I passed by one of my consignment stores on the way to yoga class. It the window is a dress. It is black. The bodice is two sections of material gathered just so and anchored by a beaded emperor waist. I put myself in that dress, that dress in the window. For a split second, I put my old self in that dress. I looked good. I had some place to go. I had breasts that filled the bodice yet were firm enough not to bounce their way out of the deep neck line of the halter. I had no six inch wide scars nor a rash of raised red dots.
And, that was the moment I knew I had travelled this far. I look at my next step into full brain radiation and am just...just...just. I hear the tone in the voices around me; I see it in your eyes. In fact I freaked out about it last week. Well, rightly so. Who wouldn't freak to think of their brain on fire everyday for four weeks. Then I remember nearly three years ago. I remember going through the six weeks of planning of teaming up, of fear and then a knowing that there was another side. I got through that other side. We thought it was over...just it for a really long time...one shit of a year that maybe made everyone in my life a bit stronger...a bit more understanding of the little things.
And now, I know better. I now understand what treatment is. Treatment is a gift of a few more months. I found a calm in that. Okay so I went a little crazy in my head...but the seas of settled with a knowing. I suppose a lot of this has to do with my friends. They are amazing people. Gina, sat next to me in church. She cried too. M-N made me laugh and handed me a dollar before I even knew I was short by exactly a dollar. She made yet another doctor's appointment into a girl's afternoon of chitchat and knitting when I was just about to explode from the "I'm so sorry" looks. Janice and Laura came to see me. They just drove. Laura drove hours. She brought the cousins and filled Grandma's house with memories of being young with my own cousins giggling over flashlight tag and staying up way too late. Sabine just listened. I worked it out. I worked out a lot of how I felt. My folks, well, we all know how lucky I am to have them and to honor them would take a full hour of notes. And then, there is Scott who started the laundry and put the kids to bed.
Yes, I finally found my calm in so many in little things like Kim calling me to remind me the permission slip was due as I honestly and simply forgot. I find calm in the big things like all the people I know I have touched with my paintings in the current show at the Muse Gallery. I went a little crazy and I might have even tried pushing you all away in the hopes that this would stop being some big deal. I asked you to just be subtle, intuitive, on your own as I could no longer fill your needs and be your band aid no matter how much I desire. So that is just what you are doing.
I felt very sad three steps beyond that shop window with the black dress. I couldn't wear that anymore. I am not sure I would even have a chance to wear something like that. I wonder that, you know, each time I do something, I wonder if that was it. Is that the last time I.... That is not going away. But, there is a calm. Finally, I figured out how to pray. It took me a few years, and I thought there was a rule book. I was wrong. I can do my yoga and find a calm in my tired body at the end. There, I am still. I lift up everyone. Every one of you. I ask the burden as my friend is lifted. Let me carry that burden while you figure out how to be really sneaky and carry one of mine. And after it all. When I was the last one laying there on that floor in the yoga studio that was filled all day with a community being at peace in their bodies, I saw it. I saw myself holding my grandchild. That, my dear, is the calm. It's a boy.
PS This is unedited as I need to go to bed and read for book club in two nights. Yes, I waited until the last minute. See life really isn't all that different from yours. You just have better cleavage then me and probably don't wait until the last week to finish your book.
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