Runnin' on Empty

A misanthrope walks into a bar . . . . 

There were far too many humans on my walk this morning.  Too many cars and trucks and buzzing chain saws.   Too much loud music from the boom box at the swimming pool.  And the three kids shooting baskets at the park (a surprising sight at 6:15 a.m.)?  Even they tested my patience.

For whatever the reason,  I could not seem to escape my species this morning.  And I really, really wanted to.

I blame Terry Tempest Williams.  Her damned book "The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks" has seeped into my veins and now I can't quit thinking about Big Bend National Park, a place Williams turned to when she was "seeking a different kind of circuitry, the nervous system of rivers and deserts and mountains born of fire."

Hey, I'm not anti-human.  More often than not, people fill me.

But nature?  Nature empties me.  And when I am emptied, all kinds of things have a chance to make their way inside.

We could all do with a little more emptying these days.  By chance or by habit, we Americans are overfull.  We take in too much news and eat too much food, we spend too much money on things and too many minutes on phones. It's as though we are scared of the pause, of the silence that punctuates the in-between.

When I spend time outdoors, away from people, other things move into the center of my narrative, and I wake up to the freshness of their stories.  I can't help but notice the bejeweled wings of the beetle at my feet and wonder what it was that stopped its heart.  Held by the eyes of a young rabbit, I stand still and imagine we are exchanging stories, telepathically.  Cooled by an early-morning breeze, I listen as it wends its way through the stand of pines I'm walking under.

Just writing about nature calms me.  In fact, the only thing I don't find calming about this blog entry so far is that I titled it after a song that I didn't like much the first time around!

Besides, the title isn't even accurate.

I'm not running on empty.  I'm running to it.

Cry Me a Rivulet

One of the most amazing things about Kauai was the way that new waterfalls would magically appear some mornings.  Birthed by overnight rains, they'd show up as thin, long fingers running between the ancient ridges of the mountains that abutted Hanalei Bay.  One morning, I counted eight of them, where there'd been just three the day before.  It was quite a way to start the day.

This morning, 3,834 miles from Hanalei Bay, I'm thinking about those new-born waterfalls and how they relate to me.  Although maybe an arroyo would be a better image for what's on my mind.

I've got a 10 a.m. mammogram this morning, which probably explains my off mood, as well as the feeling that there is a little river running through my brain that wasn't there the other day.

I forget, sometimes, that this whole cancer journey really is a journey and that I'm still on its road. It's tempting to think of it only in the past tense.  Surgery?  Check.  Radiation?  Check.  Pills?  Check.

After my Sept. 9 surgery, my daughter Allison asked if I no longer had cancer.  It was an excellent, strange question, one that I posed to three people.  My surgeon's nurse practitioner said a surgeon would say, post surgery, that I no longer had cancer.  My radiologist said he'd wait until after a month of treatments to consider making such a claim.  My oncologist said he'd like five years to pass until making such a claim.

All those experts, kind of disagreeing with each other.  It's no wonder that, on occasion, I'm aware of a rivulet of concern that runs through me.  Most days, I don't notice it.  But there are times when I realize that my brain, as well as my breast, has been changed by the news that came to me last August.   In those moments, that rivulet becomes something a little larger, a little harder to ignore.

One morning this spring, I realized I'd forgotten to take my Letrozole, the pill that keeps the estrogen-hungry cancer at bay.  Poof!  Rivulet becomes river!

Two nights ago, I could barely move, my joints aflame--a side effect of the Letrozole, which strips the body not only of estrogen but also of calcium and Vitamin D.  And there it was again, that occasional river, reminding me that I'm still on the journey.

And this morning's appointment?  It, too, has spawned the rebirth of that river, not in the form of tears, but in the form of a subtle reminder of the power of the "C" word.

Last week, my physical therapist (another expert, another reminder of the journey) said that radiation changes things at a molecular level.  She said that the tissue itself has been transformed by light.   Just like the rest of me, transformed by this weird combination of light and darkness, joy and journey.

