six words: b-day weekend

our meggie's turning 12 this monday!

 



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underneath

what sleeps in your heart,

is the truth of it

curled up like a cat,

soft and purring

but indifferent

 

 

what sleeps in your heart

could it be that trapped voice,

silenced

like one drowning

under ice

who sees the surface

but is unable to break through,

mouth full of water

on the sharp thin verge of surrender

to the overwhelming

weight of cold 

what sleeps in your heart

is who you really are

and if you don’t see that

you may sink to the bottom

alone

and never wake up

 

 

 

six words: slowly sorting...

 

I only wish my attic was this neat...
and full of antiques!

 

 

...because boxes lead down memory lane

 

 




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confessions of a slow-baked couch potato

I am so busy doing nothing, that the idea of doing anything — which as you know, always leads to something — cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything.

~ Jerry Seinfeld

 

I just might be a hardcore couch potato.  There, I said it.  The truth is, I love to sit around.  Of course, I’m not exactly doing nothing.  I do a lot while I lounge about.  Talking, reading, writing, thinking – these are my favorite pastimes and conveniently all can take place from my living room sofa.

(Does anyone remember that children’s show The Big Comfy Couch?  Well, my dust bunnies might be bigger.  Seriously.  Oh, and I wish I had as much cool stuff tucked under my cushions as Loonette the clown does, but there’s just lint...and aforementioned dust bunnies.) 

Don’t get me wrong, I have to get up off the couch plenty.  I exercise, run errands, do laundry (now and then), cook for and feed various people, even clean once in a while.  Okay, all kidding aside -- I don't channel surf, nor do I gorge on junk food and I’m also an animated person in my demeanor.  People even describe me as energetic and enthusiastic...and I am, just not by inclination. Yes, if only they knew the truth, that by nature I’m more of a sloth.  Now, sloth is considered a sin by some and a trait to be ashamed of.  I guess I have been embarrassed by my slothiness at times.  Everyone else seems to be so busy that I tend to feel a little guilty.  Or at least, I used to. 

We live today in a culture of busy is better.  Ask someone how they are, and more than likely the answer will be “busy” – complete with the litany from an exceedingly long to-do list.  This is not necessarily a good thing.  An article in the NY Times last summer refers to busyness as trap, even further, as a means of hedging nothing short of existential angst.  I’ve noticed that the complaint of being over extended is almost treated as a badge of honor.  Everyone is trying to cram so much living into their lives that they aren’t actually living IN their life – instead they are continuously burying every present moment with frenetic activity, and often as a means for distraction.  

(There are people in this world for whom free time truly is a luxury.  They work harder in order to survive than most of us can possibly imagine.  People in those circumstances are obviously not busy for the sake of being busy.  To them, no doubt, this could all sound churlish or elite;  they should have such problems.  Mindful of that let me just say – busy is clearly relative.) 

As I blogged about recently, during breast cancer treatment I did a lot of reflecting on what mattered most to me.  When my mortality seemed immanent I didn’t care about projects I’d never complete, activities my kids didn’t participate in or how messy my house got (as if).  Every single ounce of guilt or expectation went right out the window.  Think about that -- no expectation, no guilt.  It was a rare opportunity, a moment of unprecedented clarity for me.  And as I went thru the mental files of my life I realized some of the best memories were the times I just sat still and talked with my children...listening to all their thoughts, great & small.  It was those precious moments with no agenda, no pressure to accomplish anything, that gave me great joy.   

I’m not suggesting everyone sit on their couch and vegetate for the sake of happiness.  Things need to get done, sometimes a lot of things...and sometimes we want to engage physically.  Being active is healthy; in fact, it’s one of my personal goals, to be more active.  But it’s another goal of mine to let go of as many inessential activities as possible...to gently cull from my life what is unnecessary, because being busy is, in my opinion, decidedly not better. 

Kids need ample unstructured time to let their imaginations grow...and so do us grown-ups.  We need time to slow down, to stare out the window and day dream, to be creative not as a means to an end but for the sake of creativity itself...we need time just to let our minds wander...we need time to be.  Socrates said an unexamined life isn’t worth living.  If you are too busy filling every moment with a flurry of activity then there’s no time to examine anything to begin with, let alone much of any substance worth examining when all is said and done.  Busy is not only not better; it can be the very thing that, instead of filling your life, leaves you completely empty.

I found out there are others interested in letting go of busy, such as those in various slow movements --slow food, slow home, heck, there’s even slow fashion!  But truthfully I feel like some of these slow advocates are still too ambitious for a slacker like me.  Perhaps my speed isn’t slow, it’s off -- as in turn off everything, sit down and settle back for a bit, get reacquainted with your family, your friends...and your own self, too.    

