Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
Last week Zoe attended her first school skating party.
Of course, it was held at the major roller rink in town–home to roller-skating parties of her mother’s youth and site of every one of her mother’s high school dances.
Zoe had a blast.
I had to fight the urge to roll headlong into the girls’ bathroom, wipe my clammy hands on my stirrup pants, pop some Skittles, and check my permed bangs for any loss of height.
And, true to form, on my one time around the rink without Zoe, I was overzealous taking a corner and almost took out Emily who was gliding smoothly beside me.
It’s good to be a grown-up.
The happy rolling bunch.
Friday, January 11th, 2008
So, I’m minding my own business at school this week. Merely walking down the hall, leaving a note on a kid’s locker and heading back to my office. Just a Guidance Counselor on a random Wednesday.
Then, out of the blue, here comes a kid strolling to his locker. He’s singing. Not some funky new jam that my 36-year-old ears can’t recognize, no, he’s singing all of the words to “Eye of the Tiger.” All about the cream of the fight and rising up to the challenge of a rival. The last known survivor was stalking it’s prey in the night all over again.
I’m deja vu-ing and not yet to my office when a girl comes strolling toward me wearing leg-warmers. She’s not headed to ballet class.
Last month it was the familiar “dong, dong…dong, dong” intro to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” that was coming from a hallway while some kids practiced for the stage show and Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” belted from the stage by a side-pony-tailed singer during the stage show promo. It was all I could do to maintain decorum and keep myself from singing along.
I know I’m working at my alma mater and can’t expect my own experience not to peek around the corner now and then but, come on, give a valley girl a break! I’m ready to turn into Bowling for Soup’s 1985 lady!
Never mind that “99 Red Balloons” is blaring through my house as I type.
Sunday, January 6th, 2008
Zoe and I have been playing Old Bachelor this morning. A card set with Mercer Mayer-esque drawings, the game surprised us with this card…
Mom, I think you should take this as a sign.
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
It has been ten years since Mark and I exchanged our vows.
The night of the rehearsal dinner, Mark’s friends took him out to the Sierra Room for cigars and drinks. They asked him, “what do you think Tash is doing right now?” Mark said, “She’s probably half-way to Chicago. I shouldn’t have given her the good car.”
My cold feet with getting married had nothing to do with Mark and me in 1998. It was the subsequent years I was worried about. Would we stay compatible for the long haul?
I needn’t have worried.
I haven’t been married to Mark for a decade. I’ve been married to a series of men who look quite a bit like him, but never quite the same.
Check out the gallery.
This is where we started:
And the man I’m married to now…
Through all our life changes, Mark has remained so dog-gone easy to love, I can’t imagine I ever had cold feet. Now me on the other hand…easy to love? I’m not so sure on that one.
Good thing he had the crappy car.
Sunday, December 30th, 2007
I’ve been cleaning up Christmas stuff this week. Slowly taking down the advent calendars and wreaths. Pulling down the fake evergreen from the mantle that is definitely past its prime.
Today I worked on the tree.
I love looking at our ornaments. My parents have foregone a tree in recent years, so some of the ornaments are from my own childhood. They are really dear. Stories accompany them, of course. Becki and I painting them. Chris repositioning them so that his toothpick-framed robin picture could have center stage. Etc. Etc.
Zoe’s stories are there, too. Photos of her as a baby. Ornaments made in preschool. Cinnamon/applesauce ornaments that Emily and I made with Vera and Zoe for their first Christmas, ambitious new moms that we were.
But the ornament that struck me most today was given to me not to be an ornament at all. It came in the door with a woman from our church who was part of the “survivor circle” a dear friend organized while I was going through chemo. She gave it to me because she too had gone through chemo and when she had, someone had given her an angel. It sat on her dresser. It was an icon of hope in her dark time. Only problem was that it was ugly. Really ugly. And, sometimes her life was ugly right along with it. But it wasn’t without hope. Somehow, even a really ugly angel still brings the hope.
So, this fellow-survivor told me, perhaps you need an ugly angel, too.
