Practice makes perfect

Just as we had begun to reach some sort of normalcy, some hint of a little more freedom, it's back in to the hospital.
Dom's beep, beep, beeping through the night, and thanks for the reminder seestor, I'm shooting several panicked glances toward the lock in the public restroom that opens directly to the family room.

It's hard to believe, it's been nearly a year since this whole thing started. Just 3 weeks shy of. We haven't been in the hospital for 5 months and we've been home for 3. After 7 1/2 months of being back and forth between home and hospital and even fire refugees and another 2 months living in Sacramento, I realize we spent collectively nearly 5 months not in our home this past year. And adding days as I type.

I have so many mixed feelings. My strongest feeling is utter relief that professionals are taking care of Dominic. For two weeks I wondered what to do. Should I make him eat? Is eating bad? When do I call the doctor(again)? When will it stop? It was a grueling 2 weeks of sickness for Dom. Being already spent emotionally, having scraped my account over the past year, I was at my wit's end.

So, while we'd rather be home, we are both so grateful to be more directly under the doctor's care.

There's no sign on the door that declares chemo or transplant. The nurses no longer glove up to protect themselves from chemo poisons coming out of Dom's body, though they do still glove up for hygiene.

And I find that after nearly a year of this business, I'm also flowing a little more easily. I'm crying more easily as well, but of course. It's an entirely different thing to be admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis looming and the not knowing when he will have a transplant, and then will the transplant take, and then where will we live in another city....? This feels easier, but it is still excruciatingly difficult.

I spoke with the social worker just after our arrival, and she asked if our room was okay. She knows I prefer a cot over the slippery slidey couch bed. I thanked her for her concern, but told her it's fine. This is just a blip. It could be a long blip yet, but we're on the other side. There's so much relief being on this side of treatment. (I've also figured out that if I shove a couple pillows between the slippery layers of the bench of the couch and the fold out cushions on top, I am nestled in and prevented from being deposited on the floor.)

I don't totally understand the human mind and the plasticity of thoughts. Fears do creep in. We're on the other side, but that assumes there's "sides". It's not as simple as all that. There's still biopsies to be had, still the body adjusting to the new stem cells, still the body dealing with the aftermath of a chemical cocktail of chemo so strong it could kill. Still the stress even of recovery time. I still find myself worrying and whatiffing, and I have to actively banish any thought that only serves to panic or wear me down.

Tomorrow brings with it whatever it will bring and it is absolute hubris to think that any bit of my worrying will take away any challenging thing. And so, I try and dwell on what seems good. Of course, that's also an interesting balance. You see, I'd been been dwelling on the fact that his White Count finally went past that scary place it had been for months. I was dwelling on the fact that he could finally eat blueberries, (which he did) and we could maybe have some friends over for a meal, and I could finally visit my friend with all the kids or attend a yoga class, and maybe some friends could come and see how they began a cleanup that I would continue and we could marvel at all our hard work and enjoy a relaxing day. And so....it's a funny place to be, hopeful and yet not overly disappointed when I realize that all those things will be on the back burner again. It's a dance; building a future and holding it in my hand with open fingers so whatever needs to slip through can. And whatever does slip through, all in good time, I can pick it up again, if it's right and good and worth while.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's an art to be hopeful in the future, grateful and present in the now, and not too disappointed when things do not go as planned. It's an art I haven't mastered; but I suppose practice makes perfect.

I will be back and forth with a little more freedom this stay. I have to keep our life in a forward motion right now. I never wanted to leave him when everything was looming. I never wanted him to feel alone in the darkness of chemo and the mystery of transplant. And I could not leave him alone for long in the ensuing months of low WBC. It's no difficult thing to be so tethered to him, since he is my love and best friend and joy to be around. But he's in good hands. I'll look forward to us being back home together. We'll hopefully pick up where we left off, and continue to look forward.

Cultivating the space you have

It's been over two months since we've been home now. The time to write is thinning. But sometimes, when I'm doing the other things, the words are swirling. If you follow the blog to keep up with Dominic's recovery, there's probably not much new information here. It's a slow, up hill climb and we celebrate every victory.

Today's thoughts are not necessarily about the journey, though the experiences of the last year contribute to them.

I spent this morning with the strimmer and a rake. As you know, who have followed this saga, not only did we survive cancer this past year, we survived a fire that crept right up practically to our doorstep as well. I am constantly in awe of the symbolism. And I've been on a dual pronged quest ever since. The quest to keep Dom healthy in body and soul and the quest to get our home as fire safe as possible. I've referred to it prior to the fire as our little match box; but I do not want that to be the case!

I've shared before how I tackled a lot of shrubs and I've been mowing and cutting like crazy. There's a pile of lumber too near our little house and I've hated it for 20  years now. About a decade ago I filled up one of those huge extra long chevy creeper vans to the roof with old wood for the property owner to take to the dump. He asked if maybe next time I leave him some room to breathe. It was literally wedged in to the top. But over the years, I watched as various improvements on the ranch included various offerings to the wood pile. And it swelled again. Dominic and I took another load to the dump a couple years ago....and I watch the wood pile grow again. It's like it breeds.

My social media friends know my Mom and I had a rattle snake encounter last week. There he was, (for the snake rescuer told us it was a he), sunning himself in the driveway. My mom was walking up the drive from the barn and he gave her a good warning rattle and reared up at her. Once she backed off, he retreated to the underside of a cart. If he only knew just feet away was a huge pile of wood he could get lost in, and live in, and terrify me forever. Thankfully, he stayed put until Al came with his salad tong sized snake gripper and lifted the very angry snake from his refuge. I said goodbye to the snake (after I thanked it for clearing out some vermin for it was quite fat) and put it in my mind that the wood pile has to go. All of it. Needs to be gone.

It does literally need to be moved because it's too close to a propane tank. I watched a Cal Fire video last week that informed me that propane tanks must be cleared of combustibles at least ten feet. So, if it's moving ten feet, it may as well move ten thousand. That is a project for another day.

Today's project was inspired by the same informational video and where I'll get a little personal. They mentioned in the video that the undersides of decks should be free of leaf matter and twigs. I didn't intend to go back there and start raking. It just happened. Let me tell you a little about my dilemma. I am surrounded by oak trees. Beautiful, giant oak trees. I've done some research, and they don't like packed ground, and they don't like over-watering under their canopy during the summer, and they do like their leaf litter to decompose back into the ground for nutrients. It's a bummer for these big magnificent trees that my house sits right between them, I'm sure that would be considered packed ground.....And so, I'm very protective of their leaf littler now. But, it's also a fire hazard. So. What to do? What to do...

I tried to have a garden in my little back yard 20 years ago, but it was a big no go. Between the deer and the shade of sprouting oaks, it flopped. I dreamed about having a lawn and mowing it myself, but the whole no water under the canopy thing voided that idea. Basically, my yard has to be in its natural state. So, for 20 years, I've mostly ignored the space. It had an occasional weed trimmer come through. Once my mom raked all the weeds down. I think I was depressed and I think she didn't know how to help me except to do the work I should be doing myself. I think she hoped it would inspire me to work. But it didn't.

It took flames at my door step to inspire me.

So, as I raked under the deck and under the shrubs (that I don't water at all, and have ignored for 20 years as they grew from 3 feet to 9 feet, and that we massively cut back last month), I got to thinking there in the quiet with my rake in hand. I got to thinking as I pulled things out from under the deck that I knew blew under and I just ignored. I got to thinking in the unruliness of it all.

It couldn't do what I wanted it to do, so I let it go.

Not in the Frozen Elsa kind of way where I relaxed in a good way.

I let it go in a Sanford and Son kind of way.

Is that hitting you in any way close to the ton of bricks that hit me?

It couldn't do what I wanted it to do, so I just let it go. I ignored it. I closed the door on it.

I allowed refuse to pile up.

And as much as I love nature and the outdoors; it is good to keep a grip on home.

I thought today as I raked years and years of leaves how easy it would be if I'd done this each year. I thought about all the years in my own life that were left uncultivated because they didn't look like I wanted them to. If I could have accepted that even though I can't have a lawn in the back, I can keep it neat and tidy and rake the leaves and tend the space, I wouldn't have such a daunting task ahead of me now.  And then, I came in for a water break and sat down and started writing.

The thing about this past year is it's put some incentive in me I didn't even know I possessed. It's too bad it took nearly losing my husband and my home in the same year to give me a kick in the pants. But, here we are.

Visually, the back won't be too much different than any other time. The weeds will turn brown in the summer, they'll grow back in the winter, and (now), I'll mow them down in the spring. (Instead of waiting for them to just dry out and fall over.)

But, there is a path around my house again. For years, branches were in the way. Weeds were over grown, and it was just scary. It's mowed back, cut back and raked up. *I'm editing to add here: The day after I did all this work, the water heater putzed out. We had to have a plumber replace the water heater, and for the first time in forever, a handcart could freely be pushed to the back of the house, and not a day too soon. And so, the cleanup story takes a new turn.

Because, since the plumber needed more room to work in the little shed, true to form, I didn't just make him a little more space. I emptied the shed, cleaned it out, and put it back together after he left. When I moved in some 20 years ago, the shed held the owner's forgotten papers and detritus of life. Over the years, I've tackled it, piece by piece. With his permission, some ten years ago, I emptied the file cabinets and had a bonfire. Later, Dom and I flipped a file cabinet on its back, painted it the same color as the barn and planted tomatoes in it. Even though I'd cleaned out the cabinets, I still found a canceled check dated 1976 this week under a pallet. You would not believe what pack rats deem acceptable housing material. The shed is not enclosed entirely, so it's a dream home to critters. A heavy pendulum to an old clock had been carried from one corner to the opposite. I'm not sure how cozy a cold hard object can be, perhaps the critter thought of it as a shield.

All of this to say, that while there are things in our lives that need attention, sometimes we find ourselves cleaning other people's messes. Do it anyway.

And back to the great outdoors, the added bonus is a wild cherry plum tree has been discovered. When everything was overgrown, I'd never noticed the plum tree sprouting up. There were a few down by the barn, and I'm sure a bird dropped a plum by my house. Last autumn, in response to the fires, we had a tree guy come out and do some work to safeguard the house and preserve the beautiful trees. He opened the area around the plum tree a little, but I still didn't notice it until we moved back home and I saw blossoms for the first time. And, I'm sure you can gather, after this past year, all signs of new life are deeply meaningful to me. When my family and I cut back the saplings and brush, we opened up the space for the plum tree to really shine. Today, as I worked my way around the house, I noticed for the first time little cherry plums heavy on the branches. Literal fruit of our labors.

And I wonder how much else in life needs to be mowed back, cut back and raked up? Nothing like a little trauma to get one wondering. I can't change anything in the past, and I can't change everything today, but just as surely as I can walk on the path without getting hung up on branches or worrying every step that a snake is hiding in the weeds, I can tend to my life as it is. We can all tend to our lives just as they are. My journey may not include the lawn I'd always dreamed of. It may not be an English garden with boxwoods perfectly carved in the shape of animals, it may not have topiaries and fountains and rose bushes, but at the very least, it can be cultivated to be the best and safest place it can be. It was oppressive for a while. I felt like I had no say, that the branches were bigger than me and the lack of tidy edges and designated living areas ruled the day. But I found my clippers, and I got to work and I'm embracing everything for what it is.