Put yourself in the way of beauty.
This was a dark day in the hospital. We went looking for the light. Smiles were found.
As I cross over the one-year milestone of active treatment it seems the parts of me, of my life, of my many monikers and identity that were shattered, are beginning to reform into something new. Borrowing a term from a fellow c-bagger, it seems I’m “coming to terms” with my life as it is and the absurd lack of control I have over, well, everything. This is a revolution, a woman of lists and well-laid plans, of optimization with matching spreadsheets. If you’ve read this journal then you’ve read the stories of how I can go in for a one-hour appointment and unexpectedly be admitted for weeks. One year of deconstruction, of wallop after wallop of the same lesson: dearest Hayley, wake up! You must find a way to be here now! There is nowhere else to go and you’re missing so much! Don’t waste now on a promise of later! Wake up!
It came slowly then all at once. I was in a shared room for this last chemo cycle with a woman who didn’t stop moaning or ringing the call button to request things she wanted but couldn’t have. There was nowhere to go. We had five days together with a thin curtain separating us. I went into my old bag of tricks: anger, judgment, woe is me, sniveling, whining, wishing it away. It took two days to accept my stuckness before I WOKE myself up by asking, “what is it you want?” I want peace. I want comfort. I want laughter. I want to not be jerked around by my damn circumstances anymore. I want to be free. Ah ha…now I can see clearly. I hear a fellow woman behind the curtain who is suffering, who is alone, who is in pain. I see how my own programming raised as a white middle-class Catholic taught me to suffer in silence and how strongly I disagree with that now. I see practical solutions like headphones with movies or making a new Spotify playlist. I have choices here, new and better choices that are still honest and not some prosperity gospel bullshit. My freedom resides within my choices. To be free is, as the great Viktor Frankl says, “when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
That same day I dusted off my podcast app and saw Cheryl Strayed was a guest on Glennon Doyle’s podcast We Can Do Hard Things. Hell yes. Add in some Anne Lamott, Suleika Jaouad, and Liz Gilbert and we have a mightly fine dream dinner party. Cheryl, a pro advice giver with her column/blog called Dear Sugar, was asked what the best advice she ever received was. It came from her mother who told her to “put yourself in the way of beauty”. CLINK! Another link in the coming together of my new self was formed. Okay, Hayley. Imagine this. What if watching for, basking in, and being in awe of beauty took the top seed, #1 on the priority list of what to do today? What if instead of pulling out the ol’ anger/judgment/woe is me/sniveling/whining/wishing it away toolbox I went to beauty instead; if I was expecting to be caught off-guard ALL day by beautiful things instead of expecting my foot to be snared in a trap. How would that transform a day? How would that transform my thinking, my relationships with people and with nature, and the meaning of a mundane Tuesday? I wrote the advice on the chalkboard that enters our house and again on my writing desk, a single 3x5 card with #1 GOAL written above it. At night, I close my eyes and walk myself back through all the beautiful things of that day, capturing a few standouts in a tiny notebook on my tiny writing desk that is covered with my tiny totems and lit perfectly with a warm Edison light. Beautiful.
That was six days ago and a few of my favs have been:
An almost full moonlight walk with Evan (note: I would usually not say yes to this as I’m already in my jams by 7:30. Part of this experiment is saying yes to beauty and no to old reactions)
Spending an afternoon listening to Big Thief with binoculars to my eyes, and a bird book in my lap, identifying birds until the sun went down
The feeling of my fingers in wet dirt while I picked weeds from the flower bed
Slipping into a bed with clean sheets
The ritual dance in the morning between Evan and I as we prepare our coffee and tea
Yvonne and Dwayne, our next-door neighbors who must be in their mid-80s, holding hands as they walk up the hill from their garden to the house
How the sound of trains in my hometown breaks through the still morning each day, an echo through the ravine that makes me feel connected to those many thousands of us who live in Cedar Rapids, Iowa stirring ourselves awake
Tomorrow I will spend most of my day in the hospital for a 4+ hour IVIG infusion to help boost my immunity and the evening attending the wake for the father of a dear friend. I’d rather not do either, have cancer or have my friend need to grieve such a loss. I’m worried that my frail, bald body that this friend hasn’t seen will cause her more pain. I’m curious how attending a wake will feel in the midst of “coming to terms” with my own mortality, a wake at the same place we held one for both my brother and dad. I cannot plan for any of what I will feel tomorrow, not to mention I’m moving into the days I will be my most sick from chemo. Alas, now I have a goal.
Before I leave tomorrow, I may just tuck that 3x5 card into my pocket and carry it with me, to touch it when I need reminding. I will find beauty tomorrow and the next day and the next. There is still living in this even if death is part of it. For all the happenings of tomorrow, it also falls on a full moon, one of four supermoons of the year. A thing of beauty indeed I hope to see, even if Evan has to wheelie me around the hood in a wheelchair.
