wingwmn

spreading my wings and sharing random lessons learned along the way

Life

The Space Between: Navigating the Transition from Youth to Elder

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I was in my early 40s, vacationing in Malaga. I spotted her in a shop window from across the street – black and white, and 2D.  I crossed the street to take a closer look. She was the face of an ad of a Spanish clothing brand — silver hair, visible lines on her bare face, simple. I was riveted. Inspired. “THAT is how I’m going to age,” I thought.  

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Let me give you some context.  

I grew up in the Philippines. The first time I thought about aging was when I was about 10. I was in church next to my mother, who was about 40 then. I glanced over at her hands and noticed how perfectly manicured they were. I looked at all the other praying hands of the women around me. All similarly perfect. I looked at my own nail-bitten hands and thought nervously, “I guess I’m going to have to work on my hands when I’m older.”

I was not a very girly child. While my best friend insisted on wearing her floral pink smock dresses and Raggedy Ann plastic high heels to play, I insisted on shorts. I didn’t dip into my mother’s jewelry and nail polish, and I thought that make up during ballet recitals made me look awful.

Even as I got older, I never cultivated my interest in effortful beautification. Before I’d step out of the house for a night with friends, my mother would nervously examine my face and beg, “Please wear more make up.”  I eventually left the Philippines before I learned how to do that.  By way of London and Hong Kong where I lived for a few years, I landed in New York where I lived for almost 20.  During those years, the Philippines developed a strong beauty culture, imbibing that of neighboring beauty meccas Korea and Japan.  My contemporaries honed the use of cosmetics and beauty treatments which kept them spectacularly fresh. Meanwhile, I took a different route. I focused on the inner work, as New York’s health and wellness culture liked to call it. I meditated, fasted and green juiced. I believed that with this lifestyle, I could slide into old age naturally and gracefully.

So — back to the Malaga shop window — here was this woman, somehow confirming that old age could be beautiful in its simplicity. That one can slide into it gracefully and elegantly without much effort.  She was the visual representation of how I wanted to age.  She got me excited about aging. 

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Many years later, I happened to move to Spain. My excitement about aging deepened. The Spanish women seemed to embrace natural aging with much more ease than than the average. They have a more relaxed attitude towards their lines or other signs of aging. The Queen of Spain, for example, is often seen in photos with visible silver streaks.  I commented to a friend, “I love how Queen Letizia is so natural.  She’s not afraid to show her grays.”  My friend replied, “Pffff.  That’s just her slight nod to reality. She shows grays because she keeps the rest of her body impeccable.”

It then occurred to me that perhaps Spanish women can be relaxed about wrinkles because they are armed with so much provision — bountiful hair, golden skin, slender bodies, abundant sense of style, and a get-out-of-my-way confidence.  

It also occurred to me that I, too, could be excited about aging because I had my own ammunition: Asian genes. Giving no credit to anything but these genes, I was a 40ish year old who looked 30ish. 

It is easy to romanticize something you have no idea about. To think growing old can be exciting is to have no idea. 

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A year later, I was diagnosed with cancer. They say every body reacts differently to treatment. My body’s reaction was to age overnight: instant medical menopause, weight loss, crepey skin, sunken cheeks, and dark spots from chemo-related acne.  I couldn’t bear to look at myself. Witnessing these changes was more difficult than any of the other side effects of chemo. 

I tried to anchor myself in the thought that these were mere physical changes; that I am so much more than this body. That I was also spirit and wisdom. That I was blessed to be alive for this experience. But I wasn’t buying any of it.  No amount of prayer or meditation could help me find peace with this transition. Because while I am more than this body, I also am this body. This body is how I interact with the physical world – how I meet it, and unfortunately but importantly, how I am met and seen. I wasn’t ready to be seen as older.

I decided I needed to start making an effort. I sought help from my Philippine beauty gurus, my sisters and friends, for tips on makeup and skin care. I went to the dermatologist. I watched countless youtube and instagram accounts of how older women were doing it. I embarked on my own elaborate skin care process, and (look Mom!), I finally started wearing more make up.

