I’m back. I’ve been back. The week has been this endless rigamarole of doctors’ appointments – one every single day – so I’ve been gathering elements of this post in my head, but unable to actually write. Now J is watching his beloved Mets play, as he will be into 2016, it feels like, and I have decided to stop wasting time on the web.

I had a lovely time away. It was the perfect week for watching the leaves turn, the cottage had a loaded apple tree out front that drew lots of visitors, and I sat and wrote. Finished one essay (I think) and started on a new one. Also, read. Also, cooked and ate, rejoicing in making small portions of whatever the hell I wanted. Here are some highlights:

My shrink this week asked me how cancer entered into my thoughts while I was away. It was a hard question to answer, because it was not some constant, hovering presence. But, after all, cancer was the entire reason I found myself in that beautiful place, and it was the impetus behind my writing the things I did, and it was the reason I had a small container of meds sitting in the fridge. I didn’t actually experience the luxury of forgetting – that is gone. It’s more that I’m getting good at shrugging cancer off so I can enjoy myself.

Would I, in healthier circumstances, have taken this kind of time off? It seems highly unlikely. Self-care always gets demoted until circumstances are dire. And once they are, hopefully you aren’t too late to take advantage of the situation and make the most of it.

My reentry home was kind of tough for the first hours – who were these short people flinging themselves at me and needing things  all the time? But I’m glad to be back. I am reminded I belong here. I am needed. (And loved, of course. What purer expression of love is there than bottomless need?)

Wow, this post is getting away from me, and I was planning to keep it short and sweet because I’ve been staying up way too late lately. What I actually came here to write about wasn’t What I Did On My Fall Vacation. It was a topic that I feel I need to approach with great care, because presenting it in the wrong way will make me seem like an asshole. And that’s the last thing I want.

From the beginning of this… thing… I’ve been pretty determined to make my experience count for something. Not just for me. I’ve hoped that people would find my posts and take some comfort from them if their own health trajectory was similar to mine in any way. WordPress, lately, has been occasionally showing me the search terms used to find the way to my blog. Unfortunately, not all of the searches are hopeful – one concerned steroid withdrawal in the last days of brain cancer. I’m sure that my post on that was the opposite of useful. I’m sorry for that, anonymous web searcher. On the plus side, I have managed to connect with a few other patients in similar situations to me., and in some cases trade useful information or provide reassurance. That feels really good.

Anyhow, even before the blog, I was telling the many, many people who wanted to help me out, help us out, that the number one best thing they could do was to start seeing a dermatologist regularly. I meant it. And over a year later, I am still hearing from friends who drop me a line before dutifully going for their skin checks. I feel happy and maybe a little proud to have brought this about. And especially happy that no one yet has wound up in my same boat.

Sometimes, though, I hear from people who are responding to my situation by linking it to something they themselves have recently gone through, or some change they have made in their life. The formula is usually “I have decided to do/stop doing x, because of what you’ve been going through.” (The first part of the statement is never related to cancer.)

It’s… complicated. I want to be happy for you, when you tell me this. You made a decision or a big change or you went through something difficult, and because I am your friend, I commend you for it! But at the same time… what you did really had nothing at all to do with my cancer. So is this a rhetorical device? Is it as poorly thought-out as someone who asks, in front of my kids, for a detailed update on my current condition? I don’t want to think that. Still, it chafes. Makes me kind of uneasy. As though you’re using me, in some odd way, to justify something you’ve long neglected to either do, stop doing, or do differently. Like my cancer is your catalyst.

There, I do sound like a total asshole. I’m sorry. Will it lighten the mood if I post a song in sort of the same spirit? That is, one that is on the surface kind of peppy and positive, but on further examination, kind of a downer?

(Lyrics here)

Signing off for now. Hopefully you haven’t been offended and will return. And remember, enjoy yourself! It’s later than you think!!

