It’s the color, not the size that matters: A Little Boobie Background

Dominick recently informed me that the Blue Footed Boobies might not be the best name for our Breast Cancer 3-Day team. "Mom," he said, "Booby means idiot, did you know that? You named your team the Blue Footed Idiots! You can't name yourselves that!"

Hmmm...

I will admit, I have felt like an idiot in recent weeks. I have had many Dola-Days, when I had no choice but to smack myself upside the head over and over again for some sort of forty-something foolishness. I have laughed at myself, cringed at my ridiculousness, my forgetfulness, raged against the absolute demoralization of being haunted by all my old injuries--the creaky overused knees, the whiplashed neck, that old girl stiffness--just when I was starting to feel strong again. I have learned that we are not always rewarded for having good intentions.

I am a Used Bagge, after all. Rugby Goddess, perhaps, but no longer a Spring Chicken. And definitely, no doubts about it, a Blue Footed Booby.

Despite my best efforts at training wisely for the Breast Cancer 3-Day 60 mile Walk, I seem to have fallen into my old competitive mode, even calling it a "Race" a few times (oops! upside the head) and striving to temper my tendecy towards over-doing with doing just the right amount. Right now, I am a Swollen Footed Idiot, to be certain. Despite the rivulets of blue veins running this way and that across the barren plains of my feet, there is little blue in my feet today, just foolishness at thinking that I could walk so, so long, over hills and streams, crisscrossing town lines, jumping over railroad tracks, pumping past the stench of fresh fertilizer, feeling the rush of springtime envelop me in its crackling, resonant hum, and somehow manage to escape tender feet, sore knees, and a stipple of sunburn along the back edges of my tank. Blue Footed Booby, indeed.

Actually, I felt pretty darn tootin' good, after last Saturday's twelve miles. After all, thanks to some great tips from my marathon running Facebook friends, I prepared myself well, slathering on the unpetroleum jelly all over my cracked, blister-prone heels, in between my toes; slipping on two pair of socks that I bought for their supposed anti-blister powers; and packing the essentials: water, shot blocks, cell phone, camera, iPod. I hydrated well beforehand, made sure I had gone pee (critical!), and stretched out before I set out to chase the pavement du jour; after all, I've been training for months, alternating walking with interval running and hills, weight training, yoga, and I've learned a few things about my body, things I had quite forgotten.

Loudest lesson to date: my 43-year old body does not reward me with the same kind of results that my 23-year old body did.

Training inside on bad weather days at the NMH gym, where 17-year olds fly past me on the treadmill, continues to remind me that I am no longer a sprightly 17-year old myself. It's funny how majorly delusional I can be, though, whipping through rounds of steep hills and fast sprints on the treadmill, thinking I am fly, indeed, only to realize my silliness: that everyone around me is going so much faster, sweating so much less, and doing their calculus homework at the same time to boot, and it all comes crashing down around me, for a second, anyway, before I am able to scrape my ego off the floor and pump myself back up with some appropriate kickass music: Donna Summer's Bad Girls, Prince's Uptown, and Lipp's piece de resistance, Funkytown. It's tough, though to contain myself when one of those songs hits, and I have often thought that those high-tech treamills should add a dance-break option: press a button ("Get Down"), and in the middle of your 5K run or walk, the treadmill stops to offer you a platform for getting your funk out, mid-stride, complete with disco lights that illuminate the typically stodgy, unforgiving floor, and turn your dull-as-toast workout into a veritable Blue Footed Booby dance-walk feast.

This past Saturday, for the first ten miles anyway, I ended up forgoing my iPod for the symphonic sounds of spring that surrounded me: the flirty peepers; a pair of hawks, circling and calling out to each other; the tumbling brook; the chorus of birdsongs; the wind rushing through the trees; and the subtle, explosive quiet of spring's majestic return to life. If you listen carefully, you can hear the growth and burst of buds and blossoms, the strain upwards and outwards through earth, into sky, the opening inside out. Really.

This very rush of life is what sustained me last spring, pulling me from one surgery to the next, and surrounding my recovery in the simple promise and energy of spring's rebirth, the quintessential fresh start. I remember walking about our property, allowing myself to be drawn in to the unfurling fiddleheads, the unraveling buds just starting to peek out into the sunshine. It wasn't that I hadn't noticed it all before, but it seemed different. I didn't rush it. I made it a priority. And there was nothing extraneous about it; rather, it became an essential need, a kind of nourishment that I couldn't do without. I'd spend hours just standing on the edge of the old beaver pond in our back wetlands, listening to the echo and hum and trill of the frogs and birds, watching the light bouncing off water and tree limb, the clouds move across sky and water. And when my strength returned, and I was able to walk longer distances than just the lovely little amble up and down the dirt road just down the trail and over the stone wall from our house, there was something infinitely reassuring about being able to lose myself in the rhythms of the natural world, something that brought me back into myself, and into a sense of oneness with the awakening going on about, within me.

This spring, I again have found solace and strength in walking, in relaxing into the primal rhythms around me, in spending lots of time outside. My training has brought me back into myself and into the land (and I don't know if there is a big difference between the two, actually) in different ways, summoning my warrior girl, and spiritual earth mother, invoking my inner athlete, and, alas, my toughest critic--me. And as much as my walk-abouts have done to bolster my flagging spirit, there is a new set of reality to contend with: my knees are wrinkly, and no matter how much exercise I get, my skin is simply not getting any firmer. Damn, damn, bummer-damn.

I know, I know. I shouldn't be concerned with such nonsense. See? Blue-Footed Booby, indeed.

Wrinkly knees, of course, will not impede. Sore feet, perhaps. On the last two miles of my walk, the heat had peaked--near 90 degrees--and I switched on a disco-flavored playlist on my iPod to provide me with the necessary boost to make it up the final hill. Earth, Wind, and Fire. Chaka Kahn. Wild Cherry. Did I really used to scream DISCO SUCKS at junior high school dances? Well, I was lying. Disco, as it turns out, ROCKS. There's nothing quite like listening to Wild Cherry's Play that Funky Music to get your ass up a really steep hill after walking non stop for three hours in the blistering heat. Maybe that's the boobies' secret: an endless loop of classic funk and disco being played in their heads that allows them the energy and inspiration to get down on it with their own blue-footed funky style of dance-walking bravado.

Despite Dominick's concerns, I stand by my selection of our 3-Day team's name, The Blue Footed Boobies. Aside from the obvious booby-breast association, the choice of the name The Blue Footed Boobies for our Breast Cancer 3-Day team reflects a whole lot more than mere digression into elementary school (or Judd Apatow) humor. When my family and I spent time in the Galápagos Islands in the summer of 2006, we were struck by the amazing diversity and uniqueness of the animals there—not only were they unlike any other animals in the world, but each and every one of them offered up something truly remarkable. Whether entranced by the Dancing with the Stars-choreographed courtship dance of the waved albatross, the endearing playfulness and sense of fun of the Galápagos sea lions, or the immense, lumbering size of the ancient Galápagos tortoises and the nonpareil grace of the sea turtles, we were riveted by the Galapagos animals, particularly since they were unbelievably unafraid of humans, making it quite possible to commune with them up close. Their lack of fear afforded an astonishing intimacy that felt like a rare, sublime treat: we were able to really get to know the animals in a way we aren't ever allowed in the untamed wilds of New England. When do we ever get to hang out with black bears? Run through the meadows with fox and deer? Watch a mink tend to its young? Not only did we snorkel and swim and play with the Galapagos animals (but not, of course, touch them), we also watched them dance and mate, fix their nests, and tend their young, all typically strict, private operations of wild animal survival and adaptation that humans aren't usually allowed access to (for good reasons). Being able to observe them in their natural habitat for minutes on end, we marveled at the evolutionary forces and sprightly hand that must have shaped them. It was truly a Darwinian feast.
Not many were more impressive, memorable and lovable than the Blue Footed Booby, whom we were able to observe in many different places and poses in the Archipelago: catching some alone-time among the mangroves, nesting and taking care of their young on the barren cliffs of Espanola, congregating on the shelves of rock in a hidden cove, and flying and fishing in swarms above the open seas. At first, we were captivated by their outward appearance—with big blue feet anchoring smooth white bodies with brown wings, heads and necks flecked with brown, and yellow beady eyes sitting atop long, sharp beaks, they were unlike any other bird in book or birding experience. Soon, though, they impressed us with their flying and fishing ability (not to mention their mooning ability—and the accuracy with which they were able to crap on us from their guano-thrones along the rocky cliff shelves). Plus, their babies were adorable; oversized, covered with white fro-fluff, and stuffed-animal-squeeze-ready, they hung out in nests that seemed to teeter on the edge of cliffs, turning their big eyes to us as we passed. Hello. I’m a Boobie. I may not have blue feet yet, but just you wait. What are you?

What’s not to love? Boobies of the blue-footed variety are not just amazingly beautiful; they are tenacious, powerful, lovely fliers, divers, and hunters; loving, protective parents; and at the time of courtship, hilarious, super-fly dancers. Their name, of course, only adds to their appeal. In Latin, their name is quite lovely: sula nebouxii. Boobies belong to the order of Pelicaniforms, along with pelicans and their relatives, all delightful, whimsical birds of the highest standing. And in English? Well, there’s just something fun about saying Blue Footed Booby. Especially the Booby part. Booby!There is much speculation how the Blue-Footed Booby got its name. The first colonists who came across the fascinating bird may have been rash to call them “bobo,” Spanish for “stupid fellow,” but call them "bobo" they did, after watching them waddle about clumsily on land, completely unafraid of them, making them easy to catch (and eat, it would seem). And no doubt they were impressed with their blue feet. These misguided first impressions may have given them the unflattering name, but there are many who believe that the birds were graced with the name because of their bravery in the face of danger as well as their apparent lack of fear as far as humans were (and are) concerned. This makes more sense to me. I’d like to think that the name was bestowed as a term of endearment. Given how charming these birds are in real life, it’s hard to imagine that it was done in any other way.

