balance

the body 

starts with no strikes

against it, and then one day it reminds

you of that time when you were 22,

playing coed volleyball in a dimly lit gym in Seattle

and you jumped up to block a spike 

and came down on the spiker's foot under the net 

and your right ankle rolled --

and then snapped.

She scored the point; you scored 

a ride to the emergency room.

Now, at nearly 60, you're just about ready to down dog

on your lavender yoga mat 

and it's there again, that right ankle.

That -- and the left hip replaced by titanium

and the right breast absent some flesh

and the left elbow ripped by a riptide

and the arthritis in the thumb.

You try to be grateful 

that it's in your left --

because otherwise

you might not be writing this poem.

They say

the body 

keeps the score --

at this point, I'm just hoping for a tie

between left and right.

Lord Help Us *

Every- 

thing

and

Every- 

body

Lies

Except maybe our garbage –

So much stuff to stop our scents, tubes to 

whiten and brighten but not 

save and protect, bottles as

evidence of how many ways there are to die, tubs of Trader Joe’s – 

dips we could easily make ourselves 

But don’t. 

Every trashed container containing

maybe a couple more days worth which – if 

added up -- would be enough to 

last us many years

*Not sure if it’s a petition or a confession, but I know it’s a prayer

multiple choice

A.

...but What You Do doesn’t fit into these boxes

the head gardener said from across her desk

which is larger than mine which is larger

than my students’.  It does give her some respect --

she’s almost at the top of the school-desk

chain, after all.

I mean, I know I’m just grounds maintenance

-sometimes-

and even need boxes

-occasionally-

But mostly, I’m the one who lets the Portulaca grow.

What I Do doesn’t fit into those boxes

It began so hopefully.

I took a seat, noticed the books that lined the shelves

behind her by authors I didn’t necessarily agree with.

Still don’t, filled as they are with all those foolish

lists and diagrams and charts.

And boxes.  

She opened my file, and with it the End-of-Year Conversation --

“You’re the best teacher I’ve got, you know

that don’t you?”

I mumbled some uni-syllables in some un-rememberable

order: “Wow. No. Um. Yes. Well. Oh. Um. Thanks.”

and considered (not too guiltily, I must confess),

the Pay-for-Performance payout I would get.

… but What You Do doesn’t fit into these boxes

B.  

You see, you and me, we can’t have a real relationship

if your job is to judge me, compare me to my friends,

and by those boxes that you checked

during a half-dozen ten-minute “Spot Observations” --

determine my salary.

Even you don’t like doing it, I get that, please don’t

tell me.  Even within an argument essay,

that's a pretty lame attempt at pathos.

C.

It’s all irrelevant anyway --

there will never be enough money

for us all to be Exemplary.

Race to the Top means someone’s at the bottom --

competition in our world sows even more doubt

and insecurity than we already know.

We are all the lettuce of the parable --

who need more water and less sun and certainly

less blame for not growing well.

D.

And what seeds are we really sowing?

Do we truly believe that the re-seeded Portulaca will bloom

in the cracks of our neighborhood sidewalks?

Or should we weed them out?

Rev up the Weed Eater and lop off their little blooming heads

to make things more tidy?

Don’t judge me for how many blossoms

there are, or how many seeds take root --

because some will never find their way under the concrete to the light

and others have been blown so far away

and planted themselves in places where

the woman holding the garden hose speaks another language.

E.

Schools are not Businesses
Students are not Consumers

Knowledge is not a Product

F.

You wanna know what our schools really need?

We need Professional Development we seek out ourselves

and you pay for it, and we convince all our colleagues

to come along because it will make us all Exemplary,

Racing to the Top as if we were holding hands

in a long line of Red Rover Red Rover

and we’re going to hold so tight that noone we call over

will ever be able to break through.

And we really don’t care if we get more money

for how tight we hold hands or

when our name gets called or

if we break through and get to bring someone over

to our side.   We’re the ones who would rather be

happy than rich and you know it --

and you’ve taken advantage of it for far too long

We need more men.  More people of color.

We will get neither if the seeds

of funding and fairness

don’t find a place to grow

We need accountability -- of course we do.

We would be the first to admit this.   

We strive every single goddamn day to be

accountable to our students -- and ourselves.

