The Peace of Wild Things

Today Michael and I had a long walk up to the windmill near our house through a magical forest.

The Peace of Wild Things

By Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

beannacht

For those who are feeling heartbroken...

beannacht

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

john o'donohue

A magnificent poem for a grey and rainy Saturday

 Setting Out by Wendell Berry

 Even love must pass through loneliness,
the husbandman become again
the Long Hunter, and set out
not to the familiar woods of home
but to the forest of the night,
the true wilderness, where renewal
is found, the lay of the ground
a premonition of the unknown.
Blowing leaf and flying wren
lead him on. He can no longer be at home,
he cannot return, unless he begin
the circle that first will carry him away.

(day 4)

Inking over

 

A year ago today I stared out at a sunset so painfully beautiful that I wept to watch it, my heart overflowing with the delight at being alive and the fear of the chemo which would begin in the morning. My body was coiled and taut, ready for the assault to begin. My curls were still long and soft around my neck. I had no idea what was going to happen next. In the morning I got up, went to the hospital, laid down on the bed, and began the process I hoped would help save my life.

Two weeks ago I found myself in a hospital bed in a very different setting. Melissa and Michael were there at the foot of the bed, as they had been during chemo. And there was a man with a needle beside me. But everything else was different. This was Kakapo Ink, and Roo, my gentle and kind tattoo artist, was about to make his mark.

There was a way these two experiences were eerily similar. I laid back for the nearly three hours of sometimes mild and sometimes biting pain in both cases, both making me a little light headed, a little dizzy.  Both times Michael held my hand, and Melissa cracked jokes from the foot of the bed. This time, though, I was choosing it.

In February I had gone to Kakapo Ink  (a new kind of tattoo parlour devoted to tattoo newbies like me—bright and open and lovely) and had met Roo and Katy who would design this piece for me. With their help, I described what I wanted: a tattoo that would help me reclaim this blank fake breast of mine, something beautiful and delicate that would make me smile rather than frown each time I saw it. Something that symbolized new life and love and hope rather than being a constant symbol of the cancer and loss and fear I have lived with this past year.

Over the course of a month or so, they sent me designs, and I printed them out and showed them around and thought about them hard and sent back feedback and waited for the next design. And then suddenly a few weeks ago, I opened my email and smiled. Yes, that was a design I’d like to wear forever. I’d like that to be a part of my body. (I'm including the picture Katy drew though we had to make some modifications of it once we got it on my three dimensional body--but you can see how pretty it is.)

Now it is.

I talk with my clients sometimes about writing their own story, about picking up the pen and making their own choices. I had never understood this part of the tattoo craze (to be honest, I’ve never understood any part of the tattoo craze) and I had never thought I would come up with a reason to indelibly write on my own body. But every time I catch a glimpse of me in the mirror now, I have a totally different sense of me. I used to shy away from my reflection, seeing myself as scarred, marred, damaged. Now I catch a glimpse and stop and stare. Wow, that’s beautiful I think, again and again. That’s me. That’s not me written by cancer, but me writing over cancer. That’s not me partial and broken but me taking the open space of a vacant lot and cultivating beauty.

This is a beginning of a new chapter for me. I need a hair cut. My book is out (Here's a picture of Keith and me at our book launch and you can order your own copy here Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders). We have a new house. Naomi and I are going to visit universities next month. I have literally inked over the scars of last year with new leaves of possibilities. I wonder what will flower next.

(And in a little coda, two more pieces. First, this from the NYT about life after cancer treatment . A little chilling. And this from Mark’s poetry box, Day 3)

After the Diagnosis

Christian Wiman

No remembering now
When the apple sapling was blown
Almost out of the ground.
No telling how,
With all the other trees around,
It alone was struck.
It must have been luck,
He thought for years, so close
To the house it grew.
It must have been night.
Change is a thing one sleeps through
When young, and he was young.
If there was a weakness in the earth,
A give he went down on his knees
To find and feel the limits of,
There is no longer.
If there was one random blow from above
The way he’s come to know
From years in this place,
The roots were stronger.
Whatever the case,
He has watched this tree survive
Wind ripping at his roof for nights
On end, heats and blights
That left little else alive.
No remembering now…
A day’s changes mean all to him
And all days come down
To one clear pane
Through which he sees
Among all the other trees
This leaning, clenched, unyielding one
That seems cast
In the form of a blast
That would have killed it,
As if something at the heart of things,
And with the heart of things,
Had willed it.

Lucille Clifton: "Blessing the Boats"

Here is the poem that ran through me with a jolt on the second day of chemo--the images were so powerful, yes, as a stand alone poem. But the extra power of it was that Lucille Clifton was in the English department (my department) at St Mary's College of Maryland (my tiny college) while I was there.  She came when I was nearly finished there and so I never took a class from her, but her form and her voice at meetings and walking through the halls fills me with love and connection to a place that was so important for me. This poem in particular is doubly important for me because St Mary's is a place where I started the crew team, so her blessing the boats is in part a blessing for me. Mark didn't know any of that when he printed the poem on thick cream paper and sealed the envelope with a golden circle. But the many layers of relationships in this poem--encircled as they all are by love and by water--swept through me on the (surprisingly easy) second day of chemo.

Lucille Clifton: "Blessing the Boats"
(at St. Mary's)

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back    
may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

(Pictures today are from the last visit we took to St Mary's. You can see how long ago that was--maybe a decade.)

The gift

Nearly exactly a year ago, a box arrived in the mail. It was marked FRAGILE and wrapped with great care, but the contents on the customs form just read: STATIONERY. Why would stationery be fragile? I wondered as I opened the box to find another box and in that yet another.

