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Barrettes for a previously bald chick

I got some barrettes!

This is a very big deal for me because at this time last year, I was bald.

I remember the first time after cancer treatment that I felt the wind in my (very) short hair.  What luxury!  It was a luscious feeling after months of being bald.

Soon after that, I needed to actually run my fingers through my hair in order to tame it.  And more recently, I’ve needed to use a comb or brush.  All of these are incredible sensory experiences that I’m sure I took for granted before my cancer treatment took all my hair away.

All my life, my hair has been a statement because of sheer volume and lots of curls.  Now that it’s growing back from chemo, it’s even curlier than it used to be; I hear that this is not uncommon for post-chemo hair.

Since it’s so curly, it’s starting to look a little goofy, but I’m not ready to have it cut or shaped.  After we’re on the East Coast, I figure it will have enough length to be worth shaping.  So for now, I figured that barrettes might tame some of the goofier curls, and I swiped a couple of my daughters’ clips to test them out.

Today, I needed a little retail therapy because the goodbyes to my friends and workmates (our move is only about two weeks away) are getting more and more overwhelming.  A Target stop was in order, and I got a few new barrettes!  I stood there in the hair accessories aisle at Target and got all choked up to be lucky enough to be there with all the other ladies with hair, doing something so mundane as selecting and buying barrettes.

The thought of having hair long enough to use barrettes is really something.  Really really something.

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Straight talk, after Prop 8 was upheld by California high court

If one or both of my daughters are gay, then you can be darn tootin’ sure that if I have anything to say about it, they will be able to marry whosoever they damn well want to.

And, I’ll add that if one or both of my daughters marries a member of the same gender as themselves, my straight marriage to my husband won’t be threatened or endangered by their actions.

Our family will be just fine, thank you very much.

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OK, so I’m sitting here

For the second time in my life as a mom, my little girls have asked for me to let them put themselves to sleep like big girls.

So I read to them, got out of bed, turned off the light, turned on some lullabies, kissed them, told them I love them, tucked them in and slipped out of the room.

For the second night in a row, they feel asleep almost immediately.

Now I’m blogging, but just before that, I was just sitting here, staring into space.  I should be grateful that I have the night to myself, but I am in shock and not sure what to do with my time.  I should probably be going through files or packing boxes, but I feel disoriented.

We have always put our girls to sleep by reading them a story and then cuddling with them until they fall asleep.  Only then do we sneak out.  Lots of times, doing this makes me so tired that I end up just going to bed.

Sometimes, it made me crazed that I almost never had the evenings to myself.  My husband offered to put the girls to bed, but since I work out of the home full time, I really like bedtime so that I can spend time with the girls and read them stories.  I just wished that I had the energy after that to stay up and hang out with my husband and do other stuff, but so often I just don’t.

But then my friend Sandy told me to enjoy the bedtimes, that soon enough they would be a thing of the past.  So, I made peace with the fact that I just wouldn’t have the nights to myself for a while.

And now, here I am with a night to myself, and I just don’t know what to do with it.  I just want to snuggle with my girls, but at the same time I am so proud of them for wanting — and asking for — some independence.

I honestly can’t believe how fast they’re growing up.

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For six days, we eat chicken; on the seventh, we rest

Last time this year, I was undergoing chemotherapy, so I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing lately now that my hair is growing back, all fluffy.

I’ve also been reminiscing about my breast cancer surgery last August.

My mother came to town for the surgery and was an incredible help and support. She took care of two pretty frustrated twins, took them to swim lessons, tried to play with them, and endured some nasty behavior and nasty comments from them. [Note to self: two pre-schoolers whose mommy is in the hospital undergoing a radical surgery for cancer can have some POWerful emotions. And they will act accordingly.]

My mom cooked for us, cleaned up, took care of me, gave pep talks, whatever was required. She got us through the worst two weeks of my recovery. I’m not sure what we would have done without her.

