By ‘back home’ I mean the place where I grew up. My folks still live in the house I came home from the hospital to: the tile on the bathroom floor is still the same white-checker-board-with-black-tile-middle that I stared at as a kid. My 10-year-old signature still dons the wall on the cellar stairs. That place where my cousin Peter jumped from my bed and mistakenly put his head through the wall still shows through the 35 year-old-plaster patch job my Dad did (Peter was, mercifully, okay). And the lamps I used to rub on my mother’s bureau, pretending they were the bottle on the TV show “I Dream Of Jeannie” are still there. They say “you can’t go home again” but in my case, not only can you go home, you can take a tour of what used to be.

It was this way this weekend, when I traveled 3 thousand miles to say good-bye to my godmother, who’d lived in the same house next-door to mine for more than 50 years. Though remodeled a bit more than my folks’ house, Darlin’s home still resembles the place I ran over to to visit, hang out, play, escape sibling strife, wash cars, and in one long stretch, polish silver weekly in a 6th-grade effort at making money. I never signed any walls over there but if those walls could talk they’d have a lot to say about me and my romps next-door to see Darlin and Prez–her husband and my godfather. 46 years of living is a long time to make memories.

So it was difficult to say good-bye this past week–not just to my godmother, but also to her house. Of course her place will be lived in from now until its eventual sale–but it won’t be hers; she’s no longer here. And that reality, as strange as this sounds, makes her passing as difficult and as heart-wrenching as her actual death. It’s one thing to let my godmother go: it’s another thing to say good-bye to her home.

Why is this? I have no idea.

What is it about walking over there more times than I can remember–for cocktails, for coffee, for conversations, for counsel–you name it, I did it–that embedded itself into my heart and soul? I slept there, ate there, cried there, laughed there, answered the phone, took in the mail, polished tea sets, raked the leaves, even mowed the lawn–I guess that makes it my second home? And from the looks of my first home–with all the elementary-style Crayola tattoos I gave it– my memories are strong and lasting. They are memories of what once was and what I can still revisit: but next door I suppose–with my godmother’s passing–those memories can neither be made nor visited any more. Is that why it hurts?

That’s life, I know. That’s the way it goes for all of us, eventually. One day it will be my childhood home that no longer holds my heart and soul. I’m not going to like it then, either.

I am not certain why it is this way but I have learned that with death there are two endings: the life that has lived and died, and the house that was a home for all those who loved there. And in the case of my godmother, I was certainly one of ‘those.’

While I still don’t get this whole house-means-sadness thing, I do know one thing: if my heart breaks this much at a next-door buidling, there must have been a damn beautiful place inside there–for many moments of my life– that I got to call my own. And while I hate this strange new lesson in my life, I know I am so very lucky to have known someone who made me feel so very welcome in her life, in her heart, in her soul, in her home,

and in her house.

“It’s nice to watch the film tonight, I was surprised about your strong attitude, I love the part when you be with your family. I am not a cancer patient but I like the spirit you have, thank you for making the film.”

No matter the country, the culture or the community, breast cancer awareness binds us all.

我想你最好的健康。 (this is from an online translator. I couldn’t find proper Taiwanese.)

I was just texting today with this same friend and he’s been on the road for a long week of work.  I wrote TGIF and then wanted to add how happy I was that this whole obnoxious week for him has come to a screeching halt and he braved it. As I knew he could.  So I added TGTO–which I just made up.  It means “thank God that’s over.”

He texted me right back and said I had a texting hit on my hands–that I should get it out there to the masses so we can all TGTO.  So here I am with a new term to trend on Twitter and on phones from here to everywhere.  Go ahead and ask your 486 friends: How many things are you TGTO today?

Personally I can name about 20, starting with the laundry, the exercise in the blazing heat and the stepping in throw-up (I am NOT kidding you) as I was talking my walk.  I know, talk  about MILF being disgusting…how’d you like SITU? (stepped in throw-up.)

So–here’s to TGTO, yours, mine and ours.  I wish things like breast cancer could be on the TGTO list, but we’ve got a long way to go on that one.  For now I say just enjoy getting through whatever you’ve gotten through this Friday and give yourself a high-five.  It’s over. You did it.

