heartwood

while out walking :: Northwoods :: Upper Peninsula

I’m not sure how many years ago I started gifting myself the Thanksgiving day linens, but every time I go to pull out the months ago ironed table cloths and pressed, plastic-wrapped napkins, my hustling hostess heart offers a little prayer of gratitude. Only this year I couldn’t find them. Still in the midst of a basement renovation with this, that, and everything a little bit everywhere, we were looking in every nook and cranny for the linens that morning. An even better find and reminder, however, came when I opened a drawer in our office armoire. Staring back at me were the stacks of envelopes with their names in my handwriting.

“All of my valuables walk on two feet.”

— Barbara Becker

Years ago I started writing Mother’s Day cards to my kids—what they were like, what I was enjoying in being their Mom, what I wondered the next year(s) might bring—a little note from me to them for when the annual day would come around, but their Mom maybe wouldn’t get to do the same. In addition to those cards (that I’m woefully behind on), I’d take papers brought home from school or bits from around the house and pen a quick line about what made me smile or laugh before sealing it and writing on the outside of the envelope a bit of encouragement for when they might want to open the penned within—”for when you need to know your strong, for when you need a bookmark, for when you need a Valentine, for when your kid breaks something expensive of yours, for when you take your own kid fishing or hunting, for when you’re wondering how to spend your day, for when you need your A Team."

Opening page of Barbara Becker’s book, heartwood.

While I thought I might send these memories of their once upon selves in college care packages, I finally just came to channel what a friend advised during the throes of a school auction effort many years ago. “One touch… one touch of the paperwork, the whatever—put it where it needs to land and onward we go.” I hear her voice when I’m rearranging a drawer, staring down the clothes I don’t want to fold that instead get tossed into the Goodwill pile, and when I want to keep what should instead get a write up and sealing for him or her to later read from their Mama (and often themselves).

“At the end of the day, does the source of our inspiration truly matter if it gets us where we need to go?”

— Barbara Becker

Days before I went hunting for those linens, there were text messages with a niece asking if I had any recipes or notes in my Mom’s handwriting that I could share with her. Knowing what she’d created for my dog-loving heart last Christmas, I had a feeling she might be crafting something extra thoughtful given my Mom’s health and our family’s collective heart moments in the hard. With so much of Mom’s and my communication being electronic or in person in recent years, I knew that most of my notes from her would be in scrapbooks or boxes (maybe with the Turkey Day linens?) of remodel disarray.

As I poked around the kitchen in the midst of those text exchanges, I opened up the cabinet of stock pots and spied a little love note from Mom. She must have taped it to a dish that I’d used to make her an egg-in-a-frame, a favorite childhood dish and familiar something that I still make when I need a little hug of comfort on my plate. “So not a recipe,” I messaged to my niece, “but I treasure her handwriting here…”

I wish I could remember how I came across Barbara Becker’s book, heartwood, but the cover got a screenshot and sending to my daughter in case she wanted to be my little elf in gifting ideas this season. I thankfully found the beautiful cover behind Christmas wrap, cracked open her words and insights yesterday, and finished her many lovely takes this afternoon on my start to the New Year.

Three years ago today I numbly, yet with all thoughts, feelings, and wonderings firing, wandered from one waiting area to the next after watching the nurse practitioner call the doctor over to review the x-ray up against the white backlight in the hallway. I knew the news wasn’t good. I steeled myself sitting there alone, waiting for her to come in and deliver news that would chart a course unplanned for that year. Three years since and I still can feel and visualize nearly every moment of that day… Trying to read the tech’s face who did my first of countless scans… Passing a member of our pediatrician’s office who would continue to care for my kids’ throughout the year ahead while also offering great support to their Mom… The text update meant for my husband that instead went to my friend who had our kids for the day. “As far as she knows I’m here getting my back pain checked out…” And then I watched the truth glide across my phone in messaging blue without any ability to pull back that kind of a share.

“In the face of the hardest things we will experience, be as a boulder in a mountain stream. Listen. Take your time. The next move will emerge from the stillness. This is how we go forward, step by step, infusing darkness with light.”

— Barbara Becker

Sitting on an island of angst, enduring the month-long wait and procedures for a diagnosis, and then bucking up and pushing on through what some called a “good cancer” (no cancer feels ‘good,’ by the way)… those knowings can change a person.

