Lately I have been grappling with fears. How to start over, will I have my body strong and functional again enough so I can go hiking, learn to surf, dance, parent, love, travel. I know when I tangle up with fear. And I am getting wise enough to know, if you just move forward, fear will pass. Momentum is the antidote to fear. Because my conviction and spirit have proven stronger with time and practice, overcoming fear is easier. I was beginning to panic about what the next chapter in my life might look like.
I heard this song. I have heard it a million times in the background of grocery stores but never paid attention. Until this week. I "heard" it. It fit so perfectly. I have been tangled up with my fears of losing my strong young body to a diseased aged less functional body. And I realized, it was all just that fears. I can handle my body and live the life I desire....I will find my way. Others before me have. I can ride the coattails of those cancer survivors before me, and use their momentum to not get stuck.
This song below fits this insights so well....
Tomorrows page is blank. I don't want to fill it up with, "She sat with fear, and fear made her sit still, so she sat with fear, and fear made her sit still....."
So, once again, cancer, I say to you, na-na-na-na-naaaaaaaaaaa-na, I win.
Now go dance it out:
Jenna P.S. If the fluid and somewhat disorganized nature of this post bothers you, I get to blame it on the meds they give me at night. Make me kind of "flighty". So have fun, even if it doesn't make sense, just enjoy the song and dance!
1) cancer is a noun, a thing, not an adjective - it doesn't describe me 2) cancer will show you were the cracks in your foundation are, and force you to fix them, or crumble 3) if cancer breaks things down, take it as a gift that you can rebuild things right 4) cancer makes you look in the mirror every morning and ask, "Am I going to live in fear today? Or am I going to live Free today?" 5) cancer can get you cool t-shits like : "The Chemo Made me Do it!" (came in the mail today) 6) cancer will freak you out - no, check that - the unknown will freak you out 7) cancer can give you the chance to celebrate life, forgive easily, and rejoice in the small things 8) cancer doesn't mean you can't rock - check this guy out: http://www.seanswarner.com/ (if you heard my recent fears - that I will never be in shape enough to hike/climb again) 9) cancer doesn't think, people think, and people think cancer must be all your think about, but it isn't 10) cancer is like a truth serum and will freak some people out and draw others to you
with love, Jenna
P.S. To Rachel. I am SO sorry. I did a bad bad thing. I thought you KNEW. I really didn't mean to smack your psyche and heart out of the blue like that on FB. So, in honor of your lightness, and your ability to rebound, I am editing this post and sharing with the rest of the folks here the silliness we share as we have grown up together. I do apologize for you NOT knowing all this time! So in honor of our sisterly silliness and in the spirit of apology and silliness, I post what you posted to me for all to share in the sisterly silliness:
Soma and all the wonderful donors did it. What a WHIRLWIND day!!!!!! It went above and beyond the 2,300 and went on to 2,400.....how high can she go?
If you want to see this thermometer do the nifty little trick of rising to the top and blinking you must go here....http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=109491588877&h=FTpBz&u=jXi67&ref=nf
If you want to see it go to 102% donate there too....there is no limitation to the good you can do!
In the past 24 hours, things have gone CRAZY - as of this moment - it is now 2,200! $100 to go! Go Team Go!
Seattle thermometers aren't the only ones going up!
Soma wrote on FaceBook today that someone annoymously donated a generous amount towards her 3Day Walk goal. I want to take a moment to say Thank You to that person, and to keep the ball rolling.
Let's do some math shall we?
2,300 - 1,150 = 1150
So, you may not have $500 to plop down. But what if everyone did: $10 = 100 people donating $20 = 50 people donating (we can do that? can't we?) $40 = 25 people donating.
And look at all the wonderful ways you can break it down. If you donate $40, some else who doesn't have $40 could donate $10 and it all evens out. I think NPR makes most of it's money off of small pledges, not just HUGE ones. We can too.
Herceptin has saved SO many lives and extended life span for Stage IV breast cancer patients from months to decade +???? It came from research.
Somewhere in some lab is a researcher on the cusp of finding the drug that is my miracle drug and throws this into remission for good. They say they are close.
So what does your $10 have to do with it? Let's try this:
don't drink a Mocha for 3 days, one for each day of the race, and put that money into Soma's fund. Call it the 3 Less Mocha's, 3 more Lives campaign. And let's get Soma to Race for the Cure!
1) Time isn't linear. So cool. There is no end point. Ask Einstein. 2) My daughter is growing up, and turned 6 now. 6! And she is a handful, but awesome. 3) I loved sitting in my gardened patio, watching the sun go down behind the hemlocks and cedars, talking with Kris. And finally being strong enough to get outside my own drama and be there for him this time. 4) Knowing that while I am sitting there, eating sweet blueberries for dinner because it is too hot to eat anything else, and Kris and I catch up on love and life, my daughter was laughing and playing at the lake and getting in a visit with her dad and her dear friends who love her like family. 5) Electricty, because Seattle houses weren't made with air conditioning, so we need fans. Lots of strategically placed fans. 6) Kara's pea plant finally grew a pea pod! 7) Daydreaming, and I am not going to tell you about what ;) Because it is my daydream. So I am just going to tease you with it and keep it to myself. 8) Feeling lightness of spirit. 9) Feeling like the chemo is working and checking only to find the lump is completely gone. Not a trace can I find. NADA. It might try to take my body, but my soul it can NEVER touch and I KNOW it. Na-na-na-na-na-naaaaaa. 10) Just the sense of peace and serenity that is following me around wherever I go, even if I am sad or scared, I just have this sense.....of something good around me.
god bless Stella...such an amazing healer. I am so grateful for the multiple levels on which she works to help you heal. of course
Which brings me around to music...
music? Why?
Finding the feminine. Calling her back up again. She is getting lost in chemoland. Blagh.
"But Jenna,", I hear some of you protest, "this musician below is a dude. A hairy dude, but none the less, a dude playing music. how is this calling back the feminine?"
Let me 'xplain.
Okay. there is much too much talk of people hiking, and kayaking, and bellydancing, and finding themselves in forests. Now this earth, she is a SHE. And I miss her. I miss smelling rain on a hiking path. Or hearing owls freak me out with their wild calls at night. I miss dangling from cliffs looking for Apache ruins, and I miss sleeping in a tent.
The Earth is a She. And She is ALIVE and full of destruction and creation. All in one.
I know, I know, I got this cancer biting away at my bones, this veretabra. Damn. I wanna climb again. I want to learn to surf. I want my body back in shape so I can do Tree Pose even. I can't even do Tree Pose anymore! AH! I am getting antsy.
Now now now, this is NOT a pity party. More of an angry party in my head. I am allowed to get angry about all this sometimes. Sitting around a fire beating a drum, and pounding the earth, calling up something inside me. If I can't go there with my body, I will go there in my mind and remember all the great hikes.
But my god....I feel thirsty for it.
So, I turn to my dear Xavier Rudd (yes, the hairy hobbit dude who so AMAZING captures the voice of She Earth and all her sexiness). And close my eyes, and remember the waves, or the large cedars towering above me at night, and use it as motivation to kick cancers ass. Can you tell I am feeling fiesty tonight?
So if my many damaged vertebra and hips can't shake it, or hike it, or climb it, I can close my eyes, listen and remember when I stood in the Arizona desert in the middle of the night, shaking my rattle with the others under a full moon, and dancing around a campfire again with REAL drums playing around me, and friends stomping the earth along side me.
But for now, motivation to keep healing when the healing gets tough.....
Two weeks in a row. My "chemo hit" day has changed. So apparently I get a free ride 5 days, and 1 one of Ouch, and one day of Oh Great Joseph and Mother Mary - who parked the semi on my back and beat my ribs with a bat?
Wow....I can't even twist boxes around and point and say "put that one there" anymore. New life paradigm. Reliant.
But by the grace of a goddess named Ms. Direction, and Divine timing my child was whisked away to the low tide beaches while I stayed firmly hidden under my blanket. If she was here, oh dear.
ance it out:
