Point Mugu

8.19.10 Point Mugu

As we are driving up to Point Mugu, Steph's rabbi's wife calls. Steph takes the call and her friend is really just checking in to see how Steph is doing. When Steph gets off the phone she tells me that the rabbi's wife has said, “I am just completely sure that the return of your cancer is just a glitz in the journey, a bump in the road for you. I am sure that you will be fine.” Steph tells her how much she appreciates hearing that, it really feels good to her.

When she tells me about the conversation I feel initially a little jealous, if I am to be completely honest. Several years ago, Steph's mom was undergoing heart surgery. She was in her eighties and still seemed the perfection of vibrant health for a woman her age. She had been physically active all of her life and was still so strong and alive. When Steph and I spoke before her surgery, I told her that I was sure that her mom would be fine. I knew it with all the fiber of my being that there was nothing to worry about. Her mom died on the operating table.

Since that time, I have not been able to say to others that I know with certainty that something will happen. I cannot use my connection to God or to my guidance system in such a way. Really I cannot act as if I know, when I really do not know.

So then the question becomes, what do I say? What can I say to a friend that is dealing with her second occurrence of ovarian cancer? We sat in the parking lot of a Malibu Starbucks and talked about it. I ended up saying that I can hold you up in prayer. I can ask for all of the best medical resources to be there for you. I can ask that you continue to see and feel the guidance and the love that surrounds you. That you can keep coming back to the place that allows you to receive the treatments with love and deep knowing of health and well being.

Then I found myself saying something that I really did not know I was going to say until I said it. I told her that I knew that I could say that “I had her back.” I had never said that to someone before and it felt right and a little scary when I said it. I could feel the connection and reception when I said it. Later I thought about what did that truly mean to “have someone's back.” I guess it comes from a place of protection when something or someone would come up behind and try to harm the other. You are watching out for them. When I thought about it later I heard, this is “Ted Howard” for you.

The next day I asked Ted about what that phrase meant to him. He said, “that someone is there supporting you in all ways whenever you need them. It is what I do for you.” I then asked him if he felt okay about me saying that to Steph. He said, “Of course.” And I said, “Thank you for having my back as I have Stephanie's.”

Dancing with La Calavera Death

8.20.10 Point Mugu

My dear friend Joy Forrest that died on July 29, had many skeletons in her home. None were real ones, most were plastic ones that ranged in size from large to small. She had bought most of them on her buying trips to Mexico for the boutique that she owned. She embraced the idea that she saw in Mexico of dancing with La Calavera, (death). For Joy this meant that if we realized that we were all going to die and were not afraid of it, then we could also really live more fully. So, on several occasions, we took out the larger skeletons and danced around them to Joy's spiritual rave music.

Stephanie and I have had quite a few talks about death while we have been together. She has said that she knows that we are all going to die, but that now that her cancer has come back and that Ovarian cancer is one of the most deadly kinds of cancer, she feels that death is with her much more than for those of us that are not looking so closely at it on a day to day basis. On some days she feels that she does not want to acknowledge it, but keep on affirming her deep love for life as the only way she can get through each moment.

Steph and I went to see Eat Pray Love and we both truly enjoyed it. I told Steph the next day that I felt that one of the themes of the movie was that to really live you have to face the death(s) in your life. You have to forgive yourself and also see that what you might see at first as being hard and painful, actually breaks you open into living at a fuller and deeper level. So, right now I see that this continues to be the gift of cancer, the gift of dancing with La Calavera; to live more fully, passionately, vibrantly, with great gusto into each moment. To bring our out stretched arms vastly around our hearts and pull out all the stops. This is the moment of dying into the new expanded heart, the new life that we can only slightly envision and the moment of truly embracing death.

