This Week’s Moment of Happiness Despite the News

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Last night, I felt like a curmudgeon. I felt grumpy. Jaded. Not just a skeptic, but a super-duper skeptic. Negative Woman! Able to bring people down in five seconds flat!

I haven’t felt like that since partway through writing the year of Today’s Moment Of Happiness. I’ve now finished the first year of This Week’s Moment, and I’m into the second. While I would never describe myself as a unicorn and rainbows person, I did believe that my overall outlook had changed, pretty much thanks to The Moments.

Last night, that all seemed to fly out the proverbial window. Except the window was closed and it smacked against it and created a horrific splatter that would never be cleaned up, because I was so skeptical, donchaknow. I was Negative Woman.

I was at my daughter Olivia’s Senior Send-Away. I’ve never been to one of these before, and I’m not really sure of the purpose, since most of the senior class wasn’t there, and neither were the faculty. It’s final exam week, after all. But the orchestra played and the chorus sang. An English teacher gave a little speech. There was a video of the teachers, giving last-minute advice to the graduating class.

I heard things like, “Live what you love! Follow your dreams! Be whoever it is you want to be! Choose your life and follow it!” and on and on until the room was full of dancing unicorns and sparkling rainbows.

Except for the black cloud over me. I sat there, my arms crossed, and thought continually, like a mantra, Whatta crock!

Live what you love, I thought, and then try to get health insurance.

Follow your dream and then try to pay your taxes.

Be whoever it is you want to be, and then find out you’re not valued by what you do, but by how much money you make.

Choose your life and follow it and find the inevitable dead end.

Boy, was I ever in a mood. And when I thought of my daughter going out into this black cloud world, where there are no unicorns and rainbows only last for minutes, and I couldn’t do anything to protect her, well, there were tears.

After the orchestra performed, the kids came out and sat in the audience. Olivia sat right in front of me, so she wouldn’t have to crawl over me, since I had an aisle seat. At one point, one of the speakers said that the kids should look around them, see the people who love and support them and always, always will, especially their moms and dads, and that they should reach out and grab their hands and hold them tight.

Olivia didn’t turn. But she stuck her hand straight up in the air and then bent her arm at the elbow so that I could reach out and grab her. We both held on tight.

“These are the people who will always believe in you,” the speaker said.

Always. Always. I immediately thought of Olivia’s preschool teacher. The day Olivia started kindergarten, I stopped in the preschool room and told the teacher all went well. “We believe Olivia will grow up and have a normal life,” I said. “A great life. We believe she will go to college. She will be who she wants to be. And she will do it well.”

Be whoever it is you want to be, the teachers said. Follow your dream. Live what you love. Choose your life.

“We believe,” I said to this preschool teacher.

She hugged me and patted my back and said, “Well, we can always dream.”

Follow your dream.

Look at my daughter now. Look at what she’s done. And just imagine what she will do. We will always, always believe.

Earlier this week, my daughter admitted she was a little bit scared of college. She mentioned it casually, on the drive home from school.

I didn’t hesitate. “It’s okay to be scared,” I said. “Everyone is. But you are going to be great. Just look at you. And you are going to have the absolute best time.”

I wanted to say, with all my heart, that this girl is the brightest star in my sky. But I thought that would sound too much like a Hallmark card. Sometimes Hallmark cards are just the exact right thing.

By the time I got home last night, the black cloud was no longer over me. If I had to listen to those speeches all over again – and I probably will, on Saturday, when she graduates – I would still roll my eyes and think, Whatta crock.

But then I would look at my daughter. And all I would feel is hope. Look at her.

I believe.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

I finally did something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while. It took me almost two years, with the last four months containing three appointments, two cancellations, and…today. Today, I did it.

No, I didn’t get a tattoo or a new piercing.

I went boob shopping.

I’ve debated what I would consider my “cancerversary”, the day I became free of breast cancer. To be exact, Stage 2 Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. I’ve finally decided on July 25^th (2017) as that was the day of my surgery, the day cancer was carved out of my body. I considered the day I finished radiation, September 25^th, 2017. But I went back today into my Today’s Moments, and on the day of surgery, I wrote:

One of my ABCD mentors (After Breast Cancer Diagnosis) just texted me and said in all caps, THE CANCER HAS LEFT YOUR BODY! Shortly after, my other ABCD mentor texted and said, You are now over that first mountain and that beautiful valley is still ahead.