Tomorrow morning, I head north for a few days, where the autumn leaves have turned, where there are no lunchboxes to fill, and where no certain someone will come to my room in the middle of the night, informing me that he has to pee, thereby forcing me to stay awake until he does and then wishes me goodnight. (On the downside, J will not be there either).

I’m hoping to do a lot of writing. The forecast for Tuesday is rain all day, so I’ll probably be most productive then. I’m going to stay off this blog, Facebook, and Twitter while I’m gone. So don’t worry. I’m just fine. Unless you happen to read newspaper headlines to the contrary… and even then, you should make sure you trust your sources.

See you Friday!

Just wanted you all to know I am capable of writing beyond my own navel! I was proud to participate in this group project which generated a new deck of tarot cards. Each person was assigned an image at random to write about. Here’s mine.

(How do you like my new social media gambit? [Get more visitors to the blog by titling the posts after popular songs which I have never heard.])

I’ve been on a wee break. Blogging seems like the easiest thing to do, sometimes, and I think I’m finally ready to tackle harder things. Like losing the weight and rebuilding the muscle mass which I gained/lost during my long steroids bender. Like think about FINISHING other things I started ages ago.

I start each week with these intentions – don’t we all? And then reality encroaches – more school holidays (we’ve nearly reached the end of them, hallelujah!), more health setbacks.

Currently, my eyes are the problem spot. If I’m learning nothing else on this pharmaceutical adventure tour, it’s that you should never assume that the least common side effect of the medication can’t possibly happen to you. Somehow, I have been spared of the fevers and chills and many other side effects more common with the combination therapy I’m on. The ocular side effects don’t even make the handy chart. One of them occurred in 0.2% of patients, and the other in 2% of patients (meaning one patient in 55). Dr P has only had one prior patient experience iritis – in both eyes simultaneously, and (I guess) only once.

I find myself in the uncomfortable position of feeling like a guinea pig, even though my treatment has been approved and deemed safe. My ophthalmologist, Dr D, examined me yesterday. I am recovering well from my third bout of iritis, but then I mentioned offhand that I’ve been seeing lots of floaters and flashes of light in the other eye. For about a week if not longer. This meant – guess what? – more tests, more dilating, more waiting. In the end, he did not see a detached retina, but left a long voice mail for a colleague of his, a retina specialist, mentioning things like cells and “snowbanking.” I have an appointment with the retina specialist for Monday.  Which means I get to spend the weekend worrying about what happens if my eye stops working altogether, suddenly.

Earlier this week, on one of the kids’ days off from school, we took the subway up to the Bronx Zoo. We’ve only ever driven up there, so when we got off the train, I was trying to navigate the short but confusing walk to the zoo entrance. I started us off in the right direction, then thought it was wrong, then corrected course again. My glasses helped read road signs, but were no help at all with the map on my phone. My frustration level was rising.

We wound up on a dusty median where two busy parkways interconnected, and I saw a sign for the zoo but wasn’t sure if it was a pedestrian route. I had noticed out of the corner of my blurry eye a man sitting a distance away, and was dismayed to see him approach us offering guidance. We were in unknown territory and I hated the kids to see me not knowing where to go and having to talk to people who hung around on dusty medians. The man very kindly pointed us the right way, but I was so overwhelmed, I kind of snapped at him. As we walked to the zoo, I broke down silently sobbing. I hadn’t needed to be so mean. Crying made it even harder to see. Young J noticed I was crying and asked why. Poor kid, I unleashed every single bullet point of why I was crying. And very little of the list had to do with our actual situation. I did notice him trying to make things better – which is one of J’s most amazing qualities – and I was moved to see it developing in my kid.

We had a grand time at the zoo, but we stayed too late and wound up heading home on the train at rush hour. There were over 30 stops between us and home, and we didn’t get seats for the first seven or eight of them. By the time we reached Brooklyn, the kids were fed up and restless and making me crazy. I came home and once again, J was there to make things better. I collapsed until dinnertime.

