Archives for posts with tag: Family

What cannot be returned

June 14, 2014 //

Today is Fathers’ Day. Giving my dad a gift is often tricky whether it is Fathers’ Day, his birthday, Christmas, Arbor Day, or Just Because I Love You Day. Unless I cook him dinner. That’s a gift he always loves as long as I don’t include mushrooms or zucchini or make anything too spicy.

But I can’t always cook for my dad for special occasions. Sometimes, I try to buy him something. When I was in college I used to describe my dad as “The man who has nothing and wants nothing.” It was an exaggeration and a joke to describe the difficulty of buying my dad anything! My brothers tell me about their gift giving challenges with Dad, as well. Sometimes we discuss our strategies for selecting a gift. I have settled on getting non-returnable items. This MOSTLY works.

You see my dad has a habit of refusing gifts because they are “too expensive”, “I only want a card”, and “I just want to spend time with my family.” And he is being sincere that he would be happy with a card, a phone call, and/or spending time together.

However, there are gifts Dad will accept and he looks kind of happy to get them. So, gift-giving with my dad is a bit like playing a slot machine. Sometimes the payoff is big.

My dad gave a lot to us and that is one of the reasons we like to give him gifts. One of the gifts my dad gave to me was his love of taking photography. When I was a young girl, I remember that Dad decided that he needed a hobby. He chose photography. Dad purchased a good quality Nikon camera and built a darkroom in the house. I spent lots of time with him, at first watching him build counter tops and cabinets, and then later, I watched him develop film and make prints using his color enlarger. I remember how he worked to find the right balance of magenta, yellow, and cyan. I remember how used a piece of cardboard for dodging an area of an image to increase contrast.

Dad’s favorite subjects were nature. My parents love to be outdoors. My father has had many cameras and has been taking digital photographs for many years. I can’t imagine how many photos he has taken in the past 40 years, not to mention all of the old family photos he has copied and preserved.

I used to take a lot of photos. Some of them were good. Then I stopped. Then I started again with the camera on my smart phone. This gave me enough of a boost to buy a decent camera again, nothing too expensive, but a nice camera that takes nice photos.

I can never return to my dad what he gave to me in my life.

But I can give him the gift of my photography. And Dad, you can’t return this gift.

So there.

Happy Fathers’ Day. I love you, Dad.

Tags Family, Fathers' Day, gift giving, nature photography

Categories Family, Integrative Health

The Other Superbowl

February 3, 2014 //

As most of you are aware, the Superbowl was played yesterday. It was the 48th Superbowl but only the second one in which my hometown team, the Seattle Seahawks, played. They played against the Denver Broncos, who in contrast, have been to the Superbowl seven times, having won in both 1997 and 1998.

I used to be an avid sports fan. I watched all kinds of sports including Monday Night Football. I lost interest in football after college, I must admit. The fact that my husband knows and cares less about team sports than I do (with the exception of the Oakland A’s as he still speaks fondly of attending the World Series with his late father in ’72, ’73, and ’74), made it easy for me to stop watching. And I know that a lot of people disagree with me but I also stopped following football because it’s a brutal sport. It’s just not safe and we get young kids to do it.

Yesterday, though, I put my concerns aside and watched the game. It was really exciting. But the game wasn’t close at all. The Seahawks dominated from the very first play. The Broncos made a lot of mistakes from the very first play, giving two points to the Seahawks on a safety only twelve seconds into the game. A safety is a weird little way that the defense can score. In other words, our team scored without ever having position of the ball. That kind of start off to the game had to have been pretty discouraging for the Broncos.

The Broncos really didn’t ever recover and the looks on the players faces just got more and more defeated. Yes, they are totally overpaid and what they do is grossly overvalued by our culture. And their humiliation is not akin to the pain of starving to death. But the pain was real and I felt sad for them. When I played softball as a kid, my team was never any good. I remember we once got incredibly routed. It was incredibly frustrated. I was mad and just wanted the game to end. But I also had a job to do so I kept trying to do my best through the entire game. The Broncos didn’t stop playing. They probably didn’t play as well as they would have otherwise but they kept playing until the end.

There was another super bowl lost over the weekend. It was a loss of a literal bowl. I accidentally broke my yellow 4 quart Pyrex mixing bowl.

There it is in shards. It was an ordinary mixing bowl but it was a super bowl, nonetheless. It originally belonged to my grandmother MacKenzie, my dad’s mom. I never met her as she died in 1957, before I was born. She was a child of German immigrants who lived in the Midwest, Chicago and then later in St. Paul, MN. She had four children, three of whom survived past infancy and were born in three different decades, Bill in the teens, Helen in the 20’s, and my dad in 1932. By 1940, my grandmother had lost both an infant son and her husband. The mixing bowl is a bit big for cake making so I typically think of her having made yeast breads in it. It is the perfect size for proofing dough. Or perhaps she made apple strudel. I know that she was fluent in both English and German but when I’ve asked my dad whether she made German food he says, “She just made regular food.” She sounded like a very interesting woman. In addition to raising three children and becoming a widow during WWII, she worked for the Veteran’s Administration. She was also known on bitterly cold Chicago winter days to invite the African American postal carrier inside to warm up and eat a bowl of soup. This was in the 1940’s. I think this showed a great deal of class. My dad is a very fair person and it sounds like his mom was, too.

