What lips

Hadn't thought of it in a long while, but the rain and my mood made me think of this poem.

What lips my lips have kissed

What lips my lips have kissed,
and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Close to home

Don't know why i seem to be into poetry lately, but i stumbled on this and had to hold onto my contemplations a while.

HEART SURGEON

She's taking back her life
And only now it's starting to hurt
Every smile has to be paid for

Every touch, every word
Every molecule removed

And all her strengths must be turned against me
All her acuity and edge
Her silence and her deliberation
Honed like a knife

I see her take that knife
Heartsurgeon neurosurgeon
Without anaesthetic
She cuts her eyes out of my eyes
Her face out of my face
It's really beginning to hurt
Cuts her chest out of my chest
Memory by memory
She takes back her life.

She performs the operation perfectly.
She's practised it on herself.

And when I look in the mirror
All I see is the shape of her vanished face
The darkness where her eyes were
The old heart pumping failing
Gushing useless blood...
Look at it all. Here it is...
Out through those arteries
Which no longer are attached.

She doesn't leave scars. She doesn't leave fingerprints
She doesn't leave anything.
She's a good surgeon, the best.

She's practised on herself.

Peter Jukes 1998
www.compas.demon.co.uk/

5767

New year's poem

I'm cleaning the cupboard
beside the stove, low to the floor,
where pots and pans hide
haphazardly.

Our kitchen is well-used,
baker’s rack gleaming
with neat jars of peaches,
string beans, preserves

but one swipe of paper towel
across this hidden surface
and I flinch at the grime
I never noticed before.

This is teshuvah: opening
every closed-up space. I'm
a window smeared with dust,
a cabinet in need of scouring.

It's simple work, but
part of me resists, preferring
distraction to clarity.
When I make the leap

I suddenly can't believe
I ever ignored the dirt.
Hot water blesses my hands
into action. God, help me

put my house in order,
begin the year in readiness
for the wonders I know
are coming, are always here.

Rachel Barenblat

whispers

Lover whispers to my ear
"Better to be a prey than a hunter.
Make yourself My fool.
Stop trying to be the sun and become a speck!
Dwell at My door and be homeless.
Don't pretend to be a candle, be a moth,
so you may taste the savor of Life
and know the power hidden in serving."
~Rumi

i just thought this was beautiful.

wow, LoL

Apparently, the mysteries of the world will be revealed to me at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon.

Can't wait!

Wondering?

For those of you who were... Yes, i lived through lunch with my mother. Did she pry? Sure. Like any young child, was distraction 99% of the battle? You betcha!

i'm getting half way decent at the tactics needed to survive short bouts of time around her. So here's a wry... woot. i also had to zip off to teach that day so that was a bonus.

Teaching this year is going to be a double-edged sword. On the one side i have 2 fantastic classes of kids who have senses of humor and seem to be "with me" thusfar. i've totally changed my teaching strategy so they're part of a grand experiment. Shhh, don't tell them. On the other side is the realization that A) our new Director is going to take a lot of getting used to. and B) teachers are (i am) being directed to teach the same curriculum with two fewer class days and a loss of pay for weekly meetings... ergo, less money in the end (even though we each got a pittance of a raise).

And still... the committment of the teachers, myself included, to providing a quality education to our students is unwavering. Maybe it'll all work out in the end? Time, as always, will tell.

Oh, and this is blog entry 100! Ta-Da!
Never thought i'd get here. Yay me!

Reflections

my shut-in day is over and today hits like cold water in the face. Before it rolls me over headlong i wanted to put some thoughts here about yesterday.

It isn't only a day of remembering. It's a day that changed so much. It bonded me and #2. It strained #1 in a way that she and i will be trying to understand for a long while. Chemotherapy brought all the underlying minor learning issues with #2 into abundant fruition and focus and changed his academic structure permanently. Socially and academically, it made Middle School a nightmare for him. Every time he coughs my heart stops in fear. It's worse if he's ever not hungry or if he's very tired. i rub his shoulders because i love him, but also just to feel the lymph glands on the left side. i can't help but see the little scar the catheter left in the center of his chest. i've lived through his post illness depression, though it nearly did me in. i mourn losing the days when i didn't know about neutropenic fevers, doxirubicin and so many other chemo drugs, painful neupogen injections, mouth sores, 60% chances and so much more. i know that his remission is stable and still that 40% haunts me every day. i wonder if he'll be able to have children for the sake of a decision that *i* in part made. Will he think i made the right choice for him? Will he blame me? i hug him a lot.

