Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘writing to heal’ Category

Surviving? It’s Not Only About Cancer

Posted in expressive writing, heart disease, life writing, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on August 15, 2019| Leave a Comment »

She is alive.  Although her doctors said

there was nothing to be done, she is home,

planting her summer garden, is not dead,

and plans to eat everything she has grown…

She will live

beyond the harvest and what will not grow

is her tumor…

this is her time

to cultivate and seed.  She is alive.

(From:  “Seed,” by Floyd Skloot, in The Cancer Poetry Project, 2001)

You’ve finished your treatment.  The doctor’s words are something like “cancer free” or “no evidence of disease.”  You’ve beaten the odds.  You’re a survivor.  You celebrate.  But little by little, you find you’re riding on an emotional roller coaster some days, and you can’t seem to get yourself going and doing all you promised you’d do if you survived cancer.  “Why,” you ask a friend or a partner, “do I feel so bad?”

The good news about cancer, according to a 2011 article by Ann McDonald appearing in Harvard Health, is that “nearly 12 million Americans—4% of the population—are still alive after a cancer diagnosis.  While that’s encouraging news and “a testament to improved diagnosis and treatment…survivorship comes at a psychological price.”

McDonald describes three major and common reactions to survivorship:  1)  becoming emotionally paralyzed by the specter of cancer and unable to re-engage with normal life activities, 2) fears of recurrence, when follow-up medical visits and tests or unexplained pain or other symptoms produce worry and anxiety, and 3) feeling guilty when other friends or acquaintances have not survived.  It’s no wonder really.  As Alice Hoffman, novelist and cancer survivor, described it,

These are the chapters of your life that wallop you and teach you and bring you to tears, that invite you to step to the other side of the curtain, the one that divides those of us who must face our destiny sooner rather than later.– NYT Times, August 2000.

Yet, what other choice to do you have but to learn how to survive the crises life sometimes presents to you, whether cancer or some other hardship?   When you are undergoing treatment, surgeries and chemotherapy, the prospect of survival dominates your life.  You want to be a survivor, one, as the Oxford American Dictionary defines as “a person remaining alive after an event in which others have died,” such as those 9/11 survivors or those who survived the sinking of the Titanic.  It is also a term the Oxford defines as “a person who copes well with difficulties in… life,” something that seems virtually synonymous with being human.

What ignites your will to survive and helps you cope and keep going?  It’s different for all of us and yet, so much the same.  Hope is surely one of those things that keeps us going.  The support and love of friends and loved ones are also important to our will to survive–even, at times, those who have yet to be born.

A., a beloved writing group member who died from metastatic breast cancer, demonstrated extraordinary determination to live fully for as long as she could, filling her days with family, friends, travel, and joy. Her oldest daughter was pregnant, and she was determined to survive to be present for her first grandchild’s birth, even though the odds were very much against her.  She died a month after he was born, but she lived to be present at his birth and hold him in her arms for the short time she had left.  I have no doubt that his impending arrival strengthened her will to live and experience the joy of his arrival.

J., another of my former writers, given a terminal diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, evidenced a strong will to survive from the moment I met him.  Not surprisingly, he underwent a bone marrow transplant and intent on living as long as he possibly could, lived for another  five years before dying.  He engaged fully with living during that time, and he wrote poignantly, humorously, and honestly about his cancer struggle in the group and later, on his personal blog. Shortly before he died, he sent me a copy of an essay, entitled “What I’ve Learned,” summarizing the lessons of  his cancer experience.  Among the many bits of wisdom he expressed, he reminded us all that survival, no matter how brief or lengthy, is about living fully, for as long as we have.  Among  J.’s survival tips were:

  • Work at what you love…
  • Travel light.
  • Do what the doctors tell you.
  • Offer support when you can and it will come back to you when you need it.·
  • Cherish the ones you cherish.
  • In the end, all your physical beauty and prowess will leave you. You must still love that person in the mirror
  • We all will die eventually, so find a way to face death without fear. Don’t dwell on death, but enjoy each day as best you can.

He gave us good advice, because in life, we are all survivors of something.  Life is sometimes challenging, and you may face tough chapters to navigate through. Surviving–and surviving well– is something we all have to learn–and relearn–multiple times in our lives.  As your life continues to change, another challenge or difficulty can make you feel uncertain, clumsy or tentative.  But surviving isn’t about giving up.  It requires you learn new ways of being–and that is not always easy or pleasant.

Whether cancer, the effects of aging, unexpected life transitions, from time to time you have to remind yourselves that you’ve  proven, again and again, that you can adjust and move on.  As your life continues to change–in subtle and not so subtle ways–you learn the new movements, necessary strategies and behaviors.  Even better, you may learn how to move beyond “just” surviving and rather, fully embracing the life before you–changed and different perhaps, but yours.  After all, it is the only life you have, and you need to care for it.

…and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,

determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save. 

(From:  “The Journey,” by Mary Oliver, in Dreamwork, 1986)

Writing Suggestions:

  • How do you think of or define “survival?”
  • As a cancer survivor, what advice would you offer others newly diagnosed?
  • Describe a different time, cancer excluded, when life knocked you down.  What got you back on your feet?  What helped you survive?
  • After you were designated “cancer-free,” did you experience any difficulty in learning to live fully again?  What helped you re-engage?

