For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will long to return.
Leonardo da Vinci
I took to the friendly skies (luckily) for a stay in Princeton, the Central Jersey Shore and Philadelphia. I'm visiting good friends for a week. My first trip since my breast cancer 2 years ago. Won't go into details about why it took so long, just that it did.
It takes an earthquake to remind us that we walk on the crust of an unfinished earth.
Charles Kuralt
As a transplant to California I have yet (and hope to never) experience a major earthquake other then a quick jolt. Early this morning I was awoken with calls from family and friends wondering if I was all right and had I felt the earthquake. My first response was, "There was an earthquake?" Then a quick Google search demonstrated how badly it had hit.
I was lucky. The section of Northern California where I live didn't feel the effects. A friend in San Francisco told me she had been awoken by it, but there weren't any detrimental effects. I've often debated with native Californians that I would rather be in a tornado or hurricane, because more often then not you can get out of the way. And I've experienced both. At the end of the day though, I'd rather never be in any of the three ever again.
Here's being grateful that the harm and damage wasn't worst (although bad enough) and hoping "the big one" will never arrive in my lifetime.
Use your smile to change the world, but don't let the world change your smile
During the past 18 months I found I had lost my motivation, my direction and even a sense of purpose. While I cannot say fully what the total cause was, I know a big part of it. The post breast cancer medication I took. I tried to be a "good patient" and do what I was told to do so I could get the thumbs up from my medical providers. What no one really covered or wanted to believe were the side effects of the medication. Inflamed joints, constant pain, sleeplessness, even depression. Finally I had had enough and after not being able to get off the floor one night and thoughts about if life was worth living like this, I made the decision to stop the medication. My providers were not initially thrilled, but then my oncologist told me on the first visit post stopping the medication; "I think you made the right choice for yourself. The last visit before you stopped the medication, you didn't smile, you cried and that was the first time during the whole time in two years that you did that. Today you were smiling again."
I appreciated his honesty and that he got it. My life is getting back on track. I'm reopening the door to old passions and finding new ones. Life will never be what it was, but I am making it the best I can. I went to the mountains to celebrate my birthday last week. A friend and I camped. My dog decided she wanted to visit my friend's RV and her smile engaged mine. The world came into focus and seemed all right for the first time in awhile.
It's been a tough couple of weeks world, but keeping smiling, it's all we got.
You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.
Robin Williams
It took something major to bring me back to my blog.
Losing Robin Williams affected me along with millions of others. His death resonates in a way that hits so many chords in so many hearts. Robin was a shining light and inspiration in places of darkness. I know when I went through my Mom's cancer and then mine, his comedy skits on my MP3 player got me though many a dark hour at night. The lose of him affects us all so much because we need all the bright lights we can have in this challenged world. To have one go out too soon feels unbearable.
