Whatsername

Thought I ran into you down on the street

Then it turned out to only be a dream

I made a point to burn all of the photographs

She went away and then I took a different path

I remember the face, but I can't recall the name

Now I wonder how whatsername has been.

And in the darkest night

If my memory serves me right

I'll never turn back time

Forgetting you, but not the time.

*Whatsername- Green Day

__________________________________________________________________

Whatsername has a name. And I can recall it quite well.

In my life, whatsername is cancer. And even though I made a point to burn all those photographs in my mind, I met her again most unexpectedly last week whilst camping.

I met her head on in a dream. My subconscious was locked. I couldn't get away.

In my dream my mother was rediagnosed with breast cancer, only in my dream it was anything but contained. 47 tumors. 24 of them benign, 23 of them rapidly devouring her insides.
I remember a point in my dream when I found out, and I fell, broken, to the ground. I collapsed. No longer strong, no longer unwavering.

There was a shadow of hope in my dream, maybe she could get better. Maybe she could win.
Mostly there was a tidal wave of pain. A riot of futility.

I forced myself awake after not being able to handle it any longer. Flailing wildly in a state of almost passed-out stupor, I noticed there were tears everywhere. I had drenched my pillow, my blanket.

Somehow, I managed to rock myself back to sleep, but ever since that awful night, I've had the worst sort of monkey on my back. For days afterwards, I dreaded being alone because everytime I was, the haunting image of my mother's pale, emaciated face swam before me. My worst fears were reawakened, and what was worse, there was no way to calm them. I was completely out of cell service for a week and I couldn't call and hear my mother's voice. I couldn't be reassured that everything at home was fine, that there was no more cancer. I felt so lost.

Memories of awful days kept trying their damnedest to resurface, but I kept pushing them back hard into the unseen corners of my mind. I don't talk about that time in my life. I don't remember it. It never happened.

____________________________________________________________

2004 was the worst year of my life.

We moved from my childhood home in the beautiful, unruly Oregon countryside to the strict, paper-ruled, fenced backyards of the suburbs. I hated leaving my home.

I became an only child, as both sisters got married in one year, and one moved far away to Seattle.

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer less than a week after my sister's late April wedding.

Every human being experiences a moment in their lives when the switch from childhood to adulthood takes place. Some don't notice it, others remember it after years of forgetting, and some choose to pretend it never happened.

I remember my switch very clearly.

A few days after my sister's wedding, they were still on their honeymoon, I went with my mom to her regularly scheduled mammogram.

I waited, and I waited. Many other patients arrived and departed from their appointments within the time span that I sat in that awful waiting room chair. I waited. I didn't touch the stack of magazines on the table. I worried.

I wasn't unaware. I've always been a worrier, even when I was a kid. I was alone, my mother was not coming out, and I was so alone.

My mom finally came out in the waiting room and took me by the hand. My fear tells me it was two hours later, but my memory can't actually recall how long it was. Maybe it was two hours. It definitely felt long enough.

"We're almost done, honey."

My mom promised me we'd be done soon, we could go home soon, everything was fine, don't look so worried.....

And so, another spout of waiting in a plastic chair in another wing of the hospital as my mom underwent an ultra-sound. I knew something must have been wrong, because I wasn't even in a formal waiting room. There was a chair set up in a hallway next to a pile of unused gurneys, and that's where they told my mom I could sit. Doctors in their scrubs with their clipboards whizzed by, nurses strolled up and down and up and down, nobody noticed me. Nobody looked happy.

Hours after we first got to the hospital, they finally let us leave. My mother was so quiet.

I remember looking down a long hallway as we were making our way out to the car.
A man in a paramedics uniform was strapping something to a gurney. It was a lady, her eyes were closed. He raised the blanket over her head.

My mother called at me to hurry up. My childhood withered.

I sat alone in the car, watching my mom pace up and down the sidewalk in front of me. She was talking to my dad, her eyes were cloudy. I fought hard to keep from crying. She never hid things from me, she never took phonecalls elsewhere to where I couldn't hear them, she trusted me.
Something was wrong.

Her voice penetrated the car windows, even though they were rolled all the way up.
"They said they found something." My inner child died.

I was just eleven years old when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The next day, I sent an email to my sister Hallie who had just moved to Seattle a few months before. My mom had gone in for more tests, and I stayed behind this time.

My parents shared secret glances and hushed conversations, but I knew.
I wrote to my sister, "Hallie, I'm really scared. I think mom has cancer, but no-one will talk to me."

