I’ve always wanted a yoga bolster but it felt “impractical” as I wouldn’t use it often but when I wanted one it would spark the dream again. Then I thought, welp, time is not promised - why not be surrounded by beautiful things? This wool beauty from Manduka is huge and snuggly and smells like a barnyard and my face says it all.

I’d been thinking of Suleika Jaouad and pondering my 100-day project when I was struck with a strong urge to Google: when was the Between Two Kingdoms release date? Suleika, a prolific writer and speaker and artist and wife to the talented Jon Batiste and all-around spirited renaissance woman, is currently in recovery after her second bone marrow transplant following 10-years cancer free. She is facing the potential of a lifetime of chemotherapy, and in her weekly newsletter, The Isolation Journals, she writes beautifully and honestly about how she is processing how life never really being the same or ‘go back to normal’, inviting us into her world of creative expression as a means of working through the suffering. There is no better mentor for me as I navigate the crashing waves of my own inner world as the calendar clicks closer to October 1st, the official bone marrow transplant date.

To stay on the metaphor of waves, my boat has been a little out to sea as of late. The many weekly, sometimes all-day doctor appointments had become the anchor of my life, halting any future dreams, big or small. Seeing as I cannot predict my physical state on the days I’m not in waiting rooms, it felt impossible to steer myself in any meaningful way - to create purpose or make plans or start any project I may never finish. So I read books and the newspaper. I watch baseball and old documentaries. I wear the concrete thin walking to the corner and back. I study wildlife, hoping the ghost of Mary Oliver will arrive and be my muse for writing on beautiful things. Time that was once partitioned into tiny blocks transformed into vast, wide-open spaces. Click, click, click. Most days I recognize the privilege of this vastness after a lifetime of filling spaces with doing. Recently a voice within has gotten louder telling me to pull up the anchor and set it down instead in a heart-centered, creative, expressive, and challenging place. To not be owned by appointments or seek out beauty elsewhere. To be accountable to something again. To show up for me by, as the theme of the 100-day project goes, creating “one tiny beautiful thing” each day.

That Google search told me that Between Two Kingdoms, Suleika’s book on her journey of diagnosis, a bone marrow transplant, and an epic solo road trip across the US, came out on February 9th, 2021. I found out on May 20th, 2021, the news of my own diagnosis - exactly 100-days later. Magic. It was her book that gave me a boost of courage then, and it’s the rawness in her writing on relapse that gives me a boost of courage now.

Today marks exactly 100-days until my 42nd birthday on December 18th.** After many lists of possible projects, many conversations with the trusted advisors in my life (including my therapist), and lots of wishy-washiness, I’ve decided that I’m going to write a minimum of 1000 words per day every day for those 100-days. Writing gives me so much. Along with running or a deep conversation with a friend, it’s a place I can go to find flow, losing all sense of time and of self. Who I really am is best expressed in writing. It reveals and sorts the jumbled thoughts. It unites the head and heart. I come alive when I’m writing in a way I’m not alive any other time of my day.*** I never once after writing wished I hadn’t taken the time to. My skin is coming alive with the tingles just thinking about it.

Pictures from my 41st of hikes with girlfriends and breakfast food - two of my favorite things.

I called an audible at this last minute that I will not post everything I write, although I intend to post much of it. As I shared from the very beginning, these chronicles are, for me above all - a form of therapy and preservation of memory of all that has happened. It feels sacred for me to reserve the right to hold onto some writing for myself. Oh boy, am I SO freakin’ stoked and curious about what I will write, especially when I really don’t feel like it. What sort of weird memories are locked in this funny little brain of mine? I know, I know - this all reads maybe a touch self-indulgent but fuck it. May we all be able to share our greatest passions and gifts with the world without the baggage of judgment or martyring need for humility. The world needs you now more than ever to share who you are and take action from your guts and heart. Ahhh, what a delight to enter the mystery, to moor my ship to a tiny, beautiful purpose that transcends the painted corner of being a cancer patient.

If you’re interested in embarking on your own 100-day project, I’d love to have friends along the way to share the experience with. You can always message me on Instagram or email me HERE. You can rest assured I’ve maxed out on ship-related metaphors to put up with. You’re welcome.

NOTES:

** Birthdays are for indulging in everything that you love about yourself and your life. Think favorite people, favorite foods, favorite activities. Whenever someone tells me they don’t celebrate or it’s no big deal, I get visibly frazzled and rarely can hold myself back from a rant. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to fighting someone. A loud exclaiming of “YOU’RE ALIVE!” combined with a vigorous shoulder shake is part of the Hayley-birthday-rant package deal. I’m just trying to change hearts and minds out there, people. If cancer doesn’t kill me, properly celebrating birthdays will 100% be the hill I die on.

*** Do you have something that makes you feel this way? Share in the comments below. Seriously, could not be more interested in passionate people talking about their passions, no matter what it is. When a passionate person is talking about passion their passion, I can most see God/their nature/the Great Spirit at its full expression (which is always love).

100-day project kick-off.

On ghosts.

Stayin’ Alive