As I knew you could.

Ann’s books ‘pink tips’ and ‘Words To Live By’ now available in the SHOP section of this website.

I’m taking my meds, I’m exercising and I’m eating foods that I hope keep me strong and keep my body as healthy as possible–as healthy as it can be with cancer inside it.  That last piece of the plan for me includes a fairly veggie-laden menu with lots of fruits and nuts and tons of legumes and things like chick peas.  In order to starve the cancer in my body so that it doesn’t want to live long and proser in there, I’m not eating sugar or dairy and I’m following a mostly vegan diet.  The hope is that the metastatic breast cancer will think “dang this is BORING.  I’m outta here,” and head feet first from my system FOREVER. (Which would technically be a miracle, but hey–the squeaky wheel gets the grease.)

And since my markers are falling so low and I’m staying so healthy otherwise–I get checked by my doc every month and everything’s A-OK–I’m keeping on this path of spa-like sustenance for as long as possible.  I don’t care about what I’m missing out on—just get me well again.

But one of the things about eating the way I’m eating is I get sick of the same old flavors. My trimmed down menu means my choices of culinary  excitiement usually come from enhancements via the spice drawer. The trouble there is I don’t like to cook.  So unless someone’s cooking for me or I’m out to dinner at a hip restaurant that caters to my kind, I’m eating hummus and broccoli 24/7. And I get tired of it.

So yesterday I was at a sandwich joint and the vegen choices were nil.  I had to ask for the vegetarian sandwich without the chipotle mayonnaise and hold the cheese–which left a dry sourdough with grilled vegetables.  ”How can I make this work?’ I drooled as the egg and turkey offering whisked by me wrapped to go for the laughing college kids behind me.

Then I remembered something in my fridge that has saved my taste buds more than once from this bland highway they’ve been put on:

MUSTARD.

Not only do I love the stuff, and not only can I smear it on almost all lunch and dinner menus that I used to smear ketchup on–but it’s also healthy for me.  I’ve seen it on the “CANCER FIGHTER” list of food items and though many of those shift from list to list, mustard is a solid stand out.

So I ordered up my veggie dish and as soon as I could I unleashed the saffron-colored accoutrements on top.  I bit into that thing like it was filet mignon and I loved every single bite of it. As I shoved the last morsel down my gullet I thanked the good Lord above for the simple things in my cancer life–

lowered tumor markers, great medicine, good food, potential miracles–and MUSTARD.  

Ann’s books ‘pink tips’ and ‘Words To Live By’ now available in the SHOP section of this website.

Please take this letter in the spirit in which it is intended, which would be the screaming, teeth gnashing, OMG how could I do that spirit of a mother, wife, filmmaker and cancer fighter who tried to tape her daughter’s 2nd grade solo this week and didn’t realize the camera was in PAUSE mode instead of REC mode.

I’m not saying you’ve done anything wrong:  obviously not, since your camera is of such high quality and durability that it has the distinct honor of being one of two cameras used in making the award winning film “The Breast Cancer Diaries”, in which I unfortunately star.  But I digress–

So your camera is amazing and somehow, with 8 rounds of dose dense chemotherapy running through my system 7 years ago I still managed to press REC when I needed to capture precious moments of life on tape.  But this week, as my equally precious daughter–whose first steps were captured and forever preserved in that film–got up on stage in front of 50? 60? people and sang her little heart out, Mummy here stood with her eye in the lens, trained dutifully on said child, and held what amounts to a broken camera–due to the fact that it wasn’t really recording– on her as she belted out her very first solo.

SO:  if there’s any way you can make a new version of your camera that has a big arm and hand attached to it, that simultaneously whips the holder upside the head when she (or he) hits PAUSE when meaning to hit RECORD, I promise you I will buy one.