After my mom left, my wonderful friend Lisa stepped in and coordinated a week of dinners for us because even though I was up and around, I was still pretty much useless as far as cooking or housework. Six people from my work (including Lisa) volunteered to bring dinner that third week post-surgery.

Each day, these generous and lovely women came to our home and delivered incredible, thoughtful, delicious dinners. And each dinner revolved around some form of chicken.

Every day, around the time that our friends were due to arrive, my husband and I wondered whether we’d be having chicken for dinner. Sure enough, the chicken would arrive.

In addition to receiving delicious chicken, each person would stay and visit for awhile. This was my favorite part of the whole week. One of the days, my friend Danäe brought Thai food, and we ate all together in front of the television watching something historic: Barack Obama received and accepted the nomination of his party to run for the presidency.

I have come to call this special week the “for six days, we eat chicken; on the seventh, we rest” week. I am overwhelmed with warm feelings and gratitude every time I think of that week and of the two weeks that preceded it, when my mom was here.

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Show and tell

So, this is kinda Relay for Life, part 2. If you’re done reading about my cancer or about the Relay for Life walk-a-thon, it’s OK with me if you stop here. But the Relay for Life was one of those experiences that keeps on giving, so there’s a little more to share.

Monday is the day that my daughters get to show-and-tell in the Kindergarten class. The Monday after Relay for Life, they took in the medals they got at the Relay. They’re big, chunky things emblazoned with big letters that spell out SURVIVOR.

(After the “Survivor’s Lap” around the track, the Relay organizers are there, putting medals on all the survivors, giving them care baskets and flowers. It’s overwhelming, weird and sweet. When I put my medal on Dinah and gave my flower to Djuna, Djuna instantly asked where her medal was. Just as instantly, a breast cancer survivor standing nearby whisked her medal off and swooped it onto Djuna, saying that she had two daughters too.)

When the girls wanted to take their medals in for show-and-tell, I decided to stay and watch.

When they had their turns, they both said that they received medals because they helped their mommy get better from cancer. When they said this, both of them stood up at the end and raised their arms in the air, triumphant.

You *so* know that I got all choked up. Who wouldn’t? And I couldn’t help thinking how crazy it was that most of the Kindergarten kids bring in toys, stuffed animals, little treasures like shells and starfish (and that’s what my kids bring in on most Mondays), but that my kids have to bring in big medals that say “survivor.”

I wasn’t sure what to think about that.  I felt bad about it, that my girls should have had to endure something so hard at such a young age.  But I also felt fiercely proud of them.

I wanted to clap for them, but that’s just not what everyone does after the kids show and tell. The other kids asked them questions, like, “What do you do with your medal when you’re not using it?” and so forth. Dinah and Djuna politely answered their classmates’ questions and then took their spots on the carpet.

I was humbled by the normalcy of the whole thing, the easy sharing, the easy flow of the normal spate of questions from 5 and 6 year olds. But I was also struck by the fact that my girls don’t really understand cancer or what it means. They know that I was sick, they know that I took strong medicine that made me tired and bald. They know I had an operation, that I was gone from the house for three days for the operation, that I have scars.

They don’t really know that cancer causes death, though. I dread the day that they realize that.  I am afraid for them to make the connection that I had a deadly disease, that anyone’s cancer can return, that sometimes people have to fight it again, that sometimes they cannot survive the disease.  I want to protect them from having to know this as long as I can, but I know I can’t do it forever, of course.

I know how true it is that they deserve medals for helping me get better. I hope I can help them understand that, too.

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Relaying for life

Yesterday, I went to the Relay for Life at UCLA. Typically, I donate money directly to the causes I especially care about, rather than participate in events.

I have heard lots about the Relay from family and a good family friend who have done the Relay for years, and I donated money when I could and looked forward to seeing the pictures from the event each year – the tents, the t-shirts, the team, the triumph, the luminarias.

