A Hope for Now

For the past four weeks, I’ve published postings about where I am emotionally with regard to my life and my writing. Today’s posting sums that up and adds my conclusions.

After Crown published A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story in 1992, I began to dream big dreams about my success as a writer. In the next two decades, however, as I tried to interest agents in representing my writing, I received only rejection e-mails. Slowly reality dawned.

I realized that the Universe was trying to teach me to let go of the outcomes I’d envisioned. Slowly I learned that I could control the way I responded to events, but I couldn’t control my unrealistic expectations.

Joseph Campbell, who studied, wrote, and lectured his entire life about the power of myth, once said, “Follow your bliss.” I have treasured that quotation. Often I’ve suggested it to others, but never have I truly lived it.

I didn’t follow my bliss—which is simply writing. Instead, I let my dream of being published and becoming successful become an all-consuming obsession. I embraced the outcomes, not the writing. Not the nutritious home-baked bread, but the slathered butter. Not the cake, but the frosting.

Recently a blogging friend sent me a card with the following Campbell quotation on it:

       We must be willing
        to let go of the life
       we had planned.

       So as to have the life
       that is waiting for us.

Her sending that card helped me find perspective and pretty well summed up what many of you have written in your comments for my postings.

And so I begin.

For many decades of my life, I changed, took risks, welcomed differences. If I could do that when I was younger, there’s no reason I can’t do it now. In order to do that, however, I must listen again to that inner voice of intuition I’ve ignored for so long. I must open my heart to that voice.

I’m ready to quit living in the future of my dream world. I’m ready to live in the present and await whatever beckons me. Writing for publication? Perhaps. Finding a new passion? Maybe. Finding books to read on subjects I don’t normally read? Possibly. Working to make daily exercise habitual? Hope so. Making new friends? How wonderful. I know one thing only: I’m letting go of my attachment to the outcomes of my own planning. I’m ready to simply be.

What will this surrender to life look like?  I hope writing will be a part of it, but I suspect that there are surprises ahead for me. That’s something to which I look forward. And yet, I must admit to some trepidation.

Perhaps, those two poles—expectation and trepidation—as well as the span between them are what I’ll be blogging about. Who knows? I surely don’t.

Peace.

CTCL Encourages Going with the Flow

Two weeks ago I posted my plan for all that I would do this year. In last week’s posting, I admitted throwing in the towel on that plan, deciding “to go with the flow” of my life, and letting go of trying to control life’s dailiness.

         I gave two reasons for going with the flow: Meniere’s Disease and Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma (CTCL). Last week I wrote about the first; this week I want to explain and explore the ramifications of the second.

         About fifteen years ago, I discovered a pink patch on my arm. A second patch appeared before I saw Dr. Hamilton, my family physician, for my yearly checkup. Noticing it, he said it was psoriasis and prescribed a cream. When it failed to change the patches, I simply forgot about the whole thing.         

         Until Meniere’s arrived in 2006, I seldom paid attention to my body and didn’t even know how to listen to it or what to listen for. And so I mostly ignored what others might call symptoms—aches, pains, patches, rashes, and so on.

         Years passed and in 2011, the patches began to spread—from my arms to my thighs to my lower legs. By now, Meniere’s had made me aware that my body could tell me things. So I made an appointment with a dermatologist. She did two biopsies that indicated I had stage one CTCL.

         She explained that stage three attacked all the inner organs and was fatal. To avoid that, she prescribed a corticosteroid cream and ultraviolent light therapy (phototherapy).

         Beginning in April 2011, I did light therapy for three times a week for nine months. By January 2012, the CTCL was in remission. It stayed in remission nine months. I did more light therapy and it went back into remission and stayed away until January 2014.

         When it reappeared I made an appointment at the clinic. In mid-February the doctor confirmed that the cancer was back and that I needed to begin the phototherapy again.

         So now I am once again using the steroidal cream and having light treatments. Thus far, I have had seven sessions. This will continue until March 27 when I’ll see the doctor again so as to determine if the phototherapy and the cream are working.

         There is a risk that the ultraviolent light will cause other skin cancers, so doing the therapy for nine-months back in 2011 was iffy. This time, we’re hoping that the cancer goes more quickly into remission.