Meanwhile, do you have the number of whomever is in charge of the syndrome we cancer fighters experience, called Chemo Brain?  Because since I have that, and I can’t remember sh-t anyway, I want to make sure the memory of that sweet blonde up there throwing her voice through the crowd with joy, excitement and a bit of nervousness–that didn’t show until she got off stage and visibly went WHEW–is not lost in the scattered place I call my brain. Because at this point, that’s the only space the memory of this week’s second grade music recital lives.  And I trust that place about as far as I can throw it.

Thank you.

As a woman facing the possibility of my own death sooner than later, I don’t take talking about death lightly.  Heaven knows we could all go any day and I realize nothing is forever–

but when someone goes too soon for senseless reasons–bombs, blow-ups, disease, car crashes, attacks of any kind and all the rest–there’s always a human reaction to get some justice for it.  God knows if I could find the bloke responsible for breast cancer I’d beat it to a pulp–but that isn’t going to happen in my lifetime.  It could be environment, it could be food, it could be sugar, it could be…what?  What could it be?  I have no idea.  And neither do the one in 4 other people out there whose bodies, for whatever reason, forget to remember how to fight off the cancer cells that grow naturally in everybody’s bodies every day.

So for now, for tonight I celebrate for the ones who lost so much on 9-11, and for the rest of the world whose homes and families, lives and governments have been tortured and ruined at the hands of Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist group, Al-Quaeda.  I pray for peace worldwide, I hope the troops come home to the U.S. from Afghanistan as soon as possible,

And some day, could I even hope in my lifetime?–may we find and conquer the medical terrorist cancer;  in every form, in every body, once and for all, for all of us.

I am honored and excited to be grouped with such amazing individuals and I hope you can read just a few of the amazing people highlighted in Tales Of The Revolution.  And if you’re a writer and hope to get published, Godin’s revolutionary ideas around self-publishing deserve your undivided attention. Read about them here.

Thanks Seth Godin and the entire Poke-the-Box team–

So I guess this revolution will not be televised, it will be PUBLISHED, correct?

Charge!

I think it’s been a decade at least since that song hit the planet and I have a suggested title for a follow-up for him:  (living) La Vida Aloha.

But to write this song, Ricky–or whomever writes his stuff–has to come to Maui, Hawaii.  Here he has to do what I’ve been doing since my arrival here 3 days ago.  And that is this:

arrive here.

After that, whatever I do–it’s all good.

And I haven’t done it to crazy rhythm of pop rock.  I’ve done it to the calm and humbling view of lava rock from a volcano field that’s been there generations and generations before little Rickito was ever born. I could also climb that old volcano if I wanted to, or watch swans swim in front of me while I sip coffee and eat pineapple that fell from a local tree. I went to Gossen’s for a Mai Tai and sat with dear friends whom I’ve known since I drank from a bottle of milk. Just yesterday I stood on a shore and visited with a sea turtle three feet away who just happened to swim in to say hi.

And I said Aloha to a friend I haven’t seen in 18 years and watched the sun set surrounded by happy people while my old pal blew a fantastic B from a conch shell.

It seems whatever I do here, I love with all my being.  I’ve never been to Hawaii before and this trip, a gift from my sister-cousin to help soothe my cancer soul, has been in the true sense of the word–heavenly. The local people are lovely, they smile all the time to me–so much so that I think they really and truly mean it when they say “aloha”.  That’s Hawaiian for hello and good-bye, and from the vibe I’ve been getting I think they’re also quietly saying “enjoy” to me–as in enjoy today.  Be calm, have peace. Enjoy my life.

So if you hear me humming a tune in the coming months that sounds very much like a 90’s hip-swiveling head-banging hit by a handsome latino hell bent on casual sex with a nymphomaniac, listen cafefully.  Because while the beat may mimic Ricky’s monster smash, the words I’m singing and the meaning behind them have a whole different , healthy and happy vibe…

living la vida aloha.

In the late 60’s terry cloth suits for kids were the rage and mine, white with a paw shape striped like a jungle cat’s fur was my ultimate favorite swim wear. In photos of me and my 5 brother and sisters and 11 cousins clustered around our 4 aunts and uncles, 3 sets of parents and our (maternal) grandparents sitting for cocktails on a Maine beach, the suit features prominently in slides my mother either took or had a beach walker take with her leather-bound Nikkormat camera. Mom, in her paisley cover up and grecian style sandals, wore that thing like jewelry.  She loved taking family pictures. And I’m just like her.

