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Yesterday (8/28) was the 17th anniversary of my first cancer diagnosis I was nineteen and had lost my younger sister only three years prior to her own cancer.

It was August 28th, which brought me such solace. Good Christian girls have life verses and mine was Romans 8:28– we know that all things work for God for those who love God and have been called according to God’s purpose….

I felt so lucky to have journeyed alongside Ellen, to have witnessed what true Joy and Goodness look like. Her courage, faith, and humor overpowered death on the daily. She cried and wailed a lot, too. Same. When it was my turn, when they hooked me up to infusions and removed my tumors and irradiated my tissues, I prayed to her—Saint Ellen.

God had abandoned me, but my sister hadn’t.

It makes people very itchy when I talk about God and Goodness and Love and all of it. I wish I could make my faith fit into whatever pages and places bring them comfort. When I say God I mean Love. When I say Good I mean all of it. I mean cancer and sex and scar tissue and assault and death and life and bombs and the sound of ripe apples thumping on the ground just outside the living room windows.

It takes work to make something become Good, that’s what I call Goodhardgood. The ability for Hard (hell) to become Good is directly dependent on our willingness to be wrong about God and the pages and places we claim S/He dwells. I see God at the edges, just out beyond the property line, waiting for us to journey further out into the unknown. How expansive a faith do you desire? That is the one God will grant if you’re willing to be wrong about everything. It becomes Good when we make it Good, and that’s the hardest work there is.

It costs everything. But you will be grateful. And your gratitude will save you 100% of the time.

I have four kiddos now, each of them a genuine fertility miracle. None of them is dying of brain cancer

or lymphoma. I have a warm and fun man with a warm and fun body, I fall asleep in his arms almost every night. My nieces love my children, I reconciled with my dad after 20 years, and my siblings make me smile. I also have C-PTSD and hints of BPD, loads of scar tissue that can derail me on harder days, and a tendency to create more drama than I know what to do with. Good and Hard, like I said.

All things have worked for Good, I hate to tell you. Just yesterday I flipped God the bird, with both hands, because…well, take a look around. I could barely make out the silhouette, but I knew it was God, out there—just beyond the fence posts. Am I brave, desperate, and curious enough to follow out toward the setting sun? I believe I am! Will it make people itchy? I believe it will! Will I cry lots? Yep! Will I smile often? You bet. You wanna come?

For our 15th wedding anniversary

When I was eight, riding a road bike down a rocky dirt trail in the hills of Malibu, I fell—hard. My dad describes it as one of the most harrowing moments of his life, watching me fly head-first over the handle bars. It was the first time I broke my nose. It was terrifying.

It’s August 1st. David and I are riding our bikes to French Pond, named for the fact that if you didn’t know you were in Littleton, Colorado you could just as easily believe you were nestled in a secluded French countryside.

I’m terrified because my cells remember the feeling of loose gravel under tires. “Babe, those aren’t road tires. You’re good.” He assures me.

Even if I fall, I’m okay. Even if I fall, I’ll be okay. On repeat. I barely believe it.

I don’t enjoy doing things that increase my risk of falling, or abrasions. I imagine how the impact would obliterate the collagen fibers protecting my spinal cord, already worn from chemo, excess body weight, poor body mechanics, etc. Paralyzed. If I fall I become disabled. If I fall I have scratches and look dumb.

Nobody likes scratches or foolery.

We reach the beach, after riding through bramble and brook. I get naked immediately and jump into the water. “It’s perfect!” I yell to shore.

He yells for me to remove my watch before jumping into the water, to protect the leather band, but it’s too late. “Babe! It’s going to get and stay very wet! I’m a mermaid!” I yell to shore.

For our anniversary he bought me a very nice watch and a bike rack. We technically bought each other the bike rack (so we could take a maiden trek on this very day, to this very pond—which was my idea—happy anniversary!) but he ordered it, picked it up, and installed it.

He also packed the card I made for him, my favorite purple towel, and white-peach-flavored sparkling water. “You fit all that in your back pack!? Thanks babe!”

I disappear into the deep.

Depths feel less scary than falls. I feel a sense of control when I descend that I don’t feel when I tumble.

His erection reminds me I still got it, and it disappears immediately upon entry to pond. He jumps in after me.

“I didn’t buy you a Shinola, but I did set you free.” I smile.

