Thoughts on Another Year

According to the calendar that someone made up long, long ago, today I turn another year older.  One more revolution around the sun.  Another number to remind me that I've lasted on this earth a fairly long time.

The number of years I hang out here is not nearly as important to me as living this moment fully.  Yet, it took me most of these years to realize that this moment is IT and to see just how full life is.  My wonder and gratitude cells slept for a very long time, and I'm so relieved that they finally woke up!

The early morning sun is shining in my window, birds are singing out in the backyard trees, the sound of fans drawing in cool air fills our house, and Michael just cleared his throat.  I love life.

In my celebration of this life, I especially want to acknowledge my sweetie.  I am in deep love and respect for Michael.  Because of his love, I have realized that I'm loveable.  (That's huge!)  Because of his dedication to qigong, I do my qigong every morning.  (When Michael asks if I'm ready to do qigong, I usually moan.  I don't want to do it.  And then, while I am qigonging - and always afterwards - I feel nurtured and peaceful and big and open and.... lovely.)  I admire Michael for all that he is doing to heal.  He never misses a pill, he doesn't eat the things that are not helpful, and he does eat things that make his face bunch up and his body shiver with disgust.  He is a disciplined and strong man.  He is kind and he is generous.  I admire and love the heck out of him.

I could go on and on about the qualities in Michael that I admire and love.  But, as my daughter would say, the "cheese factor" would be over the top.  Too much Velveeta.  So I'll save that all for Michael.  (Ooops, he's not eating dairy.)

Mostly, I just want to celebrate another day of living.  

(Hmmmm... I forgot to add that song to our Happy Song playlist.)

Chasing After Water

Michael has said it, and I have felt it.  No matter what physical issues I've had before, I have never felt it like I feel this.

It's as if there is something hanging over us.  Something that wasn't there before.  It seems that we each have a part of us that is waiting for it to leave so that we can go on with "life as usual".

What a crock...

MCL has certainly changed how we live our lives.  Most of Michael's waking hours are spent attending to it.  If, instead of being MCL, it was a newborn child, we would be spending most of our waking (and sleeping) hours attending to that child, but we wouldn't be waiting for it to leave!  We would be taking in every moment of our wonderful life.

The mind does funny things, doesn't it?  THIS is our wonderful life!

Today I have entertained the possibility that we can be more fully engaged with all of "this".  Over the last four months, we have integrated this diagnosis quite a bit.  But I want to go even deeper with it.  I want to accept it exactly as it is, embracing and enjoying all of the rituals that have become our new way of living.  Not looking at the things we do as chores that have to be done in order to deal with an unwanted guest, but holding them as loveable ingredients in this precious life. 

There is no perfect future to wait for. We are here.

***

We took my mom to the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder yesterday - a Fatherless Father's Day excursion.  We were drawn into the perfection of "right now" as we watched children fully engaged in play in a fountain area.

The girl with the striped pants and the cup on the right just kept trying to catch water, but each fountain is only on for a few seconds.  She never got her cup filled, but it seemed that the process was much more important than the success of a full cup.  She was very diligent.

 I love the look of the water hanging in the air.

A precious look of wonder on the face of the kid in the diaper.

Let's Play!

We're Havin' a Party!

We're having a party
dancing to the music...

 - Sam Cooke





And you're all invited!!!

Let it be known that 1) back in February, Michael Barrow's 50th birthday was spent in a hospital where he was sliced, diced, and biopsied, and 2) coming soon, Carol Barrow is having a birthday (not her 50th - been there, done that). 

Due to the aforementioned circumstances which were/are beyond our control, a Celebration of Life party will be held next weekend.

If you happen to be in the Denver area next weekend and you would like to participate in the fun and frivolity - if you want to celebrate the fact that WE'RE ALIVE! - contact me for further details at my email address (if you have it) or here (if you don't).


All attending - and anyone else who is so moved - is asked to send me (at the aforementioned email address or link) a song that inspires happiness and/or big smiles.  All songs contributed will be thrown into a playlist and blasted through our iPod boombox the night of the party for our neighbors' listening pleasure (and just maybe a little "dancing to the music").

Haola!

The Storm

Last night.  11:48 p.m.

The RUMBLINGS of agitated skies 

shook me awake.

Wind was dervishing,

torrents of water were slicing

the air, and sirens were screaming.

Not the shrill kind of sirens

that wail from fire trucks 

or ambulances, 

but the eerie kind,

like a bomb warning.

And I heard the voice of God.
(You might call it
a Public Address System.)

He (yes, I was disappointed to

realize that It was a he) may

have been telling us to take cover,

but I couldn't understand Him

over the constant RUMBLINGS.

Maybe He was sharing with us the 

meaning of life, or offering instructions

on how to become a revered teacher,

or just saying, "Hi, I love you".

