Whenever you see me with my little girl, there is a good chance that we are adventuring.
We may be adventuring at the grocery store
in the back yard
at the library
during the commute
or in a fountain at the mall.
I’m so blessed to have this constant reminder to embrace the adventure in life, wherever we are.
I just had to fix-up this picture with my favorite quote of hers from last summer.
People ask me what my blog is about, and every time I pause. I know I’m supposed to have an elevator speech prepared, I guess it’s time I start thinking about that.
This blog has been through so many iterations. I started the first CoffeeJitters blog on LiveJournal back in 2001. It’s hard to believe it’s been more than ten years since that first blog post. A lot has changed over that decade.
CoffeeJitters has been a single girl making her way in the world blog, a wedding blog, an infertility blog, a photography blog, a quitting my job and going back to school full time blog, a wow! I’m pregnant! blog, a mommy blog, a cancer blog, and a relearning how to dream after cancer blog.
Mostly, it’s a love letter to my daughter and husband, and an ongoing autobiography. It is my story, and my practice honing my voice. It is my chance to be heard.
I think in a way, that’s what a lot of us bloggers are doing. I keep picturing all the bloggers of the world at their computers furiously typing away in a clackity-clack version of the Whos that Horton heard, yelling at the top of their lungs, “We Exist!”
Blogging allows us to make our mark on the world. To show that we exist. To have a voice and have it heard. To contribute to the ongoing story of the human race.
My studies recently have centered a great deal around women’s history throughout the world, and the difficulty involved in truly understanding what a woman’s life was like. Mens stories were recorded, by men. Women’s stories… not so much.
I look at blogging in comparison to that and I think: what a gift we are leaving for future generations. Is there any comparable resource in history to the wide range of women’s stories now available? Sure, there’s a good deal of exaggeration. That also exists in our history books. But there is so much more variety of stories and lifestyles represented. I’m proud to be a part of this movement. I’m so happy that future generations will have such a wealth of information about their ancestors – us. (On second thought, maybe I’d better go clean up a few of my posts)
One of the most precious and valuable benefits of travel is that it takes you out of your comfort zone, and if you’re open to the experience, it provides perspective. Travel teaches us about other cultures, but it also gives us the opportunity to learn about ourselves.
It is hard to forget the devastation of Hurricane Katrina when thinking of New Orleans. The city and the people are still recovering from that natural and man-made disaster. But they are recovering, and New Orleans showed my friends and me a grand time while we were there last month.
But as we strolled outside the welcoming, touristy areas of the French Quarter, I was reminded that there is a hard-earned need to be a bit self-protective here.
It also made me think about how guarded I can be in my own life, sometimes sharing information in one area to draw attention away from another.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The streets were lonely, but for my friend and I. No signs of life. No movement aside from the occasional breeze. The picture below was different just because there was another person on the street. The quiet was eerie. There was no question we had wandered outside of the tourist area.
This sidewalk seating area looked like a page from a catalog to me. Different in that there were signs of life with the chairs and tree, and yet, I wonder how often anyone actually sits there.
The shutters faced outward, to the world, to the environment, but we learned that most of these homes surrounded courtyards that were the gathering places of friends and family.
Just a glimpse here and there, and we could see that once past that tough shell, the interior was a friendly and welcoming place to those invited.
ww linkup is on page 2
It was a grey, blustery day, perfectly suited to my grey, blustery mood. I was dragging my cranky toddler and cantankerous husband through that most soul-suckingly dreadful chore: grocery shopping.
All the while I was complaining about the fatigue I’m still battling, and my ever growing list of things I STILL haven’t gotten done yet.
What happened to my inspiration, I wondered. What happened to that drive that kept me up all night, not because I had to do something, but because I was so passionate about that project that I couldn’t not work on it?
“You used to find inspiration everywhere,” my husband said – rather insensitively, I thought.
That comment pissed me off a little bit, mostly because he was right. (Is there anything quite so infuriating as a spouse who is right?)
I used to be able to look around wherever I was and find something, some little something, that lit something in me.
I looked around at the displays of produce. Those peppers are really orange. Look how the water beads up and sparkles on the broccoli.
It started coming back. Not the up all night because I’m so driven type of inspiration, but enough for me to come back to the store then next day with my camera.
Not a thing changed in that store to bring about that change in me, not the lighting, not the moods of my companions, just a little shift in what I was noticing.
Also: dinner tonight is rainbow chard, black beans, mushrooms, and quinoa. No recipe, I just felt inspired to put those things together. We’ll see how that turns out.
What inspired you lately? And, what’s for dinner?
We spent the evening walking down Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, The Big Easy. It’s Friday night, and I’m told much tamer than the partying a few nights earlier on Fat Tuesday.
My friends and I stand at the corner waiting for the light to change so we can cross the street, while revelers around us brazenly jaywalk – behavior that seems foreign to this group of girls from Seattle.
We stop for drinks at Howl At the Moon, and when they are delivered in 36 ounce plastic cups, the server explains that the 3 for one special means everyone is automatically upgraded to a triple, and the cups are plastic so we can take them out in the street.
We look outside: Everyone does carry their drinks with them in the street.
Don’t worry, we adjusted. It wasn’t long before we were jaywalking while carrying open containers. Talk about multitasking.
Beads hang from balconies, street lights, stop signs, trees, public art, and anything else that will sit still long enough to be draped with the twinkling strands in all colors of bling.
A sprinkling of rain and a sturdy breeze lends more sparkle and movement to a street that is already teeming with life; humans, pigeons, palm trees, flowers, moss, mules, dogs can all be seen in a single glance.
The next block we walk through is closed to traffic, and pedestrians fill the area between the buildings as they laugh, dance, and wander amongst the street performers and live music wafting from the insides of bars and restaurants, music so rich and textured it seems to hold a physical presence in the space as well.
Bright lights and dark corners, high contrast colors, bricks and stucco, trolleys and mule drawn carriages, trees and bling,
and ornate balconies populated with blow up dolls
conspire to create an environment that is, to me, both fun and foreign.
The second anniversary of my cancer diagnosis is quickly approaching. Of course it has me thinking. A lot. Not all the thoughts are happy thoughts, but that just comes with the territory.
But some of those thoughts are happy thoughts. Warm, fuzzy, happy thoughts. Like the girls I met because I have cancer.
These are women I would have been proud to count among my friends even before diagnosis, but I can’t imagine a scenario in which I would have met any of them outside of cancer.
This weekend a group of us traveled to New Orleans to a conference for young women with breast cancer. We learned about treatment protocols, late effects of treatment, nutrition, dealing with the impact of cancer treatment in the bedroom, and myriad other topics, and we got to spend time with other women whose lives have been similarly impacted.
Good times, good music, good food, good company…
I think the people with whom we surround ourselves have a huge influence on our happiness. Sure, we all have those people around whom we have to tiptoe and walk on eggshells, but we can dilute their influence with so many more amazing people, people who lift us up and love us for who we really are. I’m so blessed to have such amazing friends – that they understand what I’m going through with cancer because they’ve been there too just makes it that much better.
I’m a very lucky woman.
Of course I still worry about how many years I have left, but even more important than the number of trips you make around the sun is your traveling companions along the way.
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You can learn more about my cancer story here:
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