You Are Now Entering Cancerland. Next Services 457 Miles.

I spent some of today reading about topics formerly unheard of or of little interest, now much more captivating: radiation treatment, ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), recurrence risk. I called the nurse educator at SFMC to ask for her help interpreting some things Dr. R. said. I think such conversations are probably a little tricky for her, as she is herself not a doctor, and probably also does not want to appear to contradict any doctor, no matter what goofy thing the doctor has said.

For instance, Dr. R. mentioned something about a recurrence risk of 30-40%, regarding which the nurse educator said politely that perhaps he meant with surgery alone. For my diagnosis, this figure does not appear to be accurate.

I also finally understand the difference between cancer stages and grades, which I couldn’t grasp even when my mother had cancer last year. Of course, she didn’t explain it quite as clearly as I’m about to. Stage has to do with the extent of the cancer: the size of the tumor, if it’s spread, whether the cancer is invasive or not. DCIS is always Stage 0. Grade, as Dr. R. correctly said, has to do with how abnormal the cancer cells look under a microscope and therefore how quickly they are likely to spread.

Beyond that, there are many other aspects of a breast cancer diagnosis, including whether the tumor has receptors for estrogen and/or progesterone, meaning that treatment might include blocking the effects of those hormones. Mine has both kinds of receptors. I also learned that the word “tumor” is used even if there’s not a lump as such. I have no lump (and don’t want one) and there is nothing that could be felt by the human hand even if one knew just where to go, but it’s still called a tumor, meaning a growth of tissue.

When I had the hysterectomy in late October, to treat symptoms that weren’t in themselves troublesome but that could potentially develop over time into uterine cancer, I didn’t have my ovaries removed. I figured it would be good to let them do their thing—make estrogen—until they stop on their own, which can’t be long off, anyway, but what I should have done—what was I thinking?—is divine that less than six weeks later, I’d be diagnosed with hormone-positive breast cancer and have them removed with the rest. Oh, well, I’ll definitely do it the next time I have my uterus removed.

So far, my life looks about the same, but things feel quite different, as if a sheet of glass has slid between me and the rest of the world. I can see everything and everyone just as clearly as before, but I’m in some other place where I have to travel alone, where no one can truly accompany me. It’s a little lonely at moments. Who knows now when I’ll get to make that trip to see my family?

But I was reflecting today that things are as they are, and one way things are is that I’m quite alive, with every likelihood of remaining so for the time being. Even if I knew I was going to die in two weeks, would I want to spend all of those final moments thinking, “Oh, my god, I’ll be dead in two weeks”?

My meditation practice is helping immensely. The night of the day I was diagnosed, I sat for 45 minutes, even though it was already 11:30 p.m., in gratitude for all I have received. I love knowing that whenever I’m meditating, there is someone elsewhere doing the same, and that whatever feeling or experience I’m having, I’m not alone. During the time that I’m sitting, if someone in another city or country says, “I know there is someone else meditating right now,” I have made that true.

As shocking as this seems at moments, it also strikes me as considerably less dire than when my mother was diagnosed with cancer early last year. Maybe it’s just easier when it’s you having the problem instead of your mother having it. I guess I’m more scared of her dying than I am of myself dying, and when it seemed that could possibly be on the horizon, I had to do a lot of interior work which helped then and might be helping again now, at this time of strange parallels.

As a friend said, “I know you love your mother, but just because she had cancer and a hysterectomy doesn’t mean you have to have cancer and a hysterectomy.” Too late.

Two Things I Should Not Have Said Where the Universe Could Hear Me

One: “Great that the hysterectomy is over—now I won’t have to go to the doctor all the time!”

Two: “Boy, it’s a pain getting across town to SFMC—sure hope I never have to go there again!”

First, the good news. The stereotactic core needle biopsy on Monday was not a big deal. Basically, your breast dangles through a hole in a table and they compress it, apply a soupçon of local anesthetic, and extract some samples with a needle. I asked beforehand if the compression would be the same as when I had my recent (extremely painful) mammograms and the nurse said it would be. Except that it would be for forty straight minutes.

If it had actually been like that, it would have been extraordinarily difficult to withstand, but in fact, it was very mild compression, barely noticeable. The whole thing seemed to be over in twenty minutes. It didn't hurt. The nurse and doctor were extremely kind. Really, the worst part was having to lie still on my stomach with my head turned to one side, which produced a slight kink in the neck, soon forgotten.

I was sent home with a small bandage over the hole where the needle had entered, after making an appointment to return tomorrow to hear the results. I asked if the findings could be communicated over the phone and was told this is possible if strongly desired, but that they prefer to discuss in person.

