The 2024 Gardens: Part 2

Yeah, not a pretty sight

As we move into late May, several things have become acutely obvious. In no particular order, because they are all important:

• If we don't get a move on it right now, then the plants I bought at Miller's a few weeks ago (peppers and tomatoes; more on that later) are not going to do well. 
• In part because I got to Miller's so relatively late in the planting season, the availability of the specific types of peppers and tomatoes I was looking for (some of the more popular ones, clearly) was less. If nothing else, this made me finally cut back on the number of plants I intend to grow. 
• Because all the gardening last year came to a screeching halt last August when I was hospitalized and did not pick up "early" this spring because I am still regaining strength and capacity, the gardens are a mess. A. Mess. We have an electric rototiller; Warren suggested that we try to clear as much of the kitchen garden as possible BEFORE we rototill it so that we make it a little harder for the weeds to spring back immediately. He is also concerned that I personally do not have the strength to rototill. I have begun clearing the kitchen garden by hand. What. A. Chore. For lots of reasons, we have to have those plants in the ground by the end of this Saturday and at some point I may say to heck with the whole garden right now; let's just clean out the area we need for those, and then finish cleaning up the rest as soon as possible after that for the basil bed and other things we will be sowing.
• The likelihood of our using the Hej Garden for any purpose this year is slim at best. Besides the issue of having to clear it, I don't know if I have the energy to plant it and care for it. So I have to rethink the layout of the kitchen garden in more than one way. That may mean buying more zucchinis at the Farmer's Markets around the county this summer. I can live with that. 
• Even the flower gardens in the backyard—the one that runs alongside the back of the house and the one further back in the yard against the pine trees—were left to weeds given the medical messes. I did a pretty rough clearing of the one in the back of the house: not pretty. 

Some of the debris from the flowerbed behind the house

I know there are more things, but that's a start! Between the time I started this post (late afternoon) and as I am finishing it (mid-evening), Warren and I sat down for supper and he acknowledged my let's-clear-the-bare-minimum-and-get-those-plants-in-the-ground-now approach may be for the best. So after he comes in from mowing the lawn, I will show him my layout from last year and see what his thoughts are about placement this year. He usually leaves all of that part of gardening up to me, but a few weeks ago suggested some changes that made sense. 

Because these plants really, really need to get into their garden home! 

Looking for their summer home

At some point soon, I will spell out what I bought (basil seeds, anyone?) and what ended up planted where. But not tonight and, with even the bare minimum plan in place, probably not for the next few nights. 

An Addendum to my Money Thoughts

 

Clarifying those pennies

After posting yesterday, I had an exchange of comments with Sam, who blogs at Sam Squared (yes, go read her; her reentering the blogging world has given me inspiration as I try to regain my footing). Sam marveled that I met my bills on my small pension and I elaborated a bit more on where my dollars went. A huge part of my being able to do so is the privilege of being in a stable relationship with someone who shares my money outlooks (no debt, not a spender) and who owns his own home mortgage-free (so no debt there either; also a huge privilege). Sam, unexpectedly widowed a little over a year ago, does not have the luxury of a working spouse; plans that she and her husband were putting into place for retirement were abruptly upended. Because of my cancer, Warren and I entered this relationship knowing that, even without this being a later-in-life union, we had to discuss and review regularly the hard reality that I will drop out of the financial picture earlier than "typical."

I also shared that had Warren and I not come together, which gave me the gift of stable, free  housing, I would likely (a) have continued to work, despite my diminishing health and (b), even with drawing my Social Security, but certainly if I were only drawing the small pension, I would probably be living with my dad on the outskirts of town. I am very close to my dad, but trust me, we would drive one another crazy. 

I recognize those are privileges, even a fallback plan of living with a parent, that I have that many do not.

I also realized, later in the evening as I reflected on money, that I had financial assistance from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for some of that time, which reimbursed me my health insurance costs (Medicare and the Supplemental Plan). Face palm. OF COURSE I could get by on the small pension because my insurance costs were covered. In fact, I have assistance for insurance reimbursement from another source for July 2023-July 2024; my medical messes and dealing with that stress have kept me from tracking down and submitting my vouchers, but I will get them in within the next few weeks. That reimbursement made a huge difference in my finances and my ability to meet my bills on a small income.

Money.

Money Thoughts

Per the lyric from "Cabaret," money makes the world go around.

Maybe yes. Maybe no. 

For several months, and not as a result of my lengthy medical matter (thank you, Medicare and my AARP/UHC Supplemental Plan G for paying every penny of the costs, including the Supplemental paying the $1600 hospitalization deductible that Medicare does not pay; that alone more than reimbursed me for the annual costs of the Supplemental Plan), I have been having what I can only call financial PTSD moments. [Please note: as someone with diagnosed PTSD, I am not using that phrase lightly. I have written openly about my financial/money trauma before—not a pretty story. But I don't live in that world anymore, thankfully.]

I made the decision last fall (perhaps as a result of the medical experience) to start drawing Social Security in 2024. Just before I disappeared down the medical maw, we had made an appointment to meet with a local financial planner and look at where we were financially now and in the future.  Warren and I, as a later-in-life relationship, keep separate and separated accounts. We share household expenses but we have no joint assets other than our love for one another. The financial planner had that information, as well as a thumbnail sketch of my medical history and its impact on my life expectancy. She had numbers for our expenses, our account balances, everything. I had a small bequest from a former client that was marking time in a low-interest account; could I put that to better use? My monthly income of $736 (last year; it is now up to $753) was a small pension. Because I had no debt and am not a spender, I never finished any month in the red even at that income level. I was past Full Retirement Age for Social Security purposes. So when we finally sat down with the planner (there was a long delay due to my being in the hospital and my subsequent recovery), she showed us projections based upon our both reaching our late 80s (highly unlikely for me, entirely possible for Warren) and upon my dying somewhere in the next decade (highly likely) and Warren continuing to live into his 90s. And that is without my going back to work, among other things. She gave us both praise: neither of us carry any debt. Nothing. Rien. Nada. 

And, no surprise in large part because of having no debt and neither of being Big Spenders, there was plenty of money to carry us into those faraway years. 

Before meeting with her, I ran the numbers between drawing Social Security starting this year or waiting until I was 70 in 2026. While waiting until I was 70 would give me—well, Warren, because 70 is a stretch for me—a larger monthly amount, the difference did not offset the benefit of having more money coming in monthly starting now and being able to direct it into savings and small investments. I applied for Social Security to start January of this year; easy peasy. Approval followed quickly. And that's when the PTSD kicked in.

What the heck? 

I was struggling. Not with the decision to start taking Social Security. Not with the concern that having more money would change my lifestyle. No, I was having flashbacks to the profligate spending spouse of yore who used to excoriate me for not making enough money to support him in a style in which he felt entitled, to the months of not being able to work at all after my initial diagnosis, to the financial constraints my health imposed that I could do nothing about, to all of that.

In past years, I have written about keeping stringent money controls over my finances. In 2017, I had to replace a car and I refused to go into debt to do so. I was treating my NW contingent to tickets home in the summer, another expenditure I refused to charge. And back in those days, I started every calendar year with an insurance deductible of $1500 (Medicare/Supplemental Plan annual deductible? $240 for 2024) that I needed to pay.  That was when I started printing out my pay stub every two weeks and assigning every dollar a job. (If any of you are Dave Ramsey fans, you will recognize that language; for the record, I did not get it from Dave Ramsey.) That system lasted until my very last pay stub in 2021. But even after that, I have continued to track my income, my outgo, and, yes, balance my checking account monthly, an activity that earned an incredulous gasp from a colleague who said he hadn't balanced his in years because he knew he always had plenty of money in it. Well, I didn't have that privilege for a long, long time. (I still balance it. And I still keep my "accounts on [my] thumb nail," as Thoreau admonished us.)