She called my parents in tears that night. "You have to tell Hannah."

So they brought me downstairs, they sat me on the couch, and after a few moments of silence, during which I was already crying, they told me.

The months following are a whirlwind of surgeries, chemotherapy sessions, sleepless nights, and hours spent crying so hard by myself and praying to God to let my mother live. If she dies, I die, I must have told God a thousand times.

Cancer is an unforeseen force.
A silent army that creeps up on you and blindsides you, so that everything you touch, and everything you see, is tinged in death.

The moment that my childhood was forever lost, I swore to myself to be the best adult I could be. I didn't cry about it publicly. I didn't draw attention to it, or ask for pity, I hardly mentioned it at all.

I focused on schoolwork, and helped around the house. I cleaned and cooked for my sick mother, and I never let myself show any weakness about it. I tried so hard not to let the pain surface. I had to keep a game face. Life was going to go on, and my mother was going to keep living it!

All thanks to God's redeeming grace, she did keep living life. 7 years cancer-free, since.

After that year in complete suspension, life went on at top speed. There wasn't really time to look back on what had happened, there was no desire to.

That dream I had last week was the first time I really experienced the depth of that fear in over seven years. But I still pushed the memories back. I couldn't relive them, I couldn't abide their ugliness. I've made myself strong. I've made myself complete, or so I thought.

I thought that I was over it, I thought that it had completely healed.

I realized this past week that I never gave it time to heal. I never gave it time, or air, I never let it breathe. I never let it free, open, I never acknowledged that phase of my life. I had completely bottled it up and locked it deep, deep inside.

I even started to think the other day about how many people I know now actually knew about my mom having cancer. Just last month, one of my close friends saw a picture in my living room and said, "Hannah.... Did your mom have cancer?"

I still don't acknowledge it.

I realize now that it's time.

I have to let go of it.

My seven year old self slapped me in the face while camping this week. She said, "I died when I was eleven. You didn't have to let me die. Love those moments. Accept your scars, and I just might come back to life."

So I did.

On the roadtrip home from the campsite, I plugged in my headphones, stared at the window, and took a very deep breath. I opened the box of memories in my mind labeled "Whatsername", and I let them rise.

"I love you for who you are and what you've done for me in my life. I recognize the greater purpose of the scars you left, and I accept you as a valid part of my past with no reason to be ashamed or afraid of you anymore."

I love and accept you to the moment sitting in the car. The moment my childhood was replaced.

I love and accept you to the moment sitting, crying, on the couch as my parents tearfully told me what was happening.

I accept you to the memory of sleeping all night long in an armchair next to my mother's hospital bed after one of her surgeries. I had refused to go home. I held her hand. The beep beep of monitors lulled me into an uneasy sleep.

I accept you to the memory of my sister Katie shaving my mother's head, and her beautiful pepper-and-salt hair falling silently to the bathroom floor as my family gathered around the mirror. I sat on the floor holding my cousin's hand. My dad couldn't watch, the tears never fell, but I saw them there behind his eyes.

I accept you to the memory of shopping for wigs with my mother and her best friend. The two of them tried to joke around about the ridiculousness of the store, but it was still a somber day.

I love and accept you to the memory of her first chemo treatment. She sent me to a friend's house overnight so I wouldn't see her for 24 hours after. I wouldn't see the disillusionment, the discomfort. The vomiting. The crying. She picked me up the next day and took me to Burgerville for lunch. I was terrified to look her in the face, for fear of seeing the pain in her eyes.

I love and accept you to the memory of her crying in frustration because she had been craving Tiramisu for weeks, and after finally ordering some at dinner one night, the same chemo which caused her voracious craving caused her to be violently sick at the very first bite. She's never eaten it since.

I cried and cried thousands of tears as I did this, it was a miracle nobody looked in the rear-view mirror at me. They would have been quite alarmed. Memories I had not allowed myself to remember came flocking back for the first time in years. I loved and accepted them all.

Cancer is a highly traumatic event in any person's life. I used to tell myself that since she survived, there was no reason to come to grips with those memories because I never lost anything. I still was blessed enough to have my mother. How can I be selfish and complain when I never really lost?

But I did loose something. I lost a part of my beautiful and astounding mother that I will never get back. Her youth. I lost my innocence.

And up until now, that was something I was not willing to admit, or accept. But I can now.

I understand the significance of that entire ordeal in my life so much more now. As soon as I accepted the memories and feelings, I felt a huge weight lift as that seven-year-old monkey finally fell off of my back.

