Moment

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MomentI hear my iPhone vibrate just before the end of the therapy session. By the time my client dries her tears, writes a check, and takes a few Kleenex for the road, it’s 12:55–five minutes before my next client.

I punch in the voicemail code and listen. It’s the doctor, the one who removed a polyp from my uterus the week before.

“It’s likely nothing,” she had assured me. “Ninety-nine percent of the time everything’s fine.”

Now I hear her voice: “I need to talk with you, so call me. They can come and get me even if I’m with someone.”

Because I must be with someone and their troubles in less than five minutes, I don’t call then. But in that moment I know I have cancer.

I pretend I don’t know so I can make it through the session.  Then I usher my client out the door and prepare myself to return the call I don’t want to return. I’m supposed to meet my friend Deb for a walk—a walk I’ll need now more than ever, which is why I do not cancel it. I can count on Deb. I can also count on her to be late, so I hit “Call back” on the doctor’s message en route to our rendezvous spot.

The doctor says she’s sorry to have to tell me this, but the biopsy turned out to be cancerous.

“We were all so surprised!” she blurts out, apologizing for how light-hearted everyone had been during the outpatient procedure.

It’s true—she, the nurses, and I had treated it like a lark, laughing and telling raunchy jokes as I, woozy with painkillers, lay on my back with my feet in the stirrups while they dug out the suspect tissue.

The doctor tells me she doesn’t yet know much, but wanted to call right away so I could begin to wrap my mind around this. She utters the words “uterine papillary serous carcinoma,” which I gather is the technical term for uterine cancer. I write it down so I can look it up at the end of my long, busy day. The doctor quickly mentions next steps, adding that early detection is on our side. I can tell she wants to get off the phone even more than I do.

Luckily, Deb arrives just then, so I release the doctor and turn to my friend.

“Guess what? I just found out I have cancer,” I say matter-of-factly.

Deb is full of hugs and sympathy, even though she cannot keep from pointing out the house where her friend who died of melanoma lived.

“Don’t tell Jonathan,” she says, meaning my husband, who was diagnosed with melanoma two years ago. He’s completely fine now.

I’m not sure if Deb means I shouldn’t tell Jonathan some people die of what didn’t kill him, or if I shouldn’t tell him I have cancer.

But I do tell him, when we are both home from work. Jonathan is shocked, as am I, which must be why I’ve so blithely been able to carry on with my day even though my life has been upended.

Jonathan and I both assume that, like him, I’ll be fine, too. Uterine cancer, after all, is the one everyone says is the kind to have if you must have cancer. Even my mother, a hypochondriac given to fits of hysteria, sailed through hers with barely a whimper.

After a brief interlude of hugs and tears, Jonathan and I sail through the rest of our evening as if nothing, not even cancer, can interfere with our plans. We are determined to watch President Obama accept the nomination for a second term at the Democratic Convention. We are even more determined to present a good face to our 21-year-old daughter, Ally, who returns later that night brimming with stories from a backpacking trip.  We lap up her enthusiasm as if our lives depend on it. Perhaps they do.

After everyone has gone to bed, I sit down at the computer a few minutes before midnight and google the fancy term the doctor used: “Uterine papillary serous carcinoma.”

Rare and aggressive.

Highly malignant.

This is not my mother’s uterine cancer. I read on, fear choking me like ash. Even women with Stage 1 UPSC have an iffy prognosis. Will I make it to Ally’s college graduation next year?

For six months between that moment at 12:55 and the first day of spring, when treatment ends, my life is measured out in precisely timed appointments: CT scans; a complete hysterectomy sandwiched between pre-op and post-op meetings; oncology and Chinese medicine consults; chemo and nutrition classes; bloodwork; wig fittings; three rounds of internal radiation; acupuncture; six infusions of poison into my veins. I imagine the invisible cancer mushrooming inside me. Not knowing how many moments I have left, each moment is etched in my brain.

Then it is over, and I am fine. At least for the time being. I make it to my daughter’s college graduation. In the pictures of me standing next to her in cap and gown, my smile is wide, my wig slightly askew.

When I was a teenager I read a short story about people who are granted the power to learn the exact hour and manner of their deaths. Initially grateful, they spend all their time trying to outfox fate, to no avail. They die anyway, having spent their entire lives obsessed, anxious, and miserable.

The last thing I want is a crystal ball. Time already stopped once, at 12:55 on a September afternoon.  I do not want to know when it will stop for good.

