write something every week

I’m writing every day now; gonna call this done.

I’ve been writing morning pages every day, and in addition, today I sat in a coffee shop all afternoon and wrote a few pages about my childhood, followed by the beginning of a new story. I’m really starting to feel it.

Just ordered some books, including a 12-week daily writing program. This is happening.

I’ve certainly got enough ideas. I need to make this happen. It’ll be good for me. Starting now.

Becky Wiechman, Dexter High School alumna, ran 13.1 miles in the Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon Event last weekend in Anchorage, Alaska. She participated in the race as a member of Team in Training, a fundraising program run by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Wiechman was running in honor of Abby Fisher, also a Dexter native. Fisher was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2007, at the age of 26. The two have been friends since the fifth grade at (what was then) Wylie Middle School.

Wiechman wasn’t a serious runner before she began working with Team in Training. “I got their brochures, and at first kind of laughed about entering a marathon, but then I started to feel like I could do this,” says Wiechman. “You always kind of struggle when somebody you care about is going through hard times. I thought, if Abby can go through Hodgkin’s, I can go through with a marathon.”

It was only until after signing up with Team in Training that Wiechman learned what a help the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society had been to Fisher. “I was very much under-insured when I was first diagnosed,” says Fisher. “LLS picked up the tab for the chemotherapy costs that my health insurance just didn’t cover.” She received other help from LLS as well, including free information, connections to other Hodgkin’s patients, and reimbursement for drug and travel costs. “I could add up all the help I received from other cancer organizations, and it still wouldn’t come close to what LLS has done for me,” says Fisher.

Wiechman just wanted to make a gesture of support for Fisher, at first. She has since realized that she was helping her friend give back to LLS as a show of gratitude for their support. She also wanted to help the organization knowing that the money would make its way to others who have medical situations similar to Fisher’s. “It’s been really tough physically to do this,” Wiechman said. “This is a big commitment, and has taken a lot of effort on my part to train for this, but out of love for Abby and belief in this organization, I feel it is the least I could do.”

Wiechman first set a fundraising goal of $3500. She held events at local restaurants, including Dexter’s Pub, who graciously donated 10% of all their sales on a “fundraising day” organized by Fisher and Wiechman. Wiechman collected donations during the several months she trained. As she began to run more and more miles, she began to collect more and more money for LLS, eventually running up to 12 miles in her training runs, and raising over $5000 in total.

While Wiechman celebrates her recent success and plans for future runs, Fisher is also looking ahead to the future. “Although I can’t be sure I’m cancer-free, I’ve reclaimed most of my life and am back to doing things I love,” says Fisher. Her treatment is on hiatus until cancer begins to grow again, and she is happy to be back to work and a few evening activities, including the Dexter Community Band. Wiechman finished an MBA degree this spring and is now searching for a job. “Whichever company snaps her up is getting a prize,” says Fisher. “She can do anything she sets her mind to. She decided on a whim to run a marathon, and then trained, fundraised, flew to Alaska, and did it!” Fisher feels incredibly lucky to have Wiechman for a friend – and Wiechman feels lucky that she could help an organization that helped ensure their friendship will be able to last many more years.

I’d like to take ownership of a certain word, but I can’t quite make up my mind. The word is ambivalence, and it may own me and define me more right now than vice versa. I’ve long been friends with “ambivalence” – the comfortable voiced consonants, the scattering of vowels across the chart. Ambivalence is frequently misunderstood in English to mean indifference and/or ignorance, but its Latin roots are pleasingly precise: ambi- for “both” and val- for “choice” or “to choose”. This translation clarifies ambivalence to have none of confusion or nonchalance, but to mean straddling a fence, almost literally. When you’re ambivalent, both choices are obvious and unobfuscated, but the decision – though inevitable – isn’t yet made. And just like having one foot on either side of a split-rail, ambivalence starts out uncomfortable and becomes moreso every minute.

I find myself straddling fences and holding green up to greener too often these days. I am ambivalent about my career, my finances, my health, and even assorted relationships. It’s not that I lack options, or that I haven’t given them thought; instead it’s that each choice is so decisive. Teetering on a knife’s edge is familiar if not peaceful and every option means uncharted territory, new dangers, the dark without a lamp.

Daunting though all these ambivalences may be, throughout cancer I’ve learned a thing or two about dealing with the dark. When lost without a lamp, it’s up to you to find light. So I examined ambivalence – the word, the concept, and the feeling – and decided: ambivalence can’t be just an endless night. Ambivalence, inherently, is a choice. The state of ambivalence, then – a state in which I seem to have taken up residence – is nothing more than a state of choice.

Choice, despite my best intentions of cynicism, is wonderfully hopeful. Choice means a range of possibility exists, just waiting to be shaped to my personal preferences. Ambivalence begins to look like a crossroads with no ways blocked. Ambivalence – which means “both choices” – means only that a spread of opportunities await my action. But what does this mean to me? It means no more fences. It means no more green-greener. Ambivalence, and its state of choice, can no longer be a state of indecision. Ambivalence, then, must be a state of fresh beginnings. I must refashion my current ambivalences into springboards. A life so full of ambivalence – seemingly endlessly daunting – is now seemingly full of endless possibility.

