What is #CancerRoadTrip and how did it come to be? Read this post to get the backstory!
I have spent enough time grumbling. I am determined to be joyful and embrace this adventure.
Thus:
I am grateful for the freedom to pick up and go.
I am grateful to have the options I have.
I am grateful that the tech creeps showed their true colors now rather than later.
I am grateful that I have a good home for Chanel to go to.
I am grateful for my relative health.
I am grateful for my friends who continue to be super supportive.
I am grateful to have a house to sell, in a strong market with little inventory.
I am grateful for the amazing people that are part of my life through Anti-Cancer Club.
I am grateful for having learned to meditate.
I am grateful for knowing that a sense of completeness lies within me, not without.
I am grateful for the adventures before me.
#Gratitude
#Namaste
Last night I had dinner with Vanessa who is a concert violinist. She once sold everything she had and hit the road for a series of concerts and competitions she organized. She understands the emotional tug and pull of such an adventure.
“One day I was high, the next day depressed,” she confided. The import of letting go of routine and embracing adventure is not a pure path.
“Good things are coming down the road. Just don’t stop walking.”-Robert Warren Painter, Jr.
And a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
What is #CancerRoadTrip and how did it come to be? Read this post to get the backstory!
When the going gets tough, the tough go traveling. Time for some R&R, preferably spiced with a bit of history and aviation!
I am a bit of a history buff and World War II, a war my father flew in, has always piqued my interest. My father was a navigator in B17s stationed in England. The Eighth Army Air Force had the highest casualty rate of all the service branches. As a pilot who has had the opportunity to be SCARED in the air (I once danced with a massive thunder cloud that nearly ripped my plane apart-with me in it!), I don’t know how anyone could have done what these young men did. I don’t think I could have faced my fears, my mortality, at that age and repeatedly flown into war. But they did. Day after day. Wow. I have such respect and regard for them.
Flying is the second greatest thrill known to man. Landing is the first. -Pithy Pilot Sayings
Years ago I walked into St. Paul’s cathedral in London with my father and there was a display with a book under glass. The book contained a list of men who had died. One of my father’s flight mates was on the page that just happened to be open.
My father died at 60. This year I’ll be sixty. I don’t see any pre-ordained limitations or similarities, but he died of pancreatic cancer, after a period of considerable stress. I too have been under massive stress and I need to make my health my priority.
So Hawaii ho! If I have to be #HomelessWithCancer, I’m going to have some fun!
Why Hawaii? I haven’t been there. It’s a restful, restorative place. My health has taken a horrible beating since September, and I know that I need to attend to my physical and spiritual self.
Pearl Harbor is obviously on the must see list, but the purpose of my trip is healing. I am not looking for the resort experience or for an urban challenge. I am looking to restore my creativity and outlook on life.
One of my cancer friends and fellow blogger Eileen Rosenbloom (Woman In The Hat) will be on Kauai and I want to get together with her. Stephie will be on the Big Island in May and if our stays coincide, we want to get together. I’d like to visit each island, and see what healing spaces and places each offers.
It all depends on when my house sells. And where things stand with ThinkTLC.
“Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.” —Steve Maraboli
What is #CancerRoadTrip and how did it come to be? Read this post to get the backstory!
Always remember that you are unique, just like everyone else.
–Margaret Mead
On Twitter this week, this caught my eye. It’s from the Parisian surgeon Olivier Branford whose tweets I enjoy enormously.
For a while, I rather enjoy some routine. It’s great to know where the good snow is on a mountain. To know that you’re likely to find lift next to the ridge. To know that it’s Friday night and you’re playing tennis and doing dinner afterwards. Routine can be nice.
But we can become so mired in our routines that we forget there’s a big world out there. We lose our spontaneity. And then the routine becomes a deepening rut.
I remember being at Ashland the year I was on the road with Whiskey Oscar. I was lucky enough to get a standing room only spot in the back of the theatre, and then after intermission a front row seat! The performance was Macbeth and it was stunning.
At intermission, I sat on a stone wall and watched the crowd. I felt like I knew who all these people were, without having ever met them. They all moved in a certain way; said the appropriate thing; played their small role in a social medley without a flaw.
It was a perfect ordinary event, but it gave me an eerie feeling. I felt as though I was watching a dance and everyone wore a mask. The mask –a combination of clothes and mannerisms, musts and must nots–tightly defined them. I just watched, feeling very disconnected on the one hand, but also very connected to a deep sense the familiarity of the scene. I’d been there so many times in my life. But now I seemed to look in from some other place. I had no routine or mask to define my presence.
Once again, I feel like I’m looking at a life, but this time it’s mine. It’s like watching a slow motion crash. It’s almost an out of body experience as I do the tasks I must do to sell the house; to pack; to say goodby to my beloved Chanel. This can’t be happening; I don’t want to be #HomelessWithCancer, even on an adventure. But events are now beyond my control. The only control I have is to let go.
What is #CancerRoadTrip and how did it come to be? Read this post to get the backstory!
Aparigraha is the last of the five yamas of Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga. It often translates to ‘non-greed’, ‘non-possessiveness’, and ‘non-attachment’.
I am reading The Eight Limbs of Yoga, a gift from Bhava Ram. I do not think of myself as a greedy person, but the act of cleaning out my house would suggest otherwise.
I have far too many “things”. What was my intent in buying all this? Why did I hold onto it all for so long? What emotional purpose did it serve?
Bhava writes:
Consider for a moment the contents of your closets, garage and other storage areas. If you are like most of us, you will agree that you have far too much stuff. While this is not an overtly immoral or criminal act, it arises from the greed that has been imposed upon us by consumer consciousness and mass marketing. It is a form of external obesity, and just as obesity in the body causes a host of health problems, this external heaviness impacts our mental balance and well being.