Yesterday I arrived home after business hours to find a message on my answering machine (yes, I still have one) from my ob/gyn, who said, “Linda! Dr. M.! Got your results! Give me a call!” Surely, I reasoned, no one uses such a jaunty tone of voice to tell someone she has cancer, ergo I did not have cancer, ergo there was no need to schlep across town to SFMC.

This morning, I called SFMC and said it sounded like the news was going to be good, though I understood it might not be, so could they just tell me on the phone? And in no time, a nurse educator at SFMC called me back and told me I have cancer.

My first thought was, “Really?” and my second was, “Damn that Dr. M.” But I suppose it would have made for a sleepless night if she’d left a grave and gloomy-sounding message. It probably is better to sound cheerful in that situation.

So. I have ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which is Stage 0 breast cancer, considered by some not even to be cancer, but rather a pre-cancer. “Ductal” means the malignant cells are in the ducts rather than the lobules. Lobules are where milk is produced. Ducts are what the milk travels through to get to the nipple. “In situ” means the cancer appears to be confined to the ducts and appears not to have broken through the duct walls. But this will not be certain (insofar as anything in medicine is certain, which is that it's not) until the tissue is removed and tested.

The nurse educator said I would have surgery, radiation treatment, and maybe hormonal treatment, but not chemotherapy.

As it happens, I lately bumped into a friend who told me that his wife had been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer, and that he had accompanied her to “interview surgeons,” which suggested that to be my next task, so I got the names of three surgeons from the nurse educator. I asked if I should still come in, but she said we’d just covered pretty much everything we would have gone over in person, except that they would have given me some pamphlets, which she said she could mail. I asked her to send them—one doesn't always want to get the pamphlets, but I had the feeling these might be particularly riveting.

Then I spoke with my ob/gyn and told her I'd gotten the news. She called me “my dear” and said she was pissed off on my behalf, as she knew I was hoping the whole medical era was over. She recommended a surgeon, as well, one of the three mentioned by the nurse educator, and, not wasting any time, though no one said there was a big rush, I typed up as many questions as I could think of—here’s where being a former QA person comes in handy—grabbed my clipboard and went to see the first one this afternoon. Turns out that whereas you normally can’t get any kind of medical appointment for the same day, the seas pretty much part as soon as you mention cancer.

Dr. R. was absolutely lovely, extremely calm and patient. I’d made it a point to have the hysterectomy during 2011, because when 2012 rolls around, I’ll have a $2000 deductible. Little did I know I’d also have to squeeze in a lumpectomy! Dr. R. assured me that he could do the surgery before the first of January, and explained about cancer coming in three exciting grades.

Grade 1 grows most slowly. The cancer cells are “trying to look like normal cells.” Grade 3 features “wild-looking cells” and grows the fastest. It has the highest risk of recurrence, and of becoming invasive cancer. Grade 2 is in between.

He told me my cancer is high grade.

“Does that mean it’s the best or the worst?”

Alas, here highest means worst: my DCIS is grade 3.

And there you have it. We shall see what Surgeon Number Two has to say on Friday.

86ed from Steroids

I was supposed to go to Ypsilanti, MI, for a tasty vegetarian, almost-vegan Thanksgiving dinner with my mother, father and sister, but, because of the hysterectomy, still am sleeping flat on my back all night every night, which normally would be impossible, but somehow the body cooperates when necessary. But that’s on my own bed, which is reminiscent of a cement sidewalk in firmness.

Sleeping on my parents’ guest cot requires a change of position about every 15 minutes if one is to be able to rise to her feet the following morning. My mother very kindly offered up her own bed, but that seemed like quite an imposition. I don’t know about her, but after about four days of someone else sleeping in my accustomed spot while I slept on the guest bed, I might get crabby.

I was also a little worried about schlepping my suitcase from here to there. I wasn’t supposed to lift more than 20 pounds, and while the suitcase has wheels, I could only too readily picture someone in the airport shrieking, “Miss! Your suitcase is falling,” me instinctively grabbing for it, and hearing a horrible ripping sound.

Nonetheless, I hated the thought of missing my semi-annual trip and only with difficulty decided to postpone. Once I did, my father said he’d been about to call and say not to come: “It sounds like you’re swimming upstream right now.” Mom had said, just once, that Thanksgiving wouldn’t be quite the same with just three, and I very much wanted to be there, but appreciated my father seconding my decision. It made me feel more at peace about the whole thing, and I figured I could reschedule just as soon as I felt better, except that I always book at least six weeks in advance so I can get a seat that is on the left side of the aisle as you look toward the cockpit.

That way the arm I make flamboyant gestures with and turn book pages with can extend into the aisle.

Of course, about one minute after I canceled my trip, I felt well enough to go.