But it’s hard, because there’s no box for

Makes Moments of Joy or  

Uses Love to Impart Knowledge, or

Demonstrates Authenticity

And even if there were, there would still

be a gardener, looking out the kitchen window

comparing us to our fellow flowers

in the window box

We need our own mentor texts

(red ones and yellow ones and even some purple ones)

to cross-pollinate with the convictions of youth

and create a whole new, fearless hue.

stages (a study)

Materials
I have two poems in process right now.  They were seeded in two different forms.  One was on
20 July 2017 and is handwritten in my wide-ruled Composition Book; the second is in Notes on my iphone, auto-dated July 18, 2017,  to which I attached pictures that may never make it here.  The journey is almost too far, even though it's wireless.  The distance is time.

Procedure
I am going to transcribe each of these "seed writings" onto the blog, and, of course, revise as I go.  It can't be helped.  I am curious to discover how two juxtaposed starting positions might create a different experience for me as a writer as I struggle toward publishing.  How did I get from there to here?  Did handwriting or texting have better outcomes?

Hypothesis
Neither the texted Note nor the handwritten Composition will be better or worse than the other when typed up here on my blog. I have no way to prove this hypothesis. Maybe the proof will be, "What do my friends think?"

Background
A first draft (Stage 1) ever only really exists as its seed. You don't get to read those. Nobody does.
This, right here, is Stage 2.
Also, lately, my blog posts have been Stage 3 poems.  They have been labored over and crafted.  I'm very proud of them.  But they lack something.  Voice, maybe?  Context?  I don't know.  Like I haven't wanted to just write for the sake of writing anymore...  There's always too much thinking now.

I like thinking about poems as having Stages, though.  Like cancer.

Please remember that what you are about to read are Stage 2 poems, maybe 2B. They still have lots of growing up to do.  Any kindnesses or critiques you might like to bestow on them will be welcomed!
Also remember that you do not know which is which.  I think they call this a "blind" study, but I honestly really don't know.  Feel free to make guesses.

Procedure, con't

A:

Write each of your poems
as if it were your last—
As if all tattoos were temporary,
which they are, of course,
if you really think about it.
Send each of your words
to the darkest cave chamber, whose
walls have never known sunlight.
Make sure your poems have
napped in hammocks and
slept on Greyhound busses.
Let your phrases pierce our defenses
like terrorists, and be the Ones Who
Know. Read every poem three times—
you can't get it all on the first go.
Don't even try.
Write each of your poems
as if someone will read it
three times.


B:

We remember backwards best
I walked where once we kissed
My body remembers it as resurrection
My imperfect memory sees pathos

Here's the hole into which we almost fell
The lessons are all common sense
And we thought the trees and their shadows
could hide us from the moon.

How foolish, how almost tragic.

Conclusion
?

Ghost Ship Blues

I've never been there, yet I know this place.  It has had incarnations across the Earth, and in all eras. The one I knew was in Portland, Oregon in the early 90's. I was in my early 20's.

I don't remember its name, or even if it had a name.  There are things I do remember, but I don't think I can put them in any particular order.  (Besides, the order of things, once you can read Heptapod.. hmmm... I find myself thinking about the dialogue that might have happened around the table during the making of Arrival...was there an Agenda Item 2b:  Hepta vs. Septa,  or was it just a discussion that began organically, where someone had an idea and the other person said, "Yeah, and..." my money's on the latter...  all the good jobs in the future belong to the creative class anyway... as I get older, I find I have less and less tolerance for meetings with agendas, real or hidden... whatever, my point is that somehow or other they decided to use Greek instead of Latin...and oh yeah, I forgot it was a book first, so the decision was actually probably the original author's, so never mind).

As I was saying:  the order of things, once you can read Heptapod, is less important, and your linear thoughts may well start talking in circles, just like that parenthetical non-sentence above.