I'm ready to talk about it. I'm ready to open the wounds and let them heal. The process isn't over, I don't know when it will be over, but it's happening.

It's happening, and every moment my beloved mother breathes air throughout her pure, healthy body.

Thanks be to God for the miracles He performs every single day.

Thoughts on Entomology

Dated: August 16th.

Beaver Lake Float Tubing.

I think sometimes I could have studied insects in another life. Fishing earlier today was really just an excuse to watch the flurry of insect life around me.

Small butterflies, brown with yellow spots on their wings, horseflies, house flies, damsel flies, dragonflies, bumblebees, wasps, red ants, black ants, flying ants, rock spiders, water bugs....

There are more insects in one square mile of earth than there are people on the entire planet!
And they're all so fascinating.

I really do love the way they fly, crawl, scoot and skim the surface of the water.

I wish I could remember all of the insect facts Annie Dillard wrote about in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, but there were just too many.

I think I'll be buying an entomologist's field guide from Powell's soon, though. It makes me wish I had worked more hours at the Insect Zoo at OZ a few summers ago. I would have learned so much!

I felt like Annie Dillard today. Spending time in the wilderness, observing fish, insects, wildlife, all of nature at its finest. On the float tubes, brilliant neon blue damselflies kept landing on my hands... They were so fascinating.

The lacy patterns on their wings looked like minuscule floorplans of a very intricate, multilevel building. Their eyes reflected all the blue hues of their bodies. Brave, innocent, trusting.

They stared at me just as I stared at them.

I inched my fingernail close to their heads. Their feelers immediately made me retreat. Their scurrying amused me. Fearless, they landed several times on Becca's relaxed chin.

Lovely creatures! I want to learn so much more about them.

The sky is very blue here. The water is very fresh.... The mountain is beautiful, and yet so threatening. I don't feel 100% at ease in the mountains. Sometimes, I feel very calm, but not entirely at peace.

There's so much to be wary of. I am aware of a lot of pain here.

Ghosts towns screaming of mining tragedies, sickness, starvation and death dot all across the outline of the horizon. You cannot conquer mountains.

Nature will win, and that's why they unnerve me.

I feel relaxed, but suddenly completely subject to the will of the mountain.

But the lakes are beautiful, the fish are delicious and plentiful, the air is crystal, and I do enjoy the purity of a mostly untouched mountain.

"I met her, a gin-soaked, bar-room queen, in Memphis..."

The Rolling Stones are a perfect companion on a 6 hour 'middle-of-nowhere' road trip.

I learned this the past week as I encountered my first time on a camping trip. Ever.

You should all be proud of me, as I not only survived, but also enjoyed myself and my experiences in the outer reaches of Okanagan National Forest, caught in limbo between central Washington and the Canadian border.

I caught my first fish, a 14 inch Rainbow trout. I named him Gilbert. Then I scaled him. And decapitated him. And slit open his stomach and pushed his tiny fish intestines out with my thumb.

I have not related this unfortunate story to my goldfish Buffy. She doesn't need to know.

I rowed around and around and around on a canoe with Becca, suntanned for hours in float tubes in the middle of a very remote mountain lake, and ate smores and played guitar by firelight underneath the stars.

I went for 5 days without a shower. I am just as amazed as you are.

I shot a shotgun.... twice.

I thought about a lot of things on my camping trip, and I got lost in my own history along the way.

I confronted a very large demon in my past, and reconnected with a part of myself I had completely blocked from recollection.

I was chased down by my memories of growing up on a six-acre lot in the middle of overgrown trees, and I forced myself to face some of my worst fears head-on.

I was inspired by a thousand new things to write about, and I was blessed with a few very spiritual moments.

I'm glad to be back.

There really is no other place like home.

Sending you all the chocolate chips in the world,

Hannah

D.

D,


In moments of frustration and pain, disappointment and sorrow, please remember what you are on the inside. A beaming, shattering, blazing force of light. And don't forget to take solace in chocolate chip pancakes.

In moments of despair, please remember all that you have overcome. Your journey has made you brave. Remember your courage.

In moments of loneliness, please remember where your loved ones are. They reside deeply within your heart, and remember that loneliness only lasts for a few fleeting moments.

In moments of homesickness, please remember a phonecall is never too impossible to make. Homesickness is a blessing; it reveals what truly matters to you.

In moments of exhaustion, please remember to take catnaps.