The experience never leaves her, it latches on in a spirit of both gratitude and trepidation. It maybe roots around in a haunting way whenever persistent back pain won’t go away. “That’s why survivor groups are so great,” she offered a few weeks ago. “You can just talk it out with others and know you’re not the only one.”

The words rang hurried and hollow as she hustled through a lickety split assessment. She didn’t know that the word ‘survivor’ is one that I never use because how does that categorize my friends who’ve passed away or are still enduring? She couldn’t know that the ‘after’ is something not really addressed when one rings the remission bell. But the meds she prescribed helped and got after what likely was the source—finally dropping tulip bulbs in November—something I’ve been meaning to do for years now.

“It’s like a rebirth every year, and with them, my heart opens a bit more to the possibility that hope can take root, even from the ashes of unfathomable loss.”

— Barbara Becker

I’ve been thinking on that fall effort for spring’s reward ever since. The digging up, the placing within, the leaving be until one day a bloom, a note, an effort shows up and gift another’s now. That’s my wish this New Year… what can be planted, practiced, or shared in such a way that the sentiment takes root, ages, and later shows up in just the right way, at just the right time when another needs?

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”

— Thoreau

Making room for the conversation, the book, the walk… Penning the gratitude, inscribing the page, sending or saving the note or picture… These one touch efforts that wrap up a longing heart, a season of knowing, a loved one later hoping for a hug of familiarity and remembering… what a gift, indeed.

“We ware, all of us, imperfect beings. But in that moment, I realized that we all carry a humble spark of connection and love, there for the taking and there for the giving, that simple gift of showing up.”

— Barbara Becker

January 2 home light & onward—2019

one year

“Can I share this on the family group chat on Friday?” she asked. 

Her inquiry stopped me in my tracks. “How’d you know it was this week? I didn’t know you had a copy of that.”

“Well, my pictures sometimes tell me when something happened a year ago.”

A year ago she and her brother were off with family while the hubs and I ordered our favorite local pizza and folded into our home. It was the swiftest of chemo treatment days I’d known, colored with the support of family, friends, and a nursing staff most remarkable. We were exhausted but charged from the day’s significance. I could hear the other half of my heart down the hallway, sending the bell ringing video to family and friends as he cleared his throat and surrendered to sniffles from time to time. I was in the other room doing the same with tears streaming down my face as the rush of every other week chemo for six months was finally through. The video gets me every time. …for so many reasons obvious—the support, the completion, the moving on—and for so many reasons that I continue to wade through.

I don’t talk about my cancer a whole lot. If you lived in the community we’ve known affected by this disease, you might tuck under the radar a bit too. When you’ve lost friends, when you’re in remission, when you got a stage II “good” cancer, when you got to ring the bell… Well, to talk about my tour with this cancer feels like I’m pointing at a hangnail amidst others in triage. Illustrating it today, though, could be about you or someone you know and love. 

card by @wetreefree // imagery by @katiecreatie

In the fall of 2018 I was utilizing just about any option I could get my hands on to right what felt off with my body. I wasn’t sleeping, I was sweating, I was itching, I was battling from the moment I woke for the majority of the day a fullness in the bottom of my throat that I was told by more than one source was anxiety. But really? Why now? Why not when that or that or that had happened in life? It just didn’t add up. My body was talking to me, and I was trying to listen all while endeavoring to decipher if it was actual fullness that I was feeling or this constant sense of ‘on alert’—like how the body reacts to a hard conversation, an overwhelming emotion, the anticipation of whatever an encounter might bring. Or, you know, the 2020 we’ve all been living. I must have been a dreeeam to live with right around then. “Is there a bulk option for all the celery and lemons you’re going through?” he’d asked. That I was prioritizing such a concoction before coffee in the morning should have been a red flag. 

For months I lived with it, juiced through it, yoga-ed it, walked the blocks with it, talk therapy-ed it, consulted physicians about it. I was given a sleep medication for starters, called to follow up, and then got busy with the holiday season. It wasn’t until months later when back pain was so wrenching that the Nurse Practitioner who was working that day said, “Let’s go ahead and take an x-ray just to be sure we know what’s going on here.” Because of her cross check we learned what was really causing the fullness. There was an internal push of masses outgrowing the nest they’d been feathering in my mediastinal cavity—that spot that holds the heart right between the lungs. 

