I just read an article in The Atlantic about one of my favorite people–Suleika Jaouad. At only 22, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. She began writing a column for The New York Times called Life Interrupted, about what it was like to be young, facing cancer. People connected with her, all sorts of people, and when she was done with treatment she drove across country with her dog and visited people who’d she corresponded with through her column. Then she wrote a book about it called Between Two Kingdoms and it and she stole my heart. She’s written and spoken about her health journey in many prestigious places, and married her old camp bud, super star and all around cool guy, musician, Jon Batiste. In 2021 the leukemia returned. She had another bone marrow transplant, while Jon hit mega stardom, which is beautifully illustrated (plus so much more about this miraculous being) in the documentary American Symphony, and in which they learn that she will have to have to have chemo for the rest of her life.
But she doesn’t just persist, she fucking thrives!
And this is why I follow her every move, because she is spectacularly inspiring– all HOPE AND POSSIBILITY in an “Oh Fuck” situation, a lightening bug doing the Watusi in a black-out, a solution seeker, an art maker, a life liver, a modern day Rumpelstiltskin, spinning manure into 18 karat gold.
I often think about how people presented with perfectly miserable circumstances can still wake up in a positive place finding even the most minute bit of light shining through the teeny tiniest crack. This is one of the things that most fascinates me. Obviously, it’s easy to throw up your arms, give in, allow yourself to be swallowed up by unspeakably difficult things, but those who can march their way through the combat, actually finding meaning and joy on the way, figuring out how to slay whatever beast they’re up against while still showing their pearly whites–those are the people I am in awe of.
Knowing how to live your best life even when your best life kind of sucks, takes brilliance and courage and patience and acceptance and fight and an Herculean life force. Gratitude to Suleika for being all those things plus so much more and teaching me (and I suspect a million other people) that there’s always a way to find a luminous path even in dark, black woods.
Daisy turns two today! Time has flown, and she’s no longer a puppy, and all the other cliche things we say as we watch our animals and kids grow up at the speed of sound. But for me this birthday is all about the fact that my little ride or die is alive and well. Almost 14 weeks ago, Daisy and I were hit by a car. She broke one hip, dislocated the other and had fractures on her pelvis. She had surgery on both hips and was in the hospital for three days, before coming home to doggy “bed rest,” which is no stairs, no jumping, no playing with dogs and no fun.
While I was laying in the hallway of the ER on a stretcher waiting to find out the results of my x-rays and CAT scan on the day of the accident, I had thought Daisy was miraculously fine. But then later in the afternoon, I was told she wasn’t. I wailed right there in the hospital like I’d been informed everybody I loved in the world had just been killed. My head immediately ran toward the worst case scenarios. Would she lose her leg, or be paralyzed? Would she make it through surgery at all? My body was in pain, and my brain was concussed and my spirit was shaken and stirred like the perfect martini, but what I was most upset about, most consumed with, was whether or not my dog would be ok.
For the first 10 days she lay on my lap, or snuggled up with my husband, or burrowed into my sister, as close to us as she could get her little body, and just sleep. I would stare at her three inch scars and her tiny little legs, wondering how her delicate body had met with a Porsche SUV and won.
She wasn’t allowed to do anything, except go outside (by being carried–in fact my husband had to carry her up and down the stairs for three months) to go to the bathroom. She took medication for eight weeks, swallowing one pill down that we hid in a treat and letting us squirt the other into her mouth. She couldn’t play fetch with the entirety of her toy basket–first one toy, then another– as she energetically does at least three times a day. In fact, she wasn’t allowed to participate in any of her usual shenanigans at all.
At night she slept with us, on a leash tethered to my arm, in case she tried to jump off the bed, which could be doom for her healing hips (she never did). She never whined, never barked, never acted out. She never even had any kind of “accident” in the house, either. And anytime someone came over to bring food, or flowers, or to visit, she bore into their laps like she’d known them since she was born and they were her best friends.
As it turned out, she was much more accommodating with her injuries and limitations than I was with mine. And while her remarkable personality shone through from day one, slowly, her sparkly and adorable spirit came back in full. Walking increased by five minute intervals each week. We began to let her roam around the first floor, and even play a limited version of fetch.
The day we met Daisy, a three month old ball of red fur, we marvelled at her temperament–she was immediately easy going and loving. But to watch her face pain, meds, and a boring daily schedule, and STILL maintain her winning personality, just proved she was the kind of dog you’d make if you could create one for yourself.