So back to the PTSD issue. What got me through it? 

Deep breaths. Seriously. Long walks (impacted and impeded by broken wrist, more surgery, and other issues, but, hey, I am building back up). Seriously. Watching financial videos (George Kamel, who is part of the Ramsey team, is a favorite) and hearing repeatedly both in videos and in articles: get-out-of-debt-now (a goal I met years ago). 

And, touching on these different sources, hearing some stats and numbers that calmed me down tremendously and finally allowed me to move forward without being triggered.

One came from Geoff Schmidt, a CPA who has a YouTube channel (Holy Schmidt!) that focuses mostly on retirees and retirement, either putting yourself in the best shape for retirement or, once in retirement, managing your finances so that you do not run out of money. His factoid? Per a 2022 Census Bureau analysis, 71% of all retirees in the United States carry an average of $19,888 in non-mortgage debt. Car loans, credit cards, who the heck know what, but 71%. (Yes, my jaw dropped.) He then said: Get. Out. Of. Debt. Now.

Not a problem here.

The other snippet came from George Kamel, who has a YouTube channel by the same name and whose sense of humor and blunt approach I enjoy. A Millennium, George is part of the Dave Ramsey empire and pushes the Ramsey Baby Steps formula to put yourself on the right path financially as early as possible. And yes, getting out of debt is a critical Ramsey Baby Step. (Again, not an issue here.) But the snippet he recently shared was that Americans annually spent $1800 per person on clothing. 

Annually. Per person.

Yes, I know. Averages are averages: many spend way more, many spend way less. But $1800? 

When I shared that with Warren over supper, I added, "I haven't spent $1800 on clothing, including shoes, over the last 30 years combined." (Katrina, if you are reading this, I know you are shaking your head.) We have had a lot of fun with that stat, including my sharing it with our neighbors, who tend to view clothing purchases the way we do. Mark was headed to pick up his elderly mother (she's 95) to take her to a funeral and pointed out that his suit jacket was easily 30 years old. "I had it relined once. And yeah, it's starting to fray. But you know what? It does fine for how rarely I wear it." I shared that I regularly wear a sweater that my son Ben wore in 6th grade—in 1997. That was when Mary spoke up and said in her early days (engineering/sciences), she bought a lot of professional clothes so the men would understand she was a professional. She then admitted that at some point, preparing to move, she had 28 or more wardrobe boxes in the attic, filled to the gills with suits, blouses, shoes, purses, and so on. All of us started laughing. I said when I graduated from law school in 1981, I bought one suit. One. And owned one pair of dress shoes. One. Lots of laughter. Mark looked at her and said, "I don't know if I would have married you if I had known you had all those clothes!" More laughter. 

It is mid-April and the PTSD episodes have faded. I still have a lot going on in my life, we still have a lot going on in our life together, and Warren has a WHOLE lot going on in his life. Those things carry their own weight and baggage and some of them I will be sharing in posts to come. But PTSD isn't one of them.

And neither is going out to buy $1800 worth of clothes!  

This Year's Garden, Part One

 

Yesterday was really warm. Warm enough outside that a sweatshirt without a jacket over it was plenty. (Today, at least as I type this, is also warm, but the temperature will fall later today.) Warren did a fair amount of his shop work outside on the back patio, which his shop (the repurposed garage) opens directly onto. He had instrument parts to spray, and I could hear the telltale rattle of the spray paint can as he shook it walking back and forth.

Our next door neighbors were out in the far back part of their yard with a large measuring tape spread across the grass. Having baked sourdough crackers to share, I walked a container over to them and got to see what was going on. Warren joined me as well.

They had staked out a 10' x 20' area of grass, with a continuous string connecting three of the four stakes. "We're trying corn this year," said Maura, nodding at the plot.

Adam chimed in. "From what we read, you need at least a ten by ten plot so the corn gets fertilized, so we went slightly larger. We're planning on enclosing it with chicken wire to try to keep the critters out." He looked at the grassy plot. "Getting that turned over will take some time." 

Maura turned to me. "So have you ever grown corn?"

As a matter of fact, I have grown corn in town at the house I lived in when my children were younger, just a few blocks from where I live now. I thought back to that long ago experience and said, "Yes and the biggest issue was the squirrels." 

Eyebrows went up. 

"Squirrels would eat the shoots as they came up,"I explained. "I mean, they didn't get them all, or even most of them, but I learned to really dislike squirrels."

Alice, their young daughter, spoke up. "We could put a top over the garden to keep the squirrels out."

No, not a solution, said Adam.

We talked gardens for a while longer: what they planned (hoped) to grow, what I plan (hope) to grow. I blogged very little about last year's gardens, for many reasons, and am hoping this year will be more satisfying and more productive.

Adam mentioned they had ordered "a lot" of peat moss starter sets. "More than we thought." Would I like one? 

Absolutely.

They turned back to their corn-patch-to-be. Warren headed back to his shop. I talked to our neighbors on the other side, who were also out enjoying the sun and warmth, then headed inside. The afternoon rolled on.

Much later that day, Warren came into the kitchen with a tray in his hand and a quizzical look on his face.

"Peat pots? Are these for you?" He had missed Adam's offer outside.

Yes, peat pots! And a starter tray! 

Just a few days earlier, I had bought a bag of Seed Starting Mix. I don't start all the garden inside like I used to; I buy most of my major starts (tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli) at a local farm market. But after my pitched battle with squirrels over the zucchini last spring, I'm starting the zucchini inside and will use the peat pots for that. During our travels last summer, I picked a few flower heads gone to seed from ditches along the road. I have been saving small yogurt cups and larger ice cream containers through the winter and will use those filled with the starter mix to try to sprout the flowers.

Even with climate change, it is still too early in central Ohio to start planting a garden. The farm market I mentioned above, a family run one on the edge of Delaware, will not even open until April 1. I still have to put some thought into what and how much I am growing. I will talk with my dad to see if he wants me to plant anything for him; at almost 89, he may not be doing much gardening this year, but I also know what it means to him to have a few plants out in his back garden. A friend I just talked with mentioned she would be gone too much of the summer to try to keep tomato plants going; I reassured her tomatoes would not be a problem. 

So yes, there is still planning to do. But the warmth and the neighbors and the talk and the peat pots have lightened my heart and stirred my thoughts. 

Spring is coming. So is gardening. 

Winding Down Another Week in Another World

It has over six weeks since I was in my office at Juvenile Court, six weeks since I was last in a grocery store (well, any store), and almost six weeks since my oncologist put me on lockdown.

It is almost six weeks since Warren closed the Symphony office and moved the base of operations to our home.

And the verdict is?

I'm fine.

We're fine.

The second floor of our house is now home to the Symphony North Annex and one of three satellite offices of the Delaware County Juvenile Court Mediation Department. Warren puts in far longer hours than I do, both because I am only a part-time employee and because even though the Symphony, like every other Symphony in this country (and most in the world at this point), is locked down, there is still work, not the least of which is writing grants and trying to imagine what live music will look like going forward. Never one to waste a good crisis, Warren is making plans and alternative plans for the Symphony's future.

So what does life in a time of shelter-at-home pandemic look like for us?