I still can see her calling over our primary care doc to take a look at the imagery on the hallway monitor, and I knew. I knew before she slid the door closed behind her. I knew before she took the deep breath. I knew before her eyes grew soft as she carefully collected the words to convey. I knew, sitting there that January 2nd day—with a hubby at work and kids off with a bestie—that I was about to hear some very sobering, shifting news, indeed. 

It would take nearly a month more—with three biopsy attempts and finally a surgical procedure—to determine my stage II lymphoma diagnosis. Soooo… what if I hadn’t had that back pain? What if pneumonia hadn’t set up camp in my lungs for the x-ray to also tell us about the two masses centered in my chest? What if I just kept pushing through with grit, acceptance, and epsom salts baths between sips of bone broth? (Two cure alls that I still champion, but medical expertise gets a hearty vote too.)

Someone shared with me the downturn in cancer diagnosis amidst COVID this year. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to say that cancer hasn’t gone anywhere here. I don’t have the official stats on that, but the mere thought of people avoiding medical facilities, pushing back yearly checkups, or dismissing what feels not right as a byproduct of legitimate 2020 stress and strain is beyond concerning. What if my 2018 symptoms had been felt this of all years? I think I’d be second guessing them as a result of what so many are experiencing, absorbing, sorting through right now.

So this is me PSAying that no one knows you better than you. Anything persistent, seemingly off, or newly felt of late deserves your attention and that of your care team. Ask. Advocate. Ask again. Of yourself, for yourself, and among those you know and love. Sometimes self care is an effort best shared. Maybe it’s nothing, maybe it’s something, but always there are professionals who can respond to any level of care needed—medically, spiritually, mentally, holistically. You do you so long as you’re taking care of you. …’cause the world needs your goodness in it—now more than ever. 

Ever since my daughter asked about the bell ringing video the other night, I’ve not been able to shake a tune in my head. It’s been over 20 years since my best friend and I sat slack-jawed with tears running down our faces as we rounded out our month of backpacking across the UK. The finale to our travels was seeing RENT in London. Until Hamilton arrived on the scene, that was hands down the most memorable theater performance I’ve known. For weeks after returning home, much like the last many days, the lyrics to Seasons of Love echoed in my heart and head. 

“In daylights?
In sunsets?
In midnights?
In cups of coffee?
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?
In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.
How do you measure a year in a life?”

A dear heart who knows a lot—about me, about medicine, about feeding the spirit, about life—told me last year that I’d need to give myself a year. And right she was. 

I remember arriving at our Northwoods cabin last year after my final treatment thinking, as so many did, “Okay! Game on! Checked that box. Let’s goooooo!” And then my husband found me in tears in the bunkhouse because my body couldn’t do the yoga things that it used to know. “You just finished months of chemo, babe… you’ve got to give yourself time.” Time, though, is what I felt I’d lost—alongside my big curly locks, my sense of self, and a host of other this ’n’ thats along the way. I thought I’d been through the worst of it, that the chemo was the hard part. Turns out there are aspects in the after that can feel just as wearing. 

This made my day when this was gifted my way last year—gum pack by BlueQ.com 

The contrast from July 2019 and July 2020 me are, as my friend suggested, the result of what only time can gift. There are things changed about me that will never be the same, but to be feeling at home in my body again is such an essential, holy process of grace, patience, love, and continued OnOn! spirit that at times has been flagging in this chaser of a year.

“Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.
Five hundred twenty five thousand journeys to plan.
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.
How do you measure a life of a woman or a man?”

The Miss and I took an art class together the other day. It was to take place at a nearby lake, but weather took us into town to consider landscapes and their many colors. In prepping the canvas and giving shape to our creations, the instructor talked about easing into our space a horizon line between the sky and water. That even in the undulations of the tree line or water waves, there’s a definitive line with the freedom to fill in with effect and color on either side. 

