Three years ago today...

Three years ago today my dear friend Liz Colligan ended her battle with cancer. A few months before she died I was complaining about getting old. Liz responded that she would give anything to get older, to see her boys, Jonah and Max, get older. I haven't forgotten that talking-to...it is why I embarked on my experiment of celebrating my 40th year.

Today I arrived in Madrid to begin a trip to do just that. And I find myself reflecting on irony of loss that leaves permanent marks...scars even...and simultaneously makes us want to live life more fully, more authentically, more courageously, more joyfully.

I miss my friend. And I am so very grateful for her passionate, wise correction that planted itself in my heart and is only now beginning to bear fruit. So I will spend these next two weeks on a very cool trip...but I will not do it just to have a good time but to live gratefully and fully...

Let's be honest, it might not be all that...But that is what I am aiming towards. We'll see how it goes:-)

Leaning on the outside edge

A few years ago I took a class called the Art & Practice of Leadership (http://ksgexecprogram.harvard.edu/Programs/apl/overview.aspx).  As a part of that class we did an exercise designed to illuminate our competing commitments that cause us to not do the things that we really want to do.  To make a long story a bit shorter, the underlying assumption that my immunity map (Immunity to Change, Robert Kegan 2009 - http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_7?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=immunity+to+change&sprefix=immunit%2Caps%2C241) uncovered was the belief that that if I am out of control I will die.  I know it sounds a bit melodramatic but in fact many…maybe most…of my inactions could be traced back to this underlying, ever-present, deeply-held belief.

According to the leaders of the class, the only way to overcome or renovate such an assumption is to design an experiment that truly tests the validity of the belief.  For mine, that meant that I had to design an experiment where death was truly possible…but not imminent!  I pondered what such an experiment might look like for quite awhile, for months actually.

Finally, it hit me.  Skiing!  At the time, it had been 22 years since my last skiing attempt.  And it was not pretty.  The most vivid memory I have of the last time I skied, at fifteen, is wiping out so fantastically that my poles went flying, my skis came off…my boots came off…the linings of my boots came off…You get the picture.  I think the woman who came down the hill behind me really expected to find me dead!

So in March of 2010, for the first time in 22 years, I went skiing.  For some reason I found myself compelled almost, to test the assumption that if I am out of control I will die.  I took lessons.  I limped around.  I loved it!  And I have skied every season since then.

Here is what I am beginning to understand as I reflect back on the success…or learnings…from my experiment.  Every time I take a lesson they emphasize that you need to lean on the outside edge of your ski as you go into a turn in order to be in control of the turn.  The crazy thing about that, is that in that moment that I lean on the outside edge everything in my body and mind screams, “You idiot!  Why would you do that?  You are leaning away from the hill!”  And in in that moment it feels like the absence of control.  Honestly, it still occurs to me that death is a very real possibilityJ 

But it is that very act of leaning onto the outside edge that allows me control and freedom all at once.  I am beginning to think that leaning into the fear and doing what feels fundamentally counter-intuitive to my instincts, is in fact the thing which allows for courage and mastery and joy even!

I am reflecting on skiing but truly it’s life isn’t it?  I lean into fear, willfully choosing the moment of feeling out of control, in the service of living with courage and steadiness and joy.  Ah…maybe that is the essence of vulnerability.  Leaning into that which terrifies me only to find so much abundance on the other side.   I am beginning to believe that life has an outside edge as well…

So…I keep taking lessons and I keep skiing.  And I am finding joy instead of fear.  I am finding courage instead of caution.  But even now there is that moment where I am certain that leaning on the outside edge is utter folly. But I lean into what I know to be true that control is merely a convincing illusion unless I lean on the outside edge.  And on the hill, and even in the rest of my life, I find myself laughing outloud at pure beauty and joy of it all.  And the fruit of the experiment is spilling over.  It is coloring my beliefs of what it means for me to exercise leadership in the service of something worthwhile.  It is seeping into my most treasured relationships…

So I persist in leaning on the outside edge.  And ironically, I am wiping out less often…and I am even beginning to believe that wiping out won’t kill me and so I lean…

At the precipice of 2012

I spent New Year's Eve at my dear friends' Sara and Derek's place - with their awesome boys Declan and Jack and another couple.  I took the train home at about 11:45 PM - yes, you read that correctly, I left right before the proverbial ball dropped!  It is about 5 stops on the L and a bit of a walk so I had some time to reflect.  I, in fact, thought about the profound and witty post I might post for New Year's.  I couldn't decide whether it was better to celebrate the end of  a long, rather hard year.  Or to celebrate the end of a year of growing and realizing what is really important. 

There it is again, that both/and.  I was struck that 2011 was a year of both/and at almost every moment.  My brother has an awful relapse of cancer and my niece Lillian made her enterance into the world. 

My parents' are selling the house of my childhood...of my becoming and little Jack announced his presence to the world. 

Work was crazy and hard and full of people that I have grown to love and treasure.  I am blessed to do work that I love and my work leaves me weary and a bit rootless.

Both/and.  Cheers to 2011!  I have this longing that 2012 will be a year of deeper, healthier roots, of wonderful moments with the little people in my life, of seasons of stillness without panic, of work that is meaningful and healthy, of dear friends, of the absence of cancer and sickness, a year full of thriving and time with those I love...

For the love of a two-year old

It is New Year's Day.  I should be writing resolutions but I have been mulling over the power of a two-year old all week yet haven't gotten around to writing.  I spent Christmas in Maine with my family.  While I stayed at my parents' house, it meant lots of time with my niece and nephew.  Lillian is lovely, a master of charming smiles already, but she doesn't talk yet - and still her mom is the one she needs/wants most.

My nephew Daniel on the other hand is a master of language and pretty much runs Nana, Papa, my two brothers and me! I don't do silly.  I have, in fact, organized my life, my profession around facilitating so that I don't have to actually do the silly stuff.  As those of you who know me well have heard tell, I even picked Wheaton as a college partially because you couldn't dance...and I don't dance.  To me, it's always been the picture of being willfully out of control.  And that is just an inconceivable choice to me.

And yet, Daniel tells me to "Dance!" and I dance.  And I am quite certain I look ridiculous.  The funnier part of the story is that I am in fact dancing to the ring of my parents' phone.  This past summer I did a bit of a jig for him - including a heel kick and all - to the song of the phone.  And somehow he hasn't forgotten.

Such is the power of a two-year old.  He doesn't care if I know what I want to be when I grow up or whether I have it all together or even if I look silly.  He in fact loves me just because.  And even crazier, I love him just because.  I would dance or play silly games or look the fool or do pretty much anything for him - and for Lillian - because I love them. 

Love is a funny thing to me.  It is complicated and dysfunctional and life-giving all at once.  My extended family decided to get together at Pizza Hut on Christmas Eve.  Now I don't do Pizza Hut.  I'm a bit of a food snob.  I don't even make brownies from a box unless they are Ghiradelli:-)  And I definitely don't eat Pizza Hut pizza!  But I went to Pizza Hut...in the parking lot of the mall...because for better or worse I love my family. 

The things we do for love, for love of family, for the love of friends, for the love of a two year who can get me to dance to ringtones...it is a mysterious, beautiful, humbling thing...

The first day of my 40th year

I cut my hair short today.  It seemed like something needed to change, or at least needed to mark the beginning of the 40th year of my life. 

Yesterday was my 39th birthday.  In the past I haven't been a huge fan of my birthday.  It may have something to do with the fact that it is so close to Christmas that it often got mushed in with the rest of the holiday.  As an adult though, I think it has had more to do with the reality that birthdays mark the gap between my reality and what I thought my life would look like.  So I used to avoid them, critique them, downplay them...

Almost three years ago when my friend Liz was in the last few months of her battle with breast cancer I made a sarcastic comment about not wanting to get old.  To that she responded that she would give anything to have another birthday, to get old, to be there for her boys birthdays...so I just needed to be grateful for the chance to get old.  I can still her.  Even almost two and half years after her death, I can still hear her every time I start to complain about getting old, to mourn what my life isn't. 

So I am thinking about how I want to mark this year, how I will celebrate getting old!  In honor of my friend Liz.  In honor of my brother. Even if it doesn't look the way I expected it to and even hoped it would. 

Yesterday I went to therapy in the morning.  Yes, you read that correctly - I spent the morning of my birthday with my therapist!  (As you read this you are probably either thinking I am crazy or you can totally relate!)  He asked me what a healthy life for me would look like.  As I was leaving his office he stopped to remind me what a good question he thought that was - and that while he didn't know what that would like he was pretty sure it would be courageous and vulnerable and boundary-setting for me.  That's right, I pay a guy to tell me I'm going to have to do what I really don't want to do, feel entirely exposed while doing it and have to renegotiate the terms of the relationships that are most important to me...I am quite certain that I don't have any idea yet what that is going to look like.

 And in a flash I am right back at both/and.  A year full of disequilibrium and fear and liberation and hope all at once... 

Home

As I write I am sitting in the airport in San Diego...heading home.  Or at least headed home to the loft I own, to the address where my mail is delivered.  I love my loft.  It's familiar and comfortable but even there I find myself feeling like a stranger at times.  Not at home in my own home!

Maybe it lies in the fact that in many ways my loft is just a piece of geography.  I've been reflecting on what it takes for my heart to be at home. I've always been a bit of an old, unsettled soul.  I have spent the majority of my life internally wrestling with angst of some sort, wistfully looking for the next adventure.

For the last three years, my job has been the seemingly perfect fit for me.  I travel most days of most weeks of the year.  This trip that is ending has taken me to Kansas City, Norfolk, Raleigh, Denver, Steamboat Springs and San Diego...and 10 days.  As of today...before the two flights I have that will get me to Chicago, I have flown 163 flights so far this year and spent approximately 140 nights in a hotel.  And you thought a ski trip without skiing was pathetic!

I have this friend who lives in Santa Barbara with her husband and two adorable girls.  Gurney is one of my  oldest friends.  We've known each other since we started college over 20 years ago but over the last 5 years she has become even dearer to me.  (A wonderful benefit of my life on the road...) One of the crazy things I've experienced is that my heart is at home when I am with her and her family.  When I visit I stay at their house - which may seem like nothing to you but staying at people's houses makes me want to crawl out of my skin:-)  It's not that my friends are weird it's just that I seldomly feel at home.  But when I am at Gurney's house I relax.  I can breathe.  I can be loved - and believe it.  I can be still (see previous entry!).  It is a gift to me every time I am there, and I surprised by the pleasure of it every time!

What I am beginning to think is that maybe my soul sometimes longs for what isn't best for it.   Maybe my soul's longing/instinct to explore, be independent, be moving is born out of fear rather than some other, more noble lineage.  Maybe rather than the next adventure...or the next flight...or the next hotel room...my soul needs home. And maybe for the undragon-ing of me to be done I need roots and a home that is more than geography.   I am quite certain that the pursuit of my soul being at home may cost me something...which is likely why I am so inclined to avoid the ponderings in the direction of home...

A ski trip with no skiing

Maybe yet another example of both/and...

I have to admit I am feeling more than a little pathetic at the moment.  I am just about to leave Steamboat Springs after a bit of a holiday.  Due to my travel schedule I had acquired some free resort nights and ended up with a slopeside, 2-bedroom condo...where for various reasons I ended up alone.  That's right.  I had a beautiful, condo that was bigger than my loft steps away from the ski lift...and I never even went skiing!  And this was the view from my balcony.

In my defense, there isn't much snow at all here and the locals said it's icier than they've ever seen it.  But still it was more my head and heart that kept me from the slopes than the quality of the snow.  Ironically, given how I challenge others, I leave very little time for reflection and quiet in my own life.  I leave the TV on in my hotel room, I play NPR when I go to sleep, I always have music playing when I'm working.  There is very little stillness  - around me or inside of me.  I think I might believe that if I keep moving, keep the noise on that I won't be overwhelmed by what is percolating in my head/heart.

Today my aunt is starting chemotherapy for the breast cancer that they found just over 3 weeks ago.  She went in for her regular physical and they found cancer in both her breasts.  A week later she was having a double-mastectomy, today chemo starts, then radiation, then...Her biological kids are grown but they have young ones that they have adopted.  And now they all will know this cancer thing that seems so pervasive in my world.

And at the same time my brother Steve is done with chemo...for now.  He won't really know much of anything until they do scans on January 20th.  But the relief of not being sick for 12 out 14 days is almost enough for now.  The neuropathy in his feet and hands caused by the chemo drugs may or may not go away...Yet he is still amazing.  Gracious, diligent, humble.

I'm reading a book called The Emperor of all Maladies:  A Biography of Cancer.  It traces the history of cancer, and its treatment and its pioneers.  It is both awful and inspiring, heart-breaking and hopeful...and I find myself having to take breaks as I read the stories of the people I love who are fighting this disease wrapped up in the lives of those who have come before.  

Over the course of this ski trip with no skiing I have found myself wrestling with what it means to be hopeful without being delusional.  It's not a new pondering...but I still don't have it figured out.  And I find that the dragon that is still in me, that is still me, would almost rather choose hopelessness over heartbreak, the heartbreak that is wrapped up in praying, hoping for healing for my brother, for my aunt...

So that was my ski trip...maybe next time I will actually ski!

The undragon-ing of me

I have been thinking a lot about the undragoning of Eustace in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis.  I could tell you the whole story but I will let you read it for yourself.  The part I've been reflecting on is his description of how Aslan undragons him...As Eustace describes his adventure he tells his cousin of his efforts to undragon himself - his entirely futile efforts to undragon himself.

"Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke - 'You will have to let me undress you.'  I was afraid of his claws.  I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now.  So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.  The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart.  And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt.  The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place.  It hurts like billy-o but it is such fun to see it coming away...Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass...And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been."

The dragon skin that Aslan peeled off was thick and scaly and ugly.  And it was very much like the skin I find myself trying to shed.  But alone, I pick at it and look down and find it back again.   How do I lose the stuff of me that is dragon-like?  How do I settle for being 'smaller than I had been?' 

My best friend had her second baby this past week.  He is a beautiful, perfect little guy named Jack (he is the little brother of my awesome godson Declan!).  He came home from the hospital on Thanksgiving day and I went over and hung out with him and parents and spent his first night at home with him so his parents  could get some sleep.

He is lovely.  He just hung out on my lap Thanksgiving afternoon.  He is sweet and adorable. And at the same time he makes my heart ache with the acknowledgement that I am going to spend my life holding other people's babies, not my own.  And the dragon emerges...I thought I was fine, good with the reality that is my life...and yet the dragon comes back...And for all of my scratching and pulling and longing I can't undragon me.  I love this little boy already.  And yet that love is complicated and aching and genuine all at once.  Yet another example of both and it seems.

I can't shed the dragon-ness...I need an Aslan it seems...can't undragon me on my own...

The day after...the marathon

It’s the day after…the marathon that is.  It wasn’t very pretty.  When I say that, I mean that it took me 6:25 to cover 26.2 miles.  To put it more precisely, I ran my first marathon in 1999 in 4:28!  But I have to say, I think this race might go down as one of those moments, the kind you are marked by.  Nevermind that I’m having a bit of trouble walking normallyJ!

Yesterday was a beautiful Chicago day. My brother Mark came out from Maine to be here for the marathon - and for Steve.  And Steve was able to come down, in spite of how rough chemo has been.  So they both came down yesterday morning to cheer me on.  Mark met me at mile 13 and kept me company for about 3.5 miles. 

One of the pictures that is stuck in my head is coming around the corner at Jackson onto Halsted in Greektown (which if you know my brother Steve’s love for Greek Islands, is entirely appropriate!). 

 Suddenly in front of me is my 6’5” brother Steve, holding up a LIVESTRONG banner cheering for people he didn’t know, who he saw in yellow LIVESTRONG shirts, cheering them on as they ran their own marathon that I think would pale in comparison to the one he is running.

I had a tag on the back of my shirt as I ran…walked…

At one point, a girl ran past me and said, “Your brother would be proud!”  She was being sweet and kind and encouraging.  But I wanted to shout, “Wait, he is proud…it isn’t past tense!”   And so I kept going.  To prove somehow that this story isn’t done.  No matter how it ends, it isn’t done.  It is being written still.

I am learning to share my own story, to revel in the aching comfort it is to have people draw near and walk/run with me.  I run to be with my brother.  And people gave money generously and cheered me on yesterday and checked in on me to “run” with me.  And life is richer and more hopeful and bearable and joyful because I don’t run alone.  Even if at times I would prefer that.   So thank you.   Those words are entirely insufficient but necessary.  Thank you for not leaving me or my brother to run alone.  I will be forever grateful. 

the night before the marathon

In less than twelve hours I will be joining 45,000 other runners to run the Chicago Marathon.  As I've said before, I have signed up for Chicago 10 out of the last 11 years but I haven't actually run it since 2000.  Yes, you read correctly, I have paid 9 other times to run a race I haven't run.  But this year is different.

I joined Team LIVESTRONG right after I found out about my brother Steve's diagnosis back in May.  I began sharing my story, my brother's story, and people - maybe even you - responded with a generosity that defied every expectation I had.  (The latest number is $11,050 raised to serve those who are living strong with cancer!)  So I kept sharing my story.

Here is the funny thing about stories - or at least true stories.  They open the door for people to come closer.  I have to admit that is way out of my comfort zone.  I've always been a decent storyteller.  Though mostly I relied on telling other people's stories.  I never really thought at all about why I did that until this season.

Other's people's stories require no vulnerability.  They don't require that I give something of my own heart.  They don't invite people to draw close to me, to share my life.  But this story, the one of my brother having cancer, and my niece being born and things not being nearly as neat and pretty as I want them to be...is mine.  It's all wrapped up with who I am and who I am becoming.  I have to give something of myself without proof that it will be honored, cared for, or even matter to anyone.  I've been struck over these last months at how painful people drawing close can be.  People I barely know drawing close.  To share their own story, to encourage me...And sometimes, all I want to do is run.  I don't want people that close.  But then I realize that it truly is a healing sort of pain...both/and yet again.

I've never done things I don't know how to do well.  I don't do things that will make me look (nevermind be!) incompetent.  Because let's be clear, vulnerability and even authenticity are not things easily come by for me.  So I'm running the marathon tomorrow.  It isn't likely to be pretty.  I haven't trained nearly as much as i should have this last month on the road.  It's going to be hot - and I'm not a fan of hot.  If I'm being honest I so don't want to run tomorrow morning.  I'd rather go 11 for 11!

But then I am stopped.  Stopped as I remember that this race is not for winning or looking competent.  This one is for my brother.  So that he will  know that I and hundreds of others are running with him.  And just like you can't run for me, I can't run the race he finds himself in for him either. But my hope is that he will be encouraged and humbled and strengthened to know that we are all with him.  And if I'm really honest, running is also for me, to practice paying attention to what really matters...

I'm beginning to think that living strong might actually mean living vulnerable, living honest, living hopeful...so tomorrow I run.

Both/And

I used to be very comfortable living in a black and white world.  I don't mean I liked the absence of color but more that I loved the absence of ambiguity.  People were good or bad.  One choice was right, the other was wrong. 

This season of my life is one that has reinforced the idea that things can be both/and..good and bad, joyful and painful, heart-breaking and hopeful...all in one single moment.  I can't find black and white anymore.

You know that my brother is sick.  Cancer is awful.  Steve is an amazing person.  He is brilliant...and humble.  He has Stage IV metastatic colorectal cancer...and he is teaching and working on his Ph.D.  The combination of Oxaliplatin and Xeloda is making him horribly sick...and it might save his life.  He is sick and I want to be more like him. 

My brother is the living picture of life in the Both/And.

This weekend I found myself dwelling in this land of both/and.

I went back to Maine, where I grew up, to be there for the birth of my new niece.  Lillian Esther arrived at 12:56 AM on Sunday morning.  For some reason my sister allowed me to be there for the labor and delivery.  It's the second time I've actually witnessed a baby making their appearance in the world. And it doesn't get less amazing.  To watch my  little sister do a VBAC with a 9 pound, 8 ounce little girl - to be in the worst pain of her life and to experience the greatest joy she could know - was a picture of both/and.  If you've ever witnessed a baby being born you know it may be one of the goryiest things possible - and the beauty of it brings you to tears.  Seriously, you see things they don't ever tell you in your sex ed classes.  But when my little niece appeared the blood and gore was instantaneously transformed into the purest picture of life that there is. 

Then there was my nephew Daniel.  He was both entirely disinterested and enamored all at once.  He was both blissfully ignorant and keenly aware that his entire world is changing.  He will both love his sister and protect her above all others - and she will take his toys and make him want to give her back all at once.  Both/and.

How do I live gracefully in the midst of both/and?  My brother has cancer and my niece just entered the world with her entire life in front of her.  The overwhelming threat of a life too short and the promise of a whole life to be lived.   The story I told myself of my family is 

disintigrating in front of me - and my niece Lillian is the promise of a hope and a future.  Both/and. 

I have to be entirely honest.  I long for black and white.  But I am convinced that black and white is an illusion.  The truth lies, I am beginning to believe, in the both/and... 

Chemotherapy

I spent the afternoon hanging out with my brother while he had chemo. At this point in the game, the Oxaliplatin makes his hands and feet tingle, and he can't walk on the tile floor after he has it because of the sensitivity to cold.  The hairs on his skin even hurt as clothing touches them. 

He told me today that the Dr. said that breathing cold air in the winter will feel like breathing in broken glass...but not to worry, it doesn't cause any harm.  That didn't actually sound all that encouraging to me!

Tonight he has to take the Xeloda - the drug that made him really sick last time - and we'll see how his body decides to dance wiht the poison that is designed to save his life.  Today we were sitting next to this woman who must have been in her eighties.  She was very sweet and I'm so very sorry that she has cancer.  She obviously has lived life well, surrounded by her grown daughters who obviously love her. 

Steve hasn't had that chance yet, he is just at the beginning really.  And that seems abundantly wrong to me...I might actually hate it...

Today I had to stop myself from saying to Steve that I wished I could take his place.  Because I'm beginning to think that wish is more about me than it is about him.  So all I can do is say I'm sorry...and be present and make stupid jokes, and run...And it doesn't feel like it's nearly enough.

On a related note, the Chicago Marathon is now just around the corner.  When I look at how strong my brother is and how graciously he is navigating this, I am convinced that he could be the mascot for LIVESTRONG!  If you would still like to join me in supporting my brother http://run.livestrong.org/teamls2011/janetkafkas.

Heat...

At some point I'm certain I will post entertaining commentary on an evening out on the town...but at the moment I can't pull that off.

I have always been good in a crisis.  Seriously, I am pretty amazing:-)  That being said, I've wondered over these last months why I feel so persistently inept at navigating this season at all - nevermind gracefully.  I am still amazed at my ability to feel stoic one minute and entirely fall apart the next. 

Several years ago I read a book called Leadership on the Line, by Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky.  It's all about this framework called adaptive leadership.  The one concept that has been haunting me as of late is their idea that in order to exercise leadership you have to increase your ability to absorb and tolerate heat.  It's an interesting concept...that in order to help people to truly grow and develop and thrive I have to be able to tolerate increasing amounts of heat (read disequilibrium, tension, stress, all-out disintegration!) so that I can hold myself and others to the work that really matters.

Fast forward to the last few months and my identity crisis over why I can't be the rockstar I've always told myself I am in a crisis.  I'm beginning to think that it's because crises are often shortlived events, moments in time that pass relatively quickly.  This season...my brother's cancer, family realities, work stuff...it doesn't seem to have an end.  I can't just buck up and stick it out for 2 days or 2 weeks or even 2 months. 

The diagnosis of Stage IV metastatic colorectal cancer in my brother's lung was in a way a sort of momentary crisis.  Even the surgery to remove the tumor and half of his lung was another crisis of sorts.  So I could sit in the waiting room, make calls for my parents, update folks on his progress...I could be steadfast and confident in those crisis.  I could even raise money for LIVESTRONG and run the Chicago Marathon for Steve (http://run.livestrong.org/teamls2011/janetkafkas).

But I can't execute my way through my "little" brother having a cancer that may not go away.  My only option is to be delusional (not my first choice!)...or to figure out a way to absorb the heat so the system that is me, that is my family, that is my world doesn't implode.  Instead of being able to do something I find myself just needing to be present...without in fact being able to do anything at all.  And I hate that.  I want to fix something - not just intentionally absorb the heat that seems bound to blow up this system I dwell in...

I've been telling the story of my "paying attention" epiphany in the course of work a lot these days.  If I'm really honest, it's all for my benefit.  I need to remind myself that this isn't about fixing things.  I can't cure Steve's cancer.  I can't do chemo for him.  I can't fix a multitude of other things that scream for a crisis-queen.  I'm beginning to think that that isn't the work that I'm supposed to be about. 

I'm beginning to think that my work is to learn to absorb the heat without trying to fix what isn't mine to fix.  And it appears that it is only continuing to get hotter.  The funny thing is that I've always hated the heat.  Seriously, I would be totally content if the temperature never got over 65!  God has a very ironic sense of humor it seems...

Milemarkers

I've had a lot of time to reflect on milemarkers recently.   On one hand they are very literal for me.  I'm training for the Chicago Marathon right now which means I think about milemarkers almost every day.  In the service of full disclosure, I've registered for Chicago 10 out of the last 11 years...and I haven't run it since 2000!!  But this time around I'm raising money for LIVESTRONG (http://run.livestrong.org/teamls2011/janetkafkas) in support of my brother Steve as he wrestles with Stage IV colorectal cancer (www.stevekafkas.blogspot.com).  And almost 70 people have given almost $7000...and hundreds know I'm running and why.  So I have to run.  I have to pass the milemarkers...along the lakefront in Chicago, in Kansas City tomorrow morning, in Maine around Back Bay this weekend...

On the other hand there are the more symbolic, proxy sorts of markers and they are about more than miles.  They mark something I feel like I have control over when I can't fix it for my brother.  When I can't fight this fight for him.  They mark the passing of time with him...

This past weekend I flew into Boston and drove to Maine (three States and more milemarkers!) for my 20th High School Reunion.  Crazy!  I can't quite figure out how that happened.  Many people look the same except they have children, teenagers even.  But to be honest, names eluded me often!  Another milemarker, noting the passing of time which I often entirely disregard.  My dad even offered to drive me and pick me up...too many milemarkers have passed now for me to take him up on that.  A girl can't go back...

And I saw my nephew Daniel.  He just turned 20 months old.  I saw him two months ago, and Skyped with him last week, and yet he has changed so much. 

Milemarkers.

He discovered the word "Yucky" this weekend.  He said it over and over and over again, dissolving into giggles every time.  Which of course left me (and all of the other mature, grown adults!) dissolving in giggles too!  In the last week he started giving hugs and kisses too, full-on open mouth kisses that every two-year gives.  How did that happen?  I can remember holding him and kissing his head when he was just three weeks old at his first Christmas.

Milemarkers.

In my first entry in this blog I shared with you my revelation about the importance of paying attention.  How quickly I forget my own revelations.  Paying attention to the things that matter is work.  It doesn't just happen.  How do I pay attention to what matters when the smallest, insignificant things consume my attention?

Milemarkers.

The milemarkers matter.  But in order to catch them you have to pay attention.  Have you ever been driving and realized that 10 miles have passed since you saw the last milemarker?   Candidly, it's happened to me.  I even sometimes miss the milemarkers on the running path that I know by heart and have run past hundreds of time.  Milemarkers.

Steve starts chemo again on August 19th.  Milemarkers.  The house I grew up in, the house that has been my parents' home for over three decades goes on the market on August 16th.  Milemarkers.  I got to see my soon-to-arrive niece Lily doing gymnastics in my sister's belly.  Milemarkers.  I don't want to miss the milemarkers that matter. 

Milemarkers.

Milemarkers show us how far we've come, make us aware of how much is left.  I want to pay attention to the markers, the joyful, terrifying, heartbreaking, hopeful markers that make me.  I want to pay attention to the people who can see the milemarkers when I can't, who can remind me of their significance.  I want to celebrate the milemarkers that mark the journey and are making me.   I don't much like some of the milemarkers that are visible these days, but they are important even so and maybe even more so...

So already I'm back where I started, humbled by the challenge to pay attention.  Pay attention dear heart, weary heart, hopeful heart...pay attention to the milemarkers.

one week later

A week ago today my brother Steve had surgery to remove the tumor - and the lower lobe of his left lung.  They were able to do a video-assisted surgery which meant that all of this was done through 3 slits in his side.  The surgery itself took just over 2 hours.  By Friday afternoon, just 57 hours after being admitted, Steve was on his way home - in a great deal of pain, but on his way home.  He is now home and healing - and he is even teaching a class this week!

He had half of lung removed and amazingly life goes on.  I honestly don't know what I thought was going to happen.  It seems like a Stage IV cancer diagnosis or having surgeons removing part of the organ that allows you to breathe should stop everything.  But it doesn't.

Steve's surgery was on July 20th.  July 21st was the two year anniversary of my dear friend Liz Colligan ending her wrestling with breast cancer just days after her 37th birthday.  I still can hear her laugh - she had a beautiful, infectious laugh.  She loved fiercely.  She fought to make memories and multiply the moments with her husband and her two little boys with all of us that she loved.  And she fought...with courage and grace that still can bring me to tears.  Liz died...and time went on.  My little brother has this crazy surgery and life goes on - and is the same and changed all at once. 

I can't see around the corner with this.  But witnessing Steve move through this season is already changing me.  Time doesn't stop just because the surgery is done.  He is moving on with more painful breaths and more hope.  How do pain and fear dwell simultaneously with an abiding, confident hope?   

Undone...

Back in April of this year I visited Paris for the first time.  I was by myself so it was a bit of a solitary holiday.  I went to the Louvre of course.  There was a special exhibit there called "Rembrandt and the faces of Christ."  Regardless of your personal beliefs, it's pretty well accepted that Jesus of Nazareth was an amazing teacher.  The whole premise of the exhibit was that Rembrandt was the first artist to focus on the affects of Jesus' teachings on those who were listening.

When I returned home someone asked me what struck me about the exhibit.  As I pondered it, I realized I was struck by the impression that all of those listening seemed undone.  I hate being undone.  I mean, I do everything in my power to stay in control, to be in control.  But what if undone isn't merely weakness but a necessary posture on the way to being whole...What if undone is the posture of simultaneous vulnerability and strength?  What if undone-ness is necessary to wholeness, to me being who I am meant to be?

On my last night in Paris I received an email from Steve that they had found a spot on his lung...ah, the beginning of my undone-ness...of my done-ness.  How do I choose vulnerabilty?  How do I persistently reside in the land of disequilibrium that causes growing?  How do I choose undone when everything in me screams for control?

I've watched my brother navigate this journey and I find myself a bit in awe.  He manages to be honest and candid without being whiny, to be hopeful without being delusional, to be vulnerable and amazingly strong.  He lives undone on the way to done-ness...and it is a beautiful thing! (www.stevekafkas.blogspot.com)

This whole journey of running the marathon (again!), of joining the Team Chicago LIVESTRONG (http://run.livestrong.org/teamls2011/janetkafkas), of sharing even bits of the story with people is my grand experiment in living life undone.  How do I live simultaneously strong and vulnerable?  I find myself in moments wanting to be bold and strong and fierce for my brother, for my parents, for my siblings and in the next dissolving  into a heap of sadness and fear and tears on the floor...I am beginning to think that that is the essence of life undone...of living in the both/and...

Pay attention!

This season seems to demand a record.  So here it goes.

On May 12th, 2011 my 32 year old brother Steve was diagnosed with metastatic colorectal cancer - with a 4.5 cm tumor on his left lung.  My brother is an exceptional man who is an amazing 5th grade teacher, a brilliant Ph.D. student and one of the kindest, most authentic people I know.  He was first diagnosed with colorectal cancer 3+ years ago and it wasn't supposed to come back.  When the diagnosis was confirmed I was overwhelmed with a desire to do something, to fix it. 

I am the oldest child of four kids, well we were kids once.  Now we're grown but the innate desire in me to fix and take care of things hasn't waned in adulthood.  But I was an economics major with, let's face it, little hope of curing cancer at this point!  So what did I do?  I called my brother, texted him daily, checked in - likely making him crazy!  He wants things to be normal and I wasn't acting normally:-) 

I found a book by Walter Wangerin called Letters from the Land of Cancer.  They are actual letters he wrote while going through  treatment for lung cancer.  I came across the following passage from one of his letters...

"It is often said that once one confronts an imminent death, he/she changes, thereafter striving to experience each day to the fullest.  Every moment - so goes the conventional talk - must become a lifetime.  Intense awareness, a drilling focus on things present, a hasty cramming of sensations tries to make up for all of the past years of dumb, numb neglect.  Why had they spent all those previous years rushing into tomorrow?  It is because of the sudden brevity of the rest of their lives that they grow greedy for the Now...These final days have become their lifetimes whole.

Nor do I doubt that this talk might be a generalized description of another's response to a terminal illness.

But in my case it seems much simpler.  I find that I just pay attention.

However long or short my personal journey hereafter (a year, years, or half a year) time present remains for me what it always was before: an opportunity to pay attention.  Time doesn't become more intense.  Time is...time.  I am now.  It is enough." (Letters from the Land of Cancer,  Walter Wangerin)

I was stopped by this passage.  Because even as I read, I was trying to cram everything into the moments of Now that I had failed to do before.  I realized that while I so wish my brother Steve didn't have cancer the lesson for me isn't merely a call to make up for lost time (by making him crazy with my hovering!).  It is a call to pay attention.  Pay attention to the things that really matter.  Pay attention to the people who I love and who love me.  Pay attention to what is subtle and not so easily seen.  Pay attention...

So this is part of my experiment in paying attention, in making meaning of the journey that is now.