Read Full Post »

July 29, 2019: “But I Didn’t Ask to Join”

Posted in expressive writing, healing arts, life writing, literature and healing, poetry and healing, writing as a way of healing, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on July 29, 2019| 2 Comments »

A few years ago, I received a note from Sister Anne Higgins, author of the blog, “Scattered Showers in a Clear Sky” a blend of narrative, photographs and poetry. 2011, when   Her blog posts continue, more oriented today to current issues, but in 2011, when she first wrote me,  she was going through cancer treatment, and a line from one of her poems, “At the Gettysburg Cancer Center,” still lingers in my mind:   “Here is the club you never want to join…”

Sister Anne’s words reminded me of a phone call I once received from a cancer survivor several years ago soon after she learned I had been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer.  “You’ll find you belong to a private sorority,” she said, “one you never knew existed until now.”  I appreciated her call, but even during my university years, I was never one to join clubs or sororities, and I rang off certain I didn’t want to belong to any “private” cancer sorority or club.  However, I was in denial, a state of numbness and disbelief that would last more than a few days.

I didn’t have a choice, as it turned out; life had forced me into the cancer club.  Many weeks later, during the seven weeks of radiation treatments, I acknowledged my membership when, responding to a writing prompt–one single sentence, “the hospital corridor was dimly lit,” I wrote: “I turn left into the waiting room; a montage of faces greets me:  men, women, a teenage girl, a grade-school boy.  Some with hair; others without.  We are all members of a private club.  We meet each day at 3 p.m., wearing the pale blue hospital gowns, the uniforms of anonymity, as we sit in silence…”

Cancer isn’t the only circumstance or time in your lifes that you may be labeled by hardship, trauma or illness.  In those moments, it’s as if life is dealing from a deck of cards  in game we never even wanted to join, as one former kidney cancer patient described:

Hit me.

Two cards down.  Two more dealt and…the wild card, stark in your hand…the cancer card…you want your discard back; you want to fold…you were so certain you didn’t belong here, in this neighborhood, playing this game, but Oh-Yes-You-Do.

These are the life cards no one wants to be dealt, the memberships and labels you didn’t choose:  cancer survivor, heart patient, war veteran, single parent, homeless, refugee, widows or widowers, living with disability, on and on.  The list is endless, and sometimes, without warning, you suddenly find a new label is thrust upon you. You feel vulnerable, exposed, and even violated, as Molly Redmond describes in her poem, “The Cancer Patient Talks Back,”

It has made me public property, like being largely pregnant.

People invade—an assault of connections—

for reasons fair and foul.

Strangers on elevators. Acquaintances.

The medical cadre too.

Either way,

I am covered with fingerprints, with labels…

(From:  The Cancer Poetry Project, Vol. 1, 2001, Karin Miller, Ed.)

You protest, even try to deny this new reality, as Kathleen Rogers’ poem, “A Woman Argues with the Casting Director,” portrays:

I don’t, don’t want the part.

I really don’t what this part.

I don’t, I don’t believe it will be glamorous.

It won’t be opera, no swooning diva,

No Violetta, no burst of aria…

I told you—didn’t I tell you?—

I don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t want

this part…

(The Cancer Poetry Project, V. 1)

Well, you’ve gotten the part; you’ve drawn the card; you’ve been given the label.  You find you’re in the club you never asked to join.  Now what?

That new label is where you begin. “Cancer patient,” “living with cancer:” these are new identities that introduce new memberships but also strong emotions.  For example, those who attend my expressive writing groups quietly identify themselves as “living with cancer,” and they often express feelings of loneliness and fear as our meetings begin.  As the weeks progress, however, I witness a growing sense of community, support for one another and special understanding that comes from experiences openly shared in their writing.

It is not just face-to-face groups where this happens.  With the growth of online support communities, many newly diagnosed cancer patients turn to the Internet for information and for the social connections formed online.  Social media and online support group opportunities can also be beneficial for those diagnosed and living with cancer.  For example, a randomized controlled trial involving breast cancer patients suggested that “a Web-based support group” could “be useful” in reducing depression, cancer-related trauma and perceived stress.”

While being diagnosed with cancer may introduce you to a private “club” you may be reluctant to join, you may well discover the support of others, similarly diagnosed, helps to diminish your diminish feelings of loneliness, fear and isolation:  that’s a powerful form of medicine that can help you heal.

Writing Suggestions:

This week, think about a time that life circumstances forced you into a category, stuck you with a new identity, or “forced” that unwanted membership upon you.

  • Describe how it felt.  How did you deal with it?
  • Did you find your self-concept challenged?
  • Did it spur you into action or change the way you thought about your illness or situation?
  • Did you join a support group?  Writing group?  Online support group?
  • Did you find a sense of community, of others who understood what you were going through?
  • Write about the experience finding yourself in that club you never asked to join, what you did, and the impact it had on you.

 

 

Read Full Post »

July 17, 2019: Reclaiming Your Life

Posted in expressive writing, healing arts, life writing, literature and healing, writing and spirituality, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on July 17, 2019| 7 Comments »

Every morning, when we wake up, we have 24 brand-new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these 24 hours will bring peace, joy, & happiness to ourselves & others. — –Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist teacher

For a few moments the other day, I was asked by a new acquaintance the question I’ rarely hear anymore:  “What do you do?”   I had a flashback to an earlier time in my life when at every gathering, whether social or business, the most often question asked after an introduction was:  “What do you do?”  Somehow, that question always reminded me of the Cheshire Cat in the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, asking Alice, “Who… are…you?”

