I never signed up for this...

Better and Worse

For several people I know, 2009  has brought crises and challenges.  When bad things happen, often it's a struggle to keep things in perspective.  At least it's been that way for me.  I've tried various ways to help me stay positive, or at least neutral.  And sometimes, what helps me is a children's book.

Not just any book.  I heard this book read aloud years ago when we still lived in Los Angeles.  My kids went to a very small school and once a week the whole student body , grades K thru 6, would gather together sitting on the floor, and sing songs.  And afterwards the director of the school would read a different book every week.  

Something about this particular story struck a chord in my soul.  It's based on a simple Yiddish tale, a fable about a man who complains to his rabbi about how difficult his life is.  The rabbi makes the man's life more and more miserable until finally the man sees how lucky he was in the first place.  Not rocket science, but  the moral spoke so loudly to me that I drove right from school to the bookstore.

Oddly, I didn't put it with the kids' books.  I'm not even sure if I read it to them.  I put it away and forgot about it.

Years after that, I got diagnosed with cancer.  I had a very complicated case, and didn't know of anyone whose case was as challenging as mine.  My life seemed so complicated, and so overwhelming, and so unfair.  I thought I was the unluckiest person in the world. 

On my first day of chemo, another survivor came to visit me in the hospital where I was having my infusion.  When I complained about how unlucky I felt, she told me what doctor told her each time he  gave her medical updates on her condition: "It could be better, but it could be worse."  

It sounded familiar.  

I went home and found the book.  It doesn't cure cancer, but it helped.  Maybe it's the Jewish black humor or cynicism, but the principle strikes home.  The same concept works for us as a country, as we face some of the most difficult problems in our history.  

Maybe this helps explain why we find satisfaction in things like reality television, and even blogs---We need to hear other stories, to insert ourselves into the mass of humanity and see where we fit in; to know that wherever we fall on that spectrum, in the realm of human experience,  usually it's true: maybe things could be better, but it could always be worse.

   

Survivors of something

I don't write a lot about cancer here--not because I don't have enough to say, but because I have too much.  Like, don't get me started.  But now it's on my mind, thanks to some comments from yesterday.  So I'll say this, and then maybe I won't discuss cancer again for awhile. 

Once my mother died of cancer, getting it myself was my greatest fear.  As horrible as it was, there are now things I fear more. But cancer was enough to teach me some lessons I needed to know.

Yesterday's post seemed to be about cancer but it really wasn't.  It was about any crisis--that can happen to anyone.  Cancer happens to be the one I know most about--but you could insert any of the things people deal with--illness, infertility, addictions, accidents, losing a spouse, losing a job.  And unless you're Mother Teresa, who hasn't wondered: why is this happening to me?

When I had cancer there was a national organization called "Y-Me?"   I loved that name.  When I heard it for the first time I felt someone out there UNDERSTOOD.  There must be others like me--people who were bitter, and scared, and wished cancer could have happened to someone else.  Just the name alone made me feel better. 

Last night when I wrote the post Why Me? I looked up the group, and I found out they changed the name.  Now it's called Breast Cancer Network of Strength.  I get why they might have done this, but it bothered me.  A name like Y-Me felt real.  Since everyone isn't the tough and strong and "bring it on" type.   Maybe deep down inside, no one is really the tough and strong type.  Either way, It doesn't make you feel better if everyone around you is telling you to be strong---when all you feel is whiny and weak.  At least I did.

And while I'm whining..,one other thing.   Sometimes people say they "kicked cancer's butt."  Which is great.  But then it sounds like someone who didn't succeed in kicking cancer's butt did something wrong.  Which is not great. 

Because I am here doesn't mean I was stronger than someone else, or kicked butt better.  Science doesn't have all the answers yet, so I'd rather say I was lucky.

Meanwhile I still haven't gotten to my point yet.  Which is that when you get cancer, you should be allowed to whine a little.  Maybe even a lot.  If you need to.  Expecting yourself to face a crisis like a hero is just not realistic or possible for many people.  I think we all deserve, if we need it, to feel sorry for ourselves sometimes.

And then we need to STOP whining.   Because (and this is finally my point...) I believe it is really important NOT to let yourself feel like a victim.  The victim mode is especially hard to avoid with cancer.  Because you are instantly transformed into one:  swallowed up by the medical system to be poked and prodded.  Helpless and out of control. 

I am not an expert or a psychologist--but I think getting out of this mindset definitely takes some attitude adjustment.  I believe it's essential if you're fighting a battle against cancer-- or maybe a battle of any kind.  The good news is that we all have what we need to do this--we all have a source of inner strength that can bring out the best in people even at the worst of times.

