, of course. There is impact!

Sensei disagreed. “Shadowboxing takes a lot more control and balance.”

Striking is very satisfying, but it’s a lot harder to keep my form correct and stay on my feet when I’m fighting the idea of an opponent.

I’m shadowboxing right now. I know the blow is coming, but I don’t know when yet and I don’t know exactly how it’s going to land.

This chemo thing sounds pretty nasty, but it’s coming. The surgery took a lot longer than we hoped for me to recover, but just this week I’m getting some capacity back.

Just in time to dread the next thing. Surely it can’t be as bad as the surgery.

But even the surgery wasn’t supposed to be as bad as the surgery.

It doesn’t hit until it hits. Like I’ve learned, I have to keep my feet under my and stay balanced. Check my structure.

It isn’t paranoia but it’s a close cousin. In my weak moments I succumb to resentment. It’s not fair to hit me while I’m down.

Except this impact is peripherally mine. The main impact is meant to be on the cancer disease. The impact on the rest of my body is friendly fire, collateral damage.

I am waiting. It’s coming. I’m trying to stay balanced

I want to be strong. I love it when I feel strong, and if I notice I’m getting stronger. Can I do another situp? How about a push up?

Using my muscles has been a fall back. If I’m stuck in a bad place, and least I can go lift something heavy. It’s an easy way to feel proud of myself. I can go get that W if I just reach for it.

Only now I’ve got something else going on. It’s opposite world.

I’ve left the land where strength is easy. I’m used to being able to push myself. The surgery has forced me to

Be Still

I don’t like being still. I want to get up and move. I want to use my strength and feel my power. But that’s not what I need rig right now

I remember feeling this kind of paradox when my daughter was an infant. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. But it was the opposite of power. Caring for a baby requires the gentlest of small movements. The most important work of my life required me to keep still

Great things can require restraint.

I am not pleased with how long it’s taking to recover from surgery. I’m not in pain—not much anyway—and I up and ready to kick move.

I discovered that my  body wasn’t ready to move as much as I –my spirit?—wanted. I’m still too swollen and the doctors need me to

Go Slow

I can’t get back to full strength until I practice the art of being weak. It’s very hard to be slow. I have to hold the pose of stillness before I can resume motion.

I’m right here. And I want to get over

THERE

I know the way: a straight line from here to there. I can see it clearly.

Not so fast. Why can’t I get there? it’s so close I could reach out and touch it. Why can’t I touch it?

Saturday was international labyrinth day–a perfect reminder of how very far here is from there.

It’s a mystical miraculous thing, the way.

The way must be travelled, letting here be all the things it has to be until it is inevitably and surprisingly

there

as clear as my vision might be, the way isn’t clear until I walk it.

The labyrinth teaches me I have to walk it. The goal is not as close as it would first appear.

But the path is always there. I am never stuck.

The way will present itself as soon as I look for it.

I might be impatient…

ok, I’m always impatient

…and I might be afraid

in doubt and disbelief

The way is there for me.

I’ve got my eyes on that goal, the place I want to be so bad. I walk towards it and it slips away, teasing me with it’s nearness

and escaping in the distance

my here places me apart from the goal–that goal one there

But the way is always with me. The path I am traveling will hold the faith even as I have lost it and lost sight of my goal.

I’ve got a a long way to go.

When I’m choosing a book to read, I ask that question.

What’s it about?

Even more so, when I choose to do a review of the book, I have read the book. I can rely on my own experience of the book to share the essence in my review. With my favorite books, they are complicated and it takes some effort to get down to the essence. I will wrestle with it to find the structure that I can share with my audience

Life is even more complicated than a book. That’s part of what authors do is take it all down to a smaller stage and highlight in the story what they are trying to convey. This sets the stage for the art that the book is.

There are moments in my life like that. A time when it’s clear an action needs to be taken. Like when I must break off a relationship. Or conversely to grow a relationship.

When I became a mother, a lot of choices were more easily made. My kid was my priority, everything else was second.

And now I am looking down the barrel of long set of cancer treatments. That has narrowed my priorities again.

What’s it about? Killing this cancer disease is what it’s about. It calls back the earlier clarity when I became a mother, I have to live for my daughter. Priority.

But I’ve never been one to go overboard on that. Neither she nor I will do well if I make her the center of my life.

Here comes the re-shuffling of priorities and possibilities.

SINCE I have to subject myself to continued treatments …chemo and radiation…which are harsh and use up so much of my energy

What is that margin of leftover energy and capacity going to be spent on?

It is frighteningly small. I do not want to squander it.

I’m arriving at another moment of clarity. It’s the people.

If I have a tiny budget of time and energy left over, I want to spend it on the people in my life. It’s the place where love shines in. More than anything else people are what it’s about.

I’m really grateful for the kind people who responded to last week’s post with expressions of sympathy and well wishes. It is always so wonderful to be surprised by who bubbles up to encourage me in my times of need.

I had not shared the story of my cancer situation freely before that post. I’d told a few people, but I’ve also been keeping it kind of quiet.

Like I wanted it to be a secret. Maybe this cancer can be dealt with quietly and it will go away without anyone having to know.

It’s been a big secret to have to carry. I am ready to share it more openly now.

There is an old saying:

When shared with a friend, good news is doubled and bad news is halved.

The people who care about me are often extremely generous with their interesting and support.

Those people that insist on keeping a secret? The ones who whisper “don’t tell..”?
Or those others who say “don’t you dare tell or else…”?

Creepy.

My story is mine. It’s up to me to decide on the right time to share it. I had to choose the time that was right for me.

Too soon can be confusing. I want to examine the situation myself and carefully come to my own conclusions. I had to encounter each new bit of information on my own and get clear on what was most important and what questions I have and for whom.

I didn’t want to muddy the waters with more opinions than I could handle.

Secrets have their own time.

If I have a healthy place for it to mature the secret can be kept. With the right amount of freedom and fresh air, without pressure, heat or poisonous stagnation, things can grow into the right moment for release.

I don’t want to be in a battle. But waiting on the edge of one I can’t escape is even worse.

• Pippin (from the movie Lord of the Rings _The Return of the King_

It’s easter Sunday and I’m writing this before I’ll need it. I don’t know what will happen after the 14^th. This is scheduled to send on April 19^th.

I know what will happen ON April 14^th. I will have a surgery that removed my right breast and all it’s tissue. In January I had a routine mammogram and cancer was discovered. On February first a surgeon doctor talked with me and said they’d need to remove the whole thing to remove all the cancer.

That’s a lot to contend with. Just the word CANCER shook me. And that was just the start. How should I feel about this news?

As it happened, I had to feel a lot of ways before deciding what I wanted to feel. That was the end I was trying to achieve. How could I hold this reality in my sight and be okay with it?

Breast cancer is a very feminine thing. I responded in a very female way: How is everybody doing? How are my family? Are all the people in my circle ok?

I knew I wasn’t ok, but I also knew it would take time to get to ok. As a woman I couldn’t neglect all the people I had responsibilities towards. Still had to feed the cat and water my plants.

My feels and perspective passed through a lot of shades and hues before I arrived at my current détente.

How appropriate that Easter lands right before my surgery. The triumph of the resurrection is a wonderful template for my experience. I will go under and come up anew.

I’m keeping my eyes on that. Although I walked around contending with death for the first few weeks after the news, I have come to see (thank you medical team and friends!) that I will recover and get moving along my life.

Right now, this moment I am worried about what happens after the surgery. How will I feel? How much will it hurt and how long? What will be different after this change to my body? What will be the same?

Will I still be myself?

Part of who I am and who I want to continue to be in the world is a woman who writes.

I can’t know how I’ll feel after the surgery. But I can prepare for the things I know.

I know I will want to write about my life and experience as I have done for so long. I want to share what’s going on for me and give post-surgery me a little help by queueing up this post. My plan is to give a little (as must as is appropriate) update after so you can all come along with me through this.

UPDATE:

After nine years at the same job, I lost it. It was a tough time. I was very ignorant about how to look for work. I applied to jobs and got no responses. If only someone would interview me!

With persistence and practice I started getting requests for interviews. At last! That longed-for goal.

During that job hunt and the others that followed, I developed a policy: say yes. Any interview any time. Yes.

This encounter with a hiring manager cannot be simulated or practiced except by doing it. Sure, I can talk to a mirror or even have a friend playact with me.  It’s not the same. It cannot be replicated.

Last night I fulfilled a dream of playing music with others. I’ve been practicing alone, remembering when I would perform with others. My keyboard, with the guitars, drums and bass.

For more than a year I’ve been longing to join some others. I’s gotten an invitation to join some musicians. I was so excited! I packed my keyboard and stand and got there too early.

That’s how eager I was.

There was socializing, eating and drinking. I was having some great conversations but I was tapping my foot to get to the music making.

Someone started to tune her guitar and I started to set up my keyboard.

I discovered….i forgot the power cable

Devastion.

My friend pointed to the piano. Gulp

Not my instrument. The feel was different. The sound was a bit off.

I picked out some notes, then I chose a song and started.

And the dam fell. All the musicians around me joined in.

I wasn’t ready!

The song was going and I didn’t know my way through it. Was I reading that chord right?