Well, it's quieter, certainly. I mean that literally. The streets are quieter because car traffic in our town of approximately 40,000 is a sliver of what it was in the beginning of March. Our downtown, our main routes, and even US 23, which slices through just east of downtown and only three blocks from our house, have far fewer vehicles on them. As a result, the birds are now providing a soundtrack to daily life which, for a change, is the main sound, not just background sound.

But life is also figuratively quieter. I don't have to balance work, chores, social obligations, community commitments, whatever. My only for-certain calendar events are our weekly Court Zoom meeting and my oncology appointment with infusion every four weeks. A very occasional webinar might get noted on my calendar, but that is the exception, not the rule. A number of my friends have commented (in letters, in emails, in social media) how much slower life is and how much more satisfying the days often are because the layer of busyness we all live with is removed. (This enforced time of quiet, of less doing, is also providing me observations about my health that are both insightful and troublesome, but that is a topic for another day.)

So, besides working, what else does one do in these strange times? If you are Warren and me, you move by hand and hard work the perennials that you plopped down in the vegetable garden in the fall to winter over before putting them in a flowerbed. These were end-of-season markdowns at a local nursery.

Which season?

Fall 2014, but who's counting?

Warren dug the holes by hand because it is not possible to rent a rototiller from our hardware store right now. I helped lug the dug-up plants around, helped replant them, but all those holes, not to mention digging the flowers up? That was Warren.

Our vegetable garden space (above) has easily doubled. Those perennials—lilies, coneflowers, butterfly weed—had thrived, but were out of hand and took up about 2/3rds of the space. I am looking forward to seeing what we make of the expanded vegetable garden, but that time is still a few weeks away.

This is the new bed, now in the back of our yard.

We will put down a heavy layer of mulch to kill off the grass. This bed makes me smile every single time I look at it. It is my favorite garden for its raggedy spirit and for all the love that went into every one of those holes.

I walked out this morning to check on it and found everything in order. The coneflowers especially have settled in and are thriving.

And so are we.

A Decade Out And What's Next?

The blogger at Plough Monday, to which I subscribe, recently announced he was closing the blog. His notice was short and went right to the point:

Hello all. I am closing my blog, Plough Monday. I am doing so because I want to redirect my writing efforts towards publishing in literary journals and magazines.  And I have found that my writing here works to undercut this redirection.

My blog will be visible for a short while, and then it will close.

Thanks for reading.

I told Warren that the news gave me pause. The evening before the Plough Monday announcement, I was looking back at my older posts and I realized I have been blogging for over a decade. My first post was in March, 2009.

A decade.

That's a lot of words. That's a lot of posts, this being the 723rd.

And what about my writing? My other writing?

What does that even mean: my other writing?

There is the middle school novel, now about three-quarters done. I recently returned to it for the first time since—wait for it—September 2017.

Yeah, September 2017. But who's counting?

There is the poetry, with my averaging about three submissions a year for the last three years. I am garnering exactly one acceptance a year, the latest being in the Licking River Review.  (I don't know when publication will be.) If I were in the major leagues, that would give me a batting average of .333, which is nothing to sneeze at, but I'm not so sure those same stats hold true in the publication world.

If I spent more time writing poetry and sending it out, would I get more acceptances?

There is my almost monthly column for The Myeloma Beacon. I began writing that in early 2013, over six years ago.

The truth is I wasn't expecting that I would live long enough to see five years of columns, let along be well into my seventh year.

Do I hit reset? Do I redirect my efforts?

I'd like to finish that novel. (I have drafts of other novels, aimed for the adult reader, but this one is near and dear to my heart.)

I'd like to write more poetry. (I came home from Nashville with a poem roughed out, which I tore out of the notebook and stuck in the pile of other poems I have roughed out but not returned to in too many weeks and months.)

I'd like to figure out how to write more. But I also know myself well enough to know I hold other values dear into which I put my time and energy. My marriage. Family. Friends. This community. Reading. Our Symphony. My work at Court. Pies. My garden.

So for now, I am just thinking about the Plough Monday announcement, just thinking about my writing, and just thinking about...what's next.

Gratitude

Years ago, when I was in the therapy that I attribute with saving my life, my therapist Doug said that one of his goals was to work with me on not marrying or having a relationship with the same sort of man I tended to gravitate to, none of whom were good for me in the long run.

Doug would so pleased with my marriage to Warren in so very many ways. Being with Warren broke the cycle of abuse on all fronts and gave me, for the first time in my life, a stable, sheltering, supportive, encouraging relationship.

I still marvel at us.

In the last two days there have been two moments that drove home the love and support we share. The first was yesterday at supper. Warren, with a suppressed grin in his voice, shared with me the results of the Symphony's Ohio Arts Council review (to which one can listen in by phone) for operations funding (as compared to special projects). As he shared the strong, stunning, positive comments from the reviewers—observations about thinking outside the box, community engagement, diversifying the programming, the groundbreaking therapeutic drumming program, his leadership role and planning for succession, the Getty and NEA grants he has procured for the group—I found myself in tears. These reviewers put into words the strength and passion Warren brings to the Symphony and underscored how significant his tenure as Executive Director has been in helping move the organization from being a small, somewhat average arts group to being a recognized regional force and has moved Warren from anonymity to being known at the state level.

Warren then capped the OAC notes off with notes from his discussion with Nick Pozek at the League of American Orchestras earlier that day. Nick reached out to Warren to start a major session with Futures Fund grantees (of which our Symphony is one) at the annual LAO convention this June by—wait for it—leading the group through a drumming exercise and discussing how the drumming program is used for social good (my emphasis).

My tears? That my hardworking husband who I have championed for years, long before we became a couple, is recognized by his peers and colleagues not only at a state but also a national level for his innovations, his passions, his dedication to not just our orchestra but to this community.

Tears of pride.

The second set of tears fell this morning. Passover starts tonight at sundown. I will not be participating in a seder, the ritual meal, for lots of reasons, many of which tie to my health limitations. We live in a decidedly non-Jewish town and going to and from Columbus for a full evening is beyond me. I told Warren over breakfast that had I planned better, I would have gotten in touch with the Chaplain's Office at the local college and offered a seder in our home to however many Jewish students wanted to attend (the college does not have very much programming for Jewish students and often arranges for them to head to Columbus for major holidays).

As we talked, I thought back to the hurdles thrown up in my long-term marriage to practicing Judaism, the opposition to sharing it with my sons, and I shook my head. My voice breaking, I said that I missed seder, that it wasn't a two-person activity (in my opinion), and, well, I just felt sad.

Warren looked at me and asked in the gentlest voice possible, "Is there anything I can do to help you feel better tonight?"

That is when the tears fell, and they are crowding my eyes as I type this. Warren is from a very different religious background, we are on the cusp of the major concert week of the season (the finale concert), and both of us are running on fumes much of the time right now, Warren more so than me. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to nod and ask me what the day held. Instead, he reached over, literally and figuratively, to see what if anything he could do for me for Passover.

Tears of gratitude.

I told Warren that next year, assuming I am still around (always a tricky assumption), I will contact the college early and we will host a seder.

One ends a seder, after retelling the story of Passover and sharing a meal, with the words "Next year in Jerusalem!"

Jerusalem, hell. Next year in Delaware, with my Warren beside me, with tears of gratitude in my eyes.

Where That Fork in the Road Went

Seven years ago, I wrote about mom showing signs of of dementia and our first family conversations with my dad about it.

Seven years ago.

Over the many months since then, my mom's cognitive capacity continued to decline, sometimes in fits and starts, sometimes in steep, rushing leaps, and sometimes in barely perceptible shifts. And through it all, my dad soldiered on, taking care of and looking after the woman he loved, even as the woman he had known for most of his life had all but disappeared.

