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Monday, 21 May 07
it hits home.
it's amazing how small our worlds are. when everything happened at virginia tech, friends here in logan commented on how small the world is because of their connection to the events through me. well, the world is even smaller than that, at least for me. i've been watching the news today about the events in lebanon. it didn't occur to me till late in the day that i should email my friend a. a has come here to utah state from lebanon, and that is where he will spend the summer. now its not just some far of middle eastern thing, but instead my friend could have lost someone today.
tonight as i drift to sleep i will say an extra prayer for those in lebanon, for my friend a, and all those deeply affected by the events of today.. and future events. i think i'll extend my prayers on to everyone around the world being touched by sorrow. because, really, the world is a small small place. maybe if we all pray for each other we could stop the killing?
i know, i know. that's a lot to ask for in a small prayer. but at least its yet another start. just like millions upon millions of people do every day in their hope for peace to all souls.
Posted by brooke at 11:07 PM
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Sunday, 20 May 07
really?
so, a nobel peace award winner is irrelevant?
the bush administration is irrelevant. or, at least i wish they were. but being the idiots that they are and getting us into this whole host of trouble we are now in, makes them not so irrelevant.
i miss living in eugene for many reasons. one of those reasons is that at least there i could deny the support that this administration has. here in utah? its all around me. that people are this stupid to blindly support such a bunch of stupid assholes, well, it makes me angry. stupidity has always made me angry, and this, this is the highest form of idiocy.
the worst part of the idiocy? that it comes out of the mouths of otherwise brilliant people.
Posted by brooke at 08:33 PM
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blech.
i was reading sandee's weblog yesterday, and then last night over dinner a couple of friends were talking about a woman they know who died of stomach cancer. as they were having the conversation, and as i was reading sandee's blog a couple of things happened..
a) i got a pit in my stomach.
b) i thought about how lucky i am. that even though my family is tasked with the burden of cancer, right now, the burden is light (well, as light as the cancer burden can ever be). dad is not currently in a crisis fight for his life, he's going to massage therapy school and planning a very very very long life. aren't we lucky?
yes. i am very lucky. i am lucky for 2 things..
a) that i can give comfort to those in a difficult space about cancer from a place of knowing. it sucks that i can do it, but that i am able to give of myself in that way is one of the few blessings of the illness.
b) that though i am lucky i can give comfort from a place of knowing.. i can't give comfort from a place of understanding being in the last throes of treatment. no, i cannot understand what that is like for a family to go through. (and i pray i don't ever have the knowledge)
Posted by brooke at 03:06 PM
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Tuesday, 15 May 07
true confession
when i saw this headline about jerry falwell being found unconscious my first thought was "is he dead? no. darn." yeah yeah yeah, i know, not all pacifist and saving the world like. that's why the title of this post is true confession.
updated to add
i just walked into the student center and on the tv were headlines that yes, indeed, jerry falwell has died. and honestly, note - more true confession, i actually can't stop beaming. i am truly truly awful. but honestly, i don't think i'm any more awful than falwell himself - a man who has preached hate from his very national pulpit, the cause of that hate has, i know, been the suffering, and suicide, of too many queer youth and adults. the difference between falwell and i? i feel bad about my gladness that he's dead.. i know he didn't feel one bit of remorse about the hate he spent so much of his life preaching.
Posted by brooke at 11:10 AM
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Sunday, 13 May 07
i'd rather have the explanation
it used to be that when people would ask me where i'm from, and i'd reply "blacksburg, va --> virginia tech" most of the time (except for with most of the academic types) people would ask for a further explanation -- "4.5 hours south west of d.c.; 35 miles southwest of roanoke."
this morning i was at quaker meeting someone asked me if i was born and raised in eugene (because, really, that's where i'm from now). when i told them that no "i was raised at virginia tech" (because, really, with all 4 parents working there, tech was as much a part of the surroundings of my upbringing as the town of blacksburg) i knew i would not have to go into any further explanation, and the questioner proved me right. this time the response was a gurgled, semi-horrified "oh."
maybe some would think that i'm glad i don't need to go into any further explanation about where i was born and raised, but frankly, i'd rather have to explain it. really, i'd rather that blacksburg was still the unmarred rural virginia town that no one had heard of.
Posted by brooke at 02:32 PM
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Friday, 11 May 07
we all have burdens.
reprinted, w/o permission, from the new york times.
don't want to read the whole thing to get to the point? just scroll down to the bold. note, particularly, the underline
Cases
The Struggle to Move Beyond ‘Why Me?’
By ALICE LESCH KELLY
Six days after my husband and I returned from a trip to Aruba — our first real vacation without our children — my doctor told me I had breast cancer. I had felt a lump in my breast before the trip, but decided to wait to have it checked. I’d had lumps before, and they had always turned out to be nothing. But this one wasn’t nothing. It was Stage 2 invasive ductal carcinoma.
