The New Reality

Selfie - hugging a tree in the Sierra Nevadas

I had five targeted doses of radiation over ten days in late June, during which I turned 63. I'm not feeling the latent fatigue they forecast, though I experienced it during treatment. Then I started the medication designed to reduce risk of recurring breast cancer or developing metastatic cancer if I take it five years, called anastrozole. At first I thought I was lucky -- no noticeable side effects in the first couple weeks. Alas, a month in, I'm experiencing what the obliteration of estrogen does to the body. Most prominent is joint pain, sore muscles, and stiffness all over. I feel it especially in my hands and wrists. This brings me back to the misery of my pre-weight loss era; I had so enjoyed pain-free movement the last few years. I experience restless legs while trying to fall asleep, as well as 4 a.m. awakenings. My thoughts are slower -- brain fog. And I feel, on a cellular level, an absence of energetic capacity. The shrunken reserve requires careful choices and an acceptance of the current reality, so I feel some grief too. I have a good life. What's occurring to me is normal. Aging happens, health declines, or is otherwise compromised. I don't love it. Then I look up from writing and glimpse six-point buck wandering through the yard! He lingered long enough to delight me. I hear my child singing upstairs in this rented cabin. No sweeter gift than that.

A Favorite Time In My Life

Time is such a notion, isn't it? We humans use a system to organize our experience into past, present, and future, which is useful psychologically and for conducting life's business. When I am creating, however, time disappears for me. So I suppose that a favorite time in my life is whenever I am not experiencing time consciously. That's kind of trippy to me. Whenever I'm writing, such as this post, or making art, or reading, or even hiking or sitting in the woods, that is my favorite time of my life. When I have an engaging conversation with a friend over a meal and my heart feels connected and expansive, that is a favorite time of my life.

I do have gauzy memories of other experiences in the past that felt like this. Camping trips with my family as a little girl, where I played endless imagination games or swam for hours at a lake. And yes, I have memories that are not favorite, that involve pain and suffering, and for me those are always more vivid, and they demand center stage. Over the years I've developed a practice to turn my attention away from them and to deliberately focus on the good. I don't judge or block the negative, yet I try to give what is positive equal attention.

This applies to future, too. I'm very adept at doom thinking and worries, and I've rarely been a dreamer about future plans and aspirations -- it's as if I'm afraid if I dare dream of something I want, "something" will call it arrogance and teach me a lesson by not manifesting that. I know this is rooted in several things: my personality, which is inherently attuned more to negatives; an authoritarian father who wielded power destructively in childhood (and adulthood, to be honest); and a religious upbringing focused on sin, humans being inherently broken, guilt, and fear of punishment. So I have spent my life navigating and learning how to live in a way that allows me more "favorite" times. At 63, I'm getting better at it. 

Happy Independence Day!

I want to celebrate something today, and this story is definitely at the top of my list. Kelsey Pfendler just rowed all by herself, unassisted, from Monterey to Hawaii, over 2,400 miles! She did it in 43 days, which means she broke the record for speed for all genders (that's 50-55 miles a day!). She turned 32 during the trip. She's the youngest person and first American woman to do this. In the process, she raised money for a nonprofit that provides mental and physical health services to Grand Canyon river guides, The Whale Foundation. Her Facebook videos through her trip are uplifting and educational. I figure this is a reason to celebrate the 4th. 

In her last video on the water, she encouraged people to take the risk and do the big, hard, scary thing standing between them and a dream. I'm reminded that when I was 31 (1994), my big hard scary thing was moving sight unseen over 1,800 miles from Syracuse, NY, to Austin, TX with no job or abode secured. I disposed of many possessions to lighten my load and shipped some boxes to my brother. I paid off my car loan and loaded up my little Blue Belle. Then I drove into a new life. The big hard scary things didn't stop once I arrived. It took several years to gain a sense of stability, belonging, and confidence. The next big hard scary thing I did was quit my job and go to graduate school to become a psychotherapist. That was a project. I graduated in 1999, and received my license in 2003. 

