Yesterday was a slow day for me. I felt really quite dragged down. I was napping by 9:30 in the morning! But Roz came over after 10 and helped motivate me for a guided visualization and it was lovely. Thank you Roz! You are so healing to me! I did a few chores through the day interspersed with some guided affirmations and then a meditation with my friends Deepok and Oprah!
A week or two ago I got a bug in my ear that I needed to go to KC to see my momma and my people and that I could not wait until April, which is when I’d been planning to go along. So, on Tuesday I asked Dr. Kaplan and he said, Sure! Go eat some ribs! and so…I’m going!
I’m leaving Tuesday Nov. 11 and coming back Sunday the 16th…going solo! Taking a mask, gloves and all kinds of wipes as well as a strong, yet pathetic cancer face and to the desk at the Alaska Airlines gate where I shall ask for an upgrade so I can have fewer germs and more elbow room. But, I’m healthy and strong and the doc gave me the ok! So, I’m packing! And to my KC cousins, try to get some time on Wednesday to meet me at the meeting…you know where and when! I know I can count on Linda…anyone else??? I’d love to see you!
Of course the weather is turning on a dime right about when I get there…they are talking polar air! Oh well, it’s not about the weather!
Now with a trip in the future there are things to do! My hair! What a sight! Originally it was coming out in clumps, then Jennifer buzzed me short and it mostly stopped coming out. I had bald spots and buzz. Then I got off chemo and the bald spots started growing in…baby hair! Now I’m back on chemo and the longer hair is coming out. Yikes! Disaster! I was very brave, on my own, emailed and got an appointment at Coco’s on 35th SW. They were able to get me in at a slow time, yesterday at 4:00. Maekayla was great. She put me at ease right away. Her dad had cancer last year and she shared funny stories about his mullet and keeping his hair tidy during chemo. She used scissors and a comb, just a little shaving on my neck, she was easy to talk with and I’m so glad I went. Now I have a tidy head to wear winter hats upon in Kansas City!
Salmon are Everywhere!
I feel a little salmon obsessed in my life and on this blog, but you know, there is just something about those amazing animals and how they keep intersecting with my life.
When I was in the hospital, Janelle from Pathfinder brought me this lovely book by Mark Nepo The Book of Awakening. One thing I really like about this book is for every day of the year it has just a page or a page and a half that includes a 1-4 line thought/statement/poem, then a paragraph or two about the thought, then finishes up with some guided visualizations or meditations. In the hospital and shortly after I got home I opened the book on a daily basis. Then, as it happens, it got buried and left out of my routine for a while. Just the other day I brought it back out and put it back into a place of prominence. This morning I was flipping through the days I’d missed, mostly scanning until I came upon Oct. 30. And here is some of what it says…
October 30
The Art of Facing Things
What people have forgotten
is what every salmon knows.
—-Robert Clark
Salmon have much to teach us about the art of facing things. In swimming up waterfalls, these remarkable creatures seem to defy gravity. It is an amazing thing to behold. A closer look reveals a wisdom for all beings who want to thrive.
What the salmon somehow know is how to turn their underside—from center to tail—into the powerful current coming at them, which hits them squarely, and the impact then launches them out and further up the waterfall; to which their reaction is, again, to turn the underside back into the powerful current that, of course again hits them squarely; and this successive impact launches them further out and up the waterfall. Their leaning into what they face bounces them further and further along their unlikely journey.
……
In terms useful to the life of the spirit, the salmon are constantly faithful in exposing their underside to the current coming at them. Mysteriously, it is the physics of this courage that enables them to move through life as they know it so directly. We can learn from this very active paradox; for we, too, must be as faithful to living in the open if we are to stay real in the face of our daily experience. In order not to be swept away by what the days bring, we, too, must find a way to lean into the forces that hit us so squarely.
The salmon offer us a way to face truth without shutting down. They show us how leaning into our experience, though we don’t like the hit, moves us on. Time and again, though we’d rather turn away, it is the impact of being revealed, through our willingness to be vulnerable, that enables us to experience both mystery and grace.
There is more, and I left out some in the middle, but I have to say that really struck me this morning and I made many connections, both in my cancer life and outside of cancer, and I wanted to share it with you!
Thank you, Janelle and thank you Mark Nepo.
Today is a great day! I woke early, helped with breakfast for my worker bees, had a good work out, caught up on the Serial podcast we all listen to around here. Michael and Maggie will both be home this weekend! Life is good…
Lean into the challenges! Thanks you salmon!
Thank you also, Shannon and Naomi for a lovely visit and so much delicious food! It was so great to see you two lovelies!
Love and good health to all of you!
Janet
I have always loved the image of salmon swimming upstream! I had no idea how it worked before. Thanks for the new image of allowing oneself to be vulnerable too... Take good care, as always...betsy sharf
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