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6/3/04

In the book, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal (by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.), there is a paragraph:

While an impulse toward wholeness is natural and exists in everyone, each of us heals in our own way. Some people heal because they have work to do. Others heal because they have been released from their work and the pressures and expectations that others place on them. Some people need music, others need silence, some need people around them, others heal alone. Many different things can activate and strengthen the life force in us. For each of us there are conditions of healing that are as unique as a fingerprint…

What activates my healing? I always thought that I loved my work, and I need to be needed. But spending time at home minding about food and taking rest whenever I feel necessary is quite soothing right now. I definitely need people around me, and that’s why I have this blog. I wonder if it can be incomprehensible for some people to keep an open diary like this, and not to be hesitant about telling others my “bad” situation. But allow me to be selfish, I know at least that I need to be connected to people to feel alive.

My doctor has not gotten around to it yet, but I learned from some reading that it is necessary to have a “fighting spirit” imagery to go through surgery and hard treatments; imagery helps to boost our immune system. What kind of “fighting spirit” positive image can I come up with? I hate fights and wars, and cannot even face “star wars” movies. Suddenly the image of Gandhi and his followers came into my mind. Non-violent resistance that avoided unnecessary bloodshed and that ultimately won the independence and the hearts of the people. I am going to check out the movie this week.

For lunch I met a friend from my graduate school days in Ohio (1978!) who was living in the same dorm in the room right next to me then. Literally she is one of my first American friends, and the only friend I still maintain contact with from those days. This time she was in Worcester for the state democratic convention.

She gave me a calendar titled “Dragon Boat Atlanta," which is made in a fashion of the movie “Calendar Girls,’ except that all the half naked women here are breast cancer survivors who participate in Dragon boat racing. You find smiling naked middle aged women posing cleverly for every month. She was planning to give this calendar to me when we met in April and forgot to bring it then, and gave it to me today. It was a beautiful and timely gift. I might pose naked when I come out of this ordeal (I can hear already, “ No~~~, Please.”)

For comments: lincicome@charter.net