Imagine a crop of your contemporaries running into a colony of dance-walking blue footed boobies during their courtship rituals, and you might get a different response. Blue-footed, yes. But Booby? According to the Urban Dictionary, that fascinating, alarming mix of slaughtered, refashioned words from the ever-evolving English language, a booby is “A species of seabird. Subspecies include the Blue-footed Booby.” Yes! Somehow, that definition garnered the top spot, right before numero dos: "Yeah, we all know: a woman’s jubbilies.” Jubbilies? Man, I am so out of it. Somewhat hilariously, someone also posted a definition of a booby as “a wannabe gangster, one that is very retarted, another name for bobby, as in booby is my home dawg.” Funny, I’ve never heard Randy Dawg say that on American Idol. As for me, I couldn’t get past the “retarted.” Hello? Any brain cells left? As for the other definitions (yes, quite catastrophically, there were more), they made even less sense than the “retarted wannabe gangster bobby,” and were so riddled in misspellings and text lingo that I got a really bad headache just from reading the stuff.

It’s hard not to fall in love with the Boobies, wannabe gangsters that they are. When I first thought of doing the Breast Cancer 3-Day 60 mile walk, I immediately thought of the Boobies and chose the name for my team, intent to “have their spirit infuse the experience with the joy and strength and love they exhibit in their every step.” After all, the Blue Footed Boobies sleep at night (sometimes, it is rumored, in pink tent cities), feed during the day (every 3 miles, it is recommended, during their particularly long island-hoppers, to keep muscles well-fueled for the long haul), and often congregate in great numbers to hunt for fish in the open seas (or to walk monstrously long distances, because there’s no better way to ease your pain than to walk or fly with lots and lots of friends). Perfect! My fellow Blue Footed Boobies are my home dawgs!

Boobies, of course, are often described as being rather clumsy and slow on land, but we won’t let that bother us, since (Fly Girls that we are) will fly more than walk. Have you ever seen a Booby dance? Check it out here. Plus, when they take to the air, Blue Footed Boobies are beautiful, graceful fliers, with impressive wingspans of nearly 5 feet, which they put to good use when hunting for small fish in the seas off the coast of South America. They often feed in groups, and pity the poor schools of small fish that might be lurking just underwater. The boobies seemed perfectly adapted for their own extreme version of spear-fishing; able to fold their wings back and turn themselves into stream-lined, torpedo predators, they rocket downward at incredible speeds, a sharp-shooting pell-mell into the sea to snatch their prey with their long beaks. We witnessed just such a Booby Brigade one early morning in the Galápagos, when thousands of them gathered in the skies above to circle, wings outstretched and flapping noisily, just overhead, only inches away, and back again, to dive en masse for their breakfast, their bodies like missiles, their beaks like spear points drilling the water with a small, unadulterated zzzzip of a splash, times a thousand. It was amazing acoustically and visually, and we sat in our panga for a long time with mouths open, staring, heads swiveling to try to follow the hordes, trying to take it all in.

Boobies, it seems, have a keen sense of humor, as well as a well-developed playful, mischievous side. On the northwest region of Isabella, along the shelves of rock and layers of ash in Taugus Cove, where pirates of long ago hid out, counted their booty, and hauled off zillions of Galapagos tortoises for food, and where guano-collecting ship crews left ancient graffiti on the walls, sit hundreds of blue footed boobies, who seem to enjoy shooting off rounds of excrement at the tourists who come in their pangas to take pictures of the seemingly placid, cooperative birds. The tourists, of course, always come away with more than they bargained for. It reminded me a bit of being at the Atlanta Zoo, and watching a silverback gorilla grab handfuls of his poop and throw it at the horrified crowds who had come to ogle.

We’re planning on behaving ourselves (of course, the best laid plans often do go awry, and since we are wanna gangsters, there are no guarantees!), and since part of our training must include getting used to doing our business in porta potties during the three days of the walk (joy!), perhaps we should take our cues from the Boobies, and get used to forgoing the privacy around toileting we are used to.

One of the most enchanting things about the Blue Footed Booby is, of course, those blue feet! The blue, the color of the island sky, looks fashionista-fabulous next to the black volcanic rock of the islands, the brown cliff walls, and the deep henna-brown of its wings, and plays a central role in the blue footed booby mating ritual. As is the case of many bird species, females are usually a little bit bigger than the males, who in turn focus all their energy on trying to have the bluest feet ever! so they can, what else, attract a mate.

Boobies live and nest in colonies (again, think pink tent cities), filled with courting and mating pairs of males and females, new parents protecting eggs and young chicks, and fresh faced adolescent boobies at various stages of their development (ok, none of that is going to happen at the 3-Day camp, to be certain. It's all against the rules. And they are very strict about the rules.) Since boobies do not have a distinctively defined breeding season, their colonies play host to boobies of all ages, making for an often noisy, busy place on the high cliffs of the island.

The colony often boasts boisterous pairs of courting boobies, with the males doing everything in their power to show off their bright blue feet to the females, who will ultimately choose to mate with the male who has, you guessed it, not the biggest, but the bluest feet. The male waddles over to a certain female who has caught his eye (petite feet? nice gams? that special come-hither look?) and begins to showcase his blue feet by strutting about (well you can tell by the way I use my walk I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk), lifting his feet up quickly and then lowering them down slowly, over and over again in a crazy hormone-fueled dance, before joining with his chosen, now-swooning female in a courtship dance that will either make or break their union. In another move that clearly inspired Tony Manero, the pair points their bills upward in the air while the male spreads his wings and whistles. Once the hook-up has been secured, the male brings the female some nesting material as a final demonstration of his commitment. I’ll be there for you, baby, and I’ll be a good Daddy-o, too. Typically, females lay their small clutch of eggs in small depressions in the ground without much of a nest, so the gift of nesting material is pure symbolic gesture. But the males do indeed follow through on their promises, helping out by using their large blue feet to cover, warm, and protect the eggs. The females do the same, with each parent taking turns to ensure that their brood remains safe from harm.

The boobies take care of their hatched young for just the first couple of months, after which time a chick can, apparently, take care of itself. We witnessed many pairings of mother and chick on the rocky cliffs of Espanola Island. The chicks are covered in hilarious and copious white fluff, which makes them look bigger than Mom. The chicks instinctively know to stay close to the nest. Boobie parents will not retrieve a chick who strays, so don’t go chasing waterfalls, and please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to…

Boobies can live 17 years in the wild. And domesticated boobies? Who knows. Fortunately, it hasn’t been attempted. Until now. I’m planning on returning to the wild sometime soon; I’ve spent far too much time cloaked in the promise of domesticated bliss, and am in need of a little adventure. Blue footed boobies have been known to stray off course and find themselves far, far away from home. In the summer of 2006, a lone blue-footed booby was spotted in Skagit County, in Washington state, and attracted quite a lot of attention. Must have chased a waterfall.

It’s no wonder the Blue-Footed Booby has made its way into the hearts of millions—and to the number five spot (after the polar bear, tiger, snow leopard, and panda) in the Top 5 Animals Adopted in the World Wildlife Fund Online Adoption Center. Boobies are the bomb. Wouldn't you like to be a Booby too?

The Blue Footed Boobies are looking for a few good males…with striking blue feet, of course…and females, too, to join us to walk in the Breast Cancer 3-Day, this July 24-26 in Boston. The Blue Footed Boobies will be walking for our girls, and yours, and all those girls grown and gone and those not even sprouted yet. The Blue Footed Boobies will be walking for boobies everywhere!

With a little luck, our feet will hold up on the hot, Boston pavement as well as the boobies’ feet hold up on the hot, crusty, sharp volcanic rock of the Galápagos Islands. I have no doubts that the current crop of Boobies--myself, my mother, Angie, Ursula, and Jeanne--will kick 3-Day butt, raise a whole lot of money for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and do ourselves proud. We might be the Boobies Five now, but we'd love to expand our colony, add some wannabe gangsters to the mix, a few more home dawgs, a handful of bobos. And it sure would be nice to have an even number of Boobies so the tenting thing works out a little more easily. Boobies Ten? Now, that has a nice ring to it. So, please--think about joining us! And if you're not able to don your blue feet and walk with us, please consider making a donation to help us go beyond our team goal. Adopt a Blue Footed Booby today!

To Boobies everywhere,
Blue Footed, Bionic, Nursing, or Not,
I give you the Boobie salute:
Wherever you are in the world,
Take good care of yourself,
And take good care of your girls!

XX, Liz

The Blue Footed Boobies: Walking for Boobies Everywhere!

Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.
~Henry David Thoreau

April 3, 2009

Dear friends and family,

I trust you are all enjoying these first miraculous bursts of springtime sunshine and warmth, and are doing well. It seems amazing and wonderful to me that winter has lovingly loosened its grip so that spring may unravel and unwind before us once again; just yesterday, I was walking at dusk, awash in the colors of the fading sun, and now and then the deafening, vibrational song of the peepers surrounded me with the pulse of earth‘s ebullient verve, and I returned home glad for the fact that this spring, there are no limits to what I can do, that I can swirl and dance and take all this new life in, rake the dead winter leaves out of my garden, spread some new seeds into the ground, and run with the wind through the ripening trees.