“Sounds like a good deal to me.” We kiss. “I mean it when I tell you that you’re the best gift I’ve ever received. You bring my life so much love and wonder.”

Phew.

When we return to the car there is a much younger couple huffing and puffing after a trail run.

Their heads were wet, too. They dove.

They were smiling too, they must’ve kissed.

They’re as tan as we are. Maybe they do this often, adventure under the intense Colorado sun.

Blinded.

Sweaty.

So young. I wonder how willing they are to act a fool. To fall, to collapse and lie disabled in the presence of the truest thing we have—Love. Open skies. Cool, refreshing waters. The presence of another heart you’ve allowed and chosen to ruin you. Hold you. Heal you. Test you. Enrage and embolden and enlighten you.

I’ve been afraid of falling since I was a young girl. Afraid of feeling in a world full of pediatric brain cancer, divorce, infidelity, abandonment, neglect, addiction, abuse, etc. Paralyzed.

I barely believe it, but I am okay. I’m going to be okay. I have no control over how it all unfolds, but I trust the Goodhardgood One in charge of the laundry.

I trust my heart, finally. For now.

I trust the man driving me home. The one for which I’ve fallen head over heels.

Part 2

By 6:30am we had rented 2 bicycles.

“This is beautiful!?” I exclaim, referring to the ASU Tucson campus. Three laps around a fountain at my request. Earlier, in the hotel room, we discussed a need for sunscreen and a CVS.

“Look! A CVS!” Sunscreen, water bottles. A tiff on the way back to the hotel because he almost got us killed.

“I need you to be more aware of your surroundings. I feel very unsafe on bicycles, very out of control. You’re better on them. Please lead me well. Communicate better.” I’m using my teacher voice, the one I inherited from my papa. The one I use when I teach my students on Fridays, and every day of my life with my children. I’d rather lecture than connect; I am a nightmare sometimes.

He falls over after getting a wheel stuck in a trolley track. Maybe I’m a better biker than I think I am?

By 7:10 we are rooftop dwellers, suited for bathing and sun exposure, screened appropriately because I don’t want to get cancer again. Lord, not melanoma…

“How are we the only ones up here!?”

“I guess not everyone has four kids.” He smiles and shrugs.

The pool overlooks dusty Tucson and a dusty mountain ridge. I swim up behind him, we’re sailing across a dusty sea now.

“I speak open sails over you. Your strong, courageous heart at the helm. I speak joy and smiles over you. I speak beauty over you. I speak fortune and wealth and blessing over you and your household.”

(I snuck that last part in, for I am a part of his household, and I sense some fun Italian adventures in our future.)

He kisses me. I feel it. I feel him. I love him all the way. I hate that one day I’ll have to exist without him, somewhere—anywhere. Maybe?

“We need to figure out what temp this water is. When we have a pool, it needs to stay at exactly whatever this is.” I say.

“It is perfect.” He replies.

I’m looking at how strong and jiggly my legs look through the aqua blue ripples. Once my youngest daughter told me she loved how wiggly my legs are.

“Why?!” Not ashamed, just purely excited.

“Because they remind me of waves in California.” She pauses, I am her captive… “and waves make me feel calm.”

I can’t make this shit up…

We’re in a dusty sort of heaven, where the mattresses aren’t great but the pool temperature is. It’s 8am and God must’ve reserved the entire pool just for us, because we’re still the only ones here

.

“I love that neither of us have perfect bodies. That I am big, and you are smaller. But that we look capable and strong. We look like we care just enough, but not too much.”

He nods. “It looks like we love these bodies.”

“Oh I don’t love my body. I think it looks like we are IN these bodies.”

And we are, so inside our own selves, so inside each other. So safe to exist in our gnarled humanity. The last couple months have felt brutal. Punches from every direction, scary invitations and even scarier decisions to make. We hear voices from afar asking us to believe in the biggest, brightest versions of our selves.

We have all the tools we need. We have the team. We have four healthy, rowdy children who know about the importance of hydration, nature, and protein. And we have each other. On the top of the world, sailing into something that feels simultaneously known and unknown.

We can barely make out the shape of what’s ahead, but we trust the wind—the voice—taking us there.

I met a dying man sixteen years ago. I was driving the car the Campus Crusade was using for the Homecoming parade. His roommate sat on the open hatch, tossing candy to everyone while I slowly drove through campus with the music blaring. His roommate on the open hatch got thirsty, and the dying man delivered his water bottle. Rode his bike right up to the car in the middle of the parade. Then noticed the girl driving it, her shoulders hunched up trying to mash her ears closed—the music was very loud.