For nearly 20 years I’ve been looking at the same tree line with every evening dock sit or boat cruise here at the cabin. The setting’s remained, but the colors, cast, and clouds are a little something different each and every time. Like any one of us, on any one of our life tours—there’s the frame and then there’s the experiences, emotions, people, and knowings held both up above and below the horizon line of who we are. When the waves roll in here, I think about what we bring to shore—to steady or reshape before that same water folds us back in—both changed and still the same.  And for that grace in this space, I am forever grateful.

“It’s time now
to sing out,
though the story never ends.”

I’ve pasted below a blessing loved. Re-reading John O’Donohue’s words first gifted to me during a stretch last year lands anew in this year—a tour we’re all together knowing. My prayer is that we each find light in any given dark and figure a way to share such hope with another. 

A Blessing For One Who Is Exhausted

--by John O'Donohue,

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight,

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken for the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

--John O'Donohue, Bless This Space Between Us

heart in the halt

Once upon a lifetime ago I lived in a one bedroom apartment not too far from where I now call home. Whenever I drive by that first floor set of windows on the corner, I say a little prayer, beam a little love for the person now living there—for whatever he or she is doing in life, experiencing in that space. Why? Because I think on who I was when I called that spot home—the life lessons learned alongside the sights I set on chapters to come. That little apartment is across from a lovely little spot called Cancer Survivor’s Park. In all my footloose, carefree living near there days, I never imagined that a years later version of me would—one Good Friday—extend her usual walk route to stroll through that space as someone on the other side of knowing. 

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If it’s possible to ‘miss’ anything about cancer, I miss this: the Wednesday routine of time with my sisters and my Dad. We got things pretty down pat as we moved through those weeks—who would drive me to, who would keep me company, which Lumenkind tattoos we’d sport, and who would hang with the kids while I crashed post treatment. 

While sitting on our porch this past weekend, the Easter Sunday calendar reminder pinged on my screen. Seeing that made my eyes water, made me miss so immensely the family faces we’d normally be meeting up with on Sunday. We’ve got those family dinners pretty down pat too—it’s just been a while since we’ve enjoyed one together. 

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I think on all this for a couple reasons:

- That in the terribleness of cancer was the beauty of togetherness—family and friends who could support, who tucked near, who would rally my spirits while also being there for my husband and our kids.

- That in the awfulness that is this virus there are people who are alone—by virtue of a living situation, because they are on the front lines and taking measures that protect loved ones, because they’re receiving any level of medical care that leaves them healing, surviving, even dying on their own. 

That’s when it all tearfully got to me—on my Good Friday walk when The Daily podcast was bringing to life so much of the aloneness in all of this.

What wrenching scenarios this virus is creating.
What opportunities for appreciating it is offering. 

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One of the weirdest hurdles—that I never really got over throughout my cancer tour—was that my body was hosting a disease that I could not see. Sure, the doctors could pull up imagery on a screen, could detail where the growths were in my mediastinal cavity, and then could show the beloved progress of chemo doing its job. But that I couldn’t see it shrinking before me with my own eyes, that I couldn’t touch a scar where healing took place? That felt like a limbo land of suspension—hope-fueled faith and trust that staying the course would get me to where I needed to be. …and keep me there. 

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This current world-wide crisis reminds me of that. We cannot see the virus moving about, we are having to press into routines anew, we’re needing to trust that the path we’re on will correct in ways life-giving. This time, though, it’s an effort not just for self but for ALL—all being a good many we’ll never know, all being those who are giving their all to help keep us healthy and safe. 

I remember my best friend, a doctor, telling me last year how helpless she felt in not being there for me. She lives a couple states away, so regular presence wasn’t possible. She wasn’t the one sick, so she couldn’t do the chemo for me. She only could offer from afar her support, love, concern, and care as a sounding board dependable and true. Right now, from the comfort of my home, I feel the same about her and all the medical friends I love. I cannot hands on ‘do’ anything  to help them right now. This staying put while winging hope and prayers out into the universe challenges my spirit that prefers a sleeves rolled up approach.