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Today is the third anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. I am fine. What moments–for better and for worse–are etched in your memory?

Discovering Blogs: The Liebster Award

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liebster-award-logo

My lovely fellow blogger, Heidi BK Sloss of The Art of Living Fully, nominated me for the Liebster Award, which was developed to recognize bloggers and help others get to know them. I really appreciate the honor. Be sure to check the end of this post for the bloggers I’m nominating!

Part of the Liebster Award is the opportunity to answer some questions. So here goes!

What makes you happy?

A really great walk—with my husband, with friends, or with a podcast (This American Life, Fresh Air, The Moth, and Snap Judgment are my favorites); sipping a latte while reading the paper at Comforts, my favorite café, every morning; watching a good DVD series with my husband (Season 6 of The Good Wife just arrived via Netflix–Yippee!); movies and our movie group; fresh flowers; favorable political trends (not a lot of happiness there right now); my kids feeling happy and engaged with what they’re doing; being on track with my eating and my writing; getting published.

Why did you start blogging?

I resisted blogging for a long time because I am very technophobic and because I was afraid my blog would be really lame, petering out after a few posts. Then in 2012, I was one of only two Listen to Your Mother SF cast members without a blog. The other outlier had no interest in blogging, but I did. In fact, I had the usual fantasies of being discovered and going viral and getting a MacArthur Genius Grant, or at least a book deal. Since my grandiosity is tamed by equal doses of self-doubt and procrastination, I had not yet been able to implement this strategy. Finally, the shame of seeing no hyperlink under my name in the LTYM program spurred me to overcome my fear of lame. After that, I began the slow process of reinforcing overcoming technophobia by tackling WordPress.

At the same time, I had also begun serious work on my one good book idea, “Ruptures in Women’s Friendships.” I saw my blog as a way of conducting research—crowd-sourcing stories people would share in response to my posts on the topic.

Then I got cancer. (Did you know that WordPress causes cancer?)  My plans were derailed by six months of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. But cancer has a way of focusing the mind on what matters, so with new resolve (plus new access to a great online WordPress tutorial), I launched my blog in July 2013. Interestingly, everything in my life is back on track except my Ruptures project. Instead, I have written a lot about cancer, that unwelcome but excellent muse. I still am pretty technophobic (Twitter? What’s that?) And I still fear my blog is lame, but at least I post on a fairly regular basis.

What is the best thing anyone has ever said about your blog?

Honestly, anytime anyone says anything about my blog, I’m ecstatic. I particularly love when what I’ve written inspires readers to share their experiences. But the comment that’s meant the most to me came from a blog post I put on a group blog, long before I had Shrinkrapped up and running. I’d written about my own evolution on the topic of gay marriage–from a straight person’s total oblivion to full embrace. Months later, a gay father came across the post and emailed me about how much it meant to him. He told me about how traumatized his eight-year-old daughter was when planes carrying banners denouncing gay marriage flew over their house (this was in the bad old days when Proposition 8 was riding high in California). He said it was the first time she had experienced hate for her family. “Thanks for writing your piece,’ he wrote. “Maybe it will shift a mind or two.” Comments like his remind me that connecting through writing matters. This keeps me going when I lose heart.

What is one piece of advice you would offer or one saying you live by?

My favorite saying comes from something I first heard from a fellow Weight Watcher: “Set the intent.” (Meaning, “Ponder how differently your day might go if for breakfast you scarf down a dozen jelly doughnuts versus an egg-white omelet.”)

There’s a more widely applicable meaning, too, and it’s the one piece of advice I’ve given my daughters that they’ve most cottoned to: “Find something small you can do every day no matter what that will help you feel on track—for me it’s making the bed.” Lo and behold! I have raised two bed-makers, though I would not have placed money on this during their childhoods.

What are your top three bucket list items?

For a better answer, read my old post, “Bucket List.” But here’s the list:

  1. To be published in “Modern Love” in the New York Times
  2. To live long enough to know my grandchildren (their existence is entirely hypothetical at this point)
  3. To attend my own memorial service, meaning to be in good enough shape and have enough time and enough people who think well of me to hear before I die what they’ll say about me after I die. And to have a chance to say what they’ve meant to me as we say goodbye.

 What is your ultimate guilty pleasure?