Somewhere inside each of us is an ancestor who faced down a saber tooth tiger.  That survival instinct-- so basic, so human-- is in the blood and brain of every single person on earth.  All we need is to access it when we most need it. 

And once you tap into that core strength, at that moment, you become a survivor.  To me, being a survivor is a state of mind--something to honor and celebrate.  It's also something you can call upon for the rest of your life.  And you will.   Because we're all survivors-- of something.

____________________

Laurence Gonzales, who wrote the book, Deep Survival, also wrote about my survival story in MORE magazine a few years ago.  Someday I'll write it myself.  His version makes me sound more heroic and brave than I really was. The one part that isn't accurate is in the first sentence: I never had red hair.     

Why me?

Tonight I talked to a friend who is going through a crisis.  Her situation is completely out of my own personal experience.  And yet something about the conversation felt very familiar.  Her pain felt familiar.  Her fear.  And the question underneath: Why me? 

As a cancer patient, I was very familiar with this question that most of us find ourselves asking at some point in our lives.  Most cancer patients ask their doctors this question.  Ask their spouses.  Their families, thier friends.  Ask God, the universe or anyone else willing to listen.  

Some people accept their cancer diagnosis and move forward without stopping to ask.  That was't me.  I asked this question a lot.

And like most people, aside from Joan of Arc, I never got an answer.  At least not an answer that satisfied me.  The best answer I heard was: "why not me?"  (Maybe because I'm Jewish, and Jews supposedly like to answer a question with another question.)

For months this plagued me.  Why did I have to suffer?  Why didn't it happen to a bad person instead (I could easily have filled in some names.) Why was life so unfair? 

I'm not a philosopher, and I'm not deeply introspective, so I wasn't asking this question on a profound level.  Nothing existential that could have puzzled someone like Spinoza or Maimonides--- maybe not even Dr. Phil.  If you really let yourself go deep with this type of question, maybe you're more likely to come up with answers.  Or more questions.

I didn't do that.  Ultimately I stopped asking a thousand times a day and dialed it down to a hundred times a day.  After months of cancer treatment, sometimes I got through a day without asking more than a few times.  And then at some point, I stopped asking at all.

I never did get the answer but I stopped asking because the question didn't apply anymore.  Mostly because I was alive.  And besides, other people had the same question.  People who were also good.  People who had cancer and people who had things even worse.

And then a funny thing happened.  Further down the road, after I stopped asking and even stopped thinking about this very much, I started asking again: "Why me?"  Only now I was asking the question in reverse: not, why was I going to die?  But-- why had I lived?  Why had I lived when my prognosis was so dire and my odds were so poor?  Why had I lived when other women were dying?  What am I supposed to contribute?

It's commonly called survivor's guilt, felt by people who walk away from plane crashes or collapsed buildings. How can you not feel guilty and confused when everyone around you has died.  Why were you chosen to live?

For me, this question has not faded over time.  13 years after my diagnosis and survival, I'm still asking.  The difference is that now I know there is an answer--some mission or purpose meant for me, something I'm destined to contribute, some reason I was allowed to live.

So "Why me?"  remains a question without an answer.  Probably this is the way it should be, and was meant to be.  Because If I knew the answer, I would probably stop searching.

Beach Walk

Today is my friend Myra's birthday.  I'm not planning to make a habit of announcing birthdays.  It was embarrassing enough on mine.  But today is meaningful because Myra and I are taking a walk on the beach.  And I feel really lucky about that.

Not just lucky that we're walking on a beach in California while some people are shoveling snow.  I feel really lucky about Myra.

We always meet at our regular spot--which is a few yards from a little stone bench. 

Myra and I never sit there, as these people are.  We're always so busy walking and talking, we pass by without noticing it.  Myra would never guess the bench once mattered to me.

I sat on that bench every day for months.  I sat there because I grew up by a beach and I remember my mother telling me she believed in the healing power of the ocean.  So I would put on my wig and a hat over the wig, and walk to the beach, hoping somehow the healing powers of the ocean would heal me from cancer.

But what I noticed most at the beach was that everyone seemed to be with someone else. 

Every single person had someone to be with.

Except me.

My husband was at work; my kids were at school.  I had been too busy working to make friends in my new community, and now for the first time in my life, I did not have a single friend I could ask to join me for a walk on the beach.  

People who know me now, like Myra, find it hard to imagine this.  Even I find it hard to imagine.  My life is so full.  But back then,  friends were far away when I needed them most.  I had never felt so profoundly alone.