The List of Things I Remember in No Particular Order

1.  The Mezzanine that came alive at night
2.  The beyond-handsome Mexican poet
3.  The openness of the kitchen -  every pot, pan, dish, glass on makeshift shelving
4.  The vintage sofa with warm crocheted afghan
5.  The slight chill.  Hence: afghan
6.  The smell of tobacco and herb
7.  The random communal drum kit
8.  The long hair and knit sweaters and trench coats
9.  The gloves with the fingers cut off, on whose hands I longed to have hold me
10.  The sketchy neighborhood (that would become gentrified in ten years)
11.  The openness of everything
12.  The awkwardness of everything

Awkward because I wanted to belong, fully, completely; there was a heady mix of nostalgia for the past and promise for the future that led to art, and which I understood at a cellular level.  But I Didn't. Quite. Belong.  Not Totally.  I was a first-year teacher, trying to adult for the first time, head still full of revolutionary educational ideas, but also full of an MAT degree, lessons to plan, meetings to attend, and students to be responsible for.

I loved it though.  I loved the company and the conversation most of all.

There are so many moments in your hazy young 20's you forget.  But you never forget dumpster diving with the artist boy/man crush (and that one time you found and hauled out your favorite teak desk that is now in your 16-year-old's room), then returning to his cluttered/clean apartment in the warehouse, and smoking cigarettes, and having a 26-year-old Mexican poet drop in to read to you from his journal.

I was never quite sure if it was safer to take the stairs or the elevator.  They were both adventures.

I don't mean to idealize this life, either.  Some of it was filled with drugs, some with despair. But I would venture to say that it wasn't much different than your average home at the time, just less hidden. And it was alive.  Of that, there is no doubt.  I'm also certain that people will start looking for someone to blame, and that the owner of the building is going to have to "own" his part of the tragedy.

Anyway, that's just a whole lotta words to simply say, no matter what the circumstances:
I mourn the loss of the Ghost Ship, its people, its heritage, and its future.

Where Were You?

I spent my morning at Mountain Fold Books with Dave Reynolds, creative writing teacher at the Fountain Valley School.  We debated line breaks. He talked about the allure of azure and other Latinates, while encouraging us to stick to the direct and honest Anglo-Saxon for imagery.  Then we read a poem called Where I Was by Dan Brown (not that Dan Brown), in which the author recalls where he was the day Kennedy was shot.  After that came a poem written by one of his high school students, which was modeled after Where I Was.  Her poem was, appropriately titled:  Where I Was, only it told the story of where she was on 9-11.  Then we wrote poems about where we were, on some significant date in history.  There is something about being given a form, a structure, and fitting your story into it, that is not cheating, but rather it is liberating within a constraint.  I think we have forgotten what it means to learn by imitation of the masters.  Anyway, here is mine.  It is titled, of course:

Where I Was

I was sitting in the front row of all

Places.  My eighth grade algebra class

Was solving for x in silence: the

Way Mr. Gunther liked it.   We feared his

Citizenship grade.  Every

Time you talked, he made a red x by

Your name in his always-open

grade-book. 5 x’s equalled 1 grade

deduction, 10 x’s equalled 2, and so on

in predictable function form.

The equation I don’t remember much

About:  your basic exercise

In keeping everything

Balanced.  How whatever you

Do to one side, you have to do

To the other. Algebra is nothing

If not just. The memorable thing

Was that the PA came on.  How our

Secretary began, “Attention, students”-

But not the announcement I expected.  Not

How the after-school dance was

Canceled. Not lunch menu changes.  Not

that the volleyball players

were to be dismissed after 5th period -

None of that. What the words amounted to

Wasn’t the worst thing: not

"President Reagan has been shot."

But rather that I had cheered.  Half the

Class erupted into applause.

Mr. Gunther, for the first and

Only time that year, closed his

Gradebook, stepped out from behind

His desk, and talked to us-angrily but with 
Conviction-about something other

Than solving equations in two variables.

That day,  I learned that compassion

Should always come before

Politics, and that citizenship means more

Than keeping silent and avoiding red x’s.

a letter that turned into a poem

cornered
your pants down
while from your mouth, pain
ricochets
from the wall to the mirror to your second son to me
like khet
with the eye of horus
splitting your 84 years of shit into angry lasers


no longer will i
after 5 pm
endure the bombardment of
vodka-laced two-way tasers
killing
your anubis

letting this one go.....

She was sleight of frame but strong in form. Her sparse long hair, the same drab color as mine when without highlights, hung down her back in a thoughtless ponytail. She asked me if I was "about ready to check out?" I supplied the openness she was looking for when I replied, "Why, yes, I am. Why do you ask?"

