"The summer of my discontent"

Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you." -  Langston Hughes 

On June 21, summer officially began.  The longest day of the year, began with an early rise on my part and a walk...a long walk.  By the end of June, I was wrapped tighter than saran wrap over a fruit bowl.  Teaching can do that to a person.  Particularly an English teacher who still labored over whether her students would ever be able to differentiate between a noun and a verb.  For ten months, I paid attention to 130 students and their needs, their accomplishments and their deficits.  I wasn't paying attention to me, my body.  I didn't pay attention to my personal life. All of which needed a great deal of attention as I found out walking up the steep hill by my home.  

For some reason, I never really liked summer as a young person.  I do now.  I think it was because I was then left to my own devices.  I was allowed to make my own choices and the routine was changed. That was never easy for me. I didn't have to bother with decision-making when I was in school. All the decisions were made for me 180 plus days a year. When we reach adulthood, we are often no prepared for the difficult decisions we will have to make on our own, by ourselves with no one's intervention.

Summer brings heat.  Summer brings sweat.  When I was a kid, I hated both.  I hated feeling uncomfortable.  Central air was not in the 60's lexicon.  I did love swimming, the beach and those Rocket Popsicles  you bought at the beach's food stand at Sylvan Lake.  You had to eat them really fast but they still managed to melt all over...I didn't care.  I doubt any kid cared.  Swimming at the lake meant a full-fledged swimming lesson by my mother.  Mom insisted we all knew how to swim and thus came the benchmarks.  She'd hold me underneath my stomach and I'd kick my legs and move my arms.  She taught me how to float if I got tired. There were numerous trips down the lake's slide which was great preparation for handling the deep end of the lake.Then came the summer of firsts.

There was a floating dock at Sylvan Lake.  Anyone who could swim to the dock could certainly swim and didn't need any supervision. I wanted to swim on my own and insisted that I was ready. Ma let me go.  I could hear the doubt in her voice.  I think she felt I wasn't ready but that wasn't up to her on that day.  I wanted to be ready. I was going to swim to that dock, climb up the dock's ladder and jump off that dock and swim back.  How difficult it must of been for her to let me go.

I ran down the beach and jumped into the water.  I dunked my head in and out  and pretended that I was a mermaid.  I thrashed my arms and I thrashed my legs to the dock.  I kept reaching and stretching.  I breathed in and out and dunked my head because it felt so good.  I dunked my head to see was underneath the surface of the lake. All of sudden, I had hit the aluminum platform of the dock.  I gasped and there it was.  The dock!  The ladder!  I had made it.  I had done what it took seven or eight summers to do. I climbed up the ladder and I saw my mother looking at me.  I waved to her and jumped back into the lake.

I swam back and ran up the beach.  I embraced my mother and yelled joyfully, "I did it!  I did it Ma! I swam to the dock!!!"  "So you did," Mom said quietly.  "So you did."  She hugged me and then I got to buy ice cream but not before a sandwich.  Mothers...

I think about all of the challenges I've had.  Then I think about Sylvan Lake.  Every time I have been posed with an obstacle or a problem, I thrash around. I often dunk my head.  Then I surface from the water and I breathe and I climb the ladder of that dock.  Summer may not be my favorite season, but as seasons go, I'm learning to embrace the heat, the sweat and the relief of knowing that I can swim.

"Curve balls-Thank you body" Part Two

"We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance." - Harrison Ford

There is an old familiar saying from the musical "MAME"  that goes, "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death."  I love that line because, this is the trap we fall into at times.  We forget we are at a banquet.  Everything we need to sustain ourselves and keep ourselves nurtured and content is either next to us or near us.  Since this is true, why are we often afraid to eat?

I was given a second chance recently and I'm still trying to figure out what to do with all of this new information I've been handed. I am still in recovery, processing what it means to have been living all this time, but NOT really appreciating it.  This has been a bitter pill to swallow.   You see,  On July 9th, I lost my sight in my right eye.  It happened that quick. There were fireworks, literally, and then partial vision.  My ophthalmologist sent me to a retina specialist.  Next thing I knew, I was sent to Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City to a oncologist who specializes in eye cancers. They needed to rule our cancer and/or a tumor. "A WHAT????  REALLY????"  It all happened that quickly...in the blink of an eye...my vision of my world changed.

