tolerant, team rebels.

a blast?
well, i'll be honest... these "awareness" walks are never a blast for me. they are a mixed bag of joy- because i'm there amongst the living- but also with restrained, throat stiffening sadness- because the "in memory" tags surround you.

and then there's the side of me that really didn't want to be there- just get me out of "cancerland". at one point i even suggested that we cut out of the park and get breakfast. g immediately started looking for a pathway out. but it seemed too much like cheating. and i couldn't rationalize or intellectualize why i wanted to escape so we just kept walking. but escape is what i wanted. instead i clammed up. got cranky. and entered a real funk that i am just starting to come out of.

and then there was my t-shirt. the one in the photograph. the one i 'whipped up' the night before because i refused to wear the bright pink, too big- "i would never wear this t-shirt on any other day of the year so why wear it now" race t-shirt. but i must say i have never felt so out of place as i did in the sea of over 25,000 walkers this day. and despite my "rebel" reputation i just could not muster the kahoonas to rise above the feeling of defeat and thinking "why didn't i just wear the big ugly shirt?". then i was frustrated that i had become so self-conscious about it. so arrogant to think that it mattered. but sh*t! it did.

it matters that on this particular day we march against a disease that mutilates our bodies, chisels at our souls a bit, and often challenges our spirituality and body politics. and then, when the disease is gone we re-invent ourselves. we rebuild. we thoughtfully design ourselves to re-enter the world in a form that we can be proud of. but, yet on this day of awareness. this day of celebration. we veil ourselves in corporate sponsorship.

i'd like to have blast at one of these walks... sing a fight song at the top of my lungs... hear marching bands at the mile markers... see women proud to be in their beautiful new bodies, in their own clothes, in their own individuality... on this day... of all days.

ps. thanks for not wearing one, g.
originally posted here

the weight of quiet. the possibilities of night...

this post is a gift to co-survivors... a tribute to their role and their instinctual healing powers when the going gets tough.

nights became difficult when I returned home following the mastectomy. with the apartment quite and dark i would become acutely aware of my physical existance. i'd acknowledge the drains entering my flesh, the flatness and numbness when i searched the new landscape. the sensation that i was literally in the wrong body. living someone elses life. aware that i was embarking on perhaps an exhausting journey of re-invention: of my self, my body image, my perspective, my identity, my faith. inevitably this overwhelming mental journey would turn into an emotional landslide and i would weep. i had started to sleep with my walkman in hopes of distraction. one night my twin lay next to me as david gray sang sweetly and privately to me from a "white ladder". though i can be mesmerized by him most of the time- my nightly evaluations were loud and persistant. i wept through the tunes. and the next thing i knew she had reached for my hand to provide comfort. she didn't say anything. just cried with me under the weight of quiet and the possibilities of night.

memoirs of a night gone by.

a tribute to co-survivors... a tribute to their role and their instinctual healing powers when the going gets tough.

on a restless night, some six years ago, during my first cancer battle in 2000 (i can call that one a battle for i was angry, bitter and pissed off because at age 36 i was jerked out of my naive slippery illusion that i would live a long healthy life for at least another 50 years) i lay awake in the dark as my husband slept next to me. the ill-guided fear and anger would prevent me from sleep for many nights during the weeks of radiation treatments and this night was no different. i knew the feelings would eventually result in an eruption of emotional release- i would cry long and really really hard- the deep from the gut kind of cry. when i would feel it coming on i'd escape to the bathroom, close the door and cry into the thickest towel in an effort to spare my husband from my inarticulatable fear- until exhaustion. but this night, while i lay there acknowledging the signs, i gave in and stayed put. i began to weep uncontrolably. quietly and without alarm my husband turned the bedroom light on. he then reached for this book that had been on the nightstand for weeks. without explanation he moved close to me and began reading aloud. calming me with his wisdom, taking me from my world of fear into the memoirs... of a night gone by.