Devouring a pint of Three Twins Chocolate Orange Confetti ice cream. Since the near-total demise of Swensen’s, with its Swiss Orange Chip, it’s been hard to come by my favorite flavor. Luckily, Orange is the New Black inspired Three Twins (my Weight Watcher leader calls it “Three Ass”) to launch this fantastic new flavor. More luckily still, I only buy premium pints on sale, and it goes on sale very rarely.

What is one product or service you cannot live without?

National Public Radio. No hyperlink necessary.

What is your favorite U.S. destination? What two countries make you the happiest to visit? What is your dream destination?

Honestly, I don’t have much of a travel bug, so I’ve lumped these questions together. I live just north of San Francisco in beautiful Marin County, so my favorite destination is only a short drive away: Point Reyes National Seashore. My favorite vacations feature hiking in beautiful places. I actually find long weekend B&B getaways more refreshing than bigger trips. But this summer I was happy in the French Pyrenees and hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc through France, Switzerland, and Italy. Before that I’ve loved the Dolomites, the Canadian Rockies, Bryce Canyon, Sawtooth Mountains, and the many trips I’ve taken to the Sierra Nevada. I dream of future hikes in the U.S. Rockies and Mount Ranier, and of taking a walking tour of the English countryside with its cottage gardens. But I’m just as happy with my daily walks out my front door.

But Enough About Me! Paying the Liebster Forward

I’m embarrassed to admit that I barely have a pinky toe dipped in the blogosphere—how do people find the time? But check out these worthy bloggers in addition to the aforementioned The Art of Living Fully. And remember, there’s nothing worse for a writer than sending words into a black hole. So feel free to comment, tweet, share, and give a shout-out to your own favorites!

Jessica O’Dwyer, who has written a memoir, Mamalita about adopting her daughter from Guatemala. Check out her blog, Mamalitathebook, for more exquisitely observed and felt writing about international adoption and related topics.

Dorothy O’Donnell, who writes beautifully about everything, including raising a child with pediatric bipolar disorder.

Rhea St. Julien, who reaches into her heart and soul to write about race and other things that matter at thirty threadbare mercies

Jenny Marshall, who writes about culture, language, and travel at A Thing for Wor(l)ds

You can find a lot of wonderful writerly stuff at Write On Mamas and a lot of talent on WOM’s blog. Check out the blogroll on the Home page for individual members’ sites.

And here are my favorite buddies I met on this year’s A to Z Blogging Challenge:

Dyanne at Backsies is What There is Not (Fans of the Frances books, unite!). Dyanne is very funny and very positive in her outlook. I have a bit of an allergy to positive thinking, so the fact that I find her so engaging is a testament to how skillfully she handles the balance of the good, the bad, and the ugly in all aspects of life.

Wendy at Wendy’s Waffle. I love that Wendy writes about a wide range of topics, from politics to the personal. Plus, she’s someone who lists “chocolate” as one of her interests, and like me, is an empty nester. Wendy lives in London, so it’s great to get a perspective from beyond my own shores.

Paula at Mpls Transplant. Paula, who moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Minneapolis, asks, “Is Minnesota Nice contagious? God, I hope so . . .” I happen to know she was plenty nice already, at least by Bay Area standards! Here she’s funny, inventive, and great at incorporating photography into her writing.

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Answer a question or two yourself–like what’s YOUR ultimate guilty pleasure or what’s on your bucket list? Also, what are your favorite blogs?

For the Birds

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Sandhill cranesThis week my writing group, the Write On Mamas, was invited to share our work at a local senior residence. It was a delight to be there along with my fellow WOMers Janine, Mindy, and Steven. Here’s what I read, an old favorite of mine originally published in skirt!

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Like most married couples, my husband Jonathan and I have many pacts–no cheating, no badmouthing each others’ parents, no going to bed mad. Our agreements are the glue that holds us together.

One of our pacts is to never take up birdwatching. Jonathan and I spent way too much time as kids trapped in some swamp while our parents cooed over coots.

We once took a hike with our friend, Peter, an avid birder. Eyes downcast, my husband and I listened politely as he droned on about plumage and wing span.

“Oh,” Peter said, at last noticing our silence. “Children of birdwatchers.”

Since we have our youthful resentments to uphold, we cling to our pact even though every binocular-toting couple we know is happily married. Birdwatching may unite others, but not Jonathan and me.  If one of us strays, pulse quickened by a downy breast, it’s grounds for divorce.

