~Upstream and Down~

Time is like a handful of sand, the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers. Anonymous My 20’s: That runner’s high! I love it! I feel like my feet are six inches above the pavement and I could just keep running and running forever. I stretch my runs longer and longer for pure pleasure until I just have to turn back--reluctantly. I’m empowered and kind of in awe of my energy. My 30s: My pregnancy decade. Three kids. I jog behind a stroller with the firstborn; walk with a toddler while pushing a stroller with the second born; walk slowly with my third, stopping so he can drop pebbles down the drain or pat the doggie.   I go on occasional walks or slow jogs on weekends or days when my husband is home with all three kids. But I often choose to nap. My 40s: My oldest babysits for thirty minutes so I can go out for a walk. I call it my “by-by walk.” “Mommy’s going for a by-by walk,” I say to soothe my youngest, who c...

I recently took a road trip to Conowingo Dam in Maryland to photograph the eagles that soar in to scoop up the fish that pass through the gates when the water is released. The experience was wonderful--although it made me realize what a novice I am at bird photography. I definitely would love to go back and try again with the experience gained from the mistakes I made, including (inadvertently) setting my camera to a “back button” focus setting that I don’t use...and thus not being able to focus well... Grrr. (Thanks, Hunt’s Camera in Hanover, for figuring out my mistake within five minutes...once I was home.)   Such is life, right? Taking pix is like fishing: you don’t always make the catch. EAGLES don’t always make the catch!  The One That Got Away~   But here’s the thing...this trip was awesome! And not just because of the phot...

Those of us who lived through the 9/11 attacks... the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the plane crash in a Pennsylvania field, a sacrificial effort by citizens aboard to avoid the White House ...each have our own story to tell. I was teaching a captive audience of fifth graders at Hanover Middle School when my classroom door cracked open and a colleague beckoned me to the hall.   In a whisper, she told me a plane had hit the World Trade Center Tower, then cautioned me not to tell the kids. I walked back into the classroom, dazed, scared, confused, making an attempt to cover the churning emotions, the fear. Knowing so little... the first tower had not yet collapsed, the second plane had not struck, ...it was easy to imagine that this was an all out attack on the country, the beginning of a war on our continent. In hindsight, it was. I was with a group of teachers huddled in the library office, staring the dusty TV on its rolli...

Today was the first time in a long, long time that I’ve called Bruce an asshole—and the first time since his cancer diagnosis. How can you call some one with cancer an asshole? After all, cancer patients don’t feel good--they’re dealing with a deadly disease, there are all sorts of worries, frustrations, and side effects and changes to their bodies, quality of life issues... and all the other little quirky symptoms that I only find out about about when Bruce tells his nurse. I’m pretty patient and understanding by nature, and all the more so now when he vents the inevitable “ cancer anger ” a little (or a lot). Today he got impatient and snippy, frustrated that we couldn’t merge our iCalendars—he hates when technology goes awry. Who doesn't? For him, it's one more thing out of his control. He started to tell me what I’d done incorrectly in the attempt to merge, and kept cutting me off when I tried to show him what I did...which, by the way, was corre...

--> Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake? ~Leonardo da Vinci During lunch with friends, one offered me her bag of potato chips—she knows I’m addicted. I must have been in one of my rare and transitory healthy phases, because I said no. “Then take them for Bruce,” she urged. “No, he doesn’t eat them any more...” Then, because of the looks on their faces, I added “Oh, he stopped eating them before...” meaning before his cancer diagnosis. They knew what I didn’t say; one told me she was sorry to hear; the other asked a couple questions... and all this prompted me to go into my “We’re fine, he’s fine, I’m fine” mode. But I decided to share my owl dream, and how it had revealed to me that I was angry and feeling out of control--even though I’m fine, for all practical purposes! I started in about seeing the owl, wanting to take photos, not having my camera...but Lin interrupted me with a que...

I had a dream last night that stuck with me all day.  A friend and I were driving somewhere--she was a photo friend of mine—Lisa R—who moved away several years ago.   She was driving and when she slowed down to turn into wherever we were going—a zoo? I yelled, "Stop, because LOOK! There’s an owl!"  A barn owl with a snowy owl’s body—so normal in a dream.  I was so excited, until I realized I didn’t have my camera... even though the sole purpose of our trip was picture taking. We got out of the car, and I watched Lisa take pictures. I pulled out my iPhone to at least capture something, but people kept bumping into me and stepping in my way. And when I COULD see the owl clearly enough to snap a picture, the sun was like a fireball behind him and he was only a black shadow on my iPhone screen. I cried a little in frustration, but stuffed the feeling down. I told Lisa I was so glad she had her camera and was able to get good ...

I sit in the second floor waiting room at Dana Farber Cancer Institute while Bruce is taken to a room to pee in a cup and have some blood drawn.   He’d already peed in a jug for 24 hours and dropped that off to be analyzed for funky monoclonal plasma cells. They take his "vital signs"--height, weight, blood pressure. He’s back soon and we get coffee and ride the crowded elevator to meet our nurse practitioner Mary, who will tell us what to expect of this journey into cancer land. Whenever anyone gets off the elevator, I check the floor chart to see what his or her cancer might be. Awful names! We get off at “hematological carcinomas.” Seventh floor. The end result of today’s visit is Bruce’s first shot of Velcade and his first two oral chemo pills: Revlimid and Dexamethasone--the RVD chemo treatment that makes Multiple Myeloma quake—we hope. “One pill makes you happy and one pill makes you small. One pill…something, something…” I can’t help singing this. I’...