I feel like I got my country back. I am far to the left of Obama, and I know he’s not going to live up to my hopes, or my wants. But still, I feel such hope.
I’ve never felt about my government, the way I feel right now. I feel empowered to help make change.
Today, for perhaps the first time, I feel proud to be an American.
An e-mail I sent just now, to my faculty and registrar.
Hi all,
I'm based at the Ranch until Epiphany West, having just returned from a whirlwind (day and a half) trip to Berkeley. Dermatologist and oncologist are both pleased with me. My numbers are good (though not, as they were, better than my doctor's); I still feel like crap. I'm still losing weight, though not drastically, and I think I'm eating more. I'm still constantly achey. Even when I've slept as much as my body will, I can't get enough. I can have a conversation, but thinking is extraordinarily difficult.
Field ed mid-year eval went well. That's been the saving grace for so much else: something I can actually do, and love doing. (It's easy for me to be present on the street--maybe more so, because I know what it's like to feel sick continuously.) I sent N. an e-mail saying when she'd get the document; supervisor and I had our conference Tuesday night. Being there is working very well, for me and for them.
I sent L. a bunch of stuff relating to my cross-cultural requirement; thank God I keep a blog. We'll go from there, I'm sure.
I'm considering letting something go from fall, and intentionally letting myself fail it, so I can focus on finishing the things I need to graduate. (I took one class more than I needed this year, for the health insurance.) I "should" have dealt with it earlier--I didn't have the energy to. By the time I realized how long it had been since I had even been to the class, it was too late to drop. I kept thinking I could make it up... and I still kept (keep) choosing sleep. "Need to work. Feel like crap." Sleep wins. I'm not pleased with myself for that choice, but I'm willing to accept it.
As it is, I still have one old requirement I have to make up; an ancient, by now, paper for J. He made it as easy as he could for me. That will be done before spring term.
I'm still surviving--in both the gritting-my-teeth and triumphant meanings of that word. 5 1/2 more months of this.
peace,
Kirstin
about singing old camp songs at an Epiphany bonfire, with a gaggle of hippies.
I’m too tired to give context, much—I stood for longer than I have in six months, because the ground was mucky. I’m stiff already—but it was completely worth it.
It’s a Ranch extended-family thing; they’ve been doing it since the program director’s son was an infant, and he’s 12 now. They used to do it at the beach, but fires are illegal all over the Sonoma coast (to protect snowy plover habitat). So people brought their desiccated Christmas trees here, and we burned them, and sang old songs, and read Rumi. And ate. Bread, cheese, soup, wine. Mmmm.
I’ve been to Solstice bonfires. Hell, I lived in Olympia. Doing it for Epiphany, makes my inner Christian and pagan both happy.
This is a good life.
Speaking of endurance events... I've been thinking of doing the Relay for Life, to celebrate when I'm done with treatment. This summer would be a ridiculous time to add pledge-gathering to my plate, however. I still want to do it, but I can wait several months or a year.
I could celebrate earlier, by quietly walking to the river up here. You can see it from all the hills facing that direction, but I've never been. A friend told me it's about a 45-minute hike. She always moved faster than I do.
And I can do that whenever it strikes me. A call saying, "Hey, can I come up tomorrow," is enough advance planning. I love it here.
So much of my life is urban, and I really love it. But being up here feeds my soul, in ways I can't explain. My whole system was resetting, today. It wasn't just that I was tired, though I was. Or that it was a sick day, though it was. I couldn't stop sleeping. When awake, I breathed more deeply. I know I'm here for longer than a weekend--I think I'm settling back into the soil.
Mmm. Groundedness.
I’m at the Ranch, until Epiphany West. Tired, damp, happy to be here. I’ve put away the Bruce Cockburn CD for another year—but am still listening to the Irish Rovers. Want to finish settling in, and do my shot before I host dinner—but I may just nap until then.
Christmas, all 12 days of it, was good, quiet, restful. I left A’s house decorated for Epiphany (thank you, Oriental Trading).
I still have academic things to do—and I’m going to take the down-time I have now to do them, as well as my brain will allow me.
I mentioned a derm appointment—I rescheduled it to next week. I’ll see my oncologist, do field ed, and see the dermatologist all in 24 hours. Then come back up here.