Not that we were negligent as children. My brothers, my sisters-in-law, my beloved husband, and I all kept tabs on dad, asking him what help he needed, urging him to call upon us. "I can do it for now," he'd reply. "I'll let you know when I need help."

We'd talk to him about bringing in some outside services, even on an occasional basis. Meals On Wheels? Someone to clean house? Anything?

"No, I'm not there yet," dad would reply. "I don't want to upset your mom with bringing in someone, and I can handle it."

And he did handle it—"it" being the myriad of daily tasks and duties to keep the household going, to keep mom oriented, amused, and cared for, to care for himself, the too large house, the oversize yard. He handled it and handled it, despite the enormous toll on his own health, right up until about ten days ago. That was when mom fell getting up in the middle of the night, breaking three ribs. That episode unraveled into a series of squad calls for assistance getting her in and out of bed, trips to the nearby ER, consults with social workers, and long, serious faces on the hospital personnel. It culminated in the day when he went to the bathroom and came out to find her gone, only to go outside and find her on the ground where she had fallen, hitting her face, when in her dementia she had decided to take out the garbage. With squad help, he got her into the house. That night, she woke him, telling him she felt she was dying. We all spent a long hard, day at the ER again, while decisions were made.

We spent the rest of the week with mom in a local rehab/memory unit: understaffed, shabby, institutional, and, unfortunately, full of bad memories for dad from 30 years ago when his own father was in the same place. They treated mom well, but it was not a solution.

And then my brother Mark and his wife Jackie did some research and found a memory care unit in a new, home-like senior facility in their town (20 miles away). Dad went out to tour it with them, then came back to town and announced he was moving mom.

We made the move yesterday, "we" being dad, Mark, Jackie, my other sister-in-law Kate, and I. The facility director was calm and helpful: make it look like home (most of their bedroom suite of the last 60 years went over), let us transport her from there to here, please don't come for the first five or so days. So we spent the morning setting up mom's new room, and then went away. I was at the local facility with Kate when the new director showed up to pick up mom; mom was thrilled to be going for a ride. She said hello to us and kept right on going. She reminded me of a little kid: so eager to have the new experience that she didn't even look back.

Dad is struggling with the decision and holds to the hope that mom will be "better" and he can bring her back home. Mark is worried dad is waffling. I suggested we just let the dust settle and let him voice his fears and wishes without trying to point out that mom is never going to get better and this is best. We are all in chill out mode right now.

After I finished up the parent-related tasks yesterday afternoon, I headed down the road to visit Aunt Ginger in her memory unit. Ginger was in good spirits and we had a long chat. She was convinced she had just moved from her apartment a week ago (it was well over a year ago) and was stunned when I said "you've been here for over a year." She talked about her job, one she retired from over 30 years ago and mixed then  ("I retired early, didn't I?") and now ("I'm glad I retired last month. That was getting hard on me.") and then included her friend Esther, who was sitting in lounge with us, in the sweep of those she had worked with for so many years.

Esther didn't mind; she was telling me how her mother had told her this morning that she needed to wear her new jeans. (Esther is in her 80s or 90s as well.)

"And I did, April!," she said, beaming and pointing to her jeans.

Esther was happy. Ginger was happy. I was happy. We were all happy in the memory unit.

Here's hoping my parents' long road to here is likewise lined with happy moments at this time of life.

Books And More Books

The advantage of being housebound is that I have no guilt in spending hours and hours reading.

Here are the newest books to add to the "finished reading" list:

24. The Lost City Of The Monkey God by Douglas Preston (the 21st century discovery of La Ciudad del Jaguar in Honduras and more about the parasitical disease Leishmania than I ever wanted to know)

25. Danny The Champion Of The World by Roald Dahl (more anarchy from Dahl; thank you, Amanda, for the great recommendation!) 

26. Everything Here Is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee (sisters, life, love, alienation and mental illness in one beautifully written novel) 

27. Crǣft: An Inquiry Into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts by Alexander Landlands (a well-written, thoughtful exploration of the historical role and deeper meaning of crǣfts (yes, "crafts" but not "crafts") and what we have lost in our modern world by abandoning them)

28. This Fine Place So Far From Home: Voices of Academics From the Working Class, edited by C. L. Barney Dews and Carolyn Leste Law (this work moved me so deeply that I am writing a separate post about it)

I also read about four-fifths of They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, a collection of essays by Columbus writer Hanif Abdurraqb. Many of the essays are reviews of rap, hop hop, emo (yes) and other music genres I am largely unfamiliar with; Abdurraqb ties the music reviews with observations of his life and modern America through the eyes of an African-American man. I bogged down in the music reviews, but caught the other essays, including "My First Police Stop" and "They Will Speak Loudest of You After You've Gone." Just superb writing. And thanks to Abdurraqb, I am now introduced to Chance, the Rapper and his most excellent release Coloring Book.  (Yes, Anne Konarski Anderson, you read it here first!) Because I didn't finish every essay, I'm not adding this to my list, but I came damn close. 

Warren continues to shoulder the household, the Symphony, and me. Not to mention run to the library as reserved books become available. My love and appreciation of him are boundless. 

An Update From Laid-Up Land

I am six days out from my surgery to repair a torn tendon in my right foot. The surgery went very well. It remains to be seen whether I undid the surgery when I took a hard fall in the middle of the night two days later, coming down full force on my poor foot. The medical professionals told me that in 95% of the cases, no damage is done, but I have to wait several weeks until I am in physical therapy for them to assess whether I am in that unlucky 5%.

Other than that, recovery has gone well. Due to my tendency to bruise easily (courtesy of myeloma and lots of treatment), I am covered in bruises, including, to my dismay, several around my left knee where the compression sock that one is advised to wear ends. I get around with a hands-free crutch and a knee caddy (a scooter) which my longtime friend Katrina advised me to get. I don't know if that is the best advice Katrina has ever given me, but it certainly ranks high on the list!

For the first few days post-surgery, my dear sister-in-law Margaret was here to keep me company. That was a godsend in more than one way. She and I are very close and I relish any opportunity to spend time with her. She was also invaluable in that Warren had rehearsals, an educational session, and a concert that were scheduled months before my surgery and could not be scrubbed. Margaret kept me company while Warren took care of those matters; she even took me to the post-fall medical appointment so I could be assessed.

Warren, of course, is doing yeoman's duty taking care of the household, taking care of the Symphony, and taking care of me. I worry about adding to his load, which is never light, but he dismisses my concerns. I will admit: it is very hard to be this constrained.

And there have been visitors to break up the quiet: Tonya, Cindy, Roger. I even hosted Poetry Night on Monday.

So what am I doing in the rest of my leisure time? Reading, of course. Here are the titles I have finished since my last post:
18. Mathilda by Roald Dahl (anarchy at its best. I'm surprised there haven't been more attempts to ban Dahl's book)
19. Grant by Ron Chernow (a masterful biography of Ulysses Grant; I was convinced after finishing it that he is our most underrated president ever)
20. This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female and Feminist in (White) America by Morgan Jenkins (another entry from the reading list of women of color authors; superb writing guaranteed to make you think not just twice but three or four times)
21. Heart Berries by Teresa Marie Mailhot (a heart wrenching, gut wrenching memoir by an indigenous author who weaves together her tribal history, family history, and personal history into this telling)
22. Feel Free by Zadie Smith (essays by a powerful writer, also one of the titles on the women of color reading list)
23. Ariel/The Restored Edition by Sylvia Plath (thank you again, Frieda Hughes, for rescuing your mother from frozen martyrdom. Hughes's strong, deftly written preface explains the layout of the original British edition of Ariel, the original US edition of Ariel, and the differences thematically and chronologically between those editions (laid out by Ted Hughes) and Ariel as laid out in complete manuscript by Plath)

I am in the middle of a most unlike nonfiction work called The Lost City of the Monkey God.  I kid you not.

