Category Archives: self growth

Under my tree

Posted in advanced cancer, Bumpboobs, Finding Home, Fun, Life, Life despite cancer, Love, self growth, Travel by

I had a particularly good day yesterday for a number of reasons, one big one being the boost of steroids and food. But this experience I feel is worth turning on the computer to capture at 2:40 AM.

Zsolt and I were relaxing on the front porch last evening, enjoying the massive sway of maple leaves mixing with a breeze and the gold evening light. Zsolt was mentioning how his friend enjoys recording short videos to remember the feeling of a place, rather than what it looked like alone with a photo.

This made me think a little.

I think, I replied, that I like to actually be in a place that has captured a piece of who I am, rather than a picture or a video…. being there, in that spot, whether it be an evening by the lake in Balaton or sitting under the tree I have literally grown along with all my life . . . that is what is really is to remember who, and what i am. That is when a piece of what makes me, me, shines. It reminds me that life is far more than a picture, or film, or a place to sit, a thing to let happen, a bed. These experiences are pieces of what I am. They make me, and they remind me of what I am.

So, I like them best. Far better than any form of art or screen.

Places that make me:

Under my tree

Balaton in the evening

The pond in Rockliff

The lake in Jasper called Horseshoe

The pool with family on a hot day

A drive with the window down and the music blaring

Eating into an orange that drips with sweet tangy juice

Sticking my face into a watermelon on a hot day

Warm cookies that are home made, not too sweet, and mine

A cup of tea and milk

Ice water

Little mountain villages with water down the middle

Home

Travel

Love

Zsolt

Dusk

I am all of these things

 

A week of things

Posted in advanced cancer, Bumpboobs, Chemotherapy, Finding Home, Fun, Life, Life despite cancer, Radiotherapy Treatment, self growth, Travel, Treatment by

This week was a good week. It’s nice to have them occasionally. I honestly didn’t expect it would be all that wonderful. But it was pretty chill, and productive, and somehow visiting with my radiation doctor made me feel less dismal and more . . . just . . . steady.

Boo!

Boo!

Here is what happened. It’s almost so unremarkable that you really needn’t read another word in this post. But I feel like writing it out, so there you go.

This week I saw Margaret Atwood for the second time in my life. I’m editing/recording a mini podcast feature for the Ottawa International Writers Festival and Foment Literary Magazine. It’s a nice thing that gets me out of the house on the rare evening, and lets me talk about events with other literary loving minds. Margaret Atwood wore skeleton gloves for the event, which she picked up at a gas station. Throughout the evening I know everyone in the audience was wondering why she wore those gloves. And I know this because during the Q&A at the end, someone ask her why and everyone clapped. Then when she explained it was a spooky season and she bought them at a gas station, everyone clapped again. Two rounds of applause for the skeleton gloves. And Margaret Atwood. And her new book Hag-Seed, which sounds really entertaining.

Also this week, we have had a bunch of pumpkins populating our home. Tomorrow I’m hosting a small gathering of family and a few friends, and we are carving these pumpkins up. This is really an overly elaborate plan to make other people carve pumpkins so I can enjoy the benefits of roasting pumpkin seeds later. Mmmm, I adore salted roasted pumpkin seeds.

Furthermore, I made a rather excellent cheesecake.

As well! It’s always a satisfying week when I’m able to make progress at work. It seems to me there is always another big project that needs attention. In general, it feels like having this massive piece of ice I’m meant to turn into some lovely sculpture. But the only way to accomplish this gleaming sculpture is to slowly scrape and scrape at the ice till it finally takes forms. The  scraping is emails, phone calls, writing texts, experimenting with ideas, sending newsletters and such. And in the in, you get something wonderful. This week, I could move that sculpture along. But next week, of course, there will always be more to do. This is okay. It helps me. By the by, the Amnesty International Book Club is having a Readers Choice vote – go vote! It closes on the 31st.

Counter that above point: this week I worked mostly from home. I just could not handle it otherwise. Firstly, it’s a post-chemo week. Secondly, I received shitty news about my treatment last week, which got me down down down – and so incubating myself, in a way, helped me cope with all the ice chips I needed to scrape off not only my work sculpture, but my life-in-general sculpture too. And I could cry whenever I wanted. Plus stop to take naps. And watch the end of Star Trek Voyager.