She produced a Kroeger gift card with 20.43 scribbled in black ink on the front of it. "I was wondering if you could use this card to pay for your groceries, so I could get cash to put gas in my car." Here I was, with a cart half full of cereal boxes and baby shower non-necessities.... how could I say no to a woman whose only need at the moment was gas in her car?

"Um... sure... how does it work?"

"Here, I'll take you through the line and show you."

"So wouldn't it just be easier if I traded you the card for the cash?" I uttered foolishly as I opened my wallet and searched out the lone twenty buried within a dozen smaller bills.

As I handed it to her and received the gift card in return, I offered her an extra dollar to cover the remaining 43 cents. She declined, and mumbled something about maybe getting a bottle of water with it.

She then led me like a lamb to the self-checkout slaughter, and proceeded to pretend to be interested in bagging my excesses. She must have been viewing me with that particular combination of envy and disgust that has forged and fed most every revolution in history.

I continued to occupy myself with a temperamental self-checkout station ("Please scan your Soopercard now." "Please remove the last item from the bag." "Please place the item on the scanner.") which I had made even more cumbersome by having the audacity to bring two of my own shopping bags, which required an intercessory prayer to the lone clerk (who, I'm sure, deals with the idiocies of inept humans all day, and yet still manages to smile patiently) who did something mysterious to the scales and added two 5-cent credits to the little screen in front of me.

In the middle of all this chaos, my middle-aged con-woman excused herself to the restroom, saying she'd "be right back", but that she "really had to go", and that she would help me check out when she returned.

It was then, of course, that the doubts tiptoed into my dreadfully unmindful mind, as I struggled to look up cucumber codes, keep an eye on my purse, play bagging Tetris with my scanned items, and try to stop thinking about all the time I was wasting when people would be arriving at my house for Elise's baby blessing in less than an hour!

Lo and behold, she showed up again magically at my side to help organize the last of my goods into the two bags I had brought, and begin the check-out process.

Let's just skip the details and asides for now, shall we, as we arrive at the inevitable: the gift card had a balance of zero. She didn't appear to be too mystified, and actually said, "Well, I just kinda found it and figgered it had the money on it that it said." Then she asked the clerk if there was a way to check the balance. He asked for the card, and said he could make a phone call. While he was dialing, and before giving me time to process this new revelation, she asked our clerk where the water was, as she was quite thirsty, and disappeared, 20 dollars richer, down a brightly lit aisle that could have just as easily been a dark alley.

I would wait for another four or five minutes, as the kind clerk made his phone call that confirmed the zero balance. After he returned the card to me, I related my story, embarrassed though I was, to him. He reviewed aloud with me her appearance, so that he would be able to recognize her in the future.

In my mind, of course, I believe she had it all planned out, every single detail of the operation, beginning with the spotting of the ideal victim and ending with $20 in her pocket. And so I have to applaud, really, her resourcefulness. She made in ten minutes what most panhandlers make in several days. Was it dishonest as hell? Yes. Did she intentionally want to hurt me or make me angry? I don't think so. I told the clerk before leaving, "Well, I think I'll just chalk that one up to my naivete, and let it go."

Once again, what Odysseus pronounces in The Odyssey proves to be true: "All-seeing Zeus takes half the good out of a man on the day when he becomes a slave."

why i love my mother-in-law

Nurse: Are you in any pain? Do you need any medication?
Phid: Only emotional pain... and morphine won't help that.
Nurse: You'd tell me if you were in any physical pain, though, right?
Phid: By George, I'd raise the roof!

for bettina

unfinished

spring!
from a common stem come
crocus, hyacinth, tulip
all up
for us

yes us!
we believe
frozen limbs stretch and
awaken within mimic mortuary
to ease the ego and
please Charon

but no!
this colorful refutation
of temporary slumber
simply
whispers,

"it's time!"
time to go now
time to grow now
time to grow up now
crocus, hyacinth, tulip
spring from a common stem

done

I guess I'm getting a new car! But it won't be a prize. Or a rental.

I'm going to have to buy it. The price is not more than I can afford.