Like at this very moment...I am sitting (where else) on my couch typing these words.  My kids will be up soon, and the first thing they will do is come sit next to me, curling into my waiting arms all groggy and still warm from sleep.  I’ll put this laptop aside and breathe them in, take a moment to absorb the sweet scent of childhood in its precious brevity.  We’ll talk about what they dreamed last night and what they want to do today.  I’ll remind them we have chores and schoolwork, but after that the day, this day, is ours.  We’ll begin it from this place of centering, the middle of our lives and our home, this humble, slightly sagging, well-worn sofa.  The dust bunnies will be there, too, lurking...and that’s okay.  They can hang around for a little while longer...I don’t mind.  I have more important things not to do.

 

 

define this

Someone asked me recently if I was going to go back to posting daily outfit pix. I don’t think so, though I’m sure I’ll do one now and then. I guess the nature of this blog has changed a bit...as I have, certainly. Then came the question, are you going to change your blog name? I hadn’t really thought about that.  Does the name, Fashionably Later still fit?  

I’ve been getting back to basics on many fronts in my life so maybe I should try including this blog in that effort, too. Since one of the first rules of blogging is to find your niche, that means you need to define yourself. I decided to start there.  For inspiration I searched on the present name of this blog, Fashionably Later, and I got...well, my blog, but after that came a review in the Boston Globe of the Sex In The City movie from 2008 and some tumblr picture of a person wearing cut-off denim shorts. Not exactly helpful. So instead I tried Googling the phrase of origin, Fashionably Late.  Here is some of what came up from that:

 

-The refined art of being just late enough.

 

-When you show up late, so everyone will think you have a life.

 

-Getting noticed by arriving at that time, in other words standing out by being late.

 

-Arriving late to an event to give the impression that you are a busy, popular person.

 

I kinda like the first one. The second one made me laugh -- none of them really helped, though.  Maybe I should go back to the beginning. When I started Fashionably Later it was supposed to be a fun little wardrobe diary for a middle-aged mom, with a small slice of life tossed in now and then. I wanted to rebuild my confidence and prove that style was something any woman could create regardless of her size, vocation, budget or age. It wasn’t about making a major fashion statement...it wasn’t about fashion at all, not in the sense that word is typically used. For me this was about one woman’s "re-found" desire to look her best as a simple act of personal empowerment, and doing so a little later in life. I shared it for entertainment, and because I thought just maybe it would inspire someone else in a similar situation...you never know.

 

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the style blog – I got diagnosed with breast cancer. And what I had intended as a positive but fairly lighthearted endeavor quickly became something very different.

 

I wrote about my cancer journey, about my life, about things way beyond what I was wearing. And the people who once commented on outfit choices or accessories now were leaving me the most amazing comments that carried me through the worst time of my entire life. They gave me hope, they cried with me, they uplifted me and some even kept vigil when I wasn’t here. I “met” other women with cancer as well as a slew of talented and supportive writers...a diverse little gathering coalesced for me here. The outpouring from my tiny corner of the blogosphere was one of the most touching things that has ever happened to me. I’ll never forget it. Never.

 

A lot has changed since my cancer diagnosis four years ago. I’ve changed, my body has changed, my goals, even my tastes have changed. In some ways perhaps for the better, but to be honest, in many ways I still mourn for the woman I once was. I miss her. Of course, everything always changes...you don’t need cancer to have that happen. That’s just life.

 

As I try to find my voice again and recreate myself I don’t completely know what is in store for this blog (let alone anything else). I don’t see it returning exclusively to style commentary or a wardrobe diary, but I’m not ready to say goodbye to all that completely either. There are so many other things I want to write about, too, things I've got on my mind.  Perhaps despite typical blogging advice I shouldn’t focus on finding my niche or defining this blog any more than I should try to strictly define myself. I don't need any more limitations at this point in my life.

 

I've decided for now not to worry about descriptions anymore.  This is who I am, this is what I like and here’s what I feel like writing about. It might not always be cohesive, but I'm still doing it with my own sense of style...and definitely a little later than I had originally planned. Based on that, the name Fashionably Later still fits pretty well, I think -- so I guess in the end some things haven’t changed that much after all ;)

 

the proper attire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I donated the dress I wore to my father’s funeral

gave it away

placed it in the bottom of a bag

under an old coat and some shirts

the dress was nice

but I have no need to wear it again 

my father died in spring

and it was difficult at a time like that

to figure out what to wear

the lightness of the season counterbalanced

with the needs of a somber occasion

 

but it wasn't a somber dress

in fact, it was almost exuberant

a large scale print of abstract flowers

splashed across a flouncy skirt

it was sleeveless, with an exaggerated collar 

my choice for necklace 

was the only jewelry he ever gave me

hematite beads,

once known as blood stone

the strand doubled around to fill in the empty space

created by the open V-neck 

his death was a surprise, he wasn’t sick,

they say my father died in his sleep,

peacefully, on a warm spring evening

flowers blooming in the dark outside his window

as colorful as my pretty dress

he hated that dress
so I don't need it anymore 

 

how many dishes do we need?

