Hallowed Haunts

Happy Hauntings This All Hallow's Eve

Lead us to the best sweets to receive

Be they chocolate

Or be they not

Don't give me carob, the worst deceive!

Who moved this floor?! 

The ground is much lower-down tonight than it was when I was eight, or even earlier this evening before adding six-inches of height by putting on rental-roller-skates. I take short, clompy, tentative steps out onto the funky old-school roller rink’s painted wood floor. Wow! It’s a long way down. Am I crazy to be doing this at my current age? 

Please, let me stay UP! 

Whoosh! People are whizzing by. Stay close to the wall this first time around, Maxwell. Get used to the feel. Let your body relax and remember. You used to do this for hours on end, time out of mind… with metal wheeled skates secured ‘round your flappy-soled shoes while your skate key bumped against your boney chest and you swept the Eucalyptus pods off the red cement patio. No brakes in those days, except for walls and dragging one skate sideways. And those Eucalyptus pods could make you stop. On a dime! Or a pod, if your wheel hit one! Instant stop usually meant a fall. I got good at gliding around those nasty suckers. Just as I’m learning to skate around the rough bits on the worn wooden boards of this circa 1950s floor.

Remember, body. Remember!

Remember the Joy! 

Ignore the memory of Daddy saying, “You have to wear a pillow tied to your butt.”  It came from his fear and was meant to be loving, but it was humiliating with friends there! Ignore the memory of skinned knees. (Actually, remember that those knee hurts happened less with skating, and more with sliding into home from Angelika and Peter’s house across the gravel car-park area at the top of your dead-end-hill in Echo Park. At sunset, Mom would hold you on her lap to apply mercurochrome the same color as the sky.)

Remember how wonderful it felt to spin around on the skates holding onto the redwood siding of the dining-room-corner of the house at the end of the patio and skate backwards along the cement pathway to the end, then forward again to spin around that same corner and skate clockwise all around the perimeter of the patio. 

Pause. Smile. Repeat.

Hours of fun imbedded in cellular memory. Sixty years later, it’s still a thrill. I can’t stop smiling. My Somatic Experiencing friends and I sail around and around more and more confidently with each lap - giving each other thumbs up and air fives.  (An actual high five at this point would probably end badly.)  All night, folks on the sidelines give us thumbs up. All generations helping one another. Little kiddles being helped by teens and parents. I befriend a rainbow-clad lass of ten. She likes my green scarf. She wants to learn to go backwards. We play at it a while. She sorta gets it! The rental attendant, when I turn in my skates to her at the end of the evening says, “Girl! I was watching you. You did GREAT!.” 

“Thanks. It comes back, doesn’t it.” I say. 

“I love skating!”

Maybe it’s the white hair - breaking the stereotype that old people aren't supposed to be able to do this. I feel nearly 20, not nearly 70. Except for one butt bruise (where's that pillow when I need it?) I am intact and happy.

In the heat of July, my husband and I took our recently-turned-seven-year-old granddaughter to an ice rink. She and I were whizzing ‘round by the end of our rental hour. SUCH a delight to share that time with her and witness, from this outside perspective of my advanced years, the period of HUGE BRAIN-GROWTH SPURT of which Piaget, the child development specialist, spoke. During the seventh year, along with permanent teeth, so many new skills emerge. She has mastered cursive writing and jumping rope. She is working on bicycle balancing, does well on the ice, and can play a few tunes on the piano. These skills are flourishing exponentially. In addition, she's recently read two books in the Harry Potter series - the second one, three times -  and many other advanced-for-second-graders books and series of books. She’s quite fond of Calvin and Hobbs, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe series.

She wows and warms my heart. 

I looked all over the house for my shoe skates Saturday.  I purchased them in the 1980s, when my friend Emily and I found a wonderful rink where we could take our kids. Her kids were about the same age as mine. Fun times. I thought sure I knew just where I put them when we moved here to our new home in Oakland. Too many rooms. Too many closets. Can’t find them anywhere. Perhaps I gave them away when we had our back to back “house coolings” on leaving the old house. I know I gave away the Razor Scooter. The skates, I thought I kept. Don’t remember. 