Life will change again this Friday when I go into a cast. It will still be non-weight bearing, so I will still be reliant on the crutch and the scooter. Next Tuesday I hope to return to work. I will not be in the schools for several more weeks, but this will at least put me back in the mix.

One step (well, one hop, or one scoot) at a time.

Updates: Books and Money

Back at the start of January, I wrote about money and what I thought 2018 would hold both in terms in income and outgo. Well, January is two days behind us and here is where things stand.

Combined groceries and household (soap, sandwich bags, shampoo) for January; $159.44. Of that, $147.60 represents food, $11.84 is what we spent on household items. So I came in under the $175.00 a month I dreamed about but was skeptical I would hit.

The surprise item was eating out. I commented in that earlier blog that we rarely ate out, which is true. That being said, we ate out twice (one lunch, one breakfast) in January. Those meals, along with two post-chemo fast food stops (so we both can get some lunch in us before Warren heads back to his office and I head home to unwind) and a cup of tea with a friend at a local coffee shop, came to a whopping $44.14 ($4.00 of which represented tips). Holy smokes! For us, that's a huge amount. (I'm not being facetious. That is a huge amount for us for a month, unless we are on the road to/from Mayo.)

However, I can say with pretty good certainty that the February figure for eating out (including take out) will be significantly less because in the last two weeks we also got to the bottom of my foot issues.  The MRI revealed a badly torn peroneal tendon in my right foot (it's around the ankle). Next Thursday I go into surgery to have it repaired. I will be housebound and non-weight bearing for a week, then back at work and non-weight bearing for three more weeks, and then in a weight bearing boot for another three to four weeks after that. There's not going to be a whole lot of coffee dates, let alone lunch or dinners out. (Let's face it: there will be ZERO coffee dates during that time!)

I'm glad the food costs in January were so low, because I have already shelled out a lot of money for doctor appointments, equipment, and my 2018 out of pocket (met) and personal deductible (almost met) for my medical insurance. Ouch.

Good thing there are books. Because reading is what I plan on doing that week I am housebound. Since posting my first ten titles of 2018, I have added to the list. To wit:
11. The Cliff Walk by Don J. Snyder (Subtitled A Memoir of a Job Lost and a Life Found, this was a reread)
12. Corazon de Hojalata/Tin Heart by Margarita Saona (the author's poems about her heart failure and eventual transplant, in Spanish and English)
13. So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo (Read. This. Book. This is one of the 46 titles by women of color I referenced in my last book post)
14. Elmet by Fiona Mozeley (a deftly written, disturbing modern tale set in Yorkshire)
15. Planting Dandelions: Field Notes From a Semi-Domesticated Life by Kyran Pittman (quirky essays by a writer I first met in the pages of Good Housekeeping)
16. Reset: My Fight For Inclusion and Lasting Change by Ellen Pao (Pao fought her termination by a major Silicon Valley venture capital firm; although her lawsuit for gender discrimination was not successful, I read this book thinking "yeah, you lost the battle but you have made major offensive progress in the war.")

After finishing Pao, I started the massive (MASSIVE) tome, The Letters of Sylvia Plath: Volume I: 1940-1956.  For someone like me, who has read most if not all of the Plath biographies, having her letters published without extensive editing and suppression, has been a revelation. Kudos to Frieda Hughes, the daughter and only surviving child of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, for releasing this collection, which takes Sylvia from childhood to her marriage to Hughes. I feel like I am reading and hearing a Sylvia Plath whom I could only catch glimpses of before. Just reading her letters to Ted after their secret marriage gave me a whole new perspective on and appreciation of just how much in love they were and how from the outset they were each other's critics and editors.

The Plath letters weighed in at 1339 pages (not counting the introduction and forward). The book is so imposing and heavy that when I accidentally dropped it on my foot (my left foot, fortunately, not the right), I limped around for 20 minutes.

I finished Plath last night, bringing my 2018 totals to 17. I am two-thirds of the way through Matilda, by Roald Dahl. I have read very few of Dahl's books, including this one, so this has been fun. And as I type out these words, I know that there are three books at the library just waiting to be picked up and two more en route (from branches) that should be in later today or tomorrow. That should get me to the surgery next week and into my convalescence.

Onward to February!

Privilege

Privilege.

Writer Roxane Gay defines it as "the right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor...Privilege is relative and contextual. Few people [in this country] have no privilege at all." (From her essay "Peculiar Benefits, in her book Bad Feminist (2014).) Daniel J. Beal defines it as "a group of unearned cultural, legal, social, and institutional rights extended to a group based on their social group membership. Individuals with privilege are considered to be the normative group, leaving those without access to this privilege invisible, unnatural, deviant, or just plain wrong." (Beal, "Conflict and Cooperation in Diverse Workgroups," 2009.)

I work in a court and see privilege played out in many different ways. I have presented workshops on implicit bias, the kissing cousin of privilege, several times (and will be doing so at a state conference with a co-facilitator in March). That being said, I am like many privileged people in that I swallow hard when I am in a group and someone makes a statement smacking of privilege. While I know I should speak up, I too often don't speak up because I am too uncomfortable and don't want to rock the boat.

So I was both stunned and pleased when I rocked the boat at a recent training session.

The training session was on domestic violence and mediation: how to screen for it, how to address it, what precautions a mediator may need to take if the dynamics of the mediation take a turn for the worse. The facilitator, a well-known and experienced mediator in Columbus, was talking about items in a mediation room that could be turned into weapons, such as metal travel mugs. She related the story from many years ago when she had a young mother with an infant and a worker from Children's Services in the room. The agency worker went to take the child from the mother. The mother was not aware this was happening at the mediation (nor was the mediator). In response, the mother picked up a chair and threw it at the agency worker. Our facilitator assured us the chair did not hit anyone (including the infant) but that she was always careful after that as to what was in the room. She also related that, many years later, she still felt she had failed at that mediation by not making it a safe space for anyone, including the mother.

A few minutes later, an attendee, a woman attorney, spoke up and said the mediator should not consider it a failure. Perhaps she had saved the child from a terrible life. And if nothing else, "the mother showed her true colors in the mediation," said the attendee.

We were all quiet for a moment. I was uncomfortable. But instead of swallowing my discomfort as I so often do, I spoke up.

"I don't think the mother showed her 'true colors' at all," I said. "I'm not sure I would be calm and in control if Children's Services suddenly took my child during a meeting and I wasn't expecting it. Losing control wouldn't make me a bad parent." 

All of us in the room were white, well educated (all but one of us were attorneys), and not struggling with dire poverty. To my knowledge, none of us had had any children removed by an agency. Those are all privileges that the long ago mother may not have had, or may have had some but not all of them.

Privilege is everywhere. It is not inherently evil, just as implicit biases are not inherently evil. But when it raised its head in that training, I'm grateful I found the resolve to say something.

A statement I keep in my office is "speak the truth, even if your voice shakes." I'm learning.

Vulnerable

Trigger warning (which I do not believe in, in principle): This is a personal and political post.