Twenty-three years ago when I first moved into Michael’s small urban apartment he had 4 plates, 3 bowls and a few mismatched mugs. So I added a set of dinnerware to the growing list of things we should buy. He looked confused and said, “There’s just two of us, how many dishes do we need?” I laughed and thought, typical guy. Not long after, we bought a nice service for eight...eight of everything -- bowls, dinner plates, salad plates, dessert plates, cups & saucers. The set filled our kitchen’s minimal cupboard to bursting, but I knew someday we’d have a house to put it all in. Besides, what if company came? 

But, we never entertained in that tiny apartment, so it was just the two of us. We were a lazy busy couple with no dishwasher.  Every plate and bowl would get used before someone would break down have time to wash them. Dirty dishes often overflowed from the small sink. The kitchen was cluttered with all the things we had no room for in the overstuffed cabinet. It was a constant battle against chaos. 
 

When we finally moved into our house years later the dishes no longer went with my changing tastes. But rather than relegate them to the donation pile they were stored in the basement in case. In case maybe I’d grow to like them again...or perhaps our future children might want them someday. The set was one of the first things their father and I bought together as a couple so they were special, and you are supposed to keep special things. That’s what my grandmother always did.

 
My late grandmother was an antiques and collectibles dealer. She taught me the fine art of treasure hunting. She was also a hoarder that taught me the not so fine art of attaching emotional value to every object you own. It can be a pleasant notion, at first; that each item in your home tells a little story. I am by nature a story lover, so the idea of passing down heirlooms and tales that go with them has innate appeal. But other things get passed down sometimes, too. Things like habits and sensibilities that may not be practical, or worse -- can become unhealthy.  

My grandmother could have lived to see my children born. She could have told them her many stories, with or without her vast "collections". But tragically the year before I became pregnant with Megan she fell down the stairs in her home and died as a result of her injuries. It was horrific.  She lived alone in a large multilevel dwelling and refused to downsize because it would mean getting rid of too many things. When I previously wrote about her death it was with the mindset that she died where she wanted to, after a long life, in her “beloved” (and stuffed to the rafters) house. That is one way to look at it, but I am not quite so easily reconciled to that today.  

 

I have thought about my own death, for obvious reasons.  Amidst those unpleasant thoughts about my mortality comes the realization that my family will have to deal with my things...my stuff. I am not a hoarder by any means. But I do have a lot of stuff, especially for the small house we have chosen to continue living in. And in that light many of my belongings tell different stories to me now.  Along with anecdotes and recollections, some of my things also tell the story of lost time...time spent searching for items I cannot find in clutter, time spent trying to keep up with cleaning and caring for objects instead of pursuing activities that nourish my creative spirit, not to mention the time and energy used to acquire these things in the first place. Frankly, I’m not sure I can afford to waste that much time. Then again, can anyone? 

 

It has dawned on me that not every belonging has the potential to be treasure, in fact, much of it could be more akin to burden. I also realize that by striving to have less I can work towards getting more – as in getting more out of my life.  
 

How often do we say we have too much on our plates? In my case I had too many plates and not enough on them. So now whenever I consider buying anything I ask myself...how many dishes do I need? This mental shorthand reminds me about what is important. I only need enough – what is sufficient to feed my soul and the souls of my loved ones with. And in that regard, I already have plenty...I already have everything I need.

in the eyes of the beholder

Beauty is by nature objective.  And like the old 1970's song says, everyone is beautiful in their own way.  Yet rarely do I ever appreciate my own beauty in the present tense.  Instead I tend to see it most in images from the past.  Whenever I see photos of myself  I think wow, I didn’t realize how nice I looked then.  The mirror of today often tells me a much different story than the lens of yesterday. 

When I created this blog and began posting outfit pix here it was an attempt at self-acceptance.  I was trying to appreciate my inherent beauty...a beauty I believe everyone possesses.  While society often has unrealistic ideals for what is considered attractive, I’m not interested in that.  As a nearly 50 year old woman those impossible standards left me in the dust years ago.  I’m talking about the kind of beauty that is personal.  The kind where you are pleased with the image in the mirror because you look your best and it represents who you are as a whole, real person -- not some narrowed view based on arbitrarily defined criteria meant for a ridiculously select few. 