The days after my diagnosis are a blur of doctor visits, tests, sleepless nights, tearful discussions with family members and intense research. I saw doctor after doctor after doctor. They patiently answered my many questions about surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and endocrine therapy. But none of them could answer the most important question of all: Why the hell did I get breast cancer?
I was 41. I had no family history of breast cancer and no major risk factors. Tests showed I did not carry breast cancer genes. I exercised regularly and ate healthfully. I did not smoke. I had yearly mammograms. The only thing I’d done “wrong,” according to the standard list of risk factors for breast cancer, was having my first baby after age 30.
And yet all I got from my doctors when I asked them why was a shrug. “It just happens,” a surgeon told me. “You can do everything right and still get breast cancer. Unfortunately, you drew the short straw.”
That explanation didn’t cut it for me. I needed to know why.
As a freelance health writer, I’m accustomed to tracking down the answers to vexing medical questions. So I set out in search of an answer. I examined studies, pored over articles in medical journals, spoke with experts and joined a support group with women who knew so much about breast cancer they could have passed board certification exams.
Meanwhile, I underwent my treatment — three operations, eight sessions of dose-dense chemotherapy and six weeks of daily radiation treatments. I lost part of my breast, all of my hair and most of my sense of security. And still no satisfactory answer to my question.
Not long after my treatment ended, I found myself in a hospital elevator with a bald woman. I had no hair at that time, either, so we started to chat. (It’s amazing how cancer brings people together — I’ve had deep, 45-minute conversations with complete strangers in waiting rooms.)
“What have you got?” she asked me. We were like prisoners in the same jail comparing crimes.
“Stage 2 breast cancer,” I told her.
“I’m Stage 4 ovarian,” she said.
I could tell by the look on her face that I wasn’t doing a very good job of concealing the look on my face. We both knew that her prognosis was not good. But she wasn’t grieving. She seemed happy.
“When I was diagnosed, the doctors told me I had two months to live,” she said with a huge grin. “That was more than three years ago.”
We stood in the damp parking garage, talking. She is a single mother with two teenage children. She gets chemo every couple of weeks and works full time because she needs the money, and the health insurance. As we chatted, I realized that if she weren’t bald, I would never know she was battling a terminal illness.
“How do you do it?” I asked her. “How do you live each day with cancer hanging over your head?”
She smiled, understanding. “I treat every day as an adventure, and I refuse to let anything make me sad, angry or worried,” she replied. “I live for the day, which is something I never did before. Believe it or not, I’m happier now than I was before I was diagnosed.”
She wasn’t spending her time tracking down studies and agonizing over statistics. She wasn’t sitting with her head in her hands, asking why, why, why. No, she didn’t know why she got cancer, but she realized that nothing would be different even if she did.
I thought about her for days. Gradually I began to understand. The only answer to the question “Why me?” is this: Because bad stuff happens to everyone, and this is what happened to me. One of my closest friends struggled with infertility. That’s her short straw. Another friend’s marriage fell apart. Another friend gave birth to a stillborn child. Look closely enough and you’ll see that everyone has a short straw or two in their lives.
I’ll never know why I got cancer. What I do know is that the sooner I let go of the need to find something or someone to blame, the sooner I’ll be able to put cancer behind me and enjoy life, however long or short it may be. Only when I accept the sometimes cruel randomness of fate will I be able to call myself a survivor.
Alice Lesch Kelly is a freelance health writer based in Newton, Mass.
Posted by brooke at 01:19 AM
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Thursday, 10 May 07
it's about the touchy feely hippy dippy crap.
it's been 2 years now. 2 years since i went to heart of now. i know i've changed a lot since going there. it's nice to have my friends there reflect that. its nice to know it, although i have to admit that in this new environment of a phd program i'm having more difficulty knowing that. but that's beyond the point.
the point is. 2 years ago the week preceeding my first trip out to heart of now when people would ask me what i was doing over the weekend i told them "hippy-dippy-touchy-feeling-crap." yes, it was my way of dismissing what i was going to do, but also embracing it at the same time. i am in touch with my feelings, and i love talking heart of now talk (cult speak ;-D), but i also have a sacrastic edge to me, call it a wall, call it a way of interacting, call it whatever you want to call it, but that deeply sarcastic side of me needed a way to embrace what it was i was going to do.
i don't remember that weekend vividly, but i do remember very specific moments during the weekend. i don't know exactly when it was that they started getting to me, but slowly but surely they wore me down 8-D. and now, 2 years later, it is still so important to me that going back every three months is just a given, and honestly, i don't find it weird that i go to such great extent to get there for 4 days. i consider it going home. it is what i have learned in heart of now that is my survival. when in my darker moments, it is the the skills i learned there that have gotten me through.
so the point of the post. its not just all about heart of now (though, i will admit to missing them incredibly during this period, i hope it ends). its about those i met there too (ha! not too far removed, eh?).
i'm browsing tribe this morning (not working like i need to be), and i find this:
“Magic is the art of conceiving of reality differently in such a way that it comes to pass.”