I did not have a full mastectomy, but a partial. My doctors use that term because of the amount of my breast that was taken. When the surgeon sliced me open, she found that the tumor was larger than she anticipated. When I woke up in recovery, I was told that a sizable chunk of me was gone. Then, a year and two months later, there was a sudden infection in the surgical site, requiring a drain to be inserted and six weeks of powerful antibiotics. The result was that my breast, already deformed, collapsed on one side.

Naked, it left me wanting to not be naked. Dressed, I felt increasingly self-conscious because I was obviously lopsided. I found myself wearing looser and looser shirts and consistently crossing my right arm over my breast.

In February, I made an appointment at the Cancer Center’s in-house store that carried prosthetics and mastectomy bras. The day of, I canceled. A couple months later, I did it again. A couple weeks ago, they called me to see if I wanted to reschedule. I said yes.

I had great trouble with this. It feels vain to me. It feels shallow. But dammit, every morning when I get dressed, every time I go shopping, every time I pass a mirror, my eyes zero in on that sad little right breast, no longer at all what it used to be.

This morning, I considered canceling the appointment. I had things to do. I always have things to do. But then I got in my car and went. As requested, I wore a snug-fitting white shirt. A favorite that was no longer a favorite because of that sad breast.

In a comfortable room in the little store, the nicest woman took care of me. She measured me and then measured me again. She didn’t react in any way to how my breast looked.  I kept my right arm crossed over it until she had me lift my arms to my sides and then, I closed my eyes.

By then, I’d told myself, You’ll just try it on. Then you’ll say no. You can do this. You can accept who you are now. This is who you are.

She brought in three styles of bras. Each had a special little pocket sewn to the inside of the right cup. Then, she opened a little pink zippered cloth box and she pulled out the fake breast. It was shiny and smooth and I watched as she slid it into the pocket. I put the bra on and then together, we maneuvered the prosthetic into place. I watched in amazement as the bra filled out…with what looked like me. Then she had me pull on my shirt. I raised my eyes to the mirror.

And there I was. There I was.

Just as I was on June 19^th, 2017, the day before the mammogram went south. As I was through ultrasounds, biopsies and an MRI. As I was on July 25^th, 2017, in the morning, before I was rolled into surgery.

Oh, there I was.

I admit it. I cried. And I also wished I hadn’t waited for so long. If it’s vain, if it’s shallow, I don’t care. I have never been so relieved to see someone I know in the mirror.

I drove home, wearing the new bra and my right breast’s new best friend. Ever try driving while continually glancing down to admire symmetry?

I had an Elton John CD playing and the song Electricity came on. And I heard these lyrics:

I suppose it’s like forgetting

Losing who you are

And at the same time

Something makes you whole

Yeah. It’s just like that.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

A couple weeks ago, I was sick with pneumonia, which just felt like the ultimate insult during a finally-warming-up spring. A student suggested I visit a salt room. I’d never heard of such a thing, so I checked into it and found one close by. A salt room is exactly what it sounds like – a room made of salt. The walls, ceiling and floor are covered in white, the salt loose on the floor like gravel, and textured on the walls like plaster. A machine embedded in one of the walls blows more salt out, ground to a barely noticeable mist, and as you lay in anti-gravity chairs, you breathe it in. You’re covered with a blanket to protect your clothes and the temperature is kept at seventy degrees. I walked in a skeptic and walked out a believer. The salt thins the mucus, so it’s great for sinus and lung issues. It was amazing.

But it was also a different sort of reprieve. It wasn’t until my third time there that I realized it. Everything is white – there is no visual stimulation. The only sound is the machine pumping in the salt. It’s like walking into a desensitization chamber – the only thing you have to do is sit and breathe. Everything slows down. I brought a book with me the first two times, but that third time, I set the book aside and fell instantly into a sleep so deep, it was dreamless and all awareness fell away.

All because everything in my life slowed down for that 45 minutes.

I’ve been thinking, Slow down! a lot lately. The other day, Michael and I were discussing what we might want to do in five years, and I heard myself say, “In five years, I’ll be sixty-four –“ and I came to a dead stop. Sixty-four? 64? Of the Beatles’ When I’m 64? How the hell did that happen? Slow down, slow down, slow down!

My grandbaby, Maya Mae, is six years old now. The other day, Facebook gifted me with a Facebook memory, a photo of her beaming in her stroller, happy, happy baby, not even able to sit up yet. A short time later, I was driving past the Fox River, and there was my son and my granddaughter. “Hi, Maya!” I yelled and she gave me her queenly wave. She was so tall, striding by my son. No stroller. Absolutely under her own power. She wasn’t even holding his hand.

Slow down, slow down, slow down.