I tried to let the ocean heal me.  I tried to summon the memory of my mother.  I sat on my bench and wrote in my journal, trying to learn something from the nightmare that was happening to me. 

It was good to get some fresh air and exercise.  But the only thing I remember learning was that the beach is a bad place to be on a windy day when you're wearing a wig.

13 years later, I still come to the beach.  I still want the fresh air and exercise.  But the beach never did help me heal.  Because its beauty could not reach inside my soul.  What I needed most, what helped me heal--were people.  The people I met in my new community.  People like Myra.  People who became treasured friends and who make me feel lucky--that they're in my life.

So although today is Myra's birthday, I'm the one who gets the gift: friendship. 

Not such a light lunch

It's not every day that you sit down to lunch and something rocks your world.  That happened to me today--when I found myself crying over my lunch in the middle of a crowded hotel ballroom.  I could have been crying over a number of things--that my chicken was overcooked, that there were raw onions on my salad, that the Republicans could steal the election, that I was wearing warm weather clothes on a suddenly crisp fall day.

What made me cry was the guest speaker at today's luncheon, Rachel Naomi Remen M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom--a renowned educator and pioneer in how the mind can help heal the body.  Her life is an inspiration, and her wisdom struck right at my heart--and at the heart of the person I would like to be.  Her stories might not make you cry, but they would make you think.  Because her message is that each of us, in our own way, can change the world.  

Most of us are not aware that we can make a difference in the world just as we are right now--that within ourselves we carry the power which can transform the lives of other people just by opening our hearts, or making  a simple gesture.  Her stories were clear examples of how human connection is not only healing, but is life-changing.  The way she changed my life today.

Because her message was what I needed to hear right now---at a time when we are electing a new president, when people are anxious about the state of the economy, the country, the planet, the future for our children. 

I read her books years ago, and at the time, I took her words and wisdom to heart.  But life goes on, and we sometimes forget what's most important.  Today, I got a reminder--- that no matter what, we are still people, we still have the ability to love, to make a difference, and to fulfill our role as human beings by connecting with each other.  Through her words, I could see the way I could do this, by connecting through my own stories, and through my heart. 

I also felt comforted to know that even if the worst happens on November 4, I can still continue connecting...from New Zealand.

Circles

Now that I'm circling back timewise, I'm thinking that there really is something about women and circles.  And the way we instinctively gather together to share---quilting, knitting,  gossiping, husking corn, peeling potatoes.  I haven't peeled potatoes recently, but I did participate in two women's circles over the last few days.

The first one was when I visited a meeting of the San Jose chapter of eWomen Network.  This is a national organization that works both online and in person.  It's a woman's circle for the computer age.  And at the luncheon I attended, it worked like a well oiled machine.

The goal is what they call "accelerated networking"--which I figure is the business version of speed dating.  Each person is randomly assigned to 2 different small groups, which gather during the luncheon at designated places around the banquet room.  Inside each individual little circle, each person gets exactly one minute to share her story-- a 60-second sales pitch.  I hear everything from financial planners to contractors to massage therapists.   You can also ask for something you need---from new clients to public speaking engagements to a new roommate.  After 60 seconds, a bell rings and your time is up and the next person starts.  It's like clockwork.  No chitchat inside this little circle. You come prepared with a stack of business cards, and if someone is interested in your spiel, she hands you her card or takes one of yours--without stopping to interrupt the flow.  If you're not interested in each other, you don't waste a card.  Or time.  Very efficient.  Obviously the wave of the future.

In my two circles, I'm a bit of a square peg.  I'm a guest, not a member.  And I don't quite fit into this brave new world.  Especially since I have nothing to sell and nothing I can ask for-- in 60 seconds from a group of strangers.  Unless one of them has some chocolate in her purse.

24 hours later, I'm in another circle of women.  Also mostly stangers.  No one has business cards.  No one is buying or selling.  We get as much time as we need.  Although even in one minute, sometimes we are laughing or crying.

This is the beginning of the weekend retreat.  And the beginning of the healing process.  Like pioneers on the open prairie circling the wagons, we gather in a circle and make a safe space.  And the minute we are inside, everything outside disappears.  

This phenonenon always astonishes me.  That a group of complete strangers can come together and immediately let down your guard and trust every single woman in the circle.  Maybe it's because hearing another woman's story is being able to see through a window into her soul.  Inside the circle we are completely safe and secure to expose whatever is inside ourselves--gains and losses, dreams and nightmares, hopes and fears.   