These feats put me on a trajectory toward a life I had scarcely dreamed I could have. We can do hard things!

This quote is what I referred to repeatedly as I prepared to move to Texas. 

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”

- William Hutchison Murray,The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

Rage Is What I Feel

Hearing "you have cancer" shifts everything. I don't want to be a fucking warrior and survivor. I want not to have cancer.

While the treatments have improved outcomes, they do so with heavy side effects and SERIOUS secondary risks to other vital organs and general health.

What I'm concerned about are cascading impacts. I'm not 45, I'm nearly 63; overall just older and more vulnerable. I have chronic kidney disease. So NSAIDS are out of the question. I have osteopenia. There may be other unidentified health issues that could emerge as a result of treatment impact. 

By cascading impact I'm thinking: Aromatase inhibitors can cause severe joint pain. This pain interferes with quality of life and reduces motivation to move, and no NSAIDS can be taken. Reluctance to push through pain and exercise thus increases, causing more poor health. Cheerleading to "push through" and exercise will only do so much. I spent years in all over body pain from my mid-40s until I dropped all my weight. I have relished feeling pain free (for the most part) and the vitality it offers. The prospective return to the pain state is depressing.

Radiation treatment can damage the heart, leading to surgery for repairs. It can damage lungs leading to breathing problems. It can cause secondary cancers. It's RADIATION.

And yes, cancer can be managed. There are people living with stage 4 cancers as chronic conditions. But it's a compromise, and capacity is reduced. Mobility and energy are severely impacted. 

Last year I was healthy. This year I have two malignant tumors. I have plans and goals that I may no longer have ability to pursue. I do not want my Mom's elderhood experience. It was miserable. It began in her mid-60s and was a long slide into pain and decrepitude.

So right now I'm enraged about this turn of events. I don't feel philosophical about this. I don't care that the big C isn't as lethal as it was decades ago. It's still lethal, and recurrence can happen, and it means living with this fact in the forefront of my mind for the rest of my days. And that's after I have surgery to amputate part or all of my breasts. Recovery from that can take painful months. Meds are hard on the body, and I get to take them for up to a decade so the breast cancer doesn't return in some other part of my body. While my bones disintegrate in the process on the medication.

We're all mortal and older, and we know this intellectually. I tell you that it feels very different, dire and scary, when it becomes the actual reality. This diagnosis feels like I got pushed off a cliff. And yes, I'm glad it's not stage 4. But it's still fucking cancer.

Comments attempting to reassure me of the good outcome possible blithely ignore the monumental impacts and suffering to potentially achieve this. Those comments are relevant to me strictly coming from women who have faced the same situation, options, and decisions.

As I learn about having multifocal/multicentric breast cancer, gather information about treatment, and face decisions, I'm not sure I have the desire or tolerance to share more details ongoing. I'm angry and grieving. I need to get through this with as much equanimity as possible. And I need to help my child cope with momma's illness while he's trying to graduate and be excited about college and launching into independence. It's fucking sad is what it is.

“rage” by roger901, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

It's NOT a Journey

Last Tuesday I learned that I have breast cancer. It wasn't a surprise, since it runs through the maternal line of my family. However, I'd hoped to be at least in my seventies before I heard the words. Because it does run in the family, I've been getting annual mammograms and MRIs for the past 15 years after a suspicious development was found and removed in 2011. The cancer was found via MRI.

Even though it was caught early, even though the tumors are small, even though I've been told it's slow-growing and have an excellent prognosis, the fact is that I have an illness that could eventually kill me.