“Fade it to the back!” He yelled out, riding alongside my open window and motioning with his hands. He repeats himself, “FADE IT TO THE BACK!!”

He’s been solving my problems ever since.

I met a dying man 16 years ago, and I married him. It was the best decision I ever made.

Part 1

I met a man at my secret pond last Thursday. He’s dying of pancreatic cancer. There’s a gravelly beach at this secret pond, and a gravelly port scar on the upper right side of my chest. When I wear a bikini the scar is very visible.

“I’ve got one of those,” he motions to his chest, upper right side. I was packing up my beach things when he approached, and through his white rash guard, three distinctive braille-like bumps in the shape of a triangle emerge. They’re positioned so nurses can palpate the correct spot to insert the IV through which chemo is delivered.

“Well shit.” I smile. “Can I ask what kind?”

“Pancreatic.”

I’m not known to those who love me as someone able to pretend very well or at all. My face is usually the first to reveal my internal experience. The features must’ve expressed something quite dramatic.

“I know,” he chuckles. “What about you?”

“Lymphoma, twice. But it’s been over a decade now. And if you’re gonna get cancer, you want Hodgkins Lymphoma—it responds very well to treatment. We don’t have to talk about cancer.”

“No, there’s nobody else in my life I can talk to about this. It makes me feel calm, you make me feel calm.”

The truth is, I noticed when this man floated through the hidden entrance an hour earlier, and I had trouble ignoring his presence. I do not come to this pond to chat with strangers, I come here for quiet. I come here because I feel love here. And for some reason, my heart opened to his from afar.

On the journey back to the parking lot, he confessed something similar, but it had more to do with my bikini and body and eyes, and less about the energetic ties I had sensed. He is in his 60s (which you must have deduced because he has pancreatic cancer), an engineer. I made a joke about how I can add him to the list of engineers who love my bikinis, and my eyes.

He’s dying. So am I. So are you. Each and every one of us.

We take turns asking questions and laughing. He wants to know how he can find the peace and joy he feels radiating from my smile. I want to know what kind of engineer he is. He wants to know how long it took for me to feel like myself again after treatment. I ask about his water craft and if he likes the design of his paddle.

“How hold are your children?” He doesn’t believe me when I tell him, “there’s no way you have a thirteen year-old! Mine are in their mid to late twenties.” We gaze up into the trees, green—finally.

The dying man continues. “And how long have you known about that little pond!? I just happened to see that clearing. If I had been looking the other direction I would’ve missed it. I would’ve missed you! And this wonderful morning!”

Hours pass somehow, and we’ve reached our asphalted destination. He doesn’t want to go. I don’t want to either.

We stall. And stall. “I’d like to see you again.”

“Me, too. How about this, if we run into each other again…”

I’ve made a dying man sad, but he agrees to my proposal. It felt good leaving it in God’s hands.

“You know, I’ve died already.” I blurt out. “Cytokine storm, graft v. host when they injected stem cells back into me. It only felt scary for a split second, when I heard my husband’s loud voice trying to get doctors and nurses to tell him what was going on during the frenzy.”

We’re both tearing up.

“And here’s what I want you to know. Okay? The events of that night aren’t even on the top three list of worst things that’ve happened to me.” I can feel our bodies want to be nearer so I inch a little closer. “The scarier and harder thing, if you ask me, is enduring a life. Not losing it.”

I believe he wants to kiss me at this point, I wouldn’t protest. I begin to scoot my paddle board back into the water. “I’m parked in a different lot. And I need to get home.”

“It was a miracle, meeting you. Thank you.” He waves.

I wave back. My smile is large and true, my face always gives it away.

Keep bringing them to their knees

I’m supposed to give a shit about

changing diapers and taxes

but all I want is to stare at the apple tree a little longer

because when I watch her leaves play in the wind

I somehow feel it in my clitoris

which I suppose makes me a

Creationist

but not exactly in the way you’re thinking.

***

God, everyone wants me to solve their problems

they think I have answers

but all I have

is

You

and that apple tree.

What do I tell them when the trick really is just to look at the sky? They’ll think I’m one of those whack jobs who worships

Creation

***

They want to prove You, they’re so worried about Proving You.

