My 2010 According to Facebook
This graphic was compiled from a selection my status updates over the past year.
How was your 2010?
Best wishes for a healthy and happy new year!
My Wish for You
I was crossing through an intersection in holiday rush hour traffic, in the rain of course (this is Seattle), when the truck to my right swooped in front of me, cutting me off, and then stopping short with his butt hanging in the crosswalk – leaving me stranded and blocking the cross traffic. Yeah, I was that driver.
Luckily, the jerk didn’t cause me to get a ticket for blocking the intersection, so it wasn’t worth giving the incident much more thought. But then something else happened…
A street kid, in a soaked jacket and no hat, was visibly concerned by the event. He flipped off the other driver on my behalf, and then set about the gargantuan task of trying to stop the hordes of pedestrians long enough to let me pull forward, and out of the intersection. All this done with a smile.
As I passed, he bowed deeply, tipping an imaginary hat. I smiled and waved, and wished there was something more I could do, but I was swept back up in the flow of traffic, and he was merrily on his way.
I offered up a wish on his behalf. First I thought of a warm dry coat. But he needed a hat, too. And gloves. When was his last hot meal? Did he have a safe place to rest his head? Were his needs being met?
We’ve had a tough time this year, but we’ve never gone hungry, I’ve been able to get medical care, and we’ve always had a roof over our head. I am so grateful.
My wish for you this holiday season, and on through 2011, is that your needs are met – health, safety, shelter, acceptance, a job…
And to the kid that helped me through that intersection, I hope you get your needs met, too – especially a warm, dry jacket.
From my family to yours, Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and a happy and healthy New Year.
New Perspective on Memory
I was in the back seat, pretending to sleep as we pulled into the driveway late after a long day of shopping. At five, and the oldest in a large family, the odds of Daddy carrying me into the house and up the stairs to my room were pretty slim. But that didn’t stop me from trying.
Most of the time, he’d wake me up and send me inside, but every once in a while my little ploy worked. I’d rest my head on his shoulder as we ascended the stairs, and ragdoll as he maneuvered me into my jammies. Then he would tuck me into bed, brush the hair from my face, and plant a kiss on my forehead. I relished those moments, soaking up the attention.
Parenthood has given me a new perspective on this memory. I wonder how transparent my motives were. Did he know I was only pretending to sleep, and carry me in anyway? Did he want to hold me as much as I wanted to be held? As a child, I only thought about how I had to compete with my brothers for attention and affection. It didn’t occur to me that my parents might crave those cuddles, too.
Today would have been my dad’s 65th birthday.
I miss you, Dad.
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Reverb 10 / Prompt Author: Leo Babauta)
It took me a while to stop laughing – I mean, there’s not much that does contribute to my writing these days.
And then I gave the question a second look. Is that really true? The things that consume my time and my life – primarily my family and my health, but the little things as well, like laundry and what’s for dinner – get in the way of my writing. They also inform and inspire my writing.
Reducing the time and energy I spend on my family is out of the question. The new normal that is life impacted by cancer dictates that my health must remain a high priority – perhaps that should have been the case all along. Nobody wants me to stop doing laundry – ok, well maybe those of you who only interact with me online may not care, but the population of our area code might. There’s really not much fat to trim.
Oh, you mean all that time I spend on the internet – specifically on facebook? And the TV, too?
Ok, I guess I do have a little down time here and there. But – yes, there’s a but, there’s always a but – my TV and internet time inform and inspire my writing as well. Most of the time, my brain is buzzing with new ideas and perspectives I want to explore and discuss – ideas and perspectives gained through my interactions with these media. My house is full of little scraps of paper on which I scribbled little nuggets of brilliance for future rumination and dissertation.
The rumination I’m good at; I looooooove me a good think. Research makes my fingertips tingle, and my heart race with giddiness. Translating all that brain power into a post? nerve-wracking.
Writing is a declaration, a commitment. Fear of commitment does impact my writing practice. I can mull ideas in my head, comparing them to other ideas, and holding them up to the light without fear of rejection. I have yet to hit the publish button on my blog without experiencing a racing pulse, and a bit of anxiety.
So why do I blog? Why don’t I just keep all those delicious ponderings to myself? Once again, the TV informs my writing: my daughter is watching “Horton Hears a Who” as I type. At this moment in the movie, the Whos are shouting for their lives, “WE ARE HERE!” I imagine all the bloggers of the world, furiously typing away at their keyboards, and the subtext of their carefully chosen and intricately woven prose is the same existential declaration: “We are here!”