I’m fearless in ways I wasn’t expecting. I normally hate driving through the Delta. It didn’t bother me at all. The whole hundred-odd miles up here were foggy and wet, but nobody chased me. The lanes usually feel claustrophobically narrow—today I didn’t feel squeezed.
Speaking of fearlessness—I don’t want to sound like I’m delusional, or trying to be a superhero. I still can (and do) feel anxiety—mostly about finishing school, finding work, and continuing my health coverage after spring. There are certainly experiences I’d rather not have. I’m in a loop right now of, “S—t! I need a job. I’m not well enough to get one. I can’t even keep up with school.” I don’t know how I’m going to transition into paying debt, paying for healthcare, getting employed and getting better, all at the same time. But however it happens, it will. And I have all the support I could ask for.
True fear, though, that’s gone. I’ve been where I’ve been, and I’ve come back, more whole than when I went there. Nothing can damage me now.
Hmm. This is how confidence feels.
I’ve done this meme in past years. I’m doing it now because I’ll be in the car all day, back and forth from the dermatologist, on New Year’s Eve. (I really don’t want to make that drive—but I still have this ridiculous rash, and I’d like it to be seen before February.) I’m going to the Ranch when it opens again after the holiday break, and I’ll be mostly there until Epiphany West.
So, here again is a paragraph of more-or-less nonsense, disjointed story-telling, the year in fast-forward. If you want to play, take the first sentence from every month in your 2008, and string them together.
Sleepily checking in from NOLA; it's 3:16 am West Coast time. I had another calling-dream, last night. Have to write a reflection paper; it was due a week ago. I’ve been only peripherally blogging, for awhile. I’m just going to sketch yesterday out, so you’ll know what you might expect if you or a friend ever has to ride this rollercoaster, and for my friends who are watching me. I am still so scared, underneath everything. Because my liver is toxic—and I don’t feel as bad as that sounds—I get to go back to the Ranch this weekend! I took a whirlwind trip to Berkeley yesterday, to keep an appointment at school. I had a conversation over IM with a friend [in New Orleans] this morning. The hardest thing is the unpredictability. No sicker than usual, but my wireless is. Still here, just busy… and trying to work through nausea, headaches, and no brain.
I had no idea, when I wrote that check-in from St. Andrew’s parish house in New Orleans last New Year’s Day, where I’d be a year later. (I could have guessed, curled up under a blanket on the floor in my best friend’s office, but that’s not what I’m talking about.) This year has taken me places I would never have imagined.
***
A conversation over sushi, a few days before Christmas:
“I’m still talking about losing my fears… and a year ago, I went to New Orleans alone. For a month. Before I had cancer.”
“Yes.”
“I was scared, but I knew I’d be okay once I got there. And I was.”
“That’s the difference. You had to be brave. Now, you’d just go.”
“Well, yeah. Now I have friends there.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Oh. Yeah, now I’d ‘just go’ to Timbuktu.”
***
Let me say, again, as clearly as ever I can: Cancer sucks, but I would NOT give it back. This whole journey has given me way more than it took. I would never have found this fearlessness, if I had not had to. I would never have learned to trust myself, or my community, or my God, the way I do now. I would not be who I am, without the past eight months. Or the next six, until my treatment’s over. This will be working in me for a long, long time. And I want it to.
I miss my brain. But I can do things from here, that I could not do when I was well. I’ll get the cognitive function back. And I’ve become so much more spiritually open, and intuitive. I want to hold on to that.
I never want to forget how deeply and unspeakably grateful I am, to be alive.
I’ve known for some time, that the biopsy scar on my neck makes me human. I’m learning what that truly means. I touch it now, frequently, in utter thanksgiving. I have this story. I am a cancer survivor. I have a wound I can never deny—and I have the healing of it. I can go places I had no entry into, when I could act like I’d never been touched.
[I’m thinking here of Jacob wrestling with the angel. All that the angel finally had to do was touch him—and Jacob limped forever. But we all do. It’s just that some of us fight it, or don’t know it, or deny it. Jacob went everywhere he needed to go, the way that he needed to get there.]
I don’t believe that God gave me cancer. But God moved into the space that cancer made.
The nerves around my neck incision still feel a little sleepy. My jawline tingles, still. I’m not in a hurry for that to recede. I have no need to feel “normal.” I know this is a place I could get stuck in—but I want to fully inhabit where I am, before I move on.