My mother inherited this bowl before I was born. She used it to make bread and cakes. And yes, I said that it was too big for cake but not too big for the cakes that my mom made for our family of eight. I remember the sweet and yeasty smells that the bowl contained. I licked leftover cake and cookie batter out of that bowl. When I married, my mom gave the bowl to me and I have had it in my kitchen for nearly 24 years.

My mom did not give me the bowl because I am the only daughter in the family. It wasn’t because it was something traditionally feminine. She gave me the bowl for the special significance it holds in my life. I was a premature baby. I stayed in the hospital for some time but even by the time I was taken home, I was too small to bathe in an infant tub.

Mom bathed me in that yellow Pyrex bowl until I was big enough for a regular tub. I broke a family heirloom. It has made it through multiple cross country moves. On Saturday I was trying to separate it from a larger bowl in which it was nested within the cabinet and it dropped to the floor. It wasn’t a long drop. I can be clumsy in the kitchen because I move too quickly. I have to believe that I’ve dropped that bowl many times before.

The bowl fragments will go out with the trash tomorrow and end up in a landfill. It’s cliche to say but it is true that the memories will live on. And not just the memories of three generations of cooks but the shared memories of mothers who have nurtured their families with food and with physical care taking. And as our culture has changed, we have more men who understand the meditative aspects of baking as well as the feel and smell of a baby when you take her out of the tub to dry off. She’s wet but you hold her to your chest and rub her with a towel. You feel the warm water seeping into your clothes and you smell Johnson and Johnson’s Baby Shampoo.

We win and we lose. We struggle and thrive. We build things and break things. We will continue to care for each other.

Tags babies, Family, family heirlooms, mothers, Superbowl

Categories Family, Feelings, Parenting

Taking life for a spin

January 26, 2014 //

My brothers and I used to play with tops as children. There were the big metal ones with stripes and the little wooden ones. They never spun in one place and the fastest spins would send the top traveling far across the unfinished concrete basement of our house. (We did not feel deprived. We used to roller skate, shoot pool, and play table tennis down there. It was a kids’ paradise.)

I have written over 550 posts since beginning this blog in May of 2012. There are recurrent themes. Recently, I actually used the same title for a post that I’d used near the beginning of my writing. The other day I thought to myself, “I am really writing about the same things over and over.” But because I try to practice mindfulness, I tried to let that observation set for a bit before coming to quick conclusions like, “Wow, people must be getting bored.” Or, “I am in a creative rut.”

Eventually, I realized something that I’ve realized before, which is that our lives are full of re-experiences and re-examinations. I spin on these themes and as I travel through my life, instead of losing momentum like a top, I find myself finding deeper meanings. I also find myself able to better integrate the aspects of my life, which leads to a greater sense of integrity and connection.

I have long known that I am a naturally anxious person and that most of my anxiety in the past has been around fearing not being “good enough” as well as social anxiety. And I have also had anxiety about my physical safety, which led to years of avoiding real or simulated danger (ex., roller coasters). As I’ve just scratched the surface of mindfulness, I find myself still aware of my natural inclination to be stressed by unknowns, to worry about my friends and family, and to sometimes act like a less than entirely confident person.

The difference now is that I have gotten to the point in accepting my anxiety, when I am actually started to stop myself from apologizing to other people for the fact that I can fret a bit. Because really, I cope pretty well. I am a pretty resilient. Plus, apologizing for a little bit of excess anxiety just makes other people anxious, I have found. Yesterday, instead of thinking to myself that I was a somewhat high maintenance friend for requesting reassurance, I thought to myself, “I could tell myself not to get worried about people but that solution hasn’t worked. I think I can reveal the fact that I am a bit of a worrier and is not going to be a deal breaker for this friend.”

I concluded my post “mess” with, “I may be a mess, but I am a mess with potential.” Similarly, I may spin and whirl and come back to the same lessons over and over in my life. I may be a dervish, but I’m a dervish with a purpose. I am getting somewhere.

Tags anxiety, Family, Friendship, mindfullness, personal growth

Categories Mindfulness

Rumi-nation

January 18, 2014 //

Today I thought I’d revisit the words of Rumi with a horrible pun! Sorry, I couldn’t resist. But seriously, I’ve been thinking back to a Rumi quote that I encountered at the beginning of my mindfulness practice, also near the beginning of my cancer treatment in 2012.

Don’t turn away.
Keep your gaze on
the bandaged place.
That is where the light enters you.

At the beginning, the bandaged places were literal. Dr. Beatty did my first three of surgeries. He left a single 2 inch wide strip of Arglaes film dressing over each surgery site. This was even true of my mastectomy. One piece of adhesive film. I know that it was called, “Arglaes” because he was so excited about using it. And having had subsequent surgeries with more traditional dressings, I could see why. It was comfortable, flexible, didn’t bind, and it was waterproof. I could shower immediately.