But it all came out fine. Instead I went to Sacramento with Tom for dinner at Steve and Julie’s, which was magnificent. Serious overeating, a big congenial crowd. In the evening, Tom went off with his girlfriend to help with a project at her place, and I stayed overnight at Steve and Julie’s, and then we three went to visit Ann and Mac the next day. I took the train home in the afternoon.

I am back on my bike now and, riding home from work one day, arrived at the red light on Townsend at the Embarcadero. There was a UPS truck ahead of me, and I saw an apparently deranged man step off the curb on the left side of the street and approach the UPS driver and start to tell him, through the driver's window, about when he used to be a UPS driver. “Great,” I thought. “Now we’ll be sitting here for ten minutes waiting for this fellow to move along.”

Another cyclist rolled up and stopped to my right. The light turned green. The UPS truck didn’t move. I thought I’d help the driver out by ringing my bell so he could tell the crazy guy, “Oh, sorry. Gotta go!” So I rang my bell several times just as the truck moved on. The cyclist to my right told me, in just this side of a withering tone, “There was a pedestrian in the crosswalk.”

Sure enough, the mental health gentleman had reached the far side of the street—he hadn’t delayed the UPS truck in the slightest—and he said to me, in what was definitely a withering tone, “No more steroids for you!”

Biopsy Dukkha

Hey, this is post number 500!

Dr. M. says lying on my stomach won't do any harm, but it might be uncomfortable. She suggested scheduling the biopsy for a couple of weeks out, so it will be December 5.

Toward the end of September, I went to Eugene Cash’s Sunday night sitting group, as was my weekly habit, and in his talk, he mentioned something that caused me to remember that it had been ten years to the day since I'd begun to meditate daily (not since I began to meditate, period, which was 21 years ago). I missed just one day in those ten years, by accident.

It was an Easter. Tom and I went to Sacramento on the train, so my schedule was not per usual, and I kept thinking, “When I get home, I need to meditate.” When I woke up the next morning not having done so, there was a slightly queasy feeling: You may be able to do this or that today, but you can do nothing whatsoever yesterday.

I went up to Eugene at the end of the evening to tell him about my anniversary. That Sunday night group is vast, and many people must want his attention, so this was the very first time I had ever approached him there, though on a handful of retreats, he has been one of the teachers I interviewed with. He’s agreeably irreverent, very well versed in his subject, and very funny. He often makes me laugh.

I told him about my ten years of sitting (almost) every day and he responded warmly. Looking directly at him, I realized I’d never fully appreciated what lovely caramel-colored eyes he has.

And that was his last Sunday night with us, because the following Saturday, on the Buddhist Bike Pilgrimage, which he had told us he was very excited to go on, he crashed and suffered a traumatic brain injury, and we have not seen him since.

I found out about his accident when I got an email directing me to his Caring Bridge website, a place where people undergoing medical treatment can post updates or have friends do so, so they don’t have to send 500 emails or make 500 phone calls. “Uh oh,” I thought, “Why does Eugene need a Caring Bridge website?”

One of his visitors posted this, which I saved and have thought of often:

“I have also benefited from the dukkha of bike crash recovery and know the long road.”

“Dukkha” means “suffering” or “stress.” It’s considered in Buddhism to be one of the three characteristics of life, but it is certainly not considered to be all of life, despite how frequently one encounters that glib misstatement.

I liked very much the idea of benefiting from dukkha, because we normally think of benefiting from what is agreeable, and we do benefit when we enjoy delightful activities, feelings, sights, sounds and tastes. We also tend to cling to those things, and to assume that if what’s pleasant is good, what’s unpleasant must be bad, so we naturally push away anxiety, pain, anger and sorrow.

I liked this person’s reminder that we also benefit from what is difficult, if we turn toward it and experience it directly. We might also use what’s hard as a starting point for wise reflection, which is not precisely the same as endless obsessing, or telling ourselves once again the story that always ends the very same way: we aren’t good enough, and things definitely won’t work out.

Yes, I Am Sleeping

Yesterday I went back to SFMC (Super Fantastic Medical Center; not its real name) for my mammogram recheck. It would have been sooner, but I had to wait until I’d recuperated a bit from the hysterectomy. The original mammogram was my first at this place and by far the most painful I’ve ever had, so you can imagine my pleasure when I saw the same technician coming for me yesterday. Nice woman, but what a grip on the controls!

The recheck did prove to be quite a trying experience, in terms of pain and emotional upset. I also became nauseous partway through and had to lie down. The recheck involved a variety of mammograms and an ultrasound, and before I left, I was told that two geographical features had been determined by ultrasound to be benign fluid-filled cysts, but that I had a cluster of calcifications in my left breast and would need a biopsy.