I am feeling very vulnerable these days for lots of reasons. My health is increasingly a question mark. There are many nights I crawl into bed with something—the cancer, the treatment, anything—muscling its way to the top. For several nights now I have reached the flat plain of the mattress with gratitude, hugging it as a shipwreck survivor must cling to the first land she washes up on.

Earlier this week both a Confederate flag and a White Power flag went up outside a house about two blocks from here. Even in our "nice" neighborhood, there are people who want to see people like me—any of us who are "other"—eliminated. The neighborhood response was to write affirming slogans of equity and love and acceptance on the sidewalk of the house next door. The flags came down sometime in the middle of the night, but I doubt it was a one-off incident.

How appropriate that I feel that way these days, and that our community had a polarizing event, because I also feel vulnerable as an American living under the current administration. My safety—personal, religious, medical, physical, you name it—is increasingly at risk. All I think about, especially in light of the just concluded High Holy Days, is I have been guilty for being "aware" but not really "getting" what individuals of color go through every single day of their lives. I am so sorry that until the last several months I have only sympathized and occasionally added my verbal support, but have stayed too quiet otherwise.

I am sorry it took Charlottesville to make public what I'd already suspected but not said aloud since the new administration took over: people of color, Native Americans, LGBTQ individuals, Jews, people in poverty, Muslims, anyone who is "other"—we are all in danger. I am sorry that it took this year's attacks on the American Care Act to point out the wrongfulness of my thinking "oh, they'll never take away protecting those of us with pre-existing conditions because even the most flinty hearted conservative Congressman doesn't want to see people die." I am sorry that it took the threat of a Justice Department headed by Jeff Sessions becoming a daily reality of "where am I not safe now?" or, more correctly, "where are we not safe now?" to catch my attention.

I just read The Wrong Way To Save Your Life by Megan Stielstra and found strength in her words. A few months before that, I read Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay and found strength in her words. I just copied two essays, one from each book, and sent them to my friend Anne, hoping they give her strength. I tell myself there are strong voices and minds out there and I draw strength and encouragement from that.

I worried whether to allow comments on this post. Steilstra writes about the vulnerability of writers in this electronic age, the ease with which one could be traced, stalked, threatened, and she concluded she might as well be public about her voice and her stances as a determined individual could find her no matter what. I don't worry about being harmed in that way (fantasy thinking of an older white woman living in a "nice" neighborhood, albeit one with a White Power adherent two blocks away), but I worry about something far more insidious in me: offending others. I am still learning to speak up for what I believe in, even if my voice shakes.

Like right now.

Inch One Hundred Forty-One: What's In A Name?

The co-chair of the working group kept addressing the other co-chair by the wrong name throughout the entire teleconference. The former was white, the latter was African-American. (I know this because I have met both of them.) The white woman has a Ph.D. and was addressed as "Dr. Susan" by the moderator. The African-American woman, Shelisa, is from a small Ohio county and is court staff, as are several of us in the working group.

Dr. Susan called Shelisa "Shelist" and "Shelista" and "Shelizza." Not once in the call, which lasted 50 minutes, did she pronounce Shelisa's name correctly.

I doubt that Dr. Susan intentionally mispronounced Shelisa's name. But she certainly did it carelessly. Shelisa did not correct her, but did make a point to say "This is Shelisa..."whenever she spoke during the call.

I wondered after the call whether I should have spoken up and said "Look, can you call Shelisa by her  right name?" But I was too polite and the moment and the call passed. Shelisa, without confronting the issue directly, made sure she introduced herself clearly each time she spoke. She handled the situation in her own style.

I have a saying on my refrigerator: "Speaking up is a choice. And yes, standing on the sidelines is a choice."

During the teleconference, I stayed on the sidelines. Next time I need to choose better.

Inch Seventy-Four: The Hard Conversation

The surgeon and writer Atul Gawande gave me a beautiful gift when he brought out his latest work, Being Mortal. It is a book I have read twice now, it is a book I plan to have next to me as I navigate the dim path into the future.

The thrust of Being Mortal is that the medical profession (and we as a society) avoids discussing end of life decisions honestly and openly. Gawande calls for his colleagues to learn to have "the hard conversation" with their patients. He writes of his own shortcomings as a surgeon in having that talk and of learning to do so in part as a response to shepherding his father (also a doctor) through the final months of a terminal illness and realizing, now in the role of family member and not doctor, how the medical profession skirts the topic and how that complicates the ability of the patient to make meaningful personal choices about end of life issues.

As someone with a terminal illness that is increasingly unmanageable, I have taken his message to heart.

Gawande poses the hard conversation as a series of questions for the patient to reflect upon and discuss:

• Does the patient understand her prognosis?
• What fears and concerns does the patient have about the prognosis and disease?
• What goals or activities does the patient want to accomplish or do?
• What is the patient willing to do to achieve those goals?
• What is the patient unwilling to do?

By having an open and honest conversation about the answers to these questions, the patient (and the patient's family and supporters) and the doctor should be better equipped to map the medical way forward towards the inevitable end.

I heartily concur.

I have been off treatment since the third week of May. I will resume treatment, traditional chemotherapy using the drug carfilzomib, in mid-August. The delay has been due not to intransigence on my part. Rather, it took me, my Mayo oncologist, my local oncologist, and a gastroenterologist this long to sort out other medical issues before clearing the way for chemotherapy.

I have loved not being in treatment, despite the advance of the cancer. I am not looking forward to beginning a new line of treatment, but I am resigned to it at this point in my disease's progression. While I wait to start, though, I am being woken up regularly around 5:00 a.m. or so, rocked (albeit gently) awake by being sick. Not violently sick, not nauseated, but sick.

Sick as in "oh, yes, that's cancer."

This morning as I lay in bed, feeling the cancer rock in my body, my mind drifted to Gawande and the difficult conversation. I found myself starting to answer his questions in my head.

Do I understand my prognosis? Yes. I have a terminal illness, I have outlived the statistical prognosis, and while that has given me additional years, that has also put me in a minority class that gets smaller and smaller. Oncologists are not sure how treatment works on long-term patients. In real terms, that means that Death has moved considerably closer, from standing in the front hallway to strolling into the living room, where I am expected to serve him dessert and perhaps an after-dinner brandy.

What fears and concerns do I have? I fear pain. I fear not knowing whether my organs will start failing before the myeloma finishes its work and what that even means. I fear not being able to continue to be able to work to keep my Cadillac insurance in place. I fear the monetary costs. And I fear being at the mercy of other people's schedules and lives.

What goals do I have or what activities do I want to continue for as long as possible? Being with my husband. Being with my children and their families (2500 miles away). Being with those friends and other family members whom I cherish and love. Volunteering at the Legal Clinic. Reading. Writing. Finishing my novel. Walking. Serving my community. Baking. Savoring the change of seasons. Chocolate. Traveling to the extent affordable and physically possible. Continuing my job and seeing some new projects to fruition.

What am I willing to do to achieve/continue those goals and activities? I am willing to continue treatment for now, even though I resent going on traditional chemotherapy. I may be willing to participate in trials. I am more than willing to continue to eat more or less decently (but I am not giving up desserts), to walk as much as possible, to be conscientious of living a healthier lifestyle.

What am I not willing to do to achieve/continue those goals and activities? Another stem cell or bone marrow transplant. Dialysis if my kidneys start failing. Treatment for the sake of treatment if it will not extend my life and will cause my quality of life to deteriorate. In fact, just about anything that causes my quality of life to deteriorate. End of life medical intervention.

