today i am thankful for lots of things .

the smell of daphne - i snapped a sprig from a bush at the UofW today - it's in my pocket, crushed, but still smelling of spring

my family

my friends

my cats

lil weber charcoal grill and a steak to put on it

the promise of spring

a comfortable bed with a heating pad for my cold feet

dairy products and dark chocolate

converse low-top shoes

the ability to walk as long as i want - walking has been my drug of choice - a good compulsion that clears my head and steadies my hands -

and those are just a few of the things for which i am thankful.

love, christine

i wish i had a crystal ball

i have the day of the anniversary planned; i'm taking it off. i am also walking with stacy in the morning; lunch and the cemetery with my dad later. it's passover but i am not going over to uncle sol's and eleanor's. what if it's not as bad as i fear? what if it's 10 times worse than i fear? what if i have nothing to fear?

i really don't hold a lot of stock in anniversaries - i can never remember them - i think i wrote that in one of the earlier posts. but this would be like forgetting the day a meteor fell on you.

i miss her. today i went for a medical test and it would be that i would call her after to tell her about it and that impulse is always there. so i visit her in my thoughts. mom, i went to minor & james today and had an x-ray. ah well. it is what it is. even she would have said that.

much love to all
christine

inviting me to sit and think - earth sanctuary

this was in this amazing tree (willow?) - i think in the summer, it must be like standing inside a green house - so much scope for imagination with a ladder leaning against a tree -

the bell

i saw this bell at earth sanctuary and i wrote: Deep-throated bell - i hit you and you toll and keep on even after i hear you no longer.

earth sanctuary

This past saturday, i went to Earth Sanctuary: http://www.earthsanctuary.org/

it's a little hard to explain what it is; please see their site. i was there for a cancer survivor work-shop - but i went there to sneak in my mom, quiet-like, under my cloak. we sat in a circle and introduced ourselves, and i loved everyone of these women immediately - they were so lovely and vulnerable and honest. there was one woman, 10 days out from her first chemo. her long blonde hair came out in baby fistfulls, and she would, as she was talking, arrange these bundles of blonde hair in a figure-eight on her leg; like you would pull pills off your sweater and arrange them.

i shared my tattoos, which they thought were lovely, and i shared my mom and things i had thought about on my walk through the property. chances are i'll never see these women again but i don't think i'll be forgetting them and their stories. the picture above is one of the many places where people left things that meant something to them, things they wanted to leave in this sacred place - i left a chestnut from paris from when my mom and i went there - and this is what i wrote in my notebook: i leave her here, surrounded by stones, having seen other stones in other times - always here until we see each other again.

this spring weather - -

i was driving down pine street, window down, sun setting ... and the thought of the very evening that my mom died came into my head; while it was still cold and snowy and even rainy, my molecules didn't remember that we are coming to the season, the first time through, of when my mom died. but it's coming quickly. and i have made arrangements for it, which is not the same as saying i'm prepared for it. i wish i had a crystal ball to see how the next couple of weeks are going to be for me.

this molecular memory, your DNA knowing your history - i've known this existed before; my mood changes without me knowing exactly why, and then i look at the calendar - OH, THAT's why. big hits shake the body, soul whiplash - effects for how long? i know how long; as long as it takes.

tomorrow i'm going to an all-day retreat (with labyrinth) for cancer survivors - but i'll be sneaking in my grief for my mom - suggested questions to consider on the hand-out: How might walking this path heal me? who am i if not my disease (my grief)? what is truly important to me? and a few more questions that intellects better than my own have given thought to. i will give it my best, for sure.

love,
christine

king midas in reverse -

today was odd - nothing turned out quite like i had in mind - and i had an odd thing with the phone that i still haven't figured out. it's kept me up on one foot for the day. very surreal -- i still am having trouble believing that the person i spoke to on the phone wasn't the person i thought it was.

and i know none of this makes sense to anyone - and it doesn't to me, either. just a very odd, weird day.

a very full weekend -

it was a remarkably full weekend for me - just the kind i like, spent with the people i want to spend time with the most.

i split up my work day, 4 hours on saturday and 4 on sunday - i find that 4 hours is just PERFECT - if only a person could get paid for the 8. i really, really, really want to buckle down and start making consistent incentive - i could do it so easily - but my train derails pretty easily - :) but i WANT a few things right now - these things cost money.

i saw the watchmen yesterday - i thought it was terrific - i'd been looking forward to this ever since i'd seen the previews. lots of things to think about in that movie - i think, though, at this point i could probably see the profound meanings in caddyshack. i see them everywhere - even when they're not profound at all.

had dinner with friends later that day - and it was wonderful meeting new folks. and then today helped friends make and assemble invitations - it was playing with colored paper and tape - everything but crayons. art therapy.

when i'm this busy my mind doesn't work at being sad. and for that i'm grateful - mundane as the stuff of life.

peace
christine

what i'm grieving now - the meaning of life

besides the grief for my mom - which comes and goes in varying volume - i realized today that what i'm struggling with, and struggling hard, is a notion, an idea, a basic basic thing of life. i'm grieving what i used to think of the permanence of things, love, life, health, your footprint on the planet. life just keeps going on - time erases all evidence that we were ever here - it will for my mom, and then my dad, and for me, and for all whom i love. nobody who is alive now, including me, ever saw my great-grandmother bridget cassidy. i can say her name and place her in time because i was told about her by my papa, who is now gone, and soon, after I die, there will be nobody who would have personally known james cassidy, my papa.

how is this right? how unimportant are we in the scheme of things? the prima facie evidence suggests, to me, this week, that we are not important - no more so than any other thing on this planet at this particular time. just because we wish to be somehow of value in this world, doesn't make it so.

i've learned about impermanence about many things over the years - and each time it's been a slap in the face, a wake-up - don't think that by treating your body you won't die, you will and here's the proof - breast cancer. don't think by loving someone, you can fence out loss - you're actually penning it in with you and your loved one - either by death or by some other means.

reading this over, i am definitely not somebody i would take drinking for fun right now. life has never felt so like standing on a piece of glass, waiting to be blown into shards. little cracks enter from the sides, and it's just a matter of time before it's all blown to bits.

christine

my mother's closet

my dad and i went out to dinner tonight - and instead of him driving in to the city, i went out to his place - he mostly prefers to meet me in town. i always make a point of going to my mom's "office," her bathroom - it's been comforting to go to a physical place that i associate with her - it was her smoking area - but it's hard to catch that smell now. and my mom's smell (cigarettes, perfume and dryer sheets) is disappearing from the clothes that still hang in her closet. i was not prepared for that. and i don't half like it. without that smell, it does not feel like she's just stepped away for a bit. she's disappearing from that room and that house, incrementally but surely, one molecule at a time. i still bury my face in her sweaters and coats, but even with my eyes shut and me concentrating on what i can detect, there is less and less of her there for me.

christine