Early on, here’s Daisy with the Alligator from her friends Ollie and Woody.Ha, ha, we needed to amuse ourselves by pretending Daisy was finding the show we’d watch.When Daisy first came home, this was what her body looked like. Look at those teeny legs–how did they make it in tact?Daisy would win a game of Stare with me. She always looks straight into my eyes.We brought her food and water to her. Some days we had to feed her by hand. Still, she had no appetite.Daisy was the best medicine, when my pain was bad and I couldn’t even walk to the bathroom without a walker.
I am a dog person. I cried every single day for two straight weeks when we had to let my 14 year old dog Riley go. And while I didn’t think any dog could replace Riley, (and Daisy hasn’t) I missed the hilarity and love of dog life–we all did. And so we took a chance and got another dog. And we did it on the internet! It was a risky move, but I feel like I won every state lottery in the country, (plus all the scratch tickets), because she is one of the best parts of my life.
What I have learned over the years is that the love a dog can give is deep, transformative and astonishing.
The experience of being hit by a car is miserable, and while I am healing, I will have to be in physical therapy for at least six more months, and in the end may still have to have knee surgery. I’ll never get the moment of impact out of my head. And when Daisy has arthritis when she’s older, as the doctor’s have told us her surgery would cause, I will do everything in my power to make sure she can continue to live her best life.
While the back of her body was shaved, the front of her was shaggy. We couldn’t give her a bath, or have her groomed for a full three months.
Daisy’s first day back at the park. No other dogs were there that day, but she didn’t care, because she could run!
Daisy and I didn’t make it across the street that day, but we did make it to her second birthday, and back to the dog park, and even back to crossing the street again (although I do look like Linda Blair in The Exorcist when I cross, because I look both ways so many times).
And for that, there is no way to measure the amount of gratitude I have.
Yesterday was rainy and it took me back to a day in February when Daisy and I were walking on the Strand in Manhattan Beach, the waves rushing in looked like they’d used six boxes of Crest White Strips. We were being pelted by rain, but the two of us couldn’t have been happier.
For me the ocean is like an expensive, over-the-top spa Jenifer Aniston must go to routinely (cuz how else could she look that good). It’s like that old Preparation H tagine–“Shrinks Swelling–” the swelling of stress that can take me over, of the overwhelm this cuckoo clock world brings, of the worry that likes to tag along with me like an annoying little sibling your mom says you have to take care of even though you have plans with your friends. Maybe it goes back to my childhood, days filled with salty happiness, seaside barbecues, swimming and jetty walks, or maybe it’s just genetic because, for my mother, it was the place she most liked to be. Whatever it is, it feels like it would show up in my DNA test –“We’ve never seen this before, Bill, it’s, it’s, why I think it’s seawater.”
I love a city, take me to Europe, an intimate, historical town, but the true way to make me breathe with ease of a meditation class, to click my neurological system into cruise control, to incite my best self is to take me to the sea.
The rhythm of the waves is nature’s white noise. It can lull me to sleep, or just make my heart runneth over with hope and an overdose of “all is well.” Sand in my toes is my preferred state. Give me the seagulls swooping and squawking, the unmistakable and iconic aroma of Coppertone.
California has a lotta beach. I watched a lot of surfers dot the water with grace and guts while Daisy and I galavanted around on our daily walks. As I watched them skim across the water’s swells, Cirque de Soleil style, I would catch a quick glimpse of a grin. The same kind of grin I always have being oceanside–one made of pure, unadulterated gratitude.
We got married on Labor Day. We joked it would remind us that marriage is work!
That was 35 years ago today.
And although we thought it was funny all those years ago, we were perfectly right. Marriage is work. A lot of work.
Here are the top 10 things I’ve learned while I’ve been on this rollercoaster ride:
Love is the foundation. We fell in love at first sight. Yup, it really happens. We were both smitten immediately. I told a friend the next day, “I just met the guy I’m gonna marry.” The beginning was a long-distance Boston/New York romance. We walked every square inch of both cities. Everything felt like when The Wizard of Oz goes from black and white to color. As time wore on, the magical newness love became genuine caring love. As we, early on, faced things like my mom’s illness and death, and infertility, it was the basic, deep-down love we had for one another that sustained us. It will change and go in and out and up and down, but it must remain. Love is not all you need in a marriage, but a marriage won’t last without it.
Respect yourself and each other. Sing it Aretha. A marriage without respect is going to crash and burn faster than you can say “Do you know a good divorce attorney.” This is the part where you both have to make sure you’re independently doing and being what gives your lives meaning and giving one another the encouragement of like, a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. I don’t mean you have to want to do or feel what the other does, you just have to believe in them enough to be cool with whatever it is. ALSO, you have to both respect the third party–the marriage. Treat it as its own entity. There’s you and there’s your partner and there’s your marriage and all three need their due.