Calcifications can form in many places in our bodies and typically are perfectly harmless, but certain configurations are cause for concern. I was told that there was a 22 percent chance my personal cluster of calcifications would prove to be cancer. It was also explained that the biopsy would involve lying face down for 40 minutes or so on a special table—“special table” sounds better than “weird table”—with the afflicted part dangling through a hole.

However, I can’t schedule this quite yet, because post hysterectomy, the only position I can sleep in is flat on my back. It seems to me that lying on my stomach is out, with or without anything dangling through a hole, but I will consult Dr. M. on that point.

Googling has of course ensued, by me and my mother. She sent me a page on calcifications I couldn’t quite make sense of.

She forebore to call me an idiot, under the circumstances—in case I’m about to die—but sent an email saying:

I thought the radiology page explained the calcification patterns clearly, since I had no idea what they were an hour ago.
  


Pat on head,

Mom

I wrote back that part of the problem was that I didn’t know which particular pattern of calcifications I had.

She replied:

Maybe they don't either, exactly, hence the biopsy. 
 


A friendly tickle in the ribs,

Mom

Me:

Ha—my pamphlet here says that calcifications can be a “very early” sign of breast cancer. OK, good.



A manly cuff on the shoulder,

Linda

When one has calcifications, it helps to have a funny mother.

It also helps to have an overly simple philosophy of life and death.

A few months ago, I was at my Sunday night meditation group and had occasion to mention on a group level that I was feeling worried, though it was embarrassing to say so, about my money: would there be enough to last the rest of my life? What if I ran out? The guest teacher that night, Anna Douglas, asked me, “Do you have everything you need right now?”

I could readily say I did, which was actually comforting, and then I got to thinking that, by definition, we always have what we need to sustain our lives—because when we don’t, we die. 

However, we (at least I think this is true) will never know we are dead, because we won’t be there to know it. I don’t think there will be a moment where I can accurately say, “Dad blast it, I’m dead as a doornail.” Ergo, we’re always alive, at least from our own point of view, and we always have everything we need.

The Perfect Sickroom Cat

The surgery began at 2, concluded at 4, and Tom fetched me home in a CarShare car about 6:15 that same evening. Rather amazing. In the operating room, Carole King was playing, and I grumbled, “I forgot to bring my Metallica CD.” Dr. M. said, “You don’t mind if we listen to Carole King, do you?” I said, “If it makes you calm, go right ahead,” and behind me, I could hear someone, perhaps the anesthesiologist, singing along.

I had the driest mouth of my life during the short car ride home. Tom saw me inside and unlaced and removed my shoes, which I could no longer reach, way down there on the floor. For the next 36 hours, I lay in bed a lot and took either Vicodin or three Advil every three hours, and then figured out that the Vicodin itself was probably the main thing making me feel terrible. I also was taking this, that and the other hippie supplement, based on advice from various sources, and decided most of that was also a mistake; some of them made my head swim.

One thing I did right: Going to the library in the days before surgery and bringing home a big stack of memoirs and novels. It’s ended up being rather pleasant, having such a short to-do list for each day. All I really have to do is a tiny amount of stretching, meditate for a token five minutes (lying down if necessary), feed Hammett, and clean his cat box. He has proven to be the perfect sickroom cat, sitting quietly at the periphery of the room with a grave expression on his face, until I ease myself into bed, when he slithers in between my arm and my body and goes to  sleep. He’s also refrained from walking on my incisions.

Besides the few required activities, I’ve been reading, being on the computer some, talking to people on the phone. My mother has been very helpful, having had nearly the same surgery in April. Carol Joy sent a big bunch of carnations, which smell and look wonderful. David and Lisa called from Seattle both before and after surgery day, and sent a card.

As early as two days after surgery, I went outside and slowly hobbled a few blocks with Tom. Yesterday evening I went on a particularly nice walk in the balmy early evening, a splendid breeze blowing. This walk took me past every apartment I’ve lived in since 1983, and also past the Bi-Rite Creamery on 18th Street, which for the first time didn’t have a line out the door and nearly to the end of the block. I’ve always thought that it must be very good ice cream, but not worth standing in that kind of line, and I don’t think I ever will stand in that line, but since I could walk right in (about 5:30 on a Tuesday, if you want to know the magic time of week), I did, and got a scoop of ice cream, and it was actually the best ice cream I’ve ever had, the most intensely rich and flavorful.

I got to thinking that there are those who live in this neighborhood and those (very, very many) who visit and spend money, and it is largely because of the latter that we have such an incredible profusion of wonderful places to eat and drink, and for the first time, I felt grateful to them rather than vaguely resentful.

