a radio was on.

Kyle is working round-the-clock right now, so I wanted to let you all know that I had a set of scans last week that showed nothing. As in the cancer had neither increased nor decreased. This is good news. I have these scans every three months to see if the cancer has managed to mutate in a way that the medicine no longer treats, and now I am good for another three months. I had a great talk with my therapist--if you are close to me, you know I love my therapist in a way that makes it confusing to me that I can't just have her over for seder--and she helped me understand my grief at hearing the news that the scans were fine. What I really wanted to hear, in the world of fantastic miracles, the land where you open a wardrobe door and tumble into Narnia, is that I don't have cancer anymore. So I had to muddle my way to gratitude over the last couple of days. In the next three months I hope to write more, read more, eat meals with friends and families more, and spend some real time...

Kyle is working round-the-clock right now, so I wanted to let you all know that I had a set of scans last week that showed nothing. As in the cancer had neither increased nor decreased. This is good news. I have these scans every three months to see if the cancer has managed to mutate in a way that the medicine no longer treats, and now I am good for another three months. I had a great talk with my therapist--if you are close to me, you know I love my therapist in a way that makes it confusing to me that I can't just have her over for seder--and she helped me understand my grief at hearing the news that the scans were fine. What I really wanted to hear, in the world of fantastic miracles, the land where you open a wardrobe door and tumble into Narnia, is that I don't have cancer anymore. So I had to muddle my way to gratitude over the last couple of days. In the next three months I hope to write more, read more, eat meals with friends and families more, and spend some real tim...

A thing for fools, this, Love, But a holy thing, To love what death can touch. Judah Halevi wrote these word--he was a doctor and a poet who was born in Spain in 1075. He died in Israel, in 1141. I wake and feel the deep wracking cough of my child before I am woke and my own bones, aching and riddled with cancer (how much? and how much is too much?), drag me from my bed to get the thick, syrupy elixir to him before he realizes there is a whole night out here, with the possibility of television, tucked in snug, next to me. I wrote those words last night and friends, of late, it has been a darker time for me, where loving feels like grieving too much. It might be the edge of winter pressing in. Zoe and I walked yesterday in the bog, which was gray and dreary. The wind bit us, and then two gorgeous, wildly groomed standard poodles were suddenly leaping at us with joy, but they were too much, and scratched my cold hand in their hello, and I was angry at the woman walking them off leash, sc...

A thing for fools, this, Love, But a holy thing, To love what death can touch. Judah Halevi wrote these word--he was a doctor and a poet who was born in Spain in 1075. He died in Israel, in 1141. I wake and feel the deep wracking cough of my child before I am woke and my own bones, aching and riddled with cancer (how much? and how much is too much?), drag me from my bed to get the thick, syrupy elixir to him before he realizes there is a whole night out here, with the possibility of television, tucked in snug, next to me. I wrote those words last night and friends, of late, it has been a darker time for me, where loving feels like grieving too much. It might be the edge of winter pressing in. Zoe and I walked yesterday in the bog, which was gray and dreary. The wind bit us, and then two gorgeous, wildly groomed standard poodles were suddenly leaping at us with joy, but they were too much, and scratched my cold hand in their hello, and I was angry at the w...

I have been postponing writing this blog entry for a couple of days now because I needed to write about two seemingly disparate themes, and was sure some grand poetic gesture would occur to me that would pull the topics together into something nice to read, something to eat while you are giving yourself time to eat more pie (and I say, definitely eat more pie). But nothing came to me and the two subjects at hand are 1) Charles Manson and 2) Thanksgiving, But, first. Last night I was reading Asher and Elijah "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." This evening's reading was made almost excruciatingly poignant by the fact that Avery was there, at first just listening, just as she and Zoe had listened when she was seven and Zoe was five, and I read the same book to them. This is one of the unusual gifts of having groups of children (there should be a word like a murder of crows or a coven of witches, but a nicer word, like oval, an oval of children, or a poem of children-...

I have been postponing writing this blog entry for a couple of days now because I needed to write about two seemingly disparate themes, and was sure some grand poetic gesture would occur to me that would pull the topics together into something nice to read, something to eat while you are giving yourself time to eat more pie (and I say, definitely eat more pie). But nothing came to me and the two subjects at hand are 1) Charles Manson and 2) Thanksgiving, But last night I was reading Asher and Elijah "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." This evening's reading was made almost excruciatingly poignant by the fact that Avery was there, at first just listening, just as she and Zoe had listened when she was seven and Zoe was five, and I read the same book to her. This is one of the unusual gifts of having groups of children (there should be a word like a murder of crows or a coven of witches, but a nicer word, like oval, an oval of children, or a poem of children, nope that...

Three times a day, I slip two wafers of methadone onto my tongue and chase them down with cool water. I was exhausted several days ago, and twice in a twenty-four hour period, missed the time to take the methadone and woke up from deep sleeping to real pain. Which was a good lesson because methadone is a great pain medication and had lulled me into believing I might not need the methadone because I wasn't in pain. I understand the looniness of the logic, but the fact that I am taking methadone (and this would be so if you subbed in any other similarly situated drug) prevents me from driving, which has made my life circumscribed in a beautiful, often vexing manner. So if I didn't somehow need methadone anymore, wouldn't that be grand? My life takes place, with some exceptions, in three places. My home, which I love. MGH. And the cranberry bog down the street from my home--which is almost unspeakably beautiful. I am feeling stronger, and have been able to walk in the bog almo...