I'd love to take you for a ride in it. As long as you don't mind traveling mapless.

My old, trusted auto no longer drives like it used to, and all the tinkering in the world won't help.

The only thing it is good for now is scrap metal.

I like scrap metal.

Now I just need a blow torch.

happy frickin' anniversary

June 23, 2009
Last day of a 30-day course of radiation. No Problem! Piece o' cake compared to chemo! Feel great! Garden sprouts! Hair and a Tan! New pink bicycle! Summer! Dancing!

REWIND (cue scratchy backwards record sound)

July 24, 2008
Husband informs me (as soon as I am all happy-dreamy-post-orgasmic) that he felt an abnormal lump in my breast while we were having sex. He shows concern. I choose to go into instant denial, and don't even dare look at or touch myself until the next day.

July 25, 2008
Leave for a two-night camping trip near Princeton Hot Springs for the weekend. Spend the time soaking and hiking and trying not to touch it or to worry. It's the weekend, and figure can't get in to see the doc 'til Monday anyway. Still in denial.

July 27, 2008 - late Sunday night in my own bed after two nights of camping
Cry. Because I know.

July 28th - early Monday morn
Call to make an appointment with Dr. Zirkle, my young and handsome PCP. He's not there, so I see a woman NP who fondles my right breast with a questioning look on her face. Don't remember her name, but she makes an appointment straight away for a diagnostic ultrasound the next day. Call Sara on the way home. Cry. Pick up boys at the Burkles for what they thought was a playdate.

July 29, 2008
Diagnostic ultrasound. Suzanne shows up. I thought I wouldn't need anyone. It's just a little test, after all. Glad she's there, after all.

"Right breast diagnostic ultrasound dated July 29, 2008, shows a dense breast parenchymal pattern with an abnormality corresponding to a 2.1 cm cm in greatest dimension, hypoechoic lesion with irregular margins." Oh crap, a whole new vocabulary to learn; the exact one I never ever wanted to learn. They want to schedule a needle biopsy next week... the only way to know for sure if it is cancerous or not.

Hysterically, tearfully, tell whoever will listen that I DON'T HAVE TIME! BY THE TIME MY MOTHER WAS DIAGNOSED, SHE WAS AT STAGE 4! DON'T YOU GET IT PEOPLE?! I DON'T. HAVE. TIME! Get biopsy scheduled for 31st.

Dammit, I think to myself, here we go...

July 30, 2008
Wait.

I decide to tell no one else until I get the biopsy results...no sense worrying others about something that may turn out to be nothing. There's a pretty good chance, I keep telling myself, that it might be, you know, like a cyst or something.

Get mad at husband for telling his mother, because I don't want her to worry about me. Then quickly realize that he needs someone to tell as well.

July 31, 2008
I return for an "uncomplicated" ultrasound-guided needle biopsy. John comes with me this time. I learn another new vocabulary word: Axilla. Think it would make a great name for a Sci-Fi badass female character or a Derby Dame. Learn it's really just a complicated word for "armpit". Still think it would make a great name.

July 31-August 5th
Wait.

Try to do the laundry and talk with friends and read to the boys before bed. Every day is an eternity. I remember a band called 'Til Tuesday. I just have to make it 'til Tuesday. Because that's the day I'll get the results.

Spend my waiting days with a 2 cm secret, a stoic smile, a welcoming kitchen table and an even-keeled telephone voice. I am not one for holding in anything, so this is a particularly difficult time for me. For once, I ask more questions of others, instead of talking about myself. Lying in bed at night, I barely hold on to my sanity. Give me chemotherapy any day over this hell of not-knowing!

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
The second anniversary of my mother's death from breast cancer. I'm invited to what sounds like a lovely garden party, but I just can't make myself go. I can't believe that the world keeps spinning, that people keep going to work and making love and having parties. It just doesn't seem right.

Morning of August 5th, 2008. Tuesday.
I know the moment the nurse opens that door into the waiting room and calls my name. I can see it in her face, hear it in her voice. John and I stumble through the door, take a thousand steps down the hall, and are ushered into a tiny conference room on the right. The wonderful, motherly, optimistic ("this doesn't really look like cancer") radiologist who performed the biopsy all those years (6 days!?) ago isn't in the office today, so a man who knows absolutely nothing about me presents me with a huge white binder and these words: "You have invasive ductal carcinoma." Just like that. They don't even say cancer. Bastards.

