and a blueberry milkshake

I spent the day with an old flame.

Fourteen years since we'd last met, 18 years since our romance. I was nervous, excited, anticipatory. As I prayed I thought, "Lord, when I have I been this eager to see You? To fellowship with You? Does my heart skip an extra beat or do I trod into an Office, a prayer, a sitting…. like brushing my teeth? Would I buy You soft chocolate chip cookies to go with the real caffeinated coffee I myself would not drink? Would I tidy the home of my inner reaches or simply sigh, "I'm so glad You forgive and accept me." Am I taking You for granted again, Lord?

In the flesh another layer is peeled. This layer says, "You are a failure in relationship. You never married. You are cracked, broken, and now in mid-life, not the hottest chick on the block." I brush that aside while I yeah-but my way through my admittedly full days and evenings. Yeah BUT!

I didn't leave this man eighteen years ago; he left me. I spent the better part of a day with a man with whom I once fantasized marriage. We were companionable. No lunging, mind you. We're older and well-behaved. I spent the day with an old flame and felt the quiet pleasure of being with someone with whom I get along well.

I didn't feel so broken after all. We had a lovely day. We shared stories. Hugs. Laughter, oh yes, laughter.

He lives far far away. I spent the day with an old flame while an old frame crumbled away.

God can do that.

Now priority

This impassioned leader in the "Jesus Movement" from the 70's died way, way too young in a plane crash. Is this where "trust God but tie up your camel" comes in? I don't understand the tragic nature of his early death, but oh did he make big waves for God while he was here. Keith Green: October 21, 1953 – July 28, 1982.

I goof off in Facebook more than post in here - linking juicy articles, leaving one-liners, smirking at friends. In front of my big, fat 27" new iMac screen, I can let my prayers to be God's able steward dribble aside while I furrow my brow and try to make SENSE of it all. Zoom! go my adrenals. WHEEE! goes my self-will, aided and abetted by another mug of delicious pu-erh tea. I take cuts from work by sneaking onto Facebook... and find THIS.... a YouTube video of a recording so old it's audio only. And inside of me I felt, "I need to post this to my blog - not to Facebook. HERE."

I have such a rich life! Yes, many of my counts still suck while others are just the yippiest, but as I've said, I'm more than my lab values. I'm more than a remission roadshow. I'm graced by the Lord God to have another day to be fruitful, focused, praising His Name and.... happy.

I say thanks a lot more than I used to.

I still have fears and I round 'em off at the pass with prayer more than I used to.

This song of Keith Green's caught me in a mid-day brow furrow. Oh yes. I remember now, Lord.

You.

a delicious ordinariness

Only once in the past whatever amount of time has anyone said to me, "You haven't written in your blog lately!" What my friends do say is, "How are you?" Occasionally they'll add, although less and less so, "... um, I haven't looked at your blog lately, but... how are you?" I connect in real time now. Email? Hardly.... I virtually can never keep up with those. Calls. Yes. Within 48 hours a phone call IS returned. And in person... at Church... in life. "How are you?" Real life in real time.

"I'm doing really, really well," I say. It's true!

Blog-land began for me when the overwhelm of October 2008's AML tsunami rendered me speechless and unable to give one-on-one accounts. Perhaps I'm still looking for an ordinary mojo reporting tactic because for the most part, I feel marvelous and give praise to the Lord every single day. Is this a cure? I am praying myself into that paradigm shift! What a BLESSING that the gauntlet is such a memory.

Health quip: The MDS remains. I want it gone. And my blood counts and I are entering a new dialogue, with my Centering Prayer/meditation practice now including the visualization of their hearty NORMAL numbers. Like a fair weather bud, I've occasionally cast a pointed glance in the direction of my marrow, urging it to recharge and revive. While I attend to my health with intention and even the odd blast of discipline, it's less so under the umbrella of fear and more in a positive focus. Do I wig sometimes? Sure. So much less so than a year ago, even 6 months ago, praise be to GOD.

I continue to work with a strong healing team while investigating new opportunities, from hyperbaric oxygen therapy to a delightful energy session with Master Ron Lew down in San Jose. I've just joined a health club, the Marin Jewish Community Center - a treat I'd eyed for myself since returning to California late last year. My neighborhood jogging and home Rebounding needed a boost. I needed a boost. The pull of my heritage from my father's side is palpable in that environment.