But I missed it.  

Those loud RUMBLINGS

rumbled between me and

the words of God.

As I stood and pondered

in our big closet... (we have 

no basement for these things, 

only a crawl space which I imagine

is loaded with spiders, and 

I would rather die in a tornado

than live with a big, black,

hairy spider on my body), 

as I stood and pondered in 

our big closet, Michael stayed 

in bed, on his back, beneath

windows that could blow shards

of glass all over him

should a tornado rip through

the neighborhood.

(Being from the East Coast,

he doesn't have the tornado smarts

this Kansas girl holds in her cells.)

Once in a while, he would 

surface into consciousness

and I would describe the 

scene out there.  At one point,

he said this could be one way 

to take care of  the cancer.

I sat in our big closet and pondered that 

until the RUMBLINGS became

rumblings. 

Then I crawled into bed, and for the

second time since this diagnosis,

I felt pissed.  

This time, I was pissed

at cancer. 

Haola!

All is well.

Rarities

Not-Real-Fun Facts:  "They" say that Mantle Cell Lymphoma is one of the rarest non-Hodgkins lymphomas, making up 6 per cent of all non-Hodgkins lymphomas.  I read that there are only about 15,000 MCL patients in the U.S.

People in the U.S. with MCL make up about .005% of the population.

Yes, Michael has always been a rare breed.  (And I mean that in the best of ways.)

Mantle Cell Lymphoma is on the government's Office of Rare Diseases list.  This list also includes many challenging diseases with unpronounceable names, as well as Michelin tire baby syndrome.   (I have never heard of this as a certifiable disease, but everyone used to call our next-door-neighbor's chubby little one a "Michelin tire kid".  Guess I should look up names before I go calling people diseases...)

***

Last weekend, the Denver Chalk Art Festival took place on a few downtown streets.  On Sunday, we drove into town and found ourselves a parking spot, then allowed the crowds to swallow us up.  I think that more than .005% of the population of the U.S. was there!

It had rained on Saturday, washing away the artists' work, so people were at it again on Sunday, re-creating their beautiful works.  I love the stunning in-your-face reminder of impermanence that chalk art and sand mandalas allow.

The Rare Breed himself.

 Objects in this photo are all impermanent, too.  Just made with the intention of lasting longer than chalk art.

This Is Not My Beautiful Blog

Letting the days go by...

- David Byrne

I don't know what Michael would write if he were to blog about the third party (MCL) in our marriage.  There are at least 1,294 editors in the room with me most of the time when I try to write a post.  Would Michael want me to write this?  Does anyone care about that?  Is this blog only for updating about Michael's "condition"?

I have no answers.

So I muddle along, experiencing the intensity of each moment and not knowing quite how to give voice to it.

This is what MCL is like for me:  Something about MCL penetrates a good amount of my waking hours.  Everything that we eat, the vegetables we juice, the pills and capsules Michael throws down his throat (a lot!), our qigong practice, the many times a day I ask Michael how he's feeling, the way I try to take care of as much as possible around here so that Michael can focus on healing and his job...

It's a strange dance.  I don't want to put a lot of energy into this addition to our marriage. No way is it allowed to grab more attention than the loving relationship that has grown here over the years.  Yet MCL needs to be tended to.  I would not be sad if it decided that three's a crowd and it needed to go, yet I love it for the sharp reminder of the preciousness of life.

Michael and I don't talk about it a whole lot, but it hiked with us last night as we walked among the wildflowers on Green Mountain. 

It heightens my experience of love and appreciation...

 ... for Michael...

 ... for this amazing world (You can see Red Rocks Ampitheater behind the first couple of ridges)...

... and for the kaleidoscope show of life, rising, showing its brilliancy, dissolving, and rising again and again and again..

Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.

Ya Gotta Know When To Fold 'em

We gave it a valiant effort.  We had committed to three hours of qigong a day for a hundred days.  At first, like all new things, it was energizing.  We seemed to actually need less sleep, which was a good thing, considering how intense it is to add three hours of something to already-filled days.

By day forty, it started to become apparent to me that the intensity was not sustainable.  I realized that as much good as I was getting from the practice, there was no way I would continue doing so many hours after the hundredth day.  It was only another three days or so before it became very apparent to me that we were already at the point where the healing of this qigong was possibly being offset by the exhaustion that we were experiencing.  When one person is trying to get healthy and the other is trying to stay healthy, rest is at the top of the list of necessary activities.

It wasn't easy for us to give up our goal.  We both have streaks of perfectionism.  We're both first children, and sometimes it seems that we have points to prove.  We've gotten over all that - at least in this instance.

We don't have our new rhythm yet, but now that I don't do every qigong exercise every day, I am realizing how much good each one does for me.  I want to incorporate them all into my life - just not all of them every day.

Meanwhile, Michael has been training a new assistant for the last three or four weeks. You know what that's like - lots more work in the hopes that it will pay off in the long run.  Hopefully, it's an investment that will soon allow him to have more time to take care of himself.

Because of the things I write (or don't write), you may be thinking that Michael is not overtly trying to rid his body of the cancer.  Au contraire!  Besides doing all he can in order to build up his immune system and overall health, Michael is doing some alternative things to rid his body of cancer cells.   I will not divulge these things for a number of reasons.  But rest assured that we have read tons of information, and Michael is taking the route that makes sense to him.

I admire Michael's unwavering commitment to his health.  He has given up some of the food he enjoys, along with his couple-of-times-a-week wine, and he has added stuff that is not so enjoyable.  He has surrounded himself with a large assortment of medical people.  Every one of them is impressed with his knowledge, his understanding, and his willingness to do what he's doing.

Yesterday, I hiked and ate and talked about life with friends.  Then it rained - a blessed moment when you live in Colorado -  and my son came over for dinner.  Before the day began, I had felt like there was too much to do and here I was, taking the day off.  After a day of play and an evening of rain, I was renewed.  Today I don't mind doing all of the things that yell to be done. 

It all comes and goes, doesn't it?

I am enjoying this pedestrian crossing sign that is near our house.  Someone, somehow turned off lights in it so that the correct fingers are "folded", making it say, "I love you" in American Sign Language.  

I love you, too!!!

Wildflowers

Like a field of spring wildflowers,
thoughts and emotions the colors of
scarlet, lapis, sunshine, and restful green
appear throughout my day.

What a strange gift
this last year has been.
Almost a year now since my organ
of digesting-and-letting-go went
berserk and I released a bit of it
to the surgeon's hands.
Last night while doing practice,
with heart wide open, Buddha dog
came to visit
- he's been "gone" nine months now -
and I cried as if, again, I was
kissing his nose for the
last time.  And Sunday,
Mother's Day, my family gathered
for dinner, my brother offering
thanks from the chair my dad
has now vacated.

Every morning,
I juice a pile of vegetables
for my beloved.
Like the words and feelings that wash through me
a hundred times a day,
like the wildflowers on Green Mountain
near my childhood home,
they, too, come in brilliant colors.
All here one moment,
seemingly solid, then in an instant,
zap!
transformed into a vital,
life-giving elixir of the gods.

How is YOUR La?

With this type of qigong that we have been practicing for the last month and a half, we do a lot of Haola-ing.  According to Mingtong Gu, the qigong master, "Haola" (pronounced kind of like "How La") means, "All is well.  So be it."

We chant "Haola" a LOT while doing our qigong.

I didn't immediately take to this All-is-well-ing.  I remember reading Pollyanna books when I was young.  Michael has been diagnosed with MCL.  Haola!  All is well!

Yeah.

But things have been shifting for me.  If I take my preferences out of the picture, all IS well.  I've been doing a lot of work in this arena over the past few years, practicing to see what lies beneath my preferences.  Yeah, more than once in the past three months, I've been caught up in my desires for how I would like my life to go, and my list hasn't included MCL or any kind of health issues for me or anyone I love.  But haola!  This movie was not written by me, and I can accept it or I can whine about it.  Accepting it seems to be a much more peaceful and helpful way to be.

I am grateful for all my teachers who have helped me to realize that there is an underlying open vastness and peacefulness that is the ground of everything, despite what appears as disease and unease.  I don't always recognize it immediately, but, so far, I seem to eventually find my way back to it.

Haola!

I know that many of you who read this are doing so as a means to keep updated on how Michael is doing.  He feels well.  He has not had any more tests, so all we know is that he feels well right now.  And he has better blood than me.  (Wah! about my bloodwork.  I mean, "Haola!")

Update & Thank Yous

Every year in April, Channel 9 News hosts health fairs all over the Denver area.  A lot of screenings are available for free, and, for a small fee, people can get blood work done.  That's what Michael and I go for - the blood work.  So a couple of weeks ago, we went and got punctured.

And the results are in!   Michael's results came out as good or better than mine in every single area.  Of course these are not tests targeting the indicators that would be looked at for any changes in MCL.

Still...

I'm very happy to come out in second place.

Michael is still feeling well.  At work he is training a new assistant.  We both continue to do three hours of qigong a day, and, every once in a while, we add in a nice walk together.  I love qigong, but our walks hold some of my favorite moments.

Thank you to M.B. (Michael's boss) for your understanding and support while we wade through these times.

And thank you to M.A.J. (Michael's Aunt Jane) for all of the "thinking of you" cards.

Every act of kindness is taken in and appreciated.