Are we there yet?

I remember the long road trips when me and my brothers would play games to pass the miles. We counted the mileposts on the side of the highway. We had maps on our laps, looking ahead to where we wanted to go and what we would pass along the way.

There were measurements on the routes along the way, with estimates on how many hours it would take to go between different cities. One brother would find something, and then pass it around to the rest of us to consider.

Are we there?

Are we done?

Are we finished?

Have I got to the end?

On Saturday December 7^th, I finished my black belt training. I am Sensei Murphy in Krav Maga martial arts. I did it. I am there.

Yet it is not the end. Not done or finished.

I remember graduating with my Bachelors’ degree after so many years. I felt so sad that I couldn’t take more classes. I was had done it, but I didn’t want to be done learning. It turned out I could, I just had to look harder for them. I had run past the edge of the map

Years ago, Chris and I climbed Mt Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states. He got sick, but I went on with the rest of the climbing party. We got to the crest, and I saw over to the other side. That’s as far as I would go that time. We turned around before reaching the pinnacle.

I know I have more to achieve if I went to climb it again.

I have so much more I want to achieve. In each of these areas.

Like that the Whitney crest, these different accomplishments got to a natural stopping point. I can put it down for a moment, but I’m not done exploring or having adventures. I am going to see what is past my known world

I’m feeling the glow of thanksgiving, and living in the reminder that I have a great deal to be thankful for. My kitchen is bursting with food that has been carefully chosen and prepared.

The arc of the holidays means that gratitude flows right into wishes. What is my Christmas wish? What do I want? It’s a hunt to discover the secret—perhaps unknown even to them!—desires of my friends and family. And I must plumb my own depths to give suggestions to people who want to make my wishes come true.

There is less daylight in the winter, but I am staggered with my blessings. I can both make wishes and do magic by fulfilling them. The holidays are a special time of year.

That is not the full arc, though. The harvest, the wishes and then comes the new year. It’s a cycle. The short days grow slightly longer just before Christmas as the world tilts towards the sun again. The wishes churn up some deeper things.

I might wish for new shoes. But I could dream of dancing in those shoes, if only I learned the steps.

That takes more than a new pair of shoes. I’d have to set out with intention to learn the steps, and then practice until I mastered them.

It is a familiar arc. From thanksgiving gratitude, to Christmas presents and facing the new year making resolutions. Everyone in the community joins in this stepping out from the everyday routine to participate in the season.

It’s a circle, to appreciate what life has given me, then to prepare surprised and presents for the people around me to share my abundance. After the preparations and celebrations, I look at myself and see that I would like to be a better person.

I’ve been given so much, and the people I love around me show me different adventures I could be part of—Or I think of adventures I would like to have. These are the things that inspire me to expand on the person I am.

Thursday November 28th is Thanksgiving
America has an origin story, and our country owes a lot to the pilgrims. They were one of the big influences on how the system of America came into being. They came over from Europe and gave it a serious try.

Almost half—45 of the 102 passengers—died the first winter. Starvation is part of the lore I learned. These pilgrims didn’t know enough to catch and eat the fish in the ocean nearby.

Most cultures have a harvest festival of some kind, because most humans have learned to appreciate the seasons of germination, growing and then harvest. The pilgrims somehow missed that part of their trip planning, so they didn’t have enough food and a lot of them died with the lack of it.

The lore tells us that a generous local person showed them how to plant and harvest what grew locally.

That was 400 years ago.

32 years ago me and my family found ourselves in a new country a new continent for Thanksgiving. I’d only planned to be there 5 months, but it got extended and we were over in Far Eastern Russia for Thanksgiving.

How were we going to manage to celebrate it? What could we do to observe this tradition? The original pilgrims had Turkey, cranberries, corn and pumpkin pie.

I learned as a grown up that that is American local food. It didn’t exists in the lean crop of items at the stores in Russia. We had to find ways to simulate the food to keep the tradition as best we could

If I find myself in unfamiliar territory, it helps to look for what is at hand that is close to what I’m trying to achieve. If I don’t have an expert in the area I need help with, what is similar?

I remember we had access to a jar of carrot/apple baby food. It turned it into a custard pie. It wasn’t pumpkin but it was orange. It was well-received.

The Pilgrims has some good ideas and some bad ones. I’m glad we celebrate learning from new cultures and sharing a good meal. I know I get that wrong a lot, but it’s still something I aspire to along with all of America. I’m grateful for this tradition, and I’m happy I get to carry it on

Happy Thanksgiving!

After the effort

and the striving



the winning

the losing

the critical mass



a wisp of an idea

or

the beating of a dead horse



Enough is enough

Done is better than perfect



Except



Is it enough?

How do I know it’s done?



In life

In art

There are no promises



Done is better than perfect because I can’t do perfect

I can’t be perfect

But I can be done



Maybe

At least for now

At least this part



Next I’ll do even better

If I can get it done

Last year at this time I was counting the days until I could get off Chemo, wanting to have more energy and be past feeling sick and tired all the time

November 2023, I had my thyroidectomy surgery

That was last year

Right now I’m counting the days until I finish the black belt test. so that my muscles don’t have to be sore and all the time. It’s a different kind of sick and tired.