         The wonderful upside of this is that the doctor has told me that no one she’s treated for stage one has ever gone to stage three. So the fact that I’m undergoing treatment is crucial. Also with CTCL, I will most likely keep going in and out of remission for the rest of my life.

         None of this alarms me. If I keep being aware of when pink patches show up and immediately go for treatment, all shall be well.  

         The light treatment is done in an upright cylinder in which there are about forty tall, skinny, vertical, light tubes. I step inside; the nurse turns on the lights; and I stand there nude for a certain amount of time. Right now the time is only one minute and forty-five seconds. I’ll probably work up to three or four minutes, depending on whether my skin burns. That’s already happened once this go-round.

         Taking a shower, slathering sun block on the unaffected skin, driving to the clinic, having the treatment, and driving home takes about two hours. Since I’m out and about I always do an errand or two. So usually on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday CTCL demands three hours of my day.  

         Moreover, because the light treatments tire me out, I always come home and take a long nap. You can see why this and the Meniere’s headaches affect any schedule or routine I might try to devise.

         So now I’m truly getting up each day and doing what my spirit prompts me to do. And—wonder of wonders—I’m feeling content doing that.

         Peace from “Flow Girl.”        

        

Photographs from Wikipedia.

A Commitment to Myself . . . Please Hold Me to It!

Hello All, on this overcast day here in western Missouri where the cold is always a “wet” cold that creeps into the bones. Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know that since May 2011 it’s been my on-line memoir. Beyond these memoir stories, however, I also try to write other genres.

         Right now I have completed a novel—The Reluctant Spy, which takes place in first-century Palestine; a slim gift book—The Gift of Nine Lives, an illustrated fantasy for cat lovers; and a second gift book—Angelic Psalms, an illustrated book of lyrical verse for our troubles times.

         In addition, I have completed a first-draft for a novel about four ex-nuns; a partial for a novel that takes place in Bronze-Age Greece; and another gift book that is halfway completed. Much of this writing dates back years as I have a strong tendency to begin something, work steadily on it, then get bored with it, and put it aside for later.

         As I’ve worked on these various manuscripts, friends have encouraged me to try to get a memoir published. They believe it has the best chance of getting agent representation and publication. You may wonder why publication is important to me. Why isn’t simply writing enough?

         I believe that each of us is an artist in some way: some of us bake artisan’s bread; other listen with such sensitivity that they bring peace to our troubled waters; some of us dance or sing, compose music or create beauty in our gardens; some of us enjoy the stories, anecdotes, and jokes of others so that friends feel welcomed in our midst; some of us are great storytellers.

         And as artists we all seek an audience: someone to eat the bread; to dance through life with us; to wear the sweaters we knit; to enjoy the potato soup; to gaze upon the watercolor; to listen to the song that we can’t resist singing.

         You see what I mean. I think of myself as an artist whose way of connecting with others is through writing. I’m not saying that I’m a good writer or even that I have anything to say that others might want to spend time reading. What I am saying is that my deepest heartwish is to communicate and it’s through the telling of stories that I can do that.

         Thus, blogging has been a gift to me. I have been able to share stories with you and you have responded with interest and support. And in the past three years, I have indeed come home to myself—the name of this blog—in that I have embraced my whole life. Your comments have helped with that as your words have often put into perspective some aspect of my life with which I’ve struggled. Thank you now and ever for all the help you’ve given me. You have read my stories with nonjudgmental sensitivity.

         You’d think that being read with such understanding by all of you should be—I’ve never liked the word should by the way—enough for me. But it isn’t. I want to be published. I want my stories to be read beyond the Internet. For an artist, life is about connection. Our art—be it gardening or baking, writing or listening, photographing or painting—wants to connect with others. For me, this is evidence of the Oneness I find in all creation.

         And so I am devoting this year to three aspects of writing: 1) following your blogs; 2) finding an agent to represent my work; and 3) completing the convent memoir.

         All of you know the time that’s involved with following blogs. What you may not know is that the second goal requires a lot of research beyond the writing of query letters. (I’ve written about this before on my Sunday writing blog.) The third goal requires that I establish a daily routine of writing in order to complete a finished memoir by Thanksgiving—the deadline I’ve set for myself.

         To do that, I’m going to set aside two to three hours each day for writing new convent stories and weaving them together with the ones that have already appeared on this blog.