I did look at my bandaged places. I know a lot of women don’t like to deal with their surgical drains or to see their mastectomy incisions, especially prior to reconstruction, if reconstruction is chosen. And I know that some women don’t even like to look at themselves after reconstruction. But as a naturally curious person who is trained both as a scientist and as a healthcare provider, I wanted to look. I was calmly fascinated with how surgery is done, about how my body was changed, and about how healing took place. This helped me a great deal in coping with the physical losses and to keep myself from being overwhelmed by the enormity of it all.

I realize now that my training in observation and data gathering helped set a perfect stage for me to start mindfulness practice. I am very good at noticing things in the present as well as noticing patterns across time. The adjustment that I had to make was in minimizing the interpretation and even harder, to let myself have my experiences without trying to immediately change them. I am a very good problem solver. I will continue to solve problems in my life. But sometimes I do it out to avoid feeling anxious, guilty, or sad. And some problems can’t be solved through problem-solving. Some problems just need to breathe. They don’t even need a bandage.

I am a mother, a wife, a psychologist, and a friend. I deal not just with my own hurts but the hurts of my loved ones as well as those of my patients and their families. I am paid to help solve people’s problems and to not only look at their bandaged places but find the sources of the bleeding. And even as early as middle school, boys and girls solicited my advice about relationships and other typical teen issues.

In my professional life, it is a challenging process to adopt an appropriate role with my patients and their families. I can’t solve all problems and ultimately, I can’t solve their problems for them even if I am fairly certain that my recommendations will improve matters considerably. I teach people strategies for coping with life, I offer ways of thinking about things that may be helpful. But I don’t carry out the strategies or do the thinking. And I can’t control every aspect of a child’s internal or external environment. Wow, when I put it that way, I am kind of amazed that I can be effective at my job at all!

What is even more challenging, though is seeing wounds on family members and friends. Even when I am right about it, they may not see these wounds themselves. Or they may be desperately trying to cover them to avoid appearing incompetent or weak to the rest of the world. I remember when I started graduate school, I was pretty open about my anxiety. I flailed openly! A number of my classmates looked incredibly nonplussed. How could they be so confident? When I found out that one of these folks was keeping a running score for how all of us had done on exams and assignments so that he could gauge his place in the pack, the fact that I was always seeing him taking aspirin started making a different sort of sense to me. Those people don’t tend to ask for help even if they need it. They do not want to be exposed for the failures that they fear they are.

Other people in my life have been very open in their distress and instead of having trouble asking for help, they ask for too much. Help to solve problems that don’t really exist. Help to solve problems that are best solved by oneself. Help to avoid solving problems altogether and other types of reassurance seeking.

I am learning more and more with my loved ones when to speak up and when to listen. The hardest for me, however, is to say and to do nothing. To watch someone suffer and want to do something active to help. To turn down requests to bail someone out when I know it would be better for him or her to solve the problem independently.

I am growing a lot as a person. I have so much more to learn and thank Heavens for that as it makes life rich and interesting.

Tags Family, Friendship, helping behavior, mindfulness, psychology, Rumi

Categories Feelings, Mindfulness

Rewinding and Reconnecting

December 31, 2013 //

Yesterday, I was reading through my posts for 2013 as a review. I’d had a good and productive day. I was happy all day. And then I came to my post from August when I was hit with grief over the anniversaries of my mastectomy as well as the death of my friend, Gina. I remember that day in August. I cried for hours, which is something I have done less than a handful of times in my life outside of the two times I had clinical depression.

Yesterday I cried for about 20 minutes and then I actually felt good again. I’m not one of those people who usually feels better after crying. I mean I know that it is necessary to express grief but I still usually feel exhausted and cotton headed after I cry. The grief startled me because I found instantly found myself loudly and sloppily crying. The intensity of my grief felt like the day Gina died. And my worries about my own mortality, especially the prospect of dying before my daughter is grown, only intensified it.

I’m of the opinion that life is complex and there’s usually not one reason why something happens. But I will say that viewing a series of black and white photos of a husband and wife over the course of the wife’s treatment and later death from breast cancer, likely was a catalyst for this latest crying jag. One of the photos is a head shot of the pair in bed, holding each other, each with a look of utter bliss. It’s a beautiful and happy image. And it reminds me of my husband and I. John is a very affectionate man. He hugs me in his sleep and if I awaken in the middle of the night and put my arm around him, he makes a sigh of contentment and holds my hand. And I don’t mean that he sometimes does this. He always reaches for my hand, every time over the past 23 years. So I looked at that photo and immediately inserted myself into the image. And this woman who was born in the 70’s died. And you can see the progression of her illness in the photos with each photo showing loves and losses in the most poignant way. I found myself thinking, “That could have been me. That still could be me.” I didn’t dwell on the thoughts but I had them nonetheless.

