Spring Awakening

the baby herons are hatching, radiation is over, and peas are peaking. Also, my eyelashes are coming back.

Last Friday, I rang a bell.

It was a surprisingly emotional end to a month of radiation treatment, five days per week. I was moved by how invested the entire staff at the radiation oncology center is in these celebrations. But I imagine that anyone who works in oncology appreciates a happy milestone.

In the spirit of show, don’t tell, this is what I mean:

The first week of my New Normal was an active one — instead of driving across the city to the cancer center each morning, I resumed studying Portuguese. I played lots of pickleball, attended some meetings, did a volunteer shift at the heron colony, where the babies are bursting out of their shells, and hosted an impromptu dinner party. What a pleasure to put cancer on the back burner (okay, there was an MRI in the mix).

Then, on a very rainy Thursday, I woke up earlier than I have any time in recent months, except when prepping for surgery, to meet up with a group from Team Survivor Northwest for a waterfall hike.

I discovered Team Survivor Northwest, a fitness community for women who have been diagnosed with cancer, through a comment someone made on Substack. In preparation for a major life detour that substituted a year’s worth of rigorous cancer treatment for a move to Portugal, I was exploring new experiences. Someone mentioned there are rowing programs for cancer patients, which led me to discover the dragonboat racing and other opportunities offered by Team Survivor Northwest.

I had big plans to start learning the dragonboat ropes in December, the month I started chemo. What was I thinking? I considered it again before starting radiation, but was told to hold off so I didn’t risk straining any muscles in my upper body, making lying stationary with arms overhead any more uncomfortable than it had to be.

Now, I’m supposed to chill out for a couple of weeks and ease back into upper body activity. But nobody told me I can’t use my legs.

There were nine of us hiking the Twin Falls trail in the pouring rain. Everyone but me done with treatment and now classified as a cancer survivor, which was inspiring. They ran the gamut — 10 years out, 1 year out, and in between. Two of them are dragonboat rowers; one runs triathlons; one is preparing to walk the Portuguese portion of the Camino de Santiago. They get together every week to hike and I am looking forward to joining them whenever I can.

So, what’s next?

Zona, by Jim Harrison*

My work piles up,
I falter with disease.
Time rushes towards me--
it has no brakes. Still,
the radishes are good this year.
Run them through butter,
add a little salt.

Slice them thin and serve them on good bread with good butter and Maldon salt.

You don’t have to be going through cancer treatment to occupy the nebulous space between.

Every human moves through life stages and it feels weird to have one foot in the present or past and one foot in the future. Midlife and beyond has its share of these uncomfortable transitions. Ask any parent who has had a graduating senior at home “spoiling the nest” before leaving for college. Ask anyone contemplating retirement.

With the toughest part of my cancer regimen behind me, I am coming alive. I have renewed energy and interest in preparing for our future move to Portugal. But with treatment still ongoing every three weeks till the end of the year, I remain rooted in Seattle.

It’s similar to how I felt when I was a Foreign Service Officer, changing assignments, and sometimes countries, every few years. I remember being fully immersed in my life in India, while learning about Thailand. When I got to Thailand, I embraced the new, but there were things I missed about India. Adding “home leave” to the mix further jumbled my emotions because I visited the US so rarely and the “worldwide web” wasn’t yet a thing. Frozen yogurt was still novel back then; NPR was comforting. How had I lived without them?

I love this view from my Seattle neighborhood

Have you noticed that not only does the grass seem greener on the other side, but when you go over to check it out, the grass you left seems perfectly verdant? How do you reconcile the two?

(tell us about it in the chat)

The more I think about spring, the more its duality makes it seem like the perfect season to grapple with these conflicting emotions. Nestle under those comforting blankets a little longer and eat some soup to help you withstand the chilling winds. But bound outside when the sun is shining to check out the beautiful blooming trees and see what new buds have popped up from the soil. There’s a beautiful big world waiting for you to explore it.

Tulips in Washington’s Skagit Valley

In his new book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Salman Rushdie contemplates the interrupted life, the fight for life, the altered life, isolation, emergence, and more. I find his ruminations relatable.

My bald spots are filling in with gray-flecked baby hair, and soon I’ll feel comfortable going out in public without a hat or bandana. I have stubby little emerging eyelashes and I could shave my legs for the first time in almost six months (if I wanted to).

We’re off to Portugal soon to rekindle our dream. I’ll have an immunotherapy infusion the day before we leave and one the day after we get back. This time, I’m bringing my compression socks to wear on the plane.

Thankfully, poets and chefs have given me the tools I need to embrace spring (real and metaphorical) and what comes afterwards.

Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limon*

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor's
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it's the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world's baubles and trinkets, leave 
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I'll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I'll take it all.

*In December, I told you about the wonderful man who sends a daily poem to friends and family every day in December and April (National Poetry Month). The two poems I shared with you in this post were curated by him.

The Best Thing I Cooked This Week

Joshua McFadden’s English Pea Toast

Six Seasons: A New Way With Vegetables is one of my all-time favorite cookbooks and this recipe, which celebrates spring peas, is one of my favorites in the book.

Shelling peas is soothingly meditative and can help you when you are grappling.

I aspire to be the kind of hostess who casually whips up something unexpected and wonderful, kind of like in this iconic scene from the movie Heartburn.

This delicious concoction is perhaps the closest I’ve come to achieving my goal.