I am “externally obese”.
My quest for things was a quest for beauty and perfection. I am very visual and it soothed me. It was in some ways an outward expression of what I felt within. But it was also bound in the throes of perfectionism and consumerism, a wonderful cultural means of distraction.
I’ve already sent dozens of boxes of books to the used book store. Reading has always been my favorite past time but now I keep many things electronically. I suspect I have another half dozen or so boxes that can also find their way to a new home.
I gave a beautiful set of china away. It brought me no pleasure. Some one else should enjoy it.
Similarly, my party things are finding a home with people who entertain. With cancer, so many people and activities have passed me by, that I don’t really socialize that much anymore.
I have a set of old American Heritage magazines that belonged to my father. It’s one of the only things I have from him. They look great on a book shelf, but I never read them. Ditto for my years of Map Collector, although I do occasionally enjoy revisiting those. My history and cartography books are not negotiable. They represent a combination of past and adventure that I find endlessly fascinating. Those stay, at least for now.
For many years, one of my favorite consumer pastimes was Peruvian Connection. I’m not a clothes horse, but I love the quality of the company’s alpaca and cotton; I love the arty and unusual designs. Year after year, with each catalogue, I accumulated more things. Beautiful sweaters, vests, skirts. None of it was inexpensive and I had more than any reasonable person ever needed.
As I clean out my house, I wonder what am I going to do with all this? I am externally obese and I need to shed a few pounds.
I also need to cultivate non attachment when it comes to ThinkTLC. For months I couldn’t sleep; I was unable to eat, or what I did manage to eat, came right back up; the stress made my hair fell out.
ThinkTLC was my life-force and with no response to my emails; no code or product; and a refusal to communicate in any way, the tech creeps were stealing my life force.
I have many skills for stress management after eight years of living with cancer. My normal twice daily refuge of meditation eluded me. I practiced, but I could not still my mind. My exercising had fallen off, with the pain in my hip that resulted FROM the surgery. Yes my hip was better, I could walk, but I was still in almost daily pain. The orthopod suggested a series of injections that might help. I passed and headed for the yoga studio.
Intellectually I realized that eventually, with enough money, lawyers would find a resolution to ThinkTLC which was supposed to have been lauched in September 2016. But letting go, giving up the life-force that has propelled me forward, was–and is–a lesson in non-attachment to an outcome and in non-possessiveness that cuts to the very core of my soul.
“Dare to live by letting go.” – Tom Althouse
I need to give up a life to get a life. I’ve done this before; I can do this again. But what is the cost?
What is #CancerRoadTrip and how did it come to be? Read this post to get the backstory!
Every now and then, we encounter a window in life. It won’t last forever. Do we step through, or do we let the opportunity pass us by?
One window that I allowed to pass by-and I’ve always regretted it-was when the Exxon Valdez had that horrible oil spill in Alaska. Volunteers were need to help clean up the birds and beaches. I could have gone, but I hesitated and the window closed. It’s always haunted me. I wonder if my life was meant to take a different turn had I gone.
I also had a window in my life after my divorce. At first, I stayed still. I worked and socked aside money. One day, when I found myself in bed with pneumonia, I knew another window was before me. Would I go on with a life that didn’t resonate with my soul, in a job I hated, or would I dare to do otherwise.
I dared to do otherwise and for that I’m immensely grateful.
As I contemplate events now, I see a different window, not one of my own making.
I nestle in this house, this life I’ve created, and it is so beautiful, comfortable and familiar.
I want to stay.
But I have to leave. It’s mid February and I’ve had zero information on the ThinkTLC platform since September.
I’m facing another window in my life.
“As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.” -Joseph Campbell
On a personal front, if I want to travel some more, this is the chance. I had hoped to travel with ThinkTLC, returning to my home and feline family. Adventure in a more controlled sense. But the prospect of being #HomelessWithCancer demands a new degree of boldness.
If I fast forward ahead a few years (or even months) and my cancer becomes active again, I will be facing more treatment. With an indolent lymphoma (and hopefully it stays indolent!), I should have some time before I have to make treatment decisions. But as I look at the downward spiral my health and fitness have taken over the last several years, I know that anything that lies ahead of me will also take its toll. Another round of chemo will further diminish my quality of life. If I want to do some things, the time is now. And while I would never have choreographed this set of circumstances, I can turn them into an opportunity.
This blog is helping me process the radical changes my life is about to undergo. Thank you for reading my vacillations, as I wrestle with comfort vs. adventure; trust vs. betrayal; stay vs. go. In search of some inspiration, I surfed the web this morning:
“To uncover your true potential you must first find your own limits and then you have to have the courage to blow past them.”
— Picabo Street
“The brave may not live forever, but the cautious don’t live at all.”
– Ashley L.
“The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.”
— Tacitus, Roman historian
“Come to the edge, He said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, He said. They came. He pushed them, And they flew . . .”
— Guillaume Apollinaire, French poet
Inspiration, joy & discovery through travel. Oh, did I mention with supposedly incurable cancer?
What's on your bucket list?
Thank you for stopping by!
CancerRoadTrip is about making lemonade out of lemons.
As you read my story, you may want to start at the beginning to "grok" how CancerRoadTrip came to be. You can click here to start at the end (which is actually the beginning) and read forward! The posts are chronological, with the most recent posts appearing on the front page.
Pearl Harbor is obviously on the must see list, but the purpose of my trip is healing. I am not looking for the resort experience or for an urban challenge. I am looking to restore my creativity and outlook on life.