         While I’m doing that, I will continue posting, but I won’t be adding to the convent stories I began last August. Instead, I’ll return to my pre-convent and post-convent years and share with you additional stories about those times.

         I’ve been dealing with health problems recently that have stymied my efforts to follow blogs, seek agent representation, and write. With my somewhat obsessive behavior, I fell into the trap I have fallen into before. That is, I’ve let myself think it’s all or nothing. If I can’t do these three things each day, then I do nothing. And so nothing’s been getting done.

         But I’m taking a renewed lease on life.

·      I’m going to make every effort to visit each of your blogs once a week. Your words keep me grounded.

·      I’ll send out an agent query whenever I have twenty to thirty extra minutes to get that query ready.

·      And I’ll set realistic goals for myself each week so as to move forward in completing a first and then a final draft of the convent memoir.

I know that all of you wish me success with my three goals. All of us are artists; all of us have goals. Let us then support one another as we find and fashion our heartwishes. Peace.

All the photographs except that of Eliza are from Wikipedia.

The Gifts of Simplicity and Time

The last two months have been busy: I vacationed for two weeks, which always means, for me, about four weeks—an initial week of packing and planning, two weeks away, and then a week of recuperating. So there went November with no postings and no blogging.

         Then came December and a posting in which I gave you a brief glimpse into my convent life in Seneca, Kansas. The following week, flu visited. After it’s departure, I tried to live the expectation of Advent, but found myself instead caught up in the frenzy of Christmas.

         I say frenzy because that’s what the last week has felt like: shopping for gifts and groceries, baking cookies and quick bread for gifts, wrapping and boxing all the gifts for sending to friends elsewhere.

         Then, decorating the house and the tree and writing messages on Christmas cards.

. . . by Marcel Rieder, 1898

         Next, shopping for the ingredients for the Christmas Eve meal at my home and for the pies and salad I’ll take to the Christmas Day family gathering at my brother and sister-in-law’s home.

         And finally, getting ready for a guest who’s coming to spend a few day with me and the cats.

         Each year, those of us who celebrate Advent and Christmas must decide how we will embrace these two seasons. This year, the planning, shopping, decorating, gifting, and visiting have ensnared me.

         I started off with good intentions, but I’ve gotten lost in the maze of trying to do too much in too short a time. And that “too much” is mostly unnecessary if a person—like myself—would like to live the simplicity of Advent and of the age-old story that prompts the celebration of Christmas.

         It is a story of the birth of a child. Like Nelson Mandela, this child grew up and found himself interacting with those imprisoned by illness and need, ignorance and hatred, fear and greed.

         His response, like Mandela’s, inspires all of us. Both dedicated their lives to helping others. Both gave us the gift of their wisdom. Their lives were great gifts from and to the Universe.

. . . "The Magi Journeying" by James Tissot

         The giving of gifts at Christmas comes from the ancient story of the Magi visiting that child born long ago in a far-flung Roman province. These wise men brought with them gifts for the child and so, we, too, bear gifts for others during this season. A tapestry depicting this event would be sewn with multicolored threads—the pink-tinged joy of dawn and the golden contentment of sunset.

         This year, I have lost both in the flurry of gift giving. So yesterday I wrote myself a letter to be opened on the first Sunday of Advent in 2014. In that letter, I advise myself to enter the season of simplicity with a heart centered on the truths underlying the Christmas stories of a birth in Bethlehem, a visit by awe-struck shepherds to a manger, and a journey by three gift-bearing magi. Within these stories is a humanity I want to embrace. And that demands a simplicity I lost this year.

         But the season is not over. And so last evening, I decided to give myself the gift of time. Time away from feeling that I must do this or that or something else that in the arc of my life is a merest grain of sand.

         By giving myself the gift of time, I hope to enter into a simplicity that will bring forth the gratitude and wide-eyed wonder that for me is essential to the celebration of Christmas.

         And when I return to posting on January 9, 2014, and to reading and commenting on your blogs on January 6—the feast of the Three Kings—I will be able to truly respond to them because I won’t feel the frantic need to get “this” done so that I can move on to get “that” done.

         In your blogs, you share your lives with all of us. I am choosing to read those blogs when time permits me to respond thoughtfully and fully to the life you share. I trust fully that you understand this.

         May the remainder of Advent and the entire Christmas season bring you whatever your deepest heartwish is. Peace.

The paintings are from Wikipedia.