I'm framing my life and story less in light of health or illness and more simply... as I am. If someone close to me was coughing their guts out, yeah, I'd move away and quickly. But it's more about how I want to let God reshape me... that IS my focus.

I am working again, catching up on 18 months of health crisis layoff and finding my place again learning about money, investments and markets. Daily I ask the Lord to show me how to be a "good steward of the talents." It's a mad and crooked arena, with smoke and mirrors the operating protocol. I'm trying to be disciplined and shrewd without losing my focus on what is REALLY important to me - my life here and now, blessed by God!

I read Forward Day by Day before bed each night. Here is an opening from last month: Psalm 81. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and said, "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." Have you every watched a nest of baby birds, where their insistently open mouths seem far more huge than their tiny, weak bodies? Something about this passage rivets me. Old sensations of feeling forever unworthy are falling away morsel by morsel while I learn to show up and say, "God, I know you want to love and bless me. I receive You now!"

Never ever give up

Thanks to Fr. Thomas Brindley and his inspirations in "Upward Call" for leading me to this video which brought me to tears.

pallin' around in the North

Yep. It's been an all-time record of not a peep in here, well over a month. I'm writing from a simple and quiet B&B in Ballard, close to my former neighborhood in Seattle. This was to be my stealth visit. I'm watching myself un-stealth myself as my fingers tap.

I have seen beloveds on this trip. Brandon here in this photo took the bus out from Astoria, OR to meet me in Portland for lunch as I drove northbound on I-5 from Keizer/Salem having spent time with other dear friends. (Am I blessed or what?) I had to use a psychic can opener to pry me away from All I Have To Do! in the Bay Area, which provokes an ironic smirk considering my former propensity for having a wander. I gotta work! I gotta do THIS! I gotta....! Well that's a change, wouldn't you say? So I continued praying and planning and here I am. I won't have phoned everyone. We'll see if they forgive me.

I'm not entirely certain of my dynamics in not writing in here for a bit o' time. At least a half-dozen events warranted my stirred intentionality. I'd take notes! And then... I would not. Am I looking for more accolades? (That's hard to admit). Am I becoming more interior? The answer is that I am not sure. Maybe "hope renewing" needs a new focus? The AKK!! AKK!! of "paradigm gauntlet" was readily released for the gentler vibration of this blog space. And now as I weave in more beyond the fears of "the thing that's out to get me ain't done so yet," I'm incubating what that might be. I get a bit quiet when I do that.

So I'm on the road and back home on the 24th. My counts and energy levels are holding. My hair is shorter. I've eaten chocolate on the road and LOVED it. And my Risen Lord has gifted me with the love of friends and the beauty of His Earth, from a 30-year reunion with Cathy from high school to saying Evening Prayer in my former Cathedral parish here in town.

Somewhere there's a leisurely tale from my exceedingly strict high raw vegan period to being handed the sacramental morsel of a homemade chocolate chip cookie straight from the oven from Kevin, Cathy's husband. The voice that says, "I can't do THIS! I'm on an anti-cancer diet!" made room for, "This was offered to me in love." It didn't hurt that it tasted spectacular. Would I make my own batch of cookies? Nawww. That's pushing it. But I'm bending some rules on this journey and showing up to savor them.

It's a blessed gift to cherish ones friends. You whom I've seen on this journey, I cherish you.

This time will be different, I know it will, I know....

I'm tiptoeing.... chuckling with naughty scheming and hoping that if I don't spell out the dynamic from which I've brazenly stolen copyrighted artwork (taking 5 minutes just to get the spelling right on that one), I won't get my butt kicked. Well, they can wag a finger and I'll change the image. I'm using it for now.

Awhile back I wrote about how pleased I was to have reconnected with my oncologist, feeling confident in being, as best as I could, a walking miracle. Look, dude! Now nearly 18 months without conventional cancer treatment, and by the Grace of the Living God, I am pretty darn well!