Society doesn't appreciate nor acknowledge our weaknesses.  But this is what I have recently found out...strengths and weaknesses are shared by the entire human race. Our weaknesses make us better people.   As I acknowledge mine, I am reassured that the rest of the human race is dealing with theirs.  I realized that focusing on my health, my happiness, my well-being is the single most important thing any of us can give ourselves and it's difficult to do when your heart and your soul leave you open and available to any one who needs you.  

Ma, at age 88, has expressed to me that one thing we can be assured of is that we will not live forever.  It's a crap shoot.  It's destiny.  At Sloan Kettering, I got a clean bill of health.  It was not cancer.  It was not a tumor.  I clutched my husband outside of Dr. Marr's office at Sloan Kettering and cried... and I breathed.  I really breathed.  I realized that although Ma is right, it's what we do with our time here that is important.  Are we going to vegetate or are we going to put ourselves first and not be afraid to make the changes we need to make not because we want to please anyone, but because we want to live a more authentic life.  

This past week, I chose.  I chose authentic.  We live in a society where we broadcast our imperfections, our problems and yes, our weaknesses.  Just watch television and you will see story after story of our human imperfections.  The fact remains however, that we still have to live with ourselves.  What we do, how we do it, is our decision and our personal business, no one else's.  I dodged a huge bullet this past week.  But I still have to figure out what happens to the gun.  I learned that although, age will bring challenges, it can bring truth.  I will chose truth over anything else.  I choose my life, my world, because that is good enough.  My code of conduct works for me.  It's brought me love, happiness, pain and sorrow.  This is an authentic life and it is good enough for me.

"Curve balls-Thank you body"

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."  -  Harvey Fierstein

No one likes hearing the truth.  No one likes sitting face to face with a physician who tells you that you "may" have something that is "potentially" life threatening.  You decide right then and there whether you're going to act like a victim or own up to every single ridiculously stupid thing you've ever done, wondering if those things are the reasons you're hearing the word "tumor or cancer."  But in medicine, you never take one physician's word for it. The better physicians will tell you that.  And so the journey so many have taken begins for me...

At 52, I guess I was due to have something happen that will pose a health challenge.  I've watched many, older than myself, younger than myself, face horrific health challenges and I feel very fortunate that my body waited this long. I never truly liked or appreciated my body.  Women are often like that..but I like my body now.  Why?  Because it had the sense to give me a "heads up" that you need to take care of yourself...now.  I love you body.  I love you now more than ever because you have given such wonderful opportunities. Shame on me for not seeing them sooner.  I see them now.  My body loves my husband, my family and my good, good friends.

Thank you body. I am so sorry I never appreciated your beauty until now.  You gave me poor vision and a definitive lack of growth hormone. Thank genetics as well. You gave me an abundance of insecurities growing up.  Even with those issues, I saw and still see the world so much more clearly than some and didn't understand how to use that gift until now.  No one needs height or perfect vision to understand love, compassion, anger and sometimes even hate. " Human is as human does."  I've accepted that.  Body, because of you, I've made people laugh.  I was given a voice and I use it. My body allows me to think, to write and to teach. It dances too...a LOT.  Because of you, I developed a love of any type of pizza there is, any time, any where.  My body loves food.  My body loves good chardonnay.

Body,  I know you hope the best for me.  I know you forgive me for whatever stupid things I've done to put you in jeopardy.  I'm not the only one though, am I?  Of course I'm not but it's all luck of the draw...a matter of time.  Age has taught me that.  Age makes us wiser. Those who care about you body, can't make decisions for you.  They can't control you. But body, you and I both know the truth.  We either work together or accept the consequences.  As my journey begins body...Keep me rational, keep my sense of humor, keep me as I am and let me grow a new spirit.  Keep going...let's just keep going.