This particular group is gathered due to breast cancer.  But in addition to cancer, inside the circle we share the same stories you would hear in any group of women.  Stories about our husbands.  Our children.  Our bodies.  Our divorces.  Our jobs.    

What brought us together is that we are all seeking the same thing:  healing.  But the source of our need for healing is not necessarily breasts.  Or cancer.  The common theme I hear is suffering.  And that is not what makes us breast cancer survivors.  That is what makes us human.

Smelling the Roses

POST FROM THE COAST---( POSTED OCTOBER 19 BUT LOST FOR TECHNICAL REASONS)

I have to confess.....

I feel guilty that I get to live in such a beautiful part of the world. 

And I couldn't resist posting these pictures that I took on the way to the retreat.

The healing started before I even arrived at the retreat.

I do feel guilty about living here...but really grateful.

I have to confess...that even after all I've learned, I still don't stop and smell the roses.  Even though I should.  Despite occasional illusions of depth in this blog, basically I think I'm pretty shallow.  Although I have discovered how important it is to be grateful.

This was NOT easy for me to learn.  I used to feel really sorry for myself and all the things that were wrong with my life.  During my recovery from cancer, some wise person suggested that I keep a gratitude journal.  So I bought one, and I forced myself to write in it every single day for an entire year. 

There was a page for each day, and a space for me to write down 3 things a day that I felt grateful for.  No one would see this but me.  I approached this assignment like some kind of cosmic SAT test.  As if someone was going to check that I didn't keep repeating the same answers--gratitude for my two healthy kids, a good husband, having enough to eat, that kind of basic stuff.  I felt compelled to come up with new things, and I really struggled with it on lots of days.  I didn't grasp the concept of gratitude at that point, and reading my journal today would sound kind of pathetic: I got a great parking space.  The cleaners managed to remove the coffee stain on my blouse.  Ben and Jerry came out with a new flavor ice cream.  After the year, this commitment felt like a big deal, and I stopped.

10 years later, it would still be a big deal to keep a gratitude journal.  The hardest part now would be picking 3 things a day from the multitide of choices.  I'm back from the healing retreat and I couldn't begin to list all the things I'm grateful for.  But I think at the top of my list today would be:

1. Sharing this experience with two friends--Carol and Shoosh

2.  Getting home safely and getting calls today from both of my children

3.  Colin Powell endorsing Barack Obama

So about the roses.  I don't grow them because I have a black thumb.  Many times I will rush by the most gorgeous roses without even noticing them.  Once in awhile I'll pause to look at them.  I'm grateful we have things as beautiful as roses in this world.  But I still don't stop and smell them.  Because actually I have a really poor sense of smell.

Fasting and Forks

Most of the time lately I wake up thinking about the election.  Or about how much further the economy tanked while we were still asleep in California.   I wake up today and none of that negative stuff is on my mind.  And although it's Yom Kippur, I'm also not thinking about confessing my transgressions or appreciating the precious gift of life.  The sad truth is that I'm shallow enough that none of those substantial items is on my mind.  Instead, on the day of the Jewish calendar specifically set aside for reflection and spirituality, I am thinking about forks.  Not that forks aren't important--especially when there is a piece of chocolate cake on the end.  But today I can't eat chocolate cake, or anything else.  I am fasting for Yom Kippur.  So I can't use a fork all day but I am counting them because tonight I have people coming over to break the fast.

Like almost all Jewish traditions and holidays, this occasion centers around food.  We spend an entire day not eating, and then we spend a night over-eating.  What can I say, it's Jewish.

This is one of the rare times that I entertain.  Which is a pretty loose definition of the term "entertain."  I cook food. I buy a little more.  I make sure I have enough forks.   People come over.  They bring more food.  And then everyone eats --way more than they should. 

If you are a very religious Jew, you cannot count forks on Yom Kippur.  You also cannot eat, drive, work, cook, use the phone, carry money.  We had a friend in Los Angeles whose wife had a baby on Yom Kippur.  He was at the hospital and wanted to let the rest of his family know about the birth.  But he couldn't ride in a car, and couldn't use the phone.  So he walked home--8 miles--to tell them.  It makes the story a little less dramatic to mention that this was his 6th child.  But still it's pretty amazing.

The rabbi who led the service I attended today also walked to temple.  For the first time in many, many years I was at a more Orthodox service where the women and men sit completely separated and out of sight of each other.  This is the way my father grew up, and I thought about the irony today if my father could have seen me there. 