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One day, I was at the airport waiting for a flight back to Spain. My hair was growing out from hair loss, and my gray streaks were prominent. My skin was on the mend. I was wearing big olive green glasses, and a denim-on-denim outfit.  I was walking from the shops towards my gate when I heard someone call out, “Excuse me!”

I looked around and saw a young lady, in her early 20s, making her way towards me from across the terminal. “Hi, I’m a representative of the UNHCR,” she started.  “I am supposed to be asking you for a donation, but,“ she paused sheepishly, “I saw you enter that store, and I waited for you to come out. I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re beautiful. I love your look.”

I was stunned. 

She went on giddily, “You remind me of Jamie Lee Curtis. Or the boss in The Devil Wears Prada. I love girl bosses.”  I was speechless. Jamie Lee Curtis and THE Meryl Streep, albeit magnificent women, were on average 2 decades older than I was. When I found my words, I thanked her, we hugged, and I walked away quickly.

I choked back tears. I tried to console myself with the thought that this young lady went out of her way to tell me something very sweet; that she saw beauty in this new body. But, in truth, I was inconsolable. She confirmed what I saw in myself: that I had become an older lady.  

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The experience of the bona fide loss of youth, while it all transpires on the surface, is profound. What do we do with this sudden disconnect between how we feel and how we look? Where do we belong while we’re in this liminal space, reverse-metamorphosing from youth to elder? 

How do we avoid that pang when all of a sudden, and without our consent, the world baptizes us into a different category: when we’re told an outfit is “too young”; when they use usted or po to express seniority; when they call us Señora instead of Señorita (or Madame instead of Mademoiselle, or Tita instead of Ate). How do we ignore that in these tiny innocuous ways, they communicate the unraveling of our sexual attractiveness, our influence, and our relevance?

It is near impossible to slide gracefully and peacefully into aging. It is, more often than not, a tumultuous ride.  

The consolation is that aging is a shared story. The birthing pangs into eldership is a universal rite of passage. And the silver lining is modern women are learning to confront it as a community sport. Through art, movies, books, fashion, and social media, they are bravely and vulnerably taking up increasingly more space and wresting the narrative. To be excited about aging will perhaps always be a tall order, but the hope is that with a little more elbow room, women can more comfortably and confidently decide how to look and who to be in their next chapter.

An Ode to the Caregivers

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At 3am yesterday morning, I texted my still-awake sister from the ER, “What do we dooo?“ 

“Start thinking of how we’re going to tell the guests that the party is cancelled”. 

*
We had planned a birthday celebration for our Dad for 5pm that same afternoon.  But 14 hours before the first guest was to show up, my Dad was on his 7th hour in the ER undergoing a series of tests.  And my mom was 6 floors above on her 4th night of confinement, recovering from a medical procedure and infection.

*
Then,
At 5am, my dad was discharged from the ER.  
At 2pm, my mom was miraculously discharged. 
And at 10pm, when all the guests had gone home, we looked at each other in exhaustion and wonderment and sighed, “We did it.”

*
Such are the whiplash highs and lows of caregiving parents – a very special time:

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It is a constant balancing act: between pulling the trigger on plans (because security deposits) but being open to flow (the list of last-minute plan-cancelations is long).  Between hope and managing expectations.  A balance between living your life but being available.  Between consulting them (with answers fluctuating daily) and making a decision taking everything into account.

*
It takes a village of every character: the planner, the execute-er, the introvert that takes care of the bills, the extrovert that takes care of the socials, the one who answers to “Dad left the house. Please find him”, the children who have children and entertaining stories, the early bird who is available for doctors’ early rounds, the night owl that tears the parent away from the TV at midnight, the detailed note-taker, the high-level cheerleader, not to mention the battery of technical caregivers who do the heavy lifting.  All shapes are necessary.

*
It is dotted with difficult moments: the sleeplessness, the worry, the last-minute decisions, the urgency of everything.  But there are also the “5am and 2pm moments”.  That, even when you say “we did it”, make you know full well the truth.  That it was Grace who did it, who swooped in to take over. So that we have breathing room to cherish this special time, and to remember that the village is so much bigger than what we see.

Adventures in a Foreign Tongue

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They say learning a new language opens up new worlds.
They also say, “You’ve been in Spain for 3 years? You must be fluent!”

Wellll.