What a treat that my body remembers the yummy feel of the glide, the fondness for fast wind in my hair, and the exhilaration of re-mastering the old turns and backward skating. 

Thumbs up to all my SE peeps and the other lovely folks at Redwood Roller Rink’s Disco Night in Redwood City, California.

                                                   

                                                                          

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

How is it that I have a daughter who just turned forty? I feel younger than I remember my mom acting when I was forty! I wonder how she felt. Of more import is the worldly wisdom both our daughters embody at forty and at thirty-six. We were celebrating the older daughter’s birthday Saturday night, just before I went skating. I wanted the younguns to enjoy their night of gaming without looking over their shoulder, so stayed only an hour. What a beautiful, F U N, and delicious evening they created! When I left, they were playing walk-around Mad Libs, “Cards Against Humanity”, at one table, and Poker at another. I heard later they also played “Heads Up” which is an App for iPhones and tablets. Much later, they played Charades… no app necessary.  

Younger daughter and her husband drove up from the Central Coast to help out and 

P A R T Y    H A R D Y   &  H E A R T Y.

Seeing Mo surrounded by love and admiring friends warmed my heart. 

Grady put the frosting on the cake. Ecstatic Mosa


  What a spread!

                                    

Daughter Mosa did so much prep for this night of games. She is deservedly tired and ready for some deep sleep.

Ditto

Zzzzzzzzz…

Think I'll dream of skating while eating yummy Day of the Dead Candy from Casa de Chocolates in Berkeley by way of Mosa's friend Nick. 

Orgasmic.

Tuesday Blues Day

Down in the dumps

Not due to Trump’s

Swaggering boast bumps

That land on my heart/mind with painful thumps

Perhaps it’s the season

Or no special reason...

There’s just no pleasin’

My honey or me this morning, we’re wheezin’

Logey and tired

Both feeling mired

Now coffee has wired

Us to jitters, still blue, both too uninspired

To get up and DO.

What’s usually true

Is nowhere in view

Our energy zapped, in need of a nap to zap this blue

Is it mere numbers?

Needing naps and more slumbers?

One daughter is FORTY

I’m sixty-eight, he’ll be SEVENTY come January

No reason to rhyme

There just isn’t time

The hour glass sand

Drains faster each day, while we question all that we've planned

Are we quite grown?

We've babes of our own

But feel newly sown

And the weight of the world makes us audibly groan

Are we mature?

Or full of manure?

Deceitful tenure

Cheers, jeers and taunts haunt our dreams of grandeur

Is this a crisis of faith?

The dark night’s cold wraith?

The soul’s uncertain beseeching

Feels like a twelve ton whale’s baleful, desperate beaching

This too shall pass

My Gram would assess

May I trust that our glass

Is not broken nor empty, but that when the class

Is done and the bell rings

We’ll be glad of the wings

That end of life brings

And fly away home to the Music of Spheres as it sings?

May it be so... but not yet...

Donald! Duck!

Quick! Get DOWN, dude! There's a lot of mud slinging your way!

And your pitching arm is warmed-up as well... you're slinging some phrases around that sound awfully reminiscent of 1935 Germany, mein Trumpkin.

If all the women complaining about your overreaching hands band together in a class action suit, they could possibly get a "grope discount."

Really? Can't you keep those small digits to yourself?

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

And Hillary, dear, please, sweetheart, you need to get down too... but more like... take the coat hanger out of your suit before you put it on! Get some rhythm going, gal! Let the wind blow through your hair. 

I agree, it certainly is a narrow tight rope way up there under that glass ceiling, and I know you've been unfairly taken to task for every visual image imperfection. You're right. It's NOT fair! No one counts Donald's wrinkles, or chin whiskers, or chins for that matter. His suits are better at hiding the cuddle muscles around his waist. 

He'd better not stalk you this Wednesday, as he did last "debate!" 

Don't belittle yourself, Ms. Clinton, Be BIG yourself, dear! With swing states and purple states waffling in the wind, nothing is a given. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

People! People!! People!!!