And then, of course, Olivia. She went to prom last weekend. I watched as she had a make-up session, and then I helped her into her dress. She slipped into high heels, grew suddenly taller, and strode confidently across the room. Strode confidently to meet her boyfriend, walk with him hand in hand, laugh during photos. Michael and I watched them cross the street in downtown Milwaukee and head into the Bradley Pavilion ballroom. My daughter, my youngest, in a ballroom.

Slow down, slow down, slow down.

I breathed deep, pretended I was in the Salt Room, with everything coming to a stop. Not forever. Just for a while. Just until I felt like I could catch up. Like I could accept all the changes, but hold tightly to the past. That happy, happy grandbaby. And my little girl, who used to spend hours lining up hundreds of colored plastic bears throughout the house, in a persnickety order only she knew. Who belted out Laura Branigan’s Gloria when she was only three years old and couldn’t quite speak. Who looked at her anxious parents on the first day of kindergarten and said calmly, “You can go now.”

You can go now.

Slow down, slow down, slow down.

Later that night, after we came home, Olivia washed all the make-up from her face, leaving behind pink cheeks and a bright smile. She asked for my help hanging up her beautiful dress. And then she put on…her fuzzy one-piece Care Bear pajamas.

Oh, that’s better!

She came out to the living room and sat next to me, on the armrest of my recliner. Olivia has never been a lap-sitter. She likes to be close by, cuddled in, but still her own independent entity. So just as she sat next to me when she was three, when she was seven, when she was twelve, and just last week, she sat next to me in her fuzzy pajamas and rested her head on my shoulder.

And there it was. Everything slowed to a stop and was its own crystal clear moment, even as it reflected back over the fuzzy-pajamas cuddle time moments from our past. It was all there – the promise of her future, the joy of our past.

That was all I needed.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Many years ago, when my daughter Olivia was four years old, I took her to a shoe store in search of pink sneakers. For Olivia, the world was pink. Her room, her clothes, her stuffed animals, her ponytail holders, her backpack, her bedspread. The day before, she was in an art class where the teacher had the kids creating their own kid-versions of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, a painting filled with a myriad of rich, rich blues. Olivia studied the painting, studied her paints, and did it in pink. The teacher sighed as she handed the finished project over to me. “We tried to get her to use blue,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

She looked at me like I was crazy.

In the shoe store, Olivia quickly grew bored with the kid aisle and so she skipped around, looking at women’s shoes. I wasn’t worried; we were the only ones in the store and Olivia kept up a constant chatter that always let me know where she was and that she was okay. Nonverbal until the age of three, at four, Olivia was a fountain of never-ending conversation. She made up for lost time by speaking to everything and everyone – our pets, her toys, the walls, strangers on the street, herself, and at night, in her sleep, she spoke out loud of her dreams. Now, she talked to the shoes and I pondered pink sneakers with white rubber toes, sequins, and cartoon characters. And then I heard, “Mama! Mama! Lookit!”

Around the corner, she careened, her pink-socked feet tucked into a pair of brilliant silver women’s STILETTOS. And she was RUNNING.

Instantly, I pictured a twist, a fall, two broken ankles, a concussion, a broken nose, an unconscious pink child. At the end of the aisle, the store manager stood with both her hands to her mouth, her face a mask of horror as I’m sure she pictured a lawsuit. Olivia skidded to a stop in front of me and then stood, proud, perfectly steady, popping a hip and tilting her nose to the ceiling, her mouth a model’s sneer.

“Those are just lovely,” I said to Olivia. “But we need to get you sneakers. Go put those away, okay?”

“Okay, Mama,” she said. “I just wanted to show you.” She strutted away, hips swaying, and she gave a queen’s wave to the manager.

The manager and I looked at each other, both of us letting out a breath. “Ohboy,” I said.

My life with this child has been 18 years of ohboys.

Tonight, I am taking Olivia shopping for shoes to wear with her prom dress. Prom is in two days and we just discovered that the shoes we thought she was going to wear are not tall enough to lift the skirt from the floor. While the dress, a two-piece, isn’t bright pink, it does have a pale pink cast to it, and soft pink flowers on the skirt. The sequins on the top are rose gold. Last week, my pink child said to me, “I want a crown to wear to prom.”

A crown. Ms. Pink Van Gogh wants a crown. Well, of course, I found one. A rose gold tiara. The night we realized the shoes were too short, I had Olivia get into the full outfit. I placed the tiara on her head, and there she was.

There she was.

