May 2019 – Frantic Shanti

Pulling Back for a Broader View

The World Is Too Much with Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. –Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
William Wordsworth

At times, the manufactured world feels like it’s closing in on me. Admittedly, that’s not what Wordsworth meant when he wrote his famous sonnet, although his poem, written to protest the spiritual collateral of the Industrial Revolution, is sharply appropriate for describing our current relationship with Nature and how we’re mucking it up.

But I’m going to sidestep that for a second and draw a different parallel. Because as I get drawn into day-to-day worries, when I wallow through the weeds of common stressors, I miss the overall beauty of this Earth and the fact that I get to walk on it.

My anxieties seem all-encompassing and fill my field of view, although the reality is that I’m just a speck. That’s not to minimize the significance of what I’m feeling while I’m feeling it and how it affects me, but once in a while I need some perspective. When I pull back to take a wider view of things (say, like from the height of the International Space Station!), things look different.

It’s so much quieter up here. I think I’ll stay for a bit.

Away from the noisy hum of machines and the incessant jabbering of humans, Earth seems pretty peaceful and quiet, which I never get in a large city. There’s always some whirring or buzzing here, traffic on the street and planes overhead. Not even earplugs provide complete relief.

In the same way, there’s a lot of chatter in my head. It gets so overwhelming at times so I need to apply “mental earplugs”: a grounded seat, darkness, lengthened breaths.

Suddenly, I’m no longer dragged by the runaway freight train crashing about in the space between my ears. For a moment, on a small cushion, those things that seemed important float away in imaginary bubbles and, if only for a moment, everything is still.

Cancer’s No Big Deal…Except That It Is

You’d think that by now, over a year since finishing most of my breast cancer treatment, I would drop the subject and get on with things. But, no, cancer isn’t like that — and apparently, neither am I. Just when I think I’ve moved on, something else comes up. So here goes:

Breast cancer has had me see-sawing between two states of mind.

On the one hand, when I was going through treatment, I didn’t want people to feel uneasy talking to me (because they do!). I downplayed the cancer diagnosis and tried to be as matter-of-fact as possible, all with a pleasant smile and carefree shrug. Yeah, surgery-chemo-radiation, no biggie. My focus was on mitigating their uncomfortable reactions — in my mind, they were the ones needing the comforting and support.

That’s because telling someone I had cancer often made them squirm. They didn’t know the “right” thing to say, afraid of hurting or upsetting me, even though the reality was that what was inside my head was far worse than anything they could have said. So I always tried to crack a joke about my bald scalp or discolored nails as if to tell them I’m cool with it.

This extended into post-treatment life. Since I feel a little distance between the disease and me, I don’t always remember that I can catch people off guard when I talk about cancer. People still blush and stumble on words, looking like they want to change the subject. I always try to make it no big deal.

But on the other hand, the reality is that cancer is serious. Treatment can be all sorts of horrible and there are no guarantees about anything. Everyone who’s had breast cancer has to live with the uncertainty of its return. And with the large number of women who have experienced or are still wading through different stages of treatment, there’s a lot of suffering going on.

I know, I know, I know. Things will be fine.

Except when they’re not.

And so, I struggle with people telling me not to focus on the past. Obviously, that would be helpful. But it’s not easy, because even when treatment is over, the fear remains. Cancer strode in like an arrogant rake, dragged me around the block a few times and left an indelible mark on my psyche. My health is back and I’ve regained a lot of physical strength, but there’s that niggling fear that cancer will return and take it all again, and the emotional pain associated with that potentiality stifles any celebration. It was easier to focus on getting through chemo and radiation than to wander into the Wild West of the future.

So I fight with myself. Sometimes I need to talk about how miserable it was and how angry it made me (one side of the seesaw), all the while not wanting to make people uncomfortable about it (the other side). That, of course, is not a successful combination. Ultimately, I put on a brave face, take a deep breath and quietly hurt inside.

But don’t worry, after I write about it, I can shake off these feelings and I’m okay.

Except when I’m not.

A Loss…and a Laugh

I lost my Costco card today. Somewhere between the entrance and the check-out line. It’s not the end of the world since I was promptly issued a new one, but the old one had a photo of the pre-cancer me on it.

Reminders of that “old me” are disappearing as I redefine who I am. Yes, life is constantly in flux and change is inevitable but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t hurt.