I lose perspective very easily. For example, it took me a couple of days to stop thinking of the zoo outing as anything more than an ordeal. I’m sure the kids remember it much more fondly.

I obviously need to work on this, especially given the uncertainty underlying everything I do these days – I don’t have any guarantees I’ll be able to repeat any experience I have. My shrink talks about that a lot. She says that eventually I will come out the other side of this and be able to accept that my life may or may not be as long as I’d hoped, and that there’s a chance I should rethink the things I’ve kept putting off until later, until the kids are older, until until until… I guess I just have to trust her.

On the other hand, my illness, and more specifically the side effects brought on by the cure, have given me insights into maladies I hadn’t been familiar with previously. Last fall, I got a small preview of what it must be like to have chronic digestive issues. Now, I imagine I have a better understanding of visual impairments and how exhausting it is to navigate the world without being able to count on perfect sight.

It’s the end of the week. I am making chili for dinner, which, at least temporarily, will make me a very popular person. The house is looking less like a hurricane hit it than last week – which is funny, because an actual hurricane is apparently headed to our general vicinity. It will be a good weekend to hole up at home, out of the rain and sudden chill, and remind myself over and over that I have just this one life (of indeterminate length), and it would be a shame to spend so much of it being pissed off.

It took me all morning to psych myself up, because my vision is kind of poor with all these drops I’ve been putting in, and an intricate latticework of floaters coming through my visual field basically all the time. But I finally got out on my bike today. Twice around the park, even though I could have gone another round.

I went to my usual stopping point in the park, where I sit to contemplate for a while before the big effort of getting up the hill for the last time. Today, though, I found that this same spot is where they have set up the boat rental concession. No more staring off across the tranquil water, watching fish flop around. Now there are boaters, staffers fetching coffee for each other, waivers on clipboards to be signed. I need a new contemplative spot! There’s a really nice gazebo which I never approach because it always seems to be occupied by couples.

After the ride, I was too exhausted for words. I’d done everything right – not put sugar in my coffee, made myself a power brunch with kale and avocado in it, drunk a lot of water… and I didn’t feel even remotely energized. Today was my second day off Keppra, but I can’t tell if it was that that made me so exhausted, or my body being unaccustomed to strenuous exercise two days in a row (I hit the gym yesterday), having caffeine yesterday for the first time since last November (I went for coffee w a gym friend and plumb forgot to order it decaf!), or the fact that I was out at a rock show last night and didn’t get home until midnight.

You’ll notice I’ve gotten very good at examining exhaustively all of the possible reasons I might be tired. This is because Dr P’s nurse practitioners ask you these sorts of things when you call with any complaint. I find it’s helpful to have this data at the ready. Also, I’m hyper-aware of what’s going on all the time because last April, the only sign I had for weeks that anything was wrong with me was that I was tired and headachy all the time. That was literally it. It wasn’t until I began having trouble speaking that this seemed at all abnormal. And then, of course, it was brain tumors – a whole garden of them.

After my ride, I tracked down some salmon for dinner, because Young J finally decided he was willing to try it (YESSSSSS). He’s almost unrecognizable from the kid he was a month ago, even. He’s finally started using toothpaste, also, after refusing for ages. And tonight he sat with his guitar and practiced the three chords he learned in his three weeks of guitar class. (Young A is still out of control, randomly aggressive, and driving us all bonkers. He’s lucky he’s so cute.)

I am not even sure why I began this post – perhaps, as with all the rest of these posts, to have as a reference (in case things go bad again) that I did once feel up for biking, and if Future Me gets sick again, that would be good to remember. A year ago, before my lung biopsy, I rode three laps of the park. I’ll get there again. Maybe farther.

It’s a weird holiday, this one. If I were in Israel right now, I’d love to be taking a hike like the one pictured. I hope one day I’ll get to do just that, with J and the kids.