Still, as long-term marrieds, we’re always on the lookout for new ways to spice up our relationship. The forbidden, even birding, holds allure. So what if it’s like watching paint dry?

That’s how we recently found ourselves driving to the delta with our friends Steve and Mary to catch the last of the sand hill cranes before they headed south. Or wherever cranes go when, sensibly enough, they tire of hanging out on the levees with bored teenagers gunning their engines.

Before we embark, my husband and I renew our vows.

“Promise me we won’t become birdwatchers,” I implore.

“I do,” Jonathan pledges.

Steve and Mary have an exemption. They even have a temporary placard for disabled parking. Sidelined from favored pursuits like hiking and backpacking by surgery, they have entered the phase of life Steve refers to as “recalibrated pleasures.” They’ve traded in their boots for Roger Tory Peterson’s Field Guides and sunk a few thousand dollars into birding paraphernalia. No doubt they’re faking it, forced to find the silver lining in an unjust fate. We’ll be safe with Steve and Mary.

We pile into the backseat of their car. After a drive that lasts forever, strip malls give way to fields of rice stubble. We pull onto the shoulder of the levee dam road. “Look at the swans!” Steve and Mary exult in unison. It occurs to me that they’re not pretending.

The side of the road is littered with parked cars whose trunks yield vast arsenals of birding materiel. Pot-bellied men hoist huge tripods onto their beefy shoulders. Except for their girth and Audubon Society t-shirts, they could be mistaken for guerrillas sporting shoulder-mounted grenade launchers.

Birders are a passionate lot. Within a 10-mile radius, only my husband and I are cool to the wonders of feathered fauna. At least I hope Jonathan still is. He seems suspiciously enthralled as Mary explains the difference between divers and dabblers.

Steve spots the cranes on a distant bank. Even I have to admit they’re spectacular. After about 10 minutes of genuine oohing and another few of feigned ahhing, I’m ready to climb back in the car and head for civilization, or at least a Starbucks in one of those strip malls.

But people who routinely drive 100 miles in search of creatures they can’t see without expensive equipment are not prepared to settle for such a small return on their investment. So we look at the cranes. We look at ducks. We look some more.

Birding is like time-lapsed photography in reverse. The day slows down and stretches out in a languorous slow-motion crawl of nothing much happening. We drive farther. A chain-link fence separates the road from a plot of barren land. Steve spies a thin white line close to the horizon.

“Might be white pelicans. On the other hand, it might be plastic garbage bags,” he says with quiet excitement, as if either outcome would please him equally. Has his sense of pleasure been so radically recalibrated?

We train the binoculars on the barely discernible thread of white. Sure enough, they’re pelicans. But heaped together in a slovenly pile, these pelicans look like garbage bags with wing spans fluttering listlessly in the breeze. Perhaps it’s some kind of rare hybrid species: Feathered trash.

The day moseys along toward sunset. Mud hens are now indistinguishable from mud in the long shadows swallowing up the fields. The sky is streaked with cotton-candy wisps of pink and smoky gray.

It is also streaked with birds, flying in formations that, truth be told, look a bit ragged. No perfect, straight-edged V’s for these cranes and geese! Maybe they’re bored, too, and want to mix things up a little.

I think of my friend who took his family to see Winged Migration. Ten minutes into the film, his eight-year-old daughter elbowed him and said, “So this is it, huh? It’s just gonna be birds and then more birds all the way through.”

I’m with that girl! But is my husband still with me? He’s keeping up a steady stream of delighted chatter, admiring how graceful the airborne cranes look when they’re not stuck on land with their unruly necks and legs all akimbo. Jonathan’s enthusiasm makes me nervous until I realize that I, too, sound like I’m going to log on to one of those birding chat rooms the second I’m near a computer. I sidle up to Jonathan in the gathering darkness and whisper, “You haven’t gone over to the light side, have you?” He smiles and squeezes my hand hard, twice, our secret code. Birds of a feather flocking together. Such a man I have married! Black silhouettes fly against a crimson sky; white lies fly below.

“It’s so beautiful,” I exclaim, this time sincerely. Not only because together my husband and I have resisted the call of the wild, but because of how the bloodshot-turning-charcoal clouds are reflected in the little pools of water dotting the furrows. The delta at twilight looks like sepia shards from a shattered kaleidoscope.

We stow the scopes, the tripods, the binoculars, the books back in the trunk. Relieved, we climb into the car and head for home. Steve and Mary point out raptors on the power lines while Jonathan and I hold hands silently, eyes closed, in the backseat.

*

Postscript: Years later, Jonathan and I are still stubbornly resistant to birding. We know a hawk from and a hummingbird, and are happy to leave it at that. Steve and Mary, meanwhile, have traveled all over the world on birding expeditions. They are still our friends, though they haven’t invited us along on any more outings. What shared interests and antipathies do you and your sweetie enjoy?

 

Fledglings

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Finch familyLast weekend we loaded up the U-Haul and moved our daughter into her first San Francisco apartment.  Ally had just started a new job—the kind with benefits, including dental. That same day, our other daughter, Emma, moved from home into an artist’s residency a thousand miles away.

Developments were also under way in another family—this one nesting under the eaves on a drainpipe above our back deck. A pair of house finches who raised a brood there last year had returned.

The first time round, I was a nervous wreck about the birds. Would the neighbor’s cat get them? Would the babies fall out of their nest? Crash while learning to fly? Every morning I peeked out the window like a new parent who ventures into the nursery dreading crib death. It was like a time-lapsed sequence of all my anxieties about raising our own children.

But everything turned out fine, as it usually does. So this time round I’ve been calmer, not only with the finches’ launch, but with our daughters’. There’s a pang still, but it’s not nearly as acute as before, when each new step Emma and Ally made away from us left me worried about their well-being and wondering who I would be in their absence. Now I have come back to myself, come back to the marriage pushed to the back burner while my husband and I grew our girls into young women. Just as our daughters are taking flight into their new lives, we are, too.

So it is with our bird family. The parent finches go from patient egg-sitting to cramming food down gaping mouths. Scruffy teens with tufts of down atop their heads soon take over the living space, crowding each other on the edge of the nest.  Dislodged twigs and dried bits of guano litter the deck below. In a few days, they are gone, leaving behind their mess.

Just like Ally and Emma. I sweep the deck, then tackle the debris left behind in their rooms–stray socks, scraps of paper, dirty sheets and towels. As much as we miss our daughters, my husband and I love the return to order, love having our house (and deck) back.

Besides, we look forward to return visits, messiness and all.

 

 

 

Joy’s Shadow

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Joy and SadnessIs broccoli an adverse childhood experience? That’s about the biggest upset Riley, the protagonist of Pixar’s new film, Inside Out, encounters until age 11, when her family moves. Even for this securely attached child with loving parents and a sunny disposition, calamity ensues.

Riley’s destabilization is triggered by loss of everything familiar, preoccupied and misattuned parents, and looming adolescence. The biggest threat, however, is that Joy is planted too firmly at the helm, with Sadness practically banished.

Inside Out has been acclaimed for its attention to neuroscience, but there are also strong influences from contemporary psychoanalysis. The movie echoes pediatrician and psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott’s notion that “there is no baby without a mother and no mother without a baby.” It opens with newborn Riley’s first blurry glimpse of her parents, who exult in their baby. She is truly the gleam in her parents’ eye. Joy is not only a core emotion and an aspect of temperament, but a product of mirroring crucial to personality development.

Those of us who are therapists do not often encounter in our work clients whose earliest relationships result in Joy’s authentic governance. Yet we frequently see people who have long labored under the command of relentless good cheer. This, too, is the life of Riley. No wonder the other emotions are content to go along with the premise that Joy ought to be in charge: She sacrifices aspects of self to protect and please those she depends on.

Luckily, Riley is blessed with good-enough parents and optimal frustration: growth follows de-integration as split-off parts are integrated in an ongoing process of empathic failure and repair. Most important, Riley is allowed to mourn.

Inside Out has been lauded for its depiction of emotion, yet it is also a depiction of mania. And no wonder. Manic defenses ward off feelings of despair through constant activity, the fantasy of omnipotent control, and disavowal of sadness. Mania masquerades as happiness, but underneath lies the inability to feel sadness. This is Joy to a T.

It’s also a big aspect of American culture. Perhaps this explains why Inside Out has garnered such massive acclaim. The importance and integration of all emotions may be a given among therapists, yet the movie has been hailed as Revelation.

This may say more about us than Inside Out purports to say about the brain, emotions, memory, or personality development. But to the extent that the movie reaches a large audience about the role of affect and empathy, and the perils of happiness on command, it’s good to have Pixar at the controls.

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If you saw Inside Out, how did you like it? What aspects did you identify with? Have you experienced the pull to be positive no matter what?

 

Insane

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No gunsMy husband and I were hiking in the Alps with a group of Australians shortly after Dylann Roof murdered nine members of a Bible study group in Charleston, South Carolina. We felt like we were on a different planet trekking all day among towering peaks and wildflowers as at night we kept abreast of the horrific news on our smartphones.

The stark racism behind the Charleston shooting makes it almost beside the point to zero in on guns; a massacre so intertwined with America’s long and sorry history of racial oppression, particularly in the South, has understandably made this the prevailing focus. Nonetheless, although the why of Roof’s violent bigotry is deep-rooted and complex, the how is simple: easily obtained guns and ammunition.

Our Australian hiking companions were incredulous about America’s failure to do anything about gun violence. These were not our usual crowd of Bay Area liberals for whom guns arouse a knee-jerk suspicion. Our fellow trekkers were arrayed across the political spectrum. Several were ranchers; one talked about getting his first rifle as a kid. Yet Australia chose a different path from the United States after its own traumatic experience with a mass shooting.

In 1996, an Australian gunman killed 35 people in what came to be known as the Port Arthur massacre. Instead of sorrowful hand-wringing and inaction, John Howard, the newly elected conservative prime minister immediately passed with bipartisan support strict gun control laws throughout the country.  Private sales were banned, and only a narrow range of reasons were valid for ownership (self-defense, fear, and gun “rights” were not among them). Gun owners had to pass a safety class, could not carry their weapons around, and had to register and store them properly.

Some legislators paid a political price, but almost 90 percent of the population favored the new regulations. As our Australian friend who had grown up with guns explained, there were initial misgivings, but after a couple of years everyone saw that life continued to be fine, and the resistance disappeared.

The new laws were extremely effective. In the next decade, Australian gun homicides declined by 59 percent, the suicide rate by 65 percent. The rate of home invasions also declined. And there have been no mass shootings since Port Arthur.

As we listened to our hiking companions’ stories, they listened to ours:

  • About how even after 20 first-graders were shot to death in Sandy Hook in 2012, Congress could not summon the courage to mandate universal background checks supported by 90 percent of Americans.
  • About how the NRA’s response to gun violence is to advocate arming more people; “The only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” an NRA spokesman said after Sandy Hook.
  • About how men armed to the teeth swagger around advocating open-carry laws.
  • About how restrictions on guns have loosened rather than tightened since Sandy Hook.

“You’re kidding! That’s insane,” one of the Australians exclaimed over and over.

Indeed.

We hear a lot about insanity in conjunction with America’s mass shootings, which now occur at the rate of about every other week. The mental instability of the killers is inarguable, as is the need for more effective mental health screening and treatment. Yet scapegoating the mentally ill (who are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence) misses the point of a widespread cultural insanity. It also misses the point of doing something about the delivery system if not the root causes of our national pathology.  As Australian’s John Howard recalled about the Port Arthur massacre in an op-ed he wrote following Sandy Hook,  “The fundamental problem was the ready availability of high-powered weapons, which enabled people to convert their murderous impulses into mass killing. Certainly, shortcomings in treating mental illness and the harmful influence of violent video games and movies may have played a role. But nothing trumps easy access to a gun.”

We left the Alps much rejuvenated by the scenery and much enlightened by our Australian friends. Because we were on vacation, I didn’t write about it at the time. When we returned, we were gripped and heartened by the sea change that finally brought down the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s capitol in the aftermath of  Dylann Roof’s rampage. Guns, again understandably, took a back seat as we celebrated this important if symbolic milestone in tackling racial oppression.

But I knew it wouldn’t be long before gun violence was in the news again. Sure enough, this week Chattanooga and Lafayette were added to the roster of communities shattered by a gunman. More gun deaths will surely follow—those that make headlines and those that don’t. As glad as I am about the Confederate flag’s downfall, I wish we could take a page from the Australians, and see our gun insanity follow suit.

A Sprinkle in Time

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Portulacas

It’s amazing what a little bit of rain will do. Not just the spit of heavy fog, but real rain. This unexpected visitor hung around for less than an hour Thursday night in drought-parched Northern California, but boy, what a difference! Our garden perked right up, as this pot of portulacas can attest.

The garden has been hanging in there on life support: container plants watered with warm-up water from sinks and showers, drip irrigation stretched a day or two longer between waterings. Nothing much has actually died of thirst–it just looks like Hell, somewhere on the continuum between bedraggled and fried (except for the thriving grasses, succulents, grevillea, and oleander, which were clearly meant for Hell’s Climate Zones 1-3).

I had thought the portulacas were doing pretty well with water stinginess–until they burst into radiant bloom after their bonus drink. That’s when it hit me how often we keep plugging along on not-quite-enough, thinking all is fine.

I myself could use an extra few sips–of sleep, of fiction reading, of fun–to go from doing just fine to thriving. How about you–what little extra would make a big difference in your life?.

 

 

Question #4

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Jonathan and Lorrie, Tour du Mont Blanc 2015Fans of Shrinkrapped may recall that I was planning to pop the question–make that 36 questions–to Jonathan during our vacation. These are the questions, devised by a psychologist and popularized by Modern Love, that supposedly foster intimacy and love. In our case, they fostered a certain amount of resistance and eye-rolling, but Jonathan was game enough to humor me through the first 11 questions during a long drive to the Pyrenees.

Question #4 stood out: “What would constitute a perfect day for you?”

Our answers were the same–a great hike, topped off with a great meal.

We had five hiking days in the Pyrenees, then six in the Alps on the Tour du Mont Blanc. All were great, and all were followed by great meals (OK, panna cotta instead of chocolate mousse lowered the score on a few occasions.)

But all in all, so many perfect days made a perfect trip!

Hike to Cirque d’Estaube
Aigüestortes National Park, trail to Lake Llong
Day 6, Tour du Mont Blanc, ibex
Cavallers Lake, Aigüestortes National Park
Path to Cirque du Gavarnie
Day 3, Tour du Mont Blanc
Day 4, Tour du Mont Blanc, view from Col de Balme
Hike to Cirque d’Estaube
Looking down on Gavarnie

Love or Death?

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“Let’s do 36 Questions during the flight!” I proposed to my husband, Jonathan. Long plane rides were in our immediate future, as we planned to celebrate our 60th birthdays, 29th wedding anniversary, and his impending retirement with travel to Barcelona, the Pyrenees, and the Alps.

Not being a Modern Love aficionado, Jonathan had no idea what I was talking about, but he knew me well enough to be suspicious. Therapists like me are always proposing innocuous-sounding activities designed to plumb the hearts and souls, if not the unconscious, of their loved ones.

“The 36 Questions promote love and intimacy as people answer ever-deepening questions,” I explained. “You finish by staring into one another’s eyes for four minutes.”

I don’t remember Jonathan’s exact response, but it was something like, “I would rather chop off my right arm.”

So I gave him a choice.

“If you don’t want to do the 36 Questions, why don’t we both read Being Mortal, and then discuss in detail end-of-life issues?” I suggested. “After all, ‘Shoot me if it comes to that’ is hardly a plan!” I was referring to something I’d said after a particularly depressing visit to a friend with advanced Alzheimer’s, but we’d never taken the conversation much beyond mutual dread and hand-wringing.

On a cheerier note, I added, “Besides, I don’t even know your favorite color or what music you’d want at your memorial.”

Again, I don’t remember Jonathan’s exact response, but this time it was along the lines of, “I would rather chop off my right arm but first I will chop off yours if you don’t stop asking me these things.”

This hardly seemed fair, since I had agreed to go hear some guy natter on about annuities just so we could get a free dinner, which threw me off my diet for a week.

Still, a loving spouse must not hold grudges.

A loving and determined spouse must find new methods of persuasion that may or may not involve alcohol and sexual favors.

One of my methods was to forward Jonathan a podcast featuring Dr. Arthur Aron, the psychologist whose team devised the 36 Questions. He, like Jonathan, seemed a lovely and intelligent man, not some woo-woo freak.

“The questions were actually designed to promote better working relationships among colleagues! It takes just 45 minutes!” I explained, assuming this logic would somehow melt the resistance of my wary husband. Instead, it increased his dread that he’d soon have to avoid overpaid, questionnaire-wielding consultants promoting team-building at work as well as his own wife.

“Plus,” I added triumphantly, as if I had discovered the pièce de resistance for overcoming resistance, “It works best if couples do it together! We can do it with ________ and _______.”

I provide this fill-in-the-blank format not only to protect privacy, but to illustrate that you could pretty much write in the names of anyone you know, and achieve the same outcome: The vast majority of people named in at least one (if not both) of those blanks would be more willing to chop off their right arms than to take the time to answer some VERY BASIC QUESTIONS that might, just might, improve their sorry little lives! But I digress . . .

It was back to death trumping love. Thinking to enlist the help of my mother-in-law, who routinely says, “We’re counting on you to put us out of our misery when the time comes,” I told her about my Being Mortal Couple’s Book Group Idea.

“I don’t blame Jonathan one bit,” my mother-in-law said. “Why would anyone want to read that book? “

The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree, does it?

With our trip just two weeks away, I was growing desperate. God forbid I should actually plow through back issues of The New Yorker and a couple of ebooks on the plane instead of threatening strengthening my marriage!

In a last-ditch ambush attempt on a lovely, long hike, I said in my best, neutral tone, “I’m curious about why you don’t want to do the 36 Questions?” (Just a few days earlier Jonathan had answered the same question about Being Mortal by declaring that he was not “drawn to death” the way I was.)

“Fine, we can do it,” Jonathan replied in a perfectly even and affable tone, depriving me of the chance to pounce on any tell-tale defensiveness.

So now the ball’s in my court. I’ve added 36 Questions to my Trip To-Do List. Shall I print them out or download the free app? (No, I am not kidding—there’s a free 36-Questions App. Several, in fact.)

Then again, maybe I’ll just catch up on my New Yorker backlog or try to catch some shut-eye during our 16-hour flight.

That might just be the best anniversary present I could give my beleaguered and beloved husband.

*

Which would you choose (conversationally speaking)—love or death?

Pizza Anniversary

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pepperoni feast

“You seem to believe that a man will drop out of the sky right in front of you,” my then-therapist said to me when I was 29.

As usual, I had been lamenting my lack of a relationship while listing all the reasons I could never actually try to meet someone. A personal ad (the Dark Ages equivalent of Match.com) was out of the question: I might as well put out a sign soliciting ax murderers. Going on a Sierra Singles hike would probably sidestep that problem by providing safety in numbers. But that, too, I argued, was only for desperate and pathetic people. I was feeling desperate and pathetic enough without advertising it. Besides, why spend the day with a bunch of other losers?

Still, my therapist had a point. My friend Mary conspired with her by buying me a Sierra Singles membership. So I was stuck.

“At least I’ll have a nice hike,” I rationalized as I reluctantly laced up my boots.

I did have a nice hike. So I went back, making sure to choose long, arduous hikes instead of champagne sunset strolls. I figured that’s where the men would be.

My third Sierra Singles hike was a 15-miler in Marin County, up Pine Mountain and down to Kent Lake and back. As we all milled around the carpool point in Oakland engaging in the usual getting-to-know-you exchanges, where we’d gone to school came up.

“Oh,” some cute-enough guy asked. “Do you know so-and-so?”

As it happened, I knew so-and-so extremely well; I’d had a crush on him for years, but my college roommate landed him instead. The carpool guy had grown up with so-and-so.

Small-world chit-chat developed into 15 miles of walking and talking about everything—Prairie Home Companion; how the subject matter didn’t matter when the writing was great (c.f. Roger Angell and baseball in The New Yorker); his sister, who homeschooled her kids and was, like me, a Virginia Woolf devotee.

After the hike, everyone crammed into Red Boy Pizza in Fairfax for beer and pizza. Before we parted, Jonathan asked for my phone number (he’d had few opportunities to collect any woman’s number on previous hikes, as he was not clever enough to improve his odds by going on the champagne strolls).

“I think I’ve met the man I’m going to marry!” I crowed to my mother when we spoke the next day by telephone.

“You say that about everyone you meet,” my mother replied.

Fair enough. But like a stopped clock that’s accurate twice a day, this prophecy proved true.

Today is our 31st anniversary of meeting. That auspicious day led to 29 years (and counting!) of marriage, two daughters, and an abiding appreciation for therapy’s art of gentle challenge. At the rehearsal dinner before our wedding, Jonathan’s father urged everyone to donate to the Sierra Club. This weekend we recreated our Pine Mountain hike (we’re still 15-milers at age 60, though we’ve let our Sierra Club membership lapse).

It’s a lot to celebrate, but today’s ritual is my favorite: As we do every June 2, tonight we’ll devour pepperoni and green pepper pizza from Red Boy in Fairfax, clinking our beers together in honor of all the years gone by, and all those still to come.

*

Have you ever had to overcome your resistance to working at finding love? How did you meet your sweetie?