Cancer has been about loss for me. Loss of weight, loss of hair, loss of concentration, loss of physical fitness, loss of over a year spent in treatment. Loss of a friend to the disease. Out of nowhere, losing that one seemingly insignificant warehouse card brought this all back.

There have been gains too, and much to be grateful for. I could draw up a long list. But today I can’t write about them.

Today I longed for what was gone. Tomorrow will be better.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The clouds parted, the sun shone forth and nothing really changed but my attitude.

So, after all that angsty serious talk, I got home and realized that my old Costco card was in my back pocket all this time. D’oh! I’d forgotten that I’d stuck it there!

Wow, I felt silly. They say hindsight is 20/20…well, looking back at how darkly I’d taken this, it did seem a bit ridiculous that I’d packed so much meaning into a piece of plastic.

And in a swoosh, the clouds cleared out, the sun peeked through and the world looked different. I still have that new post-cancer photo on my Costco card, but I’m laughing at myself and it doesn’t seem that bad.

Same situation, new perspective.

And then, if we realize that we can change our perspective…?

Stepping Off and Slowing Down

During a recent mindfulness retreat, we did a walking meditation outside.

The idea was simple: walk slowly, as if taking steps for the very first time. Sense how it feels to shift all your weight onto one foot as you lift the other, then extend that lifted leg, place that foot down and shift weight onto it as you lift the other leg. Rarely do we slow down enough and realize how complex a movement that is, we’ve been doing it for so long.

As I walked along the paved path, I moved fluidly. There was nothing in my way and the pavement was flat. Perfect to move me along even though I was taking extra care with my steps.

But as I came up to the lawn and stepped off the path onto the grass, I sensed a change in my movement. The lawn was bumpier, clover blossoms all around with honeybees that I wanted to avoid. My steps slowed even more as I trod gingerly.

The living, growing lawn required more balance and called for increased attention to what I was doing.

Ah, those man-made paths…getting us to where we need to be.

As I made my way through this walking meditation, I was intrigued by how my experience differed between the two surfaces. Our human-constructed paths are designed to get us places and purposefully point us in the direction that we must go. The hard pavement requires less thought about balance and it is usually clear of hidden obstructions. As a result, we pay less attention to what we’re doing in the moment and more to replaying scenes from the past or what’s to come in the future. We whiz through, perhaps arriving at our destination with little memory of how we got there.

Once in a while, get off the path, enjoy the journey and see where you end up.

But the grassy blanket laid down by nature gently commands us to observe the journey. That path has many possibilities and sometimes we don’t know exactly how we will travel when we set out. We give it more thought as we progress, perhaps changing direction several times, but being aware of the reasons for doing so. We may arrive at our destination with a fresh mind and greater appreciation of the journey.

Certainly, we cannot always leave the paved path. We have responsibilities that must be met and those may require efficient travel in the shortest time possible. But what a shame if we never take the opportunity to wander off and slow down our pace, delighting in where we are right now.

The Impermanence of Green (and Yellow…and Orange…)

Most of the photos I’ve posted that I’ve taken myself were from my cancer treatment, so for this Mother’s Day I wanted to share something unrelated to the disease and filled with natural beauty.

There’s not much time left.

It has been an unusually rainy and cool spring in my corner of the world. Whereas in recent years, by now plants are drying up on the hillsides ready to provide kindling for late summer fires, in 2019, we are still getting rain showers. In fact, we had several today.

Orange nasturtiums light up the top of the hill, only to be overwhelmed by yellow wildflowers.

As a result, the hills and canyons are multiple shades of green. But it’s not simply the thickness of the green that makes me crane my neck as I drive down the road — wildflowers, encouraged by the rain, are spreading across the landscape. Masses of orange nasturtiums drip down hillsides as if they were poured out from above. They are stunning against the greenery.

These little yellow wildflowers, which I haven’t been able to ID properly yet (anyone?), are everywhere!

But I am most in love with the little yellow flowers that have transformed the canyons into an impressionist painting, where an artist practicing pointillism decided she had too much yellow on her palette and needed to get rid of it somewhere. The effect is breathtaking.

Now, this may not seem like anything remarkable to you, but I am filled with joy to see so much color and beauty in the plantlife, untended by human hands and perhaps guided by something far more divine.

Eventually, summer will take over, the rains will stop and the brown will return. These glorious colors may portend danger as the heat intensifies and the plants become fuel. So I will enjoy them now as a gift to the senses — it is not that these flowers are beautiful to me in spite of blooming only for a short time. They are beautiful because they bloom only for a short time. Happy Mother’s Day!