As for Anthrax, I’ve completed listening to the samples on Amazon and plan to obtain seven of their 10 studio albums in electronic form, plus a few songs from the remaining three. It’s surprising that their music is so consistently enjoyable given the extreme amount of personnel churn they’ve had. Wikipedia has a nice bar chart showing the comings and goings.

I'll Take Two (Laparoscopic Supracervical Hysterectomies)!

I’m still here!

Today I set myself a research project: to gain familiarity with the oeuvre of the band Anthrax, one of the “Big Four” of American metal, until today completely unheard by me. After I receive Megadeth’s latest, released yesterday, I’ll have every one of their studio albums, and I have every one of Metallica’s studio albums. (You might like to know that Metallica has nine studio albums; Anthrax, 10; Slayer, 11; and Megadeth—the winner!—has 13.) Odd that I had managed to so completely miss Anthrax.

It turns out that Anthrax is fantastic! I’m almost thinking they will end up being my favorite band of the group. Judging from their cover art, they don’t take themselves particularly seriously, and, of the four, they sound most like a hair band. I hear a little Rob Zombie, too, or perhaps it’s vice versa.

I’ve also been listening to Apple, Mother Love Bone’s one and only album, which came out just after lead singer Andy Wood had died of a drug overdose, and also to the album then made by his friends in tribute, Temple of the Dog.

Various things that have happened since June 15: A visit or two to Carol Joy in Novato; several lunches at Mehfil with my co-worker and now friend, Venkata; Tuesday night meditating with Howie and Sunday night meditating with Eugene Cash; five trillion visits to the dentist/endodontist/oral surgeon; a move to a new floor at work.

Oh, here’s a highlight: On July 21, I saw Soundgarden! They were here at the Civic Center auditorium. The sound wasn’t great, and I thought the place was almost alarmingly understaffed, but I was in the very same room as Chris Cornell—the only person on this earth who really understands my problems, meaning that everything he touches is beautiful, that he was at times endearingly dorky when he spoke from the stage, that he clearly knows all about sorrow and loss. When I feel sad, I often listen to his music, either his solo CDs or Audioslave. It doesn’t cheer me up, but it reminds me I’m not alone.

On a splendid warm night in July, Tom’s mother, Ann, treated us to a lovely party in Sacramento celebrating several birthdays. Tom and I and his girlfriend drove from San Francisco together in a CarShare car.

After having taken a break from hospice volunteering while my own mother was ill, I have started again, now visiting a nice man who used to be a teacher.

At work, the particular piece of software I work with is being retired, and the retirement is moving ahead quickly.

We were advised that “when the music stops, there won’t be chairs for everyone.” My boss may as well have said, “Linda, after 13 years in which the world has changed completely, you will lose your job in the next months or year. You will not have health insurance. You will never get another job. You will end up starving to death on the streets.”

My company is also changing its “approach” to health care coverage so that it will cost employees much, much more starting next year.

I considered a health situation whose symptoms themselves didn’t really bother me (but which others might not enjoy reading about), the management of which required an endless stream of office visits, ultrasounds, biopsies, and three surgeries prior to this year.  I pictured myself either unemployed and shopping for my own coverage with this expensive (due to the amount of intervention required) pre-existing condition, or, perhaps, still employed, but spending way, way more on tests and procedures starting in January, and I decided it might be prudent to have the troublesome organ, the uterus, plucked from my abdomen and relocated to a medical compost bin during the current calendar year.

I hated making such a decision even partly for financial reasons, though it is a reasonable consideration, and there was a good deal of agonizing for several weeks. I called my doctor/surgeon early on and said I had decided not to go ahead. She said, “That’s fine—you’re not committed until you’re actually on the operating room table. But I’ll leave it on the calendar just in case.”

I checked into the specifics of the cost and was kind of astonished to find that, if I’d had two uteruses, I could have had them both removed for the cost of one root canal, or, then again, the cost of one dental crown, both of which I paid for out of pocket for this year (not to mention the dental implant, a completely separate matter, still in progress).

In the end, my mind wasn’t really at ease until I arrived at the hospital on surgery day, after a thoroughly unenjoyable day beforehand where a colonoscopy-style bowel prep was required. One mistake I made was changing my diet to include a lot more protein, in the form of eggs and tofu, per the advice of the Internet. This made me generally feel less well, and was hard to digest, complicating the required emptying of the intestines.

During that lousy day, the phone rang and I thought, “Ah, perhaps a well-wisher calling to say she or he hopes surgery goes well.” In fact, it was the mammogram people calling to say they’d seen something that needed follow-up in both breasts. I was quite disheartened for an hour or so there, fearing that just as one medical hassle finally was ending, another was to start. I pictured my sisters at my funeral and had a good cry; I may have listened to a little Chris Cornell.