I need to get genetic testing, because apparently there are new ways to identify vulnerability to cancers. I need to decide whether to do a lumpectomy + radiation + 5-10 years of medication (with gnarly side effects), or to get a bilateral mastectomy (major amputation surgery) and hope that this eliminates the risk. The problem is, cancer can come back in other locations. One stray cancer cell that evades treatment can migrate somewhere else and not be identified until it's quite advanced. Additionally, my mother had metastatic melanoma as well as breast cancer. She had both at the time of her death. So, I have a 50% chance of developing melanoma.

While we all die of something eventually, knowing shifts and hits different when you are told your body has been overtaken by renegade cells.

I'm 62, and I've worked hard over the past four years to get healthy, including losing 75 pounds, doing strength training and cardio regularly, and eating nutritious food. I appreciate my body and all it can do. I've cherished the improvement of my health; I made this change because I witnessed my mother's drastic and painful decline, which resulted partly from neglect, and I want a more functional elderhood. I was looking forward to launching my kid to college this fall and having an empty nest and new adventures with my husband.

Now all that comes to a screeching halt. 

I loathe the term "journey." It romanticizes an experience that is fucking traumatic. This is not a journey. Nor is it an expedition, a trek, a trip, a safari, or a passage of any kind. It is a goddamn inconvenience. It is frightening and painful and difficult. It is an obstacle to joy and thriving. If you want to help, don't use that word when communicating with me. I'm slow to anger, but these days my tolerance is paper-thin.

The Ogre and the Girl Who Nevertheless Persisted

From an exercise in Your Life As Story, Chapter 3: My Fairytale and Letter

The Ogre and the Girl Who Nevertheless Persisted

Once upon a time there was a girl who was born to an old-fashioned father in an era of feminism. Growing up she displayed aptitude for language and writing and did well academically. However, there were problems: she was raised in the Catholic church, in which females did not have a prominent role. She was drawn to religion even as a young child, but as she grew up her perception of God was shaped by her view of her father. Another problem was her parents’ perception of her ability, especially her father’s. She expressed interest in becoming a teacher; he negated it, saying there was a glut of teachers. She said she wanted to be a writer, a journalist, but was told she wasn't competitive enough to succeed. She revealed a desire to be a psychologist but was told she was too emotional. Because she could not declare without hesitation exactly what she wanted to do with her life that fell outside these three interests, because he was conservative and would not support her in pursuit of a liberal arts education, and because he had the money, she adjusted her educational goals to suit him.

In high school she became involved in a teen Catholic prayer group. She became a vocal, “born again” Christian, a role which defined her life for four years. She lived in dread of making mistakes. Her parents were experiencing relationship problems, notably her father launching into rages at her mother. The girl felt it was all because of her not being good enough, so she tried even harder to be good and perfect. Because of her eldest sister’s departure from college after one year, he would not allow her to go away to school. She received supportive feedback from teachers about her intellect, but felt there was no point because since age 12 her father told her he wouldn’t let her go away to school. Because of her second-eldest sister’s reneging on a parental loan for a car, he would not allow her to get her driver’s license while she lived under his roof. Her life was bound in negatives. In 1981 she applied to the community college under one major, human services; her father repeatedly told her she would only end up working in a welfare office, which sounded depressing. So before school started she switched to food service management, thinking it would at least provide a creative outlet. She quickly learned that cooking was not her passion and changed to business administration. She was miserable. She felt underused, dissatisfied, not academically challenged in any way. She had to take the bus two hours each way daily, or scrabble rides from classmates. After one year, she recognized the waste of time and money involved, and she told her father she would withdraw and seek work.

