Light

Light: (noun) the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible; understanding of a problem or mystery; enlightenment; a device that makes something start burning, as a match, lighter, or flame; a window or opening in a wall to let light in.

Visible light is electromagnetic radiation whose wavelength falls within the range to which the human retina responds, i.e., between about 390 nm (violet light) and 740 nm (red). White light consists of a roughly equal mixture of all visible wavelengths, which can be separated to yield the colors of the spectrum, as was first demonstrated conclusively by Newton. In the 20th century it has become apparent that light consists of energy quanta called photons that behave partly like waves and partly like particles. The velocity of light in a vacuum is 299,792 km per second.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/light?q=Light
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Last night the synchronistic world spun me again.  I'd decided early on in the week that I wanted to write on light for this week's blog, but despite knowing that clearly, when I sat down to do the writing nothing came...at all. 

I found a photograph on Etsy this week I'm holding in my cart (I am an Etsy.com dork-and-a-half).  I'm rather attached to it, so much so that I started looking for other ways I might incorporate the elements of that image into my daily life. The photograph shows a bright blue sky and a bird flying through the flowering branches of a cherry blossom.  For those of you who've had the chance to read my piece in The Survivor's Review (http://www.survivorsreview.org/features.php?vol=14&art=202), you might recognize that this picture sounds reminiscent of the skylights above the chairs in the chemotherapy wing.  In that piece, light plays a large part. In that experience, being and remaining present played the largest part.

So how, you ask, did the synchronistic world spin? Just as I was getting ready for bed last night, my sister-in-law posted a picture of an art project she thought I might enjoy (because she, like so many others, knows I'm also an art project dork-and-a-half)...and that project involves creating paint flowers very much like cherry blossoms using the 'blooms' on the underside of soda bottles.

Take this a step further: One of my goals for month two as I seek an organic, yet thoughtful, place of health, wellness, acceptance, and love, is to begin working again in the room I'm converting to my studio space. This space, one where I'd planned color set off by calm, sits with a single coat of paint and has been this way for months. I've been stuck, unable to move forward and complete this room of my own (that 'other' Virginia was correct in the need for us all to have such a space). When the final coat of paint goes on, and dries, I planned to paint a tree reaching from floor, and then onto, the ceiling.  Perhaps now, I need to let enough light in so that cherry blossoms bloom on the branches. Perhaps continuing in the room is contingent on allowing myself to swim within the present.

When I'd lay my head back mid-chemo treatment, drug A, B, V, or D moving through my system, and look up to, and then through, the cherry blossom skylights, I went back and forward in time, yet managed to stay connected to that present for a number of reasons (not the least of which was because I was connected to an IV, hung from the IV tree, the roots of which carried medicine, hydration, and steroids to the sore port in my chest). Uncertainty in a threatened life, like uncertainty when creating art, leaves you with 'your feet firmly planted in mid-air.'  The air there is full of light pushing its way through,  provided you sit patiently watching for, and believe in, the possibility it will come.

My bedroom window is open today, the potential of a new season being heartedly chirped by a pair of cardinals. I woke to stunning light. This week I will try to believe that light can stay and that I, like the light, deserve to shine visibly. 

P.S. I might also work in my room.

P.P.S. I might also buy the photo from Etsy ;)

Well

well: (adverb) in a good or satisfactory way, in a thorough manner, very probably, (adjective) in good health; free or recovered from illness, in a satisfactory state or position, sensible; advisable, (exclamation) used to express a range of emotions including surprise, anger, resignation, or relief, (noun) a shaft sunk into the ground to obtain water, oil, or gas; an enclosed space in the middle of a building, giving room for stairs or an elevator, or to allow light or ventilation; in physics a region of minimum potential, (verb) rise to the surface and spill or be about to spill

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/well
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/well--2

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On October 16th, 1987 I sat with my Mom-Mom and watched the TV coverage as rescuers pulled Baby Jessica from a well.  That night, while my father was having heart surgery, Mom-Mom was watching my younger brother and I.  I waited on wellness-- Baby Jessica's and my father's.  I remember the TV pictures that night and waiting for, and getting, the phone call.  Mom-Mom took the call on the corded rotary phone mounted in the dual-purpose laundry/bathroom.  I don't know what was said, but the sense of the image was all would be OK. Though I wasn't aware of ages at the time, I know now my father was 37.  I was 9. Baby Jessica was out of the well and my father was out of surgery.

