staying strong

Dancing on Halloween Morn

Some stories take a while to write themselves: days, months, even years. This is Dancing on Halloween Morn.

Breathless.  It’s Halloween morning.  I haven’t been climbing stairs or jogging.  The music’s loud.  And I’m dancing in the kitchen.

October was a success.  Each day, for a second or an afternoon, I peeled back the heavy translucent rubber windshield comprised of problem-solving, decision-making, chauffeuring, worrying.  And I absorbed the colors and crispness of fall.  Colors burned impressions that will take me through to the next season of cold, through the seasons of warmth, until I stand again at October 1st.  Where I will prepare for that change which is now 47 years familiar.  With Halloween here and the month of thankfulness beginning tomorrow, I’m full.  Content.  Like I just ate a big Thanksgiving dinner that was blessed with my granddad’s words.

I cook.  I dance.  And tonight I will be a witch.  This morning, four years ago, I was GI Jane.  My hair had started to fall out with the chemo, so I had it buzzed off at 7:30 a.m. in the salon, before the days’ clients, the regulars, opened the salon door.  I was an irregular that morning.

This morning, I skipped the 3-product process to straighten, glossen, smoothen my bobbed, wavy hair.  It dried naturally.  Strings of velvet danced in the wind as I drove, windows down, that familiar route home from school drop-off.  My fingers felt it and remembered.  The short spikes of four years ago.  Soft chicken fuzz.  Tight, tight spiral curls.  Loose curls.  And now the luxury of these soft, wild, living waves.

So… we celebrate.  Me and my hair.  Loud music.  A steady, heavy drum beat.  We dance in the kitchen on Halloween morn.

Facing the Wall

Obstacles. Fences. Walls. Roadblocks. Diversions. Challenges.

We maneuver around them daily. Sometimes with great skill and confidence. Sometimes bumbling along, bouncing into the roadblock headfirst a few times before working out a path to the other side.

When going through chemo, I felt fenced. In December 2009, my third month of chemo, I got through one treatment with a Hungry Cow Mentality. Head down, with a few strong kicks.

This week I faced a Wall. Working out with my team at the YMCA, we took on the challenge of climbing the rock wall; it soared to the ceiling of the gym. I have quietly wanted to attempt this since I turned 40; then I thought at 45 I would try it. But I was working on the aforementioned fence around that time. And since then, I have what I affectionately term a chicken arm: The underside of my upper arm has no feeling and the entire arm is slightly swollen. From surgery to remove lymph nodes, the nerves were shuffled around, so that wiggly part that most women hate, I can’t feel. I look at it and see a lifeless chicken wing.

Dressed in our team’s neon yellow shirt, I arrive early with my team mates. This is good, I think to myself. I will hoist this body with this arm at least two feet up the wall, see what it feels like, identify what muscles need to grow to make the climb to the top possible in the future. I did it! I made it two feet up the wall! My grips were strong, so I went a bit farther. I made one stretch with my left arm that was a little too big, but I had three other appendages firmly attached to the wall. I reversed that move and looked for a closer rock for the fingers of my chicken arm to latch onto. Holding that position for a bit, I let the sting of over-extension subside. I adjusted my sights and focused on the rocks that were comfortably within my reach. I saw the top three feet away. I felt a scrambling sensation. I felt my muscles twinge. I felt strong.

I slapped the top of that wall and yelled, “I DID IT! I MADE IT!” With the anchor man holding me in my harness, I clamored down the wall.

My body was shaking when I made it to the bottom. My fingers from the gripping. My legs from the energy they put forth. My biceps, both of them, from exerting power.

Focused on the weakness of my chicken wing and slightly swollen arm, I had not given much thought to the potential power in that arm: the bicep, the forearm, and my fingers.

Hidden strength. Combined strength of the whole was bigger than the weakness of one part.

Staying strong, Linda