To those of you with whom i spoke, please understand my silence and tears on the phone. i shouldn't even have answered. When i am in the headspace of that day, every gesture of caring and support is met with overwhelming emotion.

To V who saw me yesterday... pony tail and all. Thanks for not mentioning how awful i looked!

Ok, lunch with Mommy Dearest lies ahead, followed by teaching.
ONWARD!

Hell Day - p.m.

2 p.m. Our appointment time for the discovery/diagnosis meeting with the pedatric oncologist. #2 is at home with family. #1 is at school.
#2's father (T) and i are called in and are shown a seat in a meeting room. Soon we're joined by Dr. J, a nurse and social worker. Everyone is introduced and files are opened. i'm wide-eyed at the formality.

Cutting to the chase, Dr. J tells us that we have a sick little boy. He has Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Nodular Sclerosis. Neither T nor i really know what that means, although i've done some reading. Nothing can prepare you for those words to come out of a Drs' mouth when discussing your child. "It's a type of cancer of the blood" he adds. Dr. J stopped talking and looked through the papers in the file in front of him again... T and i sat, numb.

It seems that the results from the morning's nuclear med test isn't in yet and must be retreived via phone to get a full diagnosis (i.e. to 'stage' the lymphoma's growth). Dr. J places the call still sitting across the polished table from us. In the course of the phone call we learn that it is Stage 2 (not so horrible in the scheme of things). "Oh, no", says the oncologist, "Past the diaphragm? Yes, Stage 3." (not so good). "Ohhh", he says again, "Past the pelvis, I see", he says... "Stage 4" (the worst, furthest progressed you can have). And there we had our staging. Stage 4. Shit.

During this the nurse kept trying to give us an average prognosis (i think this was supposed to help us feel - better?)... well, at stage 2 was an 80% chance of being cancer-free in 5 years. Stage 3 was 70%. Stage 4? 60%. We didn't feel better.

Dr. J was off the phone and going back to his papers. He had a notebook with him that outlined the different protocols for this type of cancer and he proceeded to tell us his recommended protocol for our son. It was so incredibly hard to focus on the fact that we're making choices for and discussing my baby and his life. In that moment all of our lives seemed to hang in the balance.

The rest of the meeting was spent discussing every step of the protocol and each chemo concoction to be used. The nurse gave us some general ideas of what to expect, like when he'd lose his hair, how long appointments might take, how to pack for the hospital... The social worker talked at us about some practical things. School was a big issue. Financial issues, #1, support, organizations that could help, phone numbers galore, what entrances to use in the hospital to get to pediatrics quickly...

Hospital, right. When? No time to waste. Today. This very afternoon. Decisions made, papers signed, books given to us to track every moment of our lives for as long as we needed to, and we were off to the house to tell our son and family everything we'd just learned. That was a blur.

i never allowed that moment to envelop me. i cried, yes, but there were things to be done and a fight to be fought and a child - my child's very life was the prize that we would win... if we won. i packed his favorite things and we were off to the battlefield.

Hell Day - a.m.

Today is the 5th anniversary of #2 being diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin's Lymphoma. He was 9 years old. i allow myself this one day every year to stop everything i can and be 'in the moment' with my memories and emotions. Welcome to my day...

8:30-10:30 am: i am sitting in Nuclear Medicine at the hospital holding #2's hand while he lays very still. This is our second time here so we know the routine. The scans are done 48 & 72 hrs after the nuclear agent is injected (through the broviac catheter that was placed in his vena cava, during the same surgery they took his right clavicular lymph gland for analysis three days before.) A huge machine moves silently around him. i'm talking to #2 (endless prattle really, he's not supposed to move) and simultaneously watching a screen light up with glowing spots i can't interpret in roughly the shape of my child, while John the nuclear med tech has his computer on for news of the towers.

i'm in a different world from John, but both of us are in our own state of shock. i don't understand his. Never will.

10:30 comes and we're done. Securely wrapping the catheter to his chest, i take him back home. School isn't an option until we know what's wrong. It makes #2 angry and he misses his friends. my family has rallied around us but my friends don't know yet. He wants his peers and the normalcy he knew a few days ago. Can i ever sympathize.

Didn't know that! #2

New glasses day and i'm not so excited. i mean, RR thought they were cool, but he never saw the other ones!