But then I got cancer. My mom did a walk-a-thon last year, and my sister was considering one too. I wasn’t planning on doing the Relay until my step-brother, who goes to UCLA, told me that was going to be captain of a team, and he asked me to come participate.

I thought about it for awhile because I wasn’t sure how it would all feel; I finally decided that yes, it would be good to go, for about a million reasons.

The whole thing came so fast that I barely had time to get nervous or to think about how it would feel to take the “survivor’s lap” or to stand out as a cancer survivor in a big crowd of people. I thought about it a little, and I just didn’t know what to think, but then suddenly time was a-wasting, and I had to put a badge on my Facebook page to start fundraising!

I didn’t put out too many calls/e-mails for fundraising because so many people have already done so much to help me and my family through my year of treatment. On top of that, I wasn’t completely comfortable asking for money in these difficult economic times.

Putting a badge on my FB page helped me feel like I wasn’t targeting anybody specifically. I just used the status update a couple of times to let folks know that I was fundraising, and it brought in an amazing amount of money, fast. That, and some generous contributions from family when my sister (also a generous contributor) sent around the link to my Relay for Life page helped put me over $500 in just a week.

For anyone who has never been to a Relay before, the UCLA one took place in a large stadium on campus. The different teams had tents set up just inside the stadium’s track, right on the outer edges of the lawn. The middle of the lawn was open, and folks played croquet, frisbee, catch, etc.

Once the Relay started, there were always folks walking, trotting or running around the track. I left in the late afternoon, but there were plenty of folks there who were planning to stay the night, alternating between walking the track and sleeping.

My step-brother was captain of his team, and he brought a tent, sleeping bags, board games and more to keep the 24 hours comfortable and fun for all. He was a great host, and along with his girlfriend and my other step-brother, they all did their best to make me and my husband and our daughters feel welcomed and supported.

I received a purple t-shirt that said “SURVIVOR” on the back, so it was easy for event coordinators to spot me and call me over when there were events in the survivor’s section. They had food there, crafts, gifts and photo ops.

Sometimes I can’t even believe that I had cancer, so it’s very difficult to explain how it felt to be a part of the survivor’s group at the Relay. First of all, I can say that the volunteers who ran the event were incredibly kind and genuine. In fact, one of the volunteers was a former student who lost her father to cancer years ago.

Seeing her there, and also some of the other young people who lost parents to cancer, was powerful. My former student is a bright, capable, mature, sweet individual. To think that she came into her own while growing up without her father helps me come to terms with my fears.

None of my doctors (and I have several) has ever indicated to me that I have a negative prognosis. But there are no guarantees for those who have finished treatment for cancer, and I am well aware of this. So, it is very difficult for me to shake off the fear that I am just about to die from breast cancer. Of course, the worst part is fearing that I might not be there to raise my amazing, beloved daughters.

But seeing the folks there, all with their different cancer stories, made me face the fear and put a face on it. And the face wasn’t terrible; instead, it was the face of a former student, of one of the event speakers who lost her mother, of other young people at the event who have clearly been touched by cancer … children who lose a parent can grow up to be whole people, nice kids who go to college, have friends, passions, a good life.

While I don’t want to think of these things, I do. I have to face the fear in order to be present in the present moment. I have to come to terms with scary thoughts in order to be able to stare down the cold fear, everyday.

At the Relay, it was good to have a lot of warm hands reaching out, coaxing me to the other side of the chilliness.

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New normal, new body

A difficult part of life after cancer treatment has been getting used to my new body. The truth is that I’m not completely comfortable writing about this subject right now, so I am only going to outline the basics here.

I do feel comfortable saying that it’s weird and complicated and that my body is just, well, different. I have weird aches and pains that I don’t like to talk about much. What makes them weird is simply that they’re different from my pre-cancer body, which was also just a younger body.