Here, in the States, the only real option is to plunge into a prayer book and fast. People wish each other an easy fast. It’s not actually supposed to be easy, so I never know what to respond to that.

It’s weird to think about atonement when you either are currently sick or have been very sick (and I, in the past year, have been both). It’s weird because of the duality of my feelings.

On the one hand, I can’t imagine having done anything grievously wrong this year. I was so sick after all. How can you do wrong when you’re that sick? When you are sick, you have that sickly halo, and everyone wants to know how you are, and no one would suspect you of any evil or wrongdoing.

On the other hand, I feel like all I have done this year is be a burden and cause trouble. I’ve been nothing but trouble to the ones to whom it falls to take care of me and love me. And I have been a very difficult person this year. (This is where my therapist usually steps in to interrupt me and challenge me… but she’s not here right now!)

On the other hand… there is no other hand!

Luckily, Judaism offers us the chance to atone communally and collectively. That, I can get on board with. I hereby ask forgiveness for all of the cheating, lying, hate-mongering, and yes, even murdering, members of my community. Let the coming year leave no place whatsoever for baseless hatred.

Closer to home, I have apologized countless times to J and the kids, in private and in public (here on the blog), for all of the unpleasant people I have been this year – yes, people, not person. I’ll explain.

One of my favorite local rabbis asked recently on Facebook where the four children from the Passover Hagaddah are during these equally important days of the Jewish year. He yearns to hear from them, because they bring their individual capacity to understand the issues at hand, and he feels it would be helpful to hear from them now as well, when repentance is the order of the day.

Perhaps the answer is that the four children (wise, wicked, simple, and silent) inhabit each of us simultaneously, and this time of year is the time to recognize the multiple personalities that dwell within us, making us more complex than the sum of our physical attributes and achievements – and making us complicated individuals, who can approach a day like this with great internal conflict, conflict which doesn’t even necessarily get resolved! Instead, via the medium of fasting and collective prayer, the individual is worn down, stripped down, and the physical discomfort prompts new understanding, new perspectives, new approaches for the new year.

At least, that is my understanding of how it works in theory. Last year, for the very first time in my life, I completely skipped Yom Kippur. J and the boys went out to my in-laws’, as we usually do, but I stayed behind. I was newly diagnosed with metastases, biopsied, and recovered from a collapsed lung, and I was pretty damn mad about all of it. I decided that the last thing I needed was to enter into any sort of conversation with God. So I stayed home that entire day, did not fast, did not pray, and did not ask forgiveness.

Instead, I stayed home, rested, and I began mapping out this blog – what it would be, what it wouldn’t be. I also had a long chat online with a former colleague whose writing I admire, and who pointed me in the direction of a number of memoirs she thought would be good for me to read. I walked over to the public library, and like a Yom Kippur miracle, they were all on the shelves – every last one.

This year, I thought I was in a different place. My tumors continue to shrink, to the wonderment of me and my doctors, my CT scans keep being unremarkable. I’m off the hook scan-wise until November. Last night, I joined some friends and went to see a favorite rock band I’d seen back in June, when things were so much more unsteady for me. My recent eye discomfort (a second case of medication-induced iritis) was waning at last. My feet didn’t even hurt much.

As the opening number began and the oscillating stage lights inflicted optical assault on the audience, I realized my good eye, the right eye, the one I thought was all better, was hurting again. I enjoyed the concert, but this time not quite as much, because I was shutting my eyes defensively whenever the lights came swinging around again.

This morning, I called Dr P’s office and spoke to Nurse Practitioner R. She told me it was imperative to get to the eye doctor at once. I attempted for the umpteenth time to claim something was more important (in this case, the impending holiday, which I was going to attempt to participate in once again after last year’s hiatus). NP R wouldn’t hear of any delay. The fact is, the eye doctor is the keeper of all knowledge when it comes to afflictions of the eye. Even though Dr P and the nurses can identify the cause of the eye problem, they really can’t help me solve it.