Those are my answers from where I stand now. They are not set in concrete, but they are not casual, spur of the moment answers either. My long-suffering oncologist, Tim, is very reluctant to hold any end of life discussions, but he knows with me that he has no choice. We had one earlier this week in which he (finally) admitted that quality of life is the trump card, but then he immediately looked at Warren and flung out, "Trust me. When she says 'I'm done,' I will still have treatment options available!"

I believe his heartfelt appeal fell on deaf ears, albeit ears accompanied by a loving and sad heart. Warren and I have already had some of the hard conversation. You cannot live with the person you love the most and not have it. I will have it with my children when I head west in September. And I will continue to have it with myself when I am awake at 5:00 a.m., when I am listening to the katydids rasp in the summer night and reflect on the coming fall, when I hold life close to my heart and know I have to open my hands and let it go.

Update from Cancerland

I have just finished the first cycle of chemo. This is my week off.

It is all new and I am still finding my way around the different landscape. Sometimes I think the road goes that way, and instead it goes way over there.

In the big picture, I am doing very well. I am feeling better overall and have had more energy in the last three weeks than the last three months. My gains are measurable and real. 

That being said, being ill again is a drag. In the small picture, some days are just plain hard. I am weathering chemo well and not having severe reactions to it, but even the milder reactions weigh me down. Chemo takes a toll. Despite the resurgence in energy, there are nonetheless personal limits. Some nights I struggle to make it to a reasonable hour ("reasonable" meaning at least 9:30 p.m.) before crashing.  I don't enjoy the steroids I take once a week and the havoc they wreak with my body clock. 

As I said, it's a drag being ill again.

My biggest problem is of my own making. I have a hard time recognizing my own limits. Well, to be honest,  I often recognize them and then just blow past them. As a result, I tend to overdo all of my days, including chemo days, which means I pay the price for the next day or two afterwards. It is hard to relearn to take care of myself first.

I recently had coffee with a friend and talked about my recent decision to take a sabbatical from the active part (the Tuesday night part) of the Legal Clinic. I am laying the groundwork now for others to step into my shoes. I told my friend I knew the decision was right, but I struggled coming to it. 

"Because you are giving up power?" she asked.

I thought about that for a moment, then said, "No, it's having to admit that I cannot do the clinic right now. That's hard." 

I mean that. I have no problem with stepping out of an activity, even a beloved one, and gracefully ceding power to a successor. But to say out loud, "I cannot do this?" I have to swallow hard to get those words out.

For the most part, I do not worry about the myeloma. The cancer is what it is. But I do worry about its impact on my dear husband. At times I feel as if I am coming to him, with both hands full, saying, "I bring you my illness." (Surely Walt Whitman did not anticipate that scenario when he wrote "Song of the Open Road," which is what keeps coming to mind when I present Warren with this reality.) Warren doesn't see it that way, but I sure do at times. (Perhaps it is a side effect of chemo that I cannot think through my days without drawing on poetry: what a wonderful side effect that would be!) 

Overall, I am grateful for the treatment and grateful that it seems to be working. I seem to be responding positively to it and for that I am blessed. I am also blessed beyond words to have tremendous community support.  While we have not had to ask for assistance (meals, rides, you name it), it is nice to know that army of supporters is out there. 

As I type these words, Warren is at a Symphony board meeting. It is mid-evening and I am tired. Whatever chores are undone for the day will keep until tomorrow. I have gone all the miles I need to before I sleep.

Explosions

"Something's on fire!"

Warren was out of his chair in a minute, as was I. Smoke was billowing up from the burners of the stove. Throwing open the oven door (more billowing smoke), I quickly assessed the situation.

Nothing was on fire, but bits of exploded batter had dropped down through the racks onto the heating element and had started to smolder.

Earlier that morning, I had carefully made a chocolate chiffon cake batter so I could later craft a dessert to take to our friends that night. The last step required whipping six egg whites until they stood in stiff peaks.

It was a great batter. It had a beautiful sheen and a nice heft.

In filling the cake pans, though, I should have known better. The 8 inch pans, the size called for by the recipe, were filled to the brim. Against my better judgment, I slid the pans into the oven.

Chaos followed. The batter rose. It rose some more. It began to quiver as it rose over the pans. And then the cake batter—both pans worth—exploded.

Once we cleared the kitchen of smoke and once I dumped the batter (which was not baking properly and indeed, could not bake properly), I thought through the situation. We were due at Margo and Gerald's at 7:00. It was still morning. Go to the store, get a box mix, and get it done.

I did. There were some later fluffs and tense moments, but it got done. Late that night, sitting around the fire ring, we laughed over the poor exploded cake while eating the end result.

Last night was another explosion. Not a cake this time, but a person. Me, in fact. Like the cake batter crammed into the 8 inch pans. there was too much of me in too small a container. I bubbled and churned and tried to rise above my discontent. But in the end, like that wayward batter last Saturday night, I exploded.

Warren has a very demanding job. He works very long hours with very little staff (albeit excellent, excellent staff) and not enough support. Concerts weeks, and this is one of them, mean even longer and later hours. This week, starting last night, Warren will be at a Symphony something—a committee meeting, a rehearsal, a board meeting—every single weeknight through next Monday. (The concert will take up much of Saturday and all of Sunday.) That includes Friday too.

Every. Single. Weeknight. Plus Saturday and Sunday.

At so many levels, starting with my love and support of Warren, I "get" it. I know the broad and deep reach of his position. I know his Board, made up of good, decent people, does not demand this of him out of callous disregard. I know Warren gives his heart to the Symphony and that a large part of its increasing stature in national orchestra circles is due to his vision, drive, blood, sweat, and tears.

I really do get that. And I am so proud of him and this Symphony.

But now I'm sick. Now. Not theoretically, not "oh, the myeloma will be back someday," but now. Now I'm in chemo. I have moved from the quiet countryside of Cancerland into a downtown apartment over the main drag, with cars going by at all hours and red flashing neon signs lighting up the walls in the still of the night.

Now I have needs which, for the first time since Warren and I became a couple, trump—at least in my mind—any card he may hold in the Symphony's hand. I have taken all the tricks, I have laid down four aces, I have shot the moon.

And this week it doesn't matter. I am sitting at the card table with my royal flush fanned out and the card game is already over.

When Warren walked in from his meeting last night, I asked to talk. I tried to stay calm. I "get" that this is not Warren's doing, that it is not personal, that it's not about me or even about us.

I said all those things and then I burst into chunks of raw batter, just like the cake. I held the winning hand and I wept because I could not rake in the pot.

Warren quietly sat through my outburst, holding me close while I wound up and then wound down. He sat quietly while I ranted about having to act more "normal" than I am feeling so as not to worry him while he worries about the Symphony. He squeezed my hand while I gave voice to my fears and my dismay about the myeloma.

My game face is good. The chemo I am taking is not that bad. I won't lose my hair. I'm not that nauseated. My energy has already started to rise. My colleagues at work are supportive beyond words, as are my friends. My children (Ben, Sam, Alise, David) are there for me. Warren has not flinched in the face of what I am facing.

I am blessed blessed blessed and I know so every single day when I awake and every night when I fall asleep.

Yet the cancer takes a toll—physical, emotional, mental—on me. Myeloma is demanding. It wears you down with its slow relentlessness. There is no winnable war here. (Yes, you win the battles, but ultimately myeloma wins the war.) And last night I was battle sore and weary, and Warren bore the brunt of it.