Trust me. If you don’t feel safe in a marriage, trouble is coming for you. If you think your partner isn’t doing what’s best for both you and your relationship, things aren’t going to last long. If either of you is in a constant state of curiosity about the other’s commitment, it’s dooms day.
Honestly. Lies aren’t welcome here. Be truthful with your partner. Whether it’s something you don’t like that they’re doing, or someone you see that you fall in love with, don’t go sneaking around behind their back. If you had enough respect and love to marry your spouse in front of all the people who mean the most to you in the world, then have that same respect and love to be honest with your partner. The end.
I do and I will. Commitment means that barring a major natural disaster that renders you helpless or dead, you will be there for one another and the marriage. No questions asked, no considering otherwise, no kidding. This is not for the faint of heart. We’ve faced some tough stuff during our more than three decades. And every marriage will. But this is where you show one another what you’re made of and that you and your marriage are as important to one another as you are to yourselves.
Laugh. Life is amazing and horrible and fun and mean and miraculous and cruel and incredible. And so is marriage. If you’re not laughing at yourselves and your marriage, you’d better get packing and look for a new place to live on another planet.
Make time for one another and have some fun for crying out loud. Having a good time together is always important, but especially after you have kids, who can easily demand every second from you. Get a babysitter and have a once a week date night when they’re little. It feels impossible, but even if it’s a couple hours, on a walk, for lunch or dinner, at a coffee shop, do it. DEMAND IT. We need fun to fuel us. Make time to enjoy each other independently. It matters. A lot.
Make new friend, but keep the old. Have couple friends and independent friends and pay attention to each. Friends are good for marriage because their good for people. Sometimes a friend can see what you can’t and help you through a rough patch. Couple friends can make you stronger. (NOTE: Couple friends can get divorced and this will cause your marriage suffering. It’s really hard……)
Do stuff together and apart. It’s great to have shared interests, or to create some. Doing things together can give you a sense of, well, togetherness. Whether you’re both movie maniacs, music buffs, or golfers, go and do as a couple. But also, make sure to do what your spouse doesn’t, as well. Staying independent is good for staying together.
Fuck. Whether you have sex twice a day, or once a month, maintaining a physical relationship is vital. It bonds you and makes you feel connected in a way nothing else does.
I’m no expert, but I know a little something having kept this ship afloat for this long! And now I say to Peter, thank you for putting up with me. Thank you for all the times you’ve been positive when I’ve been realistic. Thank you for standing by me like a glue stick. Thank you for always loving me and our children and our dogs. Thank you for believing in me, at times, more than I believed in myself. Thank you for always being there. Thank you for making me laugh. I love you. Here’s to the next 35.
In the category of, so, this is interesting, it’s never too late, funny how something bad can turn into something good. I took Adderall today. For the first time. Even though I have had ADD since I was finger painting in round-as-an-exercise-ball, Mrs. Stecker’s Kindergarten class at Center School. Today was the first time I ever took medicine that addressed attention issues. And the only reason I took it wasn’t to address my attention issues. It was to address the preposterous exhaustion which the Covid I had two and half months ago, left behind.
So, while I was very, very lucky to receive Monoclonal Antibodies for my extreme case of Covid, I was pretty fucking sick and sorry, that’s the nicest way to say it that I can think of, and besides you know me, I would marry the word “fuck,” but I’m already married. I literally wondered how I would get to the bathroom, a few feet from my bed for the first three days of my pandemic pandemonium. After my M..A infusion, which I actually had to lay down for, on account of I didn’t have the energy to sit up, I felt better, like I could actually get to the bathroom! Hot damn! But I was still tired. Really tired. And so I stayed almost entirely in bed for the next 12 days. I only left my bed to go to my daughter’s college graduation (delayed two years because of Covid), or I’d have played Sleeping Beauty for another week, or so.