Just two weeks ago, on March 24, I observed the one-year anniversary of my mastectomy, the day they cut the cancer out, tested my nodes, began reconstruction, and delivered some pretty good news: they had gotten it all. On the outside, this March 24th was a day like any other, caught in the rush ‘n go of my daily grind like a twig stuck in a spoke on a bicycle wheel, but inside, I was feeling the year, with all its tremulous highs and bungee-cord lows, wash over me in hushed, breathy waves. I felt the whoosh of where I’d been, the cold fingers of fear tapping me on the shoulder, the rush of love and warmth that brought me here, and the stark loneliness of the landscape stretched out before me. I was grateful for the reminder of how far I‘ve come, how much I have to be thankful for, how lucky I’ve been. You’ve all been a huge part of this continuing journey, and I write to ask for your support again.

As some of you may know, I'm currently training to walk in the Breast Cancer 3-Day, a 60 mile walk over three days in Boston, this coming July 24-26. Last December, after much torturous Libran consideration, I decided that life was too damn short to worry about my gimpy knee, or any other of my ailing Rugby Goddess body parts, that I was, quite simply, good enough to put my Used Baggage to the test and register already. Training has been exhilarating, a clear testament to the power and inspiration to be found in raising the bar and working together to chase down a goal that benefits the greater good, a marriage between Nike's Just Do It and Obama's Yes We Can campaigns. I feel honored and privileged to have this opportunity to give back, and in return, enjoy the rewards of extending my reconstruction to body, soul and spirit.

I am walking as Captain of The Blue Footed Boobies, a team of inspired women who have come together to conquer each and every mile and raise money for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which has, to this date delivered close to 1.2 billion dollars to fund research, awareness, education, screening, treatment, and support programs, making it the largest source of nonprofit funds dedicated to the fight against breast cancer in the world. What’s better yet is that the financial support is backed by the largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists all “fighting to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find the cures.” Since every major advance in the fight against breast cancer over the last 27 years has been impacted by a Susan G. Komen for the Cure grant, every facet of my own personal journey has, in turn, been touched by a Komen grant, making every step easier, lighter, smoother.

It is my hope that all women diagnosed with breast cancer feel as supported as I have been--by friends and family who took me by the hand and led me through the darkness and into the light, by the excellent doctors who put me back together, and by the untold numbers of researchers, nurses, doctors, philanthropists and regular folk who continue to work tirelessly behind the scenes and on the frontlines to ensure that all women have the best possible chance at not just making a full, comfortable recovery from breast cancer, but at enjoying many years of being able to live life to the fullest. Can you help me?

Each walker in the 3-Day is responsible for raising at least $2300. Thanks to the generosity of a handful of friends and family members, I am close to meeting my minimum, but I know together we can, and should, do a whole lot better. I would like very much to be able to raise enough money to support other walkers and team members who might not have the fundraising resources that I have.

There are many ways you can support The Blue Footed Boobies in our 3-Day efforts.

• Make a donation. It’s easy! To give on-line, simply click on this link http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/Walk/BostonEvent?px=1980919&pg=personal&fr_id=1292 This will take you to my page on the 3-day site, where you can donate on-line. OR, if I have already cleared my minimum goal, please consider either donating to one of my teammates who may have not yet reached her goal, or mailing a check (made out to the Breast Cancer 3-Day) to me at 385 Main Road, Gill, MA 01354. This way, I can distribute the money to other teammates and walkers in need. All money raised goes to the same place, and helps The Blue Footed Boobies meet our team goal as well.
• Walk with us! We are looking for teammates! My good friend Angie Murphy was the first to join me; my mother, who, at age 69 and with two artificial hips, has just recently signed on as a walker, demonstrating a firebrand of moxie that could only have come from her mother, the irrepressible Kay Reed. (With my ultra-fab new left girl, the Blue Footed Boobies could very well be renamed the Bionic Boobies.) There are several others waiting to take the plunge. I'd like to say: Go for it! The walk is rigorous to be certain, but it is also a great opportunity to set some personal goals and get in shape, embark on a real team expedition, and be a part of something truly inspirational.
• Serve on the 3-Day Crew. They need all kinds of help, including medical professionals. Check out the 3-day site for more information. This is a huge piece of their success--and crewbies are the reason why we walkers don’t have to carry our packs, cook our own meals, or worry about getting ourselves to the ER if something should go awry (though my biggest fear is getting lost and not being able to find my tent on my way back from the porta potties at night, eek!).
• Help me train! I am looking for walking partners, and additionally, people who want to ride or cross-train with me on my off days. I am always in need of encouragement, deep tissue work, and advice regarding blisters, workout gear, and the very best yoga positions for stretching those walking muscles. Plus, if you have any music in your collection that you think might be perfect for walking to, feel free to burn me a cd, and I’ll do the same for you. And, if you should find me on your doorstep one of these days, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me in so I could use your potty.

I consider myself very lucky to be able to continue to rebuild spirit and body through my training, to be able to give back, to quite simply be here now--exulting in the coming springtides, and nursing my first big blister. Truly, as much as luck is relative, I’ve been lucky from the get-go, and that has not been lost on me. My cancer was caught early, all my surgeries went without complication, and I was able to bypass the dreaded chemo. Most importantly, I was able to activate a large, wonderful network of friends and family, who have blessed me with support of many kinds: steering me through the labyrinthine jungle of breast cancer treatment options, and sending a steady supply of encouragement, dark chocolate, and love in the form of good healing Juju that still courses through my veins. With your help, I was able to assemble a team of the best breast cancer docs around, who carefully disassembled me and put me back together with tender loving care. My girls are doing well; my left girl received her finishing touch—a tattoo to restore some semblance of nipple and areola color—this past January and is settling into what she hopes will be a long, healthy retirement. And despite the nodules that have appeared on my thyroid, the hot flashes that have dismantled my memory, and the changes that have upended my moon cycles, I have fared fairly well on my first year of Tamoxifen (really!). And my boys are doing well, too. Luke will start at Northfield Mount Hermon next year as a freshman, and Dominick will begin his fifth grade year of home schooling with me. Over and over again, I am stunned by the speed at which my children are growing up. I am reminded often to cherish this time with them, that there will be more time for me later, that the wheels on this time-thingamajig spin way too fast.

And, as I train for the Breast Cancer 3-day, feeling my legs regain their strength and speed, my lungs expand and fill with each step, I am acutely aware of how lucky I am to be a player again. Life is not a spectator sport, after all. I am happily engaged in the ongoing process of learning how to best take care of myself, just part of the bumper crop of new lessons that were seeded long ago and that will undoubtedly continue to come to fruition as part of my ongoing journey: that it is in the reaching out that we receive what we need; that we should not wait to be cradling our own mortality in our arms before breaking free from the tethers of fear and shame and self-doubt and plunging ourselves into the deep languid pools of life’s richest waters; that it is within our interconnectedness that we find our comfort and strength, our grace and divine humor; that the best possible way I know to live my life is to try to find the bits of joy, no matter how tiny, in each and every day, and to share that joy with the world around me, and infuse our collective spirit with compassion and positive energy; and that we all have our dark days, when our inspiration whispers and rages from the deep, dark wells within, creativity flies in the face of our most spirited muse, and forgiveness chases away the demons.

I hope you’ll join me in supporting the Breast Cancer 3-Day. At a time when government funding is being redirected to try to stimulate our struggling economy, it is more critical than ever to work together to make sure organizations like Susan G. Komen for the Cure remain fully supported. And remember: The Blue Footed Boobies walk for all of you who have been touched by breast cancer: for you, for your mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, and most especially, for your daughters. We walk for boobies everywhere!

I look forward to hearing from you, getting caught up, and having the chance to convince you to join the Boobies (!). Please take note of my new email address at zilrendrag@yahoo.com (not to be confused with zilrendrag, that spammer from Zimbabwe, over at Comcast.net).

I send you love and light and all good things. Be well. XO, Liz

1. I'm a prolific sneezer. 2. I'm known for butchering song lyrics. 3. My first love, at the age of three, was a boy named Andrew.

There’s been a lot of self-vetting going on these days. Perhaps we’ve all been inspired by the more official political vetting process that has flushed out so many ugly oops-I-have-unpaid-taxes skeletons from the dark, forested closets of the appointees, but it seems that the overriding trend these days is to beat everyone to the punch, haul out the bones, dust them off, and hold some kind of opening to show them off. Facebook, that social networking site whose 150 million members are more and more reflecting the over-30 demographic, seems to be the prime site for revealing—through photos, lists, and daily proclamations—not only skeletons in the closet but hidden talents, secrets, and lives as well. Liberated from the un-examined dust bins and batten-down lock boxes of our souls, these boney bits and pieces have come together in dizzying juxtapositions of past, present, and future to form sprightly, sparkling, mercurial mosaics, of who we are, were, or might be, randomly, at any given moment in front of any given computer screen.

There has been the usual backlash to all this talk of self, of course. One such liberation list, 25 Random Things about Me, circulated from friend to tagged friend at lightning speed, swiftly taking Facebook by storm, and set off a thundering response of both criticism and applause. Hijacking its users with an urgency to come up with a list of tasty, entertaining morsels about themselves, the 25 Things phenomenon spawned a massive outpouring of self-vetting. My life is really a little better since I discovered Ambien. I lost my virginity on the beach, but I don’t really recommend it. Water, sand and not knowing what you’re doing is not necessarily a good combination, despite what you may think after seeing “From Here to Eternity.” Mix in a little self-flagellation, self-deprecation, and self-celebration, and you’ve got an interesting brew of stuff wafting about, waiting to be inhaled, drunk down, and circulated all over again. It’s a bit like the old party game Truth or Dare, except no one can blame the warm beer in the keg anymore for their overzealous candor.

