wingwmn

spreading my wings and sharing random lessons learned along the way

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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.

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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.

For Mom

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Dear Mom,

You never taught me to cry. You MADE me cry at times, but that’s beside the point. The point is that from you, I never learned HOW to cry — how to feel my emotions, luxuriate in them, and weep. I don’t ever remember crying on your shoulder about my pains – external or internal, or stuffing your ear about my problems – real or imagined.

When I was sick and rolling in self-pity, you plied me with Tylenol and told me to get better. When I wasn’t doing well at school, you told me to work harder (or else). When I was smarting over a break up, you demanded that I put on make-up and go forth and conquer.

Simple. No drama required.

I grew up believing that nothing was worth my tears. Because I saw that nothing was worth yours.

When life handed you lemons, you tossed them aside and drank your wine. Then you overdosed on your medicines: laughter, family and girlfriends, eating, and traveling. These are and have always been your elixirs.
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Eventually, life itself taught me to cry.

But I am grateful for the gift you gave me: to know that at every lemon moment, I have a choice — to wilt or to anchor myself in the levity of the experience.

Because as you have taught us time and again, everything, no matter how seemingly serious, can always be a laughing matter.

How lucky I am to have you as my role model, my guide and my source of strength. Love you so much, Mom. Happy birthday.

Love,
Me

Seashells

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It’s no coincidence that my first chemo session landed on my birthday.

I always try to spend my birthdays alone, on a new adventure, with lots of quiet time for meandering thoughts.

Technically speaking, sitting in a chemo chair for the first time conforms exactly to my birthday criteria: alone, new, quiet. Apparently, God knows (and has a sense of humor!) I chuckle and embrace this gift.

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There were a few more new adventures in the few days leading up to my birthday.
I cried out of fear for the first time; not out of fear of cancer or death, but out of fear of this ominous monster called Chemo. (Fyi, as opposed to cries out of anger which are potent and energetically-targeted, cries out of fear are more searching, as if calling out to anyone who might be listening.)

For the first time, I felt a fierce love for my body. It is the vehicle through which I experience the world, and yet I did not appreciate it enough. (While I take care of it with food and exercise, I also demand a lot from it – I don’t sleep, I stress too much.) I felt such sadness and protective love for this body knowing that it would soon be put through even more.

And for the first time, I understood the saying “life is short”. It’s like the Filipino sungka game — if you asked me how many seashells each player has, I’d say “many”. (They actually have only 49; 7 seashells in each of the 7 buckets). Of course intellectually, I always knew that we have a finite number of years. But if you asked me how many years, I’d say “many” — enough to build a life, build a home, retire, travel. Middle age and the pandemic changed that answer to “less”. But the world of illness offered concrete numbers. When your oncologist mentions “5-year survival rates”, and co-cancer-warriors pray for “another 10 years”, you start thinking of your own number. What is enough? What is ideal? But whichever number I landed on — a sungka bucket? two buckets? maybe double that? — I realized that number is really not “many”.

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What do I do with my remaining buckets?

While speaking to an audience, Eckhart Tolle asked: do you need “25 years of eating, 25 years of taking your dog for a walk, going on vacation, seeing more sunsets, adding more life experiences? Is that the real purpose of your life?”
That struck me. I shouldn’t be spending my seashells on the same horizontal trajectory. I really should be planning to come out of this on a slightly higher plane.

Pema Chodron, a Buddhist monk, says we should use the moments, days, years of our lives to become wiser and kinder. The source of wisdom is in every moment.
That calmed me. I don’t have to be a monk or found a charity to reach that higher plane. I can reach wisdom from where I am.

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I heard a funeral director say that an essential element to a good funeral is Stories. A person is not facts. She is Stories.

I will take that, not as a prescription for dying, but as instructions for living. Don’t just fast forward to the good parts, the mere facts. (“She was a good student. He was a dedicated employee. She dressed well and kept a beautiful home. He cured thousands of people.”) Instead, roll in the whole mess of the story — the hows, the whys, the conflicts, the plot twists, the characters that come in and out. Linger over the funny bits, the triumphant bits, the sad bits, the downright scary bits. Participate fully in its unfolding. Seize every single second for it is the path to wisdom.