And so, I try to make peace with this river, sitting on its banks and watching its many iterations, a new element in my landscape.

Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue. No, Really!

We Americans love a good who'da-thunk story, don't we?  In fact, I'd argue that this story form is at the base of this country's entire mythology.  So much of our flag-waving pride has roots in this belief that everyone, regardless of circumstance, can turn things around and surprise folks.

Six months ago, our current president became one of the latest, though far from greatest, who'da thunk story written on U.S. soil.

Hey, everyone makes mistakes. . . .

Here's the thing, though.  That whirling dervish in D.C. has generated all kinds of who'da-thunk spinoffs that represent what is truly best about people.


A year ago,  how many of us could have imagined that, on January 21st, millions of people worldwide--from Lincoln to London, Gatlinburg to Greenland--would gather in groups to take a stand for each other?

Who'da thunk?

Six months ago, how many of us would have thought that we'd start planning our evenings and weekends around protests or postcard-writing campaigns at the local pizza joint?

Who'da thunk!

Five months ago, I sat gape-jawed as I watched a spontaneous protest break out at LaGuardia Airport as anti-immigrant rhetoric butted heads with airplanes filled with people from everywhere.  There, in the airport, pockets of lawyers met with people who do not look like me, who wondered if they had a place here.  Outside the terminal, thousands held signs and uttered chants, in support of the melting pot.

Who'da thunk?

In January, National Parks employees pushed back against politics that threatened their livelihoods along with the well being of the parks, plants and animals they protect.  What erupted what a joyful noise--300,000 initial followers and the rebirth of Smoky the Bear in his finest version yet.

Who'da thunk? 
 
On the verge of another Fourth of July, one that I could easily talk myself out of celebrating, it's good to remind ourselves that, each day, there are innumerable iterations of the who'da-thunk tale--some tiny, some significant and some incredibly beautiful.   And to remember that, sometimes, the best ones have their roots in the most inexplicable head scratchers that we could imagine.  For me, that happened one morning last winter, on a day when the weird future started to make itself known to me.  It was on that day that I began to change, transformed by a who'da thunk story that I was lamenting.

It's good to remind ourselves that this country was formed by folks who pushed back, who thought we could do better.

The Librarian and La Vida Loca

It was October, 2009.  I remember flying into Rome, the last leg of our first European adventure.  I looked out the airplane window at a land that was both familiar and foreign to me.  I'd had a night of strange, fuzzy half-sleep and was waking up in a place that was unknown to me.  It was an odd, dizzying feeling and I realized I'd better get myself together soon, because we were about to land, and I didn't know a lick of Italian.

I have had that same disorienting feeling these days, even though I'm writing this not two miles from my childhood home.  It is a strange thing when home feels like something far away.

In my most cynical moments, I hiss hateful laments at a bunch of rich white men in worsted suits who have not, as yet, brought out the best in me.  Yet, I continue looking for solutions, even though it seems I don't know the language just yet.

But I will learn it, because I sit on a secret stash, a powerful collection of bridges and bandaids, solvents and solutions.  I work in a library, after all, a place that, every single day,  lives up to its Latin roots--libre--and sets people free.  I know because I have seen it happen.

So, while my representatives in Washington--those henpecked, party-possessed, power-pleasing people who don't seem particularly interested in the poor or the passed over--play nice with a man who cares not a whit about peace or other people, I will flex every one of my secret-weapon muscles, reaching out to all of the "others" that I can find.  I will provide students tales that reflect their own lives, find them stories that connect them to folks who are not like them, and feed them books filled with ideas that expand their understanding of what it means to be a human.

I also will teach them how to sniff out poison and how to find gold.  And I will make sure they have somewhere simply to be--to hang with friends, to study for a test, to play a game of chess.

And--even if they don't live like, look like, think like or love like I do--I will be kind to every single person who walks into our library, regardless of what we have or do not have in common. I will love and celebrate them all--the acned, multi-colored, mysterious masses of almost-adults whom we so desperately need to be better than we are.

Because that is the way of the library, setting people free, one person, one story, at a time.