isn't that cool? and then, my friend angel wrote this as well:
So how do you engage this powerful wizard of clarity and power for yourself? Simple. All it takes to engage your inner wizard is some support at the beginning, a little focused attention, releasing the need to be actively engaged, accepting the skills we know we have, and embodying the process. After that, well, magic happens!
and i realize, that, it really is about the hippy-dippy-touchy-feely-crap. i mean, even in those pointy-headed moments, its still about the hippy-dippy-touchy-feely-crap*. Because its that stuff that allows all the other moments to happen. I get in touch with my deepest fears and move past them, I get in touch with my deepest joy and let it run, or I simply sit and am present with whatever it is that is going on (because, unlike what I used to think, not every moment is full of huge emotion) and I am able to live. Without that, nothing else can happen. As someone who has seen the depths and struggled to find my way out, it is the hippy-dippy-touchy-feely-crap that has been the stuff to show me the way, and given me the tools to be here, widening my path, adding more dimensions to the person that is me.
:)
*the term hippy-dippy-touchy-feely-crap is licensed under a derivative-share alike-no attributions creative commons license, so please feel free to use it in whatever way you'd like. ;-D
Posted by brooke at 10:04 AM
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Tuesday, 8 May 07
what sadness do i carry?
it helps to write it out. i thought about submitting to postsecret, but i don't have the patience to create the kind of postcard that i want to create.
so. what sadness do i carry?
- heart break that when i had to give up two of my cats, that i screwed up and out of the two i gave up, one was the wrong one. no one knows that i look for him every time i go back to eugene.
- my loss of hope that i'll ever be a mom. the other day i saw the name 'esme' and usually in the past i'd put such a great name on my list of possible names for a little girl. but the other day i went to do that (the list is in my head) and instead of filing it away, i was sent to a place of hopelessness that i'll ever be a mom. this is the first time that's ever happened.
- that i will be alone forever. and that i've had the chance not to be alone, but because i'm so clueless about body language, i've missed my chance.
- that i'm simply going to endure my whole time here in utah. i'm tired of enduring, i want to dance, big joyful dances through life.
Posted by brooke at 09:07 PM
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Friday, 4 May 07
procrastinating
no no no, its not a melancholy entry, like i promised the other day, instead i'm just taking time to procrastinate. i'm in the new office supposed to be reading the article that the team is writing to see if i think there should be any changes to it. yeah. okay. but thanks for the offer, so nice of them to think i may actually be able to offer some constructive critism. i'm technicaly still only a first year student, so, really, its okay to still think i don't know anything, except for stuff about culture - which i just spent a semester studying. i'm hoping that next year i can make a similar excuse, but with a touch more confidence than when i've used it this year.
what else? on my bike ride to work this morning, riding in front of the 7-11 i nearly got hit. why? because some idiot didn't think that he needed to look straight in front of him or to the right of him. i think it was the very loud "SHIT" that came out of my mouth that stopped him. yes, its a good thing i have a loud mouth and am well practiced in using such explitives.
okay. time to read. i think i agreed to have this thing looked at by 11am. that won't happen, but at least i can try.
Posted by brooke at 10:01 AM
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Tuesday, 1 May 07
new office.
i just finished moving into a new desk in a new office for a new job. as i was unpacking and setting up my multitude of personal things on my new desk i realized how much hope comes with a new opportunity. for me, at least, a new opportunity represents a change for the good in my life - whether it be personal, spiritual, emotional, or professional. this case falls under the professional, with a smattering of the emotional thrown in.
i'm not sure what exactly i want to say about the hope, but i remember having the same feeling of hope in march of 2005 when i got an email from a former professor giving me advice and encouragement in pursuing a phd, and then a year later upon visiting logan and understanding that what there was here for me was more than i'd thought. my second choice school had a lot, and in retrospect maybe it was better that i didn't get into my first choice -- afterall not only was it amazingly beautiful here, but yes, it was true that these people really did want to save the world. and now, a year and a month later i have that same feeling of hope. only this time, with a lot more understanding about this process and this department. am i jaded? no. but i have a lot of hope that i've made the right decision. i have a lot of hope that this decision won't extend this process longer than i'd like it to be extended. i have a lot of hope that i'll find in this new opportunity what i found so lacking in the last opportunity.
i'm a touch tired of feeling grateful for everything that i've been given. 2 weeks ago as i was driving to oregon i was feeling incredibly grateful for this new opportunity, but i'm tired of feeling gratitude. while i'm still grateful for this, i'd also like to simply be satisfied for building for myself what i've built here in this place for myself. its a nice thing to know that i've been good enough at this process to have been offered a new opportunity with the new hope that comes with it. its a nice thing to know that the two people who are in charge of this new opportunity believe that i have something to offer to this team, and its a nice thing to know that i'll do everything in my power not to let anything get in my way of taking advantage of everything that sits in front of me.
i enjoy the hope that comes with life change. i enjoy it a lot. but most of all i enjoy the fact that i have been able to enact the change that the hope comes with.
Posted by brooke at 05:33 PM
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