It used to be that my answer most often included a job title and brief description that placed me in the world of business and career, and gave me “credibility” in the larger world–no doubt because  as a young mother and faculty wife of a college professor living in a small university town, wives were predominately relegated to domestic or volunteer roles.  I was rarely asked if I did anything outside of my domestic life.  Nevertheless, my standard answer to “Who are you?” was an identity badge that actually said very little about me, my life or what I held to be important and meaningful.  Nor did my response indicate the many roles I had, the different worlds I moved in and out of on a daily basis.

It’s not dissimilar to the way in which people introduce themselves to one another at the initial session of one of my cancer-writing groups.  For a time, one’s identity seems to be defined by cancer.  Introductions such as  “I’m living with lung cancer, ” or “I’m a cancer survivor” are most often the first thing anyone says about themselves, followed later by one’s professional or work status, and then, perhaps, one’s more personal details.

It’s not that we’re uninterested in each other’s lives but when we’re diagnosed and living with a serious illness, that reality defines a significant part of our identity, and it may take time for the other pieces of our lives to emerge and blend into a fuller picture of who we truly are. and the many different roles we occupy.

We all have the unique capacity to inhabit several different “worlds” at any given time. Each of us lives our lives on many different planes, something Patrice Vecchione describes in her book, Writing and the Spiritual Life (2001).  Even if we’re not  aware of it, our inner and outer lives are always interacting; affecting and informing each other as we move between those different worlds each day.  Yet in the demanding chapter of life called cancer treatment and recovery, that world of “patient” or “living with cancer” dominates our daily existence, and we may be only vaguely aware that the needs of our inner lives are all be being ignored.   Sooner or later, it catches up with us.

I once moved between my different worlds as if they were separate, without much awareness to how those different aspects of my life interacted.  My husband and daughters would tell you that those years were ones in which I was frequently stressed, irritable and tired.  I was running from one thing to another, and without much satisfaction from any of it.  It was as if I was on a virtual elevator, constantly in motion, racing between floors.  Push a button, the elevator moved up or down, and stopped to open, “Second floor, family life. Third floor, workplace. Fourth floor, Business lunches and dinners.  Fifth floor:  Volunteer committee meetings.” I  shudder to remember the constant rush of the pace I kept, moving up and down several floors each day—“Ding, office.”  “Ding, meetings.”  Ding, clients.”  “Ding, Board volunteer.”  “Ding.  Family.”  “Ding”….  I was hardly aware that my spiritual life had been relegated to the basement.  My outer life had little unity with my inner one.

“I know I walk in and out of several worlds every day,” poet Joy Harjo wrote in her autobiographical essay, “Ordinary Spirit” (in:  I Tell You Now, 2005).  Harjo was referring to her mixed race, in part, and the struggle to “unify” her different worlds.  The struggle I had in unifying my different worlds and tending to my inner life was something I hadn’t paid attention to except fleetingly.  Then one sunny afternoon, between business meetings, I met with my doctor to follow up on my mammogram results.  That’s when I heard him say “cancer,” but I kept my composure, even, as I left his office, shaking his hand to thank him for the meeting.

He frowned.  “Sharon, are you all right?”

Oh yes, I assured him, I was fine., and I promptly returned to my car to head back to my office, a twenty-minute drive down the freeway.   I drove a few miles before I began trembling.  I pulled off the freeway.  “Cancer?  Did he really say, “Cancer?”

He had, but I was lucky; it was very early stage and immensely treatable, nevertheless it was a much-needed whack on the side of my head.   I left my job a month later, and for a time, re-focused my attention of self-care and healing.  It was difficult time.  I felt vulnerable, without a title to define me, and yet, I knew I didn’t want to return to that old way of life.

Our own life has to be our message.  –Thich Nhat Hahn

I barely recall that overworked self of more than two decades ago for whom stress was a steady diet, and who was caught up in the upward climb of a fast moving career.    I kept shoving my unhappiness aside until one day, as I walked to my spacious office overlooking Park Avenue in New York City, I caught a glimpse of myself in a store window:  grim-faced, briefcase held tight against my body, shoulders hunched forward, and stress oozing from every pore of the reflection that looked back at me.  “Who had I become?”  The many worlds I inhabited every day were as unbalanced and separate from one another as they could possibly be.

But I’d been on the high achiever track for two decades.  It was addictive, because there’s a mind numbing routine to busyness–the daily demands, appointments, proposals, and meetings–that creates a false sense of security.  Where I once falsely believed I had some control over the course of my life, after hearing the word “cancer,” I realized I was an unwilling passenger on a wayward elevator, moving randomly between floors without any sense of predictability.

It took time, risk, and even another health crisis before I felt I had been successful in re-claiming a more satisfying and meaningful life.  I began re-reading many of Ticht Nhat Hanh’s words to help me remember I needed to integrate  my inner and outer lives, blend my separate worlds into a whole as best as I could.  I also recalled Joy Harjo’s statement that “it is only an illusion that any of the worlds we inhabit are separate.”  This “new” world, the one where I had suddenly become so much more aware of how abruptly one’s life can end, indeed, how capricious life can be, affected all other “worlds” of my life in deep and significant ways.  I sought to pay attention to the way I was living each day.

The redefinition of a life is something I witness repeatedly among the men and women in my expressive writing groups.  Cancer–or any other life threatening or serious illness–can ignite a crisis in anyone’s life.  It is not just the body, but all the different parts of your life that are affected.  All that you are—who you have thought yourself to be—in mind, body, and spirit–are thrust into upheaval.  You can no longer afford to  inhabit the different worlds in one’s life with the same assumptions you once did.

When that crazy elevator ride you’ve been on  finally ceases its wayward ride, you are often confronted with a new and sometimes confusing landscape to make sense of and occupy comfortably.  As I discovered myself, it takes time and persistence to make sense of it and find a path to wholeness and healing.

The routes to healing, to wholeness, are different for each of us:  faith, meditation, yoga, writing, music, art—what form it takes hardly matters.  It is the search, seeking of internal peace, and acceptance of a new and altered life that matters.

Change is not always easy.  Trying to live intentionally is a conscious decision I revisit every single day.  I still fumble sometimes, but not for long, remembering how cancer and heart failure brought me up short like a horse’s snaffle bit.  I stepped away from the stressful life I was living and chose a different path.  Nevertheless, it was only a beginning.  Even now, I consciously begin each day by reminding myself of  my intentions to create and live in a way that is more harmonious, intentional and present, repeating the words of Ticht Nhat Hahn:

“Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”

Writing Suggestions:

  • Give some thought to the worlds you inhabit on a daily basis.  How many different roles do you play in your life?  How do they influence each other?
  • Were your “worlds” affected by cancer, loss or another unexpected hardship?  Describe them.
  • Write about how you’ve moved in and out of different worlds or the many roles you have played before and after your life was altered in unexpected ways. What has changed?

Read Full Post »

For June 3, 2019: The Restorative Power of Nature

Posted in art and writing, expressive writing, healing arts, life writing, literature and healing, writing and nature, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on June 3, 2019|

Springtime has been slow to arrive in Toronto.  The cherry blossoms were late in their annual bloom and trees seemed almost reluctant to bud, but gentler temperatures and more sunny days have been a welcome respite from the gray months of winter.  Despite its considerable growth in recent years, it is a city with many trees, parks, and walking trails and flowers.  Our apartment complex looks out over a canopy of trees and in the distance, a cityscape of tall buildings, and we’re fortunate to live within walking distance to more than one park and walking trails that criss-cross the city.  There is something revitalizing and crucial to the human spirit about springtime and its new life. It’s little surprise then that the most recent posting from author Maria Popova, of Brain Pickings, on the healing power of gardens captured my interest.  She wrote:

There is something deeply humanizing in listening to the rustle of a newly leaved tree, in watching a bumblebee romance a blossom, in kneeling onto the carpet of soil to make a hole for a sapling….  —Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, June 2, 2019

Just over a week ago, my husband and I joined the throngs who were buying plants, soil and pots as soon as it was warm enough to plant.  I spent an entire day filling pots with soil and planting flowers and even a tomato plant, to line our balcony for the summer.  My back may have ached afterward, but I sat and stared at the plants long afterward, with quiet pleasure.  A few blocks away, my daughter and her friend were preparing the soil for the small, but prolific, vegetable garden that will soon provide vegetables to all the residents of their small apartment building.  “The garden is my happy place,” she has often said.

A garden, a walk in the forest or along a city walking trail–these are restorative experiences for the soul and psyche.  I recall how, several years ago, one woman arrived late for a writing workshop I was leading at a San Diego cancer center.  Breathless and smiling, she was wearing a wide brimmed straw hat as she entered the room.   She apologized, saying, “I had to go out in the garden today,” before telling us how it had helped her suspend her worry about an upcoming treatment.   Oliver Sacks, in his essay, “Why We Need Gardens,” wrote, “I take my patients to gardens whenever possible…  I have seen …the restorative and healing power of nature and gardens…in many cases…more powerful than any medication (From:  Everything in Its Place, (2019) quoted in Brain Pickings, June 2, 2019).

The simple act of reconnecting with the earth can be healing. Shinrin-yoku, a Japanese term meaning “taking in the forest atmosphere” or “forest bathing” encourages people to spend time walking in nature to experience its rejuvenating and restorative benefits.  Shinrin-yoku has become an important part of preventive health care and healing in Japanese medicine.

Again, I think of Ann, a former member of one of the writing groups, who outlived her terminal prognosis by several years before her death in from a rare leukemia, in part, perhaps, by choosing to spend her final years in a little cabin in the California redwoods.  There, she took solace and inspiration from the beauty of nature and quiet surrounding her, much of which she expressed in her poetry.

Studies have shown that a walk through a garden or even seeing one from the window can lower blood pressure, reduce stress and ease pain.  In one study, cardiac rehabilitation patients who visited gardens and worked with plants experienced an elevated mood and lower heart rate than those who attended a standard patient education class (USA Today, April 15, 2007).

Healing gardens are now a part of many medical centers, as hospitals and cancer centers have begun to create environments that heal not only the body, but also nurture the spirit.  Such gardens are not new; they originated, believe it or not, in the hospices of medieval Europe.

“Nature heals the heart and soul, and those are things the doctors can’t help,” Topher Delaney, landscape architect, stated in a 2002 American Cancer Society article about healing gardens.  Delaney, a breast cancer survivor, had a mastectomy in 1989.  She was only 39, and after surgery, went into menopause and lost her sense of smell.  The grim surroundings of her hospitalization inspired a change in her work.

“I had my pact with God,” she said.  “Oh, God, if I get through this, then I’ll do healing gardens. You keep me alive, I’ll keep doing gardens.”  She wanted to give others the kind of retreat she wished she’d had during treatment.  “That’s what this [healing] garden is all about — healing the parts of yourself that the doctors can’t.  The garden really gives hope because people see flowers bloom and others enjoying life,” she said. “It’s a garden full of change and metaphor”  (July 24, 2002, American Cancer Society).

The poet Mary Oliver, a keen observer of the natural world, described how Nature and its beauty can open our hearts in essay, “Upstream.”

I walked, all one spring day, upstream, sometimes in the midst of the ripples, sometimes along the shore. My company were violets, Dutchman’s breeches, spring beauties, trilliums, bloodroot, ferns rising so curled one could feel the upward push of the delicate hairs on their bodies. … The beech leaves were just slipping their copper coats. Pale green and quivering they arrived into the year. My heart opened, and opened again. The water pushed against my effort, then its glassy permission to step ahead touched my ankles. (From “Upstream,” in Blue Iris, 2004).

My heart opened, and opened again…Why not experience the healing or renewing effect of a garden this week?  Go outside to your own or take a walk through a garden.  Find a bench and sit without talking among the flowers and trees, taking in as much of the detail as you can.  Pay attention to what you see, hear and feel.  Perhaps you may discover a poem or essay of your own waiting there.

Writing Suggestions:

  • How has Nature been healing for you?  Describe it.
  • Try walking along a trail, sitting in a park, beside a stream or lake, or in your back yard and simply being quiet for 15 minutes or more.  What do you feel after you have allowed yourself the quiet time in nature?  What thoughts or feelings came up for you?  Write about them.
  • Nature can also be the inspiration for writing.  Take your notebook  with you.  Walk along a path, sit quietly, and notice what captures your attention.   Make a few brief notes about what you see.  Once you return home, try writing another 20 minutes, exploring where your observations may lead you.

 

Read Full Post »

For May 20, 2019: The Comfort of A Pet

Posted in healing arts, literature and healing, poetry and healing, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on May 20, 2019|

The way the dog trots out the front door

every morning

without a hat or an umbrella

without any money

or the keys to her doghouse

never fails to fill the saucer of my heart

with milky admiration…

(From:  “Dharma,” by Billy Collins, in Sailing Around the Room, Random House, 2002

My mornings are incomplete without her.  Somewhere between 4:30 and 5 a.m., as I begin the slow process of waking, our ritual begins.  I hear her rise from her bed on the floor, shake herself awake, then two, perhaps three, seconds past before she springs up from the floor and onto the bed, choosing to nestle her back against mine.  As small as she is, she is like a block of cement then, a guarantee that by six a.m., I will awaken, and my morning will begin.  I’m first to rise; she prefers another ten or fifteen minutes of dozing. But as I grind coffee beans and spoon them into a paper filter, she pads into the kitchen, stretches, and patiently waits for her breakfast.  Coffee ready and kibble consumed, we settle ourselves in the living room, where she curls up in a corner of the sofa, dozing and occasionally casting a watchful eye at me while I write.  She is Maggie, a small border terrier mix, adopted five years ago to become my faithful companion, but more:  comforter, guardian, playmate, nonjudgmental friend.  Whether canine or feline, many of us are very attached to our pets.

…Perdita makes me smile every day. She runs to greet me when I come home, and she flops at my feet in the morning to be petted. She loves boxes and balled-up pages of the Nation. She is afraid of vacuum cleaners and tornado sirens. She lies on her back in squares of sunshine with her paws in the air and looks perfectly ridiculous and content. My friend Kristen tells her cat Mouse each morning that he’s her best friend, which is the sort of behavior that makes non-cat-people roll their eyes. But there’s something to it. Perdita and I don’t discuss novels or anything, but we really are friends.  (From:  “Perdita, Why Cats are Better than People”by Michael Robbins, Poetry Magazine, July 2012).

Pets are often the subject of poetry and essays.  They’ve even served as major characters in novels or heroes in films.  Anthropomorphism aside, we humans have strong emotional connections with our pets, whether canine, feline, equine or other kinds.  As companions or sources of comfort when we’re feeling lonely, blue or under the weather.  They rarely pass up a chance to play, and some pets, like my small dog, protect us as if we are their children.

Pets are healers too.    Pets, as Florence Nightingale, the pioneer of modern nursing, observed over a century ago, are “excellent companion (s) for the sick…” There are countless stories of animals assisting and helping their human companions.  One marine dog’s heroism during wartime, for example,  is documented in the best-selling, Top Dog, by Maria Goodavage (2014).  Lucca, a bomb-sniffing German Shepard whose actions saved many lives, lost one leg in battle and was later awarded a purple heart for her bravery.

