Shabbat Shalom

Shabbat shalom everyone, I am trying to have quiet, grateful, shabbat thoughts, me and my extra soul (as I am sure everyone knows, one gets a second soul on shabbat . . . ). So I will wait until after shabbat to bemoan the utter lack of stylish post-mastectomy bras anywhere in the universe. I will hold back my observation that most of these things look like they should be hanging in Nurse Ratchet's closet. I will restrain myself from asking that most obvious question of the lingerie industry: "Haven't you people ever heard of paisley?" No, none of this will I comment upon on this holy day of rest. I'm serious, I am signing off my email and I am going to go and read some midrash.

But before I go, since I have few original thoughts at this point, I wanted to quote this--it is from a book called "Seven Summits," and it is the account of Junko Tabei, the first woman to climb Mt. Everest. She organized an all-woman climbing team. This was in the early 1970's.

" . . . we asked around, "Wouldn't you like to join us in an ascent of Mount Everest?"

Most of the women exclaimed, "It's a wonderful idea to go to the Himalayas. I want to see Mount Everest once in my life!" Then they continued by saying, "I wish to go, however, I do not have the climbing skills, physical strength, or money." This was the most common response amoung the women I surveyed. Of course you need physical strength and climbing skills for Himalayan climbing, but there are other essential factors, including an extremely strong desire to keep going whatever happens and the mentality to find a way out when you get into the deepest kinds of trouble."

Current conditions in the tent

[Rabbi Akiva] used to say: Everything is given on collateral, and a net is spread over all the living."

Pirke Avot 3:20

"A net"--the plain meaning of this seems to be mortality. We living beings may go about our daily lives as if we were free, but we have no control over the inevitability of death.

This was my thought as I was falling asleep last night. Then I pictured the net, spread out over everyone, and it seemed more like a network. A web of interrelatedness. Living beings expending energy in ways that connected them to other living beings. A net made of lovingkindness, people reaching out to each other.

I realized it's all the same net. We live in the realm of khesed, the realm of human limitations and fragility. Our mutual vulnerability underlies the compassion we feel for each other. It is the same net. I think I see this so clearly because I have had an incomparable network of support. In the past few months, there have been times when I have felt terrified, horrified, traumatized, agonized . . . but I have never felt alone.

I will be away from the blog for a few days while I recover from surgery. Then, someone in my net is going to help me get back into this tent so I can blog some more ;-)

Inauguration Day

Well, I let my daughter cut two midterm exams today. Oh, what an irresponsible mother I am! (tee hee) I just got a text message from her. She has arrived in Washington and is ready to celebrate the inauguration of President Obama!

The Pinnacle, 18 January 2009

I decided to undergo a little "trail therapy" today. I went to the Pinnacle, a nice climb up some rocks with a view. The last time I hiked here, it was summer, and I encountered a large rattlesnake just a few feet from where this picture was taken. Fortunately, today Senor Rattlesnake was taking that long winter nap under a rock somewhere.

I was sort of puzzling over which route I would take. There are a couple of different trails to the Pinnacle that leave from about the same place. I walked up the access road from the parking lot and encountered a large sign, which said, in big letters, "APPALACHIAN TRAIL." On the right side of the sign was the letter "N" and it said, "Pinnacle, 4 miles. Katahdin, 965.2 miles." Like the answer to so many of life's questions, the answer to which route I should take was, "DUH!!!!"

When I through-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 1991, there was this ubiquitous trail personality named Wingfoot, one of those people who had hiked the entire trail several times and just could not seem to leave it. He would hang around with different groups of hikers and dispense his priceless words of trail wisdom. Many times I heard him say that the trail hike was a "touchstone experience." "You will return to the memory of your hike throughout your life." At the time I was too young and too untouched to have even the faintest idea what he meant. And Wingfoot was SOOO pompous. But he was right. When I am in a tough spot, I gravitate towards those white blazes.

A few days before my first surgery, I hiked the AT in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I was with someone who loved me enough to accompany me to any place I wanted to go. Someone who hadn't yet realized that, more often than not, those places fall into the category of "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." When I say that we ended up climbing DOWN the Webster Cliff Trail . . . in the DARK, those unfamiliar with the trail might say, "how lovely." Those familiar with the trail would say "Were you OUT of your MIND?!" (they might also add, "If that person who was with you stayed with you after this experience, he is an extraordinarily brave and loving human being" . . . and they would be right).

Finding the trail down in the dark took a great deal of focus and concentration. It drove the fear of the cancer out of my mind. I could see the path, because the flat, trodden-down areas are a little more reflective than the surrounding forest floor. I was looking down for this subtle brightness. Every so often there would be a white blaze on a tree, which told me I had not strayed from the trail. I began to slap each blaze with my palm when I saw it. Who knew the trail was going to come to my rescue in so many ways?

Today I followed a bright path in the snow with a lot of joy. I only got as far as Pulpit Rock, where two lovely people named Tom and Kristi took my picture. I sat down on my pack and had some hot coffee and a snack, and contemplated the universe. On the way down, there were all these beautiful hike in the snow endorphins bathing my brain. I forgot to be scared. I forgot to think that any part of me might not be healthy.

יסתרני בסתר אהלו . . . בצור ירממני
He will conceal me in the hidden places of His tent . . . She will lift me upon a rock.

Asserting the firm belief that, a) just because I have breast cancer does not mean I should feel as though I am living in a soap opera, and b) (of course) the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, I am doing the only logical thing: spending some time in my tent . . . on the roof of my house.

What am I doing up here? Well . . . davening, for one thing. This roof is the place where I discovered my daily(ish) prayer practice about 10 months ago. In the beginning, I sat on an old foam boogie board and wore a blanket wrapped around my tallit when necessary. When it got cold . . . and I realized I had cancer . . . I knew I needed a place, a makom, some shelter that would enable me to continue to come out here. I had this old, old tent (it is getting older by the minute, being battered by the winter winds), so I set it up on the roof and anchored it with sandbags.

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant" (Albert Einstein). I'm trying not to lose these or any other part of my mind, although some days this seems to be an uphill battle. I'm taking the "kitchen sink" approach--all of the usual coping strategies, plus the tent, plus this blog. I'm not promising that I'll post often, or even ever again ;-)