That falls to Dr D, my ophthalmologist, whose office is run like a poorly-oiled, decrepit machine with a horrible pop radio soundtrack. He is an absolutely lovely man, and as far as I can tell, an excellent ophthalmologist. But I sat in that office for more than three hours today, and only about 20 minutes of that time was spent with the doctor. The rest of the time, I sat huddled in a corner of the waiting room, freezing, because I was under the air vent, the staff refused to change the temperature, and I was so anxious about leaving the house in time I forgot to wear a jacket. (The weather has taken that fall turn, and for two or three days running, I have neglected to heed it.) I was also shoehorned in as an emergency patient, which meant a longer wait.

When I finally saw Dr D again, he said I had correctly diagnosed myself with iritis for the third time. I was proud. I was glad. I knew how to cope, even though it wasn’t going to be fun. The iritis treatment regimen means dilating your pupil three times a day, and steroid drops in your eye six times a day. My left eye can now stop being dilated, but now my right eye rejoins the fun. Then, he told me he’d need to examine my pupil dilated. (That added another hour and change to my ordeal.)

Dr D has said from the beginning that he’d much rather treat iritis, than have me stop taking the medication that causes it, and risk me dying of cancer. I find this sweet, but also perhaps a tad melodramatic. He doesn’t seem to have a lot of contact with cancer patients, at least not my particular type of cancer patient. But he also teaches, and as such he’s taken an enormous interest in my case. Today, he made it official by asking for consent to photograph me and talk about me in grand rounds. He called and managed to get Dr P on the phone, and my heart swelled as I overheard them talking to each other, two concerned and engaged professionals with just my weird case in common. (Dr P said she’s only had one other patient experience iritis while on this therapy.) Dr P promised to email Dr D some medical literature about the medication I’m on and its side effects. And when Dr D repeated to her what he has said to me many times, about not wanting me to die, I heard Dr P say, confidently, “Yeah, we’re not gonna lose her.”

While I have said many times that I feel lucky to be in my particular circumstance, I wouldn’t have the luxury to feel lucky, if I didn’t also have an army of supporters to be grateful for. From J, Young J and Young A, to family and friends, to the doctors and nurses, all the way to a fellow cancer person whom I have never met, who just posted a lovely comment on the blog while I was composing this post. I’m so glad you’re here.

I’m weaning myself off of Keppra (the drug that is responsible for most of my troubles *). The withdrawal causes sudden headaches and continued spaciness accompanied by irritability (why yes, I did indeed take the kids to a birthday party with lots of hammering going on today). I hope I’ll recognize myself once this is all over, because I kind of don’t right now. Did I mention I’m also still dilating my left pupil three times a day due to iritis? And I’ll be doing that all week until I finally see the eye doctor on Friday? I can barely use my computer or laptop because I don’t want to mess with the monitor brightness settings. So most of my [extremely important] transactions are taking place on the phone.

But hey, my bumpy “chicken skin” is almost gone! And the soles of my feet aren’t hurting these days!

I’m craving routine like I currently crave chocolate. A nice predictable run of weeks, into which I can insert the really good things like normal meals and regular exercise and scheduled blocks of productive writing time. But that is going to mostly have to wait a few more weeks, until all the holidays are over at last and there is a more solid block of school days. (And then – whoops! – I’m going away for a few days.)

Tomorrow, I see Dr S, my melanoma surgeon from April 2013. It’s almost laughable I need to be seen by him. What can he tell me, at this point? Wear sunscreen? That it will take another year before my surgery scar completely stops hurting? (That’s what he said last year.)

But I’ll also see Dr P, and either Nurse Practitioner K or R, and that will be good. They are good people to share good news with. And I’ll walk out of there with the date of another hurdle, my next CT scan. Another long morning of fasting, another bottle of berry-flavored barium, another IV, another trip through another expensive machine. Hopefully by the time that date comes, I’ll be grateful for a disruption to my routine.