Next: My art class was attended by only two people this past Wednesday. While that sucks for our lovely instructor, it wasn’t at all bad for me. It was useful to have  a little extra input into my impossible-flower-painting-that-is-driving-me-crazy. Oil paint is an interesting medium, but my goodness does it require patience. Patience is not my strongest point. And so, I am reminded to slow down in life.

We cleaned. This is why you invite people over, in additional to harvesting their pumpkin seeds. It forces one to finally clean one’s apartment.

We had sushi. That was fun – it’s this roll-it-yourself sushi that Zsolt and I really enjoy. After finally finding sushi rice at Bulk Barn, we ate our hand-rolled sandwich style sushi. It made us both quite happy.

So you can see, it was an unremarkable week that was nevertheless good.

Last week was terrible. Apparently while other areas in my body are stable’ish’ in regards to the cancer, my liver spots just keep on growing. Fuck buckets. This terrible disease is terrible. However, there are areas in my body that seem mostly stable, and that is good. Dr Canada is working to see what alternative treatments he can find me. I hate cancer. And this is a shitty way to end this happy blog post.

Therefore I will add this! I booked a ticket to go on a trip. I’m excited. Extra excited because I’ll be traveling with my Dad, and we haven’t done anything like this together ever. Not that I can remember, anyhow. It’s gonna be one long plane ride of him saying crazy things, and me taking the bait every time. FUN!

Last thing, it snowed!! Holy moly.

Happy Halloween 🙂

Catherine

 

The FLASH

Posted in Bumpboobs, Life, Life despite cancer, Love, self growth by

I just thought to myself, “I should follow the Pollyanna Plan’s example and write one blog post every day for an entire year.” Then I had this flash where I imagined not being able to finish it because I’d died… So it scares me of course that this is the first reaction. The reaction of death. Man, it scares me.

But now, writing that first line of this post onto my wordpress document and thinking about it for a minute… now I’ve just thought to myself, “where did that original thought – that positive thought – come from in the first place? Where did that idea to live for a year spring up from?” And I’ve never really asked that question before. But, thinking about it now, it feels like there are two parts of me, except the only part I’ve been noticing and taking seriously is the one offering flashes of fear.

Weird confession: Whenever I see a knife in someone’s hand, I have a flash of them stabbing me. And whenever I have a knife in my hand, and someone passes by, I get this flash of myself stabbing them. That’s mostly why I’m a little scared of knives. It’s the same things for guns. I get these flashes of people shooting me. Weird.

My point is, these are the flashes that get my attention. The ones based on fear.

But there are other flashes, and I am realizing right now as I write this post that they need to be nurtured more. I have flashes where I can see myself teaching my own child a ‘life lesson’. I have flashes of living in a cottage in Balaton. I have flashes (dreams) that my book becomes a bestseller.

Just a moment ago, I had a flash to write 365 blog posts in a row, across one whole year. That suggests that some part of me – a strong part of me, since it comes to my mind FIRST – feels the capability of living at least 365 days more.

Each day I live with the fear flashes. They tell me I am going to die too soon. They make me afraid that I’ll be leaving my husband and family far too early. Part of me has been afraid to admit this in the blog, because what if this is me knowing what will actually happen? What if this is me knowing my fate, and not yet accepting it?

But then, if one part of me has that fear, another part of me does in fact have hope – otherwise I’d never be capable of dreaming.

So now I have this challenge, and it is to nurture the ideas that comes first, my ability to hope and to imagine. I want to feed that part of my mind, and help it learn to follow through. Fear will get me nowhere, hope can take me anywhere.

And I’ve literally just realized that that hopeful side of me exists. Like, right here as I wrote down the experience to simply get it out of my head… and it’s turned into this realization. There are many parts of me, not only the part who is afraid all of the time. I want to learn about Catherine Who Hopes. She has some good ideas. I reckon she should be introduced to Catherine Who Acts. And we don’t need to invite that other fearful Catherine along to the party.

Anyhow, this is what I’m thinking about, and I think it makes sense. Why haven’t I noticed my positive side before when it comes to life, and when it comes to cancer? Well, because I was scared of all this fear that has been running through me. But at least I am noticing it now. At least I realize it is there. That is power in itself. And it’s also a really good starting point for change.

P.S. I will not be writing 365 posts, because I think it’s better to just not. This isn’t about fear, this is about me not wanting to blog that much! Better to be focusing on that bestseller goal 😉