If things go as planned, I should be emerging from my treatments next year on my golden birthday. A “cancer survivor”, hopefully. But I won’t fast forward. There are full chapters still to live before that. For now, I will delight in the birthday flowers waiting for me at 4am as I prep for the day; I will search for calm while the doctors are taking too long finding a vein fat enough in which to insert my central catheter; I will bask in the music they play to calm me down; I will fascinate at my frost-biting toes submerged in ice; I will enjoy the chat with my Barbie-looking chemo roommate who is giving me tips on how to keep my eyebrows and lashes. I will remember that every single second is divinely written. There are no coincidences.

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Thank you soooo much for your birthday greetings, for your constant words of encouragement, for the love and light you emit, for the prayers and masses you offer, for the texts you send to simply ask how I am doing. I treasure all of these so much.

Photo credit: The Photomix Company

Attached

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Some days ago, I woke up with the abrupt urge to cut my hair and prove to myself that I was no longer attached to it.

Lesson of that day: I was still very much attached to my hair.

Instead of zen, I was irritated. Irritated at the hairdresser who was just following instructions; irritated at my boyfriend who paused a second too long before saying “it looks good!”; irritated at every woman on the street who swished her hair at me.

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But as with baseball fields, haircuts abide by the same universal rule of the jungle: If you build it, they will come. 

😅

Lay that foundation, make that cut , and eventually the non-attachment will come.

I’m slowly getting there. I’m getting less and less emotional about my hair. If I wake up looking like a korean male pop star, fine. Like a tita of manila, fine. When i think about losing it all, I’m fine. … But ask me again in a few weeks.

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Side note: it helps to know that the oncological beauty industry has answers for everything! In the event that zen escapes me when my hair starts falling out and I emotionally implode, I was reassured that with a prosthesis, it IS absolutely possible never to have to see myself without hair.

On Breasts and Warriorship

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This was a tough one to write. I wasn’t sure I wanted to say anything at all about this, and yet, there are things to say.

So here. I’ll say it.

On March 2, after a regular annual check up and several follow-up tests, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Two lumps in my right breast, relatively small ones, but of the aggressive kind. I was told I would likely need the whole shebang — surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and hormone therapy. It would be a slog.

I went on a free fall. A cancer diagnosis, in a brand-new country, with a health system I didn’t know how to penetrate, in a language I was still struggling with. I was brought to my knees.

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In the ensuing days, I ransacked my library for guidance from spiritual leaders whose teachings have helped me time and again. Through them, I found strength and a strategy to face what was coming.

Zen Buddhists say that bravery is looking directly at what is frightening us. Rather than unraveling, the spiritual path is to keep stepping into our fears, to keep moving into what terrifies us. With cancer, there is nowhere else to run anyway. So, I did as suggested and became acquainted with my fear. I listened to the stories of women who have treaded this path; I visualized myself already bald and breastless; I moved around doing chores with only my left arm to simulate post-surgery limited mobility. And as promised, by being intimate with fear, it ceased to hold me in its palm. Fear dissolves, and what is left is a state of openness, curiousity, and wonder. Where will this experience take me? Have I released enough attachment to the superficial? Can I be as brave as the other women who have experienced this?

My sister asked me, “Are you scared?”
“Not at all.”
That was the truth. At doctors appointments, potentially devastating news — that I would enter early menopause, that I would lose my hair, that depending on test results, I may have to consider doing an “Angelina” — fell on me like a feather. No impact.

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Stoic philosophers say that virtue is having control over our minds, which is really the only thing we can control. Govern our thoughts, and we will find strength. Suspend desires, and we avoid suffering. So, I did as suggested and acknowledged my tiny place in the infinite universe. I gave up any ridiculous ideas of control, and instead, allowed my diagnosis to unfold.

My friends told me, “Let’s hope for the best results.”
“No, no hoping. That can only lead to disappointment. Let’s let this evolve as it should.”
Not trying to micromanage the universe brought tremendous relief. And it brought miracles I couldn’t possibly have orchestrated on my own, in the form of human angels taking turns providing relief, guidance, emotional support, and translation services.

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This was me during the first few weeks: grinning and bearing it. I felt courageous. Calm. I was a spiritual warrior.

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The past few days, however, saw this spiritual warrior break and throw spiritual tantrums. “Dear God, gudamit. I was JUST starting to live, and you do this. Eating plant-based in the land of jamon? No alcohol in the land of wine?? Bald, tired and nauseous in the land of La Vida Loca (or is that Puerto Rico, but whatever)?? What kind of joke is this?”

While I wait for more results that are supposed to come in in the coming days, I find myself praying for miracles, “Can I get the easy treatment protocol? Can I NOT lose my hair? Can i NOT have menopause weight gain? Can I just NOT do this?”

Some days, many days, the only prayer I can muster is “Fck this sht”.

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On the morning of Good Friday, feeling a little guilty for falling off the spiritual path, I closed my eyes to meditate on Jesus’s words “not my will, but yours,” as he agonized in the garden.

But instead, these words flashed prominently in my mind, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup of suffering away from me. . .” These were Jesus’s words, too! Right before saying, “I’ll do it if you really want me to”, he slid in, “Dad, if you want to change your mind about the torment awaiting me, I won’t be mad.” I loved that! It reflected Jesus’s humanness. I was immediately consoled. Being an unwavering spiritual warrior takes superhuman strength, and if the Son of God can ask for a pass, why not little-human-speck-in-the-universe me?

We know how Jesus’s story continues from that fateful Friday. I’m not expecting a free pass either.

Eckhart Tolle says there is great opportunity in illness. I still believe that — there will be great learning on the other side of this. I am determined to learn every lesson there is to learn; to evolve into who I am meant to be after this. But I also cannot deny that it will be a pain in the fcking arse. And I cannot promise that there will be no shaking of my tiny spiritual fist at the vast sky every now and then. But that is the gift of the slog that is this illness – to offer opportunity after opportunity to get back on the warrior horse each and every time I fall off.

I suppose this is the mess and beauty of straddling both our spiritual and worldly dimensions — to seek wisdom and virtue, to find the courage to accept our fate, and to keep doing so, all while being a weak, fumbling, fist-shaking, cursing human being.

For Better or For Worse

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As a visitor, Madrid had always felt intense. For better or for worse. Its culture is undiluted. Its streets and tabernas — teeming with cacophonous herds. Its people — direct, vibrant, overflowing. The language — impenetrable and unrelenting.

Also, the meals — abundant, and late. And store and office hours — incomprehensible.

As a historically imperial city, land-locked in the very center of the country, it didn’t care to be anything else. While its coastal neighbors were being transformed by centuries of immigrants, Madrid was a stronghold for the Spanish way of life.

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I love a coffee shop, and I love cities with a specialty coffee shop culture. You know the kind — cozy and bright spaces; soothing playlists; Chemex on display; serving coffees, lattes, and chia bowls. Their young international english-speaking staff in pink socks take your orders and talk bean origins and roasting methods. Digital-generation customers nurse their drinks, minding nothing else but their laptops.

To me, these places feel like a neutral safe space. They call out, “Rest your weary backs on our subway-tiled walls and pretend, for a lingering moment, that you’re home. Or in East London. Or Brooklyn. Or Melbourn. Or Berlin. Or heck, even Manila.”

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The traditional Madrid coffee shop, on the other hand, is not a neutral space. It is ‘cafeteria’. Like Madrid, they are loud and spirited.
The disorganized bar, laminated tables, and napkin-strewn floors belie any intentional aesthetic considerations. Surly men serve 10 customers at a time and dispatch of them with admirable efficiency.

The coffee culture in Madrid is transactional. Customers approach the bar, order their cafe solo, chug it while catching a bit of news on the overhead TV, and leave. If they stay, it is to gab emphatically with friends and family over food. There are old people, young people, children; the whole village.

There is no spotify playlist to appreciate, no non-dairy milk options to choose from, and absolutely no laptop in sight.

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Very recently, however, specialty coffee shops have sprouted hard and fast around Madrid. Mostly founded by expats, they cater to an equally international customer base of travelers and migrants who, judging by their strong endorsements, have been hankering for these spaces just like I have.

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I sip my black sesame latte and think about coffee and culture.
On the one hand, I am thrilled that in a full-on city such as Madrid, I can finally escape into any of these happy spaces. But at the same time, I am unsettled by this trajectory.

Because to travel is to expand; to tear us away from our everyday. To travel is to be part excited, part uncomfortable. It is to allow a new place, in all its distinctiveness, to dictate our experience and leave a mark on us.

However, as post-pandemic travel and migration rise at remarkable levels, visitors are making their mark on their destinations. The cross-pollination of cultures and tastes seem to be producing increasingly standardized cities. Extremes and Uniqueness are moving towards an Average. Paris is finding its smile; Tokyo is discovering a bit of chaos. Fortress Madrid has sprouted specialty coffee shops and vegan restaurants. Will restaurants soon be serving dinner at 7pm?

The homogenization of cities is a sign of cultural gentrification on a global level. We trade in a city’s essence for what is universally agreeable. In the near future, travel may no longer be associated with novelty and growth. Rather, it may be simply about posing in front of a famous landmark, but being assured of comfort and predictability. For better or for worse.

The Hustle

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“Have you ordered from Pablo yet?” our neighbors asked with a mischievous smile.  We were having dinner at their house catching up on neighborhood news.

“Who’s Pablo?” we asked.  

“Our neighbor who sells paella.”

A small pause.  “Wait, he sells paella . . . from his house?” we asked confused.

“Yes!  He actually lives right across the street from you!  We used to be able to run to him for last minute orders but he quickly became so busy that he now requires advance notice!  Well, he’s also a pilot so he only takes orders for the weekends.”

Another brief pause of disbelief. “A pilot that sells paella in his spare time?” 

“Yes,” they laughed.  “Pablo Piloto Paellero!  Que raro, no?!”

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A few weeks later, we placed a paella order.

Gathered around his delicious paella, family and friends discussed this Pablo character with a lot of befuddled vigor.  “I still don’t get it! No lo entiendo! Why is he doing this? As a pilot, I can imagine he doesn’t need to.”

“Must be a passion,” I volunteered.

“Sure, but he could indulge his passion by having family over for lunch.  Why make it into a business?” 

The concept of Pablo, the paella-peddling pilot, just didn’t compute with these people.  A side-hustle, particularly a laboriously manual one, is a very foreign idea in these parts (“If it were a consulting side-gig, maybe I’d understand it better.”)  Also, governed by a strong dedication to leisure and socialization, weekends and work never ever mix (“Bosses don’t call on weekends. Saturday lunch is the absolute latest they would dare call.”)  Pablo the weekend warrior was a very rare breed in Spain.

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I thought of the Philippines, the land of the home-based enterprise. Where the national past time is tossing around ideas of what new discovery from the outside world can be replicated, baked, or imported and sold from home.  Where every iconic ensaymada, caramel cake, ube-cheese pandesal, sushi bake, creative pie, you-name-it likely began with a sparkle of an idea, a home oven, and a hustler who said “why the heck not?”  

In the Philippines, home businesses are a source of creative expression, entrepreneurial adventure, and communal gastronomic advancement.  Additional income is often the cherry on top.  To the delight of customers, the number of home businesses exploded in the pandemic.  During the dreary days of quarantine, they fed our bodies, our economy, and our sanity. They are our modern-day ‘bayanihan’.

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After our lunch, Pablo came over to pick up the paella (pan).  I greeted him at the door and told him how much we enjoyed the paella, and how thrilled I was that he was open for business. He asked where I was from. I said I was Filipino.

“Oh, my wife is Filipino.”

And at that precise moment, everything clicked!  It suddenly all made sense! Of course!  The only way to explain this maverick Spaniard entrepreneur was a hustler Filipino wife!


Photo credit: Manuel Mouzo