But taking a photo of myself in a bikini hasn’t happened since those days clustered around my grandpa back at Goose Rocks Beach.  I was either too modest or too pregnant to even think of putting on a two piece. Then I got breast cancer and along with it, a double mastectomy.  Now I have no breasts–and I don’t mean small ones, or fake ones, I mean ‘no’ ones;  nada, zilch, zero.  I made the difficult decision to do without a fake pair and just live as I am.

Many times my lack of breasts isn’t even noticeable, as I try to stay slim, eat well and exercise.  And anything that emphasizes nipples and curves kind of highlights the situation and so has been a no-no on my shopping list.  So when a friend recently suggested I bring a bikini to my beach getaway with my cousin, I thought she’d lost her mind.  The upper part of a bikini is basically a piece of cloth designed to thinly veil the sexuality beneath it. Assuming you have sexuality beneath it.

Which brings me back to me. I’ve lived as a breast less woman in America for 7 years now and I’ve graduated slowly from baggy shirts to high collars to solid print scoops to sleeveless v-necks.  Now fighting metastatic breast cancer, I am trying things I’ve never had the guts for in the past because I’m still here and to put it simply, because I can.

I suppose we all decide we simply can’t do things–we’re either not smart enough, not tall enough, not brave enough, not rich enough.  And maybe that’s in part true but in reality, we put a lot more restrictions on our movements than anybody else ever could.  Once you tell your mind it’s out of the question, then even picking up a pencil is now truly out of your reach.

Blah blah blah–what’s my point? My point is that today, 40 years from the last time I did this, I put a bikini on. I borrowed it from that friend who told me I could do it.  She even said I should do it. I’ve been working out and doing my anti-cancer diet and the good news about eating nuts and twigs for a living is that the body doesn’t hold onto much fat.  And she’s right, I’m looking okay these days.

I took the suit, packed it in my bag, and pulled it out and looked at it.   But until I told myself I could do it, I still couldn’t.

So today, I told myself I could. (see below)

And I hope whatever it is that you’ve been thinking you can’t do, some one of these days you can tell yourself that you can, too.

Three weeks ago today I was sitting in a hospital bed with two feet of tubes stuck up my left lung trying to avoid asphyxiation by breast cancer. Today I walked a 7K. Guess who’s feeling lucky?

And the name of this 7K as Irish luck would have it is the “Lucky 7″, put on by the non-profit Change Of Pace.  And I was feeling pretty fortunate– and not just because it was partly sunny and 65 degrees, perfect weather for an athletic event. And not just because the name, Lucky 7, contains my favorite number, seven.  Not even because I had my husband by my side as we high tailed it down the path, passing a few people but watching many serious athletes fly by us, in search of a win, a second, or maybe a tie–while all we worried about was what flavor gatorade we’d get at the next refreshment station.

I didn’t feel lucky for any one of these reasons I just listed but for every one of them.  Three weeks ago I couldn’t get out of bed without two machines dragging behind me and the threat of a bed pan if I didn’t.  I would have cracked a shillelagh over anyone’s head who tried to make me walk the surgery floor much less strap on Nikes and beat feet for an hour and ten minutes through a city.

But today was different.  On this day I geared up, headed out, hit the roadways and practically did the Irish jig as I sailed through my 7K, 3 weeks post surgery.  Breast cancer ain’t gonna get the best of this shamrock. And rainbows and a pot of gold to my cracker jack surgical team for doing such a great job that all I have to show for my ordeal are three scabs and a hint of hospital tape residue.

I was determined upon leaving the hospital this past Valentine’s Day that for this upcoming Irish sweat event I would be ready to go.  And I feel so fortunate that I was. I am grateful to Change of Pace for putting on the run and I was thrilled that my husband decided last minute to join me.  As we walked and watched the Ks go by, I couldn’t help but feel like I was kickin’ some cancer butt as I did.

So that was my day.   I did the Lucky 7.  Or as I like to think of it now, the Lucky Me.