After the graduation, I dove back into work and working out, but I found I was still pretty tired, draaaaaaaaaaaagging myself around the world. And then I began to socialize and return to normal, old life (although it’s hard to even know what normal old life even is after the two bizarro years of Covid quarantine, right)?). but I was still tired, like go to bed early, take a nap, and want to take another nap and still feel I’d been to seven frat parties and had run thirteen marathons on top of four triathlons. I was tired when I woke up after sleeping 9 hours, tired when I did pilates, tired while I was doing work (although I noticed my brain was doing just fine, none of that long Covid brain fog). Name a thing I did and I can tell you I was tired doing it. In fact, last week, I found myself so freaking tired, I started to cry and realize that the fatigue I found myself in was just not in any way normal. So, I finally contacted my doctor and she tested me for Lyme, the results of which I’m waiting for, but her assessment was that she thinks it’s likely just the remnants of Covid. She does think it will go away and she doesn’t think it’s long Covid, but she does think it’s the trash the damn virus left in its wake. So, she said to help me feel better, i.e. more awake, that she thought I should try a low dose of Adderall.
What?
Huh?
I hadn’t even considered taking something that would wake me up, I was just trying to find more hours in the day to sleep, which of course, wasn’t even working. But considering the fact that I have ADD and the fact that this epic exhaustion is, well, exhausting, I agreed to give it a try.
In case you are wondering at this point why I never addressed my ADD, this is for you. Fair question. There was no ADD when I was a kid. There was “TALKS TOO MUCH,” and “DOESNT WORK TO HER POTENTiAL,” but no ADD. And so to make a long story short, I learned to understand the way my brain worked and figured out how to make it work for me. It wasn’t always easy, and I would have learned more when I was a kid had there been the knowledge about ADD that there is today, but I never felt the need to seek medical intervention when suddenly ADD and meds appeared on the scene like an explosion later in my life. By then I’d lived with it a long time and even when both of my kids were diagnosed when they were young and took Adderall, I was never tempted to give it a try. I knew how to focus. Maybe not just like everybody else, but I had my tools and tricks and tips and it didn’t feel like an issue for me. Also, while some people think ADD is a horrible malady, and until you figure it out, it can be a challenge, I do not because it comes with lots and lots of cool characteristics that I really value, like mega creativity and empathy and curiosity. Also, many of the people I’ve met and known who have it are extremely smart and are super interesting thinkers.
But today, the 20th of August, 2022, I took Adderall. And I not only needed no nap today, I got a whole bunch of stuff done. And I was AWAKE while I was doing it. Sweet baby Jesus. What have I been missing all these years? I am hoping my doctor is right and this is just a side effect that’s sticking around like one of those nasty flies who buzz around your room at night sometimes in the dead of summer because you’ve left the windows open and there’s a damn hole in one of your screens, but in treating it, I may have just found a new and more effective way of doing my day! Can you teach an old dog new tricks? I’m not sure, but you can give an old dog a new drug and watch her do tricks she never dreamed of. Gratitude, once again goes to the miracle of modern medicine. I’d probably be president if I’d had this stuff when I was little.
I’ve been thinking about how odd it is that you can actually learn a thing over and over and over again and you think you know it, and you talk a good game about it, but then, something happens, or somebody says it with just the right lilt, or the exact wording that was meant for you, and CYMBAL CRASH, you REALLY understand it, in the middle of your heart, in the center of your soul, in the smartest recesses of your brain.
The longer you live, the more you understand the world is like one of those precious Christmas decorations, made from such equisitely delicate glass that it has to be housed in six pounds of bubble wrap to make sure it doesn’t break while waiting in the closet for its month of December freedom. And when it does make it to the tree, it’s guarded by a fleet of Queen Elizabeth’s British soldier people to ensure its safety. There are sooooooo many things that can go hideously wrong. I don’t even need to go through the ugly list, because you know. You know all the awful things that can happen in this world.
This past weekend, it hit me hard, in that way that it can, when it hits you just right, that I suddenly knew that whatever good things, or even semi-good things that happen should be celebrated with a parade. Like a full parade with not even just one, but multiple marching bands, and a lot of baton twirlers (does anybody twirl anymore, do you think?) and gaudy floats, maybe even some Budweiser horses, and of course balloons, a big bunch of balloons. It struck me between having to say goodbye to my beloved 14 year old dog who was human to us, and watching my husband test positive for Covid over the weekend, after we worked as hard as an emergency room doc. to dodge it over the past two years, that there are an unlimited amount of nightmarish things just lining up to pull us down to the ground. And so, with all those bullets flying, it really firmed up my committment to embracing the good, the okay-ish and maybe even the not so miserable.
I knew this before. I learned this long ago. A hundered times at least. But until this weekend, as I mourned my dog, and worried about my husband’s voluminous snot, I learned it for real.
And so, I’m here to say, we throw a party for everything that doesn’t suck from now on. Or, at least we focus on everything that’s good with a magnifying glass the size of the Empire State Building, doubling up on gratitude. Get out the fireworks, light some sparklers, and bang some pots. It took me this long to learn what I thought I already knew. It will probably take me a little time to implement, but just know, every one of you is invited to the party.