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It does not feel foreign for me to distance, though, to tuck into home, to be with my immediate people in the spirit of care and counts. When you have to adopt such measures during months of chemo, such a knowing returns like a familiar friend. What’s been interesting to think on, though, is that this spring is a chapter and effort known to everyone. Even with our side helpings unique, the main course is being served up all around. We’re having to center down, maybe greet things, people, feelings in our immediate space that the hustle and bustle of life often blurs at our usual pace. How often in life does that happen—that we universally share in a true knowing of what another is having to accept and experience on the whole? We cannot step into another’s diagnosis, marriage, parenting, employment, or history, but this tour allows for each of us to share in joint hopes as we support—even from distance.

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If you’ve felt off kilter, if you’ve felt helpless in your ability to hurry to an answer—from what’s for dinner to how best to support, if you’ve felt any and all the things in a matter of minutes, that sounds about right. If you feel those most keenly around the 3am hour, that makes sense to me too. Let whatever rises in your spirit ride whatever wave you’re feeling on any given day, in any given moment. Tomorrow might feel lighter, an hour later might bring the ping of a text from a friend who sends just the right encouragement or laugh. The birds still will chirp come morning, the sun—God love it—will rise.

I last year thought that I’d read all the books, binge all the shows, tackle all the things on the weeks when I was feeling well. Guess how many things I ticked of the list? Not a lotta.  Guess what streak is still going strong? In fact, at spring’s start this year, I felt stuck on how to even tackle a stacked up year of feeling like I’d fallen behind. Then the slow roll of locking down, hunkering home arrived. Just two days before we put a halt on life beyond our house with others, I was talking with someone about where to even begin. “One thing a day,” she encouraged. “One drawer, one note, one anything—and call it good.” Her wisdom maybe resonated because it reminded me of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird encouragement, a permission slip I pass along to you, too, as you figure your days:

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”  

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If I’ve learned anything from life’s hard stops, it’s that the heart can weather just about anything on the wings of hope, of encouragement, of connection, of love—and that it can continue to heal in tending to those parts essential. That’s what this upended Easter season means to me this year—a knowing of what’s been, staying the course of hope for what will be, and holding fast to the simplest of joys as we journey onward. 

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three months

“We call it “fall” with the wistfulness of loss as we watch leaves and ripe fruit drop to the ground, but it is also the season of abundance, of labor coming to fruition in harvest. ”

— Maria Popova

When I was pregnant with the boy child, a cousin I grew up with was expecting her firstborn too. We traded tips, we shared in hopes and wonders, we managed a weekend together about a month before my son arrived much earlier than expected. That same cousin offered a lovely meditation when I was diagnosed this year. Realizing that I would be going through chemo for about the same amount of time that I was pregnant, she encouraged that on the other side of all this would be new life too.

Is that great or what? Her thought has been a lovey go to, return to, and remember for me this year.

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Distant Drums—Loose Park Rose Garden

As my cousin's sentiment crossed my mind again last Saturday, I realized that I was to the day marking three months since that last drip of chemo. No wonder I was starting to feel that coming around the bend energy weaving its glimmer back into my days—physically, emotionally, personally.

Be it a new baby arriving or a bell ringing of chemo ending, the celebration of makes sense. …and so does the after—the fatigue, the adjustments, the figuring where your piece fits back into the puzzle. When life throws a hard stop on knowns, when one must adopt a new routine that then changes, when one seemingly loses traction on much that used to make up her days, it can take some time to adjust, to settle back in, to be patient with whatever new life the new normal is supposed to embody.

Parts of me would like to go back and chat with the three-months-since-kiddos-being-born self. Was she finding her pace again? Was she falling into a rhythm of sleep and predictability with those under her care? Was she finding the time to get back to so many of the things that brought ‘feel good’ to her body, heart, and mind?

“Some things cannot be fixed.
They can only be carried.”

— Megan Devine

It’s been nearly two months since I sent my final health update to family and friends who so generously let me land on their screens this year. I mailed that out on the www wire and then folded up my words and left them tucked on the laptop that I’ve rarely opened since. I needed to dial in on my people, my space, my home, my continued healing. I needed to roost in the worst of ways as the horse blinders from the race that I’d been running fell by the wayside. It’s like my body was gasping for air—a bit hunched over at the waist—wondering what the heck kinda marathon we’d just finished sans training.

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from Emily McDowell’s empathy cards collection (her cards are some of my all time favorites, for all kinds of life moments and the people who matter in ‘em.)

