I didn't have time to write this post yesterday, but I DID give the prompt some thought. What I really came up with was three moments--one physical, one intellectual, one emotional. All made me feel alive in 2010, but in very different ways.
The Physical:
On Columbus Day weekend, my husband Steve and I took a much needed mini-vacation weekend up the Maine coast, into Spruce Harbor--right outside of Rockland. We stayed at the lovely Craignair Inn [http://www.craignair.com/] an out of the way spot perfect for exploring. I felt very alive the whole weekend. We spent a lot of time outside, took some walks/hikes, explored the surrounding towns, ate some unbelievable food, including a great dinner at Primo, arguably Maine's best foodie destination [http://www.primorestaurant.com/]. But the time I felt most alive that weekend had nothing to do with our food choices, or lighthouse touring, it had to do with the hike I didn't want to take.
As we were leaving the Midcoast, we decided to pop over to the town of Camden--where I'd never been but always wanted to visit--especially because I'm such a fan of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry, and Camden is her home town. We passed over the crowded downtown shops and went straight to the lovely Camden Hills State Park, site of Mount Battie. We drove up to the top of Mount Battie ["All I saw from where I stood was three long mountains and a wood. Over these things I could not see. These were the things that bounded me" --Millay, Renascence] and partook in the striking views, and then we decided to explore the park on foot. In the mood for a 20 minute jaunt, Steve studied the trail maps, we parked at a trail head and set out. I wasn't really dressed for a hike, I was tired, and admittedly, had sort of a sour attitude. Needless to say, the map was VERY deceiving. What should have been a 20 minute hike, turned into an 80+ minute hike, a very, very, steep 80 minute hike. And I grumbled, and complained, and rolled my eyes while rolling up my sleeves. But then I stopped complaining and I looked around at the beauty that surrounded me, and kept climbing. When we finally reached our destination, I was treated to the view pictured above, and it was worth it. We made our way down, climbed into the car for the ride home, and I felt great. Tired. Exhilarated. Alive. The hike reminded of how good exercise makes me feel when I make the time to do it, how it challenges the body. How I need the challenge of the body at this juncture of my life that is so driven by the exhilaration of the mind. Much like the weekend, the hike embodied the need for a different sort of balance in my life. Something I'm cultivating for 2011.
The Intellectual:
This one is easy. Intellectually, I felt most alive this year when I got my first set of sample pages back from the publisher a month or two ago. My first book is coming out in June. I've spent the better part of 10 years working on this project in one way or another and to see my words in print, so beautifully illustrated and wonderfully laid out by the talented folks at Yale University Press just took my breath away. I thought, "All of this has just been SO worth it." It was a terrific moment, and one that we don't get to experience very often, even as academics.
The Emotional:
Last month a friend called and asked me a favor. She is friends with an older couple and the husband had just been diagnosed with the same sort of melanoma I had five years ago. In fact, he was about to begin the same year long course of chemotherapy I underwent in 2005-2006, and even had my same doctor. She asked me if I would talk to the husband and wife. They had many questions, wanted to talk to someone who had similar experiences. I of course said yes. I wonder if people realize that when they ask you to talk about your cancer experience that in some way, this request causes you to relive the experience. This is not always a good thing. It's not always a bad thing. I never minded talking about it when I was going through it--it helped me to know that other people knew what I was going through and I hoped they would never have to experience it themselves. But the further you're removed from the physical and mental experience of cancer, you tend to forget just how tough the whole experience really was. This July marked my fifth year anniversary of diagnosis, and I'm still cancer free--for my particular type of cancer, this is really a milestone. I should have felt most alive in this sense [really, physically alive] in July, but instead it happened in November.
I was driving home from a conference in Boston when I got the call from the couple. He asked me many questions about the treatment--he was a straightforward kind of guy--like me--asked me not to pull any punches. I didn't, the treatment is hard. And as he asked me to describe the side effects of the drug, I did. And I remembered them, all of them. The whole year just came back to me in such a visceral way, and I thought to myself--HOW did I do that? How did I take this course of therapy, go to Field Hockey Practice, stand up in front of a room of 250 students and lecture, work every day? Short answer: I'm so stubborn--I refused to let a drug define how I lived my life. But speaking to this man twice my age about to embark upon this treatment, I also remembered how, during this treatment, I could not ignore signals from my body. When I was tired, I slept. There was no pushing through fatigue and grading just five more papers. There was no pushing through fatigue and answering a few more emails. There was fatigue, acceptance, and rest. And how I've managed to forget the best part of the treatment--this acceptance of rest, is beyond me. How I've returned to the same bad habits of working too hard and not listening to my body is also beyond me. But this phone conversation brought it all back. I'm glad I spoke with this gentleman. I know I helped him. But I know he understands now what he could not have understood on the phone--no matter what someone tells you about the side effects, you can not fully understand how difficult a drug this is until you start taking it. And I think about him every day, and hope he's doing OK. And after we hung up the phone, I felt very alive, simply because, five years later, perhaps because of this course of treatment, I am.
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