But lately beautiful is a bit far from how I feel.  When I look in the mirror today I see a woman radically altered.  From a 40+ pound weight gain due to ongoing cancer meds, to a head of hair grown back after chemo that doesn’t feel like my own, not to mention the accelerated progression of aging as a result of treatment -- all have left me feeling a little less than pretty at the moment.  I confess, I’ve been avoiding the mirror, let alone the lens. 

 

I remember feeling this way before.  Sandwiched between my late twenties and thirties I began a weight gain spiral that eventually resulted in "significant obesity."  I disliked my reflection in the mirror then, too.  I don’t even have any pictures of myself from that period, but other people have one or two.  I saw them not long ago and you know what?  Once again, in the rearview mirror of history I could see myself as attractive...I could find plenty to recognize as beautiful.  What a shame I didn’t see it back then.  I would have gained so much from even a little bit more self-esteem. 

Maybe part of how we judge our own appearance should also be relative to our experience, to what is going on in our lives.  For me that means focusing on how I feel, on making  positive strides every day to regain my health.  I want to reclaim wellness post-cancer.  Meanwhile I will try harder to embrace the body I am in right now because it sure has been through a lot and served me pretty well in the process, all things considered. 

So I took these pictures. I posed on my back deck for the first time in years.  I may not immediately love what I see.  It may be obvious how cancer has changed me, and unwanted change is never easy.  But now I will always have these images to look at and remember I was beautiful...I was beautiful today.

 

rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated

--Mark Twain

Several people who used to read this blog feared I had died when I stopped posting, thus the infamous quote for a title. 

Of course it's more than understandable they thought that. If I read a blog written by someone with breast cancer and they abruptly stopped posting, my mind would go there. It is where anyone’s mind would go.

But I’m still alive and doing well, cancer-wise. Four years have passed since my Stage II-b  diagnosis. You know, when I first heard “II-b” it sounded like "to be" and I was immediately reminded of, “to be, or not to be, that is the question.” Silly, I know. Besides, and with all due respect to Will Shakespeare...that really wasn’t the question I was asking myself, at least not at the time.

It wasn’t the question that rattled around in my head the last couple years since the end of treatment, either. That one was: Now what? As in, this destroyed my life as I knew it...how do I move on now?

In the midst of an extended crisis I always wish I could hit some magical button and fast-forward to the time just beyond it...naturally, who wouldn’t? During chemo I would lie in bed, feeling sick and weak, and try to send my mind into that future. I kept thinking, what did I want my life to look like after this was over? What was really important to me? Those were better questions. All I needed were the answers.

Turns out it wasn’t grand ideas or unfinished dreams I longed to spend my future accomplishing. What I wanted most was just a return to the little day to day stuff. I missed the gentle rhythm of my life. Morning routines, mealtimes, bedtime rituals, those quiet patterns that weave in and out of an average day – all those moments, those times I could no longer ebb and flow with because I was suspended in another time, a time out of time...a time to be ill.

And then something vaguely resembling an epiphany came to me. The insight was pretty simple...so simple that you may find it obvious. But at the time it felt very important to me. It still does.

The way you spend most of your days is how you end up living your life.

That is the sum total when all is said and done. I didn’t care about checking anything exciting off my bucket list. I didn’t care about fixing my laundry list of regrets. And they were long lists, let me tell you. Instead I just wanted to go back to doing the simple things I already spent most of my days engaged in.  That was enough because what really mattered most were all the tiny, precious daily moments of just being.

I thought I’d hold on to these poignant little realizations and after cancer treatment my life would be filled with deeper appreciation. But that’s not what happened. In fact, it was the total opposite. By the end of treatment I became bitter, morose and riddled with self-pity. I’m not sure why...maybe the hard knocks of a cancer journey fraught with some bad luck finally took its toll. Maybe it was a stage in the natural healing process. Or maybe those sorts of crystalline realizations about existential reality are just illusive by nature. Probably a little bit of each.

Just like for good ole Sam Clemens, someday the reports of my demise won’t be an exaggeration, they’ll be true. And so it will be for everyone eventually. But for today I'm still around. I get more time to heal, more time to question, more time for savoring the sweetness of life when I find it, for appreciating the many chances I have just to be here, just to be. In regards to "the question"...it certainly sounds like the best answer. 

Joy To The World

I'm not sure what to blog about so I’m just going to share what I’ve been thinking lately...it's about joy, I've been thinking alot about joy.

Do you have enough joy in your life?

What do you do that brings you joy?