We went to church in Capitola yesterday, before wandering out to the beach and the redwoods. (Big trees, and wet muck between bare toes—a glorious afternoon.) The sermon touched on “side effects.” She said something like, “perhaps leprosy, or insanity, may be a side effect of finding God.”
I’ve been rubbing that together in my fingers, ever since. I’m still not sure how I’d phrase it for myself. I’m not sure whether getting cancer (and going through it the way I did, and am) is a side effect of finding God—or whether finding God is a side effect of becoming truly human. Whatever the conjunction, I can’t separate them. Both happened. The wound healed me.
I know too much about resurrection, not to believe with all my soul.
on Christmas morning:
I was walking through wintery woods, crunching the snow under my feet. It was full daylight, though it was very cold. I was alone. Everything was quiet. The forest was peaceful, yet trembling. There was a sense that the world was about to change.
I came upon a perfectly-laid fire, on the ground, in the snow, in the middle of nowhere. There was still nobody around. I knew, like you know these things, that this was just waiting for someone intended to light it. I didn’t know whether it was a traveler’s fire, or whether it was specifically mine. But I knew that someone (God or human) had left this for a person to find. This was a place, safe and warm, where you could wait for the Christ-child to come.
Not the original, incarnational Jesus. I was walking in Northwest woods, nowhere near Bethlehem, in our own time. This was a place, made by somebody and left to be found, where you could wait in hope until the world changed forever.
The woods knew that was happening tonight. The animals, and the trees, were full of expectation. Then, all would be love. There would be no unsafe places.
I came upon this fire, waiting for me or someone to light it. I had all this awareness. I knew it was a place of peace—and I was full of questions. Did God lay this fire, or a human? Is it meant for someone else, or for me? Is it okay if I keep exploring; am I insulting them if I don’t stay here? Should I keep going; let it be found by someone who needs it more than I do?
Because what I really wanted to do was to keep walking, to go deeper and wilder, to seek my own safety, to build my own fire. I was caught between accepting or rejecting someone else’s hospitality (not a good idea if that someone else is God), and being where I know I’m called to be, out on the very edges, where the wind is wild and the animals wilder, where anything can happen and you don’t know what you’ll find. I knew that if I built a fire, somewhere lonelier and colder, there would be warmth and light there.
That’s the relationship I’m called to be in, with God and the world, right now. But I was still considering these questions, in my dream, when I woke up.
And right now, I really want to go walking in the woods.
Merry Christmas!
I took pages of notes yesterday, and promised earlier that I’d post them. It doesn’t seem important right now, to share specific stories. Right now, I don’t care how the man handing out juice at St. Anthony’s soup kitchen looked at me, for instance. Describing exactly how the neighborhood “park” looked and felt like a jail, would only cloud my point.
What I need to do, is to say succinctly what I wrote in the direction of this morning. I need to articulate the lesson I took away from the experience, which none but God sought to teach me.
I purposely didn’t bring money with me, other than a BART pass. I wanted to know how it would feel to be in the city without it, and to be able to look people in the eye and say, “I haven’t got it,” when they asked. (As part of the Night Ministry, I’m not allowed to give money out even if I were inclined to. And I’m tired of lying.) I carried essentials like water, paper and pen, the neighborhood map they gave us. In my jeans pockets, I carried a handful of cough drops—which I ended up giving away—and an acorn from the Ranch.
The acorn was a purposeful addition; I wanted a touchstone. I wanted to be able to ground myself, if at any point I needed to connect (with nature, or deep breathing, or whatever). I never used it.
But I realized, not even until this morning when I was writing: I have been as afraid as I am ever going to be—and it was not in the Tenderloin. My fear of cancer, and my walking through that fear, gave me the freedom to go anywhere. I can be with people, and in places, in ways that I never could have—not because I was too naïve or frightful, but because I didn’t have the experience that has grounded me. I’m not going to do anything stupid, just to challenge my fear. I don’t need to. I’m already safe, everywhere I go.
I realized, I can carry whatever I want to—or walk with empty pockets. Acorns, cough drops, coins from the street, it doesn’t matter. What I bring with me, what I pick up and turn over and share, are rocks from the ground of God.