*In college, my fiction writing workshop teacher gave us a writing prompt in class one day,which had us selecting as a first sentence any one of a series of statements (which he later revealed was from a psychological screening test, given to prospective retail workers, I think. The one I chose was,”I know who is responsible for most of my troubles.” Try using that as a first sentence and see where it takes you…

Thumbs up! But, you know, somberly. Contemplatively. In the Dutch 17th century style. By candlelight.

Today I had an MRI, waited a scant hour, and then was ushered in to see Dr K, the neurosurgeon, for results.

By contrast, in the past week I was reading another metastatic melanoma blog, this one from outside the US. The blogger was expressing frustration about getting her test results, which would not be available until A MONTH AFTER THE TEST.

If nothing else, living this experience has made me aware of how crucial timing is in the treatment of this disease. My tumors were discovered in April, and I began drug therapy right away. Even a month later, before surgery, there was progress.

One may have one’s feelings about the way health care works (or doesn’t) in this country, but my heart cries out that a person in the same boat as me – almost exactly the same boat, as it happens – has to wait that long to get crucial information and be able to act on it if need be.

I feel very lucky indeed that I didn’t have to wait for the good news today. J met me at the hospital, and I was already in a good mood even before seeing the doctor. I’d survived another trip in the dark, noisy MRI tunnel, after all, and felt giddy that I was done with it.

Dr K’s nurse practitioner came in first and began scrolling through the images from today, comparing them with July and April. I’m sure she and Dr K know exactly what they’re doing, but seeing them scroll through images of my brain – MY brain, with which you’d think I’d be more familiar, except who spends time examining images of their own brain? – I realized I’d never be able to actually do what they do. Comparing small blotch to smaller blotch, but seeing other blotches and knowing those are perfectly fine, just some plaque built up since I haven’t played enough Scrabble or done any calculus, perhaps.

The NP left the room telling us that things were 90% positive, but she couldn’t give me the all-clear. Dr K got to do that – almost every spot treated in June has shrunk, some looking now like just shadows on the image.

Except… there was one small surprise: a spot in my brain that had been seen before, had been zapped with gamma rays, and is actively bleeding right now. And this is normal. According to Dr K, this is seen frequently with melanoma – tumors bleeding before they die. So I have an active brain bleed, but it’s not in a spot that will affect anything, and he’s officially not worried about it, so neither am I. He actually said he was surprised not to see other tumors in this state.

I’m… intrigued, I guess, that I’m walking around like this, and that the MRI may have caught a tumor in the process of dying.

In the meantime, I’m halving my dose of the reviled anti-seizure medication, will stop taking it by next week, and am now free to drive.

Which means all systems are go for my writing retreat in October. The one where I’m going to finish ALL THE WORK.

But first, a nap.

Today, it’s a year since my lung biopsy, an ordeal that predated this blog. I won’t go into the details just now, even though I still remember every painful detail.

The circumstances surrounding the lung biopsy (and the resulting lung collapse the next day) are the subject of an essay – a funny one -I’ve been thinking about for ages, which I’ve gone through a couple drafts of, and which I made the good/bad decision to show to an editor friend. Good, because she liked it and was encouraging and gave me great feedback on it. Bad, she’s asked me about it a couple times since. Now I’m in the position where I should make it known that I am not just an ideas person – I am A Completer. A Closer. A Finisher. But she doesn’t know I’ve never particularly been strong in any of those roles.

I am really, REALLY good at brainstorming. Always have been. I’d be great during the ideas phase of whatever project you might need me to think about. But after that point, when people are supposed to go back to their desks and Do The Work? You’d probably want to hustle me out of the building at that point. I’m basically no good at that point. If anyone has any ideas as to what line of work this skill set sounds well-suited to, I’d love to hear about it. (Don’t just say, “consulting.”)

Anyhoo, tomorrow is my brain MRI, and today I’m spending going food shopping and cooking dinner for some friends in a jam (and for us), and then oh yeah, at night I may have a drink with a friend who’s turning 50 and giving a reading. So, today is not a good day for sealing the deal with this essay.