In moments of heartbreak, please remember you can never actually break. You only crack, and there's always room to love again. Always.

In moments of feeling lost, please remember where your faith comes from. He will never leave you or forsake you.

In moments of sickness, please remember to stay well hydrated. Also, take more catnaps.

In moments of excitement, please remember to give thanks, and don't forget to tell someone around you why you're excited. Sharing is caring.

In moments of laughter, please remember there is no limit to how you can touch someone else by making them laugh with you. You have a beautiful laugh. Let it ring.

In moments of joy, happiness, contentment and pride, please remember that every moment of it is a blessing, a gift, and given to you entirely by grace. Send honor and hugs to those who have enriched your life, and always remember to kiss the ones dearest to your heart on the forehead.

Please remember to tell them you love them.

In moments of difficulty, and adversity, please remember to practice serenity and equanimity, tranquility and transience. Please remember to respect me and my Yoga quotes.

Please remember to blow the candles out after the rest of us have fallen asleep.

Please remember that underwear is to be worn underneath clothes, not on your head.

Please try to remember the lyrics.

Please remember to never forget.

Please remember to remain steadfast, and always remain true.

Please remember your promises.

Please remember to watch your Abercrombie and Fitch spending budget.

Please remember to always take chances.

Please remember the incredible power of a good Journey song.

Above all, dear one, please remember to keep in touch, to keep the faith, to keep on truckin' no matter what life throws at you.

Its time to say goodbye for now.. NOT forever.

Not because there is no longer love, not because we failed, not because we lost connection, but because we need to live our lives to their fullest, chase the moments hidden away in each day, and become the best we can be.

See you along the way and always know love is sent to you on angel's wings.

Don't stop believin'.

Love,
H&B

iBlend

I think I'm always going to remember 2011 as "The Year of the Smoothie."

Back in late December, that Crazy Sexy Diet book forever changed my life.

I haven't talked about it in awhile.

Since then, I've completely changed my eating habits, exercise habits, thinking habits and have made a considerable effort to take better care of my own portion of this earth.

I've begun seeing a Naturopathic doctor, and she's completely revamped my energy and thirst for life.

I've lost 9 pounds.... and counting.

I don't have panic attacks anymore.

I don't bite my fingernails anymore.

I sleep better. I heal better. I listen better. I care more.

So thank you, Kris Carr, for your inspiring story. For your 12 benign "beauty spots." For your delicious recipes, your knowledge and research.

And thank you, mom and dad, for agreeing to buy a Vitamix so I could blend better, and for always being in support of me whatever seemingly crazy endeavors I begin.

These smoothies have assuaged my insides, built up my immune system, cleared my skin, reduced my belly, calmed my thoughts and inspired me to make a conscious effort at attaining healthy nutrition and balanced patterns in my life.

2011.

The year of Vitality, indeed.

:)

La Vie En Rose

A Few Vintages Ago

The night air is chilly with the onset of Winter. Those lucky enough to have jackets pull them tighter around their bodies, those without snuggle closer to the bodies of those with jackets. No complaints are to be had. There are lights in all of the trees. Tiny, iridescent orbs of radiance that seem to spark with fire, and wink flamboyantly as they illuminate the backyard, wishing joy and long life to those in witness.

The faint, tinkling sound of laughter, the inoffensive chinking of glasses raised in high toasts, the low hum of conversation, not to be confused with the almost unnoticeable whisper of wind as it gently caresses the inhabitants of the large, white tent. The women shiver absentmindedly, the men pull them in closer. There is a delirious smile on the face of every being.

On the tables in glass Mason jars, candles are lit, burning low and flickering. The hour is late. The cake plates are scattered over the lace tablecloths, dirty forks resting lovingly on mismatched China plates.
The air is thick with the scent of harvest, accompanied by a fading touch of Summer’s daisy field earthiness. Track of time has been lost. Nobody knows when it is appropriate to leave, nobody seems to care about propriety. The evening has been one to remember.

Bellies are full. Full of pancakes, full of wine, full of mirth. Eyes gaze lustily at other eyes. Desire is omnipresent, as it always is after experiencing extreme happiness. Small, curly-headed infants with pink cheeks and sleepy thumbs slumber comfortably on the chests of their mothers. Slightly larger, half-pint sized children lean on the knees of their fathers, eyes drooping, heads subtly nodding, and then suddenly jerking forward again as they force themselves to stay awake. The urge to sleep must be fought, for who knows when the next time they’ll be allowed to stay up this late will be?