I was never told, like Margaret, that I would die. I was told that I could. I didn’t, and I’m making myself sick for a year to fight the chance of a much more dangerous recurrence. She told me to go barefoot at the Ranch, as much as I could, when it was warmer. She was right to remind me. But now I understand her real point. I have lived in the face of fear of dying. I have been to some very dark places. I found there healing, grace, fearlessness, and love. I threw my body into this, and I let the learning transform me. I have walked, and I walk now, on holy ground.
May it always be so.
Got my hand on the gospel plow,
Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now.
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on...
I’ve been thinking a lot about last April.
I just came back from a week at the Ranch. I told the story whenever it came up, which was often—talking with a Franciscan sister whom I’d never met, seeing a friend I hadn’t seen since before last spring, bumping into a new acquaintance who’d only seen me at school. “Yes, the Ranch is my other gig… the semester’s over, but I’m not, because interferon makes it really hard for me to focus, and I’m always exhausted. Oh, I had a stage II melanoma last spring.”
I’ve lived with this for eight months, almost. I’ve told it so often, that telling it is easy. I’d say, “I had cancer,” and watch their faces change. They’d be thinking, “oh my God, poor you.” I’d quickly respond, “As far as we can see, they got it,” just to make them feel better. I am not poor; I am grateful to be alive. I would not trade who I am now for who I was then, or who I would be if I’d never had to face this.
Was talking with one of the Franciscans; we’re going to be exploring spiritual direction together. She wanted my story. I told her, I remember being back up here last summer, while I was on a reprieve from treatment. I remember saying to someone, in July, “Haven’t I survived this yet?” And no, I really hadn’t. While you’re a survivor from the first second you’re diagnosed, and the transformation begins in that instant, living through treatment takes you places I don’t even know if I can articulate yet. (The frustrating thing is that it takes your faculties away while you’re in it, so it’s harder to think, process, and communicate.) I’m still only halfway through. My last injection will be six months and one week from last Friday.
I hate being achy and exhausted and behind in everything. It’s frustrating not to be able to do what I used to do, and what I want to do. But I’m also grateful for this time. I’m able to ask questions, and go places (in myself and around me) that I wouldn’t have known existed. My teachers and friends and community members give me the grace to do what I need to do.
One of the greatest gifts is the utter loss of fear. I remember that first week. While I’m aware of how afraid I was, and can still get into that feeling place, most of what I remember is love. I was scared to death—but I only panicked on the phone with the doctor. After that, I did what I had to do. And my community thoroughly embraced me.
There are still tasks I don’t want to do—but I truly fear almost nothing, now. And I’ve learned so much about the gift of presence. Before last April, I was fearful all the time of being judged, and of not being good enough. Now, the people whose judgements I feared are some of my strongest allies. I know that they’re there for me. I know that they want to support me, and that they love me. I trust them.
I also trust myself. I’ve become so much more open. I’ve been where I don’t want to go again—and I’ve seen, and touched, and held the things that grow there. I brought back some rocks with me, in my pocket. I can go anywhere, now.
Including back into that place, as alone as I ever am, or accompanying others.
I can imagine being afraid, if the cancer recurs. I’ll give myself compassion if I am. But the most it can do is kill me. Death is only scary, the first time you stare at it. We know who we are. We know where we’re going. My whole experience of God has opened up.
God is not a personified image in my head anymore, at all. I realized that, sometime yesterday. God is, simply, love, interwoven into every fiber of the universe’s being. In what appears as a sterile concrete jungle, flowers. In the last places you'd think to look, grace.
[Which makes "Father" even harder to say, and more ridiculous, when God is "Ground."]
I have the faith that only comes from experience. And I escaped with my life. How can I be, other than grateful? How can I be, other than radically trusting? I feel, in the cosmic sense, safe. Completely.
I spent yesterday mostly alone, in the Tenderloin. I was on a street retreat with the Faithful Fools, as a requirement for volunteering with them. It was the first time I’d ever hung out there in the daytime, other than Open Cathedral. I took pages of notes, and I’ll post them later. For now, I’ll just say that I went the whole day without talking about cancer, until one of the RC Franciscans and I rode home together on BART. I only thought about it once, when I realized that I can’t do the week-long Holy Week retreat, not because I’m afraid of sleeping outside (I won’t take a shelter bed from someone who needs it), but because I need access to refrigeration.