He was so upset when I married V, a non-Jew, that he refused to come to my wedding or speak to me afterwards for nearly a year. I think maybe he thought I would abandon Judaism.  The irony is that I did the opposite.  Marrying a non-Jew brought me closer than I had been before.  I felt far more conscious of being Jewish, and worked harder to keep the traditions alive for my children. 

Today I fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum for American Jews;  on Yom Kippur, I go to services and I also count forks.  The people who gathered in my house tonight were all born Jewish, but they all have different ways of being Jewish.   I only wish my father had lived to see that I ultimately found my way to be Jewish--that includes both fasting, and forks.   

Making the List

Like Jews all over the world, I haven't eaten since sunset last night.  No food. No drink.  Not even water.  This is part of the ritual Jews observe every year to commemorate Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year.

I'm not very observant ; but I fast every Yom Kippur because that is part of who I am, and part of the way I absorb the meaning of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

This day is set aside to atone for our sins; take stock of what we've done wrong, and ask forgiveness.  Another important part of Yom Kippur is a concept that might be unique to Judaism--on this day, Jews ask God to inscribe us in the Book of Life for another year.

I always imagined the Book of Life very literally, as a huge book with a long list of names.  Probably alphabetical.   I sat in temple every year reciting the familiar prayers, assuming my name was there, along with all the other P's.

Until the year I sat--sad, scrawny and self conscious, wearing a new wig since losing my hair two weeks earlier.  The prayers were the same; but Yom Kippur was completely different.   It all felt not familiar, but fearful.  Would I be inscribed in the Book of Life?  Would I make the list?

There had been lots of times I'd wanted my name on a list.  Athletic teams.  College admissions.  Sororities.  Parties.  Private schools.  Those other lists seemed so trivial now, compared to the only list that mattered.  I was surrounded by people, an entire congregation.  Yet I was alone and helpless, wondering if these ancient prayers and rituals had the power to lift me out of despair.  This year I didn't mentally ask to be on the list---I begged, silently and desperately, as tears poured down my face.  

Cancer wasn't the only thing I was worried about keeping me off the list.  There was the other Yom Kippur list: the mental list of all the things we have done wrong.  And that year, my list was especially long.  I had uprooted my children from their dad.  From their home.  Their school.  Their friends.  I had put them in new schools, in a new community with a new step-father.  I was working around the clock and had limited time for them.  Had my list of sins taken me off the list for life?  To make matters worse, I was weak from chemo and my doctor had forbidden me from fasting.  So for the first time in my life, I had gone to Yom Kippur services with a full stomach.  Would that disqualify me?  Was a bagel a deal-breaker?

From a distance of years, it's easier to look back and remember the pain of that memorable Yom Kippur....and I'm grateful beyond words that I've been inscribed each year in the Book of Life.  From that time, cancer put a different spin on Yom Kippur--just  as it altered everything else. 

The Fear Factor

I'll leave debate analysis to the pundits and bloggers.  You know what I think anyway.  And since he looked so presidential, for the first time I am allowing myself to imagine: President Obama.

I read a comment on a blog a few weeks ago and it spoke to me so profoundly that I saved it, although I have no idea who wrote it.  The commenter said:  "When you look at the picture of Barack Obama's parents, you can see that these two people don't belong together.  They came together to do one very important thing--create this extraordinary person, Barack Obama."

At another dark time in our history when we desperately needed healing, our country was blessed with a man of destiny: Abraham Lincoln.  Maybe it's leftover sixties liberal idealism, but I believe that Obama could also be a man touched by fate, with the capacity to heal this country--not only at home, but to present a new face of America abroad.  To show the world that America's moral authority is back on track; that we have humility and hope rather than aggresssion and arrogance; that we are a country of peace and not war.

I enjoy the moment of reflection and pride and hope.  While it lasts.  But when things seem to be going well, something else often seems to happen: I worry. 

This used to be a constant pattern in my life when I could not seem to accept the idea that things might go smoothly.  Hand in hand, joy and fear came along during the early days of my first marriage, the births of my two children, my second marriage to V.  

I thought I've evolved; but as the polls started going up recently , I began to sense a familiar nagging worry.    And then, after the debate which seems to portend an Obama victory, fear speaks up:   Things are great for Obama now.  But there is so much hatred in the world.  What if something bad happens?  

My husband V doesn't worry like this, and he thinks this attitude is programmed into my Jewish DNA.    Maybe he's right.

And maybe this is an appropriate time to think about this.  Tonight begins Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in the Jewish calendar.  It's the day when Jews atone for their sins, and ask to be inscribed in the Book of Life for the coming year--an opportunity to pray that Barack Obama's name is included, instead of just worrying about it.