The original 25 Things list has generated an imaginative crop of new lists and games to consider, from 15 Transformative Albums to Sweet Memory Share and One Word Answers (or “Yet Another Way of Spending Time on FB”). But none of them have garnered as much harsh criticism as the 25 Things About Me lists, which have been trashed by some as being “self-indulgent” and “silly.” In reality, the material put out by these amateur writers often proves to be far more witty, amusing and interesting than much of what is out there on the professional circuit.

Why all the fuss? What, exactly, is wrong with partaking in the 25 Things exercise?

Despite what the t-shirt at despair.com says (I don’t even want to know one random thing about you), it seems odd to me that this culture, punch-drunk and empty-headed on the artificial sweeteners of celebrity cocktails, would find fault with something that actually has some heft to it—as besotted as we’ve become with reality TV shows and the quest for our own 15 minutes of fame, we too hunger for the face to face, the genuine clasp of connection and community, the tether and trust of true friendship in a world that both isolates and scatters us. As well, we’re eager to find our voice, be heard, understood, accepted, unlock our throat chakras, say hey. What better way than to reach out to your friends with some self-illuminating details, and an invitation for them to do the same? I want to know more about you, so I’m going to tell you something about me so you’ll feel more compelled to share something about you, and then, unless we’ve shared too much and suddenly feel uncomfortable with each other, we’ll feel closer! Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work? That’s healthy, isn’t it? I’m pretty sure that’s what I was taught growing up as the best way to make friends, deepen relationships, and feel a little less alone. Of course, depending on what you’re sharing, you could send some people running in the other direction—not always a bad thing, either.

Perhaps Tom Daschle could have benefited from the chance to write his own 25 Things You May or May Not Know About Me list. He could have gotten it all out in the open, saved his butt. 1. I'm allergic to bees. 2. I sucked my thumb until I was six. 3. Didn't pay $34,000 in income taxes, oops. 4. Favorite movie actress: Divine. Is he even on Facebook? Did we forget to tag him?

Facebook, like all successful, invasive species, has been skewered and spoofed by everyone, it seems. This, from idiotsofants.com and BBC’s The Wall: a hilarious look at what would happen if Facebook were actually played out in real life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrlSkU0TFLs

Our local morning DJ was recently heralding the fun to be had on Facebook. He made a distinction between his real friends as his “fake friends” on Facebook, and touted the etiquette inherent in such fallacious amity: why not allow anyone at all to be your friend on FB, since they’re not going to be your “real” friend anyway?

I, for one, would like to promote the finer points of quality over quantity as far as FB friends go. Somehow, I’ve amassed a group of FB friends that knit together circles of friends from high school, college, travels (however limited they’ve been), and my current community, with family members and the assorted former acquaintances who have become friends through our FB connection—it’s a lovely bunch, all very “real”, and nothing faux about them, and I do think they’d do most anything for me if I needed them to, not the least of which would be to write up 25 Things about themselves that I might not have known. Some of the connections I’ve made on Facebook have reminded me of the unexpected delight at making new friends at reunions with people I might not have known way back when or run across otherwise. There are friendships, always, to be mined.

I find the 25 Things exercise compelling, humorous, fun. I enjoy reading what my friends have chosen to drum up about themselves. It’s a self-vetting exercise as much as a therapeutic one—and an example of self-editing at its finest: just what does your 25 Things about Me list really says about you? Some lists are hilarious, some brutally honest, some quite eloquently pieced together, while others are impressive for their scope as much as for their simplicity. Some read like those annual Christmas letters, with emphatic exclamation points at the end of each sentence, while others read like a packing list of what to bring on this journey; some are so familiar that I could have written them for myself, while others seem a wee bit strange to me. But all of them offer opportunities to get to know people a little bit more in a way that we aren’t always afforded in our fast-paced, bustling world that leaves little time for saying anything beyond hey.

Remember Slam Books? I don’t think these 25 Things About Me lists are so very different from those notebooks full of questions and columns that we’d pass around in elementary and junior high school, asking for opinions on music, movies, celebrities, lip gloss flavors, and the most popular query: who do you think is the cutest boy in sixth grade? The pretense was the same: Hey, I think you’re interesting, so could you please tell me a few of your favorite things? I want to find out more about you, so I’ll tell you more about myself to get the ball rolling. It was a cooperative, community exploration of collective common ground, a way to belong, to try to measure up against the grain of normalcy that seemed to be a requirement for survival back then. Of course, Slam Books were really designed to find out who liked you, and Facebook is a little more grown-up than that. If Slam Books were declarations of our similarities, the 25 Things lists are revelations of our differences. But there are some lists out there that read more like Slam Books than anything else. Despite the suggestion that your responses might re-cast you as an oddball, “44 Odd Things about You” asks some pretty mundane, Slam Bookish questions: How many dogs do you have? What’s your favorite color? Candy? Book? And the clincher: Does someone have a crush on you?

It seems that the bottom line is the same: to stay sane with the three C’s: To feel Connected, Capable, and as if you Count (even, I suppose, if you don’t).

I don’t know about you, but I miss my old friends. The whole Facebook experience—and the I share-you share dynamic that has so successfully dominated the airspace as of late—seems like a great attempt at recreating those late night gab fests with a really good friend, when you’d share just about anything and everything, swap secrets, divulge hidden crushes, weaknesses, fears, addictions, triumphs. It’s infinitely harder not to keep up with each other’s lives the way we did when we went to high school or college together, and we’d stretch dinners into two hour exercises in procrastination and mastication, talk long into the night, get sufficiently soused to reach deep into our lock boxes, and spill…Those were the days when we did know those 25 things about each other—and a whole lot more. And now we’ve scattered, settled all over the map, had some kids, moved about, tried to grow up, and we don’t see each other as often as we’d like.

It’s a lucky person indeed who still enjoys the immediacy and intimacy of the tight-knit circle of close friends the way we did, who truly feels that they live in community with others. Facebook is nearly genius for the way it has brought us all together again in overlapping circles, and now, with our lists, in Venn Diagrams. The intimacy may be contrived, but the immediacy is there, with instant updates, wall-to-wall messaging, and the zillion other playful ways you can interact with, entertain, and good-naturedly annoy your friends. What’s remarkable is how Facebook facilitates the opportunity to share the details of our lives no matter how far apart we may live. We can post photos of our families, share links, compare favorite movies and music, play games with each other across oceans and continents, poke and be poked. There’s no substitute for getting together with your friends live and in person, but it’s impossible to do, and those reunions once every five years are wonderful but heart-breaking in their infrequency. Facebook fills in the time and distance, yanking together the torn seams of Pangaea, and providing us with ample reasons to waste more time in front of a screen. But the sense of community, however odd, feels real, and works like a charm when you really need it to.

Just before Christmas, our dog suffered a long night of frightening, non-stop seizures. After being shot up with valium and injected with Phenobarbital over and over again, Daisy finally relaxed into a sedated lump of exhaustion, and we were finally able to take her home. I went on Facebook immediately and posted an S.O.S. of sorts, hoping that I wouldn’t have to keep her sedated for too long, hoping that someone out there might know of some alternative treatments. An old high school friend saw it and forwarded it to a friend of hers, who just happens to be a certified pet expert, columnist for the New York Post, author of several books, yadda yadda. This woman responded to my note immediately, offering help, and over the course of the next several days, generously dispensed ideas and advice and support as if she was a close neighbor or old friend herself. I was very grateful. And as for Facebook, for making it possible? Brilliant, I say, brilliant.

Lev Grossman, in his Nerd World bit in the February 23^rd issue of Time magazine, declared that “Facebook Is for Old People”, that is clearly better formatted and suited for those of who can benefit from its more obvious vehicles for self-promotion (“There is very little that old people enjoy more than forcing others to pay attention to pictures of their children. Facebook is the most efficient engine ever devised for this.”), social and business networking (“What’s the point of networking with people who can’t hire you?”), that it’s a great remedy for memory loss (“Facebook never forgets.”) Grossman, who doesn’t really look old enough in his half-face corner photo to be worried about memory loss, but he argues well the finer points of being able to access your friends without having to remember their e-mail addresses: “We’re too old to remember e-mail addresses. You have to understand: we have spent decades drinking diet soda out of aluminum cans. That stuff catches up with you. We can’t remember friends’ e-mail addresses. We can barely remember their names.”

Despite being a bit ravaged by memory loss this past year myself, I know that I’m not quite there yet, but I can appreciate what’s to come, and I’m awfully glad for Facebook’s clutch cyber-memory tools. I’ve tried to convince my mother to join Facebook, but the busy-ness of it is overwhelming, the risk of having her personal details (or God-forbid, her identity!) stolen by non-Friends or faux Friends or posers too great, and the notion of joining an online social networking group started by a mere man-child too strange.

Perhaps Grossman’s 10 reasons why “Facebook is for old fogies” will convince her.

We do like making lists, though, don’t we? Think David Letterman’s Top Ten Lists. Rolling Stone’s Top 100 Albums of the Decade. Time’s Short List. Their 25 People to Blame (for the economic mess we’re in). And our daily attempt at creating order out of chaos: Things to Do Today (hate that list). The 25 List no doubt came from some other list, and of course, was responsible for inspiring many others, which spread like a blistering Southern Cal wildfire across the FB terrain. In Book Grab Share, I was asked to turn to page 56 of the book closest to me and share the 5th sentence (it was The China Diet, and it was pretty boring). Sweet Memory Share asked me to wage an all out assault on my current memory malfunction and try to summon all kinds of memories about someone, with more gold stars earned for dusting off reminiscences that were sweet or funny or cool. There are endless diversions, distractions out there on FB…and I do wish I had time to partake in all of them.