But then I remembered that cancer is found in only four out of a thousand such rechecks, and my doctor/surgeon, while offering me the option to postpone surgery in favor of having the mammogram recheck right away, pointed out that, while she couldn’t assure me of this, it could be a case of magnifying a digital image enough to see something that is not a problem and has always been there, just never seen before. My mood returned abruptly to just bowel prep mood, rather than bowel prep plus dying of cancer mood, and the day went on unpleasantly enough.

The next day, which was last Thursday, I took a cab to the hospital at noon and soon I was lying on a bed in the “Come & Go” department, with a nurse struggling to start an IV in the back of my hand. It came over me then that, unless I was in the mood to make a semi-dramatic last-minute decision, I no longer had to think about whether I was going to have this surgery or not, which was a relief.

Sparkling Beautiful Sunday

Last weekend was amazingly wonderful. A lot of stuff seems to be amazingly wonderful lately now that I’m making a much more determined effort to put aside ruminations regarding the past and the future. There is so much to enjoy.

Last Friday night, I went to see Jeff for acupuncture, which is always hugely pleasant. The next day, I met not one, but two, of my neighbors from the building next door, where the griller lives. One has lived there for more than 20 years, and seemed delighted to meet a neighbor, and the other has lived there for 13 years, the same number of years I have lived in my current building. I always thought she was mean because she doesn't grin into my kitchen window when she's taking out her trash, but she's nice.

I often get her mail (because Laura is exactly the same thing as Linda, and 551 is exactly the same thing as 555), so we chatted about that, and she also said some other very interesting things, including that she doesn’t like the stuff piled up in the common areas of her building, and that periodically, the fire marshal is notified, and the person who owns the stuff clears some of it out, only for it to pile up again later, which means, at least, that he does take those warnings seriously, so maybe he also takes a request not to grill in a certain location seriously.

I mentioned to Tom that the grill remains in sight, but he said maybe it’s just being stored there, and maybe he’s right. Anyway, there has been no grilling, but even if there is, I’ve had some sort of breakthrough, I think. Along with trying harder not to drift off into the imaginary past and future, I’m putting more attention on my own experience when I’m upset.

When I noticed the grill still hanging around after the alley was cleared out, while I did think, “I may have to do something else about this,” I also consciously inquired into my own experience: How did I feel about seeing the grill? Angry? Agitated? What I felt was something very customary: fear, as a pressure in my chest. I think it’s the fear that someone will take advantage of me and I won’t be able to stand up for myself, or simply fear about having conflict and the danger that may bring.

I’ve been asking myself somewhat frequently these days, “What general emotion am I having? Fear, anger, sorrow, happiness? What exactly does it feel like? How do I know I’m having that feeling?” It is proving to be such a fruitful practice, because it takes the focus off the thing outside myself and how I’m going to struggle to change that external situation or person, and instead helps me to be with myself.

When I turn immediately to how I’m going to get X person to do what I think he or she should do, I’m abandoning myself. My own experience doesn’t get seen at all, and the energy of the emotion, I’m guessing, gets stuck. Then, when I find myself eating a pint of ice cream, I have no idea why. It seems to have come from nowhere, but it’s no doubt something inside me seeking comfort, since I’m not providing myself with comfort and attention—I’ve tuned out my own actual experience completely.

Turning in a detailed way to the concrete experience also makes me feel much more calm, capable and confident, which is somewhat paradoxical, since I’m not even thinking at that moment about how to handle the actual situation. So I am loving this exercise and have found myself almost looking forward to difficulties so I can try it again.

Yesterday was the 21st anniversary, to the day, of the first time I went to Howie’s sitting group. (Yes, I am the world’s slowest learner.) I was there last night, as I am almost every Tuesday evening, and told him it was our anniversary and thanked him for all he has given me.

Last Saturday morning, I met a third neighbor still, while doing laundry. Jan has lived around the corner for nearly 30 years, with her identical twin. We had a very nice chat. I have so many neighbors on this block alone, and know so few of them to say hello to, so I really appreciated meeting these three friendly people.

After laundry, I went to Rainbow and then cooked up a pile of things, which took well into the evening.

Sunday was even better than Saturday. I’m writing a thing on Freedom from Training Wheels for the Chronicle, so I bestirred myself to Sunday Streets, which featured a car-free stretch from 17th and Third, I believe, to Third and Palou, well into the Bayview neighborhood.

First I hung around Freedom from Training Wheels for a while and watched a bunch of awfully cute little kids rolling up and down on tiny bicycles, which was just as great as you’d imagine. I interviewed one (very) young lady, a person after my own heart who started by making sure I was going to spell her name correctly in the newspaper, and then watched at my elbow as I wrote down her observations to make sure it was, word for word, what she’d said.