Three days after I test for my black belt I am scheduled for a second thyroid surgery.

There is a pattern here.

I shake my head at myself. There is always something. 

After all, what did I expect? A broad grassy meadow of sunlight and gentle breezes?

I’m chasing after adventure.

Shakespeare said

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

The cancer and surgeries seem to be thrust upon me. The Black belt training is something I’m working to achieve. I am taking the skills I was born with to try to achieve greatness

I would have picked a different adventure than cancer if I’d had the choice. Since I didn’t, I will hope to do something great with it.

The martial arts make me think about life differently.

So has cancer and chemo.

After I left the meeting with the oncologist—the one where she told me it would be 5 months of chemotherapy—I broke down in sobbed. My husband held me as I gasped out that I felt trapped in my own body, in a prison with no chance to escape and taste life.

And it was not as bad as I imagined, even though it was tough.

As I look at it, preparing for the black belt testing is a lighter lift. I could say that the black belt testing is the life I was hoping to get to.

Since I am healthier and stronger (e.g. black belt achievement) I am hopeful I will recover faster from the 2024 surgery that I did from the one last year. That one wasn’t so bad even. 

It’s not a repeat. It’s a familiar pattern. I’d like to see over the horizon to a new pattern, with next year being different.

On my trip to England, I made a point to visit Canterbury Cathedral. The vaulted ceiling and gorgeous history haunted me, soaring in my memory when I tried to sleep.

But it wasn’t the architecture that drew me. 

Of course It was because of Chaucer. That jester poet who marked a line in path of the Norman noble courts of Britain and forever carved his name with The Canterbury Tales.

Chaucer took the tropes of his day, all the characters that his audience were so familiar with, and let them speak English to one another as they pilgrimaged to the cathedral.

Not the snooty French of the nobility and their sycophants—the language of the people who hadn’t gotten that far. The characters poke fun at each other with stories they’ve learned. 

Tonight I joined a book discussion of this story. What did this book still have for us today?

It was a challenge to make it to the zoom meeting because my daughter had only the night before had the vomits pretty bad. I’d stayed up to soothe her, but I had missed out on the reading. 

A sick pitiful pool of a child, she felt better but was weak and in need of company.

A perfect time to read aloud that last section of the book that was assigned. I need to do it and she’s not in a position to resist.

I warned her that it was bawdy and naughty, which intrigued rather than alarmed her.

And we began the Reeve’s tale. I pointed out the double entendres, and we puzzled out some of the more confusing story points. 

For being such high literature, the tales have a lot of primitive humor. 

Farts, fooling and carnal relations

Oh

Chaucer is perfect for teenagers.

I’m going to go read the rest of it.

I started a new job October 1^st, which is my eighth position since 2020.

I have experienced many different work environments. You can imagine I was trepidatious before I met my new team.

Would they be the kind that hoard information? My field—Information Technology—has a stock character of the tech who hoards his knowledge. This guy has to keep information to himself and not share it with anybody. Seems like he is sure that his job depends on being the only one with the code or the password.

I worked with this guy once. He was so sure he had to be the only one with the codes, even for the systems I was responsible for that he changed the codes on my systems when I wasn’t looking.

I’ve had the manager who didn’t want me there, because her boss  hired me to document the processes so we could be more predictable and efficient. 

Write down her secret knowledge?  I recall her long fingernails drumming on the meeting table as I talked with the team to get the details lined up. 

THRUMRUMRumrum

THRUMRUMRumrum

After months of redirections and misinformation, I created a 200-item flow of information. I was fired that afternoon.

Top performers want to hire top performers. Mid performers want to hire people who won’t make them look bad. I have been underestimated so many times by managers who think I will be mid.  It confused me my sensible solutions were received with delight by my teammates. Then time would pass and the manager fired me. 

I learned not to fear getting knocked down. It hurts, but I do better getting back up as quick as I can.

The office I’m in now is a city job. They are long termers and very used to each other. They even seem to like each other. I’m feeling good about it. 

But they warned me: the holidays are coming and the potlucks are epic. 

They are looking forward to what I will bring.

I have three fruit trees:
A lemon tree, a mandarin tree, and a pink orange tree. I cherish them all, and fawn over their flowers and fruit.

I’ve learned that the mandarin tree will rotate in fruit. One year, it will bear a lot of fruit, and the next, far less. Last year was a low fruit year. In fact, the lowest harvest yet, only ten or twelve.

Last year was a tough year for both of us, really.

But a funny thing happened. I had counted the fruits, waiting for the hard green balls to turn color and show bright in the midst of the green leaves. Then I would have a true count of the number.

And I picked and ate the delicious little fruit.

But some of them were small and didn’t turn orange. That was strange. I thought they might dry up and fall off.