Sure, I have enough Spanish in me to walk out of a salon with the haircut I asked for. I also know enough Spanish to fix an earache. But the ability to say “Keep the volume on top, shorter at the nape” and “Everything sounds like I am under water” is barely new worlds opened. It just means I can do logistics in Spain.

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My dream was to dominate Spanish – not just learn it casually like I did other languages, but really crush it. Own it. Understand its soul, inhale its words, twirl them around my fingers, debate with it, argue with it, and perhaps even write in it.

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This desire stems not so much from the mere fact that I live here, but from the fact that the foundation of Spanish culture is the lexicon. If I lived in a less voluble country, say Japan, I doubt my linguistic aspirations would be as strong. But in Spain, discourse is the heart of the culture. Take for example, the tradition of ‘sobremesa’ where the Spanish hang around the table after a meal for extended periods of time to talk. Or the prolonged Spanish goodbye where bidding farewell just means that the conversation is transported in stages from dining table, to living room, to entrance way, to driveway, to car door. Or the fact that my partner uses his phone to actually TALK to family and friends.

On the streets, in the stores, at the dinner table — there are so many . . . words. Words flying in all directions: at each other, over each other, wrestling with each other. The golden tenet in conversation is: once you have the floor, never cede it. A Spanish teacher explained the expression “es que, o sea, te lo juro, de verdad [1]” as basically a bunch of words to fend off your interlocutor from speaking while you are thinking of what to say next. Hence, the other golden tenet in conversation is: remember that to shout is human, to interrupt divine.

The usage of words is a national sport. If I cannot participate, am I even here??

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Let it be known that contrary to popular belief, the simple fact of taking up residency in Spain does not automatically make one a Spanish speaker. I say this particularly as an adult learner. Just because I sit next to teenagers gabbing in the bus doesn’t mean I come home linguistically wiser (I just come home with a headache.) Children, by contrast, pick up languages as quickly as they do viruses. Linguists agree that over the age of 10, learning a language needs focus and deliberation.

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Armed with the trauma of formal language classes, I created my homespun version of language learning. The theme was Go Big or Go Home. I chose what I wanted to learn; I organized my own conversations; I joined reading clubs; I watched a lot of youtube videos.

I did a full and complete immersion — I set English aside and relied on Spanish for everything. If I wanted to read, I’d pick up a Spanish book. If I wanted to listen to a podcast, in Spanish. The news? In Spanish. A visit to a museum? Spanish audio guide. If I wanted to write, it had to be in Spanish (so I stopped writing altogether).

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Of course, it is only when you lose something that you realize its importance. To me, it was the importance of precision. Language teachers advice: “You don’t have to understand everything. Just get the gist”. But to live in a state of gist is to live with a hangover: you are aware that something occurred but are not 100% sure of EXACTLY what occurred. One day, I stepped out of the elevator into the blinding lights of my lobby. I told the Spanish-only-speaking doorman, “Jose, qué luz! I feel like we’re in the middle of the sun!” He laughed and launched his rapid-fire explanation: “You remember last year, it was the same something-something . . . I tried to change the bulbs (laugh). . . the vice president of the building scolded me and told me that something-something (big laugh). . . need to keep them on until midnight but I’ll turn them off earlier (laugh). . . lots of girls come to take selfies something-something (laugh).” I understood what happened; I knew it was funny; but how funny? I’ll never know.

This insufficiency of gist works the other way, too. While visiting the city of Burgos, our friends insisted that we see the little church next to the cathedral. “You MUST see it,” they said, “we’ll wait here outside.” We entered the small, dark chapel. In the center was an inordinately large altar composed of intricate biblical scenes all etched out of limestone. It glowed under the only light streaming through the window. I was struck. We stepped outside. “Y??? Qué te parece [2],” they asked expectantly. The right words didn’t come — no “breathtaking”, no “unbelievable craftsmanship”, not even “spectacular”. I replied, “Superguay [3],” like any eloquent woman would.

The superguay altar of San Nicolás de Bari

Without precise words, the colors and textures of stories are lost. Nothing stands out; nothing sticks. My daily experiences were tepid shades of gray washing over me like teflon.