I believe I am a person to him. I'm also a set of lab values. He's a scientist, not Mother Theresa, even though he's quite nice. So when I get bent out of shape with my numbers, I pray. I do a few things differently with all parts of me. I pray some more. When Dr. K catches sight of a worrisome lab value, what do you think the man wants to do? I was Charlie Brown all over again. This time it'll be different. He'll pat my hand and say, "Well done, keep doing what you're doing!"

He's a conventional oncologist. And they always seem to need to DO something.

So I'm revisiting a year ago February, when my inner guidance was whispering, "Take a break from all this; enough already."

Basically, the past three lab reports (April, June, July) have been pretty decent for me. A mild dip in platelets and neutrophils in June egged me on (ar-ar-ar) to realizing that when I'm a 100% pure vegan, as perky as I feel, my counts seem to dip. Fine! I'll eat shoe leather if I feel it'll help me! So back comes a few servings of grass-fed or otherwise organic, sustainably-raised (or caught) animal protein. Oh. Neutrophils dipped back down to point-four have they? Make some changes.... and voila! Praise God! Last labs showed point-seven!

With prayer and heartfelt healthful shifts, I notice that the lab values improve.

What does a conventional oncologist want to do? Cheer me on? No. Of course not. Dr. K brought up the June numbers and said, "I want to see you again in a month and talk about treating your myelodysplasia with Vidaza." Why do I stop breathing when the conversation shifts like this, all the while smiling and making believe everything's okay? I paused. "I have done some research on that," I quipped lamely, "and I wasn't impressed with the effect it had on longevity."

"There are new studies," said he, "where significant amounts of time have been added to the lives of those with this disease." I breathed less. "I'll look into it some more," I said woodenly. Up until that time, it was a pleasant visit where we traded compliments and a few stories while he looked down my throat and poked at my belly a bit.

My anger doesn't always surface immediately. I still whistle in the dark. I felt no visceral fear walking through the Cancer Center in Berkeley as I had back in late April. But one word - Vidaza (Google it if you choose) - set me off.

That's what they do. They "treat."

This isn't my "treat." I thought Lucy would hold the football and I'd kick it and we'd be able to play. The good doctor, and bless him for it, is looking for something to do. And I am not going to do it.

For the bean counters (if there are any), for the past three labs my WBC has been 1.5, 1.4 and 1.57; my platelets have been 110, 101 and 110; my ANC (neutrophils) have been .6, .4 ("critical") and .7. I am praying them higher, first and foremost. And I'm doin' all that other healthy stuff I burble on about regularly.

I have today. And this Monday is my Birthday! I'm still here, I still love The Lord, and the gift of today reminds me that on or off this planet, God loves me, too.

birth and death and remembrance

A year ago I posted about my brother David's birthday from Tony & Ali's rural working retreat in the Scottish Highlands. Has it been a year since I was with them? Has it been 43 years since my little brother David was buried on what would have been his 9th birthday? Some well-meaning people have quipped about the number 9 representing "completion." Regardless, I spent my childhood wrapped up in my own confused miseries and never got to know this little guy who I miss so very much today. Here are some photos from then: Click HERE (same link).

I have this sense that we'd be buddies now in middle age. Modern medicine may have chortled at his congenital heart defect, with 21st Century wizardry able to give him the physical hardiness he never had as a child. Was it only 50 years ago that things seemed so draconian? Falling off of a grownup's bike and hitting his head wasn't okay in 1967. I'm heartsick he died.

So where was I those nearly nine years of his life? I turned eleven a month after his death. I have many blank spots where memories of my childhood should live. I remember being unable to be close to him.... did my not-quite-together mother fear her toddler daughter would hurt this fragile newborn? I can't ask her that now. There is a vague memory of a twisted push-pull where I could neither get close to him nor have the forced distance acknowledged as something not of my own making. These were not healthy times.

For the most part we grew up in a split-level apartment. Little David and I shared a bedroom. I can't recall a single conversation. But I have a "feeling tone" memory of him in the same room, and if I made up a story about it, this feeling recalls my brother as an ally. Perhaps that finds me musing that we would be buddies today. Friends.

He is my friend in spirit. I pray for him, my Dad and my mother every day. Sometimes I imagine him grinning at me.

Well, brother David - I'm still kicking around. Let's see what God and I can do with that one. You keep dancing with Him on the Other Side. I miss you and I love you.