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!