*

Fortunately, there was some pay off to all this. Little by little, I found flow – times when I was no longer conscious that I was Reading in Spanish, but simply Reading. Times that I was in a conversation to later realize it was entirely in Spanish. Times when I was listening to my partner tell a story and realize, not that he was speaking in Spanish, but that he is actually funny.

Then one night, while having dinner with friends, one of them pulled out her phone and showed us a meme on youtube. It was a video juxtaposing Spanish gypsies to the government of Spain. They all watched and laughed. I understood the words but not the humor. My friend thought about how to explain it, and with all the love (and pity) in the world said, “It’ll take a lifetime, and a walk through history, to explain what this means.”

I realized that this is where my linguistic plans fall apart. A nation’s esoteric expressions, humor, cultural innuendos are all born out of a shared past. To fully understand the commonly used “De perdidos, al rio [4]”, for example, one needs to talk about war. To grasp a Spanish mother’s threat “Te vas a enterar lo que vale un peine [5]” one needs to talk about the Middle Age torture.

In the same way, when I try to bring my own spin to the Spanish language, my attempts fall flat. I told my teacher “Tengo que encender un fuego bajo mi culo [6]”, and he nervously asked “What are you trying to tell me?”

Language comes laden with collective experiences. To define terms like “Pijo”, “Maria Clara”, and “White picket fence” to mean “posh”, “demure”, and “traditional suburban dreams” would barely be skimming the surface. Learning the language will not transplant the years of baggage that is attached to them. Besides, I’m half a lifetime too late for that.

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Thankfully, Spanish has gone beyond being a practical language for me. Through it, I am now able to get a glimpse of the promised new lands by understanding a little more of its books, shows, dialogues. I may one day get a word in a conversation, argue, debate, even write. But I know I will never dominate it; never ever possess it.

Meanwhile, I have gone back to my own words, the words I grew up with. I’ve missed being able to read deeply, write details, and feel all the textures of my experiences. Through this meandering language journey, I have come to learn that while language can offer the excitement of new adventures, it also has the consolatory ability to bring us home.

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[1] “because, I mean, I swear to you, really”
[2] “And??? What do you think?”
[3] “Super cool”
[4] Literally means “From lost to the river”; loosely means “What the heck?”
[5] Literally means “You will find out the value of a comb”, loosely means “Watch out”
[6] “I need to light a fire under my arse.”

**cover photo by Lucas Allmann. Doodle by me.

A Bittersweet Ending

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I’ve got good news and not-so-good news.

First, the good news:  Today, I am officially done with chemo.  All 26 sessions over 15 months, all fina-frickin’lly done.

The not-so-good news is: I haven’t been in the most celebratory of moods lately.  In fact, I’ve been kinda-a-little-very frightened.

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Cancer, in itself, is a beast.  

But the fear that is fused in with the experience of cancer is a whole other animal.  It begins even before an actual diagnosis in the form of “scanxiety” (scan anxiety); and it can persist, according to many, years after the end of treatment.  The fear morphs, it is sometimes quieted, but it is pervasive.  In her book, The Cancer Journals, writer Audre Lorde speaks of it many times:  “I do not forget cancer for very long, ever. That keeps me armed and on my toes, but also with a slight background noise of fear,” or “Sometimes fear stalks me like another malignancy. . . a cold becomes sinister; a cough, lung cancer; a bruise, leukemia.” 

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During the countdown to the start of treatment, I was overwhelmed by a particular type of fear.  It’s the kind you have as your roller coaster car inches its way up an incline — with you, waiting white-knuckled and heart-in-throat, for the big drop.  You know the shape of the drop and where it ends; you can anticipate much of it.

Taking guidance from the Stoics, I managed this fear by taking apart what I knew was coming.  I took each concern — losing my hair, surgery pains, chemo side effects — approached it to the extent I could (like cutting my hair, practicing cooking with one arm), made plans accordingly, and reminded myself that it all shall pass in about a year.  Then, these fears no longer had power over me.  The woman that emerged from that practice astonished even me!  She was brave and ready for the adventure. 

*
In these past few weeks as I neared the end of treatment, the fear that arose felt different.  The fear of recurrence is a nebulous kind; its form is ungraspable and its end-date is uncertain.  As such, I can’t prepare for it in any kind of concrete way.  Stepping out of routine infusions that were killing off the cancer and out of the watchful eye of my oncologist, I feel like I am being handed my graduation gown and thrown into the middle of the ocean to figure it all out — how to stay afloat, or even where to swim to.