Afternoon of August 5th, 2008
In order to occupy my mind, I try and accomplish some menial household tasks. I empty the dishwasher, slowly, dish by dish, taking note of each one, how it feels in the hand, how it shines in the light. After that, I simply end up pacing the house or lying on my bed. Doing "normal" things takes on a surreal edge. A hyper awareness permeates my every move, every step, every breath, every word. I am restless, and in shock, and don't know what to do with myself.

Evening of August 5th, 2008
I call Mike Carsten to see if he is working. He is. I ask him to make me a Cosmo and tell him I will be there soon. John stays home with the boys. I predict this will be the first time I ever sit at a bar alone and tell the bartender my problems. When I walk in to 15C, I am somewhat relieved to see Bettina and Aaron sitting at the bar. I sit down in front of my drink, and ask Bettina for a cigarette. After a slow sip and a deep inhale, I look at Mike across the bar and utter, matter-of-factly, "I have breast cancer." That singular moment will be etched in my brain forever.

Sara shows up. I drink another pink Cosmo. Bettina tells me I have a "pass", so I smoke one more, or maybe several more, of her pink Camels.

August 6, 2008
My first day of school. I am hungover and miserable and sitting in a meeting at 8 am. At least my boss knows, as Sara had the forethought to call her from the bar last night and tell her.

I want to drink and throw beer bottles out into the street and hear them crash.

July 31, 2009
So you see, here we are now, exactly a year later. From the end of radiation until about a week ago, I felt like a million bucks. Reborn. Then last week, emotions (but not necessarily memories) began surfacing, unbidden, and at inopportune and unexpected times.

Perhaps I felt them more because we were on vacation, relaxed, and I was more in tune with myself and not engaged in the daily duties of home.

In the "tummy of the Earth" (as Grant called it-otherwise known as Wind Cave), my body went into shock, and I cried for the stillness and the darkness of it all, yet happy in the knowledge that our complex planet has no concern for our trivial human problems.

My anger resurfaced for no apparent reason one morning at the Coach House (John's childhood vacation home in Wisconsin). In the process of making scrambled eggs, I went out onto the porch and threw an egg at a tree with every bit of strength I had. To hear it splat gave me great satisfaction!

While riding on country roads, I felt again that hyper awareness, that surreal edge. I felt as if I could ride forever among the cornfields and silos and old cemeteries.

Now I'm home. The summer is coming to a close, and another school year is about to begin. My mind and body are sorting out the events of the past year.

Welcome to Year 2.

too much

The day started out rough enough.... an argument with my oldest over his science project (whoever invented "Science Fair" anyway?!) Truce drawn, we managed to get out the door with all four potted radishes, grown under different light conditions, only to find out there was a two-hour delay. Part of the reason for the argument was that my son has had two miserable nights of sleep in a row. Seems that they were telling scary stories in class day before yesterday, in preparation for a "Fourth Grade Camp-in" while the fifth graders are away at Outdoor School. Being the sweet sensitive soul that he is, with a thin fantasy/reality line, he has had a hard time getting to sleep the past two nights. Last night, he woke up screaming at 3 AM, and I had to camp out in his room for about two hours until he finally managed to relax and drift off to dreamland. The worst part is that he felt sorry for ME, and his brother, for keeping us up.

Later that day, while my students were working in the computer lab on their blogs, I took some time to read some blogs of friends I hadn't visited for awhile. Turns out another one of my blog friends was recently diagnosed with DCIS, and had surgery. That's number three! Three blog friends who have had cancer after me! I feel fucking contagious or something! If you don't want breast cancer, don't read my blog!

After class, one of my students, one of my favorite students, stayed after class to tell me that her 14-year-old daughter, who she had been struggling with, is pregnant. (Don't think all teachers do is teach!) The girl has no choice but to have the baby. My student is a single mother of FOUR teenagers, who has always tried her best to keep them involved in school, give them a good life, etc.., and now she feels as if she has failed. Having no tissues in my room, I had to watch her wipe her eyes repeatedly with the sleeve of her red sweater. The cuff of my sleeve holds evidence of my tears as well.

