Bar Chatter

Two strangers walked into a Newport bar. They scanned the room. Any empty seats? It was a September evening, still warm with a cheerful, summer vibe. Overall, the crowd was young, the women dressed in a mix of stylish stove-pipe jeans and crop tops or sundresses short enough for a flash of undies. The guys were in uniform, well, so universal were their outfits it seemed like a uniform – Oxford shirts, jeans, and All Birds.  

An attractive blond woman with a cascade of faux pearls dangling from her ears waved the strangers over and gestured to two free seats overlooking the harbor. 

The sun was low, glinting on pewter water visible between the boats docked at parallel wharves. The lightest of breezes rocked the boats and caressed bare cheeks, shoulders, and midriffs. 

The strangers settled in and were greeted by an older couple tucked close to the wall – a quieter spot perfect for people-watching. “We’re the oldest ones in the place,” said the man who introduced himself as Kostas. His face was lined, yes, but he was tan, strong, and handsome. His wife, April, was martini-happy, and giggled when Kostas mentioned ages.  

“I bet we have you beat,” said the male stranger.

“I don’t think so! We’re 80!” announced Kostas practically crowing with pride; he knew how good he looked. April put her hand to her mouth and giggled again.   

“No way!” said the strangers… and they were being honest. April, perhaps, had had a bit of “work” done, but they both looked amazing. 

Drinks were ordered and served  - Dark and Stormies with muddled mint - as conversations covered home locations, children, and travel. No politics. One never knows.

As the sky darkened, the bar party ebbed and flowed like the waters in the harbor beyond. When Gus and April stood to leave, Marty and Jim, thrilled at the openings in this crowded restaurant, eased into their stools.

Jim’s dark brows arched over sparkling eyes that spoke of a kind soul. It was not surprising to learn he worked on behalf of others researching rare cancers. Marty, his wife, hale and athletic, ran a foundation, and was, like me, a cancer survivor. With that revelation, the uncomfortable skin of being strangers was shed, and the four of us raised glasses in a toast: “To good health!”

I asked Jim if continued funding was a concern and, his expression rueful, he nodded. Marty and I locked eyes. We knew the role medical research had played in our being together that night at the bar.    

It was time for dinner, so we perused the menus, but a restaurant regular mentioned an unlisted dish: lobster ravioli with morel mushrooms in a champagne sauce… and four orders were submitted to the kitchen.  

Meanwhile, between sips of sauvignon blanc, talk turned to Marty and Jim’s weekend plans: a wedding and their son’s beach volleyball match. We contributed news of our granddaughter’s loose tooth, mastery of her two-wheeler, and our son’s family life in Switzerland. Phones were pulled from pockets and photographs shared amid hoots of laughter and coos of admiration. 

Once our dishes arrived, there was appreciative silence as delectable bites of tender ravioli, creamy sauce, and generous chunks of lobster were sampled. 

After dinner, it was time to part – this group was not one to stay late over drinks. We hugged our good-byes, grateful for this chance connection, those empty seats at the bar, and the glimpse into the fullness of every stranger’s life.  

 

 

 

    

Dave's Bread

Every few weeks, Dave gets out an enormous antique white porcelain bowl. He scoops in grits, corn meal, oatmeal, and teff, then pours in boiling potato water.  He doesn’t measure anything. He lets this brown watery soup sit for a while, then adds warmed honey, heated beer, milk, yeast, and a mix of flours. Finally he blends them, stirring laboriously with a large wooden spoon. The batter is then left to rise, occasionally puffing over the sides of the bowl onto the counter. 

Dave has always enjoyed making bread, but it became a loving, healing compulsion when I started chemo ten years ago. 

On matters of diet, my oncologist was firm: no whites. No white flour, no white rice, no white sugar, no white potatoes. I live on bread and pasta, and mashed potatoes are my absolute favorite, so this was grim news. Chemo steals appetite and perverts taste, so finding foods I could eat, much less enjoy, was going to be a challenge. Dave, my dearest Dave, pursued that challenge at every meal.   

I loved the English muffin bread Dave baked periodically, but white flour was the primary ingredient, so he upended the recipe, substituting oatmeal, quinoa, amaranth, and rye flours for that forbidden white.  The combinations varied with every baking, as did the addition of corn meal, beer, honey or molasses. Always, the kitchen filled with an aroma that conveyed health, caring, and coziness. The result was darker than the original, made to be toasted, tasty on its own, and delicious with butter, jam, or honey.  (I know, you’re reading this and dying for a slice right now.)  

Ever since, we’ve begun each day with coffee and two slices of toast. Also since then, friends have gotten frightening diagnoses or lost loved ones.  What does one do in the face of illness, fear, and sorrow? 

Dave bakes, and gives bread. As a result, his batches have increased, as has the frequency of baking. He loves the robust mixing and miraculous rise, and we both love the comfort of an oven radiating warmth and heavenly smells, as well as the thought of the pleasure those loaves might bring. 

Love is always life’s most necessary ingredient, now more than ever it seems. A piece or two of Dave’s hot, buttered toast is like adding a heart and body-sustaining hug. 

Skin Deep

The young woman bent at the waist, camera held to a squinted eye as she turned the lens for better focus on a pink hollyhock.  On this sweltering sunny day, Dave and I had taken refuge under a shady trellis in the Edgefield Inn's garden, and had noticed her, a colorful blossom herself, amid the profusion of flora.  

Her head was partially shaved, the remaining hair dyed magenta and pulled in a ponytail. Her arms, chest, and shoulders were a swirl of tattoos.  While her look was exotic, her partner appeared scholarly. Dark-haired, bearded, and be-spectacled, he, like us, sat beneath a trellis, and was absorbed in the large book open on his lap. 

We’d seen the couple in passing before, and now, as we had then, as everyone did at Edgefield, we nodded and said hello as we left the garden. 

That afternoon, it was studious John and tattooed Clarissa who settled in at the steamy river pool, close enough to us that conversation was a given. We were not surprised to learn John was a physicist, a scientist like his father, and Clarissa, a tattoo artist. We reminded them of our brief encounter earlier in the garden and Clarissa said, “Lots of people like flower tattoos, so I keep a portfolio of possibilities.  I like to offer a wide range.”

While floating idly or sitting neck deep in water on seats carved into the sides of the pool, we covered John’s degrees and aspirations, but found we had more questions about Clarissa’s field. What was your favorite project? How deep does the needle go?  How do you control the depth? How do you promote speedy healing? And how do you handle a drunken request for a girlfriend’s name inscribed on a butt?

“I never tattoo someone who’s been drinking.  Alcohol thins the blood and there’d be too much bleeding,” Clarissa stated firmly.

Huh. I’d never thought about blood as a complicating factor in tattoo art, but of course it is. Not easy to “paint” with a needle and ink while swabbing up gore.  

“Plus, the image can change some during the healing process, so I include a follow-up to make any adjustments necessary, “ she explained. 

Dave asked, “What do you practice on?” 

“Humans,” said Clarissa.

“Husbands,” corrected John. We laughed as he lifted the leg of his swim trunks to reveal a graceful, flowing image of a bear and two ravens on his upper thigh. Wow. Truth is, although I’d heard the term “tattoo artist” before, I confess I’d not given much credence to the “artist” part; meeting Clarissa and seeing her work convinced me.  If she lived in Connecticut, I’d get a tattoo.

When Dave asked her, “How’s business?” Clarissa mentioned the spike in requests for tattoos around mastectomy scars. I have not sought that route, but told her I’d had the surgery.

She was thoughtful a moment and said, “Do you mind if I ask about the length and process of your treatments?” 

I did not and gave her a run down.  

“My father had a brain tumor,” she said, and described his surgery and chemo, and the gallows humor he employed to keep the family’s spirits up. 

“How’s he doing?” I asked.

“He passed in December,” she said.  Her sunglasses masked her eyes, but she was quiet and still in the water.  She was about 28 years old and had just lost her father. I was tempted to tell her about Mom’s recent death, but I’m never sure when “I know how you feel because I…” builds a bridge of common experience, and when it’s an intrusion into someone else’s story. I decided to hold back, but I knew her pain, and oh, how I felt for her. 

Tattooed, retired, or trying to be trans; liberal… or even more liberal; aware of the fear of a dread diagnosis; bereft of a father or mother: all of us are doing our best in the hot tub of life. If everyone were required to strip to near-naked and spend time together in a warm, salty pool, maybe we’d be gentler with each other.

Doors Wide

-->*Note:  The following is an excerpt from a book I am writing about my cancer experience in 2009, so no worries; cancer references are past, past, past!

I wish I'd purchased an Advent calendar this year.  When I was little, the wait for Christmas day was agonizing in time’s slow crawl, and each miniature paper door marked a step forward, progress made toward the bliss of ripping off the wrappings and ribbons masking the presents under the tree.

             

Mystery beckoned in rectangular boxes, those deep enough to hold a doll.  Such packages were eyed with near lust, turned, treasured, and checked for heft.  Long flat boxes that rustled when shaken were shoved aside.  Probably clothes.  But… maybe not.  Nothing could be totally dismissed because one couldn’t really tell.  That was part of the exquisite pleasure.

             

Sometimes I would lie on my stomach beneath our Christmas tree’s fragrant pine limbs, haloed by glowing multi-colored lights, my chin resting on my hands.  While I yearned to know what lay concealed in the surrounding parcels, I also sought to transport myself to the scene captured in carved wooden figures in the crèche tucked at the tree’s base.  I’d close my eyes and seek the chill of night under a black velvet sky in Bethlehem. I strove to conjure steaming breath puffed from soft nostrils, bristly camel fur, wide brown cow eyes fringed with dark lashes.  The scent of hay and manure.  Rough men drawing ragged robes tight over sinewy shoulders.  And always, a radiance around a young mother holding her baby. 

             

When Tucker and Casey were born, Dave and I regained the magic of the season.  Santa resumed prominence on Christmas Eve, and now, decades later, so easily can I picture Tucker in red feet-pajamas and toddler Casey in a red flannel mop cap and nightie, both children dancing with excitement as they listened for sleigh bells.  Oh, the anticipation in reading “The Night Before Christmas” and setting out Santa’s snacks!  I still have the notes the kids’ wrote to him, their words spidery and crooked, haphazard on the page, with polite inquiries about Santa’s summer and sleigh ride, an invitation to cookies and milk, and the list of toy requests, lengthy enough to require parental help to transcribe them.  The passage of days to that night were a joyful march of projects, seasonal stories, baking, loving secrets, and the glitter-bright promise of Advent calendar doors to open every morning.

             

Having marked the past four months with chemo infusions, completion of each treatment was cause for celebration, as sure as opening doors #1, 2, and 3. In My Grandfather’s Blessings, Rachel Naomi Remen writes of her grandfather’s belief that, “To be alive was to wait for the will of God to reveal itself.  And one waited with curiosity.  A sense of adventure.” A sense that the next day, behind the next door, might be…who knows?  A doll?  A puppet? New hair? A healthy body?  How my wishes have changed!

             

At this point, I feel a giddy bubbling inside.  I no longer have the chemo countdown, and ahead lies the return of energy, taste, enjoyment of food, my hair.  By January, I should have about a half inch, by March, a pixie cut.  Well, a sparse pixie cut.  By May, my wig – for which I have been so grateful – will be relieved of duty.

             

Until then, there are presents to buy, the tree to decorate, parties to attend, the kids coming home.  So many blessings, and I awake each day giving thanks for the potential it holds. 

             

Next year, I am definitely getting an Advent calendar.

* Yet another note:  This year, I have one, and it's a beauty!

Plenty of Company

Long before cancer threatened me, I fretted, worried and plucked at life. What was my purpose? Was I on the right path? My to-do list stared me down like a stern parent, hands-on-hips. While I stewed and roiled, others, it appeared, went smoothly through their days. My friend Gail listened kindly to my rants and cautioned, “Don’t judge your interiors by others’ exteriors.”

And then, in May, I received my diagnosis. Now I did have something to worry about. Fear and uncertainty shadowed my soul while all around was soft light, windows open, leaves pale green. More than ever, I felt alone as everyone else joyfully welcomed spring.

One Friday, Dave and I drove south on I-95 having left the hospital where I’d had an IV anti-biotic to combat an infection. Dave’s phone buzzed with a text message from our friend Sharon. He was driving, so I checked the small screen.

“A group from school is meeting at Ash Creek and she wants to know if we’d like to join them.” Mentally I leaned toward a knee-jerk no.

“What do you think?” said Dave.

To my surprise, I responded, “Might be fun. Let’s do it.”

We swung off the ramp and drove to the saloon. Our friends were gathered, as usual, at a long table toward the back of the restaurant beneath a punched tin ceiling, swooping long horns and a pair of mounted chaps.

As Dave and I pulled up our stools, we were greeted with broad smiles. Hallie was well into her cosmo, Sharon was sipping a margarita, Deb had a lemon drop martini and the boys – Matt, Steve and John – were polishing off a pitcher of PBR’s – Pabst Blue Ribbon beers.

The room was crowded with bald paunchy guys in tee-shirts and jeans, muscled young men in tee-shirts and jeans, and shapely women in tee-shirts and jeans. The air buzzed with good-natured chatter, anchored by laughter from our table at the end of the bar.

I gazed at my friends – happy, laughing, seemingly carefree - and thought that if I were anyone else in the restaurant, ours was the table I’d envy. But I know the stories behind each bright-eyed smile: Hallie and Deb have both lost sisters, Sharon’s best friend passed away last summer, Matt’s girlfriend is scheduled for heart surgery, and Steve has prostate cancer.

Of course, I had no way of knowing what worry the guy in the Grateful Dead tee-shirt tucked to the back of his mind while meeting his girl for a beer at Ash Creek. And the sassy woman with the full red lips chatting with the bartender? What might her silent sorrow be? Exteriors. Hm. They tell so little.

With my hands cupped around my margarita, I took in the scene: Hallie’s head thrown back in laughter, Sharon grinning, Steve and Dave touching mugs in a toast, Deb calling the club on her cell to sign up for spinning class. A warmth of understanding suffused me as I realized that we’re all in this together. We are each other’s comfort and company during the hard times that are, as much as love, part of life.

Weight Lifting

Rain taps at gutters and rushes through leaves, wet drops course down the windowpanes. At mid-afternoon, it is dark as dusk and I feel heavy and sad. Is this a reaction to chemo or to my barely fuzz-covered head? We’re supposed to go to Block Island today and I just want to curl up on the couch and cry.

For years, Dave and I have loved this annual “Race Around the Block” weekend when his brother, Steve, runs ten miles or so while we sit drinking mudslides, a frozen rum treat, with friends on a hill overlooking the sun-flecked harbor. Block Island is AWAY and since Dave’s father’s internment in the nursing home and Steve’s cancer diagnosis, this tradition has been a wonderful escape.

But this upcoming weekend has hovered like a cloud on my horizon. So much of the joy of being on Block Island - taking the ferry, free-wheeling with friends, riding bikes, and beaching – involves wind-in-the-hair fun. Involves an uncomplicated diet. Involves sun.

The label on my amber bottle of anti-biotics says “avoid sun.” It also says, “Avoid alcohol.” My oncologist has suggested I avoid fried foods, white flour, white rice and fats. That knocks out fish n’ chips, chocolate chip pancakes and ice cream – the usual Block Island fare. Avoidance plays a big role in my new regimen; Block Island is all about embracing – fun, friends, food, and wind.

That wind alone has me panicked. Usually, I love its many forms: the banshee wind shrieking through a crack in the window in the bathroom at the inn, the wild hair-tossing stream on the ferry, the soft, cooling, breezes while riding my bike past meadows yellow with golden rod. But I worry about wind and my head-gear options. I don’t want salt and damp to wreck my wig and I’ve only worn the scarf twice at home. How small a flick of wind would it take to carry that flippet of fabric away leaving me large-eyed, bald and mortified?

I hear Dave honk the horn in greeting as his car pulls up outside our house. I meet him at the door, watching as he walks stiffly after sitting in traffic for an hour and a half during his commute. I’ve washed my face, but still my eyes are swollen and red.

My public face is a source of pride. Even when despair has held me under, I’ve been told, “It must be nice to be upbeat all the time.” I’m skeptical of book passages in which moods are revealed in a character’s eyes. Hah. I know how easily they are masked. Unless allowed to be so, eyes are not windows, but I don’t have to fake it for Dave.

“I don’t want to be this sad person you come home to,” I tell my husband as he pushes open the screen door.

He slides his computer onto a stool by the kitchen counter and gathers me in his arms. I snuffle in his hair; my tears soak his shirt. At first, he just holds me, saying nothing.

“We don’t have to go,” he says quietly.

“But maybe it would be better to be with the others. Maybe I’d feel better once we were there. I just… I just… I worry about the scarf and the wind.”

“I know. Let me check the weather and the ferry schedule. My vote is we go tomorrow and settle in here tonight. We could do Chinese take-out for dinner.”

I whimper into his shoulder. “I’m not very hungry. How ‘bout a salad?”

“A salad would be perfect. I’m not hungry either.”

He has saved me again. Granted me permission to give in. Don’t need to be brave or cheery or chatty or strong or a good sport. What would I do without him? And that spurs a new onslaught of tears because I really don’t know what I would do without him. I am afraid to even peek in that shadowed corner.

Once I calm down, Dave goes to check the weather online and - he says with a grin – to change his shirt.

“No worries about leaving today, Lea,” he calls from his post at the computer upstairs. “They’ve cancelled the ferries.”

Saved again. I’m not to blame for this postponement: the heavens have given me leave to hole up.

* * *

We wake to overcast skies and drizzle. It’s 7:24 am. I still don’t want to go, don’t want to leave this cozy hollow between the sheets, don’t want to ride the ferry or my bike in the rain. Don’t want to meet up with friends while I’m wearing a scarf.

“What do you think?” says a snoozy Dave.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Well, how do you feel?”

“Okay.” (I’m not being very helpful.)

“What if we skip the bikes?”

“Skip the bikes?”

“Yeah. Would you be more comfortable if we take cabs instead once we get to the island?”

I feel a trace of weight lifting. “Hmmm. No bikes. Usually that’s what I love about being there, but yeah. That’d make a difference.”

“All right. That spares me from loading the bikes on the car. I’ll check the ferry schedule again to make sure everything’s running.”

We get out of bed and Dave heads to the computer while I grab our rolling overnight bags from the hall closet. I turn to my bureau and open a drawer. One night only, but it could be wet, cold, or hot. A small pile mounts on the floor – underwear, shorts, capris, socks, a tee-shirt, flip flops. I’ll wear sneakers, a sweatshirt and raincoat for the trip over.

“We might have a problem,” says Dave as he walks slowly into the bedroom. His hips are skewed to the side.

“What’s wrong?”

“I ducked my head to miss the beam on the stairway and wrenched my back.”

Oh no. Dave’s back is tricky and once a year or so, it goes into spasm. His face is grim as he stalks rigidly around the room trying to stretch it out.

“This is ridiculous,” he hisses. “I chopped wood last weekend, worked out last night and exercised my back every day this week, and I can’t walk down the stairs without hurting myself?”

“Have you taken any Advil yet? Okay. I’ll get some. Plus an ice pack. Your bag is right there. What do you want to bring?”

“I can do it,” he says through tight lips as he hobbles to his closet. I dash from the room to get the ibuprofen and ice.

The ferry departs from New London at 11:30. Advil-stoked, ace-bandaged, ice-packed and breakfast-fortified, we set off from the house at 9:30. “We have plenty of reasons to stay home,” says Dave, “but nine reasons for going…” and he lists the friends and family awaiting us on the island, “Steve, Deb, Hallie, Buck, Len, Mary, Joan, Janet and Art.”

* * *

As the ferry rides to the crest of each wave and glides down into a trough before mounting the next swell, a number of our fellow passengers turn ashen. All the restrooms are occupied. White seasick bags appear like mushrooms after a spring shower.

I am chemo-punky, devoid of energy and enthusiasm, but blessedly not nauseous. We’d nabbed a booth of stiff red upholstered benches upon boarding and have spread our back packs, books and water bottles about on the table between us. Our overnight bags are tucked in close so as not to trip passersby. Dave is practicing mind-over-matter, willing his back to resist another spasm.

I pick up my book, but it is too tiring to hold the pages open so I give up and slump back against my seat. Dave writes a word in his crossword puzzle – in pen, in capital letters, as is his custom.

Four little girls race up and down the aisles, their blond ponytails bobbing and swinging. It’s exhausting even to watch them. A woman two rows over combs her abundant hair up into her fingers and wraps it into a knot. I bet she doesn’t think twice about all that hair. A young couple sits spooned together in the next booth. The woman wears a green plastic necklace festooned with four leaf clovers. Her eyebrows are raised, her mouth twisted in a grin as she peruses her issue of “Cosmopolitan.” How lovely to delight in something so simple as a magazine article.

After an hour or so, the ferry bumps into the dock on Block Island. Dave slides gingerly from his seat and shakes one leg. He adjusts his stance and leans over for his bag. “I’ll get it, honey, “ I say, reaching for the handle.

“You’re not supposed to lift anything either,” he says, but actually, it makes me feel better to help. What a sorry pair we are, crooked, scarved, tremulous, and irritable. I’m glad our kids aren’t here to see us reduced to this gimpy, wincing couple.

We follow the line of passengers down the metal staircase, onto the deck and out to the pier, our bags clattering on wheels behind us. Standing at the end of the walkway, behind a portable fence, are all nine of our reasons for coming, waving to us in welcome.

My sister-in-law, Deb, comes forward to hug me and whispers, “I spoke to Kathy at the Narragansett’s front desk and arranged for you to have a private bathroom at no extra cost.” I am wordless with gratitude. Usually, we use the communal bathroom in the hall and I like the youthful flexibility that implies. But the side effects from my anti-biotics make a convenient bathroom desirable and I had worried about lines of disgruntled guests forming as I monopolized the restroom.

But Deb has taken care of that - another worry gently taken from me.

And then, a literal lift, Joanie grabs my bag and hoists it to her shoulder.

“You’re so dear,” I say, “but it’s light. I can handle it.”

“I know you can, but let me do this. It would make me happy.”

And so, for a moment, but for the weight of fatigue, I am unburdened. Still, there is the matter of transport to the inn. I wonder where we catch a cab?

“Hey babe. I’m going over to check out the mo-peds,” Dave has left his bag with Art and is limping across the driveway to the awning-ed shack that houses the rental shop.

“Are you kidding? I thought we were going to take taxis.”

“Nope. I want to be mobile.”

A few pounds of worry re-establishes residence on my back. To the perils of wind, I add speed, accidents and helmets. “Dave…”

“Relax. It’ll be fun.”

I feel limp and out of place, a gypsy refugee in a lavender paisley scarf. Dave is gone. The others have not moved, but the mood has shifted to one of next steps. Their bikes are lined up, ready to go.

“Um, I guess we’ll catch up with you at the Narragansett,” I say, turning toward the rental shack.

“Okay,” sings the friend-chorus brightly. Easily, they spin their bikes around, flinging legs up and over to mount up. Oh, the energy. Was I ever that light?

Dave is checking out helmets when I reach him at the shop. Having made his choice, he heads out to the parking lot. Listless, uninterested, I try one heavy, ill-fitting black shell after another. Oh, who cares. This one will do.

Out on the lot, Dave is riding a snappy-looking silver mo-ped. He circles cautiously, then applies a hint too much gas and whacks into the barricade of hay bales lining this section of the parking lot. He stops and grins, singing out, “C’mon babeee! Get on!”

I am ever attuned to my husband’s moods and I perk up at his obvious cheer. Once the rental agent is satisfied as to Dave’s driving competence, he releases us to the road.
I hug Dave’s back, my arms around him, my hands tucked into his belt, a motorcycle mama in a scarf and black helmet.

“I love having you close like this!” Dave yells over his shoulder as we skim past Victorian hotels, strolling tourists, tiny boutiques and the sea. Life is all around me and suddenly I realize that my own is not on hold for the next three months. Pills, chemo and worry may be part of my days, but friends, outings, mudslides and mo-ped rides are still mine to savor.

Agile and free-wheeling with the aid of a motor, Dave laughs with the joy of the ride and I smile into his back.

Where has the weight gone? It, too, has taken off.

Fall Out

The last time I had short hair, I was five years old and Freddie King had turned me into a boy. We’d been playing on the swing set in the backyard that connected our two properties. It was October and my zip-up corduroy jacket was the russet-red of the oak trees towering overhead.

Our sneakered feet pounded on earth packed hard to a dark shine as we took a running start before taking off, legs out-thrust, toes to the sky. As we flew, Freddie said, “Do you want to be a boy?’

Freddie was only a year older than me, a round little guy with sandy hair and a cowlick, so I’m not sure why I thought he could accomplish something so significant. But maybe at five, I didn’t think it was such a big deal, for I said, “Sure,” without giving it too much thought. I didn’t even ask how he'd do it.

We slowed our swings, heels dragging in the dirt to stop us, then jumped off and marched to his house. I followed him into the kitchen and waited while he dug through a drawer, shoving aside a box of thumbtacks, a bottle of Elmer’s glue, some loose rubber bands, a ruler and a screwdriver. Finally he located a pair of scissors.

Ah. Scissors. What was to be cut? Why wasn’t I alarmed?

For I’d not realized that the key to gender alteration was simply a haircut. So easy.

Freddie attacked my chin-length pageboy, his gaze intent, tongue caught between his teeth. When he was done, he stood back, a smile of satisfaction creasing his cheeks. When I checked my image in the mirror over the bathroom sink, I had to admit, he’d done a good job. I did look like a boy. Sort of waifish and ragged, with a trace of pink scalp showing here, an overlong wisp of hair left there.

When I scampered home and banged open the back door with the proud announcement, “Look, Mom! I’m a boy,” my mother was horrified. She’d been content with a daughter after all. A desperate trip to the barber helped only a little: the only thing that really worked was a total cover-up with a red cowgirl hat. Have to say, in old pictures of that year, I look pretty cocky in that hat.

My nephew Christopher, with his worn jeans, leather vests and boots can carry off a cowboy hat. I’m not sure that I can anymore. So I’ve purchased a wig and two turbans, and my sister Rita’s friend has supplied me with a pile of scarves from her days of chemo-caused baldness. I’m as ready as I can be for the day when a lock of hair twisted idly around my finger comes loose in my hand.

I’ve received a lot of advice about how to handle the hair loss from those around me: “My friend just shaved her head when it started to go. She wanted to show those follicles she was still boss.” Another suggested I cut my hair now and donate it to “Locks for Love.” “Maybe you’ll feel empowered,” she’d said.

I’m just not ready. I don’t want this to happen at all, much less do something before I have to. It’s stupid, I know, this angst over a temporary condition. Such a small thing compared to other losses and risks. But it has been a comfort through the diagnosis, the biopsies, the MRI, Pet scan, echocardiogram, and boob-exchange (forty-three year old friends for slightly bigger, round, vinyl-rippled, somewhat hard, but perky boobs) to look into the mirror and see myself, eyes a little sadder, but face and hair same as always.

A scalp-capped skull instead of my brown hair with its highlights and lowlights framing my face? It’s hard to think about. Hell, a bad hair day is tough on self-confidence.

Other women get this. When their faces fall at the news of my cancer, they almost always ask, “Will you lose your hair?”

At times, when I’ve felt the evidence of my surgery is obvious - the bulge of the drains under my shirt, the pink bracelet – I’ve been aware of meeting the eyes of women I encounter in Shaws or Lupes Drugstore. Every time, I’ve received smiles of such warmth that I’ve thought, “They know… and they’d understand how I feel about my hair.” And, as has happened in almost every conversation since my operation, I believe that if we fell into a chat before the stranger ran off to pick up a child at school, drop off dry cleaning or buy groceries, each would have a story of a friend or mother or sister and breast cancer. So I smile back with sincere warmth as well, because we are in this together. We are all women. We have breasts. This can happen. Depending on the day, I feel like saying, “Have you had a mammogram lately?”

I bought a wig and actually, it’s realistic and becoming. But will it be itchy and hot once I’m bald? Will it stay in its box in my closet because I can’t stand to wear it? Will I be a turban-lady?

So, I’m going to wait for the day when I wake to a hair-littered pillow to play with the scissors. I’ll go to a short shag, then a bob, then a pixie cut. I haven’t had short hair since I was five, but I wore it with a cowgirl’s attitude then.

* * *

The fall-out started when I washed my hair before going to a Conservation Commission meeting. I’d wrapped a navy blue towel in a turban around my hair after stepping out of the shower. As always, I left it up while I brushed my teeth and applied eyeliner and blush. When I shook my hair loose, the towel was coated with silvery strands.
Omigod, omigod, it’s happening. I thought fearfully. And that’s how I felt. I was afraid. I waived the blow dryer and brushing. My hands trembled as I fluffed my still ample tresses with cautious fingers. I selected a shirt mindful of what might better camouflage the situation. Certainly not black. A pale aqua tee shirt? Yes.

At the meeting, every one of my furtive glances at my chest revealed a scatter of hairs. Inconspicuously, I hoped, I gathered them in a nonchalant sweep of my hand and dropped them on the floor. No one’s looking. They’re focused on the meeting, taking notes… I’m sure someone will vacuum in the morning…

After the meeting ended, I went home to my husband, Dave. “It’s happening,” I said. He reached out for a hug and I snuggled in. I felt shaky, but I don’t remember crying.

“I’m cutting it off,” I decided suddenly and ran upstairs. Pulling my hair on top of my head, I tied it in a ponytail and took my scissors out of the cabinet.

“Are you sure you want to do this so soon?” Dave had followed me upstairs and watched my face in the mirror.

“What more do you want, Dave? Look at this!” I raked my fingers across my scalp and held up, accusingly, handfuls of hair.

“Do what makes you feel better,” he said gently.

But he was right. I was rash. I’m glad I didn’t shave my head or go for the pixie cut then. I cut off five inches, but it took two weeks for the majority to fall. The gradual loss made it easier I think, but once it was over, my relief made me realize the anxiety of every combing, every head toss, every shower, every touch of my head to someone else… for I was generous in lavishing hair on others.

Every hug left residue on shoulders. Each kiss risked a little spare hair. On the way to the car the other day, my daughter, Casey, sputtered and snorted, “Pft, pfft, pffft! I must have walked through a spider web!” No. It was not a web. She wiped her lip-glossy mouth and held up a straggly offering of Mom-strands.

We had to laugh.

I hadn’t seen my nephew, Christopher, since my surgery, so his hug on a recent visit was long and loving. When we pulled away from each other, he bore an unkempt fu manchu, my hair, caught in his scruffy beard.

Again, laughter. Sharing, sharing.

For now, for a short while longer, I can pass, although my hair is old-lady thin and wispy. Not my best look. But I took my wig for its maiden voyage yesterday – a brisk walk with my dear friend and walking buddy, Michele, and then dinner at Barcelona with my sister Francie, her husband Matt, and my nephew Campbell. Breezes did not budge it, other restaurant patrons were oblivious, and my loved ones were complimentary. Success. And I felt better.

When I went to the restaurant ladies room and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I smiled. There I was! Not the gaunt, unhappy, almost-bald woman, but me!

An Earth, Wind and Fire song came over the speaker. I eyed my mirror-self and gave her a grin. Then we danced, just a gleeful little body shake, together. Maybe when this is all over, I’ll get me a red cowboy hat.

Bacteria and Bubbles

Once again, I’m in a doctor’s waiting room. This, however, is a far cry from the spacious, trellis and flower muraled room at the breast center. A far cry from the comfy chairs tucked in quiet nooks at the plastic surgeon’s office. A far cry from the bright, windowed drip room at the oncology center. Here at the infectious disease specialist, we patients sit elbow to elbow – with our various diseases – in straight-backed chairs that encircle the room.

A large, low, table strewn with magazines squats before us, its offerings within easy reach of every chair.

Four seats over from me, a heavy blond woman has propped her swollen, scarlet-red leg on a pillow. A cadaverous elderly woman five seats to my left smiles kindly in my direction. The friendly Hispanic woman next to me reveals, after we’ve chatted for twenty minutes or so – breath-to-breath – that she’s “not feeling too good. Kinda achy and flu-ish.”

