An Unfamiliar Face

I look in the mirror these days, and don't recognize the face looking back at me. It's disconcerting, to say the least.

It's happened a time or two before in my life. Obviously, I don't have the face I did when I was twenty, and the aging process is not linear, at least not for me. This is one of the times it's progressed in a couple of big jumps, so the face I see in the mirror today is not the one I saw when I looked there a year ago.

Working in the castle all last year definitely didn't help things any. I spent most of my days there, where there were few mirrors, and I certainly didn't spend any time trying to find one in order to check my appearance. When I was home, I'd look at myself just long enough to make sure I'd gotten all the plaster dust and paint daubs out of my hair. Somewhere in there, I got my hair cut much shorter than I've worn it as an adult - the daily routine of dirt and washing had destroyed the ends (and much of the middle parts).

It's just a little nerve-wracking, this process of catching an image I don't recognize out of the corner of my eye. I'm the only one here, so you'd think I'd recognize ALL the faces around the place. But, no. I see a face, jump a little, and then realize it's just me.

I've stopped a few times to study this new face, the person people see when I leave the house. (To be accurate, they will one day see it, on that day faraway when we can be around people without wearing masks all the time. The day will come, I'm pretty sure.)

She's not bad looking, the woman in the mirror. She's no longer young, but the lines around her eyes and mouth speak of a lifetime where smiles showed more frequently than frowns. I like that about her. Her jowls are loosening, the lines sharply defined between the corners of her mouth and her chin line. She looks a lot like the aunts on my Mom's side of the family. She has a dimple in her cheek accenting her smiles. Her short, curly, mop of hair has several generous streaks of gray, and she has clearly given up all attempts to keep it tamed. It's spunky.

I am relieved to conclude that she looks like someone I would like if I ever got to know her, because somehow, improbably, when I make a face in the mirror, she makes the exact same face in return. She is me, or I have become her. Whichever.

While there's a small part of me that's sad to know the last vestiges of youth are quickly leaving my face, the greater part of me is most grateful I'm around to observe the changes. You aren't born with a face like mine, you have to earn it!

And, Good willing, this will not be the last time I need to adjust to reality. Gettin' older ain't for sissies, but it sure beats the alternative. (At least as far as I know, but that's a whole 'nother topic.)

Here's to life, changes and all!

Happy Cancaversary #9

I still think I should get some sort of medal for showing up that day, the day of my surgery.

I'd been having the time of my life, wandering around the country worried only about where I'd stop the next night. I felt FINE; nothing in my body told me anything was amiss; nothing alerted me I needed surgery. I needed to be cut open, because, why????

Stupid lump. It brought my trip to a screeching halt. There were tests and more tests. I managed one more quick two week journey between the last test and the time my new apartment was ready for me to move on in. It was a bittersweet reprise, a chance to say goodbye to my dream.

I had a wonderful time those weeks despite my underlying 'what if' concerns, the miles made almost unbearably precious by the awareness these might be the last I'd travel. I went south and west, staying with family and friends. I can still see the winter-barren landscape of northern New Mexico, the spot I pulled off the road to talk to the breast surgeon. I remember the burnt-yellow grasses and tumbleweeds, the blue sky striped by winter-gray clouds, the rising hills, the barbed wire next to the road, the sense of unreality as I looked at the beauty around me while we hammered through the pluses and minuses and decided that yes, I wanted to go ahead with a double mastectomy.

I felt fine that morning nine years ago - but knew I wouldn't in a few hours.

Near as I can recall, I was outwardly calm as I walked up to the desk and checked myself in like the adult I'm supposed to be, not letting any sign of my inner screams of terror show. Because we were behaving, the hospital staff let me have six (or so) of the allowed two friends in the small curtained cubicle where we waited for surgery to start. I was grateful for the distraction; glad to not be alone with my fears surrounding the brutal amputation to come. (Brutal, yes. But the best chance I'd have to have more days to travel new roads.)

They started an IV, wheeled me down the hall to the operating room. My memories start again in the hospital bed sometime late that afternoon, those same friends still there, talking and laughing and distracting me as the drugs wore off and the pain sauntered on in to stay for a spell.

Along with the pain, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief at the wonderful news awaiting my return to awareness. My lymph nodes were clear. They'd gotten good margins around the tumor. All evidence of disease was successfully removed. My chances to survive for some time were good.

Nine years ago. It feels like it was yesterday. It feels like it was three lifetimes ago, maybe four. It's been a tumultuous nine years - filled with loss and new life and hard lessons to learn and wonder at the power of Good. As grateful as I still am that mine was the kind of cancer we know how to make go away for a while, I know it was chance's whim that mine wasn't the sort of aggressive cancer that killed my sister, Libby.

I've traveled far. And while (maybe, because??) the awareness that the cancer can and probably will reappear one day is never far from me, I've learned to do my best to live each of the days I've been given. To try not to mourn the might-have-beens, the once-wases, the will-never-bes, but to look for the good in every day, because when I remember to look, good is there. Every time.

Nine years later, I am still here; my story continues.

Good Is.

 

Music Returns?

I can't pinpoint just when the music went away.

It started drifting away after the kids left home for college. I still sang with Musica Sacra, but somewhere in there, quit playing piano.

By the time my dream trip was abruptly cancelled, and I started getting back on my feet after cancer treatment, music was gone. Even after I moved into my current house, almost eight years ago, and got my piano back from the friends who stored it for me when I had no space for it, the instrument was mute.

The piano is certainly a presence in my space - it's a grand piano, and takes up a sizeable chunk of my living room real estate. But I've been walking around it for years. I've gotten it tuned occasionally. I sometimes stop to run a hand along the curve of the sound box, just to enjoy the tactile sensation of the smooth wood. I've even thought, once in a while, about getting rid of it, but that thought's never gained serious traction. 

I've held onto it. But. I haven't played it.

Until just this last week.

For reasons I don't yet understand, the desire to make music started stirring in my heart shortly after the inauguration. As part of my campaign to figure out (again) what I want to do when I grow up, I've been trying to listen to what I'm trying to tell me these days.

So.

I got the piano tuned. (first things first...)

After the tuner left, I dug through my music cabinet, pulled out a yellowing book, and sat down to play a once-loved piece. Clearly, taking a decade or so off from playing doesn't do much for skill levels. I couldn't even begin to make it come together. *sigh*

But rather than give up, I dug through the cabinet again, looking for some basic skills books. Sadly, I came up empty.

But rather than give up, I called my longtime friend, Lisa, who taught lessons to my kids, and asked her for recommendations. She had some books on her shelf she was happy to loan me, and I went and picked them up late last week. She was also kind enough to give me some pointers on how to get started.

Now, when I sit down to try to play, I have more luck. I have even made some progress. The notes that were tentative and uneven that first night have already begun to smooth themselves out a bit.

Oddly enough, somewhere in there, while my active mind has lost the ability to read both the left and the right hand staffs simultaneously, my unconscious mind still has the skill. If I can get into a zen state, I can play some simple compositions. The minute I try to think about the music, it's one hand or the other, not both. I presume this, too, shall pass. Hopefully - it's disconcerting.

I've been trying to play each day for about thirty minutes - long enough to make a little progress, not enough time to get overly frustrated with myself - and wonder of wonders, the music has begun to return. 

As I play, something inside loosens a bit, unwinds, relaxes, breathes. Tears rise, and sometimes fall, but they are good tears, healing tears. I think I've missed the music more than I knew. 

I'm glad it's thinking about returning, I hope it will stay.