Of course, I’m projecting; I can only speak for myself. Pondering my own mortality certainly feeds the need to declare my existence. But it’s more than that; I started my first blog in 2001, 9 years before I was diagnosed with cancer, and 7 years before I found out I was going to be a mom. Long before I felt the urgent need to create a record of myself for my daughter, I was compelled to leave my mark on the world through my writing. The urge to write began when I learned to read.
Despite the urge, I still go day after day without writing. I compose entire essays and posts in my mind as I go about my day, while simultaneously washing the oatmeal from between my daughters toes (no, I don’t know how it got there), and weighing the pros and cons of returning to school in January (I just registered), but when I sit down at the computer my mind goes blank. The prose sings in the amorphous space between my ears, but loses it’s voice as I try to pin it to paper.
I know I’m not alone in this; it’s a common issue for writers.
I also know the cure: Writing anyway, despite the fact that I know the words falling from my fingers are all wrong. Fear seeps in as my fingers hang over the keyboard, hesitating, afraid that what comes out will never measure up to what resides inside. So what if it doesn’t? “There is no such thing as great writing, only great re-writing.” I know this on a logical level, but it takes practice to remind my fingers. I need to stop being judgmental with myself, and I need to write despite the urge to hesitate.
“Writing makes a person very vulnerable. It opens you to public criticism, to ridicule, to rejection. But it also opens conversation and thought. It stirs minds, and touches hearts. It brings us into contact with our souls. So how can it possibly be a waste of time, an idle act, a mistake, a betrayal of truth? Who can possibly tell us not to do it?”
~Joan Chittister, Order of Saint Benedict
What about you?
Community
Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Reverb 10 – Day 7 / Prompt Author: caligater)
I started 2010 with my thoughts on community.
I enjoy my friends individually, but I missed belonging to a circle of friends. It’s been a long time since I had local friends who were friends with each other. It’s even more complicated now that some have kids, and some don’t. Schedules don’t sync up, we go weeks without seeing each other, and I end up craving grownup conversation. I was looking for a community to join at the beginning of the year. Specifically, I was looking for a writers’ group.
Cancer made a difference.
I was having grownup conversations with my doctors that no one should have to have. But cancer also led me to a circle of women, all breast cancer survivors, who would become my friends. At least twice a month I connect with other women, many with babies and young children, who understand what I’m going through. This community is not only helping me through this difficult diagnosis, it is addressing issues that existed before I knew I had cancer.
As I look ahead to 2011
I plan to find more communities. I am going to renew my search for a good writers’ group; I need the writing practice, and I thoroughly enjoyed my previous experience belonging to a writers’ group.
But there is something else that has been weighing on my heart since my diagnosis. Cancer support groups tend to be divided up by diagnosis, and they tend to be exclusive. Every day I count myself fortunate that my cancer cells first attacked my breast. Breast cancer is a popular cause, and while there is still so much need, most support groups and services are exclusively dedicated to breast cancer survivors.
Sure, most women with cancer happen to have breast cancer, but that is no comfort for the 29-year-old single mom in a support group full of 60-year-old men because she has rectal cancer. Would you want to discuss your chemo induced menopause in that environment? She’s receiving many of the same chemo drugs, and the radiation differs just in location. That young woman has no access to the Komen funds that help pay the rent of breast cancer survivors, or the house keeping services for breast cancer survivors, or the circle of young moms battling breast cancer. Fundraisers for ‘Save the Ta-Tas,’ T.I.T.S. (Two in the Shirt), and any number of other tongue in cheek parties that combine boobs with booze fill our social calendars, but nobody wants to go to a save the rectums party. Just because the cancer cells first attacked her caboose instead of her headlights, this young woman is excluded from an amazing array of cancer coping resources. And she is not alone. Millions are in the same predicament.
So let’s bring those millions together.
Or, as far as the Seattle area is concerned, lets bring those hundreds together.
I want to create a community for young adults with cancer, especially mothers of young children, that is inclusive rather than exclusive.
And then I want to find a way to help get them the kind of amazing support, financial and otherwise, that I have received as a breast cancer survivor.
You can learn more about my cancer story here:
Let’s Connect
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