And so I’ve had to manage this fear very differently.  

First, I do what i can to stay physically healthy — I eat well, I work out, I try to avoid alcohol and stress.  

But I know that it has to go deeper than that.  Dr. Joe Dispenza in “Becoming Supernatural” talks about how our thoughts and beliefs influence our physical reality.  It all starts with the mind, he posits.  So, I have started becoming very conscious of what I feed my mind and what I allow to flow through it.  I scrub my mind clean and scroll past fear-mongering posts about how “a recent study proves that chemotherapy causes so-and-so” or how “so-and-so can increase the risk of recurrent”.  I do not pay attention to cancer statistics or statistics on family history.  Instead, I flood my brain with inspiring stories that show me what IS possible.  

Then, during my meditations, I let this knowledge drop into my heart, course through my body, and seep into my bones.  I FEEL healthy; I AM healthy.  

Then, I drop to my knees and hand over the rest.  

*
This has become a daily discipline.  It has had to be to touch solace.  There are days when the fear is still intense, when I struggle to keep my head above water.  But there are more and more days when that brave woman shows up, non-alcoholic champagne in hand, itching to start Life Post-Cancer.  

*
This is the tenderness of an illness. And this is the grace of Life itself.

It will systematically try to undo us — stretch us in one direction, pull is in another. It will break us, mend us, then crack us wide open again.  And as we bend and stretch with it, may we one day realize that something new has been created — from a shallow vessel that easily spills over by the slightest fear, we have become the ocean.

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Today, I am closing the book on cancer.  Thank you, friends and family, for your prayers, messages, cards, flowers, gifts.  You are my biggest blessings.  Cheers!  As they say here, SALUD!

*
Photocredit: Robert Stoke on pexels.com

Birthday Moments

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Closing the decade chasing sunsets in Morocco.
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I almost forgot that exactly 365 sunsets ago, on my birthday, I had my very first chemo session. I was facing about a year’s worth of treatment. A well-meaning friend advised: Just consider the year lost.

Quick-witted that I am, a year and 22 chemo sessions later, I finally have a reply: 6.4 billion.
*

There are 6.4 billion moments in a day according to Zen Master Dogen. (A snap of a finger has 65 moments.)

Rather than viewing Time as hulking chunks — a whole year of loss, a solid block of pain to power through — I prefer to think of Time as Dogen does: fine particles of moments. Billions interweaving, overlapping, entangling, almost merging with each other.

Because if not, how else could this year have been?

How could the discomfort of a needle co-exist with the comfort of a nurse’s soothing caress;

How could the tedium of chemo exist right next to the delight of settling in a chemo chair with a good book or podcast;

How could physical exhaustion occur right by the joy of sunlight streaming across the bed;

How could cancer in a foreign country be associated with feeling embraced and carried by friends and family sending messages and snail mail and gifts and new friends to meet;

How could a supposedly lost year be filled with laughter and lightness?
The good can co-exist with the bad because each moment offers space for something new, breathing room for an entire universe of potential.
*

In this 65-moment snap of a finger, I am sad to see the (rapid) fading of youth, happy to be aging, nostalgic for the decade that was, excited about the decade that will be, and just profoundly grateful. All of it possible and all of it existing so potently side by side on this bittersweet birthday.
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50 years. 18,250 sunsets. 116.8 trillion moments. The terrible and the beautiful, I’m owning all of them. None of them worthless. Not one of them lost. All of them essential to the becoming of little (kinda very) ol’ me.
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Thank you so so sooo much for your birthday wishes. Between spotty connection and too many hours in carpet shops, i am slow on the catch up and replies. I also learned of a secret anitapifty account set up by the bestest sisters Angela Payumo-Stricker Aileen Payumo Alexandra Asuncion. I will read them, wallow in them, and shed many many tears. Then we catch up, ok?

Death, Life and Cash

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Hi dear friends!  

