Today is the Day

August 10, 2014
Monique is on her way. We are waiting for her here in Santa Monica. Santa MONIQUE-A!!!  I had to get her a sweatshirt that said "LIFEGUARD". I know it's corny but that's what she is!
This trip here has been so life affirming. Surrounded by Kaethe, Allison, Susanne and my family. Walking on the beach. Everyone healthy, running, breathing, drumming, surfing. Laughing. Loving.
I raise my glass to life. To opportunities taken. To obstacles overcome. To family. To friends. To the power of love. To Monique.

Bridge

So excited. On my way. JetBlue to LA. I'm not sure what to do with myself. We're heading toward a giant convergence of love on this trip. The kids and I had the comforting start to our whirlwind vacation by going to Bridgehampton to stay with Andrea and her family for a week. We basked in her generosity and humor and had a great time. The Hamptons are always reassuring to me, I have such pleasant and abundant memories. At the end of each summer, while I was growing up, my parents would rent a buggy wooden house in Amagansett and we would luxuriate on the beach and buy sunflowers from the outdoor market. The sun was always so golden and the shadows were long. We would spend afternoons rolling around the roads taking in all the fascinating modern houses made from what looked like driftwood. I could still, easily, spend hours doing that. Except now, of course, a lot of those houses are replaced by much bigger, much fancier digs. But despite all the changes, traveling to Long Island will always comfort me. There's nothing like my high school  memories of being stuck in traffic onthe way to Jones Beach. Having in depth conversations with people in other cars, dead stopped on the Long Island Expressway traffic.

The plan in LA is to meet up with Kaethe, Allison, Susanne and Jenny. As well as Aunt Dee, and my cousins Adam and David and their families. We're going to have a lovely beach party on Sunday for Monique and her family. I just have a feeling she's going to be the coolest person I've ever met.  I mean cool in terms of clear in her thoughts and beliefs. Clear in what she knows is important.  It's not that this is so uncommon, but it can certainly be rare when you're in your early 30's. Which she is. I have so much respect for her.  Somebody taught her at a young age to approach life with a lot of love. And I love that! Maybe there's a gene for it and it'll rub off on me!

An Invisible Sign

I'm so glad I did the 5K for Race For Life. They raise money for Cancer Research UK. I was alone amongst this packed crowd of women in hot pink. Leggings, wigs. T-shirts, tutus. Everything hot pink. I was meant to run with a friend but she hurt her ankle. And then, clutzy me, I trip and fall over a seemingly invisible free standing sign in Paris, and fractured my elbow. Whoops! I was walking with Ari next to the Paris Plage, which is a long sandy area they bring in during summer that stretches alongside the Seine for people to play in. It's so great.. There were giant beach chairs whole families could fit in, fabulous large acoustic bands with crowds around them and plenty of sunshine. Then, just as we were passing a 125 anniversary commemorative model of the Eiffel Tower  built out of 324 red lacquered bistros chairs, I guess I was so distracted, I went down. Landed straight on my left arm and felt a slight pop in my elbow. It was like my lower arm bashed into my upper arm! I remember seeing these two cute teeny kids on scooters as I was falling and I hope I didn't yell out anything profane. Ari said I didn't... I opened my eyes, and there were those two cute little kids, staring at me. I said, "Hi! You're so cute!" They were American and their parents quickly offered help. But oddly, I was fine.  I could totally move my arm! So we wandered on. Yet the next day my arm couldn't straighten very well and after a brush with a few handsome French doctors I was told it was fractured and I was given the chicest sling on the planet to wear for 3-6 weeks. It looks like a Baby Bjorn. I think I might look like I gave birth to my arm.

So, was I going to walk this 5K on my own with a fractured elbow? I thought about it all week long. And I left the decision to the very very last minute. I needed to be in Hyde Park Sunday morning at 11:00am. I called a cab at 10:00 and I was right on time. This was a race to help people suffering with cancer. How could I let an elbow stop me? That's just not a good reason. So when I got there my favorite part was writing on my back plaque whom I was running for.  I wrote: "I am running for my mom, my sister, my dad, my Uncle Gary. For my extremely supportive family and for Monique. My stem cell donor!"

Tonight I write before I leave for NY to be at the beach with friends. And in one week we leave for LA, city of angels, to meet my angel, Monique! I love this story. I love the way this story ends. It's a really really good one. I think it's a hopeful story. And it's a story about good people. Monique did not have to do any of this. She has NO idea who I am. But that didn't matter to her. This is a pure example of generosity. I can only repay her by having a good life. And I find the challenge absolutely exilorating.

Wings!

I grew up during Charlie's Angels. During Farrah Fawcett's Charlie's Angels. I fully admit that she was by far my favorite.  So pretty and blond and soft-spoken. But you could tell Charlie really respected her and she just looked so great with a gun. Or maybe it was just all about the hair...

From 1976-1980 she was THE star. (At least in my eyes).  From my early Junior High School days, all I wanted was WINGS...I was obsessed with it.  I tried so many things. I'd blow dry my thin, fly-away, twelve year old hair until it became all burnt out looking and then I'd curling iron the front until I looked like I had two pieces of corn on my forehead. And then I'd go to school like that.  Here's a shout out to anyine who was friends with me: "Thank You!"

 I'd worry about my wings everyday, knowing that it was an absolute fail, but that there was nothing I could do.  I had completely uncooperative, split-endy, mind-of-it's-own hair.  And of course there were the girls that DID have wings.  I remember being awe-struck by them.  One girl in particular: not only did she have wings, she had fabulous lip gloss and rode horses.  How on earth could anyone keep up with that?

Well, turn the clock forward 39 years. I am so proud!! After countless rounds of chemo and losing my hair countless times, I have been rewarded with not only good health, but WINGS!!! And I just HAD to post a picture to show off.  It's a miracle! (I'm referring to the good health, of course...)

So Excited!

I could not be more thrilled. I have made a date with Monique! To meet her! And her absolutely beautful and charming daughter who is the same age as Ari.  When I first got on touch with Monique, I felt so badly like I wanted to give her something or do something nice for her. All my ideas she shot down and she finally said, "Save your money and come visit".  So I am. We have a date for early August to go the pier in Santa Monica and play.  I am so glad she's agreed.  Monique in Santa Monica! Very fitting in my opinion.

We are all flying in. I don't want to overwhelm her but there are a few people that want to meet her.  She is very loved.  I'm thrilled that Kaethe will be flying in with her daughter.  Kaethe helped me so much along the way. She set up the doner circle at Gift of Life that has raised a bunch of money allowing genetic testing for 721 donor samples which found 11 matches for people in need and thus resulted so far in a successful transplant for someone else.  She has also done tons of outreach and gotten many people on the bone marrow regisitry since I was diagnosed. She is also my oldest friend. She became my best friend in sixth grade. That was 39 years ago.  What you wouldn't believe is that she looks the same. I'm not kidding. I'm looking forward to seeing her on the ferris wheel...

I'm making a set of hair bows for Monique's daughter. She likes pink. Everything I make I feel like it's not pretty enough! I'm psyching myself out. I'm so grateful, so enamoured, so smitten, I'm like frozen.  They're just hair bows!  You can't get too precious about hair bows. I don't have girls, but given the amount of times I notice lost hair bows in the street, I realize, they are just something that pass through your life! Not something to get too attached to. I've often thought that hair bows could be a good business because people certainly don't buy them just once and they look super cute. Plus, they ain't cheap! The really nice ones can go for a high price!  So, that said, this date we have planned is a great thing in terms of my hair bow deadline. Now I have one! These are going to be cute. Pink butterflies. Pink feathers. Pink sequins.

Last week I had another round of Azacytadine, and the requesit pre-medication blood test. It is always so nerve-wracking.  If I feel the least bit tired or have a sore in my mouth, I think, "Oh no, this is it. On please, let me stay healthy just until I meet Monique. I just want to thank her in person.  I just want her to meet my husband and my boys so that she could really know us and know that she saved all our lives".  My goal, ever since that beautiful bag of stem-cells came to me on September 21, 2012, was to get well and to meet my donor and thank her.  I don't want anything to mess that up. I am incredibly relieved every month when they tell me how "brilliant" my bloodwork looks. But this month, wow, I am one month closer to meeting Monique.

Barcelona Dreamin'

Last April we had planned to go to Seville to see some Flamenco.  We ended up not going because somehow I contracted a virus called Campylobacter and ended up super sick and all dehydrated and in the hospital for three days. 

Seeing real Flamenco has always been on my list.  I think it is something I inherited from my hispanophile father. Well, at least he was an hispanophile until he went to Spain on a tour after my mother died. Sadly, he was no longer impressed, but actually disappointed. He saw too many swastikas drawn about in the Spanish cities for his own comfort. 

Last week, while I was lucky enough to be in Barcelona with Dee and Alexa, I did see some swastikas. Two of them. Near the Miro museum.  I was thrown aback though.  They had circles drawn around them and lines drawn through them.   It was all in the same hand, done by one person. A little odd: Stamp out swastikas by drawing one and then drawing a line through it? Questionably effective at best.  I had to ponder that one, albeit is better than the alternative.

I have quite a lot of affection for graffiti and and I really appreciate public art. I see it as an interesting way to learn about the state of the heart of a city.  I look at graffiti for hearts and photograph them.  I have a running log of hearts from all over the world now.

Some cities have a ton of hearts and some don't. Oddly, despite the fact that there's a ton of graffiti in Barcelona (it's mostly contained to garage doors, kinda of like "obedient graffiti"...) there are very very few hearts. The two cities so far, where I've found the most are hearts are Jerusalem and, of course, Paris. But after being in Barcelona and liking it so much, I now question whether I can judge the amount of love in a city by its amount heart graffiti.  

So anyway, Flamenco. We did get to se an impressive late night show in a teeny venue, and absolutely loved it.  I was enthralled and I think I loved it more than I thought I could!  I think my father would be proud.  

Flamenco is like an in your face lesson in "damn right someone's done me wrong but I'm going to feel it and sing and dance about it anyway!!!" The dancing is so heavy. Stamping and stomping and banging. Wood against wood. Like a toddler having a fit. And it's also incredibly light and graceful. The songs are sung so high by men with the deepest of voices. It feels like everyone is straining. But, at the same time, not at all. Despite the songs being so full of angst and loneliness, there they are, in this close group, supporting each other. There they are. Dancing, clapping, singing. It's like they're saying,  "if you have a body, you need nothing else because then you'll never be alone." 

Flamenco seems like an art of opposites existing at once. Opposites that need each other in order to exist.  Maybe you can't fully understand one thing until first you feel it's opposite.  I could relate relate to that. After being so mad at life, now I can forgive life and let it be what it is. Embracing it I don't expect one particular thing or another. It is supposed to be a dance of opposites...

I loved the keys we got at our hotel room in Barcelona. They commissioned a number of artist to create designs for their key cards. One of ours was hot pink and said "OBNOXIOUSLY HAPPY" on it. I feel like that sometimes.  I took that key home. I'm going to frame it. Obnoxious. I know.

I also keep thinking of the Picasso museum in Barcelona. It's a very fresh and proud perspective of his work. They have the earliest of his paintings there. Self-portrait oil paintings done when he was a young boy of fifteen. They were as moving as Rembrandt. In the exhibit you are able to see him develop through the years as he passes through each period. His Social Realism paintings brought tears to my eyes. He had a heart wrenching ability to depict the sadness of loving a sick person.  This is called Science and Charity. 

As he changed it seemed clear that he trusted himself. He was able to continually reinvent his approach toward creating art. This exhibit celebrated how he was continually exploring and trying new things. 

There is one room at the Picasso museum that is so ornately decorated with gold leaf molding that hardly a painting could stand up to it. The curators were brilliant not to hang anything on the walls. They built beautiful glass cabinets in the center of the room that held the most charming oversized ceramic plates that Picasso made in his very late years. Each plate had a simple asymmetrical portrait etched or built into the center of it.

 

Childlike and so evolved, much Like Matisse's paper cut outs, I admire so much how these artists were inspired and working up until the last minute. Until they couldn't anymore. They lived very very full lives. Inspirational (to say the least).

I

After the (Bar Mitzvah) Party's Over

(Written on 13 May)

What can I say post a party I'd been looking forward to for years? One I was not sure I'd make it to. One that taught me so much about friends and family and commitment. But mostly about generousity. Isaac, if you read this one day, I'd like you to know that you encompasses for me everything I love about Judiasm. You are a blessed child, and although I sometimes call you spoiled, you are not. You are kind. Studious. Committed. You are thoughtful. You deep down understand the Magic of this life. What I call 
G-d. You understand this crazy human gift we've been given and intelligently strive to perfect it; to perfect what G-d gave you. And also, you don't waste your time. I love that. I can not thank you enough for becoming a Bar Mitzvah. Although being Jewish can often be unappealing, considering Jewish history, and I know it would be so much more fun to just dance around the Christmas tree and not have to explore your Jewish side, you have done it with grace, and respect. Thank you. 

Your dad and I had the best time celebrating you this past weekend at your big party on a boat. I
Hope we didn't embarrass you too much. I love you, 

As I got my shots of Azacytadine last week, I, as always, was heavily grateful to Monique. Sometimes gratitude can feel so light and free. Like, "let's dance on the beach!" And sometimes it's just dumbfounding. Like being lost and adrift on a sailboat in the middle of the sea when some supertanker cruises by and notices you and pulls you aboard. Monique, you are my supertanker. 

We had so many friends and family surrounding us this last week. We had 14 people sleeping at our house in all crazy configurations. I loved it! I do think I was meant to live on a commune or kibbutz. 
We drank wedding wine with friends whose nuptials we missed three years ago due to my cancer and illness. 

I had the opportunity to much more deeply bond with family members whose relationships were thwarted when I was growing because of my devisive acting parents.  That was so healing!  I met the grown son of my first cousin Suzy for the first time! I took selfies with cousins with rainbows behind us and the giant illuminated midnight London eye in front of us.

I got to feed yummy barbeque and chocolate to seventy wonderful, well behaved, almost bizarrely mature 7th graders. So fun. 

And now I'm on a plane to Barcelona with my enlightened Aunt Dee and cousin Alexa. Seventy six and 21 respectively. I'm humbled that they love me and have celebrated every step of this journey with me. 
And hats off to my charming seven year old Ari who toasted his brother with such charm at the party that he brought the house with a huge ovation. Or I should say, he brought the boat down! 

I cried myself to sleep last night with how much I love life and how sad I am that we're all going to die one day. It's just so amazing here. It's paradise. Fresh air, rain, sun. Having a body to hug with.