A dearie in my life who’s a doctor—and expert on a lot about me—shared the following around that time. I was in that middle ground of treatment finishing, school year for the kiddos starting, and hmmmmm… now what? thinking. I’m so grateful that she braved the truth here as her words have felt like salve in this season of being. By naming things, she made me aware of things. By naming things, she gave permission to feel things.

"I’ve tossed back and forth telling you this, but I'm going to because I want you to be aware and not let this monster into your closet. I have had several very memorable patients who have BEAT cancer, but never recovered. And were lost. Because of depression. Because when treatment ended they didn't immediately feel amazing or recognizable. Because the work wasn't done. Because their body was slow to respond. Please know this chapter may be as taxing as the last one you finally exited. Please know that you are strong enough and that transformations take time and more energy than you will feel like you have. Be kind to yourself, find laughter. Your moods and energy may not follow a predictable pattern like you were able to warn your family about with chemo, but they need to know that the healing sometimes hurts just as much or is just as exhausting… but with the right rose colored glasses (that you absolutely rock), you will be able to evolve into the now and see the most beautiful, strong, unyielding parts of you and hold TIGHT to that which is your core, which is you…”

Sweet Jesus, I do love me some truth!
. . .and grace.

Grace to embrace who was and who is becoming. Grace to hear what people mean instead of what they’re sometimes saying. (with prayers that they’ll offer me the same) Grace to show up. Grace to rest. Grace to be okay with the pace, knowing that all that really matters is the consistency of one foot in front of the other, one forward fold before another. Grace to be okay with the not nows while I tend to the must and hows. Grace to be patient. Grace to be kind. Grace to simply recognize the utter gift of any given breath on any given day.

One of the other best somethings that a friend offered in recent months was, “It’s just not your time… yet.” She was relaying her chapter after bringing one of her boys into the world. She wanted to be able to do all the things, but her body let her know otherwise. She had to pay heed, and she gifted me with the permission slip to do the same. It’s so dicey to weigh in, to offer, but both of these hearts know mine pretty well. Both of these women offered not solutions, but an awareness of and appreciation for what their friend might be going through. Support and love is one of hardship’s beautiful gifts.

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as shared by Maria Popova | Brain Pickings on 10.20.19

I typically don’t recommend books before I see them all the way through (read: possible landmines within), BUT… I will say that Megan Devine’s It’s Okay That You’re Not Okay resonates on so many levels. While she writes from the seat of sudden loss of a loved one, she manages to pen her words in such a way that any level of grief experienced feels validated. What a gift—the not ranking of suffering—while simply pulling up a seat, a page next to the universal feeling that any sort of grief creates within another.

When I finished chemo, I think I thought—I think many who know and love me thought—“Boom! Let’s do this! You’re on your way!” I instead needed to figure physical, personal, and emotional parts that were tender to the touch and aching. I wrestled with the fact that I was a ‘good cancer' ’survivor’ who ‘at least’ (fill in the blank). What all of that sentiment and struggle created was a clammed up quiet me who felt guilty at times for being one of the ‘lucky’ ones. That face staring back at me in the mirror was a new someone to know and embrace. …with a sometimes low supply of grace.

“Acknowledgement is everything.

This is not how you thought it would be.

There’s so much correction and judgement inside grief; many feel it’s just easier to not talk about what hurts.

We need to start talking about THAT reality of life, which is also the reality of love.”

— Megan Devine

There’s a keep shelf of reads in our home office—books that have resonated, books that have educated before I even knew I’d need such schooling. Read ahead. Peruse the pieces that maybe don’t fit your now, but could enhance your presence for and with another when they get blindsided by life. It’s not easy, it’s forever enlightening, it’s a good bit inspiring… to hold another’s story in our everyday coming and going.

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Right above those books is this framed pic of my Miss. It’s a favorite. She was setting up an ‘art sale’ on Main Street with creations to sell alongside supplies for on-the-spot commission requests. I see her doing the work in this shot. I see her hauling her effort and her sit spot. I see her flair in her ribbon crown. I see her boots made for walking. I see the sun just waiting for her arrival. This ‘gotta go make the donuts’ shot always reminds me to bootstrap my stride, show up, do my thing, be my me, sing my song, live my now, rest in my what’s to be.