One little girl, still very wide awake, is tugging at her father’s sleeve, begging for one more dance before they go home. He willingly obliges. As he stands up slowly, he catches her mother’s eye, and he winks. She smiles lovingly as she cradles the other Little in her arms. How tall her husband is, how striking he has become over the years. The awkward bloom of youth has left him. He lifts his child upwards and stands her feet on his feet. She barely reaches his waist. Slowly they begin to waltz around the floor in the magical way that only fathers and daughters can achieve.

Across the dance floor, a new song has begun. A tune as old as time begins to float over the dance floor, and a young man takes his new bride by the hand as he pulls her towards the center. He pulls her in close. A moment passes before they even begin to move. His eyes are closed, his chin barely resting on her forehead, face tilted downwards. As if he is drinking in every amorous drop of this very moment. Her eyes are open, she stares at a freckle on his neck. Quietly, she breathes in and out, letting the smell of his cologne wash over her. Mentally she records every part of this moment, the feel of his arms around her waist, the slight stubble of his chin against her forehead, the pattern of freckles on his neck, the stars twinkling in the sky above his shoulders, the smell of the night air, her freezing toes.

In the middle of this quiet moment, they both take note of the words in the song that is playing.

They start to sway.

“Quand il me prend dans se bras, il me parle tout bas, je vois la vie en rose.”

“When he takes me in his arms, I will speak softly, this is life in rose.”

They look back on this day with fondness and happy memory. Every day that passes, they try their hardest to recapture that moment, so that their love may never fade. Year after year, they accumulated days and memories and moments very much similar to this one. And if you were to ask them their secret to so many successful years together, they would both tell you to take a look at life through rose-colored glasses. And then he would smile, and she would take your hand and repeat to you the words that she had inscribed on their wedding invitations.

“Des yeux qui font baisser les miens /un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche/ voila le portrait sans retouche /de l'homme auquel j'appartiens.”

“Eyes that lower mine, a laugh lost on her mouth, here is the untouched portrait of the man to which I belong.”

Theirs was la vie en rose.

“il me dit des mots d'amour

des mots de tous les jours

et a me fait quelque chose

il est entra dans mon Coeur

une parte de bonheur

dont je connais la cause

c'est lui pour moi

moi pour lui dans la vie

il me l'a dit l'a pour la vie

et d'as que je l'apercois

alors je sens en moi

mon coeur qui bat.”

“He told me words of love
everyday words
and it does something to me

it is entered in my heart
a share of happiness
I know the cause

is it for me,
for him in my life
he told it was me for life

and as I see him
so I feel in me
my beating heart.”

Theirs was la vie en rose.

No Explanations!!

I've come to a decision about my continuation of this blog and I feel the need to express my decision and feelings thereupon.

It has slowly entered into my awareness as of late, that I have the horrible tendency to feel the need to explain everything I write here.

This is a tragedy.

I'm sorry if this offends, or unnerves, but do pardon me when I say that I simply do not owe an explanation to anyone who reads this blog.

And from now on, if I wish to write something that needs some form of explanation, or may be confusing to others, well, so be it; it will be so.

I'm a writer. I don't work with Public Relations. I don't focus on readability. I focus on content. Expression. Fulfillment.

This is what I've been reflecting on recently, and so the reality has come forward.

No more holding back, no more wasting words trying to explain away what I mean.

From now on, there is only truth. There is only what is written, and if what is written sparks debates, or questions, I'm open to discussion unless otherwise noted.

No explanations.

No reservations.

No more fears.

Enough is enough.

S'Wonderful, S'Marvelous

An American In Paris.

This is my first time watching it, and I was absolutely loving it, up until this fifteen minute dance sequence came up... and won't end.
Maybe I'm just too tired to remain interested. Or maybe it really is just too much. I'm not sure where the line is between a 'A Great Dance Number' and 'Oh Dear God, WILL IT EVER END??' but I do know that it has officially been crossed.

Oh wait. It's over.

Am I the only one who doesn't understand how this conflict has been resolved?

They dance together in a fantasy for fifteen minutes..... before which they couldn't be together because she was marrying someone else... and then after the fantasy sequence... they end up schmoozing on some Parisian steps as the credits roll by.

Hm.

Well it did make me laugh at some parts. Quite a few parts, actually. And Gene Kelly is always an absolute doll.... :)

Okay. So... inconsistencies aside, I loved every minute of it.

Except the 15 minute dance number. That I could have done without.

Xx