White petals flutter from the tree beyond my chair. It’s a breezy spring day, the kind that makes me a little overconfident in Iowa weather; I leave my jacket at home. Uncovered, bruises snake across my right forearm, browns and yellows and purples forming a winding web.
Here, the nurses transition effortlessly, alarmingly, between joking about veins and recapping an autopsy. It is an unsettling dichotomy, one that reminds me that getting better is a painful, messy process. Continue reading
There are rows of chairs, eight in mine, each a shiny, coated plastic, some pea green, others muted red. They’re trying to be easy chairs; that’s it. A source of relaxation, calm. They want to be watching TV; maybe a “Seinfeld” rerun or “Punk’d” with Ashton Kutcher. Yet they’re outfitted with trays and wheels and towels dangling from the back rack. They’re uneasy chairs.
Heat warms my right arm, the “good” arm, my IV arm — the nurse is forever trying to find the vein. “You’re a bit of a pincushion, aren’t you?” we joke, punctuating the sting of her inevitable third try at the IV. Continue reading
My lovely, accommodating friends hosted a gluten-free taco girls’ night.
For once I am fearful of too much time, the kind measured not in minutes, but by the rhythm of an IV. Drip, breathe, drip, breathe, drip, breathe. The kind of rhythm that reminds me I’m not well, not entirely, not yet.
Tomorrow I start two-hour IV iron treatments for the next six weeks. The needles don’t scare me anymore; the time still does. Time to meditate and ruminate and reflect and worry. The kind of time punctuated by piercing silence, the realization that aloneness has its own sound, one that podcasts and Netflix can’t ultimately drown out. Continue reading
Mere moments after I nearly threw a GF muffin at bread-loving Oprah, I made peace with gluten over beer, naturally.
I cried over bread. And the box of granola bars. The cereal, too. Ugly cried. Kim K. cried.
The pile of gluten-rich food kept growing atop my counter. A sacrificial loaf. After a good cry and a donation to my local food pantry, I drove to Hy-Vee and bought some fancy rice flour.
I’d like to think we are all, “I. Love. Bread.” Oprah Winfrey sometimes, only now my favorite recipes — and my body — require more care. After months of doctor’s appointments and blood tests, I was recently diagnosed with celiac disease. No more normal bread and beer. Continue reading
My sister sent me a kickass T. rex card, and it makes a perfect LSAT bookmark.
It’s a magical, mystical world, almost. There are soda fountains with sodas named things like “Luck” and “Mist.” There are closets full of dresses in every fabric you could imagine. There are disc jockeys who flip between ballads and club hits with ease.
It feels pretty make-believe most of the time, but there are rules, myriad rules, that strip the magic from this world. The gauze dress can’t be next to the silk dress (who the hell owns a gauze dress anyway?). “Mist” and “Luck” can’t be first or fourth at the soda fountain. And the DJ has to play three consecutive ballads before he can bust out some dance tunes (no one turns up at the club to three back-to-back slow jams, really). Continue reading
Enough: I’ve heard the word often this year. It has become a state of being, one I’ve yet to fully embody, physically and emotionally — “Enoughness.” Uppercase, of course.
Do you have enough iron supplements? You don’t have enough iron in your system. Did your last doctor say your hemoglobin isn’t high enough, too?
With ample idle time in waiting rooms at doctor’s offices in 2016, I’ve had time — dangerous time — to ruminate on physical and emotional “Enoughness.” “Fill in the bubble next to all conditions that apply.” Here, “Enoughness” is quantified with each blackened bubble.
Playing keep-away with enoughness is one of my egregious habits; it’s easier, more comfortable, to ignore my own inherent completeness. Blackened bubbles extend into the real world. I become the score sheet, each mark the latest deficiency. Continue reading
Basking in my reign as flower girl.
Shirley Temples are a sentimental drink for me. I apparently downed eight of them as the flower girl at my Uncle Pat’s wedding in 1998. Feeling the power of my flower-girl status (and the sugar, let’s be real here), I twirled at the reception in my off-white dress, my 5-year-old frame nearly engulfed by tulle and chiffon. Continue reading
Frequent doctor’s visits call for comfort food. For me, that means lentil soup and falafel at Open Sesame in the East Village. I also love the lanterns.
I slipped on my Des Moines Half Marathon pullover, the one made from that fancy ever-dry fabric, rather than the “Newton Superfan” cotton T-shirt I often wear, long faded from Cardinal red to a confused pink color. I laced up my new running shoes, their neon colors still blinding from the box. Then I ran and ran and ran, probably too fast, probably too far at this stage in my training; I got a little power hungry.
The pace, the distance, the, “I’m a serious runner,” outfit — if I embodied power, embodied strength, it would somehow emerge. I was so close. Continue reading
I used to think I traveled to unearth the dormant dimensions of my being, the risk and exoticism and uncertainty all chipping away at the everyday manifestation of “me.” As crumbling rocks shuttled down the mountain like a comet, dust trailing in their wake, I realized I travel not to unearth the dormant dimensions of my being but to reconnect with risk and exoticism and uncertainty, inviting each to nest in my psyche for a few time-bending days.
I own this mountain. Or the lighting makes it look like I do, anyway.
As I hiked to the Hollywood sign over the weekend, stumbling, as usual, over the rough terrain (I’m not terribly nature-savvy), I remembered the 12-year-old who didn’t care how frizzy her hair looked on her first trip to Florida. The one who skipped the morning session of a conference to wander the French Quarter of New Orleans. The one who sipped (probably) questionable pomegranate juice from a rickety street cart in Istanbul. Continue reading
Specific dates zigzag through my mind, darting in and out of memories that organically pop up during any given day. April 16, my senior Prom. December 13, my Drake graduation. January 19, the first day of my first big-kid job. October 18, my first half-marathon. Friends’ and family members’ birthdays. I like how defined they are; each one apportioned 24 hours, it begins and ends. This is an obvious fact, of course, yet I seek refuge in its tangibility and envy the concrete hours, minutes and seconds that add up to one day.
It is the feelings and fears that linger long after the seconds have ticked away, embedding specific dates in my mind. Today is one such date, January 23, one I ruminated on for more than a year before lumbering into an ongoing stage of reflection. Continue reading