Right now there are days where for the life of me I can’t think of a single thing that would actually bring me joy – not anything realistic anyway. I mean, winning the lottery would be totally amazing, so would a free trip somewhere exotic. Finishing my novel would surely bring me veritable fits of joy – and maybe someday I’ll get there but for now I’m not even close, so that leaves me pretty much back to square one.

No question, being a mom often does bring me great joy (among other things, lol.) My kids can completely delight me on a regular basis just by being themselves. I'd say delight is right on par with joy. Fulfillment, too, is at least a close relation to joy.  Probably my most fulfilling moments in all of my life have been as a mother.

In the last couple of years or so my other moments of fulfillment have mainly come from writing, in one form or another (the slow progress of my novel not withstanding). I do sometimes find the actual practice of writing itself joyful-ish, to a certain degree. But truth be told it’s also equal parts maddening and agonizing depending on the hour. Apparently I’m in excellent company: I recently read that when Virginia Woolf was asked about her love of writing she retorted that she loved having written.

Still, I do get a thrill writing something profound or witty…I've even had the rare experience of writing something that took my own breath away. However, touching another person in any way with my writing is probably the most profound joy outside of motherhood that I’ve ever known. Those moments can be rather few and far between…occurring just often enough to keep me going, but not nearly often enough to keep me "joyed up" for very long.

The last time I remember actually being joyful for reasons beyond motherhood or writing was…well, I don’t remember but it was no doubt probably before cancer. And I’m also guessing it was fleeting. I think I was regularly happy…happy blogging here, about getting my novel underway, about finding more time for poetry…happy in my marriage, with my children (always) and even getting there about myself. Frequently my life achieved a satisfying rhythm that often brought me a certain amount of contentment…but it’s hard to remember now when looking back thru the lens of cancer if I felt much joy before my diagnosis.

But then again, what is joy anyway? How do you describe it? Is it like pornography, indefinable but you know it when you see it?

Would I still know it if I saw it?

For now joy remains elusive. Happiness is not a frequent visitor either. It was two years ago yesterday since finding the damned lumps and I still feel like I’m in the thick of it. Cancer duties linger…there are scans, appointments, maintenance. Michael now has his own set of appointments, scans and research…he’s the one in a holding pattern now. In between I try to reassemble my life. But I feel like components are missing. Pieces of me were taken away with the scalpel that contained more than flesh, tissue and cancerous tumors. I think they contained some of my capacity for joy.

But I'm still looking for it because you never know.  You just never do.  It could be anywhere.

Towering Inferno

When I was in my early twenties the apartment building I was living in caught on fire in the middle of the night. I was able to get out unscathed, but had some scary moments during my escape. Waking up suddenly from a sound sleep only to see flames licking at your windows and thick columns of black smoke coming up thru the heating registers in the floor is a frightening experience, to say the least. I remember that everything seemed to move in slow motion and all the while I kept thinking, “This can’t be happening” – tho clearly it was. Even afterwards as I stood outside in the street and watched the firefighters try to control the 4-alarm blaze I kept having this feeling of reality being suspended; as if what I was witnessing wasn’t real.

Last year after I found the lumps in my breast it took several weeks to get a diagnosis. During most of that time I vacillated between thinking it would be nothing and fearing the worst. But even when I thought the news might be bad there was a significant part of my brain that reacted just like it did watching those flames burn my home…feeling like it couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t be.

But it was.

Now I’m waiting to find out if the pulmonary nodules in my lungs have grown…if the breast cancer has indeed spread. Perhaps as testament to either the power of hope or denial, I swing like a pendulum, back and forth, as to which way the outcome will go. On one level it’s hard to imagine more bad news coming my way…I mean really, enough is enough already, right? And yet on another level it’s hard to ignore the reality. Once your innocence is shattered it’s not as easy to maintain blind faith. I now know all too well that worst-case scenarios do happen. Buildings burn down. People get sick and sometimes cancer wins.

So I’m left wondering, am I merely standing here in a haze of disbelief watching the flames prepare to devour what’s left of my life, or do I get to escape the blaze again and regain some smidgen of a fundamental sense that there is goodness left for me in this world.

Oh, and let us not forget the third option…that while the nodules might not be a fast growing metastasis, they do end up still being there, same as before…their presence meaning I have yet more waiting to do before finally knowing with some degree of certainty if they are malignant or not…sort of like living in my own little corner of Purgatory rather than immediately being thrown into the definitive inferno much further south.

Meanwhile, this is me, still waiting…till next time.

