Rage Against The Rice Cooker

November 23, 2013

Dear Being-Alivers,

It's Saturday morning. I am in bed with a smattering of books, my notebook, wrapped in gray pilly sweater, a cup of hot tea on the bedside table. Out the window I see the rhodadendron bush, not frozenly pointing south, like closed umbrellas. This is a good sign. Praying the ground is still soft enough to plant daffodil bulbs with Elizabeth this afternoon.

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What is it I want to say to you, to report? It's been weeks. I am full up with stories. Like most things in life, writing is a layered process. It takes time to get under the chatter and circling, to get to the heart of things, the underneath of things.

like in a conversation with your husband? 

My Wonder Woman Jesse, completed her final chemo last Wednesday. This is good news to report. And I realized with the finishing that I've barely written to myself or anyone else about this cancer journey. 

[Who came up with that one anyway?]

Journey? I prefer my soul-sister's assessment...

"It's a shit storm," Kerry said, "Call it like it is." 

This week Jess and I met with her doctor to talk about surgery. It was a good meeting, if you can have a good meeting about your kid having a double mastectomy. We were calm and asked questions. And then drove home. Jesse, as always, very calm.

Me too, until the next day, with no one in the house, a rage storm blew through me. I was screaming at the dog, throwing things out from the crowded pantry, a worn-out rice cooker, dried up magic markers, candle sticks from my first marriage, scanning the joint for what I could burn. You know I love a good burn.

"I went a little crazy," I said to Ann on the phone.
"Think about it. The meeting with the doctor."

oh. 

So, underneath the rage against the rice cooker was sadness and worry. Tearing through the pantry and screaming was actually appropriate behavior. Some days my yoga mat doesn't cut it, or walking, or reading another meditation about being grateful and trusting. It makes me want to spit. Getting that was the gift.

Spit if you need to. