Wednesday, April 23, 2014Vibrant, ecstatic healthI wrote this the night before going into surgery. Must have forgotten to post it. Here it is... a good "before" snapshot for me to remember, as well as an "after" snapshot for me to strive for.I had a moment driving back out to the west end of the valley where my body remembered some long ago summer morning, driving to the beach. I think it was Big Sur, while I was living in Santa Cruz. The trigger was this profound sense of vibrancy and health I felt in my body. It must have been the endorphins I'd generated on my bike ride. It was a high so rich and so deeply felt... my body just feeling so in tune with the music and rhythms of the world. Better than sex, is how Spencer classifies a good bike ride. And, while that was more information than I strictly needed, and while I would hesitate to go that far, boy... it comes close. I had a lovely day. I had to drop Taylor off at his martial arts studio in the valley and kill about four hours before picking him up. I packed the new bike in the truck, dropped him off, and then headed back to Griffith Park, to ride my old loop and see if I still had it in me. I did. After 30 years.. which sounds like such a long time ... I still remembered certain aspects of the trail very clearly. This is where I start gathering up momentum because there's a hill right around the corner. This is where I really can pick up speed, hunkering down and crouching into the bottom of the dropped bars. I have to attribute it to the new fangled bike, but the time to make the 8 mile round trip was the same as when I did it in the 80's, and the fatigue factor was not significantly worse. I ended up covered in sweat, having screamed and sung and talked to myself for the 40 minutes of the ride. I pumped it out, bobbing to the music from my iPhone, and got a whole lot of yayas out. It carried me the whole day and into the evening. Afterwards, I had lunch with a girlfriend, and we talked and laughed and had a great time. She gave me a beautiful plant for the back patio, and a little statuary of a meditating frog, and we talked about all the stuff we talk about. A good day. Tomorrow will be a good day too. I am no longer seeing it as losing a part of me, but more that I am gaining something new. It will be a new part of me. It will also be mine. Not the original parts, true... but hopefully close enough. And, it will be disease free. Tomorrow at this time, I'm trusting that the cancer will be out of me, at least as much as we can possibly know about. That will be good. The cancer has done its job, its soul-awakening, life-affirming job... and now it's time for it to go. I will be making a descent into the depersonified world of hospitals and procedures for a short while. But I always find places like that somewhat fascinating. Hives within hives. I'm sure they'll take good care of me. And while I'm being prepped, I'm going to remember all the support I'm getting from friends and family, all the emails and texts I received today. The love I'm feeling is palpable, immense, and deeply affecting. I'm going to remember that, and the image of the pavement zipping by underneath my pedaling feet. I'm going to remember the feel of sun on my face and the breeze on the water as we sail the bay, the Golden Gate bridge high overhead. I'm going to remember that feeling of youth and vibrancy of that long forgotten day, going to the beach in Big Sur, my body humming from the simple joy of existence. # posted by Katherine Doughtie Nolan @ 6:14 PM  
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