Farewell to Thistle Dew

So, amidst my various health issues there's been an additional saga going on regarding the house we're buying . One thing after another has delayed the purchase. But as of today we are looking at a closing date of around mid to late May (barring anymore unforeseen glitches). All this means we will have to pack up 16 years of our life here at the cottage in a matter of about six weeks. It seems an almost impossible task.

This is actually the longest I have lived anywhere. From the time I first left my parents home at 17 until I came here at the age of thirty I moved over ten times. Of course, I wasn't moving in and out of houses, just apartments or back home with the folks...and I didn't have two kids to pack up back then either so I traveled a little lighter. But clearly I'm a little rusty at the whole moving thing now after all these years of staying put. Guess you could say this stone has gotten quite mossy for lack of rolling ;)

The process of packing inevitably inspires a few trips down memory lane as you dig around the dark corners of basements, attics and closets. You can’t help but start thinking about your past, good bad or indifferent. That will be an about face for me of late since everything has been so hyper-focused either on the immediate present of illness or the uncertain future of questionable longevity. Perhaps as nerve-wracking as this moving ordeal will be it might also serve as a good thing -- a welcome change of perspective as I look backward for a little bit. It will be a chance to sort thru some of the junk, both literally and figuratively speaking.

I remember when my mother sold the home I was raised in. While I loved the gracious old house itself and I do have some fond memories growing up there, there were also quite a few recollections I would have gladly not packed up and taken with me. But even with all that, I still found myself feeling very emotional as I stood in what was my old childhood bedroom, the last one to leave the house on the closing day. I whispered goodbye aloud because it felt like the house needed to hear it as much as I needed to say it. For a long while whenever I drove by the street I couldn't look, couldn't bear to see the evidence of someone else living in my home.

My late grandmother kept the house she raised my father and his sister in till the day she died. That house was her life and her determination to stay there is actually what killed her in the end.  Although healthy well into her 80’s she was not very surefooted.  One tragic day she fell down the stairs.  Days later she died of her injuries. It was a shocking end and seemed so preventable. In fact all of us had tried to get her to give up the home, to move into some sort of assisted living arrangement or even just a single floor condo or flat. But she had packed the house from cellar to rooftop with trinkets and treasures. And then there were her cats…if you were a stray within a 50 mile radius you knew to go to Hazel’s house – at one time she had nearly a dozen cats. She just couldn’t imagine limiting the population of either felines or material objects to fit into a smaller space.

After she died, some in my family were filled with regret and remorse for not having tried to force her into leaving, myself included. But in retrospect I think her life ended as she would have wanted. The prospect of uprooting her self and her belongings might have proven worse and hastened her death more than the fall. She died in her beloved home. That is where she wanted to be after living a long and full life. That is how she wanted to die. I understand that more than ever now.

I’ve never felt quite that way about any place I’ve lived, you know, loved it so much that I would make such a significant sacrifice. But I can imagine feeling that way very easily…I’ve always been a born romantic when it comes to houses.

The house we live in now is a wonderful little place, but it never quite felt permanent…it was supposed to be a starter house though we ended up staying way longer than we originally intended. In fact we actually tried to move once before, years ago. We had a buyer at the ready but when we began hunting for a new house it quickly became apparent that even by spending more money we wouldn’t be able to find anything that we liked all that much better in our price range at the time.

After we’d returned home from what ended up being the last day out with the realtor, my husband stood in the driveway, looked at the house and said what I thought was, “Thistle dew.” It took me a few minutes to realize he’d actually said, “This’ll do,” as in this house would do instead of moving. From that day forward our little home was named Thistle Dew Cottage. It fit. All these years we’ve thought it wasn’t grand or very special, but it was fine, it was quite nice. It would do.

And now it is finally time to say farewell. Some of the very happiest times of my life have been spent in this house...both my children were born while we lived here and Michael and I started our married life together shortly before we moved in. We've surely faced our share of challenges and weathered storms here too, especially this last year. This house has contained it all, it's part of the very fabric of our memories, the background for the most important moments of our lives, good and bad. And even though we are moving up, going somewhere bigger and better it will be very hard to say goodbye. Thistle Dew Cottage turned out to be special after all, just by virtue of being our home, the place where our lives happened around us. Within these walls a family was created. I will miss this place and hold it in my heart forever.

PS:  it turns out not to have been goodbye...we are still here, apparently this'll still do :)

Like mother, like daughter

My mother and I are vastly different. We often don’t see things the same way and have opposite approaches to most everything in life, from motherhood to style. Still, I will say that when it comes to fashion I do take a few cues from Mom -- in my own way. I also have been known to ask her advice on what to wear to particular occasions when I find myself in doubt. So when I was wondering recently what one typically wears to chemo infusions she was the first person I asked. I specifically wanted to know what she wore to her treatments two years ago.