Dogs like Lucca are only one example of the potential impact animals can have on human lives .  There are guide dogs, hearing dogs and service dogs, for example, whose assistance to individuals with visual, hearing or other disabilities is invaluable.  Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) is a widely practiced approach that is used to achieve therapeutic goals through interactions between patients and trained animals. AAT provides comfort, assistance, and companionship for people suffering from chronic or grave illnesses, grief, depression or disability.  It’s an approach widely used in many settings such as hospitals, prisons, nursing homes, mental institutions and homes. According to the American Humane Society, AAT has helped children who’ve experienced abuse or neglect, patients undergoing chemotherapy and other difficult medical treatments, and veterans and their families struggling with the effects of wartime military service.

When I was in my teens, our family had another dog, a terrier mix, who was my younger brother’s constant companion.  One November night in 1966,  a fire destroyed my family home’s.  Our dog,Tico, was the first to notice, licking the face of my brother to wake him and likely saving his life.  Several years ago, my husband and I had Winston, a West Highland terrier who died in 2008 at age seventeen.  Calm, steady and loyal, his temperament made him an excellent candidate for therapy dog training.  Once trained, he accompanied my husband to visit young hospital patients.  Winston was happy to lie quietly next to a sick child, have his ears rubbed or back stroked, seemingly unaware to the happy smile on a child’s face that his presence produced.  When it was time to move to the next child, he obediently followed my husband to the young patient’s bed, tail erect, and patiently repeated the process again and again.

He puts his cheek against mine

and makes small expressive sounds…

 

he turns upside-down, his four paws

in the air

and his eyes dark and fervent.

 

“Tell me you love me,” he says…

(From:  “Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night,” in Dog Songs, Poems by Mary Oliver, 2013)

Is it any wonder we become so attached to our pets?  Or that they offer us solace and comfort in difficult times?  Or that poets and essayists alike have so frequently written about their pets with such affection?  Mary Oliver devoted an entire book of poetry to her dogs.

But I want to extol not the sweetness nor the placidity of the dog, but the wilderness out of which he cannot step entirely, and from which we benefit…  Dog is one of the messengers of that rich and still magical first world…

And we are caught by the old affinity, a joyfulness—his great and seemly pleasure in the physical world.  Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased.  it is no small gift.  …What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass?  What would this world be like without dogs?  –-From Dog Songs: Poems, by Mary Oliver, Penguin Press, 2013.

Writing Suggestions

Have you had a special pet, whether from childhood or more recently, who provided you with comfort, solace or service in a time of need?  Has a pet played a healing role in your life or someone you know?  Write about a pet–dog, cat, horse, or another kind of animal who played an important role in your life at one time.

  • Describe the pet and its unique qualities.  How did it endear itself to you?
  • Tell the story/or write a poem about your pet and of a time he/she helped you heal from hardship, sorrow or even illness.

 

 

Read Full Post »

May 6, 2019: Counting Sheep: Sleep Disruption & Cancer

Posted in expressive writing, healing arts, life writing, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on May 6, 2019|

But [Pooh] couldn’t sleep. The more he tried to sleep the more he couldn’t. He tried counting Sheep, which is sometimes a good way of getting to sleep, and, as that was no good, he tried counting Heffalumps. And that was worse. Because every Heffalump that he counted was making straight for a pot of Pooh’s honey, and eating it all. –A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Sometimes, when the world is too much with me, my sleep suffers.  Last night was one of those times.  I yawned repeatedly as I read, so I closed my book, turned off the lights and immediately fell asleep.  But barely an hour or so later, I was awake.  A vicious cycle began.  I couldn’t get comfortable, tossed the duvet aside, pulled it back on, lay on one side, then the other.   I tried to meditate, a slow, deep inhale, a long exhale, but my mind was having none of it, and a relentless parade of “to-dos” began clamoring for attention.  I checked the clock:  1:10, 1:20, 1:40, 2 a.m.  I sighed, tossed back the covers, grabbed my novel and glasses, and tip toed out of the bedroom, making my way to the kitchen.  A cup of warm milk and three chapters later, I returned to bed, finally drifting off to a sound sleep for a few hours, but awakening, as I do habitually, at 6 a.m., saw my nearly illegible list on the night table, scrawled during my wakefulness in an effort to quiet my mind.

Busy brain, an important event happening the next day, or minor aches and pains aren’t the only culprits that keep us awake at night.  Life hands us challenges from time to time–difficult or traumatic events job loss, death of a loved one, worries about a child, a parent or spouse, illness. In the days before my husband’s surgery to remove a cancerous kidney, neither he nor I slept well, and I know that before his next scan, his worry will keep him tossing and turning until it’s over.  In times like these, one’s sleep may be disrupted for weeks.

He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it is probably only insomnia. Many must have it.― Ernest Hemingway, A  Clean, Well Lighted Place

Sleepless nights are no trivial matter.  Sleep disruption does more than irritate or make us drowsy the following afternoon. It alters the hormonal balance in our bodies.  An inability to fall asleep and stay asleep can result in anxiety, depression, breathing problems, fatigue, or headaches—to name a few. It is well known that lack of deep, restorative sleep negatively affects mental performance and in particular, memory.  There is even some newer evidence that individuals who showed signs of pre-clinical Alzheimer’s disease had poorer sleep efficiency than those without Alzheimer’s markers.