One week after informing him of her decision, he asked her if she’d gotten a job yet. She replied she had not, and he assumed she hadn’t been looking. He flew into a tirade about how he would not permit her to leech off of him. He stated she would have to start paying rent at $100 a month plus her own groceries. Shortly after, she found a job as a dental assistant that paid a low wage; she could not afford to move out of her parents’ house. After eight months the dentist decided to take a seven week vacation and laid her off. She quit (she needed income) and searched for another job. In 1983, desperate to become competitive in the job market, she entered a business school to pursue a degree in secretarial studies. She didn’t want to, but again, financial aid depended on her father, who only supported practical, clerical subjects for her; the government required he report his income to assess aid, and he resisted. She pushed and he relented, and she ended up borrowing $5,000 to fund this. The school was a diploma mill, not totally legitimate, and again, she loathed the classes. After six months she quit and, using the money from the loan, moved out on her own. She then got a job as a secretary at Syracuse University in 1984. It was an awful job, where the Dean of Students required females to wear skirts and dresses only, where she was given menial tasks and was rebuked for wanting to take on more work. She spent many hours looking busy, which exhausted her. 

Still unsure of what she wanted to study, and struggling with her sense of self and place in life, she meandered through the days. She had remitted tuition benefits, but she started courses and dropped them. After a year, she transferred to a job at the university library, where she immersed herself in reading and books. Her job bored her, and she barely made ends meet. However, she at least could wear jeans and casual clothes and spend many hours getting paid to read and research, which she did love. Gradually she became more serious about her education, and she grew stronger in her sense of ownership over her own life. She took courses she enjoyed and recognized the spark of intelligence within her. She decided in her mid-20s to study psychology, despite what her father would think. She knew it wouldn’t guarantee a job, but she also knew she had skills to at least feed herself. She wanted to study what she loved, a subject that engaged her and made her think. And despite the fact she’d lived on her own for over five years, she felt compelled to explain her decision in a letter to her father. She also wanted to go away to college and have the typical college experience.

In 1989, she applied to a couple of state colleges and was accepted. However, she had no savings. She would have to borrow student loans, but she didn’t know if that would be enough. Her father offered to provide some funding, a loan of $8,000, to be paid upon graduation. The conditions of the loan stated she could not marry, get pregnant, buy a vehicle, or take a vacation while in school, and that she would work temp jobs on her breaks. The arrangement of the loan filled her with foreboding, which she expressed to her mother. Her mother’s response was that if she really wanted the education, to swallow her pride and sign the contract. She did, with reluctance. Off she went, and she did well her first semester. In her second semester, concerned about the amount she borrowed and her father’s implied timeframe for repayment (within five years of graduation), she attempted to adjust her course load so she could graduate sooner. She and her brother were both home for spring break. Her proposal violated her father’s sense of the contract she had signed and was met with his rage and refusal; he grilled her about her expenditures. He behaved as in the past, like a despot. During this encounter, she had an epiphany. At age 26, he was still treating her as if she were 8, and he acted as though he owned her. He said ugly things to her about being a failure, a quitter, and not being his daughter, and he lunged toward her. His emotions were so apoplectic that her brother had to physically intervene to keep their father from reaching her. She decided that her dignity and autonomy were more valuable to her than an education, and she left his house. She finished out the semester (spring 1990) by living with a friend and commuting to the college (100 miles round trip in a borrowed vehicle) and returned to her library job with one year of credits left to earn.

Shortly after leaving, she received a memo from her father through her mother. In this she learned that her father had intended to forgive the entire debt upon her graduation (a decision he declined to share because he thought knowing would make her squander the opportunity), that he wanted the house-key returned, and that he did not want to see or have any contact with her until he decided he wanted it. This was cold, but typical of him. The woman just decided to let go of the desire for a college degree for awhile. She was very, very depressed, more so than she had ever been. Too much was in flux in her life; she didn’t even have a place to live. So she focused on acquiring the basics, on regaining stability, so she could rest and reassess the situation. She sorely needed a means of reliable transportation, and she needed money to pay for classes that the college required she take on campus.