It's pouring down rain and i dash into the store thinking "it's good weather to be disappointed". Damn, i sound like Eeyore... so i stop. i enter my name on the list and wait. The same smiling ms.eyeglass-person calls my name and i walk over to check out these glasses with which i will be stuck for the next 18 months. *sigh*

She has to look in three places but finally comes out with a little plastic tray that for the moment seems to hold my fate. Happily and with care she extracts them and unfolds the temples to place them on my face. Voila! i look in a nearby mirror - kinda hard not to, the place is lined with them like a bachelor apartment! "Hey, they're kinda cute!" Was that ME that said that? Yeah. i didn't know they'd do that.

i then commit the sin of all sins and slide the glasses into place on top of my head. ms. eyeglass-person cringes in several shades of green with a deep sucking HISS. i am simply nonplussed, it's what i do, so get over it. "Hey! They fit here too!" i never thought they'd do that. i figured they'd slide and not stay in place at all. Nope!

Being plastic frames they also do not have nose pads and therefore DO NOT PULL MY HAIR!!! i'd forgotten the sacrifice i'd made to have the other nifty frames, namely - the hair on top of my head! The old ones were wire and the nose pad hinges pulled my hair - sometimes OUT - every time i put them on or off my head. i remembered how much i disliked that! i also thought of how easily the wire frames bent out of shape. These wouldn't do that.

Well yay.

i chose a case, black of course, and a nifty new cleaning cloth with a coffee design on it, and i was set to pay for my replacement lenses. In the end i paid only for the $4 cleaning cloth. The rest was under warranty. Ok, this was magick afoote.

i walked to the back and thanked RR for doing a wonderful job on my new reading glasses. In his humble fashion he replied, "I've been doing this for 20 years. I'd better be good at it! But I'm glad you like them." We caught up on family stuff on both sides for a few minutes and then he was needed back to work and i was off for home in the pouring rain.

Rain. Great, cleansing, new-beginning stuff it is. me and my new, spiffy, funky, black and white, plasitc framed, no nosepad glasses will be just fine together. At one point... i didn't know that.

Didn't know that! #1

Yesterday i was at a dear friend's house when i clunked my head on a low ceiling and my reading glasses (which i always wear on top of my head) came apart. Not just any "apart"... POPPED.

The one lense that came out was easy to find, but the little piece of silver metal that fit between the frame and lense (i.e. the one thing that made these glasses SO COOL) was nowhere to be found. We searched!

After a wonderful visit with my friend i decided to take my forlorn reading glasses to the place they were born for repair, realizing that they'd have to order the little missing part, etc... After all, the glasses were less than 6 months old and i liked them.

i placed my broken frames and one dislocated lense in the hands of this very nice lady with a pathetic, "help?". It must've sounded plaintive because she said, "awww, i'll try." Her next words were, "How old are these?" i told her and she replied with a quizzical look. i knew then that i was in trouble. "These are old frames. Lemme pull your chart" and off she went, leaving my poor broken glasses in my hands, and me biting my lip.

Soon enough (well not really) she said she had bad news and good news. Bad news: They don't make these frames anymore so they cannot be fixed. Good news: i can pick any new frames, from a limited selection, i wanted for free. Well SHE thought it was good news! i was crestfallen. my old glasses were cool, different and a little unexpected - kinda like... me!

i shlepped to the indicated sections with her leading the way almost triumphantly. She left me to look a bit and i started in - hating everything. There simply wasn't anything that compared at all to what i'd had.

i came up with two or three that i thought were ok, thinking all the while, "they're only reading glasses. you don't have to wear them all the time" and yet knowing that they were constant fixtures on me even if just holding my hair out of my face. Drat.

She returned to be helpful. Oh glee. She did seem to have a decent idea of the shape i was trying to find, but she really liked COLOR, and if you know me... well, it wasn't going over well. i was dressed from head to toe in black - you think she'd take a hint?! Among other chatting i finally convinced her that purple and green were not something i was going to go for and we found some ok black and pearl colored ones designed by Lauren Hutton - woohoo. (enter an unenthused "rah") She left me to see if they were in stock.

For lack of anything to do i browsed the remaining unchosen lenses, mourning my cool ones, when this male voice behind me says, "i think i can have them for you by noon tomorrow". Huh? Was he talking to me? ok, turn... Holy ****! It's RR, a person i dated in HIGH SCHOOL and who used to work there but that was some years back before i took my hiatus from life. He's laughing at the expression on my face. LoL Must've been stunning. "You're here!" Enter the first... i didn't know that!