I’ve come up with some lists I’ve thought about initiating on Facebook:

Top 25 Grossest Things about me

Top 25 Stupidest Things I’ve ever done

25 Things I Don’t Like About Myself

Top 25 Lays (my, aren’t we prolific)

Top 25 Biggest Buggers about Getting Old(er)

Of course, one has to be careful about what the quantifier “Top” might suggest about oneself: that maybe there are 100 Gross Things about yourself, and what follows is a list of the carefully culled most-gross ones. Ewww.

And finally, as an adjunct to our homeschooling project of nearly the same name, 25 Traits I’ve Inherited (and Some I Have Not). Ring finger is longer than pointer finger. Widow’s peak. Propensity for worrying about lots of stupid stuff. Am not a Vulcan. Never did get any wisdom teeth. I figure that could mean one of two things: 1. that I’m just a little more evolved than all you poor saps who have to have your wisdom teeth painfully extracted OR 2. I’m a FOOL. You get the idea.

I’ve started to write a few different 25 Things lists. It feels, oddly enough, good for my soul. Some day I’ll share them on the blog. I’ve found it difficult, though, to match the brevity of the task, and well, you know me, I just seem to go on and on…there are stories that need to be told, explanations to accompany those concise little statements about self so I don’t appear to be too odd. After all these years, could it be that I’m still trying to stay on the normal side of the curve?

For now, though, I’m content to ponder this t-shirt slogan from the hilarious site www.despair.com:

More people have read this t-shirt

THAN YOUR BLOG

History, Herstory, Mystory, Yours

Hello out there!

I've been remiss in posting; apologies. Life has pulled me in many different directions this winter--doesn't it always? And despite scribbling madly and frequently in the many composition notebooks that inhabit my personal space (bedside table, car, pocketbook), I've been a bit preoccupied and have not quite been able to sweep away the clutter, tune out the distractions, and put thoughts down here. It's been mostly the usual--the incessant demands of the domestic front, homeschooling, kids, winter coughs and Daisy's boo-boos--with the twist of the unusual thrown in, just to keep me on my toes--getting on with the whole body reconstruction, and wondering, worrying, and finally getting to the bottom of my nodule-infested thyroid.

But I am here. And I'm certainly okay. I don't want anyone to think I've grabbed the keys, hopped in the car, and sped away, never to come back, or locked myself in the root cellar, flushed myself down the toilet, or fallen into a time portal, only to be whisked away into another dimension, unable to extricate myself from a flipbook of epoch encounters that have left me stranded on the beach with John Locke and Sawyer on the metaphysical island in Lost. There are times when I feel quite stranded, when I feel that I might as well flush myself down the toilet, or when I would love to find a time portal and escape, if only for a few hours, out of the here and now and into another space and time, but I haven't gone off the deep end just yet. Truth is, I've been trying to get out and enjoy winter, train for the 3-day, keep the kids on track, stay afloat, and try, try to remember to give the dog her phenobarbital and take my Tamoxifen, and not the other way around. Most days, there is time for only so much--take a nap or go for a walk or write or unload the damn dishwasher and drive the kids to the gym. The dishwasher and the kids usually win out. I do wish there was time for it all. Some day, perhaps, but not now.

I've tried to make peace with the wicked, relentless wintry cold, to find hope in the expanding light of the brightening mid-winter skies, and joy in the moments that bring me into my feet again, whether I'm skiing with my kids, dancing with myself, or singing my way into Hollywood week (I know, I know, I'm way too old). And too, I've experienced those depths of stark loneliness that have made me understand better why it is some people turn to their gods, for companionship and support, for love and acceptance, for some kind of reassurance, so that they don't have to go it alone. I too have had to press the hands of fear back down, away from the clutch of my throat, back into the annals of my yesteryear, to make a little room for forgiveness and redemption amidst the vicious entanglement of self-doubt that only clouds the here and now.

It should be history, after all. It's been a year since I first learned of my breast cancer diagnosis. I'd like to think I was done with all that. I've had my surgeries, gone through my reconstruction, assimilated the new into the old, learned a few things, forgotten more. But there are echoes and phantoms that rise up like fog every now and then to remind me that I am not done yet, that there is more work to do, always, and that there will forever be bits and fragments of the experience that I will revisit, intentionally and unexpectedly, like most everything else in life, rich with currents and tides bringing in the flotsam and debris.

About two months ago, my dear neighbor, friend, and nurse-midwife felt something on the left side of my thyroid. She has a good touch. I knew I should not ignore it. I took it to my new primary care doc, who recommended an ultrasound and started saying things like, "Well, given your history, we need to make sure it's not cancer." Bah! My history? Oh yeah, I had a history now. Bah! The mere possibility of having to deal with more cancer quickly and deftly infiltrated the little force field that I had set up to shield me from further assaults. I was amazed at how powerfully and quickly the urge to shout NO at the top of my lungs rose, at how much I wanted to deflect all of it, level the doctor with a left hook, and grab the keys... But I didn't, of course. I swallowed the NO, pushed it down deep into my throat, where it joined the countless other unspoken urges that simmer and whisper there, huddled masses, ghosts of despair. Eventually it made its way into my head, where it has remained all these weeks caught in an endless loop, No, No more cancer, No more cancer...

Two days before Christmas, I went in for the ultrasound, and asked the technician to show me her findings: nodules, it seems, had grown all over the place, nothing huge, but there they were, all lit up and outlined in fluorescent colors, like flecks of neon gold at the bottom of a dusty river. My doctor called to leave me a message. "Nothing really terrible," he said, "but we need to get the bigger nodules checked out." The poor guy had no idea how absolutely loaded his words were. Nodules? Nothing terrible? Uh-huh. The last time I had heard those words it was in response to the nodule the mammogram had just found in my left breast. We've found a nodule in your left breast--nothing terrible, but we'll need to biopsy it. I suppose nothing terrible can be terribly relative.

It took a while for me to get into see the endocrinologist, but when I did, three weeks ago, I easily explained away all the classic symptoms of thyroid malfunction. Fatigue? Sure, but who isn't tired? Insomnia? Well, every now and then, but that's been happening ever since I had kids and nursed my babies through the night. Cold extremities? Uh-huh. Runs in the family, and plus, I'm tall. Tingling in the hands? Yeah, and I've got a tremor, too, but I've had that forever, and there's some nerve impingement in my chest and shoulders, so... You get the idea. It was far too easy to blame my symptoms on being 43, on the Tamoxifen, on the stresses of the past year. But uncertain functionality aside, there was this problematic structural issue to resolve first. The docs made it clear that thyroid nodules are not like those found in the breasts. And the odds, it seemed, were clearly in my favor. Yep, I've heard that before, too. In any case, for whatever reason my thyroid has grown some pesky nodules this past year, there are two larger than the 1 centimeter-sized ones that are deemed safe but worthy of keeping an eye on that would need to be biopsied. Oh goody, I love biopsies. Shit.

The procedure didn't sound all that bad, really, and even when the doctors were explaining all the different kinds of thyroid cancer, they made the most common form and its treatment sound fairly simple: surgery to remove the thyroid (almost no scarring!), a little swab of radioactive iodine therapy, daily medication to replace the hormones your thyroid would have been generating, and voila! Cancer-free! Hmm. Cake. Yeah, but no thanks.

But you know, I didn't really want to go there, didn't really need to hear all the catastrophic forms of thyroid cancer that actually kill people, didn't really need to put any of that on my radar or in my head or into the hands of the fear that had been rising steadily since the ultrasound. Still don't. Come on already. Am I not done yet?

I'm not ready for a crash course on the thyroid, but maybe I should be: it seems that much of the breakthrough medicine that has set the medical world abuzz centers on the poor thyroid, which seems to take the brunt of aging amidst all the endocrine-disruptors and other environmental-wolves-in sheep's-clothing (ie, plastics, fire retardants, etc) that bring it on in new and disturbing ways. It's not a big surprise, then, that my thyroid is showing a little wear and tear. By some estimates, more than half of adults have somehow grown pesky nodules on their thyroids, yet another symptom of how toxic our environment has become, and how stressed out all of us are.

A little over a week ago, I went in for the biopsy. The procedure itself wasn't really a big deal--after experiencing a nipple construction, nothing seems to be much of a big deal anymore--and at this point, I'm convinced I can handle pretty much anything. I wore my one brave chick shirt (thank you, Kate). I put on my smile of steely resolve, Yes I can (thank you, Mr. President). I asked my mother to drive me to my appointment (thank you, Mom), and Dominick to keep her company (thank you, Dom). And I wished, oh how I wished, that I could ditch it all, blow it off, skip class, bag the needles and instead, take a long walk in the balmy sunshine that was melting the snow in melodious rivulets of rushing water.

The doctor was running late, but made up for it in niceness, in efficiency, in expertise. Thankully, he was not one of those you-should-be-honored-by-my-lateness kind of guys. He worked up the small sterile curtain around my neck in no time, shot me up with some local anesthetic, and started to extract sample after sample from the two nodules on the left side of my lower neck, using ultrasound to pinpoint the exact location of not only the nodules themselves but different areas within each nodule to ensure a thorough selection. It didn't hurt; I only felt the pull and push of the needle as it collected twelve samples of tissue, six from each nodule. I was not allowed to talk or cough or swallow while the needle was in, so, after offering up questions like an overeager schoolgirl in between each sample, I tried hard to stifle my inner chatterbox, (which seems to come out more during these local anesthesia-procedures, as if I'm making up for all the times I was knocked out and excluded from the OR chatter: well, I'm fully awake so we might as well have a conversation) and let him do all the talking.