I thought about all the things you read these days, about putting girls into STEM, about rejecting princess-dreams, about, well, all of that. I have a girl who has always loved pink, who loves to draw and paint, who writes, who plays violin, guitar and ukulele, who does well with math and science, but doesn’t embrace them, who ran in stilettos at the age of four, and who wanted a crown for prom. She stood before me, tall, shoulders back, head upraised, surrounded by soft pink, topped with sequins, and she was the picture, the definition of strength. Of courage. Of determination to be who she is, no matter what the world proclaims is the right way to be.

I called her father upstairs to see. He looked straight at her and said, “You’re beautiful.”

Before he went downstairs, he turned to me, and I saw his eyes were filled with tears.

On August 21, we will take our pink child to college. We will unload all of her pink necessities into her room and we will help her hang posters of VW Beetles on her walls. And then we will kiss her goodbye, get in our car, and drive away. I’m not going to think about that now.

But I am going to hold that tall, beautiful, confident, I’m-not-afraid-to-tell-you-who-I-am pink young woman in my heart forever. That moment with her, echoing the four-year old who stood before me in stilettos, gave me enough joy – and ohboys – for a lifetime.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

For the last couple weeks, I’ve been fretting over the feeling that I forgot something. Each time I remembered something, I thought, That’s it! But then the feeling returned and I was back to fretting again. It followed me around like a little storm cloud.

And then, one day last week, when I was muttering an almost daily mantra given to me by a good friend from grad school, that mantra being, “I’m going to rock the system,” it hit me.

I missed the anniversary of my friend Sam’s death. The day he chose to take his life.

On March 3, I remembered to put a happy birthday on Sam’s Facebook page, which is still up as a memorial to him. But on April 23, the fifth anniversary of his leaving this earth, I was silent. Not out of choice. Because I plain and simple forgot.

Since this realization, the feeling of forgetting something has left me. Instead, I descended into misery.

I met Sam within minutes of stepping foot onto Vermont College’s grounds for my first semester. This was a low-residential MFA program, it was December, I was a long way from home, it was dark and I couldn’t see anything around me. At home, my youngest daughter, Olivia, was thirteen months old, not yet diagnosed as autistic, but already making waves, and I was sick with guilt over leaving her. I didn’t know what I was thinking, deciding to go back to school for a graduate degree when I was forty years old, the mother of four, a hard worker already putting in 65 hours a week teaching other writers, and now I was taking on more. I was scared to death. I wanted to go home.

As I stepped off the shuttle bus that brought me and other students from the airport, I couldn’t see much of anything to ground me. But then there was this man standing beneath a light post and he smiled. He fell into step beside me. To this day, I don’t know why.

He helped me check in, get my keys, drop my stuff off. And then he led me to the dining room and we talked all through the late dinner.  He asked me all about myself and I told him, because I was so desperate to have someone know me, here in this world where I was suddenly surrounded by absolute strangers. By the end of our meal, he did know me. He recognized who I was by the stories I’d had published.

“Kathie,” he said, “you’re going to rock the system. You already are.”

And then I was okay.

Throughout our years after grad school, we maintained contact. We each shared the same publisher for a while. And everything, everything I decided to do, everything I did, Sam said, “Kathie, you’re going to rock the system.”

To this day, I say it to myself. Whenever I’m scared. Whenever I’m unsure. Which happens way more often than people believe.

On April 23, 2014, Sam chose to end his life. I knew he was having a hard time. I intended to speak with him later in the day. I was busy. But by later in the day, he was gone.

And now, I missed that morbid anniversary for the first time. I didn’t leave a note, letting him know what he meant to me and what he means to me still.

A couple days after this realization, I was heading into a meeting I didn’t want to go into, and I muttered to myself, “Kathie, you’re going to rock the system.”

Which resulted in realization number two. I haven’t forgotten Sam. I haven’t forgotten him at all. He is with me constantly, a smiling shadow that falls into step beside me, and never more than when I repeat those words. I just no longer focus on his death.

I focus on his life. His passion, his compassion, his incredible knowledge of what a person needs right when they need it and his willingness to give it. I don’t need to remember his death.

I only need to remember him.

And I do. Which brings me great joy. My life was enriched when he came into it, and my life continues to be rich because of his impact and care. I didn’t forget, Sam. I just didn’t need to remember.

I never know from day to day what “rocking the system” means, exactly, but thanks to Sam, I do it. Because he saw it in me.

Thanks, Sam. I miss you.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

I have bronchitis, and two little patches of pneumonia growing in my lungs.

Well, there’s a weird way to start a Moment! But bear with me. There’s a reason.