I had nightmares that night. (People, when you wonder why I am careful about watching intense, violent, and/or scary films. This is why. They have given me nightmares since I was about 6 years old.) In one, I was at a parade that included some past beauty queens, women who were now middle-aged. They were beautifully dressed but instead of being on a parade float, they were lying in open caskets on wheels! Even in the dream I thought, “What on Earth? What is this supposed to symbolize about women, beauty, and aging?” And then later in the dream, I was at the funeral of a relative. I don’t remember anything except she was a woman in my family. I remember having grief during the dream about missing my grandmother who died in 1993. In the final part of the dream, my daughter was acting completely and utterly out of control. As rebellious and angry as she could be. It was terrifying.

I am a genuinely happy person. One who has been through a lot. And lots of people have been through a lot in their lives with different impacts and different ways of coping. I am a person who feels things deeply but I am also a deep thinker. And I feel both positive and negative emotions as well as having positive and negative thoughts. I feel happy and calm most of the time. I think part of these intense moments I have of sadness and fear come from the enormity of what I have to lose, my family, my friends, my independence, my capacity to help others as a psychologist.

Today’s New Year’s Eve resolution is to remind myself of the strength of my connections, my connections to myself through my own self-awareness and the purposeful way in which I try to lead my life. My connection to my daughter who is doing so well and so happy right now. My connection to my husband who loves me so dearly that he reaches out to me even when he is fast asleep. Who trusts me so deeply that he allows me to be very open about the ups and downs of our relationship as well as our own personal shortcomings. My connection to my parents; I can’t imagine how hard it must be as older people, to worry about your child’s health and mortality. When my friend, Preben got cancer over five years ago, while still in his 30’s, I noticed that his parents started visiting him much more frequently. I told him half jokingly, “That’s what you get for getting cancer and scaring your parents.” My connections with my extended family have also strengthened. I have some wonderful cousins and sister-in-laws and my brothers have actually nudged themselves out of their comfort zone a little to be a bit more affectionate with their sister.

My friendship connections over the past year and a half have seen the most change. I have made a number of new friends who have startled me with their intense and generous kindness. I know that some of them will come and go but I think that a good number of them will be lifelong friends. I have had old friendships that have evolved into something much deeper than they were in the past. But I have also experienced some lost friendships and some that have been made weaker by my cancer. This mixture of bitter and sweet, of gains and losses, is somewhat dizzying to a person like me who craves consistency and solidity. But I have learned to cope with chaos in my life. I want to be happy and I know chaos happens no matter what I do. So what is my choice other than to try to make peace with it, live along side of it, and accept that I sometimes lose my footing.

Finally, today I remind myself of my reconnection with nature. I spend time outside every day. I have been able to travel to the mountains and to the sea. I am outdoors during good weather and in bad. Even in the most exposed and vulnerable parts of nature, there is beauty. I feel a strong spiritual connection to everything when I walk. It is both intensely personal and beautifully communal.

That is today’s resolution. Tomorrow is a new day and a new year. I wish all of you good things in 2014: moments of joy, moments of peace, and fortitude among the suffering and chaos. Thank you for your connection and support. Xoxoxoxo.

Tags Breast Cancer, death, dying, Family, Friendship, grief, love, Marriage, New Year

Categories Breast cancer, Family, Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness, Parenting

Nature’s Bounty

November 20, 2013 //

I’ve had a couple of difficult days. We all have them. It’s just part of life. Something throws you on your butt, you rally, you still feel kind of bad, maybe another thing knocks you back on your butt, you rally again, and keep inching your way along until you re-right yourself.

Today, I had paperwork to do but did not have to go to the office to see patients. I had been knocked on my butt a couple of days ago and still felt knocked down this morning. I meditated for a long time and thought about my life. My past, my present, and my future. I gained some clarity. I had some really wonderful thoughts about perfectionism, which I had planned to share on my blog, but promptly forgot as soon as I got out of bed. (Darn!)

The sky was blue today. I went out for my walk. The sky was not only blue but the mountains were visible. I walked to Bird on a Wire, my neighborhood coffee shop, which is quite excellent. It was as if the universe knew that I needed to be cheered up. Maddie said, “Oh, Elizabeth I’m glad you came at this time. (It was a slower part of the day.) We hate it when people we like come at busy times and we don’t get to talk to them.” Then Adrian noticed that a gluten-filled biscuit was being prepared for me instead of a gluten-free one. She saved me from some major eczema. Adrian keeps an extra eye on this, I’ve noticed and I very much appreciate it. And finally, Angel told me that I was one of his favorite people. The people who work at the coffee shop are always friendly but this was much more than usual. I told them that they were awesome but I did not let on that I was having a hard day and they have no idea how much their kindness meant to me. I also experienced the incredible kindness of a friend in the past couple of days who knew that I was having a hard time, who has checked in on me periodically over the past couple of days.