I just got to be me, all day. Not me-with-limitations that I had to explain. Not, “I know I look great; I feel like crap.” Not, “I can’t walk this fast.” Just, me.
I really liked it. I’m looking forward to cancer being a story I tell when I choose to, and use quietly when I choose to. Everyone around me knows I had it—either because they’re in community with me, or because they need to know what I can and can’t do. I’m looking forward to simply living in the world, as the person I will have become.
I’m up at the Ranch this week, working the Advent silent days. I’m hosting the odd lunch or dinner, and checking people in during the afternoons. Right now, I’m watching the wind and rain outside, and waiting for more arrivals. I can’t escape the brothers, even (or especially) here—and some of them are coming up today. I will shortly be hugged by three sopping wet monks.
And I’m wearing wool. Oh, well.
I love blustery weather! And I love hot soup on cold, wet days. I was blissed out over my lunch—and that’s big news, for someone who hasn’t eaten sufficiently since June. (It was miso soup w/ veggies, salad, bread and cheese, and a bulghur-artichoke concoction. Yum.)
My leftover homework is still with me, and my brain is still gone—but my body feels so much better up here. I’m still tired to the bone—but I’m not so relentlessly miserable.
I’ll be here until Friday. I’m going back to the city for a street retreat with the Faithful Fools on Saturday. To A’s house for Christmas, early next week. And I’ll be between there, here, and the Bay Area through January.
Note to Margaret, Paul, and anyone else who loves the place: The current newsletter (not on the website yet) mentions necessary upkeep on the treehouse. If you want to help, contact Sean.
…and trying to work through nausea, headaches, and no brain. This is the last week of the term, and I have more to do than I will be able to do. But then I’m going to the Ranch for at least a week, and I’ll spend the rest of December and January catching up.
I got a flicker of amazing news, earlier in the week. Someone said to me that when we met, two years ago, I seemed very fragile. (I damn sure was.) He said he doesn’t see that in me now.
I worked for that. Not the feedback from him—which was a wonderful surprise (that surprises no one else). I worked to overcome woundedness, to be less reactive, to become whole. A few close friends, and one particular teacher, know how hard I worked it. Then cancer came, and did the rest.
I don’t ever, ever, ever want to get cancer again. But I am not sorry that I had it. Cancer gave me more than it took.
I was working these things. But I would not be where I am—I would not be who I am—without these past seven months. I would not have the soul that I have now. I would not have this deep strength.
To hear him say that I’ve lost my fragility, and to hear others echo, “well yeah it’s obvious,” makes it real. I’m not saying that my worth is on them. But it means that what I see and feel and know is beyond my own head, and beyond my safest relationships. This is who I am in the world now.
A couple of people told me today, that I looked like I was healing. They know better than to assume that since I look great, I must feel better as well. I told them, “I am. It’s just not physical.”
That is worth a stage II melanoma. It’s worth a surgery that only marked me if you know where you’re looking. It’s worth actively making myself sick for a year. It’s worth even the knowledge that I won’t be considered clear until 2013, and I’ll have to be very careful about my health insurance until we have a system change.
I’m thankful every day that it was only a stage II. Cancer scared me enough, to teach me how to live. And it was not lethal.
But it gave me what I needed.
My best friend and I were supposed to see her, a few years ago. She (Odetta) got sick at the last minute.
She's rocking with the angels, now.
From Caminante, among others.
1. Started my own blog
(obviously)
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
(loosely—church retreat worship group, as a teen)
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than I can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain
(loosely—hiked up, climbed down Mt. Ellinor in the Olympics)
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sung a solo
(as a performance, no—but in the shower or walking down the street, all the time)
11. Bungee jumped
(oh, hell no)
12. Visited Paris
(I was 7)
3. Watched lightning at sea
14. Taught myself an art from scratch
(well, sorta, when I re-learned to knit)
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
(I think slightly, once)
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown my own vegetables
(and given them away)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
(of course—what kid doesn’t?)
22. Hitchhiked
(once, at Glacier Park in Montana. Friend and I were lost; we got a ride back up to the parking lot with a very nice old couple in an RV.)
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
(yes—but all my sick days now, are real.)