To top off the morning, on the drive home, I kept thinking about Timber, who I didn't know but many of my friends did. Suicide. Having to read others' outpourings of love and regret and loss is incredibly difficult.

I just wish there were something to take away the pain. Not my own.
Everybody else's.

seven random shingly things

1. I always thought shingles was an old-lady disease, on account of the fact that the only person I ever knew who had it was my grandmother. Turns out LOTS of people I know have had it! And they're not old.

2. Because I have shingles, chemo has been postponed AGAIN!

3. Tomorrow should have been my last round, number 12, if all had gone as planned. But because of all the delays (neuropathy, liver functions, low WBC, and now shingles) I still have three left. That's six more weeks.

4. They hurt. Kind of like having a knife jabbed into your back.

5. I'm banned from hot springs and swimming pools, two of my most favorite places.

6. I don't really even care anymore about chemo being postponed, or not being able to soak at Mt. Princeton. I'm not sure if that means I'm less depressed, or more depressed.

7. I am learning to live beyond "should have" and "as planned".

my first rejection email

Hi, Sue.

Thank you for sending your work, which I really did enjoy reading.

Because the volume of work received (over 1,000 poems) far exceeds the
space available in the Poetry While You Wait book, I have had to make
difficult decisions regarding which poems among so many fine ones to
include.

I am sorry to say that we will not be able to include your work.

Please do, though, keep writing and supporting poetry in our community.

Sincerely,

Aaron Anstett

navasana

there's always
movement
the leaving and the returning
through doors
without locks
never enough kisses
welcome....farewell...come home....see you soon...goodbye.....

boat. stop. moment.





(photos by Kat Tudor)

for swiss miss

As I lie on my back clothed in yet another paper gown, I stare at this man sitting on the stool next to me. I voice my feelings, for some reason, out loud to him: "You know, I actually WANT you to find something wrong... Isn't that strange?"

"No, not at all. You want it to be wrong, just not wrong wrong."

Exactly. I want an explanation, a reason, a diagnosis. I just don't want it to interfere with, you know, like, the rest of my life.

What I want him to answer for me is WHY, a day after my first Taxol chemotherapy infusion on January 5th, the tips of my fingers were so agonizingly painful that I could neither sleep nor pull up the happiness-inducing-flowery-over-the-knee socks sent to me by Cindy. You know the tingling in your fingers as they just begin to warm after the bitter cold? Or the momentary pain when one of your extremities has fallen asleep and is just beginning to awaken? It was like that, in all 10 of my phelanges, only it raged on nonstop for nearly 48 hours. Everyday activities were next to impossible: holding a pencil, turning a key, buttoning a blouse. Over the past two weeks it has subsided, and there now remains only a faint sensation, reminding me that I can't quite trust my finger tips the way I used to.

And so I was released from reporting to poison chair duty last Monday. It was, at that time, a huge relief. My oncologist sent me to another doctor, a neurologist, who ordered some tests to be performed by yet another doctor the next day. Their task is to find out if I have inherited CMT2 from my father, which may explain my reaction, and to generally assess the state of my nerves.

When I first enter the room, I am surprised by the tiny machine sitting along the wall. It's the size, shape, and color (baby poop beige) of a computer from the beginning of the computer age. It looks like a hand-me-down you would have found in a Boys and Girls Club 15 years ago. Four heavy-duty black knobs adorn the front. I realize that two weeks ago, my fingers would not have been able to turn them. Along the right hand side, assorted electrical cords in different colors are dangling like instruments of torture.

I put on the aformentioned gown, and sit, as comfortably as is humanly possible in a giant paper napkin, on the table.

And then the doc walks in. Jesus Christ! He fucking MATCHES his machine!

Short, balding, a combover complete with graying sideburns and a graying mustache. The blues of his striped oxford clash horrifically with the blues of his too-short whale tie. He reminds me of a man my mother might have dated in 1975 when I was eight. He is uncomfortable in his own body, uncomfortable with mine, but happy while squinting in front of his little machine and pinching the little electrical wires between his fingers.

