The Power of Music

In the last week, I have had the opportunity to see two different live music shows. They could not have been more different. One was a very intimate setting, with maybe 40 people in the room, with acoustic guitars, beautiful voices, and a tiny drum kit that fits into a suitcase.  The other was a super loud rock show in a venue with over 2,000 people with lights, huge speakers, and three full bands.

One had musicians whom I am fortunate to know personally and whose music I listen to regularly at home. The other had bands whose music I didn't really know at all. I went because a very dear friend invited me, and I mostly just wanted to spend time with her.

Despite the totally different experiences, there was still something about them that was the same. There is something special about the power of music that brings a bunch of strangers together to share a common experience. There is a connection that happens with you and the performer, with you and the other audience members, that is hard to articulate, but you can feel that connection.

You don't need to know the lyrics to the songs to experience the emotion of it.  In fact, even when you know the lyrics, you often find that what they mean to you is different from what they mean to someone else.  Each person takes what they need from the song.  But if you pay attention, you can sense the energy and emotion of everyone in the room around you.  I had a few moments like that at these music shows.  I closed my eyes, and I could sense the life energy of all those people around me. I could sense their hopes, their dreams, their sorrows, and their beautiful life force humming in the background. I could sense that we are all the same. Behind the ego masks of who we think we are, if we peel them away we find that we are, really, all the same.

It's important to remember that during these divisive times. Maybe that's why music is so important. Music is universal. Before we are born, we hear the beating of our mother's heart, a rhythm of life that is always in the background.  Our own hearts continue the rhythm, and they all beat together into one continuous vibration.

I was inspired to pick my guitar back up and try to work on some new songs. I have only written two songs in the last year. One was a song for two sweet little babies who joined our world recently. (Just as a side note, if you are ever looking for a way to lift your spirits and stop focusing on the woes of the world, you should just write a song for babies. It's a surefire day brightener.)  The other I wrote while on vacation, inspired by the beauty of the natural world and the majestic trees of the Pacific coast. It takes inspiration to write a song. Sometimes I just don't have it. Sometimes I channel the spark of those creative impulses into writing this blog. In some ways it is a lot easier. In some ways, it is actually the lazy route for me. I don't have to think about meter or rhyme, or what key I should use. I don't have to worry about if I can actually play on guitar what I hear in my head  But I have to admit it really doesn't satisfy the same need.

I realized this after listening to the songs from both of these music shows.  I think we need to tell our stories in music because I think it might be the language we communicate in best.  I just started working on a song that I'm calling "Alright Today". Because, for today anyway, I am alright. My scans this week showed no progression of my cancer. I'm happy to report that things are stable, and we will continue with the current course of treatment. So I am alright. And I'm going to tell that story.

Listening to the Body

I have not done any running this week. In my last post, I suggested that my body should not be listening to what my mind says.  It is, however, true that the mind should usually listen to what the body says.  The start of the school year typically brings new viruses into the house, and Jasper brought home a potent one that he so generously shared with me. My body has been fighting this virus for a few days, and it does not really want to run right now, so I've been keeping the exercise to walking, a few planks, and some light yoga.

Our bodies tell us things all the time.  How often do we listen?  I know I am guilty of ignoring what it is saying to me.  When I have aches, pains, coughs, discomforts, I usually shrug them off, convinced that they will go away soon. If I am really, really tired, do I go to bed earlier? Usually not. If I am feeling a little under the weather, do I go to work? Yep! I usually do. If my cough isn't going away, do I go in to the doctor right away? Um. No, not so much. Perhaps if I had been listening a little better to my body I would have realized that I was not just out of shape last year. Perhaps if I had not been truly paying attention, I would have felt the slow decline of my stamina and realized something was up much sooner.

As a practicing yogi, I always thought I was pretty in tune with my body. I can tell when I"m getting stressed, and I can find a breathing pattern that helps me to remain calm. I can see when I should back off of a challenging pose that my muscles are not ready for.  It's been a long time since I've injured myself in my practice because I do pay attention when I'm on my yoga mat.  But as I reflect on the past year, I can see that I wasn't following the same practice off the mat.  My body was hollering at me that things were not right, and I just refused to listen. As I find myself coughing from this cold virus, I am reminded of how many weeks I was coughing last fall, and how I kept telling myself that the cough was nothing serious.  And we all know how that turned out.

I'm feeling pretty good these days. I feel strong. I feel pretty healthy. On Monday I go in for my quarterly CT scan and bone scan and we will see, visually, if things match up with how I feel.  I like to think I've gotten better at paying attention to my body. I'm trying to eat the right things, and make all the right moves. I am trying to take a few minutes each day to sit and simply notice where I am holding stress, to notice where I am feeling not quite 100%. I'm trying to listen to the subtle hints and whispers that say move, rest, eat, drink, sleep.

The body will eventually get your attention, one way or another. I'm learning not to make it yell.

Peeling off the Labels

I am not a runner.  At least that's what I've always thought about myself. I am not athletic. The only "sport" I ever really was decent at was water-skiing, but if you don't live on a lake and own a ski boat, it's not exactly an activity that you can do every day.  I walk and do the yoga thing. I bike a little bit, but I wanted to up my cardiovascular activity, and running seemed like the quickest way to improve my fitness level and also to quickly get those steps in each day that my FitBit tracks for me.  So I decided to try running a little every day. I figured it would probably take me a few weeks of trying before I could even run a mile. After all, I'm a little bit broken, right? For heavens sake, I'm in cancer treatment. How could I possibly run a mile yet?

I started by running a block and then walking a block and just alternating back and forth a few times.  I did that for a couple of days. And then, on the third day, I wasn't really paying that much attention, and I realized I was still running into the second block. And when I finished those two blocks, I realized I was working hard, but not so hard that I needed to stop. And then I just kept going until I found I had reached that one mile mark. Once I stopped listening to the voice in my head that was telling me how hard it would be to run a mile, I found I could actually do that mile without too much difficulty. By disregarding that label of "broken" that I had given myself, I found that the label was false. All those other labels, that I am not a runner, that I am not athletic, they are false too.  When my mind stopped telling my body what it couldn't do, it did just fine.

We assign labels to ourselves and to others all the time.  We define ourselves by our jobs, by our friends, by our beliefs, and by so many other ways.  I am a mother. I am a bad cook. I'm an extrovert. I am smart. I am not that smart. I'm great at math. I'm terrible with numbers. I am fat. I am not lucky. I am a liberal. I am a conservative. I am a cat person. I am a dog person. I am this. I am not that.  But when we start to label ourselves, we start to believe that is who we are.  We start to give the label more power than it deserves. In fact, if someone tries to take that label away from us or assigns us one that we don't like, we can even feel like we are worthless or that we have failed in some way.

I think we all know we should never read online comments, but sometimes curiosity takes over. It can be so discouraging, can't it? There is so much anger and judgement of each other. So many labels are being assigned. People do it in person, of course, but it seems to be even more prevalent with the relative anonymity of the internet.  Total strangers call one another fools, morons, evil, idiots, bitches, and much worse. It doesn't seem to matter if it's politics or if it's a book review or even a recipe suggestion. We don't understand why this stupid person who believes something different can't see how stupid they are being. And it gets us nowhere. We just end up feeling upset. We feel fear and anger over the things being said. And we don't just feel it in the mind. We can feel it in our bodies as we tense up and feel the emotion rippling through. Our bodies are always listening. Even if we don't believe we are stupid, having somebody label us as stupid gets under our skin.

Of course, none of those labels are really who we are. Labels are transient things. We can change our names. We could change jobs. I can change my hair color or my weight. I can change my religion or my political persuasion. I can change my opinion. I can change my mind. I will still be the same person. I am not really any of those labels.

What it we all stopped labeling ourselves?  What if we all stopped labeling each other?  How much more peace would we all have? We have so much unhappiness because of labels, because of our thoughts. But thoughts aren't true. They are just thoughts. Labels aren't true. They are just labels. Just words. We endow the thought with the power of reality, but a thought is not real. It's just a bunch of electric chemical impulses that happen in our brain. We lie awake at night because of thoughts. We yell at each other because of thoughts. We suffer because of thoughts.

Our bodies hear all of these thoughts and respond.  I am old. I am ugly. I am weak. I am lazy. I am fat. I am angry. I am tired. I am sick. We use these words, these labels, against ourselves, and our bodies listen and respond accordingly.

I have labeled myself as a cancer patient. I have given this label a lot of power, and I know I have let it take over my thoughts frequently. What if I stopped thinking of myself as a cancer patient? What if I stop thinking about what might happen and just live in the moment? What if I peel off the cancer label. How will my body respond?

Have you ever seen a flower that you didn't know the name of? You didn't need to know it's name to appreciate it's beauty. You could just appreciate that it was there. When we see beyond those labels, beyond the symbols we assign to things, we can discover the beautiful presence that is simply there. We are not labels. We are not thoughts. We are simply here, and we are beautiful.

What if we all peel away all the labels that we use to define ourselves? Who is underneath those labels? That's who we really are.

Let's peel off those labels.

Taking the Long View

Victory Memorial Parkway. Photo from Minneapolis Parks.

Last night, my son, Jasper, and I went for a walk.  We live near a very special park called Victory Memorial Parkway.  It's a 3 mile stretch of road bordered by green space that pays tribute to the 568 men from Hennepin County who lost their lives in World War I. Five-hundred and sixty-eight trees, evenly spaced, line the parkway, each with a plaque on the ground beneath bearing the name of a lost soldier. It's easy to take for granted this open space, but when you take a moment to ponder what this space represents, it's really an impressive thing.

It is especially impressive to think about the people who dreamed up this monument. It probably took several years to plan and bring to fruition. Charles M. Loring was known as the "Father of Parks" in Minneapolis, and he was the driving force behind the parkway (as well as most of the other parks in the city - you can read more about him here). The memorial was dedicated in 1921, and he died in 1922. He never got to see the parkway as he had envisioned it, with a canopy of full-grown stately elm trees lining its length. Trees grow far too slowly. But he gave more than $50,000 of his own money to make sure the trees of the parkway would continue to be cared for, even though he was never going to see them in their glory. This was someone who did not do things for instant gratification. He took the long view.  He did them because it was the right thing to do.

I am not so good at taking the long view.  I'm guessing most of us aren't. We like things to happen, and we like them to happen right now, thank you very much. We don't like to delay gratification. We want the bowl of ice cream tonight, even if we know the calories might add to our waistlines.  We know we should go to bed early to make getting up easier, but we stay up late to watch one more episode of "Stranger Things" on Netflix.  We know we should exercise, but it's hard, and sweaty, and this chair is pretty comfy and there's something new on Facebook that I haven't seen yet.

It often takes a lot of time to see results too, so the motivation has to be pretty strong to make yourself do things you don't really want to do. Exercise is one of those things we don't necessarily want to do. Yet research shows that vigorous exercise of 30 minutes or more at least five times a week is crucial for helping to keep cancer at bay. It changes the way that hormones are produced in the body and, it doesn't matter what kind of cancer you have. It's protective against almost all of them. We aren't talking about taking a 30 minute stroll. It has to be vigorous enough to make you feel almost like you are jogging - about 3.8 miles per hour, and you have to do this more than once or twice week. You can't just do a long, hard day on the weekend and expect it to count. It has to be more days than not. Anything less is just not effective. Isn't that annoying?

Of course, I've known for years that exercise is important. I've flirted with biking, walking, stair climbing, jogging, and such on and off over the years, but I've never developed a steady, long-term habit. You'd think the potential to die from cancer would be a strong motivating force for me to keep at it, but that just doesn't seem to be enough.

Today is my birthday. I've never been a big "celebrate my birthday" kind of person, but the reminder that birthdays are not foregone conclusions makes a person rethink things. So, I'm going to celebrate this birthday by setting some goals. I want to be able to run a mile without needing to stop.  I want to be more generous. I want to find ways to make people smile.  I want to be able to do at least 15 push ups (full Russian style). I want to give more than I get.  I want to write more songs.  I want to have another birthday. And then another. And then how about a few more?

I bought a Fit Bit as an early birthday present. Goals are good motivators, but it turns out that instant gratification is pretty powerful. It's a little silly that it takes a plastic band around my wrist telling me how many steps I have gone and how many "active" minutes I have completed today to get me out the door and moving, but it seems to work where fear of potential death does not. Crazy, huh?  I have been out walking, briskly, almost every day since I got it. Apparently, a little Huzzah! vibration on my wrist when I meet my step and activity goal is just what the doctor ordered. I guess we all just need someone to remind us of our goals and to tell us, occasionally, that we are doing a good job.

I'm trying to take the long view. I'm trying to set into motion the things that will make me healthier and life even better. I'm trying to take a page from Charles Loring's playbook and think about how to make this world a more beautiful place. Set enough aside to share with others. Pick up that piece of trash in the street, plant flowers, walk in the community every day and get to know my neighbors. Each little thing contributes to making life a little better.  Little things, done every day, add up to big things down the road.

Whatever we are doing that is hard, be it wanting to run a marathon or walk a block, or maybe even just wanting to get through to the next week, look at today. Look at what you can do today. Know that your effort today will pay off in some way. We may never even see the results for a long time, but we know that some good will have been done along the way.

And by the way, you are doing a good job.

Mental vs. Physical

Hiking in the Olympic Mountains

Seven months ago, things were not looking so good. I could not go up stairs without getting a little out of breath due to tumors all over my lungs. I also had cancer in my hip and one of my lower vertebrae. Oh, and my stomach still hurt from my liver biopsy, but that was the least of my concerns.  I was in chemotherapy treatment with no clear idea of when I would be done, and I had no real idea if the treatment was going to be effective.  So what did I do amidst all of these physical challenges and question marks?  I charged full steam ahead and planned an active family vacation of hiking in Olympic National Park and sea kayaking for four days off the coast of Vancouver Island.

I certainly had a few cautious thoughts, and I wasn't at all sure I would even be able to go on the trip like this several months down an uncertain road, but I reasoned that I could always take it easy and scale back if it was getting to be too much, and I had to trust that my health would be improved by the time vacation rolled around. Still, I was a little uncertain if maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew.  

In our first week of vacation, Lanny and Jasper went out on a fishing adventure with our friend, Tony and his son while his wife, Nadine, and I planned some mountain and coastal hiking.  She and I have gone on many backpacking adventures together, but we were preparing this time to mostly car camp with day hikes since I just wasn't sure how much my compromised body could handle.  But I wasn't ready to give in that easily.  I decided to believe that I could do more. So our last minute plans included a 3+ mile hike, with fully loaded backpacks, out to the coast to do some camping at Cape Alava.

And yes, it kind of sucked, just as I kind of knew it would. I know 3 miles doesn't sound very far, but just carry 20 to 25% of your body weight for 3 miles and then tell me how far that is. Trust me. It's plenty far for someone whose sole form of exercise is walking, yoga and biking 5 blocks to yoga.  But even though it was physically hard, it wasn't as hard as I imagined it would be. I took it step by step, and I was surprised at how much energy I had. Over the course of four days, we ended up hiking over 21 miles, with a little more than six of them carrying a full backpack. And the rewards for those efforts were immense with mountains for miles, majestic towering cedar trees in ancient rainforests, and amazing sunsets over the vast Pacific Ocean.

Lanny, Jasper and I continued our adventures by heading to Vancouver Island and taking part in a 4 day sea kayaking trip in Johnstone Strait. I will admit that, as far as camping goes, it was pretty cushy with all meals provided by our fabulous guides, covered tents on platforms, a covered dining area, hot outdoor showers, and a wood-fired hot tub. But it was still plenty active with about 15 miles of kayaking, a few cool rainy days, and leaping off of the rock cliff at camp into the icy cold water so that we could climb back up the cliff and enjoy the splendor of the wilderness hot tub. We were lucky to have a fabulous group of people on our trip to share the experience with, and we saw orca whales, humpback whales, dolphins, porpoises, bears, bald eagles, sea lions, harbor seals, and countless sea stars, jellyfish, anemones and urchins. It was totally worth the tired arms and shoulders, and I kept pace with everyone without too much effort.

I discovered something important on these adventures. We are mostly limited by our beliefs. The mental hurdles are often far more difficult to overcome than the physical hurdles. Yes, sometimes the physical part is really, really hard, but if you believe you can do it, you probably can. If you don't believe you can do it, you will probably never even try.  And you will miss out on so very much if you don't try.

You are so much stronger than you think you are. Believe it.





 

Connections

This past weekend, I went to my 30 year high school reunion.  It's a little hard to believe that 30 years have already passed since I graduated from high school, but time has a funny way of whizzing by in the blink of an eye.  The passage of time was evident, however, as I sifted through memories to put names and faces together. I was thankful for the name tags that included our senior pictures as many of us had changed a lot.  I know that I, personally, looked a lot different from my high school photo.  Remember, this was 1986 and big, curly hair ruled the day.  It's quite a contrast from the sleek 1/4" long white downy hair that currently adorns my head. Although many of my classmates already knew about my cancer journey through Facebook, those that didn't quickly put two and two together based on my hair.

I was a bit surprised at just how excited I was to see all of my old classmates.  After all, many of them I haven't even thought of in thirty years. In fact, there were probably a good number of people that I never really talked to even when we were in high school together. I'm from a pretty small town of about 12,500 people with only one middle school and one high school. Our class was small enough that we all sort of knew who everybody was, but it was big enough that we weren't all good friends. We all had our own little tribes that we tended to stick with, and some of us may only have encountered each other in the hallways of our school.

Despite the fact that I had almost nothing to talk about with some people, aside from the obvious, "where do you live now" and "do you have any kids" questions, I discovered that it didn't matter at all. I was still really, really happy to see everyone, even if I didn't say a single word to them all night. Every person in my class is a part of my history. We all shared a common experience that binds us together in ways that are hard to articulate. I spent the most formative years of my life with these people. It dawned on me at one point, that there were many people that I had known since I was 6 or 7 years old. Life has taken us all down different pathways, but as we danced to all the old songs and laughed with each other, I still felt connected to everyone there. They all played a part in making me who I am.

Cancer has opened my eyes just a little bit wider than they were before.  I appreciate the connections even more. I see my own energy and the energy of those around me in a different light, and I am beginning to understand just how much everyone I interact with contributes to my sense of self and well-being.

Today, I had another infusion day and we had an appointment with my oncologist (who also happens to know one of my classmates - their kids go to school together - more connections). We received good news that I am still having a positive response to treatment with stable to shrinking tumors. Some have disappeared completely and everything continues to move in the right direction.  We expected, based on my tumor marker numbers, that this might be the case, but it is always a relief when the scans match our expectations. My Dr. is extremely pleased and intends to keep me on what is appearing to be a very successful treatment regimen.

I, of course, wanted to share this great news with everyone, and I thought again about all of the people I am connected to, many of whom I have never met personally, and how much they all contribute to my state of being. I hear people tell me that I am strong, but I am not strong enough to make this journey alone. I have the strength of so many people walking with me.

The connections we make in our daily lives may not seem very important at the time, but those community connections matter. We never quite know what impact we may have on somebody, even if it isn't obvious. We are all so much more connected than we realize. I was grateful to be reminded of that by my classmates, and I am grateful every day for those that walk with me and keep me strong. If you are reading this now, that means you.  I am grateful for you.

Forgetting

The human body and mind are pretty amazing.  We, thankfully, have the ability to forget physical pain and discomfort. We remember it on one level, but as long as we feel good now, we tend to forget how awful we may have felt previously.  It's why women are willing to go through childbirth more than once. It's why people who swore up and down on a Sunday morning that they would never drink that much ever again, end up drinking the same amount the next Saturday. It's why people who have been sick and then get better tend to fall back into the same old habits that may have gotten them there in the first place.

I'm trying not to forget.

As the cancer recedes and my body begins to recover from the cancer and from the treatment, I'm trying not to forget how much my chest hurt from coughing so much. I'm trying not to forget how much my heart sank and I tasted the fear in my mouth when the emergency room doctor asked me if I wanted my son to wait outside the room while she told us my x-ray results.  I need to remember the crushing fatigue that would hit me three days after every chemotherapy treatment. I need to remember that I would be out of breath from climbing the stairs.

I need to remember these things because I don't want to grow complacent. I don't ever want to take for granted how amazing it feels to breathe deeply. I don't ever want to take for granted the gift of seeing my son grow taller.  I do not want to take for granted the ability to sit in the sunshine and have enough hair on my head to keep from getting a sunburned scalp. I especially must never forget the tremendous kindness and love that has been directed to me and my family. I have been humbled to the ground by so much generosity, that I may never find a way to repay it all.

I need to remember every act of kindness so that I can remember to give that same help to others.

Everybody encounters suffering of some kind.  I have had people tell me they feel guilty complaining of small difficulties in their lives because "it's nothing compared to what you have been through."  But my answer is that a challenge is a challenge no matter how big or small. We need to share our challenges with each other because we need each other to overcome them.  None of us gets through this crazy world without facing some serious pain, both mental and physical.

I am grateful that I don't really have any physical pain now aside from a few minor chemotherapy related side-effects that are diminishing daily. But I don't want to forget that pain because I can learn from it. I can learn what to do to try to avoid more of that pain in the future. And I hope that I can use the memory of that pain to lighten somebody else's load, just as mine was lightened.

We often forget that we are more alike than we are different. We often forget that we are all just a part of one great big whole. We often forget that we are here to help each other.

I'm trying not to forget.