Complacency paves the way of despots. We've got to stand up and speak our truth, and listen to other's truths. The next four years will be long and possibly brutal for our country, unless we learn to walk side by side with those who think differently from us. We must listen. We must listen to what's underneath the anger, frustration, and desperation. We must listen until the vitriol is spent and  then ask "What's next?" It's the cover over the feelings that is dangerous, not the human heart itself. 

We're closer than we think. We're more alike than we are different. How we gonna come back to respect for and acceptance of our sisters and brothers on the planet? How we gonna get back to respecting our Mama Earth?

Listen.

Smile where smiles are unexpected.

Being human is irresistible. Other humans are caught off guard when they don't expect humanity to shine through. Your actions are powerful.

Vote your heart out... but vote for the succeeding generations, not for a joke, or out of vengeance, or spite for the current political climate. Bernie is past. But his vision for a sane political landscape has ignited passion. Let's not waste it.

Building Abs to Stomach the Debates

Who says watching TV necessitates imitating a couch potato?

I cannot stomach the circus of these mud-slinging candidates while sitting still. I jumped on the mini-trampoline for much of the two hour spectacle. I paced and shook out my arms after some push-ups against the wall and did a lot of sit-ups. It was sit up or spit up!

My adrenaline spikes every time the Great Trumpkin opens his mouth, or purses it, or puts a microphone to it. I hope the TV glass doesn't permanently show the imprints of my two fingers poking out his scan-line eyes on the big screen. In a less violent display of disgust, we're going to carve a Jerk-o-Lantern for Halloween this year. My husband says... "At least it starts off the right color!"

Rome's fall took more time than our rapid decline. We're not far from the lions and the Christians in an arena.

My heart is still pounding with fear and loathing.

May the next thirty days bring some clarity or a gift along the lines of what historically descended from the top of the stage in ancient Greek plays... Deus ex Machina... SAVE US, dear Gods and Goddesses! Save us from ourselves... preferably before the seas rise to swallow us all. Maybe it will only take another few videos of the unbelievable, and I mean UNbelievable Great Trumpkin being his inimitable self in a public. Fact checkers aside, we need to hear from psychologists and psychiatrists about the danger of having a narcissist in power with his finger on the nuclear button.

I wish I loved Mrs. Hillary Diane Rodham Senator Secretary Clinton. For me she's the only clear choice to maintain choice for women over our own bodies, protecting the planet, and providing for the common good. I have volunteered to drive people to the polls who do not have transport. I may have to do some more ab workouts before November 8... and definitely before October 19! Why am I drawn to the flame of the debate? It fascinates and horrifies me. Good for building abs, though.

Hooked on Hope

“The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease”

---Voltaire

Arriving early I park on a side street. I’m grateful for the deep shade of trees this hot August morning. An NPR story about New Orleans five years after Hurricane Katrina is background accompaniment to my whirring mind. Am I doing the right thing seeing a camper outside of camp? How do I break down teaching crochet into small enough chunks so a brilliant nineteen year old who is recovering from chemo can absorb it? Amanda wants to make cozy hats for other teens who are newly bald. Nearly always she wears one that was given to her when her own hair fell out.

I reach for my practice yarn on the passenger seat and let my hands remember the steps for chaining and single crochet as I listen to the radio and muse. Out of the corner of my memory I see a glimpse of the cover of one of my favorite memoirs: Totto Chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. This book has spurred my passion to empower kids since the 1980’s when I read it to my daughters. 

Totto Chan wants everyone she meets to be happy. Born just before the bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki she lives life at full speed. In one chapter she helps Yasuaki, a nine-year-old boy in her class, whose polio stricken legs are in braces, to see the view from her favorite tree. She pushes, pulls, shoves and coaches him up the tree. Though the adventure necessitates much problem-solving, is precarious and exhausting, the two children are delighted with the outcome. I want my young friend Amanda to see the view from the tree which I’ve named, “Capable Crocheter.” I want her to feel empowered to catch her dream.

My husband and I have a running theme in our marriage of 38 years. Like Totto Chan we seem compelled to champion folks who’ve been dealt a difficult hand. We feel extraordinarily lucky and we want to give back… much the same way Amanda wants to give back - making and distributing chemo-caps. 

