First everything, then everything else

Fifteen years ago this week our house was buzzing with bridesmaids and relatives; one minute young people were setting off fireworks in the meadow and the next they were practicing swing-dancing in the garage. One day a host of strong voices sang their hearts out in harmony as their classmate played on a majestic pipe organ, and the next day friends and family gathered in the yard for a picnic while the neighbor's combo played old-time music. All this in celebration of our daughter's wedding--the high point of what turned out to be a roller-coaster year.

There's a reason I refer to 2009 as The Year Everything Happened, and it would be easy to focus entirely on the most horrible thing that happened--the cancer diagnosis that led me to believe I'd be lucky to be alive for five more years. But fifteen years later I see cancer as just one twist in a thrill ride that led, eventually, to a happier place. How did we get here?

Early in 2009 I switched from film to digital photography, took a class in Scientific Imaging and learned to use PhotoShop, all in preparation for taking thousands of photos of birds and bees and flowers and family and joyful celebrations.

My experience taking the Scientific Imaging class inspired an essay that I delivered at a conference and later published in the journal Pedagogy. In a banner year for scholarship, I delivered papers at three academic conferences in 2009--Pittsburgh in March, British Columbia in June, Philadelphia in December. Never before had I delivered three papers in one year, and probably never again. 

In spring I finished my term as English Department Chair and was elected Chair of the Faculty, but in the fall I had to hand over the gavel to an interim Faculty Chair when cancer treatment made it impossible to fulfill my duties. In spring I celebrated the opening of our new campus library and in summer I moved into a brand-new office over there to serve as the inaugural Director of the Worthington Center for Teaching Excellence--another role I had to postpone until after I was done with treatment.

In spring a beloved colleague announced her retirement plan just weeks before being diagnosed with a cancer that rapidly proved fatal. (We had the same oncologist.)

In May I attended my daughter's college commencement and watched her confidently leading hundreds of people in singing at the Baccalaureate service. We'd shopped for wedding clothes, paid deposits, attended showers, and poured heart and soul into designing a joyful series of wedding-related events. In June it all came together in a service so beautiful it made me smile right down to my toes. What a blessing to welcome a wonderful young man into the family and watch the happy couple ride off into an unknown future full of possibility.

Ten days later I went to the hospital for a routine hysterectomy and came home with a diagnosis of endometrial cancer, with a five-year survival rate just a little better than 50/50. The roller-coaster had hit its high point and was quickly careening downhill toward a series of heart-wrenching twists and turns: an allergic reaction to the first chemotherapy drug followed by months of chemo that took away my hair, my energy, my sense of taste, and my dignity. Radiation treatments, every weekday for five weeks. Steroid buzz, brain fuzz, toenails falling off, a constant need to be aware of the location of the nearest bathroom.

A dead car--how could I get to chemo? My brother gave me his ancient Volvo wagon, which doggedly kept me going for years afterward. Friends and colleagues stepped up to adorn my bald head with hats and scarves, drive me to early-morning appointments, deliver my favorite brand of ginger ale, and encourage me when the simplest tasks seemed hopeless. After I had a port installed to make chemotherapy delivery easier, a friend drove me home in her convertible with the top down, which made me feel like the Grand Marshal of the Survivors' Parade. Another friend wrote my cancer treatment theme song, "Kicking Cancer's Butt," and cheered me during the long hours connected to an IV at the cancer center.

In the fall of 2009 I taught an honors class in humor theory and took great comfort in the joy my students brought into my life. They picked up the slack when I was just barely getting by, and I'll never forget their hard work and compassionate care. "I'm holding you in the light," said one student, and I've often passed that promise on to others.

We were blessed with a garden that produced so many habanero peppers that we had to share the joy. My husband made enough habanero jelly to heat up the palates of all our pepper-loving relatives and friends. Habanero jelly may be the perfect metaphor for that eventful year: blistering heat wrapped in smooth, sweet bliss.

I had my final round of chemotherapy a few days before Thanksgiving and then lounged around recovering while the rest of the family did all the holiday cooking. In December my husband and his twin brother celebrated their 100th birthday (50 years each!) and we welcomed a bouncing baby chainsaw into the household. My husband managed to sing in the community production of Handel's Messiah despite having slipped on ice and torn his rotator cuff hours before the performance.