Great. My smile remains in place, but I excuse myself to go to the ladies room. I’m sure there will be a hefty bottle of anti-bacterial soap in there. An exploratory sniff as I leave the waiting room does not reveal the scent of Purell, although a constant, cleansing mist of the same, wafted through the air system would seem an excellent idea.

After I wash my hands with plenty of foam and hot water, I gingerly re-take my seat, wondering what disease might have occupied this chair before me. Consumption? T.B.? Swine flu?

I select a well-thumbed People magazine and mentally flash on all of those thumbs. I sigh. I will wait a little while before dashing back to the bathroom and the anti-bacterial soap.

Needless to say, I’m not here today doing research. I have an infection myself – a fierce purple redness in the site of my former right breast that started with a fever a week ago. When I asked my sister-in-law Deb, a nurse practitioner, how I might have contracted this, she said, “Bacteria can sneak through any tiny opening in the skin. The chemo has compromised your immune system and you have two foreign bodies in place which are susceptible to attack.” My implants. And they are the cause for worry. I met with Dr. Philipson and Dr. Alton, my surgeons, at the hospital yesterday and they explained that a bacterial film could form on the implant requiring its removal if the infection persisted. After one look at my purplish skin, they sent me upstairs for an immediate intravenous anti-biotic and set up this appointment with the infectious disease specialist.

After a two-hour wait, I meet the doctor. He is boyishly effervescent, swarthy-skinned, smiling and handsome. He examines my flaming skin and prescribes a two-week course of self-administered IV anti-biotics. Yet another fascinating new experience to add to my medical journey.

After a quick session with the anti-bacterial soap and hot water in the rest room, I head home to await the infusion nurse.

Dave, meanwhile, has been out purchasing a squadron of germ-fighting soaps. I grew up with a pediatrician and a mother who believed, rightly I think, that children needed a daily portion of dirt to build immunities. In my current state, however, I am a hand-washing machine. Why, who knows which door knob or encounter at the grocery store, school, or a party initiated this infection? So Dave arrives home from Shaws with an impressive supply of anti-bacterial pump soaps for the kitchen and bathroom sinks, and anti-bacterial Dial soap for the showers. I have individually wrapped, Purell-soaked, towelettes for the car and my pocket-book, as well as a mini-bottle for my desk at school. I am sick at the thought that I could have prevented this infection through hyper-hygiene. Never before has health seemed such a responsibility.

Shortly after two large grocery bags of medications, tubing, alcohol swabs and syringes are deposited on my kitchen counter by an affable, but sweaty, deliveryman, Nurse Nicole arrives. She is pleasant and efficient as she lays out the series of saline flushes, meds and anti-coagulants that I will self-administer. She slides an IV pole to its full height (my own IV pole!) and untangles a five-foot length of tubing studded with clips and dials. Dave joins us with pen and paper in hand and the two of us scribble step-by-step notes as Nicole explains the process.

To start off, she affixes a needle access to the port that was installed in my chest three weeks ago for chemo. A small blue nozzle, or clave, is suspended from the port and I will connect the various meds to that clave for each infusion. As Nicole cautions me to wipe the clave carefully with alcohol between each stage of the process and warns me not to touch this plastic pointy thing to that plastic screw-top thing, my unease grows. Thank God Dave is writing down every step. Thank God I am reasonably agile of mind and fingers. What if I were eighty and alone?

Nicole guides me through saline flushes, a push-medication, and the tricky preparation of the drip IV. Once the drip is underway, I notice bubbles in the IV line. There’d been bubbles in the syringes as well and Nicole had demonstrated how to pull down the plunger and then express, slowly, a few drops of liquid before injecting whatever fluid it might be into my chest, but bubbles remained anyway.

“Don’t worry about them,” Nicole reassures me as I point to the line. “You need, oh, six inches of air before you have a problem.”

“But on T.V…”

“Yes, well, you don’t have to worry.”

“What are the chances I’ll kill myself with bubbles?’

“Not gonna happen,” says Nicole as she packs up supplies, pulls a pen out of her purse and proceeds to sift through pages of paperwork.

Dave and I have our lists and Nicole gives me a typed version as well. Still, I’m nervous about doing this on my own; day after tomorrow, Dave will be back at work. I’ll be alone with my IV pole and drip, scanning for that six inches of air. But the amazing thing is, despite the despair I felt initially about this infection, the possibility of losing the implant, and the discomfort of this needle access on my chest for two weeks….I know I can do it.

I have spent my life worrying about just about everything; I have brooded, Eeyorish, over my lists and obligations. But I have learned something about myself over the past six months – I am more resilient than I’d thought. Cancer, chemo and infection are hard, and yet after the initial reel into darkness with each complication, I bounce back. With Dave, friends and family as buoys, my strength and spirits remain fortified, afloat.