That would have been sad but it happens.

I kept an eye on those green balls. They stayed on the tree as the flowers came for next year’s harvest. And then the flowers became little baby fruit.

And the green fruits stayed on. Like ancestor fruit alongside the child fruits.

They were making up their own timing.

It’s October now. These ancestor mandarins have begun to orange. Not in a hurry. Not all the way and not too fast

.

See that? An ancestor fruit above this years young fruit.

I took a plunge and picked one. It was a real fruit! Yes, a bit dry, but a worthy example of its kind.

There at least as many of these late ripening ancestor mandarins as the whole harvest last year.

I thought I knew this tree. I thought I knew how this world works and what I could expect.
It’s just a little tree, but it made a different choice. I am amazed that such a thing could happen, and I have no idea why.

I’d like to have some kind of wisdom to pull out of this situation. It’s not my wisdom though. My mandarin tree is the mysterious one.

What made the choice to take the road less traveled? The flowers? The fruit? The sun and the moon in the sky? The taste of the water the tree pulled up?

What made these fruits persevere and ripen when it wasn’t the correct time?

Like I said, it’s not my secret. But I did watch the story as it unfolded. I took the time to see the flowers as they were born and speak to my tree. I noticed the fruit as they grew and lived their life.

My part of the mystery and the miracle was taking the time to observe.

To pay attention.

And it was so worth it, to notice. Now I can stand with the strength of my little tree when I have hope for the unexpected and unusual.

I’ve seen it ihappen.

“This is going to be a busy week,” my husband said. “And that’s before we discover the things we don’t know yet.”

He was right. And those things we don’t know yet? There are there. They are part of the things. I catch myself in denial of them all the time.

When I slam the car door, and glance at the clock thinking “I’ll still be on time if…”
I am in denial of those things I don’t know

I could call those things the “known unknowns.”

I’m not too indulgent in that denial. My husband is, in my opinion, too cautious.

It’s a fine line to walk, to be ready for the unknown but not too wary.

Many years ago a big unknown came into being in our lives.
That time he said: “Change is opportunity.”

I was convinced that this particular change meant disaster.

Instead, he was proven right.

I learned that opportunity is in the awareness of it.
So is disaster, now that I think about it.

When I see a disaster, and I commit to it being a disaster, it will be what I see. It will be a disaster.

And if I see an opportunity, when I insist on it being an opportunity, then it will transform into the opportunity I see it to be.

I love to plan for things. I will organize the pieces of my life into piles and make strategies for them. I will fill my time up as full as I can with good things.

Which can sometimes make me almost late to drive to one of those things I planned because I was trying to shoehorn in another things I’d planned.

Not leaving room for the thigns I didn’t plan. The changes I didn’t plan for.

And it’s those changes that create the opportunity for things to get even better.

Change is scary.
Change is opportunity.
Change is inevitable.
Madonna sang it: “Beauty’s where you find it.”

I intend to find the beauty. Thus:

Change is beautiful.

After the big life  adventure of two surgeries, chemo and radiation last year, I’m on the maintenance plan with my doctors. I do appreciate that they are motivated to keep checking on me.  I’ve had them do two different scans already to see if anything suspicious pops up

They decided that second scan was suspicious, and they set me up with a neck Biopsy to check if the thyroid cancer was growing back. This is what maintenance means: keep calm and carry on.

I think of Schroedinger’s cat. I have to be ok with that ever cat or not-cat might be in the box.

That’s an expertise I didn’t have two years ago. 

One thing that helps keep me from thinking too much about whether the thyroid cancer is there is my black belt testing. I know that thyroid cancer is highly treatable, so I decided I could withstand if the cancer needed another treatment.

BUT! The last couple biopsies hurt quite a lot. And with my focus on the black belt training, I don’t want to slow down.

At class the night before the biopsy, Sensei had me practicing a swift kick to the head. We’d done this move before, and it was fun to do the quick unexpected move on one another. 

I always think it’s too hard, but with the Sensei’s encouragement I surprise myself. I can do this!

The next day, lying back the nurse arranged the pillows so that my neck was stretched out to give the team the greatest access to get up in there with a needle. 

I had to sit very very still and let stick a needle in my neck. For a long time.

There was a whole team there doing it very carefully. I had to keep my mind occupied while they did this thing I would rather not be doing.

I remembered that while they were stabbing me in the neck, I could kick them in the head. I had practiced it the night before and gotten even better at it. While I lay there, not moving a muscle I visualized all the small movements it took, the muscles I had to use direct my kick up to a person’s head and make a hit.

It helped a lot to pass the time. 

I will sit here while you do this. I will let it happen. I make the choice to allow it. Because I could choose to kick an attacker in the head. It made a difference to know it was my choice.

But just because the fighting never stops, I got the call while I was finishing this post. Shroedinger cat was in the box. One of those spots was indeed more cancer. I’ll need another surgery in a couple months. I’ll chase that one down and get rid of it too.