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Posts from the ‘The Power of Pain’ Category

Jul 17

10 Comments

Burflehunting

Experience teaches only the teachable. – Aldous Huxley

…(but) what’s the use of tears? – Herbert Kretzmer & Alain Boublil

I love the smell of summer rain. Spicy-sweet, it says, you needed me.

This morning, I think we did.

Let’s be honest: sometimes summer is exhausting.

Every day in July and August I have a list of things I should do.

Then I see the sun.

It’ll go away if I don’t go enjoy it.

So I do.

And every day my list gets longer.

The truth is, I don’t like my list. I’d rather be outside on my deck with my book and my coffee. Sitting. Breathing. Fantasizing about the garden I would grow if only I wasn’t a black thumb.

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Jun 20

4 Comments

Rest

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. – John Lubbock

We must cultivate our own garden. – Voltaire

The wrinkles are winning.

A friend stopped by Wednesday to pick up something I’d forgotten to give her last week. I answered the door puffy-eyed, snotty-nosed, and gingerly touching my ever deepening crows feet.

Are you okay?

She’s one of those who remembers sooner than most that my life isn’t normal.

Sure, I said, just … June.

Oh, Junuary.

Each year you play Germany to my Poland, blitzkrieging your runny nose Luftwaffe, Panzer tank congestion, and goose step sneezes into my sinuses until I surrender with a weak Seig Heil and curl up on the couch with Benadryl and three boxes of Kleenex.

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Jun 4

13 Comments

Brown Bear, Black Bear

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. – Winston Churchill

Frailty, thy name is cancer.

One moment, an oracle, another, a despot; it’s wedged its way in the crevice of each day – lurking, threatening to erupt if I give it too much attention.

Or too little.

Six months ago, I burst out of the oncologist’s office with an uncontainable laugh. I’d just found out the philadelphia (ie. leukemia) gene was at the lowest it had ever been. When David pointed this out to my doctor, he acknowledged with a smile that yes, you are doing very well, and several other words that I somehow understood to mean I was past the goal line and I was out of danger and this was as close to remission as CML gets.

I don’t know what I was thinking.

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May 18

2 Comments

Tension

The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have a problem – with word art.

Last week I went to IGA and almost walked out with five – count em, five, pieces of word art. I slapped my own hand before I got to the register and restrained myself to one. It said:

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

For heaven’s sake.

The worst part is, I. Loved. It.

If I get the opportunity to grow old, I will be the crazy cat lady with no cats and one thousand pieces of ridiculous word art. (It could be a Saturday Night Live sketch, if I was clever enough to write it.) At the very least, my kids will tell stories about their barmy mother who never saw a cheesy inspirational quote-on-stretched-canvas she didn’t like.

At least they’ll always know what to get me for Mother’s Day.

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Apr 4

Increment

“Contemporary middle-class women seem prone to feelings of inadequacy. We worry that we do not measure up to some undefined level, some mythical idealized female standard. When we see some women juggling with apparent ease, we suspect that we are grossly inadequate for our own obvious struggles.” – Faye J. Crosby

“Increment: something added or gained; addition; increase; profit; gain; the act or process of increasing; one of a series of regular additions; growth.” – Dictionary.com

If any of you have been looking for me, I’ve moved to Home Depot.

Such lovely people at Home Depot.  Such kind souls in their orange aprons. This is what you need, right here, and Make sure you don’t forget to do this.

My house – nay, my marriage – is forever indebted to you, Home Depot.

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Feb 21

6 Comments

Living Light

Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong. – Leo Buscaglia

He was tall in the bed and I could see the silver through his eyelids. His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds of souls always do – the best ones. The ones who rise up and say, ‘I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come.'” – Marcus Zusak

Shall we accept good from Him and not trouble? – Job

It has been a week of tears.

Not all tears are bad.

Wednesday’s tears were beautiful. The girls happily ensconced in their dance teachers’ capable hands, I enjoyed a built-in pause in the middle of my day at Tim Horton’s, sipping steeped tea with one of those people who gets me better than most – someone I feel just as comfortable crying with as laughing.

And we laughed.

Then we cried.

How did the world got so much darker than it used to be?

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Dec 22

5 Comments

Grace

I am conflicted.

Last week, mainstream media exploded with the tragic story of twenty-six people who lost their lives to a – literal – madman.

Social media imploded with a smorgasbord of response –

Shame on him. Shame on his mother. Shame on all those who said the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Shame on guns.

Shame on all you who carry guns.

Shame on gun control.

Shame on the President.

Shame on all of you who voted for the President.

Shame on all of you who didn’t.

Shame on all of you who don’t feel shocked.

Shame on all of you who don’t feel anything.

Shame on all of you who feel anything different than I do.

That’s a lot of shame.

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Nov 24

2 Comments

Great

There’s a light in the darkness, though the night is black as my skin; there’s a light burning bright, showing me the way, but I know where I’ve been – Hairspray

Nine days ago, I sat in a crowded oncology office,

Waiting.

The patient in front of me took longer than usual. He was young, tired, gray.

I knew that look.

Sick.

Do I look sick? I said to David.

I messaged a friend who was also waiting. Waiting for specialist results. Waiting for answers. Waiting to know if there was a big reason why all these little things wouldn’t seem to go away.

They’d not heard anything yet.

An hour later, the doctor called for me. Here we go, I thought.

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Nov 12

3 Comments

Brave

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. – Helen Keller

Some days, I just don’t know what I’d do without my friends.

Well, maybe I do. Maybe I don’t want to think about it. Maybe I don’t want you guys to know that. Maybe there’s a tiny part of us that is unfit for any other human to know, see, or understand,

even those we trust the most.

I firmly believe in the power of community.

Nothing hard is conquered in isolation. Nothing painful is endured so well as within a safe community.

But even the safest community can be – at times – dangerous.

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Oct 26

12 Comments

Over, Overcome

Art begins with resistance – at the point where the resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor. – Andre Gide

Confession: It is 3 pm and I’ve opened a bottle of wine.

I’m not a big drinker, for obvious reasons. I’m a nurse, I like my liver, and that liver is already working overtime to deal with Sprycel.

You know, the drug that’s saving my life.

But, occasionally, I have a glass of wine. Red, white, I’ll even have a – decent – glass of rose. Just one. With friends. On a Friday. To beef about an erhm, interesting week.

Like today.

My feet are wet. My eyes are propped open with toothpicks. My fingers are freezing.

I am trying to bring said fingers back to life by typing.

(So far, I’ve had to rewrite these 150 words three times, so I’m not sure it’s working.)

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