“Pun,” as my husband is called at camp, does magic for kids in hospital and has done so since he was sixteen. We both volunteer at multiple kid venues including Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, Padres Contra el Cancer and The Painted Turtle Camp. He’s much more active than I- volunteering hundreds of hours each year and earning Volunteer of the year awards. In his shadow I do what I can. I’m better one on one than with big groups. 

So many of the young cancer survivors we meet at camp are inspiring heroes to the rest of the world – like Totto Chan and Yasuaki – trying new things and challenging preconceived notions of limitation. My personal goal is to level the playing field where ever I can. Life isn’t fair. It takes so little to give a smile to someone who hasn’t worn one for a long time.

Ooops! The radio signals me it’s ten o’clock, my appointed time to be at Amanda’s. I pull around the corner and park in front of her house.

Gathering my stuff, I’m recollecting what I know about Amanda. Her leg is gone. I am outraged for her. I have dreams – nightmares – about what happened to it. Burial at sea? Burned? Buried with other amputee’s best beloved limbs? Her equanimity shames me. There ought to be a ceremony. All I know for sure is that she had two legs and was vibrantly alive. Now she’s a one-legged wonder with a lot of spunk and a mission.

I get out of my car. On the short walk from my car to the front door I remember January, when we shared a cabin for her very first session of camp… 

I see her perched on her lower bunk while her ten cabin-mates bustle about – in tank tops and shorts - arranging their stuff on their bunks and shelves in the over-heated cabin. This is where we’re all sleeping during our four days at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times.  

Reliving this first night of winter camp I can almost feel how freezing cold it is outside – a welcomed body memory as I approach Amanda’s front door. It’s already 90+ degrees in the shade here. 

In my memory… 

Amanda is wearing her coral-colored crocheted gift-hat. There’s a perky flower on it with a yellow center. 

 “I’m afraid I’m not going to fit in here,” she confides to Charice. She’s squirming on her lower bunk, shoulders hunched, head down –almost sheepishly futzing with her baby-doll night dress in an effort to hide the fact that her right leg has gone missing. She reaches out to pull her walker out of Kate’s way.

“I don’t want to be a downer or a burden and I sure don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me… I can’t trust that kind of friendship,” she continues, sighing deeply. She pulls off her fuzzy hat and pokes at the flower.

“What?!” Charice is wide-eyed. “You SOOO belong here, girlfriend!” She plops down on Amanda’s cot. “Oh, may I sit on your cot?”

“Of course.” Amanda looks up. Her smile is radiant.

Heather comes over and sits on the floor in front of Amanda and Charice. “I had part of my brain removed,” she says. “I had a walker for a long time. Hey! We can decorate yours at Arts & Crafts!”

Terri says, “You know… my brother was so sick... I remember tiptoeing around. I thought there was no love left over for me. I felt so guilty to tell my parents when I needed anything… you know, like for school. I felt angry, and guilty for feeling angry and needy. But he needed mom & dad’s attention. I was so confused.”

The eleven campers - eight patients and three siblings of patients - settle-down and make an impromptu circle around Amanda’s bunk. Each of these amazing seventeen to nineteen year old women tells her story. My co-counselor, Tanni looks at me. We are both awed by the depth of conversation initiated by Amanda’s near apology for arriving here less than perfect. We gather the few girls still milling around.

“Let’s continue our closing circle, girls… so we can hear from everyone who wants to share,” I say.

Gretchen says, “After my surgery I had a stroke. Now I limp and I’m like totally numb on my right side.” 

Laurel says, “I know my illness totally messed up my brother and sister’s lives but I couldn’t do anything to change my parents’ behavior. Like your brother, Terri, I really did need all that extra attention just to get through the effects of surgery and chemo. Still…,” she tells us through her tears, “I felt so guilty for taking all the attention.”

Tanni and I each take some Kleenex and pass the box.

I found out later that Bethany went unsupervised at the height of her sibling’s illness and during our camp session she was six months pregnant by an abusive boyfriend. She felt so alone and so horribly “bad” she still hadn’t told her mom or grandmother. She sat silent through the entire out-pouring of heart-felt reality as each girl shared. I only found out later from a counselor, who had Bethany in her cabin the previous summer, about her situation. Bethany up-dated her summer counselor because she already knew the story. All we can do at camp is to shower them with unconditional love. Still… I wish I could have followed Bethany home to smooth the path for her. 