24. Built a snow fort
(once, when we had enough)
25. Held a lamb
(but I have a pic of an honorary nephew holding a chick. He was three. He’s in college now.)
26. Gone skinny dipping
(Girl Scout camp, mid-80s. It’s better in salt water, at night. Phosphorescent critters bounce off of you.)
27. Run a Marathon
(no desire to)
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
(but I’ve seen lunar eclipses)
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
(both, lots!)
31. Hit Kicked a home run
(third grade, kickball. The kid who most vehemently did not want me on his team, was extra mad.)
32. Been on a cruise
(no—but I’ve been canoe camping.)
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught myself a new language
(but I got a “teach yourself Arabic” book and played around with the alphabet.)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
(I paid the bills, which was enough at the time. Money cannot ever make you happy.)
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
(I’d love to someday)
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
(I think so? I’ve been there, as a young teen.)
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
(but I was with a friend when she gave him a dollar and the rest of her sandwich.)
44. Visited Africa
(really want to)
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
(but I was back-boarded down a trail and into a motorboat, at camp)
47. Had my portrait painted
(Chalk drawing, actually—I think I was six.)
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
(but a friend told me about eating ice cream in the snow. I want to try that!)
53. Played in the mud
(that’s what kids do.)
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
(Twilight Zone, with my parents, in the rain)
55. Been in a movie
(but I have been in a news clip)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
(briefly, tai chi from a seminary classmate)
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
(I helped run one)
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
(2nd-8th grades. That’s the only reason I buy them.)
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
(I’ve never been allowed to.)
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
(but I’ve seen tattoos on survivor’s arms)
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
(in high school Russian)
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
(Orange Julius, age 18. After two weeks—when I’d made several messes, and burned my hand on the hot dog grill.)
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
(right pinkie, left middle toe. Separate incidents.)
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
(if a Young Authors conference in fourth or fifth grade counts. I bound it, and everything.)
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
(just like John?)
84. Had my picture in the newspaper
(school district rag, fourth grade, for winning the district spelling bee and beating all the eighth graders)
85. Read the entire Bible
(not systematically, but I’m fairly sure I’ve read it all.)
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
(but my doctors saved mine.)
90. Sat on a jury
(was called once, couldn’t serve.)
91. Met someone famous
(locally)
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
(but I fell out of a kayak into Lake Michigan)
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
(got it when I moved to CA.)
99. Been stung by a bee
(really! Never.)
100. Ridden an elephant
I had the wildest, whirlwind conversation I’ve ever had with a stranger (when I wasn’t working), at the downtown Berkeley BART yesterday.
I was on my monthly Kaiser Oakland run, for interferon and a blood test. Refusing to “shop” on Black Friday, I still had Christmas music in my MP3 player. And I felt oddly rested. (The only thing I’d done differently was drink wine with dinner—which I’m not supposed to do.)
So I was out of the house, at least, and in a pretty decent mood. Nothing really over-the-top glorious, though. I got a new BART pass, and went down to the platform. The readerboard said the next train was in six minutes. I sat down to wait.
I hadn’t been there more than ten seconds, when a man walked by, looked in my face, and said hi. Mind you, I was still listening to a choral group sing a bluegrass gospel Christmas song. I said hi back. He kept talking. I took my earbuds out.
He sat at the other end of the bench from me, and told me about being laid off from his truck-driving job three weeks ago. He’d hated the job anyway, and was fine about being laid off; he doesn’t have to “drive past other people’s lives” anymore. He felt like he was getting back into real life, now.
He never asked me for anything but connection. He wasn’t looking for anything but company. He was the happiest out-of-work person I’d ever seen.
He asked what I do.
“I’m a grad student, and a cancer survivor. I’m still on chemotherapy.”
“Oh. Congratulations. That’s a lot. What are you majoring in?”
“God. I’m up at the GTU.”
And, we were off. He told me about losing faith in God, in the late 90’s. Things got “really weird,” and he was seeing chakras, having "Buddha-Mara" experiences. He ran into “this Episcopal priest” who nudged him back toward Christianity. (I resisted the urge to ask who.) Turned out to be Matthew Fox. Then he looked Fox up online, and found something about him not forgiving the pope who silenced him. Enough of that—you can’t preach forgiveness if you don’t do it.