Toward the end of the time the streets would be closed to cars, I rode down to Third and Palou. I have never been there on a bike and found it kind of flabbergasting to be seeing so many things in my own city for the first time after living here for nearly 30 years.

I had been standing at Third and Palou for about three minutes marveling over this when a melee broke out, fortunately primarily a shoving match, no sign of weapons, but it was kind of startling how immediately it went from involving two people to involving 30 people, while an announcer at a nearby event pleaded in vain over a P.A. system, “We’re a community, so let’s act like one.”

I headed north again and stopped at a stage where musicians were playing and the bubble lady’s magical bicycle was sending thousands of shimmering spheres into the sunny skies. It was enchanting. I stayed there for quite a while.

Farther north still, but still in the Bayview, there was an outdoor poetry performance underway. It was really a wonderful afternoon. From now on, I’m not going to miss Sunday Streets.

That evening I went to Eugene’s sitting group for the second time in a few weeks. I’ve vowed to get there regularly, where I always see so many people I know and where the energy is so upbeat and welcoming.

Bathtub Kayaking

Late in April I went to We Be Sushi for dinner with Tom, his girlfriend, and her son. Close questioning revealed that the son’s birthday is the very day after mine, so he has just left his teens and I have one more year before I turn 50.

Did I mention the very helpful thing my father said when my mother had cancer? Before I tell you what it was—cliffhanger!—I wanted to mention that after my mother’s cancer was gone, I got an email from her out of the blue giving me permission to mention it here. That was very sweet of her.

As for my father, he said he tries not to worry about anything he can’t control, and certainly not about anything not happening today. That is at the other end of the spectrum from my own procedures, but it seemed to have some merit nonetheless, and proved to be very helpful. Even setting aside my mother’s cancer, I’ve spent far too much of my life brooding over the past and worrying about the future and I vow to enjoy as many moments as possible from now on, past (probably well past) my life’s halfway mark.

But there is no reason for gloom on that score. For one thing, I’ve spent so much time in fruitless mental pursuits that it’s entirely possible I could have more moments of being present in, say, the 20 years to come than the 49 years already gone. Actually, I could probably do it in one year.

Also, as it said on the front of the birthday card I got from Carol Joy, “Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.” Good point! And a nice contrast to our society’s highly prevalent view that old age is to be dreaded.

I went to Ypsilanti for a week just before my birthday and had a lovely time. I stayed with my parents, of course, and went with my mother to a couple of appointments. My sister came over thrice, I had lunch with Helen and Ginny at Seva (unfortunately, Sally and I couldn’t work out a visit, which I was looking forward to, but I’m sure we will next time), and Amy had me over for a lovely homemade vegetarian birthday dinner with her and her son Mike. She roasted a variety of vegetables, and baked me a birthday cake.

She said I was the first person ever to request a white cake with white frosting, a year or two ago, but it has now taken hold in their family enough that Mike requested the same for his most recent celebration. I said I was glad to learn I had had at least some positive effect on him.

Later in the week, my father announced there would be a “birthday ceremony” around dinnertime, and at the appointed hour, produced a beautiful fruit-covered tart, a card, and the check he customarily mails every year. I am very fond of that check. Because it comes some decades after childhood, it always makes me feel quite spoiled and loved.

Amy and I also got together on another day for lunch at Seva, and Dad and I took a trip to the cemetery one sunny and tranquil afternoon. I’ve never seen a family member’s grave before and found it slightly arresting to see our last name on a headstone. One of the markers was that of a little girl who died after only 19 days, of something that would be readily fixable now. It was overwhelmingly sad to see that stone, with a lamb carved in one corner, and to reflect on what those 19 days must have been like for her mother, who knew from the beginning that her child would not live. Three women on my father's side of the family all outlived a daughter.

Living for a week where there is a TV let me get caught up on Rachel Maddow, and, less happily, on Palin and Weiner. Rachel said she got an email from her parents saying that if they die, they would like such-and-such public couple to adopt her, which I thought was endearing. During the many days of non-stop Weiner coverage, Rachel said something like, “Perhaps you were out today and didn’t get to watch TV. Maybe you missed your TV. If you want to know what your TV looked like while you were out, it looked like this,” and then we saw a screen divided into four quarters, each displaying Congressperson Weiner’s face.

Late in the week, I had lunch at Haab’s with my Uncle Rick and his fiancée, Janet, about which I had had some slight trepidation. Mentally, I was one hundred percent on board, but I feared that when we actually met, I might be overcome with grief over my departed, beloved aunt, but it turned out perfectly fine. Janet is lovely—outgoing, cheerful, full of enthusiasm. She and Uncle Rick have known each other since high school, and are doing all sorts of fun things together. I fully and completely endorse this happy match.