Why I Meditate in Panda Socks

“I laugh when I think how I once sought paradise as a realm outside of the world of birth. It is right in the world of birth and death that the miraculous truth is revealed. But this is not the laughter of someone who suddenly acquires a great fortune; neither is it the laughter of one who has won a victory. It is, rather, the laughter of one who, after having painfully searched for something for a long time, finds it one morning in the pocket of his coat.”
Thich Nhat Hanh

Before my very first all-day silent retreat, I bumped into my meditation teacher in the hallway. I had just gotten an “all clear” mammogram following a year of breast cancer treatment and I was so excited.

She said hi to me, so I happily related my test results, only to have another meditation teacher poke her head into the hallway and sternly shush me. This was, after all, a silent retreat.

At the lunch break, that shushing teacher gave me a gentle hug and handed me a sweet note of apology. None was necessary — I hadn’t been offended by having her correct me.

Weeks later, I happened to see her again (not at a retreat!) and she explained how she had felt during her very first retreat when no one would look at or speak to her, because, of course, they weren’t supposed to. She admitted that she felt slighted at that time, and that’s why she hadn’t wanted me to feel the same way after she quieted me. She was so darling and sincere, I couldn’t help but hug her again.

This is something I’ve thought about: at many of these retreats, when we practice noble silence and custody of the eyes, there is a tendency to adopt a dour expression. We’re working hard to concentrate and turn inwards…perhaps a bit too hard. It’s easy to lose that lightness and joy of mindfulness if we’re being too serious.

There is comfort in humor. “Right now” can be a pretty funny place.

At the next retreat I attended, that same teacher was teaching mindful yoga. We were on all fours and instructed to raise up our left arm…then our right leg…and our left leg…leaving a few of us confused since levitation hadn’t been part of the class curriculum. The teacher chuckled and said that we needed to keep a sense of humor about our practice.

I like that idea. And that’s why now when I go to meditation retreats, I bring along my thick socks with panda faces and cute little ears. Life hasn’t been easy and it certainly hasn’t gone as planned. But as I sit there amongst all the other meditators, I smile knowing that I can still find humor in this world.

A Mini-Guide to Surviving Chemo Brain; or, “Wait, what were we talking about?”

While it’s not my intention to write advice columns for breast cancer patients, because I posted ‘getting through chemo‘ tips, I might as well follow up with what I’ve learned about handling the memory and focus issues associated with chemo brain.

Note, first, that chemo brain may not be all chemo. There may be various factors involved (chemo, tamoxifen, onset of menopause, even the tumor itself) and it’s difficult to tease out which one is the main culprit. Be that as it may, it still sucks when you’re standing in your closet, wondering why you went in there…for the tenth time today.

I put a lot of blame for this lack of focus and fleeting short-term memory on the estrogen-blocking drug tamoxifen, which is given to women with hormone receptor positive tumors. I can’t tell you how many physicians have assured me that it’s a “great drug” for decreasing risk of tumor recurrence. And an equally large number of women who have told me that their lives improved after they got off it.

Regardless, for now chemo brain is a fact of my life, so in the spirit of accepting what I cannot change, here are my best practices for making sure that chemo brain doesn’t get me fired from my job:

Write down your thoughts. And do it immediately. I’ve actually lost thoughts as I was scrounging for a writing utensil. If I have to remember something, I put it in writing, often on a sticky-note that goes on my computer monitor or bathroom mirror. Some place that I look at multiple times a day. I do this to excess, with notes everywhere, but it works. It also decreases my stress levels because I know the thought has been recorded.
If you can’t write it down, repetez! Repeat it in your head. Sounds obvious and overly simplistic? Perhaps, but you only need to do this until you either no longer need the thought, or get to a place where you can jot down a note. Of course, I ruined the last part of a meditation retreat for myself because a load of great post topics popped into my head and I had no place to record them. On the bright side, I realized I could juggle seven items in my head for a half hour if I concentrated on them!
Narrate what you’re doing. I’ve had to resort to this, especially when working on a multi-step process where accuracy counts. Yes, I’ve made mistakes on the “I-must-be-smoking-crack” scale, and this is often one of the best ways to avoid that. When I hear myself say what I’m supposed to be doing, I stay on task and am less likely to wander off.
Avoid distractions. This is probably the most critical piece of advice I can offer. Distractions are death to my thoughts because I go down rabbit holes before I’m even aware of what happened. The Google page of my Firefox browser at work suggests articles to read based on my browsing history, and let me tell ya, there are few feelings worse than suddenly realizing that you are lost deep in an article on body language when you should have been finishing up a report that’s due in a hour. How’d that happen? Anything that breaks my concentration — even a tickle of a distraction — can sidetrack me for minutes before I come to my senses.

Bottom line is, stay present. If there were one general rule of thumb to preserve your functioning while in the grips of chemo brain, that would be it.

The above hints may seem obvious, but I went through a lot of frustration until I accepted that my brain had changed and it couldn’t be ‘business as usual’ anymore. Once I started working around my limitations, things got a lot easier.

Getting Through Chemo

My previous post was about the side effects that I experienced from my first chemotherapy infusion for breast cancer. However, side effects are specific to the individual and depend on a variety of factors. My greatest concern was that someone about to embark on chemotherapy would read about my experience and immediately assume that it would be theirs, also.

So I’m aiming this post directly at newly-diagnosed breast cancer patients, in an effort to provide helpful (I hope!) suggestions for getting through cancer and chemotherapy. The below is not supposed to be an exhaustive list — rather it contains random things to consider (in no particular order):

You can get through this. And I don’t mean that in a “rah-rah” way like a well-meaning friend who makes it their personal crusade to make sure you “think positive” for a positive outcome. That’s BS. But please know that there are medications and suggestions available to manage chemo symptoms, with a lot of advances made in the last decades, and you should make use of all of them. Ask your oncologist.
Take it step-by-step. If there’s one thing that a cancer diagnosis is, it’s overwhelming. Once you get past the initial shock, there may be more diagnositics to run and a host of treatment options to consider. You don’t have to take on everything at once. Sit down. Breathe. Clear your head.
Know your sources. Everyone and their cousin may have some miraculous piece of advice that they claim helped someone. Great for them. Everyone’s situation is different, so stick with reliable sources. This will generally be your healthcare providers, but if you feel you need to, get a second opinion. Or a third one. It’s your right because it’s your health. And tread gingerly through the internet!
Everyone’s situation is different, as mentioned in the point above. It’s worth repeating, again and again. As a matter of fact, a number of us have made this our mantra. I have suffered more from the fear of going through what someone else did than I actually did from the thing itself. That says a lot. You have a right to your own experience so feel free to protect it.
Stay informed. Once you get reliable sources, keep on top of information related to your condition. Too stressed or tired? Ask a close friend or relative, or in the absence of those, make use of the nurses at your cancer center. There is a push in medicine today to fully support the patient, and that includes providing information.
Ask for/accept help. If someone offers to clean your kitchen or prepare a meal, take them up on it. I had a mom offer to pick my son up from school on the days after my chemo and it made a huge difference! Talk to your healthcare provider about getting assistance at home if you don’t have anyone to help you.
You didn’t do anything to deserve this. Let me be the first to absolve you of responsibility. People do not purposefully bring cancer onto themselves, nor do we know enough about what causes most cancers to make you liable for your disease. Someone suggesting that? You have my permission to kick them in the teeth. (Just kidding! Don’t do that; save your energy for recovery.)
Prepare your area. A bedside table with all the things you’ll need to ride out chemo side effects at the ready will make things easier. I used a chair without a cushion to keep necessary medications and a glass of flat ginger ale on hand.
Set your boundaries. You may not want visitors/advice/your aunt’s casserole and that’s okay. If you have a partner or friend to act as a gatekeeper, perfect, but if not, feel free to pull the cancer card and ask people to leave you alone, guilt-free.
Make use of freebies. Ask your nurses about organizations or individuals who offer services at low or no cost to cancer patients. I was told of a salon that provided free head-shaving, wigs and scarves and scarf tying lessons, and of an aesthetician who gave free facials. There is a program called “Look Good, Feel Better” that provides high-end makeup and application tutorials, including helpful things like drawing on eyebrows. See what’s available in your area.
Distract yourself. And do so with pleasant things, whether it’s watching rented movies, taking a drawing class, going for a walk. Be mindful as you’re doing so, truly enjoying each moment. Your cancer center may have various activities available for cancer patients.
Breathe. I know I said this before, but it’s worth repeating. Breathe.

I’ll see you on the other end of treatment!