— Anne Lamott

about six weeks ago, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with a grade 4 glioblastoma, which is a highly malignant brain cancer, with tumors about the size of a golf ball in the left frontal lobe of her brain.

have you ever seen a weather radar tracking a hurricane?

it looks like that, but on someone’s brain.

and my vibrant, active mother-in-law? she’s far too young to have a hurricane in her brain.

there’s a lot that is interesting about being close (and getting close) to someone who finds such a dark weather system in their head.  what i found most interesting was the process by which you discover that a loved one does, indeed, have cancer.

it was harder than i thought, more unsettling and less straight-forward than i ever imagined.

in this (and most, i believe) situations of diagnosing brain tumors, the process is similar: one has reason to get an MRI of their brain — usually because they are experiencing weird neurological symptoms or, in many cases, seizures — which shows the dreaded hurricane.  the scan is sent to a specialist; the specialist recommends a craniotomy to remove the tumor (or debulk it, if a complete resection isn’t possible) and biopsy it, and then once the pathology report comes back, begin treatment.

so, what happens as you embark down this road is that for weeks, from diagnosis to getting the pathology report, you only have one word to describe this terrible thing that’s happening: a tumor.  an evil, unwanted visitor.  a hurricane on a ghostly outline of the brain you’ve never actually seen before, only self-consciously been cognizant of. and you desperately avoid resurrecting your kindergarten-cop-movie-circa-1990 impression of arnold schwarzeneggar saying “it’s not a toomah!“, because, unfortunately, it actually is.

but this is immediately what your brain jumps to, because you are emotionally 12 years old, apparently.

the more people you talk to, the more people want to know exactly what kind of tumor it is.  benign? malignant? and you search for answers, desperate for some finite facts you can lean on, good or bad, because whatever the new reality is, at least it’s real.  you can trick yourself into preparing for the absolute unprepareable.

the not knowing keeps your proverbial one-shoed-self squinting up at the sky, looking for signs of the other one to come tumbling down at any moment.

you speculate, conjecture, discuss, google, and dance around the word that you’re wondering about, but fearful to verbalize out loud.  you make a list of all the other things this tumor could be besides…no, you’re not going to say it.  why think the worst, right?

at this point, about 2.5 weeks post-hurricane-tumor spotting, my mother-in-law had surgery.  the surgery debulked the tumor by half (note: this is not the most positive scenario) and also found that the hurricane was building energy, growing in size since the last radar picked it up.  the surgeon shares this with her husband, her mother, my husband and i in a tiny room that seemed to be losing oxygen by the second.  he also shares that he is hopeful for the best, and we should have pathology in a week.

we were hoping for news; we got hedging.  i suspect that our very wonderful, gracious neurosurgeon knew what he was most likely dealing with, but being the prudent and professional doctor he is (and exceptionally nice to all of us), he followed protocol.

she recovered for a few days in the hospital, and then about a week at her family’s home in grand junction, where many of us were staying with her.

it was a tough week.  brain surgery, of any kind, is no picnic.

and with all the discussion of care, talks with medical professionals, little by little progress in recovery, questions coming from concerned friends, we still have…no answers.  no ground on which to plant our feet and determine our course.

i think: this is not how it happens in movies.

in movies–and books for that matter–the diagnosis is wrapped up nicely.  in fact, sometimes the process of diagnosis is not mentioned at all, instead all focus centers around the emotions and trials of recovery from and life with cancer.

i realize: this is not how it happens in real life.

1 week post-surgery, we have a meeting with a chemotherapy doctor.

now, i have to say this: in retrospect, it seems so obvious what she has.  i mean, think about it — a growing brain tumor that’s not an infection, a concerned neurosurgeon, a meeting with a chemotherapy doctor–this obviously equals cancer, right?

but, a) what if we’re wrong about that, and now we’ve fixated on cancer as being her disease, and b) if it is cancer, what kind?  doesn’t cancer go in stages?  what stage is this?  is it fixable? maybe chemotherapy is used in non-cancerous tumors.  what do i know?

so, we go to meet the chemotherapy doctor, and only when we walk in the entrance do i get my first answer.

it’s definitely cancer.

we meet with the chemotherapy doctor, who, it needs to be said, is remarkably abrupt and cold.  my mother-in-law and stepfather-in-law sit on one side of the room, with the boy and i sitting at a small table.  we fill out forms, and glance around the room: brochures about head & neck cancer, booklets about how cancer stages work, various charts and graphs about leukemia, lymphoma.