Sometimes it’s the absence of something that makes me grateful! Like yesterday I had a brutal migraine and today I woke up without it and shazam, gratitudeosity. Or like, even though world politics are dicey right now, not having to see or hear that orange thing spout lies all the time is such a fucking relief I can feel it in every one of my bones. It’s raining today and I had to walk the dog at 6 AM in the dark while water poured down on me in my pajamas and raincoat, before I even had a sip of coffee (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME), and then when I came inside and had my big mug of caffeine under a dry blanket, the gratitude filled my cup.
Look at that butterfly all getting all up in its namesake bush. how can you not be in awe of this magic?Noticing that one little drop of water in the center of my friend’s beautiful plant. Ba da bing, naturitude.
When you have an annoying hangnail, or project, or problem and they go away, that sense of relief is reason enough to have a big old gratitude parade. The object of your gratitude doesn’t have to be palatial. Little things, or the absence of them is enough to get you into the place where you’re noticing the good in your life. And noticing is where you want to be.
A necklace my daughter gave me because, well, because she knows me so well. Avocado toast. No contest.
There are kids in the neighborhood screaming and riding scooters and playing basketball like everything is normal. I watch them whiz by my window with all that anything-is-possible-ness, big smiles, adventurous eyes. I like hearing them because it reminds me that things used to be normal and that they will be again. “Go faster,” one of them implores.
I wake up in the morning and remind myself that I will not be doing anything I usually do. I have to blink a few times to remember that we are in quarantine and the only time I will go out today will be to go for a walk with a friend and take my dog out. Otherwise, we are home, on lockdown. My husband has just gone off some medicine that makes him immunosuppressed and we’re not sure when his immunity will show back up to protect him, so we’re protecting him and really, everybody else we know. Because that’s the thing, you might be just fine if you get CO-VID 19, but you might pass it on to someone who will die. I am known for my hyperbole, but this is no exaggeration. People are going to die, mostly older people and those with underlying conditions, but make no mistake, they will not be able to fight this ugly monster that’s come to visit.
The government can’t seem to get it right, except for Anthony Fauci, who if you listen carefully to will make you want to get under your covers with a bottle of tequila. Trump is literally talking out of both sides of his mouth. He has not prepared the country for this new visitor and he can’t put up a wall that will stop it, so he’s pretending it’s nothing. He sounds like he’s doing an imitation of Alec Baldwin doing an imitation of him. He has become useless without his big crowds to cheer him on. It’s being revealed in real time what a preposterously bad leader (and person — the “Chinese” virus) he is. Him and his “tremendous” 15-word vocabulary. Yeah, we’re in really good hands with Dr. Trump.
But there are crocuses coming up in my garden. And although it snowed yesterday morning, winter is mostly gone now. I cleaned out my sock drawer! My yoga class went Zoom yesterday and it was fun! I was on a group chat last night and we all started dancing together and more importantly, laughing and feeling connected. And yesterday, my daughter got her LSAT score and she did well! We celebrated like she had become the first female president. I mean, when the chips are down and you get a win, you have to make the most of it. We went full-on candles and wine, mini-banner, sit down dinner (ok, it was leftover chicken and a killer fried rice, in which I used all of our carrots and celery and the last of our onions :(, but you can’t waste food when you don’t know when you’ll be able to get to the grocery store again.
These are pretty terrifying times. But I implore you to seek out the things there are to be grateful for. Because they exist and they are what will help us to maintain some sanity, some hope. At some point, this will be over, but what it will have done to each of us and to our world, may be life-altering. Use gratitude as a protective shield to the crazy around you. It can’t prevent the virus, but it can prevent you from forgetting what’s good in your life.
2020. I thought by now we’d be jet-pack flying around, a la The Jetsons.
A new year is always so full of hope. It’s a little like that back-to-school feeling, where you sharpen your pencils and get on all those projects you want to kill, but times 1,000.
I used to make all sorts of resolutions. In fact, I used to write down the things I wanted to say goodbye to and burn them, then make resolutions. This year I didn’t do any of it. But I do have several things I am working on. More patience, more kindness, more writing, more meditating, more gratitude, more laughing. But my number one resolution is to elect a Democrat to the White House, the end. That horror show that calls himself president has gotta go.
Gratitude to the hope that another year escorts in. (Setting my sights on flying by 2030.)
*the gratitude-a-thon 