I wrote a piece for my friend, Pallavi’s, newsletter.  This one was kind of a biatch to pound out.  Talking about money is haaard. But I wanted to put into words my evolving relationship with it in light of an illness.  And all it did for a very looong time was make me want to curl up in bed and browse through IG.  So thank you, Pallavi, for whipping my arse.  

Will you go and have a read?  I’d love to know what you think about the book I talk about and if you think I’m crazy.

While you’re there, have a browse through Pallavi’s account.  It’s mind-candy for anyone with wanderlust.

p.s. Pallavi and I met through Joanna.  When Joanna told Pallavi of my diagnosis, she called me, a total stranger, to help me cope.  Not only was she instrumental in helping me navigate this country’s health care system, but when she told me she was a writer, I knew there was a divine plan in this whole cancer story. 

https://pallaviaiyar.substack.com/p/death-life-and-cash?r=20i3h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Photo by Hasan Albari: https://www.pexels.com/photo/round-gold-colored-1-coin-1350463/

Carousel Perspectives

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Walking by Madrid’s Royal Palace, my family and I stumbled upon a Christmas carousel. Naturally, my nieces wanted to ride so we made our way over.
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While waiting in line, we watched the kids revolve around the carousel in and out of sight. We noticed one of the bigger girls, about 6-years old, unquestionably dejected. She was riding the only horse that didn’t dance. While all the other kids bobbed up and down around her, she was on a motionless horse that didn’t do anything. She sat slumped, sides of her mouth sharply turned downwards, her face scrunched up holding back tears.
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When our turn arrived, we instructed the nieces, “Choose a horse with a pole. Not that small one; it doesn’t move.”

And “Hold on to the pole with both hands. BOTH hands.”
*

The music started, and the next revolution began. Kids appeared and disappeared, tentatively releasing a hand from the poles to wave at their parents.

Then we heard “Mama! Mama! Miraaaa!” A little girl of barely 4-years old spun past us. She was on the same motionless horse, her body leaned waaay back against it, one arm dancing in the air rodeo-style. She spun out of vision.

Then she came back, this time with one leg standing on a wooden stirrup, the other leg floating behind her. “Mira Mamaaa!” She disappeared again.

She returned, “Mamaaa!”, in jockey position, bouncing on her horse, slapping its wooden culo.
*

She had us all in stitches and in awe. While one kid saw a dud of a horse, this rockstar kid saw a safe platform for her equestrian dreams.
*

May we all see the rodeo in any and every horse we’re on. Merry Christmas!

Hope-less

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I am not a fan of Hope.

All this puffery of Hope — Hope is a thing with feathers, Hope against hope, Audacity of hope — I’m not buying it. Hope isn’t rainbows and butterflies. In fact, it can be vicious. It has, many times, torn me apart.

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Hope broke me very early on in this cancer journey. People told me “Let’s hope you won’t need chemo. A lot of diagnoses don’t need chemo.” I hoped and prayed for that — a diagnosis that didn’t need chemo. I didn’t mind surgery or radiation; I just didn’t want all the side effects of chemo.

Early test results were promising. My cancer, it seemed, was acting like the relatively easier Luminal A type — and at Stage 1, it was the type that wouldn’t require chemo! I was giddy with possibility! Several tests later, I was told that my type was not Luminal A. Instead, it was the more aggressive Triple-positive which would, very unfortunately, need chemo.

My world collapsed.

Hope kicked me a second time. Two months ago, after my 12th and final chemo session, my MRI scans showed that my tumors had “practically disappeared”. I shrieked in excitement! I hadn’t expected that good of a response! So, after avoiding Hope since the last burn, I dared hope again. I hoped and prayed that my upcoming surgery would confirm that the tumors had, in fact, disappeared.

As it turned out, reports from the pathology lab saw the presence of a 2mm bit of tumor remaining in the tissue that was surgically removed. 2mm! The littlest, teeniest, tiniest thing. Sure, it had “practically” disappeared. But it did not “completely” disappear. And with cancer, we need it to “completely” disappear. That little, teeny, tiny thing changed the game for me. Instead of smooth-sailing towards the finish line of my treatments, I have been thrown back on the chemo chair for a brand new cycle of chemo. Which will last a very long time.

Hope stings. When I dare reach out to it, it slaps my hand.