I wonder, as he shocks the sensory and motor nerves of my arm and leg into spasms with little bolts of electricity, if he enjoys his job. Wonder what kind of pervert becomes a doctor who enjoys shocking people with ancient technology? I'm willing to bet he played Operation as a boy and got some sort of perverse pleasure when his tweezers didn't quite make it out safely. ZAP! He probably took apart the family's AM radio, just to look at the circuitry.

To take my mind off the fact that (ZAP!) this anachronistic man is attaching electrodes to my extremities and making my body convulse in a way that is completely out of my control, I stare at the ceiling. My mind floats back to all the (ZAP!) other machines (ZAP!) I have encountered over the past six months: the new digital mammogram, the ultrasound that guided the needle to the tumor, the MRI with its strangely melodic hums and whirs, Lynn's radiation laser monster, the beep-beep of the IV when the chemo was all dripped out. Then a small tear forms and (ZAP!) threatens to escape, because I am imagining the rest (ZAP!) of my life filled with the pricks of needles and the noises of machines.

And so, to take my mind off my uncertain future, I begin to count the little squares of the heater vent directly above my head. (I used to count lights and lines and pews and people in church as a girl to keep me occupied during the service; I think counting must be my own personal religious practice). There is nothing else in the room on which to fix my gaze. No pretty tulips, no inspirational messages, not even any comforting diplomas. The walls and ceiling are bare, the same color as the little bald man's electricity machine.

Eighteen squares across. That was easy. (ZAP!) The length, however, proves to be a bit more difficult, because me eyes are blurry from the tears, which are as automatic and as uncontrollable as my fingers and toes are at the moment. I begin counting, but have to blink, and lose my place in the cold gray metal, which I think must be as old as the doctor, as old as his machine, as old as I feel. I start over again. Blink. (ZAP!) Lose my place. Begin again. Keep my place this time. Keep counting. 42! My age. I don't believe it, so I start over. This time I am successful on the first try, having mastered the technique of holding my place while blinking through tears. It's a skill I realize would come in handy in so many other areas of my life. 42 again. Yes. Something about that just makes it all ok all of a sudden.

In the end, he finds nothing wrong. But, as he reminds me, that doesn't necessarily mean there's nothing wrong. Damn stupid inclusive fucking test bullshit! He explains in metaphors (all good docs do): "It's like if you have a water pipe, and it's only slightly clogged, the water still runs through it. We're testing the water flow, not looking inside the pipes."

So I still have my nerves, at least 90% of them anyway. They still sense and feel and conduct and react. But the Taxol did something to me that day. Something unexplainable. Something excruciating.

After I was dressed, the 1970's doctor with the 1970's machine handed me a copy of my report and explained that, from his findings anyway, he saw no reason to discontinue the Taxol. In short, there was nothing "wrong wrong". I think I am glad about this. Don't get me wrong, being 100% finished would have been nice. But in so many more ways, having to quit now would be, not just wrong, but "wrong wrong". I CHOSE to do this. I want to finish it. I want to be able to live my life, after cancer, knowing that I did everything within my power to make it leave me the fuck alone. I have finally learned, after surviving the hospital and reading this book, that ten more weeks of my life filled with chemo is not something I can't handle.

I've wanted to quit before. After three treatments, at one-fourth (a million years ago) I sobbed inconsolably for hours one night, wailing to my husband that I couldn't do it, this chemo thing. Now that I'm on the other other side of one-half, with the end in sight and 5/12 remaining, and they're telling me I might be done, I find myself, ironically but understandably, wanting it MORE!

I don't know what my oncologist, the dear Dr. Hoyer, into whose hands I have placed so much faith, will say when I see him a week from today. Whether or not he will want to "re-challenge" me with the Taxol or not. I have a feeling he will, as he has done from the beginning, lay all the facts on the table and let me decide. If he does...... bring it on, I say. Bring it fucking ON!





PS. Funny thing is, in order to write this post, I also went, in the words of Marc, "back to analog form". My beloved MacBook was in the process of being repaired, and I was forced to put pen to paper. While writing the above words, I was sitting on a patio on a nearly 70-degree January day, sipping Cuban coffee, stripped down to a tanktop and exposing my bald head to the glorious sunshine. Totally worth it. Sometimes you have to go backwards, in order to go forwards.