We chatted a bit leaving ms. eyeglass-person standing there wondering what's going on. Eventually we clue her in and talk a little shop. i tell him my sad story and ask him what he thinks of the frames i chose. "Let's see", and i slip them on. He makes this little "eh", obviously not impressed, and i go for the funky ones that were my other choice... "Those!" he says, and the choice was made. We chatted a few minutes more and i was gone on my way home to return today at noon.

days/nights

With the start of school for 1 & 2, life feels odd and will for a while. They get up and are gone without me in the mornings, but need me to be here when they get home as often as possible and until it's crash time for them. As a mom of two with learning differences i understand this. Their schedule meshes well with my work schedule right now, but is limiting if i want to work more, which i do, so it's a little frustrating.

i find myself staying up insanely late doing work, lesson planning, writing, etc... It puts my classes in the middle of my day on weekdays, which is great, but it makes my early mornings not the joy i'm used to them being! Thinking of getting a part time job doing floral design or something. If they can work with my teaching, business and parenting schedules it'd be fun to do something creative - and it'd get my schedule back to normal!

It's #1's Senior year. i guess i'm feeling the "last chance to be here for her every day" blues, so i'm understandably hesitant to add another layer to my life. Conflicted. On another note: i'm hosting both kids' friends here for the annual Frolic! (bonfire and bash), a tradition i started when #1 got so grounded she didn't see her friends for weeks and i felt bad. LoL Such a softie. i'm looking forward to it.

AFGM

There is much i know now. Even saying 'much', i know it is little in the scheme of things.

i know that i am more valuable than i ever thought.
i am more intelligent than those who would underestimate me.
i am worthy and deserving of happiness; and that happiness is rooted in myself, but seeks a reflector to validate it. This is a weakness for which i now know i need to provide healthy outlets (and i am).
i know that i have not acted in any way towards anyone that was undeserved or overreactive. If anything the opposite is true. i was too cautious and too slow.
i know that i DO honor truth in its most raw form above all. i have forgiven myself for thinking otherwise.
i know that i miss that wild and heady feeling that i have someone in my life worthy of spoiling with my attention and time and yes, body too.
i know that that someone will happen... when the time and the person is right, but moreso ~ when *i* am right again, and ready for it to happen. Only i can make myself ready for that time. Only i can build myself back to a point where i have a whole and trust-capable me to offer. Before that happens, forming a deep connection with anyone would be artificial, superficial, indiscriminate. i know that i am doing my best to be patient with myself. Besides, i have deep connections of loving friendships and that's what saves me some days. For now, the person i need to spoil with attention is me.

Inkblot Test Results

Your subconscious mind is driven most by Peace

You have a deeply-rooted desire to make peace in the world. Whether through subtle interactions with loved ones, or through getting involved in social causes, it is important to you to be able to influence the world in a positive way.You have a deep respect for humankind. You care about the future of the world, even beyond your own involvement in it, and you inspire others to feel the same way. Your innate drive toward peace guides you in daily life towards decisions that are respectful toward yourself and others. Your psyche is very rich.

*i've long since called myself a peacemaker. i hate conflict. i dislike disrespect and inconsideration. i do hope that i inspire people to see goodness in themselves. i see it in almost everyone in some way. i'm a terrible politician because i only see the side that operates from tolerance and respect for human rights and dignity.

Which is not to say that i an an utter pacifist. Far from it. Personally, nationally, internationally... there are appropriate times to stand up and cry foul, and to put muscle behind it.

On the other hand, there are peaceful ways to work with the Universe in creating loving change. If that can start or be helped by me, i'm glad of it.

HUZZAH!

Went to the Renaissance Festival today with #s 1 & 2, their dad, their "posse" and Lady D. :)

Bocca Musica was phenominal (both times we saw them), the Washing Well Wenches were hysterical. Manolete... well, what can you say about a man who bangs his balls on the floor for a living... it was entertaining!!

Went into a knife and sword shop and was heard to exclaim the words: "Ooooo, SHARP and POINTY!" with glee. LoL i'm jaded too... i scoffed at one woman who was supposed to be showing off her whip skills. Wow, do i know someone who could put her to shame!!! i just giggled and walked by. Still giggling. Giggling, happy and exhausted!