Tomorrow, though. I like tomorrow. There’s this gorgeous garden between the MRI place and the neurosurgeon’s office, which I noticed last time I was in that vicinity. Maybe I’ll take my laptop there between appointments.

It all sounds a little ideal, doesn’t it? When have I ever taken my laptop somewhere outdoors and not wound up staring off into space?

All of which is to say, I know you’re waiting to see the finished product, K. And the three or four other things I want to write after I finish that one. I’m trying to emerge from multiple fogs right now – summer’s residue, the anti-seizure drug I want to quit, and the idea that life needs to continue apace, whether or not I am assured a long lease.

But I’m also sick of making these excuses.

It’s New Year’s Eve. Not the ball-dropping kind. A hush descends and you start stock-taking in such a different way than what is needed in the fridge and what the kids need for school tomorrow.

This morning began meditatively. Which is to say, the Lice Lady paid a house call, at my parents’ house, because the kids were sent home early from school with lice on Friday. At the moment when I was called to pick them up, having just come from a two and a half hour eye doctor appointment where my other eye was diagnosed with iritis, I was hoping to catch a nap before picking them up. I never managed. I may have thought about Job as angry tears sprang to my eyes on the two block walk to school, my bad eye stinging even more.

We freaked out, even though my parents were kind enough to let us come down for our Rosh Hashanah visit, braving the risk of an infestation  (as of this morning, no adults here have lice and the kids are much better). We seized and bagged up the very beloved stuffed animals, the couch cushions, basically, overreacting and doing what you’d do if you had (GOD FORBID PLEASE NEVER EVER EVER) bedbugs. As we were reminded repeatedly this morning, head lice can’t live off of heads. Young A has been deprived of his stuffed kitty and Young J of his giant teddy bear, for no good reason.

Armed with a professional grade lice comb, which makes the task of search and destroy much easier, the Lice Lady relaxed us all while she combed through our hair and told us about all the ways people go overboard about head lice.

The kids quite enjoyed themselves, it felt like a scalp massage to them. Which is good, because we’ll be doing these combouts daily for two weeks, after which we’ll need to do a weekly preventative combing. None of it seems daunting anymore. I’m so relieved. We’ve got this. Not just J, who was the first to actually deal with the problem (and thus the first to comb live, wriggling nymphs from the kids’ heads). We will get over this. We both can do it now.

We had dinner at my brother G’s house tonight. The kids always adore visits there, which offer so much freedom (to play with their cousins, far out of our sight). We shared the Rosh Hashanah cards they’d made at school, Young A’s full of love and a drawing he refused to describe when asked. Young J said he copied the message from his classroom whiteboard (it was written all in Hebrew). That may well be, but it seemed eerily accurate that he wished us a new year of happiness “and lots of good health.” I had made a pinky promise with Mom not to start bawling during certain prayers. We managed to keep it together, I am proud to say.

On the way to G’s house, I had trouble unraveling a knot in the Star of David necklace I had been planning to wear. I had to carefully pluck at the knot to avoid breaking the gold chain, which I’ve had since I was a little girl. I was trying hard not to see a parallel between this minor struggle and my very conflicted feelings about God and religion these days. I eventually triumphed over the necklace. The other thing, jury still out.

On the way home, we somehow wound up in a discussion with the very sleepy kids about what your “soul” means. Young A wanted to know. Which meant I had to find a way to explain it in five-year-old terminology. I came up on the fly with, “Your soul is the part of you that makes you feel like you, but is also something you can’t see or touch.”

Ironic that the thing I’m struggling the most with these days, cancer, also fits this description of the soul. Yes, cancer can be seen – but often, only by experts. Unlike cancer though, I don’t think they can remove your soul. At least not yet, and not without your consent.

I’m falling asleep in my chair. Time to get some decent sleep.