I continued, with coffee and gluten-free biscuit in hand on my walk. It was WAY too nice not to go to the beach. I didn’t have enough time to walk there so I walked a half mile back to my house, jumped into my car, and drove to Lincoln Park, which is on the Puget Sound. There was new snow on the Olympic Mountains. The sun was bright and the sky was a brilliant blue. The wind was strong and it was cold. But it was amazing! The water, the islands, the Olympic Peninsula, and the mountains were glorious. I saw osprey flying over the water and then suddenly drop to the water to fish. I saw cormorants and a few species of duck. At one point, I saw black figures as the waves broke. They were two harbor seals about 20 yards off of the coast. They were swimming along and coming up every several yards. I was able to walk along the beach fast enough to continue to observe them for several minutes. I have seen seals at this beach, but only 2 or 3 times in the past 10 years. The Pacific Madrone, one of my favorite trees, which only grow near salt water, were beautiful. The orange trunks with their peeling bark were beautiful against the blue sky. The towering Douglas fir were majestic.

I’ve had a stressful life for the past many years. The reasons for this are many, most of which I have written about here. One of the ways I deal with the stress as well as to help prevent recurrence of depression is to get a full body massage every three weeks. I have gotten them from the same lovely person, Jann Coons, for the past 13 years. The first massage from Jann was a gift from my husband for my 35th birthday. I got the first one and have never stopped going. I’ve had massages from three or four other people and no one holds a candle to Jann!

Jann surprised me today. She told me that she had a Christmas present for me in her car and noted that she couldn’t keep it in her office. She walked me out to her car and I could see that she was getting ready to open the trunk of her car. I said, “Oh, well I am guessing that you are not giving me a puppy!” She pulled an amazing variety of home grown vegetables, artfully arranged in a basket, from the cool depths of her trunk. The basket contained red chard, two kinds of kale, delicata and other squashes, red and yellow onions, mizuna (a type of green), and beautiful red beets. I’m sure Jann could tell that I was moved by her generosity. I gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. I still can’t believe it. I almost cried.

I am not a traditionally religious person but I believe my faith in the spiritual beliefs I do have is very deep. Today, I experienced an overwhelmingly beautiful display of nature’s bounty. The bounty from the sky, the water, the mountains, dirt, and from other human beings, who are also part of the natural world. And I know this is only a fraction of the bounty that I enjoy. I have so many wonderful people in my life, friends and family. There are so many wonders of the Earth.

I know that Thanksgiving is not for another eight days but today I feel very thankful, very blessed, and so loved. My heart is bursting.

Jann’s Christmas present to me. A basket of health that she grew with her own hands.

Tags Family, Friendship, mindfulness, Nature, Resilience, social support

Categories Feelings, Flora and Fauna, Mindfulness

At the bottom of the pig pile

November 4, 2013 //

I have mentioned perhaps one or six hundred times that I have five brothers. One of my older brothers’ favorite “games” was pig pile. This involved announcing a victim and then having five siblings tackle and pile atop this person. For example the exclamation, “Pig pile on Liz!” was followed by my being tackled and piled on by five brothers, the oldest of whom was nearly 10 years my senior.

Pig piles seemed to be exclaimed on a very frequent basis and as the only girl of six children and the second to youngest it seemed that I was more often than not, the vortex to which the pile was attracted. A Bermuda Triangle of porcine piling, if you will. As the “baby” of the family, my brother James also spent a fair amount of time face planted on the living room floor beneath four sets of sprawling limbs shod in Converse low tops of various sizes.

Although our older brothers would admit to the pig piling, they would disagree with the metaphorical implications. They believed James and me to be spoiled. We avoided the horrors of ruler wielding nuns, whereas they all attended St. Anthony’s School, for example. Our family also had a little more money when I was growing up, not a lot more but just enough to fuel the “you’re spoiled” flames. I maintain that whatever advantages we may have had were more than offset by their mean older brother shenanigans.

James and I are only 18 months apart in age. Our next oldest sibling, John is 3 ½ years older than me and 3 ½ years younger than our next oldest brother, Mike. John was kind of caught between the “big boys” and the “little kids” of the family.

James and I spent a lot of time together. We played together a lot. We mostly got along very well though we could sometimes fight verbally and physically at which time my mom would yell, “I don’t care who started it. I’m finishing it. Go to your respective rooms!”

We played a combination of traditional boy and girl activities. We played with cars, trucks, and climbed trees. We designed obstacle courses in the yard and spent hours upon hours in the woods surrounding our house and neighborhood. We did not, however, play with Barbies or baby dolls. Remember, this was the late 60’s and early 70’s. My mom made us each two sets of Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls as well as a bunch of stuffed elephants. Due to her combination of genius and industry, we were able to play dramatic reenactments of family life with more socially acceptable dolls.

James was not really interested in formal music training, but he has an incredible ear and natural musical ability. He is also extremely funny. By the time I got to high school, I was pretty serious in my classical flute playing. He had a plastic slide whistle and would frequently copy whatever piece I was practicing in my room, complete with vibrato and when era appropriate, Baroque runs. When it wasn’t infuriating, it was hilarious.

These days my brother plays more music than me; he taught himself drums and plays with his 17 year-old son’s band. The only music we make together is the occasional game of Rock Band. The thread that carries over the years is that fact that my brother can always, I mean always, make me laugh.