When we got around to dessert last Saturday night, everyone oohed and awed. Despite the failed batter and the substitute box mix, and despite the haste in the later afternoon (shaving those dark chocolate curls and willing the glaze to set), the cake was finished. The mousse hid the smaller layers, some of which had cracked in assembly, and patched the pieces together well. The cake platter was large enough that the glaze did not pool onto the table. We all savored each bite. When the evening ended, I left half of the remains with Margo and Gerald and the other half came home with us.

When I was done exploding last night, Warren patched me together much like Saturday's dessert. He patched me with thoughtful listening and quiet love. He poured a glaze of understanding and comfort over my bruised spirits.

And then he served me the very last piece of the chocolate mousse cake.

Four Days of Haiku: Learning to Speak

As I wrote yesterday, my road back to poetry was broken and crooked beyond crooked. So what changed? What got me not only writing poetry again but even willing to post it?

It was my long ago high school classmates, now good friends thanks to Facebook, that provided the final nudge. One of our number, Kate, starting posting a daily haiku about her Bay Area commute. Others of us starting chiming in with little pieces of our own, and soon we had spun off a separate Facebook group, Haiku-ca-choo!, launched in January of this year.

Haiku was an easy way to ease back into poetry. Haiku is often described as a seventeen syllable Japanese poetry form, often written in three lines with a 5-7-5 syllabic pattern. In reality, haiku has far more complexity and variation to it in its traditional Japanese form. But for someone coming back to poetry after a long layoff, Americanized haiku was perfect. It was short, it was simple, and all I had to do to write it was count syllables on my fingers.

Below in one of the earliest works I posted in Haiku-ca-choo!

**********

Red cherries, white snow.

Ornamentals, yes, but birds

don't turn up their beaks.

Hidden Sonnet

As I have recounted elsewhere, I stopped writing poetry for over a decade because of a traumatic event during a deeply troubled prior marriage. For the longest time, I didn't even try to write poetry, other than occasional light verse (doggerel, really), because it was simply too overwhelming emotionally.

Truth be known, for the longest time, I did no writing other than personal letters and those documents necessary in my law practice. For someone who had once written "take away my pen and you render me mute," this was a very bleak time in my life. It was not until I left the marriage and had a long course of therapy that I started to feel I could again take pleasure in writing.

My confidence in my prose writing came back first. In 2002, I began writing a monthly newspaper article about downtown commercial architecture. To my surprise, the articles gained a following and eventually netted me and my editor two state awards.

As much as I loved writing about architecture, it wasn't poetry. I steadfastly avoided poetry. Poetry still hurt too much. Poetry was still way too scary. Over the next several years, I would only attempt two poems, making sure to bury them deep in a computer file so no one would ever know they existed.

Starting this blog in March, 2009, brought me a long way down the path towards poetry. Writing publicly, receiving feedback, making new friends in Blogville who responded positively to my writing - all of these things reassured me that maybe, just maybe, I did have something to say.  And if I did have something to say, then maybe I could write poetry again.

I tested the poetic waters a few times in my blog, quietly and without much ado. It didn't hurt, but it didn't yet feel comfortable. To borrow a line from my friend EA, "that stubbornly insecure heart of mine" wasn't ready to acknowledge that I was allowed to write poetry again.

But even if my heart wasn't ready to acknowledge that poetry was permissible, my pen was. Last Saturday night, looking through my writing notebook, I came across what clearly was a roughed out sonnet. By its location in the book as well as its topic, I knew it dated back to this past August. I had forgotten all about it. Sunday morning, I copied it out and cleaned it up, correcting the meter and the rhyme scheme.

I'll discuss sonnet structure later this month. Enjoy this one today.  

**********

It Would Have Been Enough

It would have been enough to see your smile
If you had come upon me suddenly
And watched me cut the peppers for awhile,
Bagging them for later suppers to be.
Standing in the doorway, you with ease could
Have viewed the sorting through the greens and reds,
Seen the line of concentration that would
Weave its way from my hands to my forehead.
I would have gone on chopping, unaware
Of your gaze until you moved in the door
And caught my attention away to stare
Briefly at you until I turned once more
To peppers. But no, there you were outside,
Tending other tasks, love's look set aside.

View from the Ground: October Oncology

Monday afternoon

Playwright Tennessee Williams, asked what he wanted for his birthday, supposedly said he wanted "what every writer wants: a day when the muse is with you and you're hot."

That quote came back to me as I walked home from the library today, because what came to me was not that the muse was with me but that very occasionally I write a great sentence, sometimes I write okay, ordinary sentences, and the rest of the time I just write pure drek. I hope the okay, ordinary sentences outweigh the drek, but given that I delete almost as many sentences as I type (except on those exceedingly rare days when the muse is with me), I'd say I'm probably about par for the course.

I am starting this post on Monday afternoon, knowing it won't go up until I finish my oncology appointment Tuesday afternoon. Although my visible markers (energy level, activity level, stamina, weight) are all excellent, myeloma lives not on the surface but inside my bones. The outward measures start changing only after the cancer has had a healthy head start deep in my marrow. My oncologist and I agreed last June that October would be a good time to repeat the major labs, including the kappa free light chain assay, to give us both the best look-see into my marrow and my true state of health.

So tomorrow is weighing on me. I love my oncologist, I feel good physically, I am expecting (hoping for) neutral results, and I am walking around with the appointment pressing down hard upon my shoulders.

No wonder my muse isn't here. She is out dancing through the blaze of leaves carpeting the sidewalks while I am sitting here kicking at the floor.

Tuesday morning

October is the most beautiful month in Ohio, but it is also the month where winter starts blowing kisses to us, promising more to come. This morning, there was a light ice on the windshield (our car had been parked on the street all night). Close behind the house, my garden was chilly but not icy. I'm glad: there are still some tomatoes ripening and I am not quite ready to give them up until next summer.

Today's oncology visit is weighing even more heavily on me than yesterday. Despite all the good signs I keep ticking off, I am edgy and anxious to see the numbers. I had trouble falling asleep last night, my mind running through various "what if" scenarios, and when I finally slept, I dreamt of my boys. They were not in harm's way, but I had a long, tangled, and complex dream about Sam switching schools and Ben restarting his undergraduate education, both at colleges and in programs I had never heard of before.

All this morning (it is midmorning) I have been restless. I start something, then set it aside. My only real accomplishment is finishing baking for tonight's legal clinic.

In this morning's paper was an obituary for a friend who had been struggling with lung and bone cancer for the last three years. Sheryl's obituary was deftly penned, I am sure, by her husband Jesse; his love for her was laced through the words. My first reaction, after the hurt of the news, was "I want Jesse to write my obituary." My second reaction was "I can write my own obituary." I shared that thought with Warren; I did not look at his face when I said it because I did not think I could bear to see his expression.

Warren knows today's appointment is hanging over me; he also knows that losing a friend to cancer is an uncomfortably close experience for me. Warren is lovingly patient on oncology days. Over the years, he has learned (at my insistence) to stand back just a little bit. This is a river I wade in alone each time while he watches from the shore. I need and want his hand when I come back up on the bank, but I have to struggle through the current alone.

Tuesday afternoon

My labs were the best they have been in months, even years. Yes, the myeloma is there, it will always be there. I will never be cured. But my kappa free light chain assay results were even better than they were back in December.

Tim grinned. Warren beamed. I about fell over as a million pounds rolled off my shoulders and sank right out of sight through the floor. I don't have to see Tim again until April.

April! Six months from now!

I was all but skipping as Warren and I left the oncology clinic. I squeezed his hand, bounced up and down in the elevator, gave him a huge kiss when he dropped me off. I am now typing these words quickly so I can get to Legal Clinic.

I'm out of the river, back on the shore, embracing the world.