In spring of 1991, she managed to find a deal on a new little car and arranged the loan. This was freedom! Her world opened. With this exhilarating change she felt renewed. She spoke to her boss about changing her work schedule to accommodate the classes she would need to take during the day. Her boss supported this; the endeavor would demand much of her, in that she would work in the morning, commute 100 miles in the afternoon for class, and finish her job in the evening. But it was possible, and she embraced this. In the summer of 1991 she took classes at Oswego, and coursework in the fall at both campuses. In spring of 1992 she took more courses at the university where she worked to transfer to the Oswego. Exhausted but nearly finished, she plowed through more summer and fall courses, and finished her studies in December 1992. Her goal had been to get her B.A. by the day she turned 30. Her birthday was June 24, 1993; she garnered her achievement six months ahead of that deadline. After ten years of hard work and struggle to overcome emotional, financial, and academic obstacles, our heroine prevailed. With the degree that society claimed was necessary to find advanced work, she could move ahead.
-----------------
My dear child,
I know I started parenthood quite late in life, and it is my hope that I gained some wisdom to share by waiting. My life was not problem-free growing up; nor was my early adulthood easy. I had to fight for my opportunities. Lacking money and moral support, I spent many years confusedly searching for my path. Sometimes I am wistful, wondering what else I might have accomplished had my life been different, but this is a waste of time. Besides, there is a central message here, in my life: persevere. No matter that your dream is scoffed at, or that you fear you lack the ability. If your heart whispers to you about what you love, if you harbor a dream, believe in it. And then do all you can to manifest this dream, keeping it in sight as life takes you hither and yon. As long as you hold this dream and nurture it, it will grow. It may not flourish all the time, but it will grow. As I look back on my life, this is one clear lesson it taught me.

How God Remembers That Which is Least

This was originally written in January 2016.

Yesterday I walked home from dropping my daughter at school, and I passed by a wounded mourning dove on the sidewalk. It was camouflaged and nearly undetectable. In a matter of seconds my eye saw it, my heart said, Oh! Poor creature, and my legs kept walking. I thought -- actually, I felt a physical pressure in my torso -- the prompt of compassion to move it off the sidewalk, and this was immediately chased away by the thought, Remember, avian flu, don't want to get something like that.

I kept walking, but a debate occurred between my mind and that felt part of me. I hesitate to call it my heart, because it filled my torso. It was an interesting experience, since another part of me was detached enough to witness the event. This is what unfolded:

Feet are walking.

Head: Keep going. It could have disease.

Heart: You can wash your hands as soon as you get home. It's vulnerable. At least move it off the sidewalk.

Head: It's probably going to die.

Feet keep walking.

Heart: Just move it! Even if it dies, let it be somewhere safer.

Head: No, it's silly. It's just a bird. Not a big deal. Besides, I'm several houses past it.

Heart: Go back. Go back, pick it up, and put it under a bush. 

Feet move more slowly.

Head: You're kidding, right? Feet, keep walking. It's no big deal.

Feet continue to move, even more slowly.

Heart: You must go back. Turn around, walk back, and move the bird. It's a living creature.

Feet stop.

Head: Really?

Heart: Really.

My body turned around, my feet walked half a block back to the bird. I leaned down and gently cupped my hands around it. I lifted the bird and saw that it was dead. Its eyes remained open, but there was not even the slightest movement of a feather. I tucked it under a bush. I wasn't thinking. The act itself felt like a prayer. I took out my phone and snapped a picture. It was just a bird, but it had been living and now it wasn't. It seemed right to memorialize it in a photo. Then I stood up and began walking home.

Peace coursed through my body. It was an act of compassion, however small.

Heart: Thank you.

Head: Okay, just be sure to wash your hands really well when you get home.

Today, a scripture from my childhood came to mind, Luke 12:6: "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God."

We are God's eyes. We are called to remember. That is how God moves in the world.

Sitting With Anxiety

Sitting With Anxiety

Up until recently I actively avoided Anxiety whenever I saw her coming my way. Unfortunately, she would always see me trying to dodge her, and she would pursue me, shouting, "Hey, wait, I need to talk to you!" I've never liked her. The whole of her personality irritates me. She could be considered high strung. Anxiety is a chain-smoker. She looks like a famine survivor from hardly eating, and her hands tremble. Her skin is blotchy from lack of sleep, and the worry lines around her face seem engraved into her skin, even though she is my age.