He reminded me of this last Friday. James attended the requiem mass at St. James. I was kind of surprised to see him there since it was a pretty long drive for him and I think he hates to drive even more than I do. We got there an hour early to get a seat. During the time before the mass started, he was cracking me up and my laugh was echoing throughout the cathedral. When we were kids, due to different church rules, we were not allowed to talk before or obviously during mass. So with this as a back drop, his jokes have always been extra hilarious. I’d laugh, he’d say, “Now if any other family is coming tonight, they will be able to find us.” Then I laughed harder than before. Then he started singing family gossip in his version of Gregorian chant. I lost it again. Now here’s the thing about my brother. His antics are not particularly loud. He is actually a fairly introverted person whereas I am loud and gregarious. I believe he very much likes to set me up and watch the loud fireworks of my laughter, knowing that he is the one who lit the fuse.

James and I were successful for decades after our childhood in avoiding the bottom of the pig pile. Then I found out I had breast cancer and it wasn’t my older brothers that piled on top of me, it was the world in which I thought I had lived, that dissolved and crashed down on me. During the acute stage of my breast cancer treatment, there were many ongoing assessments and constant revisions of my treatment plan. When I was recuperating from surgery and bored, meaning prime time for worries to creep in, I called him, “James, I am bored. Tell me something funny.” And he did. And when I was anxious about waiting for the results of oncotype testing, which would determine whether my oncologist would recommend chemotherapy or not, I called my brother, “James, I have 20 minutes until I need to leave for my appointment. Can you tell me funny things and distract me?” And he did.

James does not show affection in traditional ways. I remember once, about ten years ago, his closing a telephone conversation by saying, “It was nice talking to you, Liz.” That was a major outpouring of verbal affection. But I know my brother loves me, thinks about me, and keeps the warmest wishes for my health. And he shows his love to me most consistently by making me laugh about today, laugh about cancer, and laugh about the things we did and experienced as kids.

For these things I will be ever grateful. James, you joined me at the bottom of the cancer pig pile. I can’t thank you enough for doing that. If you didn’t realize it before, please realize it now that you have helped me tremendously. Thank you for making me laugh at some of my lowest and scariest times. I love you a lot and I know you return that even when it may come in the guise of slide whistled Mozart.

James must have been about 1 1/2 years old to my three years. It looks like we were having much fun in a rare Seattle-area snow.

Tags Breast Cancer, coping with breast cancer, Family, Humor, siblings, sisters and brothers.

Categories brothers, Family, Feelings

Protected: Get me to the church on time

October 11, 2013 //

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Tags Family, Friends, Marriage, weddings

Categories Not Cancer-the other part of my life

Protected: I never sang for my mother

September 20, 2013 //

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Tags anxiety, birthday, Family, mothers, music, Parenting, singing

Categories Parenting

Egyptian Circus

September 2, 2013 //

My husband and I spent two weeks in Egypt in the summer of 1990. We were on our honeymoon. My husband grew up in a family that did a fair bit of foreign travel. Prior to that summer, I had never been to a non-English speaking country and the only other country I’d visited outside of the U.S. was Canada. (Yes, Canada is bilingual but we only visited the English speaking provinces.) In fact, prior to this trip, I think I’d only traveled by airplane on two prior occasions, at age 18 for a high school trip to New York and at age 22 to accompany John to his father’s funeral in California.

So this was a big adventure. I love art, culture, and travel. I hate, however, not knowing where I am or how to communicate. So going to an Arabic country was a bit of a formidable challenge for me. Also, this was before the Internet so hotel reservations could only be made ahead of time for the expensive hotels, which we could not afford.

We muddled our way through and had a terrific time. Going to Egypt was a risk to me in that it was outside of my comfort zone. We made additional risks in the country. Crossing the street, for example, was a risky adventure. One street was designed for four lanes but was used as if it had eight lanes. And the cars did not put on their headlights at night. And we encountered a number of cab drivers who obviously needed glasses and did not have any. So crossing eight lanes of traffic at night was more than scary.

In that case, the risk turned out okay though it was not a situation we would have planned to have gotten ourselves into. We also found ourselves in situations without transportation a couple of times since we were traveling during the off season when taxis and buses were not as available. We got a ride on the back of a pick up truck in Abu Sur, on the road to Saqqara, the site of the oldest pyramid in the world, designed by the earliest known architect, Imhotep. From Saqqara, we planned to travel to Memphis. However, when we arrived at Saqqara, there were no mini-buses and only one taxi, which was already hired for the day. But the cab driver was nice and asked around to see if someone could give us a ride.

A group of three young Saudi Arabians agreed to take us to Memphis even though it was out of their way. There was a man and two women. I have no idea whether they were related to one another or not. But what John and I immediately gathered is that these young people were treating their vacation to Egypt like American college students who go to Fort Lauderdale for spring break. Woo! Young people gone wild!!!!!!