By the end of the year I almost felt like singing too: my hair was coming back and I was looking forward to resuming many of my academic duties. I was eager to put 2009 behind me--but not all of it. I wanted to forget the parts when the roller-coaster dropped into a bottomless abyss and then wrenched me around brutally, but I desperately held on to the high points: the wedding, the supportive friends, the comedy class, the habanero jelly.

Fifteen years ago I didn't think I'd be alive today, but think of what I would have missed if the doctors hadn't caught my cancer: my son's college graduation, the births of my three grandchildren, the publication of a bunch of articles and a collection of essays, a teaching prize that allowed me to pay off my medical debts, a return to the Worthington Center, a chance to assist my parents in their declining years, my nephew's wedding, so many great students, so many great books, so many meaningful moments with family and friends and, sometimes, simply with myself, so many photos and hikes and canoe trips and peppers and peach pies and all the mundane pleasures of life.

I've never experienced another year quite like 2009, which is just as well because it nearly killed me. For a time I feared that The Year Everything Happened would be the end of me, but instead it became the beginning of Everything Else. 

Eventually the roller-coaster glides to a stop and we lucky ones get to step out of the car and put our feet back on solid ground. Maybe nothing particularly interesting is happening there, but we get to keep walking forward, and sometimes that's enough.

Tastes like summer

A sign at the farm stand said the peaches were "so fresh the juice will run down your arms," but at first they were so hard I had to seal them in a paper bag to ripen up for a couple of days. Finally, though, they were soft enough to live up to their hype so I transformed them into possibly the best peach pie I've ever made, with a touch of ginger in the filling and a nearly-perfect crust. I always feel like I need a bath after peeling and slicing peaches and I keep finding sticky spots in the kitchen where the juice splattered, but good gracious me there's nothing better than a good peach pie. Tastes like summer.

Feels like summer too. I went out to mow around 7 a.m. to beat the heat, but the humidity was already oppressive. By the time I'd finished mowing, I was drenched with sweat and the air was too thick to breathe. Heat wave! But from the big front window I can see my bottlebrush buckeye just getting ready to blossom and I'm eager to get back out there when it starts attracting butterflies, birds, and hummingbird moths.

We had a subdued Fathers Day because my husband works on Sunday mornings and comes home wanting to do nothing but sleep, but this one was even more complicated because of some sad news: his aunt, who has been ill for some time, died early Sunday morning. This would be a real loss to the family even if she were just an aunt, but she is the aunt who helped raise my husband and his two brothers after their parents died, the aunt who encouraged my husband to develop his musical gifts and paid for his voice lessons, the aunt who was everyone's cheerleader and never had a negative word to say about anyone. She will be sorely missed.

So now we await word on when the funeral will take place. Once again a loved one has had the audacity to die without checking my schedule first, but I will not be so petty as to complain about the timing. Instead I'll complain about the weather. After all, that's what it's there for.

Better yet, I'll nab a piece of that peach pie--the sweetness of summer in every mouthful.

If these desks could talk

That's my last desk standing against the wall, a simple but elegant chunk of sturdy hardwood destined to hold my yet-to-be-purchased home computer, with a keyboard drawer and ample space to support a large-screen monitor (because nothing fatigues my eyes more than staring at my tiny laptop screen). I hope this will be the last desk I'll ever buy.

The first desk I ever bought sits in the foyer, where it serves as a catch-all for all manner of transient stuff: mail and recyclables, weed-whacker line and earplugs, a whole drawer full of retired camera equipment and another full of CDs and cassette tapes. I bought that desk more than 40 years ago for $20 at a yard sale. It was yellow, but not for long. Our first computer, a clunky beige cube, sat on that desk--we pulled out the center drawer and flipped it upside-down to hold the keyboard. I wrote my Master's thesis at that desk and my husband wrote dozens of seminary papers and early sermons.

When our kids needed desks for their schoolwork and projects, we bought small used desks for their rooms--rudimentary but useful, bought with pocket change at yard sales. Those desks are long gone, as is the big computer desk that sat downstairs. It was a Christmas gift from my in-laws in the early 1990s, arriving as a flat box full of parts that required careful assembly. I wrote my dissertation at that desk and my husband wrote hundreds more sermons, and it followed us on every move until we finally gave it away a few years ago. Too big for the available space and battered after years of heavy use, it was easily the ugliest piece of furniture I've ever owned. But maybe someone else is getting some use out of it now.