Moreover, an encounter with Anxiety always leaves me perturbed, restless, and edgy. Sometimes I feel extremely irritated with her. Anxiety has an ability to pop up in many places I don't expect her. I'm amazed to see her at so many social functions, because I know her presence has a similar effect on other people. Anxiety is always bemoaning some imagined future catastrophe. She worries and reads danger into the slightest mishaps. She has a habit of showing up almost constantly when my life is chaotic. I've spent many years listening to her stories and reacting in alarm to them. I've tried to get rid of her politely, but when she won't leave, I seethe with resentment. I've even ordered her out a few times, yet she always returns. And as long as I engage in this judgmental avoidant way, she feeds off this and won't leave.

Well, I had an epiphany the other day. Anxiety caught up with me, and rather than dismiss her, or listen politely while swallowing my annoyance, I decided to withhold judgment a moment. I asked myself, "What is Anxiety trying to communicate? What does she want?" As I pondered life from her perspective, I realized that Anxiety sees herself as my friend. And, because she is naturally tense and worried, her perceptions of the world are tainted by this. As my friend, she is simply looking out for me, in the best way she knows how. Even if it means warning me of imagined dangers. I have the power to choose how I listen to her. I can believe her and react in alarm, allowing her tension to inflame me. Or I can receive her kind intent while detaching myself from the content of her words.

So now, when Anxiety finds me, I make myself available for a few moments. Often what she seeks is reassurance. I hold her trembling hands and acknowledge her worries. Once she knows I have heard her, she is satisfied for a while and flits off to someone else. Anxiety does have her place in this world. I am learning, though, how to keep this relationship in perspective.

-- Kathryn Harper

Photo:“1BabnnxO1xPYXBziw4xB--0--knth4” by Amanda Girard, CC BY-SA 4.0

I wrote this reflection in the style of Ruth Gendler and her lovely work, The Book of Qualities.

Tend Your Fire

Your inner landscape is a forest that has grown for six decades.

Very little new can grow, and it makes sense that you can't figure 

out which way to go. Everything is overgrown,

tangled, and dense. Nothing can move through it.

All this growth is the result of living your life in the context of your parents' lives,

and their experiences influenced how they parented. Your forest holds all of 

their trauma, which was untreated.

Yes. They did the best they could. And in many ways they did a great job.

But in raising you they implicitly handed you their emotional undergrowth.

And they were also a generation of savers and holders; possessions

held meaning and create attachment. This generation feels that objects have 

great value, which is simply one worldview -- not an absolute Truth. 

This has been your reality; it's the element in which 

you grew up. So of course you haven't really seen this.

It's been your normal.

You built a life within that emotional structure and

created as meaningful a life as possible, and it's been a

good life. When you transitioned from career to retirement,

the structure fell away, and now you are noticing how

stifled your soul feels.

Maybe you don't need to burn it all down.

But controlled burns could be useful.

To start a fire you need a spark.

Somewhere within you there is a hot spot, a few embers

that have quietly burned your entire life.

It is the mystery of consciousness when it is embodied.

As long as our bodies are alive, it exists.

So why has it not ignited all the overgrowth yet? 

It's buried so deeply in your subconscious,

like the underground coal fire in an abandoned mine

in Centralia, Pennsylvania, which has burned 

since 1962.

Your equanimity about your parents doing

the best they could is the dense earth,

weighed by gravity, covering your buried fire.

You have a gentle temperament with a compassionate 

streak. It's a gift. And yet any trait in excess creates

challenges. This is yours.

Your work is to uncover your embers, let

air in, rearrange the fuel, and allow ignition.

Fire is amazing. It can be destructive when unconfined, 

but it can warm us, give light, keep us alive. We get 

to have s'mores with them. Tend your fire.