for as much cancer awareness as there is these days, i realize how little i know.

the doctor (who incidentally only has one arm and thus plagued me once again with stifling my knee-jerk middle-schooler-obsessed-with-pop-culture response of movie-quoting, this time from the fugitive — “it wasn’t me; it was the one-armed man!”) proceeds to ask questions and examine his fragile patient, while we sit there watching anxiously.  he drives on, not stopping to take a breath, talking about the specific kind of drug she’ll be taking, for how long, and side-effects.

side note: as it turns out, her brain cancer is (chemo-wise) rather simple.  she takes three pills, once a day.  that’s it.  side-effects are usually minimal, but definitely depends on the patient.  we don’t know it then, but her side-effects from the chemo will be zero.

he finally, after about 800 days ten minutes, pauses, looks us in the eye and says: “so, that’s it, unless you have any questions.”

um, yeah, we do have a few minor questions like OH MY GOD, WHAT DOES SHE FREAKING HAVE, PLEASE TELL US SOMETHING FINALLY.

so, then he rattles off her cancer: grade 4 glioblastoma, like he’s telling her she has a common cold and to not worry about it.  he starts throwing around months, numbers, figures, and suddenly his voice suddenly sounds like charlie brown’s teacher.

i mean, you’d be surprised the lack of emotion and reaction involved in hearing what could be, without the miracle we’re believing for, a possible death sentence handed down to someone.  we recently saw the movie 50/50, in which the main character finds out he has cancer at the age of 27.  there is a scene with his doctor–a very cold, aloof doctor–who barely looks up the entire time while telling him his diagnosis.

before my experience with my mother-in-law’s disorienting, confusing diagnosis process, i would have dismissed that scene as pure hollywood dramatics, written only for the screen.

i now know that the scene is entirely, surreally, weirdly, true.

it’s jarring, really.  as the doctor’s talking you look around at the other people in the room, expecting something, anything, that conveys shock.

a sympathetic look? a reaction from his mom/stepdad indicating sorrow?  that tinny, tense strings music in movies that tells the audience in sharp tones THERE IS DANGER AFOOT!?!

nothing.  so, you determine that you surely didn’t hear what you heard.

because if you had, people would certainly react.  right?  or, or…or, the ground would open up.  and locusts and frogs would start biblically pouring down.  something. anything. because you need confirmation that your feelings of worry and life-altering sadness are appropriate.

you hardly hear what comes next, a litany of statistics rattled off with an almost monotone affect.

i interrupt the monologue, asking a follow-up question along the lines of “can you explain to me in plain english what we’re dealing with here?”

not getting an answer.

but i had the answer, in my heart.

i knew it.

i knew i heard correctly.

this hurricane in her brain is an epic storm, of the worst proportions, with the worst (earthly) prognosis.

and in that doctor’s office, before your heart fills with hope again, before prayers are lifted and hands are held, before finding reassurance from survivors, before spending six weeks in close proximity with your newly-minted mother-in-law and someone you now can count among those you really know, before travelling 10 hours a week from our home to stay with her monday through friday while she goes through treatment in a city away from her home, before seeing the strength of someone so radiantly shine through as she turns her face towards the light, before loving and understanding all the cliches about life and hope and survival that you’ve hated hearing before, before the tears and laughs, before the ups (and downs), before the resolute decisions to continue to have faith in God among this uncertain path, to stand strong with the ones who love you, before you end up redefining what this family is really made of…

before all of the hopeful and good things that come out of this journey that you literally see every single day…in that moment, in that doctor’s office–you’ve never wished you were more wrong about what you’ve just heard in your whole, entire life.

that’s stuck with me, the idea of the thinking behind the doing.

i always taught my students that “why” was the most interesting question they could ask, and the hardest.

so when i came across this quote, from the dalai lama, it all came to mind again.  he was asked what surprised him most about humanity.

we’re pretty confusing, we people.

his answer:

Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

*title from my favorite tv show ever.

the time will come that i don’t get a lump in my throat and have to take a deep breath when i see something surrounding the teaching profession.  this week it was parenthood (we’re watching the first season before we head old school with watching seasons of mad about you) when lorelai gilmore sarah braverman starts dating the 11th grade english teacher, mr. cyr.

there are probably many reasons for it, good and bad and none that i can fully express.

i guess my response can be summed up in the same way that sarah braverman answers the note given to her by mr. cyr later in the episode:

it’s complicated.

i just wonder when.

“Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth. You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.” 

– Bill Watterson, most notably the creator of Calvin and Hobbes

*        *        *       *       *

i find myself, these days, taking the opportunity to live in the italics.

attempting to create a life that not only satisfies but nourishes my soul, uncovering and developing my anima.

a life that reflects values, not only in the connotation that this word typically possesses in our polarized society (morally), but in the larger idea that my life would reflect the things that are of intrinsic worth and desire; the evidence of which can be plainly seen by the way my time is filled and the output of my plantings, not solely by the things i only say that are important.

this is a deciding, a reshaping, a shifting constantly in response to appropriate priorities and influences, not a one time declaration of value.

it takes thoughtful time, amidst a cultural current that seems to trend so strongly in an alternate direction in actuality while professing these same ideals theoretically.

it’s a strange place to be nowhere specifically, but more in motion, made awkward only when explaining to quizzical faces why you left a concrete place for one that doesn’t yet exist.

it makes sense to me.

to my family.

to my husband.

and to herman melville, who said about journeys and places that “it is not down on any map; true places never are.”

*        *        *       *       *

so often i turn to the words of others to accurately sum up what i’m thinking, particularly when i feel my own words are meandering and ethereal, like verbal cotton candy which leaves an impression but seems to dissolve into nothing just as quickly as it appeared.

so, what am i really trying to say?

in the immortal words of the wise david bowie:

“I don’t know where I’m going from here,
but I promise it won’t be boring.”

and, as it turns out, i am finding myself in a similar situation.

i don’t own a huge computer company and make millions.

i don’t have nor am recovering from pancreatic cancer.

i am nowhere near as famous or powerful as steve jobs.

but, nevertheless, this week, i have left a job that i respect and love very much to focus on my health.

a public forum such as this one is certainly no place to go into details of such matters, for obvious reasons; however, this does not mean the subject is taboo.  i am most certainly willing and able to discuss the complexity of the situation in a manner that involves actual human contact.  i am not a pariah; i am not suffering away on some deathbed; i did not leave my job in a blaze of burning bridges.  suffice it to say, i developed some health issues over the last few months that became more problematic and alarming (not terminal, or life-threatening, so as to not freak anyone out) enough that it became clear that there was something wrong that was getting worse despite many attempts at a remedy.  in order to figure out what that is, i had to step away from teaching, hopefully temporarily.

i do not know when i will return.

i do not know if i will return.

i do not know what’s next.

i do know that this was an incredibly difficult decision made as easy as it could be by my sainted husband, my family, the staff at my school and my wonderful colleagues who i miss already.

i do know that i am taking a mandatory vacation for the next several weeks.

i do know that i’ve joined an online book club, and eaten much chocolate in the last few days.

i do know the one who is in charge of my life, and trust him implicitly.

i am hopeful.

for me.

and steve jobs.

one of my favorite fiction writers, jonathan safran foer, is coming out with a new book called “eating animals”, which is about exactly what you would expect it to be about.

but that’s another story.  or, as he would say, a different story about a different story.

however, in a new york times article he wrote that was adapted from the book, i found another reason for why i’m in education:

“Children confront us with our paradoxes and dishonesty, and we are exposed. You need to find an answer for every why — Why do we do this? Why don’t we do that? — and often there isn’t a good one.”

oh, jsf, you fantastic writer.

this, by the way, is what i love about writing, and, consequently, also about reading:  buried treasure.  in an article about vegetarianism a good writer can clarify, succinctly and poignantly, what i have failed to articulate amongst the cacophony of questions in my head.  what is important to me in terms of education, and why do i still like it so much in spite of the sisyphian* task it appears to be?

because i need to be confronted with my own paradoxes.
because i need to continue to think and work hard at thinking.
because i need to do what i am requiring my students to do.
because there needs to be better answers to the questions, and better questions.

elsewhere in the article foer talks about a response his friend had to him when he discussed embarking on a new journey when his son was born.  his friend said: “everything is possible again”. this idea that new journeys are marked with new promise, a new hope and a renewed sense of possibility around every corner must be cultivated to live, thrive.

the effort to farm this sentiment is relentless, and exhausting; i do not look good with a pitchfork.

but, i think it’s true.  everything is possible again.  everything.  everything.  a great harvest is always worth the effort.

