only one more round of chemo to go!

This thought kept me going all week. It's been a long week. This was my shittiest reaction to the chemo. I won't share all of the details but will just try to sum it up by saying that a low point included throwing up all over my library book about Indian independence as seen through the eyes of a Brahmin widow.

But I only have one round of chemo left, I only have one round of chemo left...

(getting the chemo, still fun. My friend Julianne came with me to this one and highlights included sharing our hysteria watching Wanda Sykes from the Press Club dinner on her laptop during the infusion. chemo has been really excellent for extended girlfriend time, especially when Fox Chase runs so damned late.)

Leaving this week, I am affirming two things:

1) I have an amazing group of girlfriends (who not only got to chemo with me but this week did stuff like pick up the thousand of Thomas trains off of George's carpet and vacuum the crumbs, yikes!)

2) I only have one round of chemo left, I Only have one round of chemo left!
****

George was in between school and camp this week and I had my babysitter around but spent every morning when I had the most energy doing something special (but very laidback) with him. A few mornings, we took walk in Valley Green, a park taht is part of the Fairmount Park system here in Philadelphia.

I've been taking George to Valley Green, one of my favorite places in the universe, since he was a baby. There are big open trails and we can walk together and there are no cars so I am really relaxed about not holding hands and as George gets older he does an amazing job of going ahead of me, then stopping, looking at me and waiting for me to catch up.

We took stale matzah to feed the ducks and then walked on and George found a new trail, steep, covered in rocks. We went up pretty high and stopped at a little waterfall. I started thinking, what an awesome waterfall, it looks so zen, who designed the rocks in just that formation...and then I caught myself...like, yeah, this is it, this is nature--

and being in valley Green with George, where we can walk under the tallest trees and discover new paths and the simplest, most elegant, most tranquil little waterfalls, we connect easily and deeply and words are inessential.

And I was walking back, I was thinking about how light and emptied out I felt from our walk and how the oxygen we breathed in from those old, strong, vibrant trees shifted both of our energies

and how God is a mystery

and how I believe the mystery of God is deeper and more beautiful than any tree or waterfall

but the trees and waterfalls give us an idea

and the mystery of God is within me (within everyone)

and it is stronger than the worst things that happen to us.

I don't know what George was thinking, but he was chanting in a pretty clear voice, "We feed the ducks, we feed the ducks..."
****
I was cleaning a bit of mess from my desk (not actually cleaning, let's say "shifting" some papers around)a few days ago, and I found a "to do" list that must have been from before I found the lump, maybe late January, early February. I read it, bewildered. After I found the lump, basically all of these things fell off my radar screen.

I didn't know what to do with it. Should I start doing these things? I mean, I hadn't done them in 5 months, and despite being in treatment for breast cancer, my life is pretty balanced and just good right now.

I read it again, crumpled it in a ball and tossed it in the trash. Just reading it filled me with anxiety, the way I had written the list, the fervor of the handwriting, looked like a note from a madwoman. How was I supposed to do all of those things? A lot of them concerned making calls and appointments related to George's kindergarden assignment.

I realized how much I have shifted emotionally and spiritually in these last months. I don't want to write those crazy lists anymore. I want to do what I can do in a day, and that's it. I want to keep making time to be with my girlfriends, my children, Fred, to laugh, to be in nature...these things I have prioritized and have managed to do and am still paying my bills and working and cooking and kind of cleaning my house--

but with a different energy, an energy that kind of internally feels and trusts the connection between people and allows events to unfold and has less need to control what happens

and out of this opening, coming from less fear, really beautiful things do keep happening.

Like for example, George is going to be in a very good kindergarden class at Myers Elementary, that is less than 1/2 block from our house, where I had thought there was no way possible there would be the support he needs.

But there is.

And I kind of did nothing about it, except

talk from my heart to Dr. Ferrare, the school psychologist who tested George,

and from there

everything unfolded.
****
One chemo left (whoo-hoo!), one chemo left...

My birthday was really beautiful;

I am grateful and happy to be 38.

I celebrated with friends and with my children and with a special dinner out with Fred. Sunday was a gorgeous sunny day after a really rainy week. I've been doing a series of sun salutations most mornings and my yoga instructor gave me the teaching of inhaling the sun's rays into my heart chakra and exhaling my energy back to the sun. Inhaling and exhaling a continuous cycle of ten sun salutations opens me up and Sunday when I woke up (late at 8AM because Fred got up early with the kids)I felt the sun coming through the window into my room, and deeper into my being, into my core.

In the morning we walked to a little arts festival down the street and I stood in line with June so she could go on the moon bounce. June loves jumping on a moon bounce probably more than anything else in the world right now and that's saying a lot, because she's just like mom in that she has quite a lot of passions. It was hot out and we did wait a while and after she got her turn to bounce like crazy for five minutes, she asked me if she could get in line again. We did. Another parent told me I have the patience of a saint and I laughed.

It isn't patience, exactly. It's more a sense of deep presence that's come to life in me more and more. The truth is, it was a beautiful sunny day, it was my birthday, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for my life, and there was really no where else on earth I would have wanted to be besides standing in line with my daughter so she could bounce on the moon bounce again. What would have been more important, more urgent

than to see her, 3 and 3 quarters years old, jumping, suspended, weightless, then crashing into the earth full of laughter?

It is important for me to cultivate a sense of joy in my children. They actually don't need much help from me, beyond me stepping out of their way. I mean this truth sincerely; I think it is one of my most important jobs as a parent. To give them room to experience joy--

because going through these last hard months, I am overwhelmingly thankful for my passions, for my deep desire to be alive, for my ability to take in joy from things small and big; reading a psalm or a poem, doing a sun salutation, talking to a friend, watching "The Office" with Fred, teaching, hanging out with my family, taking walks, buying groceries, dancing, listening to my favorite songs again and again. All of these things fill me with joy if I am present and open to them and going through life joyfully, aware makes the hard things, which are natural and inevitable, easier to bear.

So standing in line to let Miss June jump for joy made me joyful and I also hope was an investment, that she should grow to have an open heart and spirit (like mom) which will help her live deep.