-Kathryn Harper

Tyler Childers - White House Road | OurVinyl Sessions

Whitehouse Road

Early in the morning when the sun does rise
Layin' in the bed with bloodshot eyes
Late in the evenin' when the sun sinks low
Well that's about time my rooster crows
I got women up and down this creek
And they keep me going and my engine clean
Run me ragged but I don't fret
Cause there ain't been one slow me down none yet

Get me drinking' that moonshine
Get me higher than the grocery bill
Take my troubles to the highwall
Throw 'em in the river and get your fill
We been sniffing that cocaine
Ain't nothin' better when the wind cuts cold
Lord it's a mighty hard livin'
But a damn good feelin' to run these roads

I got people try to tell me, Red
Keep this livin' and you'll wind up dead
Cast your troubles on the Lord of Lord's
Or wind up laying on a coolin' board
But I got buddies up White House Road
And they keep me strutting when my feet hang low
Rotgut whiskey gonna ease my pain
'N all this runnin's gonna keep me sane

Get me drinking' that moonshine
Get me higher than the grocery bill
Take my troubles to the highwall
Throw 'em in the river and get your fill
We been sniffing that cocaine
Ain't nothin' better when the wind cuts cold
Lord it's a mighty hard livin'
But a damn good feelin' to run these roads
It's a damn good feelin' to run these roads

When they lay me in the cold hard clay
Won't ya sing them hymns while the banjo plays
You can tell them ladies that they ought not frown
Cause there ain't been nothing ever held me down
Lawmen, women or a shallow grave
Same ol' blues just a different day

Get me drinking' that moonshine
Get me higher than the grocery bill
Take my troubles to the highwall
Throw 'em in the river and get your fill
We been sniffing that cocaine
Ain't nothin' better when the wind cuts cold
Lord it's a mighty hard livin'
But a damn good feelin' to run these roads
It's a damn good feelin' to run these roads
It's a damn good feelin' to run these roads

Max McNown - A Lot More Free (Official Music Video)

Leaves start falling my cold wind blows
And soon get covered by the winter snow
Birds start singin' when the spring rolls 'round
Flowers blooming through the thawing ground

When you love somebody and the love grows cold
The sun starts shining when you let it all go
There's a certain kinda hurting only time can heal
That's a pretty good picture of the way I feel

I'm a little bit hurt but a lot more free
I ain't saying that you never took a toll on me
For what it's worth, I can finally see
That I'm a little bit hurt but a lot more free
Yeah, I'm a little bit hurt but a lot more free

From this mountain I can see so far
Rivers running like deep deep scars
Carrying the lifeblood through my veins
Is it crazy that I'm grateful for all the pain?

'Cause I'm a little bit hurt but a lot more free
I ain't saying that you never took a toll on me
For what it's worth, I can finally see
That I'm a little bit hurt but a lot more free
Yeah, I'm a little bit hurt but a lot more free

Surreal

Surreal 

At the turn of the century
it is a long way down
to the mind's I. A treehouse
chronicles my journey to this
lost continent, which requires
the amber spyglass to navigate.
When I arrive I am barely a
shadow of a man. There is
snow falling on cedars; through
the woods I hear the single hound
wailing for her hometown. After
twenty years at Hull House, she
mourns for that bastard out of
Carolina who left her tender
at the bone. I wander through
trees toward her cries and find
her. My journey ends across the
river, past the canal town. Before
crossing over, I ask her for
directions. "I don't know," she
replies. "I'm a stranger here myself."

-Kathryn Harper

Another Cento poem. The titles:

• Turn of the Century (Kurt Andersen)
• A Long Way Down
• The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul
• Treehouse Chronicles: One Man's Dream of a Life Aloft (S. Peter Lewis)
• The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America
• The Amber Spyglass
• Shadow of a Man
• Snow Falling on Cedars
• Through the Woods (H.E. Bates)
• The Single Hound (May Sarton)
• Bastard Out of Carolina
• Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table
• Canal Town
• Crossing Over (Ruben Martinez)
• I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away

No Place Too Small

No Place Too Small

It is easy to know how to meld with so much grief.
With joy there is blindness, rose-colored ignorance,
No body to tend, to anchor one to the earth.
When the world remains intact, you move nimbly,
Caressing the surface of things, noticing little.

