In other news--
It's that time of year again!
Our lives revolve around all sorts of calendars: Academic calendars. The Church calendar. Sports seasons. We have chosen to mostly eschew the Hallmark calendar, although I did get this cool T-shirt for Mother's Day this year:
Anyway, since 2015 we keep the Scans calendar as well, and it's that time of year again. The fifth anniversary has rolled around in the midst of a pandemic. It's an anniversary marked in very embodied ways, as every sense is engaged: the taste of the Barium "smoothies," the touch of IV needles and gowns and lying on tables of various imaging machines. Hearing the clanging of the MRI machine--and the Hamilton soundtrack I always listen to through headphones during that scan. Even the smells of the antiseptic are evocative of a specific time and place (in this case, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center) just as the smell of diesel mixed with rain transports me straight to London in wintertime. No abstract Hallmark cards here.
Circling back around to face my mortality as regularly scheduled has been a bit more intense than usual. The onset of the pandemic--after the preparatory buying of toilet paper, pesto and chocolate chips (priorities)--was emotionally quite difficult. Loss after loss kept coming, in waves--not particularly for me, but for people I love and their people and cities, for all of us.
I finally sorted out that part of the overwhelm was that the experience was echoing the emotional signature of 2015. As I've written about before, the cancer diagnoses, losses and changes came fast and furious--seemingly without time to breathe. A whole new normal. Back then we knew that grieving was called for, but without knowing how bad it was going to get; what there would be to grieve. During COVID, it has been the same, but the losses were amplified: this was everyone's storm, instead of just mine. In early April I was flipping through the newspaper when I came across this headline:
And it was a relief to read many of my feelings in someone else's words. I've adopted some of her tricks--like no new things in the evening. And I've been a little more gentle with myself about limitations: I got home from my CT exam around 8:30am but felt like I had used up all of my "doing what I have to but don't want to" budget for the day.
And yet. All of the hard things notwithstanding. Even with fear and side effects--it's a Happy Anniversary. I'm deeply grateful. These past five years have brought so many gifts. Some that I knew to hope for, but others that I could not have imagined. For one thing, I've been gifted with the growth and experiences of seeing the Fab Four grow from this to that:
We've had the privilege of leading another Europe Semester (2018) and the great gift of continuing relationships with those special people.
There have been family reunion(s) and birthday parties and babies born and dance parties. On top of that, the ordinary moments of life--driving carpool and kisses goodnight and grocery shopping and walking with friends and teaching a teenager to drive--are beautiful, terrible gifts.
So is the hiking I was grateful for in my last post. I have kept training, trying to strengthen my hope muscles along with my legs and lungs. Last summer J started training with me in earnest. This winter we bought tickets to Spain in order to walk the Camino (Primitivo) through northern Spain, where some of my family is from. It has been my dream and the goal that kept me walking my legs back into shape. Of course we are not going now: one of the many plans rerouted in the wake of COVID-19. As disappointing as it is, the refrain in my head has been Proverbs 16:9:
In his heart a man plans his course,
but the LORD determines his steps.
So our steps will not be traversing Asturias and Galicia, at least not this year. But there are many reasons to celebrate, the faithfulness of God chief among them. I am grateful for the many Ebenezers of the past five years. We have decided on a different way to celebrate God's goodness in the embodied way that is called for; it's actually why I decided to return to this little space. We're planning to head out in the wake of scanning season. Lord, have mercy. And Happy Anniversary to us all.
I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living. (Ps. 27:13).
