My Great Breast Cancer Adventure

How to Get Rich Quick!

Ah, my songwriting and photography skills are still paying off big-time! The day before yesterday I got a letter in the mail telling me that they have added another $1.45 royalty credit toward the $50.00 I must earn before I can actually get paid for the song lyrics I wrote with my friend Doug, oh so many years ago, for the song "One More Truck Stop Christmas" which can be found on the world-renowned "specialty" CD titled "The Trucker's Christmas Album."

And yesterday I got an email from the Red Bubble photography website telling me that I had made a sale! Yes, I sold one greeting card made from my photo of the "bakery couple"  (taken many years ago when I was just beginning to play around with photography and experimenting with Photoshop post-processing) who were at work inside their Mexican bakery on 24th Street in the Mission District. The card sold for $3.45 and I have made sixty cents, also not to be sent to me until my sales reach some minimum amount, probably also $50.00.

I will have to make sure that I arrange for these profits to go to my son Will after I am gone, just in case they ever do get up to $50.00. He'll most likely be retirement age by then, and can use it to help pay for healthcare. Maybe he will brag to his grandchildren about how his mother used to be a popular photographer and songwriter, particularly in truck driver circles . . . back in her day.

 

What's Not to Love?

 

The quality of many of these photos, which I took back when I first got my camera in 2007 and went amateur photography-crazy, is not great (sucks). But a few aren't bad.

What saves them, and what even elevates some to the realm of wonderful (in my humble and smitten opinion) is the subject himself.

When I looked again at Jack in these photos, especially the ones that show his face up close, all I could think was: So easy to love. So many things to love about this man. 

What a beautiful face he has. I try to capture his expressions when he is working, because he is so absorbed in his work he doesn't even know I am there. He is oblivious. Lost (in the best way). Focused, meticulous, dedicated. Quietly masterful. 

I look at that face and feel, yes: the whole shebang.

The Trauma of Being Alive

Here's the LINK to this article that was in the NY Times on Aug. 3rd.

Good article. 

Eight Years Ago

 

Eight years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer. My reaction: terror. 

For a very long time -- I can no longer remember how long, exactly, but at least a couple of years -- the terror was keen and unrelenting. World turned upside down and inside out.

It felt like I would never be free from that pull of . . . the undertow. Every day, no exceptions, I thought about the cancer, I thought about death and feared it.  I feared whatever terrible things might come next. I feared pain. I feared so much. I was consumed by fear and dread.

Women who were farther down the breast cancer road said it would get better, slowly but surely. That I would get better at coping, at being braver despite my fears.

Miracle of miracles, I did. Slowly but surely. 

Am I no longer fearful? Ha ha, of course not! I am still a big fat fraidy cat. Also a whiner.

BUT.  I am much less fearful. I live with cancer now, much as I live with any and every other pro or con in my life. It's just one part of the whole big list of "parts of my life." It used to be this huge, glowering monster that stood out above everything else. Its shadow cast a darkness that swallowed up all the other, smaller parts (seemingly smaller at the time, that is) of my life.

Now? Now it's just one more thing that regularly gets put on one of my many, everchanging "to-do" lists.

Buy more dog food: CHECK.
Send new batch of poems to Julie: CHECK.
Start working on Fall Session class schedule: CHECK.
Change date of next chemo appointment, and don't forget to ask about MRI results: Check. 
Hair appt: CHECK
Skype Will: CHECK
Clean up bedroom!: CHECK