Mind you, my mother was the original fashionista in her day…so I planned to take what she said with a grain of salt. Mom puts make-up on to go to the mailbox…she wouldn’t dream of ever appearing out of the house in sweats and is a woman who was once known to go months without ever wearing the same garment, let alone the same outfit. Rain or shine, sickness or health, old or young my mother has always been put together appearance-wise. During her cancer treatment I never once saw her without full make-up and styled wig -- plus dressed cute…even if it was just for a visit with her grandchildren.

But I never went to infusions with her. Back then Daniel was a baby and her chemo day was a day Michael worked. So her answer to my inquiry about chemo clothes surprised me: She wore the exact same thing for each and every single treatment. Right down to her shoes. When I asked if it was because others were uber casually dressed she surprised me again and said no. Mom noticed what everyone else wore, of course. She said sometimes women came from work and were dressed rather nicely…and yes, some women came in the equivalent of sweats & t-shirts…but still others came in some version of jeans and a blouse. She never noticed anyone wearing the same thing twice, and apparently she usually saw the same people treatment after treatment. However for some reason my mother chose to practically wear a uniform for the only time in her entire life. It hangs now in her basement. She’ll never wear any piece of it again and says she’d like to burn it…but it’s still there, collecting dust hanging from a pipe in the ceiling. It was as if she didn't want cancer to touch any of her real clothes...a way of holding the awful reality at bay, perhaps. Clothing as a defense mechanism, if you will.

As I have been getting ready for my own treatment I once again cleaned out my closet…just like I did at the beginning of summer before my impending mastectomy and reconstruction surgery. At first I figured that once again I would only need comfortable, practical clothes – lamenting the fact that many of my winter things won’t get much use this year. Since I will be avoiding crowds and other unnecessary exposure to germs at the height of cold & flu season, I won’t be venturing out to do my holiday shopping or go to large festive gatherings.

But I decided not to take my cues from my mother’s wardrobe choices this time after all. Instead I am planning chemo outfits that yes, are comfy, but are also pieces that make me feel good about the way I look. My favorite cardigan, the soft new black sweater I bought, my most sparkly pins and the best fitting jeans I own…these are the things I will try to wear to chemo. And if I am able, I will snap a picture before leaving for each treatment since it is likely to be some of the only outings I will go on.

Because even though that’s not how my mom did it, I learned the value of putting my best foot forward from her…learned that appearances matter. Of course I know they matter not so much in terms of the impression you make on others…but more importantly, because of the way it effects how you feel about yourself on the inside.

Thus, I’ll wear some cute clothes for chemo and try to look at least a little nice. Guess I am my mother’s daughter after all – but totally in my own way, of course.

Blue ribbons

It's gotten to the point where I dread when people ask me how I am. I'm really not sure how to answer that. On one hand I am doing well, all things considered -- I'm in no significant pain, a little achey still from the surgery but not even worth speaking of. Cancer-wise nothing has changed yet...still healing from the wretched wound, still waiting to do chemo.

I'm in a holding pattern, pretty much.

Meanwhile I am extremely fatigued. Not sure if it's due to the slight anemia I have from blood loss or just the pace I've been running at...traveling for hyperbaric treatments and doctor appointments, keeping up with the kids -- I have moments where I feel bone tired...like so tired I can't move. I wish I could crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

I have to admit that some of my exhaustion might be depression oriented. I realized the other day it's now been six months since finding the lumps. Six months of living, eating, sleeping and breathing cancer. It's hard to think of anything else, and believe me I try. Distraction for any length of time is nearly an impossible feat. My own body won't let me forget, it feels foreign to me now every time I move...and then there are little things like TV commercials for bras, or PSA's for the impending breast cancer awareness month...a pink ribbon magnet on the car in front of me while I'm running errands -- heck, just making plans for the week and trying to keep schedules straight comes back to something having to do with my breast cancer. There's pretty much no escape.

Even little Daniel turning three soon has its reminders. I think about my pregnancy and his birth every time I go for hyperbaric treatments because they are at the hospital where he was born.

The team of doctors we used for my pregnancy were across the street and each time we would go for a prenatal visit I would look at the hospital and happily think, that's where I'll finally get to meet him, my miracle baby number two, my son. The place was obviously under some sort of construction then and I wondered if it would have an effect on my stay. But it was a seperate building, a new center in fact. It was a breast cancer center.

Now I think about his birth and realize the cancer was there growing inside me while he was, like some evil parasite laying in wait to pounce on my health and try and destroy my family. As I nursed my baby son with love and hope for the future, cancer was lurking in the same breast that flowed with mother's milk.