A couple of bandaids later, I was ready to receive my discharge instructions: 1. take it easy for a couple of days. Milk it for all it's worth, he said. Uh-huh. That'll go over big in my house. 2. ice my neck a bag of frozen peas works best and take some Tylenol; it'll be a bit swollen and sore and 3. do something for myself: eat some ice cream, drink some wine, and eat some chocolate today, he suggested, just be sure to treat yourself. Chocolate, yes. Chocolate I will eat. It's so great when your doctor not only gives you permission to eat it but orders you to eat it, isn't it? Here, Harry, have a chocolate frog. It'll make you feel better. Thanks, Professor Lupin!

With prescription for dark chocolate in hand, I left, with the agreement that I would be back in a week to fetch my results.

It was a long week. As much as I tried to keep them at bay, the uncertainties rose and swelled and fell like ocean waves during a vicious storm, knocking me off my feet, inhabiting my dreams, plunging me into a battle of wits and nerve. My acupuncturist loaned me a wonderful book written by a local woman who relates her "sudden awakening" and liberation from the fear that had gripped her for so many years and the resultant joyful calm When Fear Falls Away. There was much I took with me into the wait, but this bit below helped me remove the clutch of hands from my throat, try to breathe in each moment that presented itself, and hold on instead to the joys that ribboned through my days, like psychedelic eels that shine and glow in beautiful colors at the very bottom of the darkest seas.

No More Ache, November 5 (Jan Frazier)
"The poet Linda Pastan writes, "The world wounds us with its beauty." how this idea used to run through me like a knife: Time was always running, running out. Mortality was the dark underside of every loveliness, every pleasure. I could not look at the beautiful world without feeling its terrible brevity. I could not touch my tongue to life without tasting death. The dread of death was what fueled my poetry. I could not bear pure joy. It was as if the direct encounter with perfection might obliterate me like an infuriated god, if I failed to pay obeisance, if I did not lower my head to the feet of the inevitability of loss.

"Whatever made me think I needed the threat of annihilation to make me love, to wake me up? I thought the specter of time running out would press me to live, to stop wasting time.

"Now it is no longer so. Now the lovely sky takes me into it, blue by day, black by night. The loveliness of the sky is forever. I am forever. I no longer hold back from loving it: I will not lose it. I am the sky. Joy is unbroken, unbreakable. There is no more poignance, no more ache. It is only that I have to contain myself. When I am alone I crack with joy. I am a little child, a dog leaping, spinning in circles. Can't get enough. I don't have to stuff myself: there is no shortage. Time is a lie, a big fat lie, and death too."

Of course, when I first read this, I wondered just what the heck this woman was smoking, and how could I get my hands on some. Good pow pow will do that. But really, I think she's on to something. And she's so lucky to have found it. I haven't always been as lucky or successful--the grip of fear is menacing at times, and the joy, well, those eels are slippery, man. And they hide out sometimes, and you have to know where to look for them: close your eyes, and they're gone. It's the same game: keep eyes and heart open to the possibilities, rely not on hope for something else or something better but on the possibility of finding the joy in the here and now, in the always, even if the wings of despair are beating you down, even if the joy hides on the bottom, like psychedelic eels, or fluorescent thyroid nodules lighting up the ultrasound screen. It's in the not waiting for the threat of annihilation, for being pressed by the specter of time, before you let yourself unravel--don't wait. Just go.

The week passed, and I was grateful for the distractions of my children, who always pull me back into the present moment, and a weekend trip to Boston, which offered up a chance to breathe in the brisk sunshine and city vibe at the same time. The uncertainty of Wednesday inched closer, and despite my best efforts to not allow it to enter into my consciousness, it found me in my sleep, spilling into my dreams as ill-disguised nightmares. It seemed the horrors of the past year had begun to seep through the seams of that well-hewn lock box where I stuffed most of the deep, deep ache, the phantasms of fear, the destructive thought patterns and other mementos from the perilous journey.

But to hell with no sleep--Wednesday had arrived and I was relieved. Finally. It had been two months, way too long. So when the nurse called to tell me the results were not yet in, that I would have to wait a little longer, I was a little horrified, and disappointed, but not totally surprised. My mother was already on the way; she'd come over the trail to be with me, but now would keep going east to see a friend in Boston. The ladies from Moldova were coming to help me clean, and Dominick wasn't feeling well; I'd be able to spend the morning with him and Luke, scrub the kitchen, find a zillion things to lose myself in, maybe find time for a walk outside later in the afternoon. We had a day, after all, to walk through, to breathe in, to do.

The nurse's call in the late afternoon took me by surprise; as eager as I was to weave it into my consciousness and be done with it, I had almost forgotten this loose thread in my head. The results were in, she said, could you come in tomorrow morning? I felt the stab of urgency in my chest as I tried to gauge the tone in her voice. Nada. Can't you please tell me the results now, I pleaded, over the phone? No, we don't do that, I'm sorry. Can't you tell me anything? Anything at all? I could hear a split second of hesitation on her end, and then: Well, you should sleep well tonight. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That's all I needed to hear.

We agreed that I would come in the next morning to get the results. I hung up the phone and sobbed, just a quick release of a very palpable relief that rose suddenly and quickly, overtaking me for a few seconds, and then, vanished. As it turned out, I had too much time to think about what she had said, and started to play ridiculous, dangerous games in my head. Hmmm, I wondered, what if her idea of good news was completely different than mine? Maybe she figured I was expecting the worst, and so would be relieved, happy even, to hear that I didn't have the really deadly form of thyroid cancer, just the easy-to-treat, remove the thyroid, and voila! kind that nobody died from. Maybe she was just saying that to shut me up. But could she do that? Could she really do that? I told you--ridiculous, but there it was, all wrapped up in a ball that was bouncing about non-stop in my head. Boing, boing, boing. Bah!

Despite knowing, deep down, that all was okay, I found myself quaking in my seat as I waited for the doc to show up. Chill the f*#% out, I kept telling myself, but the shakes continued, and for a short twist in time, I was my dog, Daisy, waiting to get her nails clipped at the vet's: eyes searching for reassurance, body visibly shaking, straining on the lead to go. There were two pharmaceutical sales reps waiting for him across the hall, so when he did arrive, he was as antsy and impatient as a little boy trying not to wet his pants. He showed me the pathology report, and I should have requested a copy, because why save only the bad ones? This one was nice and short, to the point: both nodules were BENIGN, in capital letters. And that's all it said. And that's all I needed to hear, to see. I tried to ask the doc a few questions about thyroid function in general, but I could see that he was eager to 1. get his pen back that I had borrowed to write a quick note down to myself about my TSH levels and 2. check in with his drug company buddies across the way, so I said thank you and told him I would see him in another year. Who knows? Maybe they were waiting with a lovely spread for lunch, or a big fat bonus check, or a couple of plane tickets to the Bahamas. Maybe he'd prescribed so many of their superstar drugs that they were inducting him into the hall of fame. I know, I know. How cynical of me. But I couldn't help feel that the system, for all its breathtakingly executed surgical and pharmacological miracles, doesn't always serve our better, wiser selves, and our deeper, broader sense of wellness, that the incentives for doctors to prescribe certain medicines--the "chemo" bonuses, for instance--compromises the very "art of medicine" that such rewards should be celebrating.

But that's another post. For now, it's enough to know that this time, my voice was heard.

No more cancer! Yahooooo!

Happy Inauguration Day! Go Ahead! Jump for Joy!

It’s been a busy start to the new year: a return to our many homeschooling projects (see above), wilderness programs, basketball practices and games, indoor soccer and wrestling, skiing, art classes, and the re-ignition of the rush-and-go engine, fueled by lots of green tea, visits to my chiropractor and acupuncturist, and flying, ever so gracefully, by the seat of my pants. Christmas brought together family and friends and offered a bright and festive pause, but the deeper layers of relaxation never seemed to take hold. I keep thinking that someday I'll enjoy a proper vacation again, but for now, life does feel at times like a flurry, really, a blitz of be here now requests that I am at once grateful for and scornful of, a creeping feeling that there’s too much on the docket, that it’s time to drop some ballast, get rid of the old, make room for the new. Winter, with all its blinding snowstorms, and the hushed, lovely stillness that follows, has a wonderful way of slowing things down, and we’ve been graced with some gorgeous days, bright skies bleeding blue, and white snows sparkling with the triumphant return of the sun, that have helped me find a new tenor, walk a fresh beat, fire up the inner ceremonial circles of light and dance and joy and beat back the encircling fear.

Now that my tattoo has all healed up, and my girl is all done, it feels good to have a new project, to be able to set my sights on the 3-day, to have something to work towards, figure out. I figure, why stop at the breast as far as reconstruction goes? My whole body could use a serious overhaul, so it feels really good to fight the wrinkly knees, the aching joints, the punch-drunk lungs, and feel my deep wellsprings of energy returning. I’ve been training as much as I can, walking in the cold rain, in flurries, along patches of ice, through fresh, fluffy snow. One morning, I walked through a stifling fog that rose and swirled around me in thick ribbons, and every time a car approached, headlights suddenly appearing out of nowhere, I’d have to jump out of the way for fear of being completely smashed to bits. The great thing about that day was that by the time I had turned my third corner into the final fifth mile, the sun had shot of the sky to burn away the fog, warm the road, and shine directly on my face. Winter roads aren’t always hospitable to walkers, though, and the cold as of late has made it downright dangerous, so I’ve had to hit the treadmill much more than not, brave the dull clink and clank of the endless loop, the inane feeling of going nowhere, and the sudden motion sickness and hankering for sea legs that hits me as soon as I step off, reeling, the ground still moving underneath me, and try to walk, and actually go somewhere.