* hands down, one of the best and most useful adjectives.  use it.  own it.  gah, i love myth.

here’s what i’m not doing right now.

i’m not telling you about my day or week.  i’m not mentioning how arduous teaching a particular class was this week, like hauling 30 sophomores uphill, on my back, while they complain and, audibly in some cases, think that i suck.  i’m not worrying about the outcome of a lame situation that i have gotten myself into by accident.  i am not thinking about how tired i am.  i am not mulling over how much i need to work on, and how i feel like i will not ever be a good teacher because of reasons having to do with my personality. i’m not telling you about how technology keeps failing me.  i’m not telling you of my learning about just how much weight i’ve gained in two years of being in school/stress mode (and i feel every ounce of it) that feels too big to talk about, while feeling ultimately deficient in the will to change it.  i’m not telling you about how inspired i am daily by excellent teachers, being dazzled and amazed at their brilliance, while simultaneously feeling daunted and nervous that i will never be this good.  i won’t tell you about how much i want to be good at life, and how much i think about it.  i’m not telling you how many 15 year olds i bored this week, or how many told me so, or how many told me how i am their least favorite teacher.

to be fair, i’m also not telling you about the fortunate time i’m spending with my two favorite older nieces.  i’m not mentioning how adorable my youngest niece and nephew are, and how i can’t help but be in a good mood when i see their cute chubby little faces.  i can’t being to describe how nice it is to start to feel like you have a few good friends and have weekly time with said friend for once.  i’m not mentioning how awesome my drive to work is, an early morning technicolor explosion that only lasts a few weeks each year.  i’m not explaining how helpful my parents are in ways physical, emotional, and spiritual.  i am not raving about the boy (The Boy!) and how tangibly happy I am with him.  and i’m certainly not talking about how bitchin (that’s right, folks, BITCHIN) a small coterie of my student-teacher friends are who get together and share secrets and laughs over cocktails.  i will also not note that when i told a number of my students i was leaving next friday (to go to the middle school), they got very sad and wished that i was not leaving.

because it’s all there.

however, in the meantime…

my issues will not clear up overnight.  my students will not miraculously come in tomorrow, motivated to work.  i will not enter school tomorrow with magical new relationships with my students (which i feel is one of THE most important keys to my success in this endeavor) in an instant.  i will not suddenly sprout inspiring new insights about life, philosophy or early american literature with which i can inspire the masses.  my crisis of confidence, the one with the gnarled roots at the base of my whole life, will not disappear without effort, like it was just an unfortunate occurrence of indigestion.  this weekend i will not wake up and suddenly be unburdened and become thrilled with who i am.

i will also wake up and know there are any new amazing things that can happen each new day.  really.

these things, they take time.  but in the meantime…

ever looked at that word “meantime”?  the most difficult of times, the times in between where you were and where you so desperately want to be, can seem long.  and truthfully, they are long, because there is no “there” there.  there are new plateaus and new mountains around every corner.

and in the meantime…

mean.  time.  that’s what it is, because these stretchy long bits are MEAN.  angry, sometimes.  sad, can be.  MEAN REDS.  and small triumphs.  and, luckily for me, strong and capable people in lock-step with me (despite my tendency to want to hide from them occasionally, with copious amounts of chocolate and blankets to hide until the foreseeable future).

so.  in the meantime…

what do you do, besides forging onward (which i am doing)?  how do i deal with all this detritus, this stuff that is stuffing up my brain and my spirit and my energy.

give me a four step plan, please.

in the meantime, then, i am

not worrying about anything.
instead, i am praying about everything (and i mean EVERYTHING).
i am telling God what i need,
and thanking him for all he has done.  (phillippians 4:6)

WRIT LARGE.  ABOVE MY DESK.  if i could have this tattooed on my arm now, i would.

my four-step daily plan for dealing with stuff.  if that doesn’t work, do it again.  and again.  and again.  it’s working.  if it means you can keep going, it’s working.  if it means that it brings you peace sometimes, it’s working.  if it means you are saying it by force of will, it’s working.

if you want to know what it is that i’m doing at any given time, it is this.

all, of course, in the meantime.