It sounded wrong but the song was going, and everyone had joined it. I couldn’t’ back out now, the song was flowing like water down a cliff. I could hear my instrument and the guitar next to me.

I didn’t know it but two other guiltars—three!—had joined in.

It has happening, I was doing it. I was doing it badly with every  wrong note ringing in my ears and it was ok. As long as I didn’t panic and give up. Don’t stop before the end.

I didn’t stop. We didn’t stop.

Nothing like that moment. No machine, no simulation. That moment of humans interacting and creating was exactly what I wanted. It was overwhelming and terrifying. It’s what I want.

I want it again and I want to do it better next time.

I had to say yes and step off the cliff.

This moment, this present is the only one. I am even more committed to the policy of yes.

A professor, giving a lecture on the ancient history of war, brought up the ancient Greeks. Of course.  I don’t believe people can talk about the history of war and neglect Homer’s battle for Troy.

This professor had the same priorities, but he mentioned another teacher who—when speaking of ancient Greek history—preferred to talk about war as little as possible.

It’s so ugly. Let us rather speak of the beautiful thoughts and art that Greece created.

Edwin Starr’s song says it, “War—what is it good for? Absolutly nothing!”

Starr and this second professor are in agreement. Skip that part.

However, ugly as it was, all the greeks were engaged in war. The Spartans, of course, but even the Athenians were at it pretty much constantly.

I take war seriously and would avoid it as often as I can.

But just like the architects who made the structures that are glorious ruins now, I know that some support structures are required. What does it take to hold up this roof? They would not know if they didn’t make the attempt and learn.

Did the structure of those glorious works of art require the load bearing pillar of battle to spring into existence?

Is there an ingredient or a catalyst in the art of war that made the beautiful possible?

I am reminded of the speech from the movie The Third Man: “in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Unappealing as it is, if war is part of what led to great things, I want to understand it. What is it made of?

There are realities to how the sausage is made. Being ignorant and refusing to ask questions leaves me open to traps.

Any student of warfare could tell about dangers in blind spots.

Ugly scary stuff is usually the part I don’t look at. That’s exactly where I need to investigate.

One of my favorite differences between human being and trees is how I, as a human, can move around.

Trees are rooted. Definitively. Trees stay in the same spot. The choices for trees are narrow. Up  and out are how trees move. And by ‘move’ I mean grow. They grow slowly and so they move slowly I have a lot more options.  Since I don’t have roots, I can go backwards and forwards and even jump levels. Up down and all around.

What mostly happens though, is I keep going forward in the direction decided long ago.

Those choices I talked about last week? For my tree, they are permanent. The other trunks are cut off and will be no more. The tree is set in its course.

For me though, I could use the leg up that the choice gave me and get very good at the one direction I’ve chosen.

I could grow and expand in ways I hadn’t dreamed up, getting strength and capabilities that were far out of reach before. I could get so good at all of it that it even gets boring.

Then, as I human I might make an exploration into that choice I’d abandoned.

Is there something there for me now? Now that I’ve become so strong and capable? What could happen if I came at this again?

Since I’m not a tree, it’s not a dead branch. It could be  a possibility now.

I’ve got different skills. I’m not the same as I was when I had to abandon it before.

This could be the right time for what was wrong before.

I can explore my world in human ways and see what I can make of it. What moves can I make now with what I’ve got? Neither I nor the world have remained the same.

We planted a very small tree in our front yard. I’ve puttered over it, and watered it special during the drought. I pondered what it might need. When it was first planted, it had four stems. More like a bush.

I agonized over trimming it, but finally cut it down to a single tunk.

It was a very hard choice. The first shoot I cut was obviously not going to be the primary trunk of the tree. I didn’t regret cutting that one.

That left three choices. Would the tree pick a favorite?

With all the care I was giving it, I thougt it would be growing faster. It seemed stunted. Maybe it was the drough. I finally cut one more.

There remained only two. I let that tree sit for more than a year. It was only as tall as me, a small skinny stick. When was this tree going to look like a tree?

I’d seen a lot of trees with two trunks. I thought maybe this tree could be one of those. But it wasn’t doing much.

We hung in limbo.

Time passed. The tree wasn’t growing. It seems perfectly content to remain as it was.

The time had come, as keeper of this tree, for me to make a decision.

A choice had to be made.

It was hard. The two shoots looked the same. How could I choose one over the other?

But this tree wasn’t fulfilling its destiny as a tree.

I made the cut. One side only.

Except it wasn’t even a side. It was the tree.

That’s when the miracle happened. The tree began to grow. It even grew over the tiny stump left from my cut.

That’ make all the difference. Now the tree is taller than house.