The snow seems to fall every few days, brightening and covering the dirty roadside banks, and filling the woods with a hushed, lonely quiet that I can feel in my heart. The stillness rouses my hibernating self, reminds me that there is more than just deep snow and deep freeze in this bleak mid-winter, that if I watch closely, I’ll notice that the sun rises higher in the sky each day, that the days are getting longer, that spring is coming. The spectacle and promise of tomorrow's Inauguration seems to echo the call of winter: it may get worse before it gets better, but there are silver linings and good things to be found in the darkest, coldest hours, and that it is best to experience winter in all its glory than to hide out in its shadows.

(It's about time!!)

We’d planned to head to my mother’s house tomorrow after skiing for an Inaugural Dinner, but Dom, who wanted to wear a tux to the event, just went to bed with a troublesome croupy cough, so we may stay at home. Wherever we end up, we’ll be looking for our friend Galen and the Brattleboro High School band in the parade amidst all those zillions of shiny, happy people. What an amazing, historic time. I keep getting weepy, the whole affair seems so very moving to me. However challenging things are for everyone, there is a buzz in the air that is hard to deny, a sense that something good will come out of all this difficulty, a heightened sense of awareness of our place in this world, perhaps, and a greater responsibility for each other (and we hope, the planet and all its habitants), that will change the face of how we live, transcend the doubts and nay-sayers, enable us to better endure the hardships, and lead us into a more sustainable, unified future.

Ok, that’s the end of my speech. I wonder if there are any last minute positions that Obama has yet to fill, and if he might want to look my way. Secretary of the 3-Day, perhaps? Minister of the Gap Band? Celebrator of the New Girls?

The kids and I put together some cut and paste Happy Inauguration Day cards this past December, in preparation for the Craft Fair, where we sold them to giggling people of all ages who seemed to appreciate our light-hearted approach. We first started putting Bush heads on babies’ bodies two years ago, when we crafted an entire book of Bush Babies and Bushisms, in The Search for Bush’s Brain. Once we started, we were addicted, and when Sarah Palin arrived on the scene, oh my! Here are a few we concocted, just for the sheer fun of it. No offense intended, please. And, oh, HAPPY INAUGURATION DAY! Yahoo!!

It's a Girl!

Elizabeth Gardner is pleased to announce the completion of her new left girl. Hurrah, hurrah! Nearly a year in the making, and several reconstructive surgeries and procedures later, Liz’s rebuilt, freshly and lovingly embellished (ok, scratch-painted) left girl, is healing up well after her most recent adventure. This past Wednesday, she received her tattoo, a lovely mix of rosy colors to recreate the lost areola and burnish her fabricated, Sally-esque nipple with a worthy flame, a rebirth of balance and symmetry resulting in, hurrah, a matching pair. After several minutes of color mixing in an attempt to match wit and hue to the right girl, the desired bloom was achieved. Liz is grateful for the anesthesia that rendered her long-suffering skin numb for the procedure and for the pleasantries of chatting it up with the lovely tattoo artists that silenced the annoying dentist-drilling-buzz-saw sound of the six-needled tattoo tool. Labor and delivery of the reconstructed girl was deemed successful in large part due to the expert, gentle hands of the skilled Dr. Pitts and her assistant Christina, and the magical workings of fabulous drugs and powerfully healing Juju. This re-pigmentation of nipple and areola heralds the final phase and end to this long year of gestation. Liz is thankful that it is over. And soon, when the bandages are off for good, the full extent of her girl’s bloom will be revealed, mimicking the bold, bright gaze of a peony, perhaps, the softer blush of a rose, or the dappled pinks that spread like wildfire in the springtime.

Ok, that’s enough hoopla.

It is said that She who plants a garden, plants happiness, that “always in gardening there is a sense of eager anticipation, which gives a heightened zest to life. There is not only the fullness of the enjoyment of the present, but always the expectancy of the beauty that is to come. (Louise and James Bush-Brown, The Heritage of Gardening) This new girl has been a long time growing, changing, waiting, this garden of bruising colors giving way to smoother scars in pink and silver, purples fading to brown, then yellow, a pause before the next creative flowering, with new bright reds running this way and that amidst blue threads that vanish, leaving a shrinking violet, now finally endowed with a proper hue of her own, a flush of perennial vitality masking, belying, refreshing the loss and decay of the usual cyclical rhythms of life, death, growth, regeneration. To be honest, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about it—triumphant, relieved, embarrassed, glad to be done with it all—maybe all of those things, and maybe none of them. The one clear feeling I’ve experienced all along has been a stippled, shadowy sense of shame, that somehow I’ve inconvenienced everyone with all this nonsense, this cancer that I must have brought on myself, and that now that it’s over, I’ll finally be able to get on with what I’m supposed to be doing, whatever that is.

The day after I got my tattoo, I ran into a woman whom I’ve recently gotten to know a little bit. She knew that I had been going in that week, and asked me how it went. “Congratulations,” she said, “it must feel great to have it all behind you.” And then she asked me where I’d like to go to celebrate. Huh? Celebrate? Congratulations? I hadn’t been expecting that, but it pleased me, to the end of my toes, to hear it, until I realized, in one of those rare instances of self-observation, that I was suddenly questioning whether or not this—this new girl—really merited such attention, and then I just felt annoyed with myself.

What was wrong with me? In some ways, heading in to get my tattoo had felt like some self-indulgent exercise, as if I were driving two hours each way to pick up some new drapes that had caught my fancy in the curtain shop, and had called in my mother to come take care of the boys, making her rearrange her schedule so I could go on this frivolous expedition. And yet, there have been other times when I’ve felt so amazed by the whole process, so blown away at what the doctors have been able to do, that I’ve felt like flashing my new girl to people, Look at this! Look at my new girl! Isn’t she great? But the reality is that many people are simply put off by the thought of it—my last primary care doctor, even (I have since switched to someone who does not get all squeamish at the idea of having to see my reconstructed breast)—and so, as those slivers of celebratory pride have risen, and threatened to set things a-sparkle, I’ve shoved them so far down deep that I fear I can no longer access them.

When I first met with Dr. Pitts in her Faulkner Hospital office nearly twelve months ago, I had no idea just how long it would take to grow this garden, reconstruct my breast, land back on my feet. At the time, I had been cradling my diagnosis for about a month, trying to soothe, snuff, silence the blasted fear and dread, and had just made the decision to forgo the possibility of endless clear-margin seeking lumpectomies and opt instead for a left sided mastectomy with reconstruction. I really had no idea what I was in for. Dr. Pitts introduced the different phases to reconstruction and showed me before and after photos. For my part, I wondered if all her patients—and all the reconstructed girls—made the scrapbook, or just the ones that came out really well, with near-perfect matches in size and color and droop and chutzpah. I remember joking about wanting a lizard tattooed around my nipple instead of just a plain old areola, not clear at the time as to why I would need the areola since my nursing days were over. A lizard might better represent this next phase of life, I thought, this new incarnation, signaling to everyone that yes, my left girl was different, and proudly so. But in the end, I tried to ask a few intelligent questions. In retrospect, I didn’t really have any experience on which to base my questions on, so whatever my inquiries I voiced no doubt rose right to the top of the lame-o scale, thereby preserving both my ignorance and wish to keep everything at a certain arm’s distance. It’s nice when doctors don’t laugh out loud at your questions. Did I really want to know everything there was to know? Nope. Did I really want to probe the deeper end of the reconstruction ocean, try to navigate the murky waters, and come across the multitudinous and unimaginable oddities that lurk and feed on the very, darkest, bleakest bottom? Absolutely not. So, bit by bit, piece by piece, layer by layer, I dove beneath the veneer of the “after photos” that made it all seem so very simple and triumphant, and began my search for a balance between knowing too much and knowing too little, between hiding out in the warm shallows and risking it all in the deep end. There are very good reasons why doctors don’t tell you everything at once.

This past Wednesday morning, driving out to Wellesley to visit Dr. Pitts in her tattoo studio, I was glad for the bright sun that warmed the inside of my car and ensured clear roadways for the two hour drive. It was cold outside, and I had to scrape the ice from the inside of my windshield, but I was warm even if my car, at first, was not. Quite strangely, after taking a hiatus this fall, my hot flashes have returned just in time to keep me toasty during this ridiculously cold spell.

There was some traffic on Route 2, just enough to unsmooth my edges, but I had my trusty iPod with me and so set about to suffuse my frustrations with a little iPod divination to see where the day might take me. As I drove out of Gill, leaving behind the suffocating blare of small town isolation, the beautiful, frosty winter hills white with snow, still clean from the recent storm, I hit shuffle, waited while the Pod sifted through the 6869 songs and audio book chapters and podcasts, and with an expectancy that I always seem to experience when I play this game, listened eagerly as the first song started to spill from the radio hook-up:

I had a nightmare
I lived in a little town
where little dreams were broken
and words were seldom spoken

I tried to reach you
but all the lines were down
Summer rain began to fall
on this little town
...on this little town

I’ve always liked the Brit-pop of Travis, their winding melodies and haunting lyrics, the deftly crafted beauty that often disarms and charms me. But this was a mildly depressing beginning. This particular song, 3 Times and you Lose, seemed to capture my particular conflicting appreciation and loathing of living where I live, the expansive natural beauty, the crushing remoteness, how easily the lines between our phantom dreamscapes and daily shadows can blur and blend and render the internal landscape shiftless, lifeless, barren. On my way, on my way, and yet, there’s a feeling of being stuck that lingers, pulls me in, and washes out all the color. Music seems to bring it all back into a more unified composition, replete with vivid imagery and overarching declarations that unseat my primal unhappiness, even if only temporarily, and send me deeper still into that unchartered territory, where joy rushes about unabated, and I can catch a ride on the wings of a whim and return rejuvenated.