On April 4th, 2011 I packed a bag of coping strategies and drove the Buick to the parking garage attached to the hotel attached to The Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania.  I was less attached to what was happening than the buildings were attached to each other.  A few hours later, early in the morning, I walked through the connections to check-in where Kim completed all the remaining admission responsibilities prior to her open-heart surgery later that morning.  That morning, while I waited, I stared at another TV--one which tracked her progress from pre- to post-op.  For the most part, I didn't move from my seat.  Those who were with me stayed fairly close as well.  I didn't read or write or draw or use anything I'd brought in the coping bag meant to keep me occupied.  I was so full-- so connected, yet so disconnected--there was no space for anything.

Hours later, the desk in the waiting room received the call and we were sent to a room on another floor.Surgery had gone well.  And with the declaration of well, everything I was full of, spilled...

I could have cried for hours... I almost wish I had.  That 'well' started as spilling out of relief-- fear, love, anger, sadness, worry, joy all worked their way in-- though the spill wasn't just about Kim being OK. It was about my father's surgeries, my Mom-Mom's death, childhood, cancer, fat, feeling alone, and being loved.  In the hallway, the tears stopped-- I made calls, sent text messages, informed so many people that all was well.  Not long after, I saw Kim.  A bit later, I ate dinner.  Within what seemed a few minutes, the small handful of people who'd come for the surgery left for home, and I went back to the hotel room alone.  

I opened the curtains on the wide windows looking out to the track used for the Penn Relays and beyond that, the Philadelphia skyline.  Growing up just outside the city, it was a skyline I knew vividly.  If I put the local news on, it was, in many ways, the same local news I'd left behind when I moved to go to school years and years ago.

Sitting in the evenings was hard.  I felt little-- back at home, out of control, and alone.  

By the morning, the newness of the day was enough to move me forward.  A cup of coffee, a shower, a little bit of morning TV...  and then back through the maze of connections to the hospital room with the bag of coping strategies (some books I'd never read, and some art projects I did spend much of the time Kim slept, working on).  

I've not managed to get back to the spilling.  When I get as full as I was that day, well, I either stay full or the fullness comes out as exhaustion, moodiness, or an ADD need to keep moving and keep doing.  I'm not able to sit with it as I had that day or as I had each day I had a chemo treatment.

A new part of my wellness involves working with meditation. I'm trying to sit with anything. The first meditation proved interesting.  After about twenty minutes, an image of my Grandmom Grove's backyard gazebo came forward, and with it the word 'enough.'  It was spellbinding. The process had presented its own mystery, yet what it meant beyond what it was, I had no desire to solve.

Subsequent sessions haven't painted images. They have left me spinning certain words from their original--example: The jug fills drop by drop BECOMES The drug fills-- and though I was able to abandon attempting to decode 'gazebo' or 'enough' my mind, wired to over-analyze, desperately wants to figure out this puzzle. Why is one word becoming another?

This morning I woke on the other side of a dream. It started out one way and became something quite different. Inside my parents' house, in a back corner of the living room, two women told me of their desire to publish my book. It felt right. Then they handed out pages and my mother divided them between my father, my brother, and herself. I told her she wasn't to read it, but she continued, making edits, in pencil, all over the pages.  I stared down. When they were done, my brother also stared down, my father said nothing, my mother told me that I'd better check my facts. I no longer felt right.  I just wanted peace even if peace meant voiceless. Back in the living room, one of the two women asked for direction to the bathroom.  I escorted her and she did not return.  Then, I woke.

Perhaps the reason visual art feels so much safer than words is because it is less editable. Perhaps it contributes to my wellness more, as a result.  Perhaps it is why, with all the memories I have, that pictures come back most readily, or why, with that bag full of coping strategies, I was never able to read or write but completed an art project...after the spill I still have yet to knock over again.

(below is the art piece I worked on while Kim was in the hospital... A scratchboard drawing...perhaps of full...)

An excerpt from another one-word writing...Break... Grateful to be a part of this issue...

Survivor's Review: The Color of Cancer, by Virginia Grove

Distance

distance: (noun) the length of the space between two points; a far-off point; the more remote part of what is visible or discernible; an interval of time; the full length of a race; the avoidance of familiarity; reserve (verb) make someone or something far off or remote in position or nature; http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/distance

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Remove space
where I've constructed
distance immeasurable
miles, minutes might,
as well as years, keep
family far
for forgiving
faults, even my own,
calls shotgun

I'm not there
yet
not standing prepared
triptik handy
choosing I-statement
phrases
feeling clips snipped
separating hurt and
OK
it really isn't, you,
out there, it really
isn't OK this way
I fort off fearing
offending

evident distancing
plugs tubs
I float fear
anger hurt
distrust love
in and there
isn't room
enough to swim
I'm already drained

Expose

expose: make visible by uncovering; unprotected; cause someone to be vulnerable or at risk; to introduce someone to a subject or area of knowledge; leave (a child) in the open to die; reveal the true, objectionable nature of someone or something; subject photographic film to light when operating a camera

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/expose?q=expose

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Panic-- absolute panic-- throws a bag over my head, ties it tight enough so that if I move, striving to ease the tug, it gathers tighter still and there is no moving air.  I lose vision and light.  My head is removed from my body and I'm forced to choose between staying in my head or feeling what's in my body.  I've spent too much time in my head.  I've felt too many things I don't like in my body-- particularly the ones that send mixed 'like/don't like' messages.  I don't want to be in my head.  I don't want to be in my body.  I don't like either option.

My hands shake, my shoulders twitch.  The tip of my nose and fingers are suddenly cold. Pale and flush come with each other.   I'm picturing myself--an old poem--crumpled into a tight ball.  Blinking ceases with the cessation of movement from any other visible part of my body.  My pulse pounds in my neck, my toes, my forearms, along my spine, and from its normal pledge-of-allegiance location.  I'm certain bystanders would be able to see the pounding if they were close enough.

The feeling of exposure and the state of panicked anxiety bus beside each other, from stop to stop, and have for years.  Depression either squishes into the same seat or sits very close behind, resting its head on the seat-back, waiting for the shaking to stop long enough to wiggle in.  It sneaks in where there’s stillness--when I've stopped singing in the car, when I no longer wish to talk, when I watch people and things move around and, quite possibly, pass through me without affecting anything.

I am afraid.

I'd been on a high two Fridays ago, riding on synchronicity.  The snowflakes, growing larger in fifteen minute intervals, convinced me that going home rather than to the gym was the best plan.  In the quiet of the house and snow, the coming down from the high landed me higher than where I'd been previously. The day--the week, really- was wonderful.  Dinner was warm, filling, comforting, and healthy.

Later that evening, I had a call with my new health coach.  I was pleased with how I'd done over the course of the week-- I’d eaten healthier, the new gym membership was established and I'd had the chance to try it out the day before.  We talked about a number of focus places for the coming week and some strategies for sneaking in gym time when time was short.  One suggestion, one that makes absolute sense, was to do some on-machine/off-machine interval work for closer to 30 minutes than the typical 45-60 I'm there-- so, treadmill for 2 minutes, followed by something like squats or weights for a minute...rinse and repeat.

I felt the panic.  As soon as I named the panic as a fear of feeling/being exposed, I moved into full-blown anxiety. 

I try to self-protect and do not expect protection from anyone or anything outside of myself.  I'm not sure I'd want that, even if I believed it could be.  The issues I have conversing with people and letting words and eye-contact coexist, while they've improved, haven't gone.  I don't expect they will.   I'm afraid of being seen--someone else recognizing the evil bred and fostered within me.  I'm afraid my bad will leak out and be absorbed by someone else.  I'm afraid of seeing that same evil in someone else.  I'm afraid of anything someone else sees in me as a positive standing out.  I'm afraid of attention because I don't want to be an obvious target.  I am the classroom student refusing to look at the teacher who's asked a question, knowing eye contact means I'll be called on.

 Keep your head down--keep your head down--

I'm afraid of being visible--afraid of the child-sized person lost somewhere under the nearly 300 pound fat costume and the 30 or so years of 'stuff.'  I am and am not this person.  I'm afraid of the fat costume and I'm afraid to take it off.  I'm afraid to keep the 'stuff' and afraid to let it go.  I'm scared to try to integrate all of it, if choosing between one and the other isn't healthy. 

What do I "make visible by uncovering" me?  If it's more vulnerability-- if it's more risk-- if it's more opportunity to be left unprotected, I cannot be exposed.  I still expect to be hurt.  I try to trust that my expectation and reality aren't one in the same.