They finished construction of the breast cancer center near the end of my pregnancy. Multiple pink ribbons were tied 'round all the trees in front of the hospital in celebration of the grand opening. I remember Meggie saying once it was too bad they weren't blue since I was having a boy.

Too bad indeed.

Of towers & tumors

Yesterday was my 46th birthday. It was the first birthday since being diagnosed with cancer. I spent my day at the hospital, first seeing the plastic surgeon for a regular visit and then the oncologist's office for bloodwork. These places have become routine, part of the eb & flow of my life now. I barely gave it a second thought. But in reflection, that's kind of sad, isn't it?

I imagine that every birthday from here on in will take on new meaning. I will be celebrating not just the day I was born, but my survivorship, another notch on my belt as the years (hopefully) roll by. Now all my birthdays will have an extra reason to celebrate tacked on to them. Perhaps it sounds ungrateful of me, but I found myself thinking that I really liked my birthdays the way they were...just a day to mark the usual passage of time… still believing I had plenty of it.

I never minded getting older, I proudly tell people my age and have no hang-ups about it. But now whenever I think of my age I can't help but calculate in my head...if I survive X amount of years, how old will I be then? It feels different. So I tried to treat yesterday like it was just any other day. The plan was to do a little celebration today when I had more time and Michael was home. Mostly for the kids' sake, as to be truthful my heart wasn’t really in it.

Today started with a wound review session from my favorite visiting nurse…and then after that I had to run to hyperbaric therapy. That whole process took six hours. Six hours devoted to cancer today. Probably about the same amount as yesterday, actually.

I was feeling pretty down about it all until I sat in the waiting room at hyperbaric medicine and looked up at the TV. They were reading the names of the World Trade Center victims. Of course, I know that 9/11 follows my birthday, living in the NYC area it has especially not escaped my notice. But I guess this year I got all caught up in cancer and sort of let the memory pass without acknowledging it.

On that fateful day 8 years ago I was home alone, still very sick from my emergency c-section and all the complications. In fact it was the first time I had been alone since Megan was born about 5 weeks earlier. My mother was planning to come later in the morning so it was only supposed to be for a few hours…just a few hours between when Michael left for work in Manhattan and my mother would come.

Ironically, September 11th had been Megan’s original due date. I remember joking with the doctor and asking if we could change it to my birthday the day before. What a wonderful gift -- a baby on my birthday after so many long years of trying.

But life had other plans and instead I almost died delivering her 5 weeks prematurely. Life often has other plans.

And on that day…that horrible, tragic day 8 years ago, I awoke from an early morning nap on the sofa to the sound of the phone ringing. I looked at the TV, left on while Meggie and I dozed, and sleepily answered the phone to hear my mother’s panicked voice. She was saying something about being able to talk to Michael for a few moments right after “it” happened…that at least he was okay as of that conversation…to try not to worry. All the while I am trying to make sense out of what my mother is saying, I am also looking at news coverage of a towering inferno on the television. And then the caption underneath finally became clear…what I am looking at is the World Trade Center. But there was only one tower. One. One where there was supposed to be two…where there had always been two towers for all these years now there was only one. How could that be? I asked my mother why there was only one tower. She didn’t answer. I said it louder…finally I shouted, “Where is the other tower???” She said quietly, “It collapsed…it’s gone.”

Just then the second tower fell. I clutched Megan and felt dread run through my body. It all made sense. Somehow, inexplicably, I had lived through her birth because the Universe or God or Whatever, was going to take Michael instead. Manhattan was under attack in some bizarro world and today I would become a sickly widow with a new baby that her Daddy wouldn’t get to see grow up.

All that day I sat with the phone in my hand. All that day I watched the TV with a sick heart like every other person with a loved one in NYC…like every other person in our country…in the world. But as we all know my husband came home. As we all know so many, many did not. Too many mothers & fathers & sisters & brothers & children…people loved and adored, needed and wanted by their friends and families…too many didn’t come home.

Thankfully Michael was in no great danger that day, tho I didn’t know that until midnight, until he managed little by little all day to make his way thru the chaos of NYC and walk across the George Washington Bridge…finally able to meet my mother who drove him all the way from Fort Lee to our front porch where I hugged him so hard I think I hurt him. We spent the next few days shell shocked and realizing how fragile life is…how lucky we were.

And again today as I listened to the all too familiar names of the dead being read aloud and I saw the towns they were from…the town where I grew up, the town I married in, the towns my babies were born in, the town I now live…again today I realized that I am still lucky. Today I am here. I now have two children, both healthy and happy. My husband came home from work again. I lived another year and a day.

Today I will make that be more than enough in their honor.