Sleep disorders are also a common and sometimes chronic problem for patients with cancer as well as cancer survivors. They can be caused by anxiety or depression, or the side effects of various treatments.  Chemotherapy drugs, for example, can cause nausea, vomiting, night sweats or fatigue.  The medications that may be prescribed to help combat the side effects of chemotherapy can also create sleep problems, causing drowsiness, or, in some cases, leave a patient feeling energized.  A common remedy is to try to sleep during the day.  But daytime naps can aggravate one’s ability to fall or stay asleep during the night.

It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.
― Fleur Adcock, poet

According to a 2007 study published in The Oncologist, researchers discovered that the cancer itself, its related symptoms, and treatments may also create sleep problems. Even years after treatment, chronic sleep disturbances are common among many cancer survivors.  In fact, there is some evidence that disruption of our circadian rhythm may also affect an individual’s cancer prognosis.

According to Dr. David Spiegel and his Stanford University colleagues, a good night’s sleep is an important weapon for fighting cancer.  When the hormonal cortisol cycle is thrown off by troubled sleep, the cancer-fighting branches of our immune systems are suppressed.  The Stanford team’s findings also suggested that breast cancer patients who suffered disrupted sleep cycles may die earlier from the disease.

The bottom line?  A good night’s sleep is not only an important weapon in the arsenal for fighting cancer but for overall health. What can you do if you’re having trouble sleeping?  A good first step is to talk to your health care team about your sleep difficulties, but there are some basic steps, recommended by organizations like the American and Canadian Cancer Societies, that might help you get a little more shut-eye.

  • Try to keep a normal bedtime routine. Go to sleep in a quiet setting.
  • Exercise a little each day.
  • If you nap, keep your naps short and do it at least 2 to 3 hours before your bedtime.
  • Avoid caffeine for 6 to 8 hours before bedtime.
  • Drink warm, non-caffeinated drinks like warm milk or herbal tea before going to sleep.
  • Try relaxation exercises, listening to soothing music, darkening the room or massage before bed.
  • Keep sheets clean and tucked in, and have extra covers handy in case you get cold.
  • It may also be helpful to talk to someone you trust about any fears and concerns you have.

A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything.- Irish Proverb

Sleep.  We all need it.  From time to time, many of us sometimes have trouble getting enough of it.  Work, worries, fears, upsetting events, illness–these very human experiences can disrupt us of our sleep.  The vast majority of us will experience sleep difficulties at some time on our lives, and those will be like the one I experienced last night, when the hours tick by slowly, you toss and turn and feel as if sleep will never come. As for me, I’m taking a long walk in the sunshine rather than succumbing to the desire for an afternoon nap, closing my computer screen at dinnertime, and maybe even put the disturbing novel I’m reading aside and opt for something with less tension and suspense in the plot.  Add a cup of herbal tea or glass of warm milk, the cool feel of sheets and warming cocoon of my duvet, and I just may succumb to darkness’s embrace and restorative power of sleep. As the great poet William Blake advised, “”Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.”

Writing Suggestions:

Did you fear the darkness as a child?  What helped you go to sleep?

Write about sleep–or the lack of it.  What impact does it have on you the following day?  What helps you get to sleep now?

Write, in as much detail as you can, about a time when your worries or fears overtook you and kept you restless and unable to sleep.  Try to re-capture the feelings and thoughts you had.

Read Full Post »

April 25, 2019: Writing Cancer; Writing Life

Posted in art and writing, expressive writing, life writing, literature and healing, poetry and healing, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on April 25, 2019|

When I began writing this newspaper column about cancer, I wondered how long it could last.  After all, how many story ideas about cancer could there be?  Seven years later, the ideas keep coming and I’m still writing.  I’ve decided that writing about cancer is writing about life.  Cancer is a lens that makes life appear in greater focus with added intensity.  (From:  “Writing About Cancer,” by Bob Riter, Ithaca Journal, Sept. 6, 2014)

In the coming week,  I’ll begin a new eight-week series of the “Writing Through Cancer” workshops I’ve been leading for many years in the U.S. and Canada.  I’m preparing for the first session, when a group of men and women will come together to write and share their stories of cancer.  Some of them may have written long before their illness began; others might offer an apologetic, “I’m not a writer but I thought this looked interesting,”  and I’ll gently remind them of poet William Stafford’s definition of a writer:  “A writer is someone who writes.”   We’ll begin at the beginning, the moment that they first heard the words, “I’m sorry, but …you have cancer.”

By the second meeting, any prompt or suggestion I offer to the group will result in writing that is powerful, descriptive, even beautiful.  Some in the group will be surprised at how moved their listeners are when they share what they have written.  By the third week, any prompt will result in the sound of pens racing across the page or the rapid click of a laptop keyboard, as if each person has more to write about their cancer experience than time will allow.  A diagnosis of cancer often triggers intense and abundant writing.

 “The knowledge you’re ill is one of the momentous experiences of life” (Anatole Broyard, Intoxicated by My Illness, 1993).

Like any unexpected hardship, a life-threatening illness thrusts you into new and unfamiliar territory, into a different chapter of life than the one you thought you were living.  So momentous, in fact, it sometimes overshadows everything that came before it.  Yet one thing is certain:  cancer changes you.  Arthur Frank, sociologist and cancer survivor, put it this way:  “Being ill is just another way of living…but by the time we have lived through it, we are living differently.” (At the Will of the Body, 2002).  At the end of the writing series, I encourage the group to look back over what they have written.  As they do, they discover that their words, their stories and poems are testament to their changes.   Each person is clearer about the things that truly matter; they appreciate life in ways they never did before, and no one wants to take life for granted again.