There are so many things they don’t tell you in Cancer School. I don’t even know where Cancer School is, actually…I think it must be right next door to Parent School in some nondescript building in the middle of nowhere. Because we can’t find these bastions of knowledge. We struggle along and wish that someone could have filled us in BC (before cancer) and BK (before kids).

Well, I’m telling. Cancer Surprises 101.

There’s so much about the cancer recovery process that isn’t spoken about to the general public. Watch a movie, and you’ll see cancer patients being told, “We got it all!” and “You’re clear!” and the patient and their families burst into tears and then romp out into the sunshine to return to life as it was before the diagnosis.

Trust me, it’s not that way. But then little things start coming along to let you know you are indeed still the person you were before cancer. Here’s some that have struck me happy:

*I tried on a shirt in the dressing room and my eyes didn’t go immediately to my right side, to see if the difference was noticeable.

*I forgot to put on my “sleeping bra” and yet still managed to sleep comfortably through the night.

*A song that caused me to burst into tears all through the Summer of Cancer no longer brings sadness. In fact, I can belt it out without my voice cracking.

And then there was today. I’ve been coughing coughing coughing for two weeks now. The pollen count went way up and I’m asthmatic, so I assumed it was asthma and allergies. My emergency inhaler, which I hadn’t used in over a year, suddenly came out of hiding and found its way to my lungs, first once a day, then twice. Yesterday, the cough suddenly grew deeper and I woke this morning with chills and a fever. As an asthmatic, I’ve dealt often with bronchitis and pneumonia, so the first thing I did was call in for an appointment. I’d also been lectured by my oncologist that the cancer treatments I received would leave me somewhat short in the resistance department for quite some time.

“A few months?” I asked back then.

“Maybe years,” he said.

Cripes.

But here’s the first weird thing that actually made me smile. I typically get bronchitis or pneumonia two to four times a year. Since my breast cancer diagnosis two years ago – not once. It was like my body shoved everything else out of the way to focus only on getting rid of the cancer. And now…well, we’re back to business as normal.

This “normal” feel continued as I went to my clinic. The Cancer Center is on one side. Everything Else Center is on the other. I haven’t been to Everything Else in almost two years – not since June 20, 2017. Today, I breezed past Cancer, parked in the Everything Else lot, and walked in.

Then I went through more normal. Breathing like a constipated train while the doctor listened to my lungs. Chugging off to x-ray to see if there might be pneumonia. And then back to my doctor. My regular doctor. My normal doctor.

“You haven’t been on antibiotics in two years!” he exclaimed.

“Two years!” I echoed.

“You haven’t had bronchitis or pneumonia in two years!” he crowed.

“Two years!” I sang and raised one fist in triumph.

“You’re normal-sick!” he cheered.

“Normal-sick!” I cheered with him, raising both fists and then we gave each other high fives.

Oh, what a weird, weird moment. But it was wonderful. I was at the doctor’s office, just like an everyday normal person. I had an everyday normal illness. I would get better after an everyday normal run of antibiotics and rest.

And my body returned to business as normal. The red flags were down. I had a sickness I wasn’t scared of. I had a sickness I was familiar with. I’ve pretty much graduated with a PhD from Asthma/Bronchitis/Pneumonia School. Normal.

I’ll probably be bitching about pneumonia tomorrow. But for today, I’m happy. If I ever find that Cancer School, I have a few lectures to give. I have a few for Parent School too.

Oh, yes. That helps. Despite. Anyway.

The Bronchitis/Pneumonia arsenal, complete with Starbucks!

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

I’m in La Crosse, Wisconsin, visiting with a book club that has read all of my books and invited me in for a visit with each new publication. I love them. And I love La Crosse, even though today, it is treating me to rain, keeping me in my hotel room instead of allowing me out to visit my favorite sites. Tomorrow, I leave La Crosse and drive to Green Bay, where I am participating in the UntitledTown book festival.

I’ve been looking forward to this trip for a long time. I looked forward to being away, but being in a familiar place, visiting a favorite labyrinth (if it’s still there – it was supposed to be torn down), going to a favorite park, dipping my toes in the Mississippi. And I was looking forward to my hotel stay, in a place I’ve been before, many times, that has a lovely pool and hot tub.

I haven’t been in a hot tub since September 2018, when the surgical area left behind by breast cancer became infected. Whenever I asked my surgeon since if I could go in a hot tub, she reacted in horror. Now, I could sink in up to my neck again and lose myself in heat.

Traditionally, this hotel has been quiet during weekdays and I’ve had the hot tub and pool to myself, especially if I go after ten o’clock. I walked down the hall last night at ten-thirty and then felt dismayed when I heard hooting and splashing and loud music. I peeked in the doorway and saw a mixed crowd of young people. They were dancing to the music, leaping into the pool, singing, shrieking, and there were lots and lots of cups and bottles and cans.

Oh, no.

But I waited so long to sink into a hot tub. I have a jetted tub at home, but it’s not the same, it’s not deep enough to be completely immersed. So I steeled myself, rolled my inner introvert into a towel, and walked in. I told myself I could huddle in a corner of the hot tub and they would never notice me.

I stepped past the two girls sitting on the steps of the hot tub, found my way to the corner, and sank down. And sure enough, they just kept going. Dancing, singing. Shouting over the music. I was tempted to not stop at my neck, but slip below the surface entirely, but I got the feeling the noise would continue there too. So I just tried to focus on the heat cushioning my body, easing aches and pains, and trying to melt the awful winter away (it’s supposed to snow on Saturday).

Then the group got into an argument over whether to listen to Backstreet Boys or NSync. Really? They all started to belt out their favorite songs, and it was worse, because now they were all singing different songs terribly instead of singing one song together terribly. And then one turned to me and asked, as if I could be the tie-breaker, “What do you want to hear?”

“Neither of those groups,” I replied. Which brought laughter.

“Who do you like?” they asked.

“Right now, Imagine Dragons,” I said. “Linkin Park. Coldplay.”

“Whoa!” they said.

Yeah. But my favorite group remains the Moody Blues. Who they likely never heard of.

But then they all circled me and began to sing along with whatever came up on their songlist. One of them told me they were all 23 – 25 year old physical therapy students from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, in La Crosse for a conference. She asked why I was there and when I told her, she said, “You’re a writer? Whoa! That’s amazing!”

Damn straight, young’un.

And then a Smash Mouth song came on and I began to sing with them.

Well, the years start comin’ and they don’t stop comin’

Fed to the rules and I hit the ground runnin’

Didn’t make sense not to live for fun

Your brain gets smart, but your head gets dumb…

I sang and rocked with a bunch of twenty-somethings. I promised to send my meatloaf recipe to one of them. And when I returned to my room, after calling out goodnights and wishing them a good time at their conference, where they have to turn into young professionals in professional attire and speak in soft, confident voices and know what they’re talking about, I was smiling. Not as relaxed as I would have been, in the hot tub all by myself, maybe, but happy.

Sometimes, things that start out as irritants turn into gifts. (Maybe this rain will too.)

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Last night, I was talking with a student in Australia and she brought up the Beverly Hillbillies. She couldn’t come up with the theme song. We meet in a chatroom and I spent the next several minutes, burning up my fingertips by typing out the entire song, all the way down to the “Hills, that is. Swimming pools. Movie stars.” Cue banjo solo.

After I mentioned this on Facebook, along with the fact that I couldn’t remember to go pick up a prescription at Walgreens that has been sitting there for a week, my brother asked if I remembered the theme song from Green Acres.

Yep. I typed it all out. No, I didn’t google it. It’s in my own personal google. My head.

The theme from the Brady Bunch. Gilligan’s Island. H.R. Pufnstuf. The Tra-la-la song from the Banana Splits. I can hum the song from all the Charlie Brown specials, though the song itself is actually called Linus & Lucy.

Good lord. You would think I spent my entire childhood in front of the television. I didn’t.

On Tuesday, and pretty much any other day of the week in my life, I ended up talking about The Waltons. To a class that had one student who had no idea who the Waltons were. She was too young. I mentioned that I owned the Waltons Barbie dolls.

Big eyes around the table. “The Waltons were made into Barbie dolls?”

Yes. Grandma and Grandpa, Mama and Daddy, John Boy and Mary Ellen. The rest of the family wasn’t represented, which likely means they didn’t sell well. But I have these, along with my Waltons lunchbox, board game (two copies), Viewmaster and reels, paper dolls, books (including a book of really awful poetry by Richard Thomas, who played John Boy), LP’s, and the entire series on DVD. I own the TV Guides that featured the show on the cover. And I have the Playboy that Mary Ellen Walton posed in, trying to shed her good mountain girl reputation.

And yet I didn’t start watching the Waltons until I was an adult, pregnant with my first child, and the reruns were on the old Family Channel on cable. But John Boy affected me long before then.

When I was in high school, I was always up in my room, writing. One Thursday night, I realized I was in my room, writing in my journal, listening to my family downstairs where they were watching The Waltons on television, where John Boy was up in his room, writing in his journal, listening to his family listen to Fibber McGee & Molly (I believe) on the radio. And I was zapped through with connection. With community. I was not isolated in my room, alone with my words and the story unfolding in my head. I was surrounded by writers, trailing all the way back through history.