I told Steph that I feel that she has always lived this way, with her arms and her heart out stretched to life. She has loved so passionately each moment and brought so much joy to others as she has invited you along on her joy ride. I told her that I feel that this is the marker of a life well lived. I said, that I was not sure that it really had anything to do with the amount of days and years that you lived, but rather how passionately alive with love that you did this life. I see that it is like being connected to the power source or to the big S Source. When you are there in the place of love, knowing the current, feeling your heart knowing the All That Is in every cell of your being, and being in the place of gratitude for this knowing, that all becomes wildly alive. Of course you want it to never end. Of course you want to know this is forever, but you also know that change and transformation are part of the package of the All That Is. Death does not become an end to this amazing connection, it is the transformation with the big T, it is the life force moving into a new form. If you truly dance with La Calavera, you truly dance with the big D. You love it because it lets you live life, death and All That Is in a more profound way. Death becomes Living more fully.

Vibrant Health and Well Being How does it work for YOU?

8.17.10 Laguna Niguel
Steph had chemo yesterday and we needed to take the car in to be checked because the engine light had come on. It turned out that the reason that the engine light came on was because we had lost and replaced the gas cap. The gas cap had been left at Costco when we were gassing up and they ended up charging Steph $80 to replace the cap and to turn off the engine light. Yikes!

Chemo was challenging on the level to get the IV started through the port, but easy in that it was a much shorter chemo because in this cycle there was only one med being administered.

We prayed and continued to pray that these treatment will kill the cancer cells and that healthy, vibrant cells will come into replace them. We talk a lot about what are the components of health. Where are what are you doing when you feel most vibrantly alive? What really makes the connection for you to the Source that allows you to feel the current of life pulsating through every cell of your body? What is well being to you? How does it express itself?

I would love to hear from any of you about this. Please comment. It feels really important at this time for us to really look at how health, well being and vibrant aliveness come to us, present themselves.

Down the Stairs to a new pahse of life

8.16.10 Laguna Niguel
Steph and I went to the beach in Laguna while John and Ted went to the Orange County fair. It was still one of those days when it seemed like everyone was needing to be at the beach for the end of summer. It had been hot inland, but when we got to the beach after lunch with Jan, the fog was burned off and it was perfect beach weather. The water however was really like stepping into a pool of ice cubes. They keep talking about the cool summer that they have had out here, while the rest of the country bakes in weeks over 100 degrees, or close to it. I guess the water did not have time to heat up. It really felt as if it was the temperature that it normally is in late May or early June.

We had to wait for a place to park and then walk down these set of stairs to get to this little patch of beach in an postcard cove. When I first approached the stairs with all of our gear, I thought well I do not know how I will do getting back up here. This will be a challenge.

In mediation today I saw again these stairs. I heard, "You are walking into a new phase of your life. You will need to learn new skills. We have talked about how you will need a new form of protection. There have been so many changes, but it is important for you to ask for guidance and be aware about how you respond in each situation. You will constantly be moving into different situations as you travel. You will want to be able to not see all of the new noises, people and traffic as affronts. You will want to be able to ground yourself and to create a new shield for yourself that does not dull you, but rather lets you remain vibrant rather than drained by the city and the challenges of the road. "

I see that these new skills will require a constant vigilance, a constant fine tuning and remaining open in a way that I am only beginning to perceive. I am grateful for this opportunity. Steph and I took our time getting back up the stairs. When I reached the second landing, I could see the street and I knew that I could make it. I remembered to keep breathing, took breaks and did not judge myself. When Steph and I reached the top, we said..."Wow that was not so bad.

Friends for over Forty Years

One of my parent's legacy was to keep your lifelong friends. I see now what a gift that teaching was. I have also struggled when a friend fell out of my life through us both moving in new directions. But right now I am grateful to my parents and also to my friends who have also seen the value in staying in touch over the years.

As I approach my sixth birthday I am in awe of the value of friends that I share common stories and life with. Teri/Goby on the left I first met when she was a camper and I was a camp counselor at the Girl Scout Camp at Whites Landing. She then went on to be a counselor. I was living in Europe when she got married to Michael in England in the late seventies. I stood up for her. Her primary residence is still in Wales, England but she now is in the states quite a few months out of the year. I am grateful to still be able to see her and keep this great connection.