The train came, and we got on. He asked if I’d had spiritual experiences. Well, I haven’t seen chakras, but… I told him about the man who gave me communion at Open Cathedral. It wasn’t a vision, but a human interaction.
He got it. He stared at me for a second, and he looked at me more closely.
“You’ve been through a lot, and still… I can see from your countenance, you’re blessed.”
“Oh, I know I am.”
We pulled up at the Ashby station, and he got off.
And I’m thinking:
Oh, wow.
WHAT was that?
Just enjoy it,
all at once.
Margaret, I thought about you—and I’d have called you right there from the train, if I’d had your number in my phone. (I do now.) But I don’t think I could have spoken coherently. I’m not terribly sure I can now.
He had to work to look at me; I was wearing a sun hat. Which he said had a lot of character (thank you, MaryEllen). I was only wearing the hat because I wasn’t wearing sunblock—I’m still trying to figure out what’s causing my rash. And I had headphones in, for heaven’s sake. I like Chanticleer, but I wasn’t that blissed out—I was on my way to get the stuff that makes me sick. I was out just doing a chore.
Still. God tossed a human pry-bar at me, and there we were. This happy-go-lucky, out-of-work truck driver, spiritual seeker, incredibly bouncy character, reminded me again how blessed I am. By looking in my face and seeing it.
I had to go to the hospital for my blood test; the Fabiola lab was closed. I said to the tech, “I should tell you that I’m on interferon, and I’m hard to stick. They had to use my hand the last two times. I hate that.”
She gave me one of the easiest pokes I’ve ever had. In my arm, in the usual place. I bled just beautifully. And when I got home, my numbers were still fine.
People kept smiling at me, all day. It was weird, in a good way. I didn’t feel like I was glowing. But something was going on.
I took BART back to Berkeley, and started walking up the hill. By then, I was tired, and had to stop a lot. My backpack held five boxes of interferon (they gave me an extra week, to get me through Christmas), a heavy icepack from the pharmacy because I’d forgotten to freeze mine, and my mostly-full sharps box, which they couldn’t take. It didn’t really weigh all that much—but walking with it wore me down.
I remembered something from an Annie Dillard book I read in college; I think it’s in Teaching a Stone to Talk. She buys the communion wine for her church, and writes about walking all over that small town with the blood of Christ in her backpack.
I’ve always loved that. And it’s no doubt weird to make myself sick to keep myself well—but there I was also, carrying what medical science gives me for healing.
I would have never known that man’s story, if he hadn’t been bursting to tell it. If you look at me, I’m any random student who dresses like a mountain climber, walks slow, and stops a lot. You don’t know what’s inside my backpack, or what’s inside my soul. We only know each other, if we take out our earphones and talk. In the space between us, there is God.
If that kind of random, intense connection happened every day, I’d stop leaving my bedroom. I don’t have the energy to live like that full-time. But this was a gift.
Thank you, man in the BART station. Thank you, MaryEllen. Thank you, competent lab tech. Thank you, Annie Dillard. Thank you Craig, the teacher who introduced me to her work, who drowned in Costa Rica seven years ago.
And thank you God, for all of it.
First, last, and always, for life.
For the health I have—and for that which I will recover. For friends, teachers, and mentors who have walked with me through the past seven months—and for those who knew me only before. For old friends I'm back in touch with. For community: school, church, online, on the street. For A., and for her cats. For Max (who does not have TB). For good medical care. For everything that cancer has given and taught me. For realizing only recently that I’m shedding not only my heroes, but the need for them—and that is as it should be. For Bernice Johnson Reagon’s voice. For my own. For work that I love and can do, which keeps me connected to God and the world beyond myself. For the way my legs feel when I come in from walking in the city half the night. For friendly, forgiving drag queens. (How could I have forgotten meeting someone named Ruby Slippers?) For the man in a hospital bracelet who gave me communion—and for the one who threw my demons in my face just by existing. For the grace everyone gives me, to be where I am. For laughter, joy, and normal conversations.
For food, and shelter, and friends who share. For love all around me, and for the grace to see it. And once again, for life.
Try this.
I started with Jane's Miriam Makeba posts, and ended up at Bernice Johnson Reagon (via a search for Sweet Honey). I said below that I've essentially lost my heroes. I'm not sure that's true.
Can you feel where she sings from?