I landed next on Video, by india.arie, and declared

I’m not the average girl from your video
and I ain't built like a supermodel
But, I learned to love myself unconditionally
Because I am a queen…

I realize I just don’t get out in the car to air out my lungs often enough. I don’t care what people think of me as they drive on by. It seems a necessary impulse, this singing at the top of my lungs as I drive down route 2 towards my first ever, final phase tattoo. But the song, for all its feel good girl power vibes, trips me up at the end:

Don't need your silicone I prefer my own
What God gave me is just fine

What happens when what God (or your mother) gave you is taken away? I spend some time musing over the reconstruction process and the choices I have made, to refashion myself a breast, a nipple, an areola, out of silicone, skin, artificial pigment, guts, glory. Many women choose not to reconstruct their breasts, or choose not to get nipples, or choose to go another way entirely. I fully respect those women and the decisions they’ve made, because, after all, I could have been one of them, if things had unraveled a little differently. We all have our reasons for doing what we do. For me, I realize suddenly, I did need your silicone. And when I’m a 65-year old lady, still trying to stay in shape to the Gap Band, watching my left girl start to show her age, I just might need it again.

iPod divination is a tricky business. Typically, I’ll consider the first three songs that are chosen, but sometimes, a chapter from the Wind and the Willows, Moby Dick, or Eragon might jump in, and I have to skip ahead. I like to think that life, perhaps, is not as random as the shuffle application would like us to believe, that if you believe in the iPod goddess, as I do, then you have to welcome the possibility that there is a message behind the selection, a retooling of the apparent randomness by the spirit guides who like to insist on playful intervention. I’ve been playing these games my whole life. Silly, I know. But we have to take our cues from something. It’s that eternal quest for explanation, for purpose, for the deep hidden meaning, that ever-elusive DHM that teases and taunts us into submission.

I am surprised that I have not yet been presented with a chapter from A Short History of the World and Nearly Everything in it, or some Kanye, or B-52’s. The third song selected by those meddlesome guides is by the Indigo Girls, one of their early hits, Closer to Fine, and why should it not be? You know how it goes: I’m trying to tell you something about my life, maybe give me insight between black and white…and I think, I am trying to tell you something about my life, I’ve realized, and I don’t know if it’s because there is a certain urgency with how I live my life these days, or a need to scroll through the travelogue of life and try to figure out just how and where I might fit in now, now that I feel so different, and everything has changed, but things still drum along to the same beat around me, and I search desperately to find the rhythm, but it eludes me, and I wince at my own inability to saddle up and go. The only thing I can do is dust off and toss out the old to make room for all this new, and perhaps, as the song goes, “the best thing you’ve ever done for me is to help me take my life less seriously—it’s only life after all.”

From this divining three-pack, there were many things I could ascertain. But by the time I get to Wellesley, I’ve forgotten them all. I park, climb the stairs, and greet Dr. Pitts at the front desk. She’s always breezy and chatty and it’s always nice to see her. I feel greatly indebted to her. It’s been several months since I’ve seen her, and I’m glad for the chance to simply reconnect, get caught up, and, oh yeah, get my new girl tattooed. And there's the curiosity factor, too: what is it going to be like?

Her assistant Christina brings me to a treatment room in the back, where I change into a johnnie gown and watch as she begins to assemble the goods: little squeeze bottles of various hues, mostly browns, pinks, reds; a tiny mixing bowl, smaller than a thimble; some alcohol wipes; a minute sliver of a paint brush; gauze pads, tape, and space age bandages of a certain blue color; and finally, a strange looking device that reminds me that I might have landed in a torture chamber. She asks to see my right girl so we can start figuring out what color and shade the left girl should be. Reds, she says, lots of reds in there. Reds? I only see pinks of many shades, and notice that the nipple is darker than the areola but sports a lighter shine on its very tip, as if all that nursing polished it better than a rock tumbler. I suddenly realize that I haven’t seen many breasts at all, that compared to Christina and Dr. Pitts, who must have to eyeball dozens every day in all their glory—in full range of hue and pigment and shape and projection—I am green, pathetically green in my lack of experience with areola pigmentation, and that I will, as I have done throughout this process, defer to the experts.

Christina mixes up a few different colors, paints them along the edge of my right girl’s areola, and we wait for them to dry. It’ll take a few more attempts, but Christina nails the right colors amazingly fast and whips up her final concoctions, a rosy reddish pink for the areola, and a slightly darker shade for the nipple. Dr. Pitts returns to outline where the color will go. I have witnessed Dr. Pitts’ drawing skills firsthand a few times before, signing my left side before each surgery, using a black Sharpie to mark where the expander, then the implant, and finally the nipple would go, and now, echoing the slightly elliptical shape that surrounds my nipple, instant areola. I am instructed to stand in front of the mirror to check her work. It looks good to me! I realize, in that brief batch of seconds, that my left girl will always look different than my right girl, that it seems almost absurd to pretend that they might look the same, that maybe I should have gone with the lizard, after all, in a nod to what seems obvious now: that the left one is simply not the same, and that’s something to be celebrated, not kept under wraps, or coerced into hiding. The lizard will have to wait. She pokes my breast with the pesky anesthesia needle, and after several long seconds of slowly subsiding burning sensations, I’m good to go.

I feel nothing, of course, and can’t see anything, so have no idea what is happening. I’m comfortable, lying down on the table, my feet sticking off the end as if I were some giantess from the Enchanted Forest. We’re talking, about skiing, the kids, pretty much picking up where we left off the last time I saw her, in the OR for my new nipple back in October. The whirring of the tattoo device is a bit disconcerting, given its obvious associations, but it doesn’t really bother me, because I feel nothing, after all, and I’m grooving on the fact that I’m getting my first tattoo, and my new girl will be done, soon, to boot. It’s all good.

Dr. Pitts leaves Christina to finish filling in the color. She paints a little on, and then etches it into the skin with the six-pointed whirring tool that I am convinced does double duty as a torture device or sadistic sex toy somewhere. Paint, etch, chat, paint, etch, chat. I’m just glad for the chance to talk, and I realize that I have grown fond of Dr. Pitts and Christina, that I will miss them. After about twenty minutes, she is done. There is some blood, after all, getting a tattoo is like getting an intentional abrasion, a wicked bad scrape that, once it heals up, reveals something pretty spectacular, an etch a sketch of the permanent sort. Christina cleans me up, applies ointment, the blue space age bandage, and two layers of gauze, tape to hold it all in place. She explains what I can expect: to take off the bandages, carefully, so they don’t pull off the color, and shower, in another day; to put on fresh ointment and bandages, and then change them every day for a few days after that, until everything heals up; to stay out of pools, hot tubs for a couple of weeks. Just as the nipple shrunk in size over time, the color, too, will lighten a bit over time, with the final hue settling in about ten days. Dr. Pitts gives me a prescription for a 5-day run of antibiotics. And in a few months, I’m to return to the office for my after shots (I am reminded of the ever-mysterious-full-0f-spectacular-promise after party, and think the appeal is somehow similar) I tell them I’ll have to get ripped for the photo shoot. I want to be sure my girls are in the scrap book, after all.

A day later, my bravado is gone, gone, the first glance at my tattoo bringing back the harrowing fear of having to take off the bandages for the first time after my mastectomy back in March, accept the ugly mess of bleeding incisions and mangled, bruised flesh as me, and try to start imagining something better, a garden, perhaps, a bit tangled, but blooming with color and life. It seems easy now to sweep much of the fear aside, and I am relieved when the bandages come off easily, and I can check things out without first having to pick out any bits of bandage from my skin. But I don’t linger here, by the mirror; I know that the color is not yet set, that my girl will change once again, for “a garden is ever-changing, for it is a thing alive…” Instead, I take to the shower, to feel the rush and warmth, the prickly sensation of water cascading over my scraped up girl, to dawdle instead in the slow expanse of quiet, wrap myself in the hushed calm of the steam.

And now what? I ask myself. Now that the new girl has been successfully installed, just where do we go from here?

When Dominick was two and a half, he said to me

I’m strong!
Maybe I’ll grow up and be a man

Or
Maybe I’ll grow up and be Mommy
And you be Dominick and I’ll give you nah-nees!

Or
Maybe I’ll grow up a be a man
A Daddy, and have nipples
And hair on my tummy
And Daddy will be in my tummy
He’ll be my baby

Or
I’ll grow up and be a man
…Like Zephyr!

(Zephyr was our dog, a noble male, but a dog, nonetheless)

I love that even at that age, Dominick saw that life is ripe with possibility, that anything, perhaps, can happen, even becoming a dog-man, switching places with your mother, or giving birth to your father, and nursing him, even with hair on your tummy. To revisit his two year old sensibility is quite amazing, especially since now, one month before he turns ten, he takes care of me in so many ways, offering me the comfort, nourishment and reassurance—the very manna of nah-nees—that he prophesized nearly eight years ago in his imagined Freaky Friday-swap for the nursing-toddler set.

As much as I’d like to think that the gods and goddesses (iPod and otherwise), spirit guides, ancestral energies, toddler insight and the collective consciousness might divine my path, I know too that there is much we engineer, in our ability and willingness to open ourselves up to change, to the winds that blow in unexpectedly, to the river that carries us, to the idea that we don’t know everything and don’t have to, that there is joy to be found in the not knowing, in the wonderment, in following our feet, our hearts, down paths we have not yet explored.

Thankfully, we are in training, we have plans. My new girl needs to be properly christened. I have decided that a celebration is in order. And I’m gradually getting my feet well-weathered to walk 60 miles in three days, my hips and knees well-oiled, legs strong. There are lots of things on the calendar to look forward to. Most importantly, I strive to stay in the here and now, to lose myself in the portal of possibility, go down the rabbit hole, and tend the tangled garden that grows untamed, wilderness of mind, soul-sanctuary, to await the beauty, grab the giddyup and go, and let the winds carry me.