That’s the way writing often starts, a disaster or a catastrophe…by writing I rescue myself under all sorts of conditions…it relieves the feeling of distress.  –William Carlos Williams

During those periods of life when you experience hardship, serious illness or suffering, writing can be an important way to express and make sense of difficult emotions.  It’s a way to make sense of your life.  Often, that’s where writing begins.  While you may begin by writing for yourself in a period of upheaval, one that often leads to something greater.   As Louise DeSalvo noted in her book, Writing as a Way of Healing:  How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives (2000), crisis, suffering and are the inspiration behind many of our greatest cultural creations, including art, poetry and literature.  Novelists and poets alike have described their writing as a form of therapy, helping them to heal and articulate traumatic events in their lives.  Writers such as Paul Theroux referred to his writing as something like digging a deep hole and not knowing  what he would find.  Famous novelists like Graham Greene wrote of his manic depression A Sort of Life; F. Scott Fitzgerald described his battle with alcohol in The Crackup, and William Styron examined his suicidal depression in Darkness Visible.  Creativity, as many great writers have shown us, is often fueled by life crises, trauma and suffering, and there is no shortage of contemporary poets and writers’ whose personal struggles have inspired fiction, nonfiction or poetry.  Literature is, after all, about the human experience, and in reading the work of others, we often discover insights, even ways to articulate own experiences.

An insightful, experienced oncologist told me that cancer need not be a person’s whole book, only a chapter. (Alice Hoffman, New York Times, August 14, 2000).

Cancer may be where you begin when you first start writing after a diagnosis, but it is rare that cancer is the only thing expressed when you begin writing.  Old wounds, memories of earlier times, and the experience cancer all make up the landscape of “writing through cancer.”  In my workshops, a gradual shift in what is written and shared in the group occurs over the eight weeks we write together.  The first weeks are usually focused on one’s cancer experience, but as the weeks pass, everyone’s writing begins to shift.  Other life stories surface and are written; themes of gratitude and hope begin to emerge.  And the writing doesn’t stop at the end of the workshop series.  More than a few people continue to write after the group experience ends, but not only about cancer.  Other memories, stories from their lives, themes of gratitude and hope emerge.  Several of my former workshop writers have gone on continue writing in groups or enroll in writing classes.  Some have published poetry, memoir and narratives originally birthed in the writing workshops.

Cancer can wallop you and brings you to tears, but it also can help you see life more clearly and with greater appreciation.   Ultimately, it’s important to remember that cancer is not your only story.  It may be one that drives you to write, but as you do, you begin to remember r and appreciate the life you’ve lived , the one you are living now, and how many stories or poems are contained in your life that are waiting to be expressed.

You don’t need a “big” event or big idea to write.  Cancer might get you writing, but inspiration doesn’t need a crisis to keep you writing.  Rather, it awakens you, makes you more observant to life, and grateful for it.  Inspiration does not arrive with a big “aha!”  It is quieter, waiting, because it comes from living, noticing, and paying attention.

Remember the commonplace, the wooden chair on the white planked deck,
trees kneeling in the rain and deer prints
leading into elegant rushes. A kinder place
cannot be found…

(From:  “Directive,” by Ann E., former writing group member, personal communication)

I recall listening to poet Billy Collins several years ago, as he described how he found the inspiration to write volume after volume of poetry.  His inspiration, he told the audience,  came simply from looking out the window and noticing the world around him.  The most ordinary thing, he reminded us, may contain the seed of a poem (or for that matter, any kind of writing).

…Cancer need not be a person’s whole book, only a chapter.  You each have many more stories to write than cancer.  All that’s required is the desire to write and learning to pay attention and notice what’s just outside your window, waiting to be discovered.

…poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,

they are sleeping. They are the shadows

drifting across our ceilings the moment 

before we wake up. What we have to do

is live in a way that lets us find them…

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us

we find poems. 

(“Valentine for Ernest Mann,’ By Naomi Shihab-Nye, in: Red Suitcase, 1994)

Writing Suggestions:

  • Just starting to write?  Begin remembering the moment you first heard you had cancer.  Before you write, take a moment to close your eyes and visualize that day, that moment–where you were, the quality of light in the room, the facial expression of the doctor or nurse, what you were feeling seconds before he/she spoke and then afterward.  Then setting the timer for no more than 15 minutes, write, describing in as much detail as you can, the moment you first heard the word “cancer.”
  • Tess Gallagher, poet, described the telling of an act of by her husband, washing his dying mother in the poem, “Each Bird Walking.”  Her poem includes the narrator’s words to her husband:  “Tell me,” I said, “something I can’t forget.” Use Gallagher’s words, “tell me something I can’t forget” as your prompt, and begin writing.  Again, set your timer for 15 minutes and keep the pen moving.
  • Find a quiet time and place near a window–or, if your weather allows, find a similarly quiet place to sit outdoors.  Spend a few minutes simply noticing what is around you:  sights, sounds, colors, objects, life.  Take one thing you observe and let it become the trigger for your writing.  Write for 15 minutes.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »