Commonplace Magic

Through the fog of a regular morning, all at once, I was standing in a parking lot in the sunshine feeling grateful for:

• A job where I have the flexibility to show up, loosely, sometime between 8:30 and 9.
• Wearing jeans and flip-flops to work.
• Having long hair hanging wet against my neck and shoulders.
• A commute that allows for morning coffee-and-a-book time at least four days a week.
• Listening to a book that feels so real and has moments of connection so bright I get chills.
  (Love Warrior)
• Hearing Wilder awake before I leave for work (even if she's screaming and likely making her parents nuts).
• Real love and connection with so brilliantly-lucky-many amazing, wonderful friends (even if many of them live far away).

No matter what else, the Universe brims with goodness.

Where I Live Now

Dearest of dear ones,

At long last, the promised update! Cutting right to the chase… I now live in Portland!

Some of you may be thinking, “Yeah, I know. You’ve been talking about this for years.” I talked a big game, folks, but I was never actually sure it would happen.

It’s been a little more than a week since Portland-Sara morphed from an idea into a reality, so thinking about it still gives me a swoop in the stomach and a tingle in the neck. This is not bad or good; it’s change. It’s a decision made. 

This year has been heavy with decisions, heavy with change. 

Heavy with miles traveled (over 7,000), with months lacking a proper job (6), with states traversed (17), with moments of heart-stopping uncertainty (lots), and of pure, glistening joy (countless). 

The first half of the year was so heavy I didn’t know how I’d bear it. There were times (days, weeks, months) when crying seemed my main occupation, when I could not fathom moving through the next day.  

The second half of the year found me the lightest I’ve ever been. The most grateful. The most awestruck. The most surrendered.

2017: a year of metaphorical and literal journey.  

Mid-December 2016, I was sobbing in my bedroom, yelling at God, “Why won’t you help me?!” This was a low point. Following my cancer treatment, I had rediscovered Spirit, embraced Presence, found a church I loved. (The Gathering in St. Louis, I don’t have enough words to express…) I was nourished. Then, with all of those things very much in my grasp, anxiety and darkness ate up the light. A dark night of the soul is what they call it. I managed to maintain a somewhat normal exterior, but the darkness was so deep, you guys, so why-am-I-on-this-earth-anymore deep. But that’s a story for another time. 

Back to how I ended up in Portland.

In November 2016, two years post-treatment, when I’d expected to have a clear CT scan, be named officially cancer-free and ready to move on with whatever would come next, instead the scan was ambiguous. Some tiny thing that hadn’t been evident before had appeared; and there was the lingering bronchitis, the recurring pain in my ribs. Just before Thanksgiving, following a surreally crazy test involving a nearly empty room in the deepest basement of the cancer center — Nuclear Medicine — and a kind, careful nurse injecting a radioactive substance from a small metal vial into a vein in the delicate gooseflesh of my inner elbow, the potentiality that my cancer had spread to bone was dispensed with. But still, there would be three months more waiting to see if the new spot on the scan was Something, or just a glitch. (To save you the stress I endured, it was apparently a glitch. Huzzah!) But, there I was just a tad over a year ago, yelling at the Universe for help.

Two days after that December night of forsaken-feeling anger, I was given 30 days to move out of my apartment, where I’d lived for nearly six years. 

Less than two hours after that, in a casual conversation, an angel of a friend offered me a place to stay for a couple of months, just to get me through my next scan. I ended up living there for six months — a safe, quiet place with dogs to love, and calm, solid support close at hand. The friend wouldn’t let me pay rent.

I guess Providence had heard my shouts.

That friend’s generosity allowed me to save money for a move to Portland where my biggest family cluster lives. But I was never sure the move was right. I was frozen. I was crying. I was saving up. For something.

Another tearful, prayerful night, it became clear that I needed three things: quiet, family, time. Now, to make these things happen…

In February, I got the all-clear from my doctor. “Sara, it’s time to go live your life now.”

In April, I hit a new low and, with a lot of help, got a handle on my depression. 

In May, I gave notice on the most lucrative job I’ve ever had, working for a boss and with a team I respected immensely.

In July, I worked my last day at UMSL, repacked my 10 x 10 storage unit, filled my car with what I thought I’d need for up to six months (the ridiculous-long estimate; I expected to be on the road only through October at the very latest), said goodbye to my St. Louis beloveds, and started driving.

I promised many of you updates along the way and I did manage to post some pictures and captions, but the longer I waited to write to you, the more experiences built up, and the harder it seemed to tell all the stories. So, finally here are some details. I hope once I get caught up, I’ll be better at staying in touch!

July/August — Nearly six weeks in Arlington, VA with my brother, Jason, sister-in-law, Susan, and brand new nephew, James. So many beautiful, home-cooked meals; being part of a family, baby-duty (wonderful baby-duty!) and all; regular writing dates with my brother (who happens also to be working on a book manuscript); getting to know my sister-in-law, becoming true friends; a magical week on the beach in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, swimming in the ocean; so much reading. I never wanted to leave.

August — Back to St. Louis for quarterly medical tests (all clear); reconnecting with people I love love love; catching up on last to-do’s before heading west.

September — Chicago for several days with my dear, old friend Sarah (and her Brian and family) in her new city. Biking on the lake, museums, food, long walks and lingering conversation — some of my very favorite things. Ann Arbor to visit Ellie and Dave, two of the kindest people I know; welcome like welcome was born to be. Detroit to mourn my darling Auntie Cathy with my uncle and grandmother. Back to Chicago with Sarah and clan for one restorative night and morning before pressing on.

September/October/ November— Denver/Boulder. The sunlight! So much connection with family. Long conversations and walks with my Auntie Mia, getting to know the daily life of my cousins. Stepping into a family unit ready for me to join right in. Cooking, relaxing, reading; long trips to libraries and bookstores; mornings spent reading, afternoons spent walking; seeing my grandmother almost every day, joining her for seven Fridays of her ladies’ prayer group. When I arrived in Denver, I thought I’d stay a week or two; I finally packed up and left after eight. Good God, this time was a gift. A pearl of hope, clarity, and intention growing layer by layer by layer.

October also saw a quick side trip from Denver to Tulsa to reconnect with home. With my beloved high school best friend, Tara, I saw Ryan Adams at the Cain’s Ballroom; reconnected with Wendy and Johnny, Nate, Shane, my brother Adam and his wife, Gina; sat quietly at my mom’s grave; and then visited Lynette, a librarian I worked with for one year, nearly twenty years ago and whose voice stayed with me longer than she’d ever imagined.

November/December — I planned to go through California after Colorado — LA, San Clemente, Oakland, San Francisco — but was called to Portland early to help out with a family injury. Not the injury, but the call to Portland was right on time. I was ready to settle for a while — a while meaning through New Year’s. By this point, I wasn’t sure Portland was for me. I thought I’d go back to Arlington/D.C. to live with my brother and his charmed little family or, more likely, to Denver, land of the shining-est sun where my spirit glowed so bright. But then, following a hike during a long-anticipated side trip to Vashon Island in the Puget Sound to visit one of my dearest college friends, Leila, and her partner, Ellen… click, click, click, like the perfect tumbling of a clock’s gears, the Pacific Northwest grabbed me, a Portland job fell into place, and I decided it’s time to stop, to stay.

So, on January 2nd, I start my new job — 30 hours per week, leaving ample time to pursue my writing, and with medical benefits — as assistant to the Columbia District superintendent for the Oregon-Idaho Conference of the United Methodist Church, a progressive religious community that is, I believe, on the cusp of exciting change. (Yvi, you might not remember, but you’re the one who suggested to me, so many months ago, over lunch, a Conference job!) I’ll be renting a lovely room in my cousin Alexis’s family’s home — nestled among stunning pines and holly bushes bigger than you’ve ever seen — and joining the Alexis-Nathan-Finnegan-Wilder household as full-time Auntie Sara. 

Who ever could’ve imagined, on that cold, miserable moving day last January… 

—

On my travels, in a little indie bookstore in Ann Arbor, I found two beautiful art prints made, I didn’t know at the time, by a painter in Portland, OR. This is what they say:

“Everything changes. Nothing is Lost.”

and

“It is well with my soul.”

Yes. And amen.

Sending so much love and peace and gratitude. I promise to be in touch again soon.

Xoxox,
Sara

2014 November 30 - My Billowing Cape (Lotsa Update)

Hi there,

It's been a couple of weeks since I last wrote to you all, but I think about it a lot; there are so many things my little self is trying to sift through and process - what's happening, what's worth sharing, how to make enough sense of it to actually send something worthwhile. So many confusing, upsetting (and sometimes beautiful and eye-opening) things are unfolding out in the world in this moment. Like all of you, I'm doing my best to pay close attention.

I've been back at work in the office part time for two weeks now, though last week was a short one. I was pretty nervous about going back, not really about my ability to move into the role I play at work - I'd been doing the job at home for months - but about my ability to take care of my physical self, my changed physical self, out in the world on an everyday basis. What if I was too tired to make it through? What if I got overwhelmed? And maybe the largest concern, though I didn't see it then, what if I just fell back into my self as I was - I must always be my best! - without allowing the space and time and energy to do the most important things: let my body get strong again and begin to process what has happened and how I will be in my life, in my world, now?

I fought serious fatigue that first week. By the time I left each day, I'd had all I could take and would go home and just sit quietly, or if I had company or talked on the phone, I was really not pleasant. I just felt so irritable and exhausted. The second week, the short Thanksgiving week, was a little better. I still felt beat by the end of each day, but maybe not tired to the point of feeling angry about it. We'll see how this next week goes, if maybe soon my doctor and I will decide I can do more. There is one piece of advice I've gotten over and over from my doc, as well as from various people in various contexts: don't go back too soon; make sure you take the time your body needs. I'm trying to hold onto that advice and be very, very careful.

That addresses logistics. Otherwise, I'm just swimming through this slithery pool of memories and experiences, trying to fish out some meaning. The biggest thing I can get my hands around right now is the constancy of feeling my mortality. Of course, I've thought about this since the diagnosis. It was an invisible band fixed tight around my chest, daring me to take another breath; I couldn't look down at it. Now, it's more like a slippery black cape, the fabric trailing behind me so I can sense it fluttering at the back of my neck, feel it brush against my heels. It's not an idea anymore, but something stitched to me like Peter Pan's shadow. One night a couple of weeks ago, maybe just after I sent the last update, I climbed into bed and had this acute, visceral sense of... how to describe it... my Self gone from this place, the part of me that would be gone. It took my breath away. I have an acute awareness that I've gotten a reprieve, at least for this moment, and also that this is not a thing to be taken lightly or for granted. That knowledge holds a vast weight.

Last weekend, I went to my favorite brunch spot and ran into a server who had moved away for about a year and is now back. We'd been friendly before and when she saw me, she gave me a hug. We went to my regular table and she plopped down the menu and said, "So, girl, what's been going on?" I stuttered and stalled for a few seconds - we hadn't been close before she left, just interested parties, acquaintances-plus - until I finally said, "We'll, I've had cancer." How do you small-talk around that? I couldn't think of a way to be real and honest without telling the real, honest truth. She cried. It wasn't dramatic and she didn't launch into a personal story that connected to her response. She just stood there looking nervous, asking questions, and wiping away tears.

This was only the second time since my diagnosis that I've felt in the position to need to reassure someone else of my okayness. You who have been reading these missives know that I decided early on not to pretend, not to be okay just to keep people comfortable. The first time post-diagnosis that I felt called upon to be okay for someone else, it was so early on and I was still so stunned, I just apologized and said that I couldn't make any promises. I knew what that person needed to hear me say, but I couldn't say it. This time, it was different. It [could see that this was more] about *her* fear than *my* reality. Does that make sense? Don't misread what I mean - I'm sure she's a deeply caring, empathetic person and she felt for me, but, I think what was really happening was that, for a second, she could see my cape billowing around me and it made her afraid that she'd have to feel her own cape too. By reassuring her that I'm doing pretty well now - "Look! I'm strong enough to come out for brunch again!" - I think I was really just desperately trying to put my metaphorical arms around her and whisper, "Yes, we both have our capes on, but, sweetheart, thank God, we don't have to look at yours yet."

I saw my long-time therapist a few weeks ago and we talked about this... it's not quite sadness, but stunned-ness that I'm carrying after the end of my round of treatment. She suggested that I am now grieving "the loss of a life without cancer in it." I may never (please, Heavens, let this be) have cancer again, but I will now always have a life with cancer in it. I can see the truth of this differentiation in the many people who have felt so keenly for me and reached out in such specific and knowing and loving ways because they too, though now healthy, have a life with cancer in it. I've been ruminating on that idea of grief and it feels very accurate - that sensation you have after the thing-that-changes-everything, a death, a divorce, a serious illness. It's foggy what life was before; you can't quite remember. It's foggy what life will be; you can quite imagine. In the middle, in the now, it's just stunning and upsetting and unfair that you have to think about either. (This brings to mind current events too, right? We are in the stunned middle.)

Over the last couple of days I've been reading Anne Lamott's essay collection Traveling Mercies. In "Ladders," she writes about grieving after the death of her lifelong best friend (it is not lost on me how everywhere I look there is cancer, there are people gone too soon). "But what I've discovered," she writes, "...is that the lifelong fear of grief keeps us in a barren, isolated place and that only grieving can heal grief." And later, "A fixation [on something else] can keep you nicely defined and give you the illusion that your life has not fallen apart. But since your life indeed may have fallen apart, the illusion won't hold up forever, and if you are lucky and brave, you will be willing to bear disillusion. You begin to cry and writhe and yell and then to keep on crying; and then, finally, grief ends up giving you the two best things: softness and illumination."

I guess this is what it all adds up to for me right now - all of these walks I need to take, and the staring at the wall/ceiling/sky I need to do, all of this truth-telling and honesty you all have been willing to bear - it's in service of this idea: that I can't hide from what's happened, that the only way out is through, that in the end there is, maybe not sense in the senselessness, maybe not order in the chaos, but at least that sweet softness, that blessed illumination that Anne Lamott talks about. That's what I'm hoping for, at least. Thanks for riding along and listening; I don't know how I'd have made it to where I am without you.

Prayers for peace and love and understanding to you and far, far beyond.

Xo,

Sara

Ps. Eyelashes are here! Eyebrows are coming! Peach fuzz up top. :)

2014 November 16 - A Dream or Another Life (Lotsa Update)

Hi again,

I suppose it'll soon be time to stop sending updates this way. That we'll all go on somehow and this time will start to fade. That's what people tell me. I'm thinking about other ways to keep writing about this experience, because I don't think I'll be through it for a long, long time, but eventually the Lotsa website updates will stop. I'll keep you posted.

For now though, I thought you might like to know how things have been going. A couple of updates ago, before I had my good-news test results, I wrote that my counselor at the cancer center had warned me that the period immediately following treatment, following the all-clear, can be very difficult for some. I also wrote about feeling like this tiny creature on a endless shore watching the tidal wave of regular life coming to take me down. This did not look like a surf-able wave. When it hit, it didn't feel like one either. I've been on my knees gasping for a couple of weeks now. It's been rough.

There is a sense that I should be celebrating (and special thanks to those of you who have felt the excitement for me when I couldn't), but what I think I've actually been doing is feeling the enormity of emotional response, emotional trauma, that I had to hold at bay while I went through treatment. During those months, I just had to take the next step and then the next and next until I made it out. I think it'll be a while before I really catch my breath.

As of this weekend, my pets are home.

That sentence has to stand alone; it feels like it means something bigger than the simple reality that the amazing people (Wendy & Johnny and Jen T) who took such good care of them have passed Elgin and Leo back to me. It's hard to explain how normalizing their presence in my apartment is. I feel in a time warp. Today is a snowy Sunday spent with my pets. It's like I've jumped back to last winter/spring, like the summer was a dream or another life. Whoa, I just realized that this whole thing began with a trip to the ER on May 17th... Tomorrow is November 17th. Six months. I'm not going to add an "(only)" before that, but I see the ghost of it.

Tomorrow I return to work on campus.

Another stand-alone sentence. I've been working part time from home since just after my second chemo, and I'm only cleared to work reduced hours until I get more strength back, but still, this is back in my office. Regular. Normal.

For some reason, the Wizard of Oz movie has come to mind over and over through the course of this time - different characters and scenes. Here's where I am now. Remember when Dorothy is imprisoned by the Wicked Witch and Judy Garland is on screen, all tear-stained and helpless? "I'm frightened, Auntie Em. I'm frightened!" And then... The serenity on Dorothy's face when she realizes how to get home? When she closes her eyes and starts clicking her heels together. She knows she's ok then. She knows that all will be well. I am both of those Dorothys right now. Caught somewhere in the middle.

I just tried to write a paragraph ending this chain of updates and thanking you, but I can't do it yet. Knowing you're there, even quietly and at a distance still means too much. Through all of this, I've pictured you as this stunning small crowd of people who've got my back. I guess I want to keep that image for a while longer. I hope you don't mind. I think I still need you.

Love and more love,

Sara

2014 August 24 - This Wistful Okie Self (Lotsa Update)

Hey there,

Well, it's been a pretty good week! I worked from home and got a lot of catching up done. On Thursday, I even made it to part of the College's fall kick-off meeting. It was such a relief to see so many kind, genuinely caring coworkers/friends. I was thrilled to be there.

Fridays have become a source of major anxiety as that's the day I go for bloodwork. (I've always been more antsy than most people when it comes to things like this, but all the trouble I've had with the ports has not helped.) Things went smoothly this week and it looks like both the incision from the old port (that had to be removed) and the new port are healing up ok. The best part was the reward afterward...

You all know that I grew up in Oklahoma, mostly in the suburbs, but my best childhood friend, Amber, lived more rurally and when we were about 12 (I think?), Amber got a horse. I was never a very confident rider, but something about all those days of riding the horse, sitting around while Amber did all the horse-care things, playing Little House on the Prairie, stuck with me because, a couple of years ago, I was writing and stumbled into all of these memories of life as a country girl. I woke this wistful Okie self. Before my diagnosis, when I thought I was having a surgery with a 4-week recovery time, I was texting with my brother, Jason, and said, "When this is all over, I am so going horseback riding." During my convalescence, I've been thinking more and more about that and craving just to be around some horses. Well, what did Shawnessey do? She found an equine therapy center in Wildwood that said we were welcome to visit. So, after my bloodwork on Friday, we went for a drive and spent a couple of hours hanging out with Florian and Magic and Brady and Hero (a picture is in the Lotsa site's photo gallery). I'm not near being able to ride, but we petted and brushed, and talked to them. It wasn't like a movie, where everything changed the moment my visit-a-horse fantasy [came true], but I do think I'll go back. After the horses were returned to their pastures, [Shawnessey and I] found a shady spot and sat for a while watching an empty, sprawling field and listening to the buzzing of the bugs in the trees.

The Saturday after my last treatment, I was so miserable. You know that sort of visceral, child-like place you get to when you've cried too much, and you just start saying things that come from a place you didn't know existed? Well, I was there and what I said to my Auntie Meg was, "I just keep thinking I want to go home, but I am already home. It doesn't make sense." It was seriously distressing that there was this call from some deep place and I couldn't understand it. Sitting under that tree, with that pasture stretching out in front of me and the heat and the trees and the bug noises, I had the feeling that this is home. Maybe this is what I'd been longing for in that terrible moment almost two weeks before. But, what is the this? Is it the actual landscape of my childhood - big green fields with horses nearby? Or something that the childhood landscape represents - perhaps a time when it still seemed like adulthood would bring freedom, when growing up meant realizing a dream? Maybe the home I was looking for was actually just hope for something better.

I guess all of this comes back to the first question that presented itself in flashing neon when I realized that treating cancer had taken over my life: all else aside, who am I and how do I choose to go on? That, I think, is where the hope comes in. It's sort of impossible to go on without it.

In the last few days, I've felt more acutely how the world keeps moving, moving, moving even when I feel like all my strength gets sucked up just trying to stand still and be.

There is a jumble of other things I could say, but for tonight this is enough. The takeaway: horses and lunches with friends and small revelations are all reasons to keep on keepin' on. And then there is you. Thank you thank you thank you for being here to listen and help and send good vibes and pray. It matters.

More soon...

Love,

Sara

PS. Thank you to everyone who tried to help find Elgin a new foster home! In the end, she is going to stay put with the family she already knows and loves.