Now they weren’t drinking or anything but the women were kind of hanging their uncovered heads and torsos out of the windows of a speeding video. They were also singing along to some pop music that was playing in the card. The woman sitting in the front passenger seat turned around to us, pointed at the driver and said, “That is his voice.” I didn’t believe her but tried not to let on but my facial expression must have given me away. So she handed me the cassette tape case and low and behold, the driver’s photo was on the front. At the end of the ride, he gave us the tape and autographed it. The next day, we walked by a music store and a copy of his tape was displayed at the front of the window. We had hitched a ride with a Saudi Arabian pop star!!

Some of our other risks did not turn out so well, however. We met this man, Magad (pronounced “maggot”) who was probably in his late 20’s. He offered to take us around Cairo. John is typically open to these kinds of things and we had already had a good experience on the other part of our honeymoon in Italy, when we met Lorenzo Lampignano, a Canadian who had been born in Italy. Traveling around with Lorenzo was fun and he knew his way around the country. Magad seemed nice and it was WAY harder to get around in Egypt than Italy. (I could speak Italian competently at that time.) So we agreed to have him take us to some mosques the next day.

The mosques were really spectacular. We had a fun day. And he took us to some places we wouldn’t have visited otherwise like the October 1973 War Museum (this war is known elsewhere as the Yom Kippur War). Not only was the name of the war different but the outcome was presented as a victory for Egypt, which is not the prevailing interpretation. It’s kind of a surreal place. There’s a film, “The Road to Victory”. There’s also this huge diorama where the war is re-enacted with plastic planes on fishing line. The final war experience is provided in a 360 degree panoramic painting accompanied by music and rotating seats. It is very similar to the Cyclorama in Atlanta.

Magad told us that he was going to take us to an “Egyptian circus” later that night. And for some reason, the thing didn’t start until some ungodly hour. But hey, an Egyptian circus sounded cool. We didn’t know what to expect but we were sure that it would be delightful experience to remember.

Well it certainly was a night to remember! Due to some translation issues, the circus turned out to be an amusement park with rides one might find at the county fair. Number one, I have a long history of being very uncomfortable with amusement park rides. The fact that these rides were in Cairo made me terror stricken. I can’t speak for now but in 1990 Cairo, let’s just say that it was very clear that safety standards were much different. For example, we were staying at a hotel that had those European style elevator doors that pull out like the door to a house. There were two elevators. One day, we opened one of the doors and were greeted with the sight of an empty elevator shaft. There was no sign on the door or any attempt to secure it so that no one would open it and fall in.

So now do you get my terror? On top of this, the galleon ride (the ride that where the ship swings back and forth in an increasingly wide arc) had been renamed in keeping with the region. And it was labeled in English. I believe it was supposed to be called, “The Flying Carpet,” but it was labeled, “The Flaying Carpet.”

We were in a very awkward situation. Magad had been so excited to bring us there and had even insisted on paying our way. It was also clear given the fact that there were a few couples there still in their wedding clothes that going to this place was a really special treat. And it was the middle of the night. And Magad was our ride. So we went on the Flaying Carpet and prayed. And we went on the octopus. My husband dealt with his own anxiety by making very helpful jokes about how he hoped the hardware on the ride was secure and that the screws were tight.

Okay, there’s another thread of this story that I have neglected to tell you. Magad had been creeping me out some. While we were at the mosques, he’d put his arm around me, for example. This was very confusing to me as (1) men and women did not make physical contact in public and (2) I was a married woman with her husband. I thought maybe we were just having a cultural misunderstanding because I was young and dumb. And John was too busy taking photos to notice that this man was standing right next to me ALL OF THE TIME.

Prior to the “circus” we had visited Magad’s house. He lived with his mother who served us a bunch of stuff that we weren’t supposed to eat. (Another bad risk as we both got sick a few days later.) Magad had also changed into these thin lounge pants and told me that he wanted to read my palm. He asked me to sit on the floor. Then instead of sitting in front of me, he sat behind me, straddling me with his legs. I don’t know how to be delicate about this but it only took me a second to realize that he was going commando and I jumped up like a shot into a standing position saying, “It’s time to go to the circus!” As I’m writing this, I can’t believe we didn’t leave right then and there. We were living in that surreal world of bad decision making. And again, we were young and dumb.

Back to the amusement park. While Magad was paying for the tickets, I took John aside and said, “Hey, I don’t care why this guy is touching me but I don’t want him doing it. Please stay right at my side and between he and I at all times.” In addition to our terror on the rides, there was Magad’s mounting and very visible annoyance at not being able to get his hands on me. John finally insisted that Magad bring us back to our hotel, which he did. And we never saw him again. We learned a valuable lesson, which is that there are creepy people in every culture. We were acting much more trusting there than in our own country due to their incredibly low violent crime rate and the extreme helpfulness and friendliness of the vast majority of Eygptians who we encountered.

So what got me thinking about this trip with its risks some that paid off and others that didn’t? Yesterday, I went to a theme park as part of my daughter’s birthday celebration. It is a water park combined with an amusement park. My daughter loves swimming and is a total thrill seeker. She loves this place. We have taken her there probably five or six times in her life.