*
Pema Chodron, a Zen Buddhist, claims we have an addiction to Hope. “As long as we’re addicted to hope, we feel we can tone our experience down or liven it up or change it somehow . . . Hope robs us of the present moment.” When I am hopeful, I am at the same time unsatisfied with my reality. I don’t want this; I want that. It is an implicit awareness that what is happening to me is not good, and that there is an alternative in the future that is better than where I am now.

When I am hopeful, I am also insecure. Because hoping is a recognition that I have no control of the future. (If I had control, I wouldn’t need Hope. I simply would do what was needed to reach my objective.) And yet, despite knowing that the future is beyond control, Hope tells the future what she wants it to be. It is micro-management with absolutely no teeth. And the result is insecurity, longing and a grasping.

Hopefulness as it is, is already an emotionally unsteady place to be in. To top it off, when Hope ultimately spurns, entire worlds collapse.

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“Abandon hope”, Chodron says. Being hope-less, she says, is the “beginning of the beginning”.

I like that. There seems to be so much wisdom to being hope-less, wish-less, want-less. It is a state of being that is stable and peaceful; no wishing for a specifically-drafted future, no clinging, no expecting. Being hope-less is submitting to perfect humility, knowing your smallness and placing full trust in a greater intelligence. It is faith that everything right now is right, however that may look like, even if it looks like a chemo day unit.

Rather than Hoping, I think I prefer this Knowing.

So, I snuggle in and get cozy in this chemo chair, in this moment. I don’t think of tomorrow. My prayer is wordless, want-less. I know I have everything I need. And I know that I will have everything I need in each moment that arrives. For that, I am peaceful, I am open, I am fortified. It is the beginning of the beginning.

In Defense of the Trite

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“It is important that you feel beautiful.”  I heard these words over and over again before I started chemo.  From my oncologist, from my cancer-survivor friends, from the guy measuring my head for my hair prosthesis.

“Oh noooo, no, nooo,” I would think to myself.  “Don’t tell me what to feel.  I’m here for the enlightenment.” 

I was convinced that beauty and other frivolities had no place in a cancer diagnosis.  As the body healed, I wanted my petty ego to heal, as well.  

I was eager to learn one of the hardest lessons that simple aging hadn’t been able to teach me: to gracefully accept the subtle but incessant changes occurring to my body — the graying hair, the sagging jowls, the flabby-ing arms.  Instead of softening to them, my vanity raged against aging.  And as it goes, a lesson will keep repeating itself until it is learned. So here it was — cancer offering me the lesson anew.  My body will age in warp speed, and I was determined to finally learn to inhabit every evolution of this body.
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That was the plan.

Nine weeks into chemo, I stare at my reflection in the mirror – the weird wig, the puffy steroidal face, skin dotted with chemo acne — and I think, “Screw enlightenment. I just want to be cute.”  I don’t need perfection. I just want to like what I see in the mirror!  
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Call it trivial, but the desire to feel beautiful during cancer is to harness the fight within.  I saw it with my grandmother.  During her cancer treatments, even in the worst of days, she made a commitment to elegance. That beauty translated into inner joy; which translated into an excitement for life; which translated into 29 magnificent years after her mastectomy, outliving her 3 oncologists, and dancing her way to heaven at 92 years old.

My mother is the exact same way.  She takes delight in dolling up.  After arduous sessions, she dons her glamour, steps into a party and becomes its life.  15 years after her first diagnosis, she is still unstoppable.  

For them, cancer is the battleground, and lipstick is the war paint.

For someone like me with no dependents, it can be easier to throw in the towel when treatments get difficult.  Feeling beautiful, even if trite, offers a tiny lifeline.  And that little lifeline can be a step up to greater things — regaining the self-esteem upon which to engage with all the marvels of the world again.  That would be worth the fight.
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I am learning that there can be no enlightenment without our bodies.  The body is the theater for spiritual growth. It is precisely because of our bodies that we experience and are forced to navigate life’s contradictions: our hunger to be virtuous vs our carnal desires; our yearning for spiritual maturity vs our ego’s hankering to be pretty. 

Yes, the end goal is still enlightenment.  But I will drop by the dermatologist on the way there.  Because while I inhabit this body, I am and will continue to be, a raging work in progress.