And Then One Day You Have Cancer

5.18.07

Driving amidst traffic is not the best time to find out you had a breast cancer. Not that any time would be, I suppose, but you're trying to navigate the lanes and the cars jockeying around you and listen to the kind surgeon and her reassuring words (it was in situ, clean margins, no further surgery needed, could consider tamoxifen, go to NIH website, see you tomorrow!) and it feels a little odd. Ten minutes ago, I was cancer free in my mind, now I find out I had it but it's gone, but could come back. What do you do with that information?

I cry. I jump to big life questions. What do I do now? Is it a "wake-up call?" Who will be there to comfort me? Do I tell my kids? My sister who does not speak to me, but should know for her own medical history? Do I just chaulk it up to life in the big city, pollutants, chemicals et al? Do I look deep inside and ask my body what it's trying to tell me? Do I beg forgiveness from my higher power for all of my transgressions? Do I swear off trans fats, Hershey's kisses and my thrice yearly cigarette? Do I go completely organic and move to Costa Rica? Do I sign up for comedy classes and pole dancing to release my inner laughing maiden?

Right now, I just sit back and listen to my children pester each other as I drink a nice cold Stout and read Saramago's "Blindness" "...we're dead because we're blind." What opens our eyes to life? Is it these close brushes with death? (When I thought my 2 week old daughter was going to die of a stroke, when I had a false positive test for a major illness, when my parents died, those moments were drenched in light and brilliant awareness.) Why do we close our eyes in the first place? To not witness pain and suffering, to not be tempted by beauty and passion, to not see potential in oneself and others?

Once open, once your eyes have seen the world and it's wonders and beauties do we stop looking? When I was thinking I could have cancer and what it might be like to lose a breast, I was not afraid of the loss of a body part, but the loss of energy it takes to devote to healing. Fixing hurts, rescuing others, Sysyphian tasks, beating one's head against the wall. These cost time. I can focus on those, or direct my vision to the future, my dreams, my loves and spend my energy there. If my body is speaking to me, with cells run amok, I hear the call to open my eyes wider to the possibilities before me. I see roses, not thorns.

My American Girl

5.7.06

I put on my anthropologists helmet today to brave the sun, the bronzed breasts and brave souls of over 500 mothers waiting in line to allow their daughters the opportunity to "audition" for a bit part in an American Girl movie. A clever publicity stunt promised the opportunity for girls to have a chance to star along side the lead for an upcoming HBO movie about a 1930's character named Kit Kittredge. Hanah's enamored of the idea of being a movie star, so we got her all decked up and ready for "my close-up, Mr. Demille," as she reminded us all.

I love these escapades into my children's dream world, whether it be Noah's skate parks or Hanah's fairy garden we built in the back yard. We recalled Langston Hughe's poem "Hold fast to dreams," which I also use at work and I wondered looking at all of us lined up how many of us were there for our daughters' or our own dreams. Girls tottering on high heels, hiding behind oversized Audrey Hepburn glasses, wearing little versions of their mothers' youth seeking clothes or idealized visions of 30's modest attire. Mothers whose jobs it is to nurture our children's talents and dreams, and sometimes put aside our own in the process. Mothers whose dreams of eternal youth are evident in their nipple popping boob jobs, over injected lips, baby-doll shirts and lipo-ed abs.

I see girls looking lost in their attempts to look older while their moms ache to look younger. I see hope in the eyes of some and boredom in the eyes of others. I see a long line of dream makers in this great land of re-invention and self promotion. I see my own girl balancing between heat prostration and the desire to leave after an hour in the sun and her conviction that she has a chance at the part. I see patient parents reporting their progress on cell phones and then 3 nuns passing in the shade. I wonder what they think, what dreams they had as girls growing up.

We wend our way inside the labyrinthe that passes through the American Girl Place store (oh, my, how convenient, another chance to purchase something; what a coincidence?) and Hanah grows more and more excited as she gets her number and beams at everyone. We are well treated and coddled up the escalator. She is ushered into the theatre and then gently ejected after saying her one line. I ask how it went and she says, "great!" And counting all the other girls's numbers and knowing her chances of being cast, she now focuses on immediate gratification: ice cream and a visit to the bookstore, where she will indulge her fantasy world once again. Practical, philosophical, patient and ever positive, this 8 year old embodies all I love about the species Homosapiens Hopeful. She can dream, put in the long wait and then move on to the next treat in life. She is ready for her close-up.