John Boy was the first person to make me feel like what I was doing had any worth and any place of permanence. From that point on, writing became more than an activity to me. It became a life. And I belonged to a rich and wonderful community.

Now, I can sit down and watch any episode of the series, starting it at any place, and recite the script with the characters by memory. I’ve visited the real Walton’s Mountain, which is Schuyler, Virginia. I met Earl Hamner’s aunt – Earl was the writer of The Waltons, and he was the real John Boy. I corrected the tour guide during the Walton’s Mountain Museum tour, when she wrongly identified the quilt at the foot of John Boy’s bed. I’ve used scenes from the show in my lectures.

One of the big highlights of my life was the day Earl Hamner friended me on Facebook. I grieved when he died. I’ve grieved with the passing of the actors – Grandpa, Grandma, Daddy, and several of the minor, but no less fabulous characters.

But John Boy. My heart forever and ever belongs to John Boy. Because he let me know that whenever I sat down to write, the entire world’s history of writers stood behind me, looked over my shoulders, and thought what I was doing was worth doing.

Whenever I question if I am on the right path, which I’ve done a lot lately, I look to The Waltons. And I remember and feel again the saturation of emotion I had that night, in my bedroom, writing in my journal, while my family watched TV.

I won’t ever say goodnight to John Boy. I might sing him the theme from the Beverly Hillbillies, but I won’t ever say goodnight.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

I thought seriously about putting off this Moment until tomorrow. I post the Moments on Thursday, but my whole self is focused on Friday this week. Friday is Spend-The-Afternoon-At-The-Cancer-Center Day.

It’s time for the mammogram again. And the bloodwork. And the visit with my medical oncologist. And you know, since June 20^th, 2017, the word “just” has been taken out of this type of routine appointment. It’s no longer “just” a mammogram, “just” bloodwork. And there didn’t used to be “medical oncologist”, as well as “radiation oncologist” and “breast cancer surgeon” in my vocabulary at all.

So all of my attention (and nerves) is on tomorrow. And it’s a double-whammy mammogram now – I’m worried about if it will come up clear, of course, but the last mammogram, this past August, caused trauma to the affected breast and I ended up with a whopper of an infection in the surgical site. Cellulitis that landed me just outside the doors of the ICU. A drain stuck into my breast, which was a year and two months cancer-free. Six weeks of hardcore antibiotics. And a breast that no longer looks anything like it did, pre- or post-surgery.

So I worry. About the outcome. About infection. About if they are even able to do a mammogram at all, and what they will do if they can’t. And what that new procedure will cost.

So I nearly put off This Week’s Moment by a day. But then I told myself that that’s just not the mission of the Moments. The Moments are about finding a positive even when things are feeling not-so-positive. Even when things are feeling scary.

So. This week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Tuesday this week was gloomy and rainy and just bleh. Kinda like today, come to think of it, though we’ve had the addition of snow and ice and high winds and thunder and lightning. But that day, it was just rainy and gloomy. Michael needed to do the grocery shopping, so I dropped him off at the store.

Before I drove away, a bright spot of pink caught my attention. There was a man walking toward the doors. He looked like an old farmer, wearing a tattered barn jacket and baggy jeans and beat-up work boots. His shoulders were slumped from years of hard work. And over his head sprouted the most improbably bright pink flowered umbrella.

It was shaped like an old-fashioned parasol, with a tight ruffled circlet at the top, fanning out into a skirt of hot pink, dotted with fluorescent flowers.

In my car, I laughed out loud.

As a child, and even now, I hated (hate) umbrellas. They’re hard to maneuver, and they’re supposed to be bad luck if you have them open in a house. I’ve never learned the magic that allows you to slip inside, leaving the umbrella pointing outside, and manage to close it before you get wet. I always end up snarling and soaked, throwing the umbrella open in a corner, and then stomping through the house.

Somewhere around the third grade, the bubbletop umbrella came out. It was see-through, with a bright color ringing the bottom, and it was longer than most umbrellas, coming down in a protective bubble over your shoulders. You could duck under it and still see where you were going because of its transparency. It was all the rage and my umbrella-hate turned to umbrella-envy. I even had it on my birthday list. And I got one!

Once school started, I prayed for rain. Hoped, wished, rain-danced for rain. And then it poured. I proudly stuck the umbrella through the door, popped it open, and somehow stepped smoothly under it. Not a drop hit my little head.

But as I walked to school, a massive wind went under the umbrella, blew it straight up and over my head, turning it into a parachute. It flew over the ground, bounced once, landed in a creek, and washed away, never to be seen again.

I hate umbrellas.

But now, this old farmer with his pink umbrella. And it got better. He looked over his shoulder and, following about five feet behind him, was a little girl. She was stomping through the rain, her arms crossed over her chest, and the look on her face said it all perfectly. “Umbrellas are stupid.”

But her grandfather held her pretty pink one. And he was nice and dry. He held his hand out to her and she stomped up to him and plastered herself to his side, still with her arms crossed, still with her umbrellas-are-stupid face and without actually touching the umbrella herself. They went into the store, she ahead of him, and he, so help me God, managed to turn and close that thing before it crossed the automatic door’s threshold.

I smiled all the way home.

Tomorrow, I will cross the Cancer Center’s threshold. I will stomp. My arms will be crossed over my chest. Cancer is stupid.

But I’m going to hang on to the image of that grandfather. Hopefully, I will walk back out, smiling, not a drop on my little head.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

A student posted a meme on Facebook this morning that read, “Are there actually people out there who make their beds every morning, or is this just a myth?”

I’m no myth.

Yes, I make the bed every morning, though sometimes, it’s the afternoon. I make the bed when I stay in a hotel. As a kid, when I went on sleepovers, I carefully rolled up my sleeping bag in the morning and tucked it to the side. In college, I made my bed neatly every morning and lined up the stuffed animals that were tossed to the floor every night. On crazy-wild days now, on the rare occasion that it gets to be nightfall before I can get to making the bed, I make it anyway…and then I unmake it and go to sleep.

I thought about all this this morning, as I made my bed. I actually refer to it as dressing the bed. I got a new bedspread yesterday and I was looking forward to putting my bed in its new outfit. In my chaotic world, this was one moment where I could focus, start a job, and finish it, standing back to look at the fruits of my labor, in under ten minutes.

Maybe that’s what this is about. Control. Making the bed is something that doesn’t get away from me.

My mom was an obsessed bed-maker. Our beds had to be made every day, in all seasons and in all situations. Weekdays or weekends, school days or summer vacations, the beds were made by 9:00. Even on days we were ill, we had to get up and move down to the couch by 9:00. To her credit, she made the beds for us on those sick days.

I’m amazed I can sleep past 9:00 in the morning, after so many years of this being ingrained in me.

So I have this cat. His name is Edgar Allen Paw and he is a polydactyl – an extra-toed cat. He also has a kink in his tail, his head is too small for his body and he has depth perception and balance issues. His vet nicely calls him a genetic anomaly.  He also, despite being a shorthair, has the thickest coat of any cat I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. We brush several cats off him every day, yet he still dumps hair wherever he goes. The reading chair in my office is covered with towels as he likes to sleep there, and the towels are now Edgar-orange. He also likes to snooze on my bedspread. Which was red. And then red with a big orange blot on it. And I mean big. Edgar is approximately 18 pounds.

Did I mention that Edgar’s hair is sticky? Not to the touch – but wherever he goes, his hair clings like it’s coated with superglue. Every day, as I made my bed, I tried to remove the hair, and every day, I failed. Any sense of calm and control I received from bed-making was going haywire. In desperation last weekend, I threw the bedspread into the washing machine and then the dryer. When I smoothed it back out on my bed…orange. Everywhere. The hair wasn’t removed, but gunked like a paste across the entire bedspread. Into the grooves of the pattern. Across the flat parts. Impossible to remove, even with my fingernails. It was no longer a bedspread, but a sticky Edgarspread.

Off it went to the dumpster. The spread, not the cat.

This morning, I spent a little extra time reverently dressing my bed with the new spread…at 9:45, not 9:00, as I had an interview at nine. I smoothed and I tucked. There wasn’t an orange hair anywhere (though I’ve yet to figure out how I’m going to keep him off of the bed – I had Michael buy a heavy-duty lint brush yesterday and I plan on adding daily brushing to my bed-making routine). I adjusted the pillows. I straightened the afghan at the foot. I pulled my world back under control.

Tonight, I will just as carefully unmake the bed. When I crawl under the covers, the sheets will be smooth and cool to the touch, the blankets at just the right height to tug over my shoulders and under my chin. There is a definite difference in the feel of a rumpled bed and a made bed. The made bed provides safety, organization, everything in its place, all’s right with the world. At least in bed.

Yes, I make my bed every morning, no matter where I am, whether or not the bed is my own. I make a sanctuary.

Gotta get it where you can.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.