Uncle Rick has lost nearly 40 pounds and looks utterly fantastic. I hasten to say he looked entirely fine before—he’s one of the more handsome uncles around—but he looks amazing now. (Actually, Janet said that when one of her longtime friends learned she was engaged to my uncle, the friend said, “You’re kidding! He was the It Guy in high school!”)

One thing Janet likes to do is go kayaking, and so we discussed the three of us doing this together next year, as they’re about to buy a house on the water. My mother is already worried about it and suggested I take some kayaking lessons in the meantime. I pointed out that Uncle Rick and Janet’s new house is going to be on an internal, probably very placid, waterway, and that I’m sure Janet will save me if anything goes amiss. My mother wasn’t reassured.

“Wait!” I said. “You want me to go kayaking in San Francisco Bay?”

“No,” she explained, “I didn't mean you should go out past the Golden Gate in a kayak. I meant in a swimming pool.”

A Cornucopia of Growth Opportunities

A few days ago, I saw something that caught my eye: a note on the neighbors’ garage saying to pick up the trash in the alley. Did that mean it was now possible to walk through that alley? Sure enough, the grilling neighbor has cleared out the alley and the trash picker-uppers can now walk through it. In fact, there is only one thing visible at the end of the alley I can see from my kitchen window, and I know I don’t have to tell you what that one thing is.

Now, my truly very pleasant letter mentioned that the fire marshal says grilling must be done at least ten feet from any structure, and that the fumes were miserable for some of us, but it also referred to the stuff stored near the grilling site. I suspect that by the time the letter’s contents were fully processed by the neighbor—and this, though irrational, is highly human—he concluded that grilling would be perfectly fine if only the stuff was out of the alley. Though he’s still inches from the side of the building and it’s still going to stink.

Ai yi yi.

Well, these are obviously where some of my ongoing opportunities for growth lie: my building manager, grilling, smoking, and the phone company. Oh, and a few things at work, of course.

One thing I’ve done over the past year or so is identify some categories of things I’m not going to contend over. One is noise. Using earplugs is not ideal. It can be uncomfortable, but in the service of reducing conflict, I’ve decided that, except for the most extreme cases, I will simply use earplugs and be done with it.

Things are also largely fine with the building manager, not to assume that will always be so. In addition, I virtually never have conflict while getting around by bike these days, which is something I used to have a lot of. But challenges definitely remain.

One recent day was particularly awful. My phone has been broken for a while, so I did sign up for WirePro, wait a decent interval, and call to make a repair appointment. Needless to say, the phone company never showed up, and in the course of the day, I completely lost my temper about ten times. I was rude, I was sarcastic, and for the grand finale, said “F*** you” to a phone company employee. Obviously, I’m not proud of this, but I recount it as a public service, so that everyone who has never done such a thing can feel even better about herself or himself.

That very same day, I was dealing with another situation where something I had bought turned out to be damaged. Fortunately, I kept my temper in that situation, though as the day wore on, my emails on the subject became increasingly detailed, emphatic and lengthy. However, when I reread the correspondence later, there was nothing I felt bad about, though at the end of it all, I apologized for getting tense, anyway.

About 3 p.m., I was screaming and yelling at someone at the phone company for the nth time and writing emails regarding the other thing when I heard something happening in the back yard of my own building. Something was being delivered. What was it? I think I don’t need to tell you what it was.

The universe was obviously messing with me, sending yet another grill into my life in the middle of such a colossally terrible day. I had to laugh, or at least smile wanly.

However, this wasn’t a charcoal grill. In fact, it was the very thing I suggested years ago that the building manager get: a propane grill. This is fine. That very evening, she and a friend or two used it, and all I could smell was whatever they were grilling, which smelled good. Yes, they will probably sit out there from time to time making a racket until 2 a.m., which merely means I will use earplugs.

As for the next-door neighbor, I’m somewhat back in problem-solving mode, though there may not even be a problem. I haven’t observed any actual grilling. Grilling is in the imagined future. I’m thinking a bit about what the options might be, but there’s nothing to do right now, and maybe there won’t be.

One thing I considered is: What if I were Anne Frank? Did Anne Frank burst out of her hiding place and say, “My good man, put out that loathsome cigar at once!” She did not. Whatever happened, she had to put up with it, and I can choose to do that, too. That’s on the spectrum of choices.

To put it in Rapid Relief from Emotional Distress terms, I accept that there has been grilling right outside my kitchen window and that there may be more of the same in the future. I choose to be happy, to enjoy my life, to have good relations with my neighbors, and to have an apartment that is nearly or entirely free of noxious fumes.

Now I get to think about the choices that may lead to achieving those goals.