New life, indeed.

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Rose-colored styling by little Miss, as captured by the boy child. They always remind me that outlook lends reflection for and with one another.

“What, then, of autumn — that liminal space between beauty and bleakness, foreboding and bittersweet, yet lovely in its own way? Colette in her meditation on the splendor of autumn and the autumn of life, celebrated it as a beginning rather than a decline. But perhaps it is neither — perhaps, between its falling leaves and fading light, it is not a movement toward gain or loss but an invitation to attentive stillness and absolute presence, reminding us to cherish the beauty of life not despite its perishability but precisely because of it; because the impermanence of things — of seasons and lifetimes and galaxies and loves — is what confers preciousness and sweetness upon them.”

— Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

all in good time

The kids started another school year yesterday and I handled it well-ish and then not at all. Where was first day of school that one Target afternoon when they were acting like hyenas? Where was first day of school during that one rainy morning Monopoly game that went south? Where was first day of school when all I wanted to do was sleep but I had a couple kids who needed their Mom to be a mom? Calgon… already?

A mid-westerner, I love a change in seasons. Let me clarify—I love fall, and then spring. Winter and summer depend on their behavior, which often lands them in time out. I see you, and I’m comin’ for ya chunky sweaters and boots. Hang IN.

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We’ve weathered a season or two of late and yesterday—nearly eye level with me now—our kiddos and their seemingly shrinking parents walked to school like we’ve been doing for eight years now. That’s a lot of seasons lived. That’s a lot of but, but… we were just here doing this mere months ago and that means the next time is only going to be here that much sooner.

Brave-facing, gearing up for seeing people I haven’t seen since the start of summer, eyes darting for faces familiar, all while willing those eyes to not leak, we made our two kiddos smile through copious pictures (and maybe a hug too many?) You know that person—is she isn’t he?—and I am. I’m a hugger, and they kindly oblige. And my other half? He’s a brave soul to walk that route home with a gal who may or may not blow. Or talk about a lot of feelings.

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After traditional first day coffee with a lifer of a friend, I made sure to walk the dog quickly enough to get back in time for pick up. I cruised back down our morning route to see how day one went, and before I knew it they were off with friends. A quick ask for cash and what time to be home and I headed back to check on the hounds. The dogs who were all, “Heyyyyyyy! About that hustled stroll so we could get home for… who? … Wanna try that again? How do ya like us now?”

Just before they’d touched base with Mom ATM and time keeper, I was watching those kindergartners walking out two by two after just a few hours away from Mom and Dad. I know just what that feels like on the waiting sidewalk side to see those faces searching for their parents. I remember the boy child’s first day like it was not eight years ago. I remember little miss’s when my husband encouraged that “only one of you can cry” as we headed in for drop off. I checked the clock only eighthundredandseventythree times between leaving them and pick up those first day ofs, and I’ll never forget the running my way bliss of their faces, those hugs, the download between my two as they made their way home.
Blinkedy, blink, poof!

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There’s a lot that people who love you don’t tell you—about a lot of things. Like giving birth. Like dropping your kid off for school. Like getting swallowed up in a house so echo-y.

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I went bold and I went outside my zone when selecting eyewear recently. One big roadtrip in, though, and after twelve hours of highway signage, map checking, and snack finding, the frames were a go. Rose gold sold. What better way to end my treatment season than to sport some happily tinted sights on the world? They hid my eyes a good bit yesterday, they softened the contrast from first day to second day, and this afternoon they’re fitting all the better after an adjustment—at the shop, and with my spirit.

Sunshine, fall-ish weather, and stellar customer service are good like that.

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So this is me saying to you or you or you that I see you… through my frames, through your transitions, in your now and your come what may. This loving thing isn’t for the faint of heart, I tell ya. Thank goodness we’ve got seasons and spirits and dogs to guide the way.

#OnOn!

”This could be so easy
If you could see you through my eyes
I tell myself not to let it go
Hold on to something so beautiful
This could be so easy
If you could see you through my eyes
I tell myself not to let it go
Hold on to something so beautiful.”

—The Head and the Heart,
…as first heard as I pulled up to the eye shop this afternoon.

‘Cause… the universe.

Full song here