Day 66

Sometimes I think that my mind is like a big old Victorian house. It is three stories high with a half dozen rooms on every floor. On sunny days it has a certain quirky charm with its lacy gingerbread trim and ornate towers and turrets. It changes appearance, however, with the weather. On stormy days it it cast in darkness; the peeling paint and sagging porch seem suddenly sinister and foreboding.

There are so many rooms; I find myself wondering from one to another. There are rooms where I can imagine and create. There are rooms for more practical things like making biscuits and mending clothes. There are rooms for rest.

Occasionally I find myself ascending the narrow stairs to the attic: the place where the memories are stored. If I am not careful, I can get mesmerized by the contents of the old trunks and dusty boxes. When this happens it is difficult to find my way back.

The one place I try to avoid is the basement. It is dark with walls of grey concrete. The dirt floor is damp. The air is dank and murky. I wandered down to the basement once and allowed the door to slam shut behind me. I stumbled from room to room, looking for an exit. Just when I had given up all hope, I laid down against the damp earth and looked up to see a sliver of light. There was one tiny window that provided an escape to the outside world.

These days I prefer the sunny parlor on the east side of the house. It has a big bay window. I like to sit in my rocking chair and look out at the parade that is my life. There are so many amazing things to see and hear and feel. And they pass by so quickly.

Day 65

I heard a story once about a man who was saved by a book. A bullet, aimed at his heart, was deflected and became lodged in the book he carried in his breast pocket. It was probably just an urban legend but it seemed so real to me, perhaps because I could remember all the times I was rescued by books.

The first books I ever owned were given to me at Christmas: the whole set of Little House on the Prairie books. I was eight years old and living with my mom and dad and little brother in a trailer park. The tiny trailer my parents rented sat at the edge of a gravel road that was more dirt than gravel. My room was no bigger than the closet I now share with my husband, but it had a sliding door and a built in bunk where I could lay down and read. Laying there, I began to imagine a world that was so much bigger than anything that could be contained in a 12 x 60 metal box.

On Friday they took a small sample of the tumor that sits at the base of Bill's right lung. Now, as we wait for the results of the biopsy, I find myself wishing for a book to show us the way, a book that will save us. There are moments when I feel that I am inside a tiny metal box and the walls are closing in. I need a wide open view of the prairie.

I can't seem to concentrate to read much right now. Yet I am certain it is a book that will save me. So I think back to some of the books I love, the titles that saved me once before. Jane Hamilton's Map of the World reminded me that sometimes our lives can change in an instant. We are thrown off course. We become bewildered and lost. We have to start over again; we have to find a new map.

I suppose that is what I am afraid of what now. I am afraid of news that might alter our lives in unimaginable ways. It is frightening to travel a new road. I'm not sure that I am strong enough. Bill has a book on the shelf that I have never read. It is titled How You Do Anything is How You Do Everything. I suppose in some ways it really is that simple. Whatever happens, we will handle it the same way we handled all the challenges that came before. We will do it together.

I am certain that the problems ahead will also come bearing gifts. Alice Walker wrote a book called Possessing the Secret of Joy about a young African women on trial for killing a tribal elder who was performing female circumcisions. From that book, I learned about the kind of joy that can flourish in spite of incarceration. It is the same kind of joy that lives in spite of sickness and even death. As I reflect on that book, I am reminded that whatever lies ahead, there will also be joy.

Day 64

It took me a long time to become a writer. It took me a long time to learn to pay attention. A writer who cannot pay attention, focus, remain aware, has very little to write about.

Over the last few days, as I followed Bill from doctor's office to hospital, from his room on the critical care unit to radiology where he was wheeled by a fast walking young man with a hint of facial hair, from the second floor of to the front door of the hospital where he was escorted by the wise-cracking red-haired nurse who hugged him before she sent him on his way, I was watching and listening, not only to people and places around me, but also to the drama within me: the anticipation, the confusion, the fear.

When I pay attention it is easy to see that each moment contains a whole world of possibility: pain, suffering, joy, gratitude, love, hate...it's all there waiting to be written about...

Day 63

Bill is in the hospital. Last night when I came home alone my imagination started weaving all kinds of new plots. I imagined myself living here alone: getting up in the morning to an empty kitchen, the bar stool he normally fills while he drinks his coffee and reads the morning newspaper empty. I imagined going to the co-op alone: sitting by myself at a table eating deli food made bland by the lack of conversation. I imagined myself watching television alone at night: staring blankly at the screen wishing for a some witty commentary, the kind Bill is so good at. I imagined sleeping all alone in our big king sized bed, the one we picked out together, the one that was never intended for one person.

I used to think that I didn't have much imagination. Yet I have always written these kinds of stories. They are stories grounded in fear. I see now that imagination can be a dangerous vessel. It can take me to the darkest corners of my soul. It is up to me to navigate and steer. It is up to me to be aware and use my imagination to create something that is grounded in love rather than fear.

Day 62

I went to the doctor yesterday with Bill to get answers to the question of a syndrome of vague symptoms that he has been plagued with for about a month. Tests were ordered to rule out the more troubling possibilities. Neither Bill nor I flinched when the earnest young doctor used the word Cancer. We listened and nodded and did the next thing.

I followed Bill to the lab for a blood draw and sat in the waiting room reading an well-worn issue of Sunset while he had a chest x-ray. I found a couple of good recipes and thought about donating the stacks of old magazines Bill has stored in his office.

We left the clinic and went to the co-op for a late lunch. Over kale salad and sweet potato fritters, we talked about illness and death. What if? How would we care for each other? How would we cope? I remember feeling so grateful for the intimacy: an intimacy made sweeter by the reminder that the future is not a guarantee.

The phone rang while we were putting away the groceries from the co-op. It was the doctor. I handed the phone to Bill and opened the pantry door to shelve the rice noodles and the Tangerine Orange Zinger tea. I felt surprising detached as I listened to Bill's end of the conversation, although a winced just a little when I heard him ask: "Is it painful?"

He got off the phone and relayed the conversation to me, in much the same way the pretty young anchor people report the news. The results from the tests were back already. There was a cause for concern. The doctor was ordering more tests. He had to be at the hospital tomorrow at 11:45.

I remained calm and detached throughout this whole course of events. I didn't allow myself to catastrophize. Each time my mind tried to hurl me into some imagined catastrophic future, I refused to go. I took a deep breath and stayed grounded in the present: the place where Bill and I are together in our home. It is a safe place.

I was doing so well. I started to feel rather smug about my spiritual progress. Here I was faced with a potential crisis and I was at peace. I was a frickin Buddha. I sat down at my desk to check my email. There was a message from a friend full of simple kindnesses. Suddenly my face was wet with tears.

Almost immediately I had a name for the place these tears came from. I thought: pain-body. It is a term coined by Eckhart Tolle to refer to the pain we carry with us: unresolved grief associated with past events. The events of the day had reawakened in me the pain body that is linked to past abandonment.

There is only one way to deal with the pain body. You have to name it, honor it, nurture it, invite it to tea. Like a baby, it needs to held and rocked and sung to.

Day 61

I spent the last two days grading papers. Not long after posting the grades, I started receiving complaints:

You said that I didn't clearly respond to the questions posed in the assignment instructions. I think that I did.

I posted my paper 3 minutes late and you imposed a late penalty. Unfair!

I followed the recommendations of the grammar checker and you still found grammatical errors. What's the deal with that?

I found myself getting increasingly irritated with these messages. It was difficult to respond with anything other than defensiveness and anger.

What I really wanted was appreciation. I wanted the students to see my intention: to help them learn and develop the skills they need to be successful in the future. I think it's what we all want: to know that our efforts make a difference in the lives of others.

In my own life, this need for appreciation comes second only to my need for self-expression: to be heard and understood. While I recognize that writing can help me meet these needs, I also recognize that it may not.

What I write may never be heard or understood. It may never be appreciated. It may never contribute to the world in any kind of meaningful way. What then? Do I try to fill my cup from a different stream? Or do I stare at the empty cup and allow the frustration and anger to well up in me and then write about that?

Day 60

Last night as I was making myself dinner, I listened to an interview with one of my favorite authors, Joyce Carol Oates. She recently penned a memoir: On Becoming a Widow. It has been three years since her husband died. She talked about the empty place in her life that was left with his death.

It seems trite to use words like best friends or soul mates to describe a marriage. Her marriage was clearly so much more than those words can convey, as is mine. Listening to her, I naturally thought about what it would be like to be without Bill. My eyes begin to sting even as I type the words.

Just a year after we got married, seven years into our relationship, Bill got very sick. I remember waiting in the sterile hospital waiting room while he had surgery. Anyone who has ever waited in one of these rooms surely knows just how alone one can be in a cloud of people. I remember sitting there, thinking: I cannot go on without him. I literally could not imagine my life without him in it.

Last night as I listened to Joyce Carol Oates talk about the day her husband passed and how certain she was that her own life was over, I realized how much I have changed since that day in the waiting room. I have learned to live with pain. I am less inclined to resist and avoid. I choose to feel. That choice is a road of opportunity. I am learning to take care of myself. The writing is a good example. I have found a companion in the empty page.

Joyce Carol Oates fell in love again and got remarried two years after the death of her husband. Our stories just keep changing and evolving...