When I'm here, more hurt feels right.  I might eat horribly bad food in mass quantities. I might force myself to read something that disturbs me or think about something that falls in line with how I'm feeling.  I might imagine ways out-- develop plans ranging from simple to complex--worrying Google with the suicide search.  I might watch large trees, ditches, or rock cliffs as I drive, trying to imagine heading straight at them.  I recognize that this is wrong. 

Do I listen to the head in the bag or to the body I hate?  If I have to pick, what should I listen to?  I can't trust deep enough to move elsewhere.  And I'm still shaking-- still feeling off-- still feeling exposed and silly for writing or thinking I can write or breathe or expose myself to the light I'm told exists...though I've felt it, unexpectedly, at various times, I still try to forget.  I've known it is out there and that a present moment can warm my need out of crumpling--out of folding in--out of hiding.

I am an anxious photographer, trying to compose images, determining if there is an amount of exposure--a correct exposure--an over or under--capable of turning the vision into the picture.  I don't want this overexposure continually washing me out...I don't want underexposure leaving me lost in shadows.

I want control of my shutter speed.

 

 

 

Alchemy

Alchemy: a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/alchemy?q=alchemy
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"Litter"

Mine is an alchemic
culture of play
curiosity come
across creeks
under  waves

stones thrown in
pools form
rings pulsing out
to where
I'm without
traditional tools

I create
drip castles
from straws
of wet sand my
band whistles bottle caps
lips pursed
placed hands

I am play
in a way to fall
into the child
I wasn't I
resign my mother's
therapist no more

Intentional costumes
for the alchemic child
I was
but will not be
at odds with 'grow up'

Free

free: able to act or be done as one wishes; not under the control of another; not or no longer confined or imprisoned; not subject to engagements or obligations; not subject to or affected by; (of the wind) blowing from a favourable direction to the side or aft of a vessel

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/free?q=free

++above picture was originally titled "Hair Watch-2010" Fresh scars, fuzzy hair, minimal eyebrows, and the start of a new journey I still consider new

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This week I marked the 3rd anniversary of my final chemotherapy treatment. At the time of diagnosis with Stage IV Hogdkins disease, I was 31 years old, working full time and only about a month into pursuing my M.A. degree in Creative Writing. Three years later, I've completed that M.A. degree and my M.F.A. degree. This semester marks the fourth consecutive semester I've been lucky enough to teach at Misericordia University in Dallas, PA while still working full time at Prudential. On February 5th, the actual anniversary date, I also celebrated 9 months of of my marriage-- a marriage courtesy of the great state of New York, warm-hearted, level-headed friends and family, and the best-spent tax returns in the history of the universe. Oh, and my wife.

When I woke on Tuesday morning, though I've tried to break myself of the habit, I grabbed my cell phone, opened Facebook, and updated my status to reflect the importance of the day.

6:15 AM-- 2/5: 9 months married and 3 years cancer free.

Cancer FREE.

Free is the assumption.

The last bloodwork drawn and analyzed for my primary and my oncologist pointed towards free. My last scan was this past June and the next will be this coming June. It is the first time I've gone longer than 3-6 months between scans in 3 years.

As every anniversary--every significant day--approaches, I am not free from cancer. As I sneak towards my surgery and diagnosis dates in July, or my bone marrow biopsy or PET scan dates in August, cancer reminds me it is still a part of me, regardless of what a scan or white blood cell count might say. My bones ache in just the same way, my head hurts, I feel sickness creeping into my gut and up into my mouth. And I'm lucky, because once these dates pass, the aches generally do too.

Yet, I cross paths with cancer more frequently, it seems. I see and recognize the woman at work or on the street, a scarf pulled around her head, and instead of trying to turn away as I had before people turned away from me, I look at her and smile and the smile is because I felt so much more grounded when I had cancer, so much more connected to the simplicity that comes from the routine of appointments and tests and naps. I was, in the midst of treatment when I had cancer, more free from cancer than I am now.

I don't say any of this in any way trying to minimize someone else's battle...particularly an active battle. I do, however, recognize that while my body may not show signs of the disease, freedom from the effects and far-reaching fingers dipping into daily duties may never come. And this is OK. This is a welcome present...most of the time.

I carry cancer tucked into my other days. I carry lots of hurts and experiences responsible for their own timely illuminations. I have hurt and I will continue to hurt. Yet, I am blessed to see the many opportunities, relations, discussions, and presents snuck into my world.

Perhaps that is how one becomes free.

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