Camp is magic. Cancer is an equal opportunity destroyer. Surviving it and the effects it has on family life creates bonds that run deep as the Mariana Trench. These kids did not ask to be in this special club. But each understands intimately what membership brings… and what it costs.

Camp has strict rules governing interactions between kids and counselors outside of camp. The firewall is there for a good reason and on a few occasions my husband and I have gently pushed through the firewall to be of service to particular kids or families whose needs match our skill sets, but only when we’ve been invited to do so by the parents. My husband “Pun” is great at lifting spirits of patients, siblings and parents; I’m good at teaching crafts and some simple techniques to ease discomforts related to treatment. My name at camp is “Moose.” “Pun” (king of the bad jokes) named me long before our camp involvement. He joked that I was too big to call “deer” (dear). Moose stuck and has been my camp name since I started in 2000.

Amanda’s mom invited me to come today. Still, nearly at their front door, I suddenly feel a bit shy. I don’t want to be misunderstood in my follow-through of a promise to teach mother and daughter how to crochet - a promise made while visiting Amanda in hospital. She was undergoing chemo therapy for the cancer that ate away half her pelvis before being correctly diagnosed. The necessary surgery left no place to attach her right leg – which was healthy – so she had to lose it.

I hate cancer. I hate the suffering it - and the treatments, Slash, Burn, and Poison - visit upon vulnerable patients… especially when those patients are children. 

My jaw clenches. I look at my sandaled feet, take a deep breath, squeeze my yarn bag and clear my throat knowing that as I ring the bell and step over the threshold I may also be stepping over a line.

*********

“Moose! Come in, come in… Amanda is just here in the living room,” says Lynn, Amanda’s mother.

There, at the end of the couch, stands Amanda’s walker – the one she and her cabin mates decked out with feathers and flowers at camp. On the low coffee table I see the bag of yarn I brought to Amanda’s graduation party last June. She celebrated a double graduation: from High School and from Chemo! Pun and I were honored to be invited and got to meet family members, long-time school pals and her new friends from the teen cancer-support group.

Her yellow sundress is fluffed expertly around her, carefully concealing the gap where her right leg should be. She brought her prom pictures to camp to show us what she looked like before her diagnosis and amputation. We all oohed and aaahed over her beauty, her waist length wavy black hair, the gorgeous dress, sexy shoes and the cute guy on her arm. Today her face has a grayish-green cast. She’s got new, soft fuzz growing back in on her head. Her eyebrows are carefully penciled on. 

“Hey, Amanda! I’m so glad to see you!” I put my purse and yarn bag down and hold out my arms.

“Hi, Moose!” Her smile is still radiant.

I’m leaning down to hug her. She reaches for her walker and stands up to hug me tight, then moves to the center of the couch nearer the coffee table to sit. 

I sit to her right. 

“How’s your summer goin’?” I ask.

“I had a blast at summer session and I’ve been in touch with Heather and Lindsay and Laurel from our cabin in January…” she begins, then urgently Amanda gets up and goes quickly with her walker down the hall. Click, clack, slide, click, clack slide. She’s so fast!

“I’ll be right back, Moose.” She calls over her shoulder.

I hear muffled conversation in the hallway. Several minutes later, she returns looking pale.

“Sorry, my tummy feels crummy today.”

“I’m sorry too, Lovely. Remember there’s nothing here you have to do. Just like camp… this is challenge by choice. I can come back another time.”

“No. I want to do this.” She says, plopping down next to me and I believe her. 

Lynn returns with some glasses of water for us and sits to my right.  Lynn, a veteran knitter, shows me how she tried to figure out crochet using a book, a hook and some yarn I brought to the party. 

“It’s beautiful!” I say. “I have no idea how you did that!”

We giggle over the purple and green woolen caterpillar-like creature attached to the hook.

I set up mother and daughter with practice yarn of their choosing and appropriate-sized hooks. 