Donna on the right was a sorority sister at San Diego State. She kept up with me through brithday cards and even cards for my two sons all through the time that they were growing up. She would send them a dollar for every year that they were old. She is such a kind and caring person. We still love to laugh about the old days in the sorority and things like how I wore green metalic painted Army boots to the Christmas party. Ted said, "Donna is really in tune with people."

Life long friends keep you with a memory of who you were and reconnect you to that young spirit that still lives within. I am grateful.

Living by the screams of the Roller Coaster

8.15.10 Laguna Niguel

A day in the city of San Diego. We left in the late morning to drive down to San Diego to have Steph take her dad to Hairspray at the theatre in downtown San Diego. We thought that we had left in plenty of time so that we could pick up her dad at the retirement community, go to Costco to return an item and drop them off at the theatre for a two o'clock show. As soon as we got on the freeway there was stop and go traffic that continued all the way to San Diego. Steph travels to see her dad on a regular basis and she said that she had never seen it like this. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason, but possibly just a lot of people trying to go to San Diego for what may have been one of the last weekends before some of the schools start in the area.

We were so late that we were not able to take her dad to Costco or get him something to eat before the play. Ted and I dropped Steph and her dad off at the theatre and then found our way out of downtown San Diego and over to Mission Bay. We were going to meet my sorority sister Donna Sinclair at my camp friend, Teri Brewer's (Goby) home in Mission Beach. Again we confronted some of the worst traffic we had seen. I guess that every person that we saw on the freeways going down there must have been coming to go to the beach in Mission Beach because there was absolutely no place to park in what seemed like miles around the roller coaster park. We finally used found a spot and ended up meeting Donna at the corner and walking in with her. We each had taken over a half an hour to find a spot.

When we got to Teri's she was not there. She also had been traveling south on the five and it had taken her from 9:30 to 2:30 to get down to San Diego from LA. We were all frazzled.

I used to live right on Mission Beach Blvd in my last semester at San Diego State. My little shack of a house was no longer there, but the wooden roller coaster was and Harry's market had moved around the corner. The young girls were still screaming as the old wooden roller coaster dropped them to the ground and plunged them up hill again. There were many new condos that had replaced the olderr buildings especially on the bay and the ocean, but I still love the little courts with the houses built in the twenties.

Memories flooded back of living a block from the bay and a block from the ocean. Still one of the most amazing places to live with such great sailing on the bay and the wildness of the ocean so close to each other. When I lived there with Mary and Linda we had my brothers' Sabot sailboat that they had made from a kit. We used to store in behind our house and then we would walk it down to the bay, plop it in and go for a great sail. I also remember that I I went swimming on my 22nd brithday in the ocean on November 6th. It was cold but I felt as if I was doing a wonderful act of courage in honor of my birthday. Not sure I will do the same this year for my 60th.

The beach seemed packed and noisy and the walk ways were filled with people walking, running, roller blading, riding bikes, ringing the bells on their bikes as they passed each other on the lanes. Teri was unsure why it was so crowded but we had a lovely time sitting out her patio and showing Ted the bay and the ocean. Then we all went to meet Steph and her dad for a great dinner back in downtown San Diego.

I was exhausted from the city when we got home. I think it is the barrage of energy that gets me, the sounds, the traffic, the people that are each trying to navigate their way through the day and their needs come bumping into yours. I really did not get a chance to look at or experience the city where I spent three and half years of my life. I was too busy trying to help Ted or Steph navigate the traffic and keep up with directions on my iPhone. I felt my job was to help us get from point A to point B in the appointed time frame. I did pop my head up on occasion and see a truly beautiful city... but I also felt the noise, the poking of all the stimulation, all the comings and goings into my energy field. Maybe we will come back when we can feel it in the winter, when it is calmer, the screams have died down and walk the beach in more solitude.