Defining You.

Managing You.

(I know Your secret, You filthy thing.)

Scripture says…

Even way back then, they wanted to contain You in the pages of a holy book

Instead of letting

You

Loose!

(I can’t blame them. I’d build countless cathedrals and bind 1000 books to commemorate the way those leaves and certain songs make me feel.)

I know, at the end of the day—we’re human. And it’s the assurance we want.

(Solve this, please!)

Here, follow this. Read this. Believe this.

It’s not wrong.

Just so…incomplete.

Because I see You there

in the apple tree

too.

***

Sweetie, they aren’t wrong. You can solve a lot, you’re a well-seasoned soul. The rest I need you to simplify. Take Me, God, my unknowable expanse…

And make it simple.

***

I hate that they made it anything more than our cells basking in light filtered through a tree—the truest cathedral we know. I hate them for compiling and hoarding and profiting off our completely normal human dread and wonder. Go up, to the top. No higher, I want those guys. Yes, raid the tombs, I want the bones of those fuckers. Bring them here, under this canopy, this solid wood.

Solid word.

Tape their mouths shut, and do it fast.

They’ll try to explain

Love

and Law

and Creation

(false prophets, false creationists)

It’s so simple…

***

God, they want me to solve all their problems.

Keep bringing them to the trees

Keep bringing them to their knees

Is all I hear back.

Thoughts on prayer beads, hormones, and hoping.

I do not love raising a 13-year-old girl. Yet.

I’m sure I’ll find myself windswept with pride someday, as she twirls and blasts past me. So full and bright and alive, she is, I’ll smile. I’ll nudge the person next to me, that’s my girl.

But today, it’s not great. And when I say “not great” I mean “what the actual fuck?”.

It would be impossible to even recount the morning to you because her father and I were taken on a journey with too many whip-fast turns to count. By 8 am we were miles deep, lost in a deep dark forest of teenage angst, shame, and melancholy.

All I knew to do was pray on the drive to school with her.

The potholes on 12th Ave meant that the prayer beads dangling from the rearview mirror of the red sedan in front of us had a particularly active ride. I remember noticing it, which—looking back—is strange given my level of dissociation. How many things go unnoticed when we’re lost in the woods?

My mother tried as hard as she could to raise me; she loved me deeply. And: she was given a shitty toolbox. She was also given a daughter who died of pediatric brain cancer and a deeply traumatized lineage. It was hell living with her.

Now I may have CPTSD with a pinch of BPD, but I am far from hell. What would my life look like if I had had 50% of the foundation on which my children stand? They are so equipped to handle so much more than I was, am! Thank you, God.

All I know to do is pray. So we pray.

God, Lucy is having a gnarly morning and feeling big things. Please help her hold them today. Please open the windows of her heart so that those feelings and stories can fly out as easily as they fluttered in. Please put some wonderful things in her day, and help her find the courage and grace to see the beautiful things that are already here. “Lucy” means “bright.” Help her feel her brightness today. She is a star, help her remember she is a star.

The sedan driver reaches up and maneuvers the beads off the mirror and slips them on, I see through the dusty rear window.

I wonder what prayers she’s praying.

“Have a good day, Sweetie. I love you.” Through the GAP cropped, fleece half-zip I feel her bony arm. It was inside of me thirteen years ago, it was inside of my mom as my ovum in utero. And so on.

Beads.

Lineage.

Hope.

Hard work.

Prayer.

It was hell, it isn’t anymore. My children—my daughters—are forging a stronger, sturdier, better bead. A better quality of life. Isn’t that the point? To keep thumbing as lovingly and honestly through each day the way one glides along those strands? To work hard and hope that, as a parent, you’re giving something better than you were given?

How active we must look, dangling from the mirror, bouncing around on the impossible realities in which we exist! Flailing and hoping that we’ve done some “right” things. I believe we have.

I believe we have.

And retirement

I believe God’s primary source of income is the business of second chances.

The first time I was a stay-at-home mom (SAHM) the combo of solitude (e.i. loneliness) and the relentless barrage of diapers and dirty fingers nearly killed me. Surely I was made for more than this, even though my religion and culture communicated otherwise. Surely God wanted to use my stories of addiction, cancer, death, glory, healing, and love to help others feel less alone.

I yelled a lot because I resented a lot. I ate a lot because I felt a lot. I scrolled a lot because…because.

God did want to put my story to use. I eventually left my green-shingled dungeon and its lovely garden. I started a massage and bodywork clinic that specializes in holding peoples’ cells and stories. I’ve trained others in the art of decoding and re-writing those stories, down to the level of DNA. My wildest dreams, the ones that felt like impossibly large beasts roaming around my heart and mind, seem very manageable now.

And that’s what I do—manage the office from afar. Retirement looks like folding sheets and creating invoices.

This has offered me a second round of SAHM-hood. One for which I am very, very grateful. My restlessness and boredom were alleviated by the knowing that “I did it.” I tamed the beasts, created the protocols and materials. They roam freely, grateful for the opportunity of realization and care.

Losing most of my expendable income, the fun money, has felt tough. The practice brings in just enough, for now; but I care much less about manicures and skincare since this new unraveling. The first time around, grocery shopping with four young children was a thing of nightmares. Four nap and feeding schedules!? This time, they learn about multiplying decimals while I stroll through aisle after aisle. Grocery day is my favorite day, minus inflation.

Instead of playing catch-up, I’ve learned how to just—play. Who gives a shit about the way they fold the dish towels? I used to care about so many little things that they produced, altered,  and destroyed. Now I just care most about keeping their hearts and bellies warm and whole.

There is new herd of beasts galloping up from the horizon. They are larger, they will require a more rigorous practice of presence, devotion, and prayer—a pause. From a distance I can barely make out a non-profit, a podcast, public speaking. Yes, their forms will clarify the closer they get.

Another second chance. Thanks God.

.

I believe my husband could *actually* save the world

“I don’t want to be wealthy,” he stares off toward the apple tree. “I want to be free.”

He’s been jack hammering the foundations of his identity. One of the first bits to be demolished is that of Capitalist. American Capitalist. American who sells time, who prostitutes joy for money.

“We believe that wealthy people are happier somehow. That they are any different. You know what separates the wealthy from me? Their cars require premium fuel. They take more vacations than I do. They have better plastic surgeons. But at the end of the day, we are watching the same sunset. Driving on the same highways. And wiping the same ass, depending on the plastic surgeon”

He’s right. He’s ranting. I love his rants because they are prophetic rants—they are true. They are the most thoughtful proclamations, spoken naked, coffee cup in hand, warm in our hot tub.

“At the end of the day we want freedom. And wealth sure as hell doesn’t guarantee that. What a lie we were sold.” Now he’s watching the sunrise through the branches of the neighbor’s maple.

My husband has been obsessed with Killers of the Flower Moon lately. Have you seen it? Leo poisons his wife’s diabetes meds, “bad medicine.” They’re adding small and regular amounts of poison to her injections. She is withering away until she is saved by law enforcement.

David can’t stop talking about the moment he realized they’d been spiking his everything with ideas of what happiness and fulfillment should be. Instead of the FBI busting through the doors to save his weary soul, he’s realized he must summon just enough courage and might to rescue himself.

Capitalism is not God, he whispers on his way out the door of his captors.

“It’s bad medicine. We’ve been slowly and systematically worn down by. We’re too tired to even fight back.”

I don’t tell him because he’s borderline manic and I’ll wait for a better time, but I believe he will be one of the people who will save us. Carry us out of the stuffy, death room out into the sun, where we can recover; where we find power and peace; where we feel safe. I don’t tell him that he is supremely equipped to solve 90% of the world’s problems, and I believe he just may. Does he know that anyone would follow his sure, steady, playful footsteps?

I love him because he doesn’t want to be wealthy, I love him because he wants to be free. I love him because he wants freedom for us all. And I swear to God, he just may do it.

with a nervous system

If God is the sun, enlightenment is understanding you don’t need to stare right at it to sense and feel the warmth of the divine.

Enlightenment is the understanding that we are just houseplants with nervous systems. Did you know that you only need the sun, Goodhardgood soil, and some hydration? Position yourself to your passions. Are you getting enough direct sunlight?

Ensure your environment can support your growth. Does it have the ability to nourish you on the journey? Is it close enough to The Creator? In other words: Is the soil good soil?

Then, receive. Allow the waters to soak your bones. Yes, you will feel heavy. No, you won’t care.

Because you’ve been placed in the most perfect spot. For now, just rest. Soaked, warm, happy, and true.