At one point we had six desks at home and more in our offices but now we're down to four at home and three at our workplaces, which still seems excessive--but what can I say? I love a good desk. In the early 1990s we bought two desks at once when a local furniture store was going out of business. One of those desks now sits in an awkward space between the living room and kitchen, where it holds note cards, envelopes, gift bags, ribbons, tape, and writing supplies; for a few years the bottom drawer has been stuffed with coloring books, crayons, and markers for the grandkids' use. 

The other desk is my favorite to look at but not to sit at, with a cramped and uncomfortable desktop and handy nooks providing display space for our collection of chicken tchotchkes (harking back to the era when my husband's family ran a hatchery). Its upper shelves hold my cookbook collection, and the drawers store more CD's and miscellaneous junk than two people could ever possibly need.

I love the two desks I use on campus, but they're not really mine; at some point I'll clear them out and they'll pass to other people. My new desk will serve my post-retirement needs--as soon as I buy a home computer. More than forty years after my desk-buying journey began, I think I'm finally done.  

My first desk, formerly yellow.

My last desk.

Desk full of writing supplies.

The tall desk, attractive but uncomfortable.

One junk drawer is not enough.

Coloring books, crayons, markers.

Just a few of the chicken tchotchkes.

Another desk, another junk drawer.

So many cookbooks!

 

A knack for naming

My oldest grandkid would like to be an astronaut but I think she could pursue an alternate career in naming space vehicles. Move over, Spirit, Opportunity, Apollo, and Voyager; Miss E would like to introduce you to Hope, Possibility, Bigs, Apple, Creativity, Shadow Storm, and--Smurf?

Except those are not names of space vehicles. No: they're cauliflower plants. Because if a kid loves cauliflower and is determined to grow some in her family garden plot, then of course she's going to give those coddled cauliflower plants names.

My granddaughter introduced me to her cauliflower patch when we went to water the garden Saturday morning. It was my grandson's birthday so he was enjoying his Yes Day, which gave him the power to determine how the family spent its Saturday. First things first: we all went out to a you-pick orchard to gather buckets of cherries, raspberries, and strawberries. Gardening came next, with the birthday boy filling watering cans so the girls could water the cauliflower and carrots and tomatoes and squash and whatever else they've got growing out there. 

Time speeds up when we're with the grandkids so I'm not sure how we packed so much into a brief visit. Grampa gave the youngest her first unicycle lessons and helped our daughter spread mulch in her gorgeous flower garden, and we all enjoyed a sushi-tastic dinner followed by ice cream cake and "Happy birthday." 

I dream sometimes about living closer to my grandkids so I could enjoy their hijinks more frequently, but in the meantime I get an energy boost every time they introduce me to their latest project.

Especially if it's a cauliflower named Smurf.

Free unicycle lessons, courtesy of Grampa

Introducing the cauliflowers

Watering the garden

News too good not to share

First, the tiny wrens in the nest in my weed-whacker's battery compartment seem to be thriving. I angled the camera just right to get a lousy photo, but I can confirm that there are at least three wrens in there dividing their time between sleeping and eating. An adult swooped in to shoo me away and then stood guard nearby giving me the evil eye, but I can accept that. Always good to see a parent diligently protecting the youngsters.

Second, the grant we applied for earlier this spring has been approved, woo-hoo! So now I'll be in charge of planning a series of campus events over the next two months to engage faculty and staff in an interesting project; I'll have to work hard but this could be the start of something really exciting and I'm delighted to be in the middle of it. Plus there's money. Not a ton of money, but it's always a nice thing to have. 

Third, I finally watched American Fiction, the film adapted from Percival Everett's novel Erasure. It fits perfectly into the themes of my African American Literature class this fall--and the ending made me laugh so hard I nearly fell off my chair. A little thought-provoking satire to celebrate the end of the semester--win-win! 

Limbering up the writing muscles

Stiff is how I feel today, in mind and body. The other day I did a bit of house-cleaning that taxed my abilities, and by house-cleaning I mean cleaning the accumulated dirt, algae, and glunk off the siding on three sides of my house. (I can't reach the fourth side without a ladder, and I'm enough of a klutz to know that carrying a long-handled sponge mop and bucket up a ladder will only end in disaster.)