But grief burrows in.
It needs only the exposed, wounded soul
To dig in as a tick under skin.
Grief bangs around the cellar, shrieking,
behaves unpredictably, hijacking your eyes
When the store clerk asks how you are. Clutching your
throat when you call the dentist’s office for a cleaning.

You walk now among oblivious humans,
an emotional leper
With lesions rotting your heart.
All of existence has its own death,
It too could slip into a tumor-ridden coma
Adorned with catheter tubes,
And gasp last breaths to the sterile beat
Of a monitor, attended by loved ones.

Since there is no place too small
For grief to infiltrate,
You lie down, surrender, pull it
to every cell of your being.
You take orders, as a dog obeys commands
From an owner; you honor and bear it,
And in this way, endure.

–Kathryn Harper

This poem was another exercise in scaffolding. I worked with Naomi Shihab Ney's Kindness.

“Grief” by jan buchholtz, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

A Bridge Too Far ... On Alex Pretti

Self-Care in Political Chaos

Someone shared this clip from PBS with me: The surprising way to fight political exhaustion, in which sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom talks about "agency" as a key to countering exhaustion from relentless horrible world news and politics. 

She's on point. It makes me think... if I'm standing still awhile, it starts to hurt and get heavy, my feet and hips ache, etc. But if I walk or move in some way, pain recedes. (I had a lot of retail jobs long ago.) Passive consumption of news forces us to stand and hold heaviness, which feels even MORE heavy because that's all we're attending to. I liked her term: agentic. 

This is why I've joined to volunteer with Action for Happiness, and why I've started making "little art" earnestly, on the regular, and why I'm returning to frequent entries here, and might even write poetry again. Since this post is public, I can't pretend I'll be a secret agent -- but I can be an agent for kindness. 

On The Resolve of Minnesota

Reality

I am not okay. I saw the video of Renee Good being murdered. I am an empath and a therapist. I had to find the energy and attention to be present with my clients today, while also carrying the physical, mental, and emotional load of horror and despair. It's the misogyny. The fact that a government entity is lying about what happened. The speed with which a man just decided to snuff out a woman's life by obliterating her face with bullets and then calling her a "fucking bitch" after. I appreciate these events are documented on video, but it's also traumatic to witness.

Jackie Summers on The Physics of Wishing

I've followed Jackie Summers on Facebook and on his Substack for several years. Based on what I know of his life story, he is a human phoenix. Much respect to him. He's an eloquent thinker and writer, as well as the first Black person in America with a license to make liquor. He created a drink based on the generational recipe from the African-Indiginous heritage of Barbados: Sorel Liqueur.

His recent post was about The Physics of Wishing, and I wanted to bookmark it for future reference. The entire post is worth reading. 

But the core of what I want to post are his instructions as follows:

How to Actually Send a Wish

(No physics degree required)

If any of those landed in your chest and you thought, “I hope that’s true for somebody I love”— here’s how you turn that into a real wish.

You don’t have to believe in magic. You just have to be willing to try an experiment.

1. Breathe once, on purpose.
Inhale a little slower than usual.
That’s your rhythm.

2. Let one person come to mind.
Just one. A friend, a lover, an ex, a parent, a stranger on the edge.

3. Find your stillness, set your intention.
Say it quietly in your head. Let your body feel what you mean.

4. Exhale slowly.
On that breath out, imagine the wish leaving your field and brushing theirs.

That’s it. That’s the whole spell.

No glitter. No angels getting their wings. Just a small increase in local coherence, from your nervous system to someone else’s.