Fully embracing ambivalence – owning the term as well as the concept – means accepting both aspects of the feeling. I will need to own the indecision, the frustration, and the confusion involved with ambivalence, as well as the hope, the excitement, and the possibility. Most importantly, redefining ambivalence for myself also means redefining my reaction to ambivalence. Ambivalence, inherently, is a choice. And now, for me, ambivalence will mean recognizing those choices – and making them.

Th reporter who did an article on Becky and I her marathon for LLS wanted me to write a guest article follow up for the paper this week. Here it is.

The first thing I express here must be gratitude. Thank you, those who came to the Dexter Pub on April 26 to support the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society on my behalf. Thank you, thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
I’ve learned a lot over the past 18 months through my experiences with cancer, and a good number of those lessons were about gratitude. On my first day of chemotherapy, I shed tears of gratitude to discover that my disease had not yet progressed to my bone marrow. On my last day of chemotherapy, I shed tears of gratitude that my family was with me to take care of me – because for the first time in a long time, I couldn’t take care of myself. But most of my lessons in gratitude weren’t based on personal experience. Most of what I learned on giving thanks came from the wise and wonderful people I met throughout my cancer journey.
I met fellow patients who had been through treatments so harsh and so long-lasting I was certain I couldn’t have withstood them. My new friends were truthful about their pain, their fatigue, and their frustration, but they were also truthful about their daily experiences – and their daily experiences were filled with joy. I and my friends discussed our gratitude – for small things, such as ginger to ease nausea or a new book by a favorite author, and for large things, such as a first visit to the Grand Canyon or a new grandchild’s laugh.
I met caregivers who had joined the field of oncology because of a personal experience – occasionally a cancer experience of his or her own, but more often, a pivotal life event such as the loss of a loved one to cancer. As these caregivers shared their histories with me while placing a needle or administering a drug, I realized that the stories they told might elsewhere be considered sad or discouraging, but that here as a part of cancer treatment, they were expressions of hope and of thanksgiving. A particularly dear nurse once said to me: “Why, everything I do is grateful – grateful I can help.”
When disaster looms large, it seems that gratitude springs up in its shadow. A dark cloud may shade our days, but it also may help us to see joys and triumphs that could have been missed in the bright busy light. With my eyes newly attuned, I’ve been able to find gratitude blooming everywhere – and I was especially overwhelmed by it last Sunday as I looked around the restaurant and found myself surrounded by warmth and support.

Alright, that’s it. The previous experiment went well in that I sat down and strained out two pages of something, even if I felt like I’d passed a mental kidney stone once it was done. But since then, nothing. So, I need to take the same basic idea and go a little more drastic.

My intention is to, sometime within the next couple of months, cut myself off severely from activities which I view as more mentally and creatively passive. Specifically gaming, internet and television. I’ll probably still allow myself to read and watch films, but on a limited basis. I need to spend some time concentrating on getting the most out of my daily experiences, and getting some output from myself back into the world. So, at least a week. Total blackout. Now’s not quite the time for it, but soon.

Ang passed away of metastatic breast cancer in late January, and I missed the memo on that somehow, and therefore missed the service and the opportunity to tell Angie’s boys how much I looked up to her. So I wrote her this letter. I’ll send it in a bottle or on a balloon someday soon. With something pink.

Dear Angie,

You were incredible. I admired you every week. I’d watch you talk about your job, your sons, your home, and your life, and I’d think how remarkable a woman you’d be for mastering it all even without cancer in the mix. Time and time again, I was able to dredge up extra courage for myself by thinking of your seemingly endless personal strength. Your constant presence at our group meetings lent me a constant presence throughout my cancer experiences. If ever I needed to know a sensible, graceful approach to a cancer snag, I could always think of you. You handled problems with relationships, career, kids, and cancer with capability and dignity. Ang, you were an amazing woman. You were an inspiration to me, and you continue to be as I work through new challenges. I wanted to tell you this when you were alive. You meant more to me than you knew, and I’m sorry I failed us both. I hope this message does reach you. I believe in you still, Ang, and I like to believe that it will.

Its impermanence is the biggest hazard of the cancer universe. My friend Nathan, who has brain cancer, isn’t doing well; I have written the following down about him. I will share it at his service if there’s an opportunity to do so.

One of the most valuable things Nathan brought to our group was a simple but very genuine sense of calm. As I got to know him, it became obvious that the calm came from Nathan’s ability to find personal peace. Bad news never overly rocked Nathan’s boat, and although I was endlessly impressed by his emotional equilibrium, I was even more impressed by his ability to impart the same sense of calm to others. As Nathan listened to the struggles of others and offered his insight or experience, he also offered an attitude of peace that was appreciated by all. When Nathan went to Israel on a trip he’d long been anticipating, he did something wonderfully thoughtful for all of us. He suggested we write down our prayers, collected them, and carried them with him on his visit to the wailing wall, where he inserted our prayers into cracks in the wall according to custom. For Nathan to show such tenderness and care for his friends during his own vacation meant so much to me and all the members of our group. Nathan had found a way to share with us his calm even as he was absent from our weekly gatherings. I hope, too, that today each of us is able to feel a little bit of the peace that Nathan so freely exuded and so generously shared.