There is slight imprint in the cement outside my yoga studio. When it is filled with rain water, in the slight light from the street lamp, it glistens. It looks like a giant hand print. I wonder if anyone else sees this hand print. Do they even look down, look up, look around, or find the rain water marvelous and fresh?
Tonight, I thought about my friend Kim. Miss Yogi told a story as we set up for a full lotus, I made a half lotus. She was especially giggly and reflective this evening. Now six months pregnant, it makes me smile when we are holding our leg and "rocking the baby." I have looked up and there she is smiling at her leg presumably musing on her future. She blushes when she sees I caught her. Back to her story. She was giggling all night about how she wouldn't bend this way nor that way when she was in school with Yogi Birkum 7 years ago. One class he was really hard on her roommate. The roommate didn't want to commit to a pose because her back hurt. So Birkum being who he is, told her to drop and give him ten cobras. After class, Miss Yogi asked her what it was like to do all those back bends knowing her back hurt. The roommate replied that at some point, her back just stopped hurting.
That was the lesson. In our American world, we stop when it gets to hard. If you are in pain, you do go into the pain. Well, yes, this is sometimes good. But many times, it may be best to push through and find the other side. So this brings me to Kim. Kim and her husband submitted Long's Peak on Sunday. What I found inspiring about this is that she just climbed Long's Peak. She trusted her body and went. Monday, at a gathering at her home, she hobbled around in pain (if you every climbed a fourteener or hiked a large distance for 12 hours, you know the hobble.) I reflected back to my years I worked up at the YMCA in Estes Park and all the hiking and pushing my body hard. I suggested that when it hurt the worse is when she needed to stand up and start into some slow ski lunges side to side. Sway, sway, and move into dips.
Just as Birkum suggested, move through the pain and eventually, your mind forgets, it lets go and moves on to actually healing those sore muscles. Naturally, my mind wondered to my babies. When they were the most fussy at night, I swayed them for hours in a skiers lunge. When I put them in the swings at the park, side by side, I timed it so I would push one, sway, push the other, sway, push the first.... I even remember a father asking me to show him what I was doing as he thought it looked so relaxing like Tia Chi. It was.
As I am moving through to the next side for the lotus, again a half lotus is enough for me, I start thinking about cancer. This is how my weekend went. I had my PET CT scan, full body looking for cancer cells, on Wednesday. Friday, early as I am packing lunches for the kids to take to school, my doctor's MA called and first said there was something on the scan indicating that we need another scan, could I make it today. Sure, when she called back, I know because I have it in my notes, she read the report and said something along the lines of "it doesn't look like a metastasis and it could be a...." I stopped listening at, "You need another scan." So all weekend, I was thinking maybe it was a cancer spot after all they thought the first one in my swollen left breast was a cyst or mastitis for quite a few weeks. Or maybe this is a new cancer. I was thinking, "God, haven't I taken care of this body the best I could?" (By the way, the PET scan WAS clean. There is an issue with my appendix, but it is not cancer.)
One of my friends posted that he just realized, after my announcement that I was six months cancer-free on Tuesday, that my cancer could come back. Here I am with this reality in my head every day. And, I just realized that this reality is just that, my reality. True, my family have their ways of dealing with this reality. For me, I think it every time I look at my kids. I sing happy fifth birthday to my son today and in the back of my mind it is there. Will I sing happy sixth birthday?
That is the lesson. How did I get here today, six months cancer free? Well, a lot of drugs, of course. No, seriously, it is one deep breath, pause, exhale, OM.... It hurts like hell. But, if I breath enough and do what hurts even when I don't want to...I can get beyond the pain and smile as my son's dark chocolate eyes look up at me and says, "You are the best mom ever because you don't close the garage door until I am up the steps and hold open the door so I can come inside without it being dark." Simple, really. Yes, everyday, I think about dying. I had true, absolute fear before my scan last week. And, I had true exhilaration Tuesday hearing the scan was all clear. I will travel this cycle every six months. In time it will get easier. And you know what, I wasn't horribly angry to sit in my chair and receive Herceptin through my port just an inch above my plastic, gel filled wanna-boob. For the first time, I was thankful.
Drop and give me ten cobras. Breath through. Breath through. Breath through. Release. At some point, it just stops hurting and it starts healing.
On another note, I saw my grandmother's death during my meditation. It was beautiful. She turned into this radiant white smoke. Papa grabbed her hands and she was lifted. I don't know if she is still with us this evening or if this will be a year from now. But, I know she will have a lovely experience when she is decides it is time.
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