The Simplicity of a Cheese Sandwich

Today for lunch, I ate a smashed cheese and honey-mustard sandwich. Unremarkable, except that it was at the top of Calabasas Peak, all 2160 feet of it, in the Santa Monica Mountains east of Malibu. While I was eating, a mayfly fell at my feet. A lizard ran down the side of the rock, stopped in front of the fly, looked at me, ate the fly, looked at me again, and took off as fast as he came, making it for a brief moment the most popular lunch spot I could see for miles.

It was hike #1 towards reaching the summit of Mt. Whitney next August. In terms of my physical health, the last two years have been a blurry combination of feeling sorry for myself after a bunch of health crap (I say that so I don't have to use the c-word), paralyzed by the anxiety of "what if it comes back?" Why did it take two years to get back into things I love doing, like communing with a lizard over lunch? And now, how do I fight off these feelings of being angry with myself for throwing a two year-long pity party?

I like cheese sandwiches. I like hiking. Sometimes, a day shouldn't be any more complicated than that, and our minds shouldn't search for meanings ahead or behind these moments.

End pity party.

My Cinco de Mayo

Two years ago today, I got a call from my local Planned Parenthood announcing some test results. The woman's voice was shaky when she said, "I'm sorry, it says cancer." I suspected the woman on the other end of the phone had not given that sort of result before. At that point, I don't really remember what happened, other than I hung up and just kind of stared at the bedroom wall. (To this day, ochre is my least favorite color.) It turned out I only had to make two calls, one to my boyfriend, and another to my sister. The whole family was in the car together, headed out for a birthday lunch in honor of my father. For the amount of time actually contained in a moment, the space between my sister answering and my telling her the news was very, very long. Amazing, how many thoughts can run through one's mind when fueled by adrenaline. "Should I tell them now?" "I'm ruining my father's birthday." "They will probably want to know." "What is going to happen to me?" She passed the phone around the car.

A few emotions break through the staggering amount of procedures and pain medications involved in the process of being sick and recovering at the hands of some of the most fantastic doctors in the world. One is survivor guilt. Being stage one cancer walking hallways with stage four cancer is hard and sad. It was like being in Junior Varsity sports, a medal with some made up achievement was waiting for me just for being there, while the Varsity kids ran timed, impossible laps for the slim chance of snagging something, anything, to signify accomplishment. My nephew made it, but his race was two and a half years long. Others fall to a competitor who always changes the rules.

Another emotion is tremendous, overwhelming gratitude for God (that's right, I said it) diagnosing me. It gave me the opportunity to stop and reassess my teeny little human life, to that point, a perspective I had not taken. Cancer took an obsessed careerist New Yorker type and turned her into someone who wakes up and every morning, gives thanks for something, and throughout the day, counts blessings. Two years ago, I didn't have the money to buy a new desk chair so I could sit and write. Two years ago, I couldn't sit up and write. Two years ago, I still thought I was owed things.

Here's a particularly prickly one: anyone who wants to take funding away from Planned Parenthood can Fuck Off. To me, your words sound like the pigs in Angry Birds, but even less intelligent. I didn't have insurance when I wandered into the clinic at the demand of a very good friend and my boyfriend (now husband), nor did I have a job, the result of being a freelancer in a poor economy. Without Planned Parenthood around, my cancer might have been stage 2 or 3 before I had access to a clinic for tests. I do not like writing about my journey publicly, but if it helps Planned Parenthood in any way, here we go.

Lastly are the feelings of gratitude I have towards everything and everyone now.  It's such a better way to live. I notice more. I stop to smell the roses, and the pepper trees. Outwardly, it may not seem like much, but inwardly, I pay attention to what brings joy, and distance myself from things that do not. You must do this for yourself. Just a flash in a day, standing there in the down time waiting for coffee to brew, your mind will unearth a list of reasons to be thankful, keep going and choose to see the good in the world, if you let it. Be thankful for the coffee and the clean water you used to make it in your warm and dry house.

And one point to note: don't call your dad on his birthday to say anything other than Happy Birthday. Wait for a normal day and ruin that one. Everyone handles crappy news differently, but for my family, that is one thing I wish I could change. Sorry, dad. But hey, it all turned out okay in the end.

So, in a day of paying extra special attention to blessings, in just a few short months, I also get to say I am two years cancer-free! I will call my dad to wish him a happy birthday and then go out in search of the best chicken pot pie in Los Angeles, which is how I have decided to celebrate our day.

Year in review.

Hello, trip through the wormhole this morning.

It began with organic face wash and toner.  Add to that something the massage therapist said to me on Thursday, "skin is your third lung", and apparently that makes for a mighty flashback cocktail.

Your skin likes to eat organically, too.

When the health meter expires, you either get hit by a bus or diagnosed with cancer. This would be a great place to put a joke about the Los Angeles Police Department's parking ticket fines here, but they are actually less funny than cancer, they're just mean.  Anyway, a year and a half ago, I got the cancer ticket, and the next step was an involuntary one; crisis mode.  Crisis mode sent me to Sephora. Hey, it made sense to me.  In a complete verge-of-breakdown haze, I walked back, all the way back, like, token aisle back, to the organic skin-care products aisle guided by a mental review of my health habits and a really impersonal memo from the universe suggesting that contrary to my entire upbringing's teachings, I was not, in fact, in control of anything, including my body which was just on loan, by the way.