It makes me think of one of my favorite folk tales, an Irish tale about the selchie, the seal maiden. In the luminous musical version we listen to with my daughters, there is a part when the seal is stranded on the sand and loses her seal skin. Then she turns into a human girl. She tries to swim back out to sea to retrieve her seal skin, but she cannot because she does not know how to work her new body.

Of course, the challenge is not only because I feel as though I have a new body. The real challenge is that every one of my new aches and pains feels like it must be cancer. It’s very difficult to deal with these aches and pains without worrying.

But I do try.

I went to dance class tonight (I take modern dance classes) and was so happy to see someone who hasn’t been to classes in years. She has been facing some very complicated health issues and only now has returned to class. I could tell that she was feeling frustrated during class, but she looked as lovely as she ever did, with gorgeous dancer’s fingers and hands, very natural and graceful.

Watching my friend make her way through class inspired me. And my teacher offered me spot-on corrections to get me through.

There are moments, during dance class, when I am happily lost in the movements and the music, and for a few seconds, I never had cancer. It’s thrilling. And then I return to myself, my new body, my new normal. And that’s OK too. It really is.

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A life, scrapbooked

This week some workers at my school found a treasure trove of scrapbooks in a house that is due to be razed to make room for a new campus building.

The house was left to our school in a will.  There is some sort of very involved story with the house … an alum of my school was married to a man, and she wanted the house left to the school.  She died and her husband remarried and lived in the house for many more years.  He and his second wife apparently committed suicide together because one of them was terminally ill.  When he died, the house was then left to the school, in accordance with the first wife’s wishes.

Now, I can promise you that I don’t have all the facts of this story straight, but I’ve got enough of them to know that the story is complicated, sad, romantic, very poignant.

The scrapbooks are mostly from travels in the 1980s and early 1990s, all meticulously prepared.  Ticket stubs, itineraries, menus, hotel stationery, post cards, photos, newspaper clippings, advertisements and much more, all labeled with an ink pen in a woman’s elegant handwriting.

Because the house will soon be leveled, our maintenance crew is cleaning it out completely.  They brought the 18 scrapbooks to the library (where I work), and our librarian put them on a cart and invited the community to come peruse them.

Normally, this would be stuff I’d love, but instead of being fascinated with them, they are freaking me out.  To see so many scrapbooks in one place, all of them there to be perused by strangers to the people who made them, depressed me.

Co-workers filed in and out of the library all day yesterday and again today.  They hoisted books of interest to library tables to flip through, vicariously enjoying trips to exotic locales.  Everyone was chatting about the extensive collection, about how many hours it took to assemble them.  Labors of love.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about how material things cannot possibly go with us when we die.  All the hours spent on those books, all the special memories compiled, just to be shared with people the travelers didn’t even know.  I thought of how my own to-do lists include reminders not only to create scrapbooks, but to sort through pictures, print pictures, edit family videos, post it all on the Internet.

What will happen to my recorded memories when I die one day?  Will my family enjoy them, or will they just be moldy old albums, interesting conversation pieces … is it a waste of time to record memories in pictures?  in albums? on tape?  Should we be spending more time experiencing life in the present moment instead of working so passionately to record it?

I think I was extra-sensitive about these scrapbooks because Monday was the three-year anniversary of my step-father’s death.  The scrapbooks made me remember holding my step-father’s hand after he died, as I looked around the room at all his treasured possessions, thinking that wherever he was going, he sure wasn’t taking all those books, photos, trinkets and decorations with him.  I couldn’t understand his death, but I could understand the this-world permanence of those objects hovering all around us.

I wanted to be happy about the moment the scrapbooks provided — it was actually kind of neat to see other teachers I haven’t chatted with in awhile, coming into the library, all of us sharing easy moments over objects of mutual interest.

When a fellow co-worker brought one of the albums back to the library, saying that it was making her office smell moldy, I knew I needed to call it a day.  I left work, stopping off to have coffee with a dear friend.  And then home to my family and some nice warm spaghetti.