I don't remember when I last cleaned the siding, but it's been long enough to allow my light-gray house to appear to be growing a green beard on the shady spots. I don't want to use the power-washer because the siding was installed by a previous owner who did every home-improvement task in the cheapest and sloppiest possible way, so there are many spaces where a pressure-washer could force lots of water under the siding, which is not optimal. In the past I've used a bucket of cleanser and rags, but this time I repurposed an old sponge mop so I could reach higher with less strain on my shoulders and arms. 

I know no one really wants to do such an annoying task much less read about it, but if my entire upper body hurts today, maybe you'll understand why. Also, I found a nest of hornets. Also, I broke the mop. BUT: it's now possible to sit on the back deck without wondering when the fuzzy green beard on the siding is going to develop sentience and take over the planet.

I'd love to be sitting out there right now thinking deep thoughts and writing them down, but the stiffness that suffuses my body seems to have also crippled my mind. I've been writing steadily for nearly three hours at Writing Wednesday but I don't see a single sentence that makes me light up with pride or want to share it with a reader. 

I'm still at the getting-it-down stage of this writing project, writing as quickly as possible without concern for details, and I see lots of sentences studded with little parenthetical notes like add example or get quote or what year? It's still not clear to me exactly what shape this thing (essay? analysis? pile of dangling insights?) will take, but I've settled on a controlling metaphor that gives me hope that it will all cohere in the end. Yellowjackets are involved. In fact, one of my parenthetical notes asks are yellowjackets cooperative? Guess I need to look some stuff up before my next writing session.

Despite my stiffness, I'm pleased to see that I've produced close to 9,000 words, which is kind of a lot for a piece that doesn't really fit into any preconceived categories. Progress is being made, one chunk of verbiage at a time, and if that progress looks a little sloppy and unpolished, it coordinates nicely with the whole rest of my life right now. 

I think I'll have one more week in the getting-it-down stage before I turn toward the cleaning-it-up stage, at which point I'll need answers to all those parenthetical questions. I won't need ladders or mops or buckets, just a supple mind and some swiftly-moving fingers. I wake up every morning with fingers so stiff I can barely grab my glasses, but a long bout of typing limbers them up nicely. I only hope it's limbering up my brain cells at the same time. 

Return of the wrens, with bonus beauty

Kinda glad I was wrong about the wrens. 

A week or so ago I went out to fetch the weed-whacker from the recycling shed but found that Carolina wrens had built a nest in the battery compartment and tucked into the nest were five tiny eggs. So I left it alone. Weed-whacking could wait. 

Around mid-week when I checked on the nest, the eggs were gone and I didn't see any baby wrens--just a smear of dark fuzz. I wondered whether wrens would relocate eggs if a nest felt unsafe, but I feared that predators had found the eggs. Either way, I was resolved to catch up on the weed-whacking on the first dry morning.

That was today. Once again I went out to the recycling shed all kitted out in my weed-whacking gear--earplugs, eye protection, water bottle, battery, extra spools of weed-whacker line--but when I looked in the nest, that little smear of fuzz started wiggling.

I don't know how many nestlings survived but I saw at least two. Again, I left them alone and went to get the resident strongman to start up the gas-powered weed-whacker, which is heavier than mine and much more unwieldy and eventually made my upper arms feel like wet spaghetti, but never mind that: the whole time I was weed-whacking, I kept thinking about those baby wrens.

We've heard the adult wrens calling nearby and seen them perched on deck railings near the recycling shed, so I resolved to sit out there with the camera until I could catch a photo of the wrens tending their young. It's not possible to get photos of the nest itself because it's tucked too far back into the dark shed, but I sat for a very long time in the quiet afternoon trying to catch a glimpse of the adults wrens.

I don't know how long I was out there sitting as still as possible on the deck. I heard buzzes and chirps from many birds and a wood thrush calling invisibly in the woods, and from down near the creek came the sound of a deer huffing and snorting. Maybe my presence spooked the wrens because they didn't show up for a long while, but then I saw one calling from a pine bough and then scavenging for bugs in the tulip poplar right next to the deck and then calling and calling and calling from trees along the edge of the yard. When a wren finally approached the nest, it swooped in low so that I barely saw it--but I heard the faint cheeping of the nestlings in response.

The photos are from too far away to be sharp, but I know the wrens will be more comfortable tending to their young if I'm not around, so I went inside.  And now I look out my front window and see a flash of color in the dogwood tree just outside the window--an oriole! Some days I'm so surrounded by beauty I don't even know where to look.