Dreams of the Heart

The summer before I started graduate school at UNT I lived in Corpus Christi, Texas.  Ten years had passed since I’d learned to surf on the beach at Port Aransas, but the dream was still there.  Living in Corpus, which is just 40 miles from Port Aransas was like a dream come true.  My day job was selling advertising for a local newspaper, but somehow I managed to surf most days.   

Why surfing?  On bad nights in the Army when the silence of waiting was deafening, I’d dream of surfing, being one with the waves, and myself.  It was really a lazy summer, filled with too much sun and surf.  However, it was the summer I learned how important it is to “start with the dreams of your heart”.  Einstein called our heart dreams sacred gifts.  Gifts that many had never learned to listen to, thus never learning to surf and be one with the universe and themselves.  Listen to your heart today.                  

Still Spaces

A front row seat at Ovations put me four-feet from the base player in Jose-Miguel Yamal jazz band Sunday night.  The stage lights played off his guitar the color of sunset as he plucked and popped the strings with his fingers and thumb.  The music was a blend of jazz and Latin rhythms, soaked my tired soul, and brought tears as I celebrated living. 

My oncologist told me last week he’d hoped for eleven months with my current oral chemo, but it wasn’t really working.  We’d wait one more month, but it was probably time to try another drug.  We all have bad days.  Days we feel like we need to cram as much as we can into each hour, but I’ve learned cramming life leaves no time to be alive.  It’s through the spaces we leave ourselves that we breathe in life and experience full living.  Today, practice leaving space for full living.  

Slipping Away

It was easy to get caught up in his eyes for it was almost as if he spoke through them, even though the words came softly out of his mouth.  They had a grayish color with an undertone of sunrise yellow, surrounded by small-etched wisdom wrinkles revealing years of living.  We’d started with cancer waiting room small talk, but if you’ve been on a cancer journey long you quickly move to those things in life that really matter.  He talked about his daughter and grandkids and their love for him, and worry about his pain and the quickly approaching end of his journey.  Toward the end of our conversation, he paused, then smiled and talked about his dreams of just slipping away.

I blinked hard to try to hold back my tears, but they quietly streamed down my face.  As I wiped at my tears, a nurse called my name and with his eyes, I heard him say, “Thanks for listening, bless you”.  This morning I woke with the Simon & Garfunkel tune Slip Sliding Away, playing in my head, thought about his eyes, and wondered if this morning he’d slipped away ….  “Slip slidin’ away / Slip slidin’ away / You know the nearer your destination / The more you’re slip slidin’ away”.

Happiness in a Storm

The front desk was backed up and the check in line was getting longer, as I watched him slowly move inch by inch with his wife by his side.  He was big, wore scuffed up cowboy boots, a work shirt, and a dirty ball cap.  When I came out from the diagnostic lab I went up to his chair, “You shine those boots for your appointment?” he smiled.  They were from North East Louisiana, and he had been coming to MD Anderson for 5 years with kidney cancer.  He and his wife talked about the heavy rain they had driven through to get to Houston and through the high water crossing with cattle standing in water up to their shoulders.  They talked about the towns where they had taken short breaks from the storm, getting a little rest so they could start driving again. 

The more we talked I realized he could have been talking about life and our dance with life’s challenges and despairs.  Being fully human is feeling our mortality, but saying YES to our aliveness, which feeds our resilience and gets us back on the road even in high water.  Years ago, I had dinner with Dr. Wendy Harpham, author of Happiness in a Storm, who teaches survivors, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to dance in the rain.” 

Doubts and regrets.

The night my mother died, I played handball instead of making my nightly visit to the hospital.  My dad frantically tried to reach me, but it wasn’t till I got out of the shower and picked up the phone that I realized I’d chosen the wrong night for handball.  When I returned from my Army tour, I had much to let go before I could start a new life, and like most returning soldiers really didn’t know where to start.  In a weird way, I had doubts about walking around without my flak vest, 45 pistol, M16, and dog tags. 

Today is a cancer care day, starting with lab work followed up by a visit with my oncologist this afternoon.  My cancer journey has changed the way I respond to the doubts and regrets that rise up.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a long way to go, but I’ve learned not to let doubts and regrets overwhelm my life energy.  It’s focusing on the “now” that provides a grace opening up my heart and sustaining my life energy.  

Getting Better at Having Cancer Together

We are getting better at having cancer.  After my diagnosis in 2007 followed by surgery, radiation treatments, and years of hormone therapy and other drug concoctions, we had learned as a couple most of the basic “live with cancer” skills.  In 2013, MaryBeth was diagnosed with breast cancer and we began down a similar path of surgeries, radiation, and a mix of drug therapies, but the “live with cancer” skill set had changed. 

At times, we both can be challenged by low energy, which leads to household slip-ups, and forgetfulness.  Cancer can be distracting when our mind chatter is too loud, and makes really listening to the most important person in our life hard.  Worse, it’s almost impossible to put fear into words that you know the other person does not what to hear.  The good news, we are starting to learn the new set of “live with cancer” skills.  We’ve come up with a whole new set of rituals that we share when we are together strengthening our commitment to each other.  We are getting better at having cancer together because of our love.   

Aliveness

The summer before college, I worked at Camp Union on Otter Lake in Greenfield, New Hampshire.  Much of the summer, I served as a hiking counselor leading small groups of kids through the beauty of the White Mountain trails.  I’d left home worried about my mom’s cancer, and distressed by the many young men my age dying in Vietnam.  It was a summer for deep introspection, and too many tears.  The poems I wrote that summer followed my feelings and were dark, but the kids and the beauty of my surroundings kept bringing me back to believing in my “aliveness”.  This past Saturday, as I paddled back to our pier surrounded by the beauty left by hard rains, I stopped and took in a deep breath of my aliveness, a gift from a summer long ago.  Today, take a moment to experience your aliveness!