The inner box was beautiful, golden waves with frothy tendrils in blue and white: a tumultuous sea, maybe. And inside, from my dear friend Mark, were thick cream envelopes, each numbered 1-90, each sealed with a golden circle, and each containing a poem Mark had picked out as a companion for my chemo journey.

My hair is back now, thick short curls, and my nails are strong again. The last of the chemo side effects seems to be behind me—except, I hope, the life saving effects which (I hope I hope) will long continue. Still, the memory of the kindness of the people around me covers me in an enduring cloak, perhaps best symbolized by these daily poems from Mark.

And, to spread the gifts of these poems out to whoever might stumble across this blog, here is Day 1. Watch here for the other days to unfold, here in this year where I don’t have cancer, and I get to watch my nails and hair grow again, here in this year when many people will be diagnosed with cancer, and they will find themselves inside the chemo tunnel. May these poems bring comfort and love to you, no matter which sort of tunnel—of delight or sorrow or love or illness or heartbreak or health—you find yourself inside in the coming months. These are with love, from Mark.

Day 1

The Lightest Touch

Good poetry begins with
the lightest touch,
a breeze arriving from nowhere,
a whispered healing arrival,
a word in your ear,
a settling into things,
then like a hand in the dark
it arrests the whole body,
steeling you for revelation.

In the silence that follows
a great line
you can feel Lazarus
deep inside
even the laziest, most deathly afraid
part of you,
lift up his hands and walk toward the light.

  -- David Whyte

Anniversaries

This time of year is, for most of us, a time to consider past and present and future. For me, this time of year now has a second—and right now more powerful—resonance. This is the time of cancer anniversaries. Last November and December were those months last year when I had cancer but didn’t know—a sort of Eden before the Fall. As I watch the dates pass, I think, “Last year you had no idea what life was about to hand to you.” Yesterday, one year ago, I ate of the tree of knowledge;  I found the lump I wasn’t looking for and didn’t ever expect to discover.

The moment of discovery is indelibly etched. I was showering, thinking about something else entirely, and my soap ran smoothly over my body and then clunk clunk over this foreign shape. I tried it with just my fingers. Still there. I sat down on the shower floor, suddenly dizzy with the possibilities. I gave myself a firm talking to: I was 43 years old, for goodness sake. There was no history of cancer anywhere in my family. I had no risk factors at all. It was surely just a cyst and I’d have the whole thing cleared up by new years. I was still wet from the shower when I called the doctor.

And with that, 2014, not yet even dawned, spiraled into darkness.

I have had such mixed feelings about this year; 2014 has had cancer woven all the way through it. When I was first diagnosed, people said I could kiss the year goodbye—that it would just be miserable from here on out. And of course nothing is that simple. I have had a year of deeper fears and sorrows than I’ve ever experienced. And there have been beautiful moments in spite of it all. And perhaps most unexpected are the beautiful moments because of it all.

Many of those moments are about the love that has come from around the world. I got letters from old students, from clients, from high school friends, from brand new friends who began to know me through this blog. It was a year of deeper connection than I’d ever have imagined: me in my chemo bubble, seeing so few people for weeks at a time, but somehow more aware of the invisible web that holds me in place with others.  This time has been a fire that burns away some relationships and forges others to steely strength. I can’t think of a single relationship that is unchanged by this experience.

It has also been a year of standing much more strongly in the present of my experience. Reflecting too much on the past is painful; the future is too uncertain to dream about. That leaves today. I have struggled (probably with many of you) to focus on my breath, on the present, on the now. But one of the gifts of cancer is that there’s no need to try to focus on the now anymore—it just arises that way. I am more awash in the tastes and colours and sensations and emotions and connections in the moment than I have ever been. I have never felt so alive.

On this anniversary day, I woke in New York City. We have come on this wintery trip to Europe and the US because the summery one we had planned ended up on the cutting-room floor—a chemo casualty. Yesterday we got up early and walked down to the 9/11 memorial where the twin towers once stood. The events of this year have made me more porous to the beauties and the horrors of being alive.  Being in the space of this horror and then thinking about the fallout from it—the war on terror that has casualties somewhere in the world every day—took my breath away. Here I am, worried about the minor discomforts of my new body and the medical prognosis of my future, and each day there are families ripped apart in tragedies local and global.

Our breath catches for far away tragedies nearly too big to imagine. The planes that disappear from the sky. The children killed in school houses. The drones that fall on houses with sleeping babies. We are so fragile and our lives so short and we can be so horrible to one another. The deaths that don’t make the news change the world forever for the living, too. My friend Nicki whose cancer killed her in six months; my ebullient cousin James who died in a pedestrian accident five days before Thanksgiving.

Each of these moments could be a cause for us to retreat, exhausted, from the love that brings us so much pain. Or we could take that pain as the price of a life well lived, the entry ticket for a existence of glittering love and connection. This is the ultimate message for me of 2014, which I have often described as the worst year in my life. Here as the clocks start ticking over (it is already 2015 at home in New Zealand), I would like to revise that moniker. 2014 has been a year with more lessons—and in many ways more living—than any year I can remember. It has kicked me in the teeth and left me gasping and breathless. I have never wept so much—and most of those tears were for the losses around me and not for my ordinary little cancer journey at all.  I have found the strands of my life—the sadness, the delight, the love, the fear, the pain—forever tangled and inextricably bound. And now, from the vantage point of these anniversaries, I am seeing the beauties in the tangles, and finding the patterns in our connections.