Amanda wants desperately to master this skill. I want to empower her with the basics. I teach her to make the first loop which she practices several times. Her hands are shaky and her comprehension is wobbly. Maybe it’s the new rounds of chemo. Maybe it’s just that she’s feeling distracted by the nausea today. I hate cancer.  She works on her first chain of twenty or so loops.

“Ooooh, I can’t do it!” her hands shake more with the effort of trying to squeeze the hook through too tight a loop.

“Do me a favor,” I say lowering my own hands to my lap and looking into her eyes. “Pun taught me this: Say, ‘Moose, I can’t do it – yet.’”

“Moose, I can’t do it - yet.” She mimics, lowering her hands to her lap.

“What you’ve got here is a pretty even chain of loops,” I say holding it up. “Can you see how uniform they are?”

“Yeah… but…”

“That’s veeeery goooooood.” I interrupt. “AND, yeah… you’re right, it’s hard to do when the loops get too tight. That’s where tension control comes in really handy. Remember you can make the loops tighter by lifting your pointer finger up - which pulls the yarn – making tighter loops, and you can lower your finger – to give more slack to the loop - making it looser.”

She practices the tension adjustment for a dozen more loops and her eyes light up.

“I get it…” She looks up at me.

We smile into each other’s eyes.

I sense Lynn smiling next to me. 

“OK… here comes a fun part. Are you ready?”

Amanda nods.

“Just by pulling this here - your working thread - you can undo all your work and start fresh!”

“What?!!” she looks horrified.

“Well… you could continue as you are, but I think it will be easier if we start you off with a lighter color yarn so you can see more clearly what you’re doing and if you use your new found tension control skill from the very beginning. It’s all just practice… the more you do the better you get.”

“Ooo Kaaay…” Doubt drags out her response. “But I want to save this one… to remember what I did.”

“Gotcha! Great idea… then you can look back and see your progress… like a mountain climber looking down the mountain to realize, ‘Wow! I’ve come a long way!’”

She puts the navy blue starter chain carefully on the coffee table. We start again with light-pink yarn and already I can see her progress.

“Wooo hoo! Remember how long it took you to make that first loop a while ago? Now you’re a pro! No sweat! Look at you go!”

“Here’s another one to remember…” I say, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly at first!”

Lynn laughs and adds, “I learned to knit when I was twelve. I was terrible at it. Finally, after lots of practice I got the hang of it and it got easier and I got better… but it took a while.” 

I look over and help Lynn with the crochet chain she’s working on. I show her the next step. When I look back over at Amanda’s chain she’s beaming and the stitches are even and loose enough to start her second row. She gets the action of looping back into the chain and practices a few stitches. She’s shaky.

“I’m tired. I’m going to lie down.” Amanda gets up and walks around the table to the shorter couch. She parks her walker and curls up with a well-worn pillow under her head and a chenille throw over her.

“Feeling woozly again?” I ask. “May I show you acupressure points for nausea?” She nods. “I’ll show you on your mom first, OK?” To Lynn, “May I?”

 “Sure, Moose… how do you know all this stuff?”

I move to sit on the floor in front of Lynn and next to Amanda.

Here it comes, I think to myself. At camp we counselors don’t talk much about our personal lives with our campers – unless it comes up organically… it’s all about the kids. Outside camp I’m a yoga teacher and body worker with 25 years experience in many modalities.

I demo on Lynn the points to hold. She holds her own toe and cheek and I question Amanda with my eyes for permission to do it on her. She nods, holding her cheek bone while I hold the only big toe she has.

“It’s my job…” I answer Lynn’s question. “I’m a body worker and trauma specialist. I help folks who’ve had ‘big owies’… like accidents and surgeries.”

“I think so much of Amanda’s stomach trouble is from anxiety…” Lynn begins… 

Turning and speaking directly to Amanda so that she may feel included in the conversation, I say, “Yeah, well… just because you’re anxious doesn’t mean there isn’t good reason to be!” I laugh. 

“Your body is sooo smart it’s always going toward health. When it feels threatened it automatically goes to the Fight/Flight/Freeze responses.” I pause and ask, “How’s the tummy feeling now after holding these points?”

“Better.” She says.

 “One way to slow down fear, which is the root of anxiety, is to notice the sensation of the fear – like constriction or shallow breath, sweating or nausea… Name it.” I say. 

“Describe it in detail to your reptilian brain.” I gesture to the back of my head. 

“That’s where the fight/flight/freeze lives. Then find a place in your body that feels alright and describe those sensations to your reptilian brain,” I continue. “It speaks the language of sensation… like hot/cold, prickly/smooth, constricted/expansive.”

“Nausea definitely feels tight.” Amanda puts her free hand between her ribs.

“And where do you feel less tight?”

“I guess my hands… even though they’re tired my hands feel loose.”

“Cool. Tell that same reptilian brain of yours how you know your hands feel loose…”

“Well… they’re warm and relaxed and… well, comfortable.” We pause to let that sensation register.

“That’s it,” I encourage her as she takes a deep breath, “and how does the tummy feel now? Worse? The Same? Or Better?”

“Better.” She says – with a little more oomph.

“That’s all you have to do to slow down the anxiety… name the truth of how it feels… how you know it is anxiety… and then describe how an easier part of your body feels. Your nervous system begins to understand that right here, right now there’s relative safety.” I pause and she lowers her hand from her cheek bone and I let go of her toe.

“The uncomfortable sensation is like a postcard from the past… your body remembering a time that felt scary. The ease you feel lets you know that right here, right now, you’re OK. It helps that reptilian brain calm down to know: oh, that was then… this is now. Now is relatively safe. No need to prepare for battle or run away.”

We practice moving her attention back and forth between the mid-tummy-nausea and the easier feeling  in her hands a few more times. Then she rests a bit while I support Lynn working on her scarf.

“Moose, will you show me the finger weaving that Bethany got so good at in January?” Amanda asks.

“Sure thing! It’s fun! AND it doesn’t require any hooks or needles… just your hands!”

I think about Bethany and her motivation to keep her hands busy and her thoughts to herself. She was so alone with the secret growing in her belly. I mailed her some yarn, hooks and a book through the camp office. She Face-Booked me a “thank you” and sent photos of her beautiful, tiny baby.

We chit-chat while they practice finger weaving. Lynn is doing really well; Amanda is getting it, but I can tell she’s tired.

“In a minute, not yet, I’m going to go. Do you have any questions for me?”

“Yeah, Moose… how do you save it so you can put it down and come back to it later?”

“What? You don’t want to sleep and shower with it on your hand?” I tease and look around. 

I see something Lynn put on the table.

“Aah… you’ve got this great safety-pin-clasp-thingy… let’s try that.”

Together we lace the giant safety pin through the loops so she can return to the finger weaving when she has more energy. She’s looking peaked. She lays her head back on the pillow. I squeeze her hand.

Bags in hand, I hold out a book to Lynn, which I brought today.

“Lynn, please keep this book for now. You’re both doing great! Maybe we can all meet at Stitch Café in North Hollywood one day soon. It’s so much fun to sit and stitch and….”

There’s a commotion on the couch. Amanda is sitting up facing the back of the couch and gesturing with her arm. In one swift move mama Lynn springs into action. She gets a basin under her daughter’s chin. Poor darling… the nausea is so unpredictable and so forceful.

“Sorry Moose… not a great way to say good-bye.” Amanda is speaking from the couch with her back to me and tissues in her hand.

“Hey, as my mother-in-law used to say… ‘better OUT than IN!’”

She attempts a laugh but wretches again instead. Lynn is walking me swiftly toward the door.

I’m not uncomfortable with what’s going on but I sense they are and I don’t want to intrude. They’re accustomed to this dance. They’re not used to being witnessed.

My mantra as I’m homeward bound is, “I hate cancer. I hate cancer. I hate cancer.” I’m pounding the back of my passenger seat. My eyes are brimming. How unfair this disease is. How brave and spunky this young woman is. How grateful I am to know her and try to empower her to catch hold of her dream to crochet hats. I’m glad we’ve had this time together. 

Amanda and her mom learned some crochet basics and body-work techniques today.  

I witnessed the look, the sound and the feel of courage under fire. 

I’m hooked on hope. I hope their playing field has fewer pot-holes ahead.

(Written in 2010)