It’s too ugly for me to keep out year round as it was meant to be. But for Christmas, I hang my ugly angel on the tree with joy.
And remember the friends that came to me in my survivor circle.
And the beauty they were in our incredibly ugly time.
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
Daisy took one for the team today.
I decided that her grooming costs were nonsense and that I could easily do it at home myself. Armed with a newly cleaned clippers and a kid-less morning, I barricaded Daisy into the laundry room and went for it.
After about half of her hair was at my feet, I realized that I should be shaving with the hair not against it. Of course, all my shaving until that time had been on Daisy’s broad ol’ back.
So, my poor, sweet, old girl is walking around with a very bad haircut. I gave her a bath complete with a fresh egg wash, but I’m not sure she’s forgiven me.
I even tried to tell her that Becki did this to me plenty of times under the pretense of “tapering the ends” of my hair, but it is little consolation. So I’m feeding her treats and giving her lots of attention.
Poor old pooch.
Thursday, November 15th, 2007
It was a rough morning.
Mark and I rushed to the oncologist’s office–me inexplicably grim, Mark without his coffee.
And we sat. And sat. And sat.
When we finally saw Dr. Campbell’s face, almost a full two hours after our arrival, pretty much anything he said would have been met with tears on my part. I was a little fried.
So, when he came in not having even opened my file and tried to summarize the radiologist’s report while he read it, things were prepped for a tear-fest.
The radiologist’s report was actually fine. But just fine. No shrinkage, no growth, just fine.
And that made me cry. Not tears I could explain, just exhausted, worn-out, sick of waiting, sick of cancer, tired, anxious tears. I found myself fumbling around trying to tell him that actually I’m quite happy and I don’t think about cancer all the time and I sleep just fine and I really do enjoy life and and and.
All through these tears I couldn’t explain and couldn’t stop.
But, really, the news is nothing to cry about. I get to stay on the medicine I’m on. No shrinkage this time does not necessarily mean it couldn’t shrink more. Shrinking and arresting growth are both good. In fact, the nodule could be the dead tree stump in the yard and just sit there for years and years (I didn’t make that analogy up–we have yet to visit Dr. Campbell and not get an analogy like this.). We just have to…
wait.
That might involve some tears for me.
They’re nothing to get worried about. I really am quite happy. I really don’t think about cancer all the time.
I’m just not that good at waiting.
Perhaps you could tell Dr. Campbell.
Thursday, November 1st, 2007
flower girl and Tweety……..Sylvester and Tweety
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007
We sang a song in church on Sunday which I’m sure I’ve sung many times before. But I had never really noticed the third verse and, in singing it, was struck rather breathless by it. The song is God Moves in a Mysterious Way. The third verse:
“You fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds you so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessing on your head.”
What powerful words. Words that I long to be true. For me. For Mark. For the friends whose clouds are visible and invisible. Known and hidden.
Unable to get the song out of my head, I did “response time” on Sunday afternoon. Response time in Children in Worship (where Zoe worships during the service) is when the kids have individual time to ruminate on the story they have heard and to respond in art, music, literature, etc. It is a lovely time.
On Saturday I had been to an art gallery with my friend Emily. I had seen some of the artist’s work on my friend Sara’s windowsill and was so taken that I had to see it for myself. It was a great gallery (the artists live in it), but it was the pocket paintings (like the ones I had seen at Sara’s) that really enchanted me. So, I snatched up a few (for $5 each) and moved the tiny blocks delightedly around the house all weekend.
I tell you this because, just like the children I often worship with, my response time was not all my own idea. I used what I had seen in Rachel Van Dyke’s work and personalized it. Is there some way that I can justify being inspired by one work and basically copying it as my own? Peri? Any thoughts?
Anyway, below are the photos. First Rachel Van Dyke’s pocket paintings, then my response time art (on a bigger piece of plywood). If you look closely, you’ll notice what Zoe did right away. Rachel’s figures are actually birds. Mine? Not so much. Unless birds have pockets these days…