I dislike amusement parks. I’ve disliked them even before the Egyptian circus fiasco. They are noisy, chaotic, and the rides are scary. Even parks like Disney Land are somewhat of a trial for me. Although I loved it the first time I was there at age 19 (the craftsmanship of the old rides is awe worthy), the subsequent trips have been decreasingly fun. But as you know, being in a family means doing things that other people like to do, from time to time.

About a week ago, I decided that this trip would be different. I decided to face a couple of fears. I’m just going to write about one of them today and that is my fear of going on roller coasters that are not surrounded by Disney animatronic figures singing cute songs. I’m talking about traditional roller coasters, the ones that are open on both sides. I had never been on one of those, ever.

I don’t need to go on roller coasters to live. And that’s what I have been telling myself all of these years. But it is an irrational fear. In contrast to the amusement park in Cairo, I don’t really worry about the safety of roller coasters. That’s not why I had never been on one. The reason that I’d avoided them for over 40 years is that I hate the idea of feeling scared and out of control on purpose.

I’m not one of those people who won’t go anywhere or experience anything. Naturally, I think I am fairly adventurous. And our family does a lot together. But there has been a slowly but surely growing list of things that I have come to refuse to do because they are out of my comfort zone. I had a chance to swim with manatees. I skipped it. (I was so disappointed with myself that when the park ranger was bringing a snake around for people to touch, I made myself do it even though I am afraid of snakes.) I tried skiing once and quit right away because I was afraid of falling. (Also, seeing the little kid whiz by me who was so young that he had a pacifier in his mouth, was downright demoralizing.) I stopped snorkeling after I had a vertigo sensation while swimming off of the coast of Miami in 1998.

People, this is missing out on fun and I am tired of living like this! I told John my plan to ride the rides and to go on the water park rides. We started off with the easy rides and worked our way up. I told John that I wanted to go on the wooden roller coaster. He said, “Really, it’s pretty scary?” I told him nicely to try to be more supportive so he was. I did it, I went on the roller coaster. And it wasn’t all that bad. In fact, some parts were enjoyable.

Every since I first learned of the existence of the loop de loop roller coaster, I have been adamant that I would NEVER EVER GO ON ONE. And I was pretty satisfied with this decision. But after my traditional roller coaster success, I found myself eying the loop de loop coaster, which at this park is called, “Wild Thing.”

I told John my thoughts. He was incredulous partly because he has avoided ever going on that particular ride. But he was trying really hard to be supportive and had told me how very proud of me he was because he knew how hard it was for me to go on that open roller coaster. I said, “Let’s go on that galleon ride to see if I can handle the arc and if I can do that, I want to go on the roller coaster again to see if I can do it with my eyes open this time.”

We went on the galleon ride, which I thought was pretty easy. But easy for me was queasy for my hubby. The first thing I noticed was that the part of my arm that had rested against his was totally wet with his sweat. He told me that he felt sick. I decided to go on the roller coaster myself and see how he felt afterwards. By this time, I had my plan and I was going through the steps. (In psychology land, this strategy is called “systematic desensitization”, by the way, as I have noted in past posts.)

I was able to go on the roller coaster with my eyes open, no sweat. And it was fun. John felt better so we walked over to “Wild Thing”. It did not make my heart sing or make everything groovy. It put my heart in my throat. No singing was going to occur unless screaming is someone’s idea of singing. But I was determined as was my husband who later told me that he overcame his own fear for me. (Actually, what he said was that he would never be able to live it down if I went on that ride and he didn’t but I prefer the more heroic version of the story because John was so very sweet to me yesterday.)

I did it! I did it! I went on that loop de loop roller coaster, all six loops! And yes, I screamed pretty much non stop. And yes, my eyes were closed most of the time. But I did it! I conquered that fear and it felt awesome!

One of the hardest things about being a naturally anxious person is worrying about the right things. I worried too much about being able to get around in a foreign country and about offending an Egyptian man that I dismissed my own gut feelings about real potential dangers. On the other hand, I have worried too much about getting scared in situations that I knew were actually safe.

I didn’t previously see the value in getting over my fears just to know that I could. I will probably never be a big fan of amusement parks but I had fun yesterday and that means something. But I suspect that this experience and the other ways in which I have been challenging myself, will help me do some of the things that I really have wanted to learn how to do but have been too careful to try.

Maybe you will see me on the slopes this winter with the people I love and in the mountains that fill me with peace and wonder.

Cairo. This boy was so friendly. He wanted his photo taken thinking that we had a polaroid camera and could give him a copy.

Bazaar District, Cairo

Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Cairo

Karnak

Cairo

View of the Nile. I think this was taken from our hotel room in Luxor, which was the setting for Agatha Cristie’s, Death on the Nile. Alternatively, it could be the view from our hotel in Aswan.

Abu Simbel. This is part of the Temple of Ramses II that was moved by UNESCO as it would have been submerged under water by the Aswan Dam. Abu Simbel is located near the Sudanese border. We were there in AUGUST. It was beyond incredibly hot but so beautiful.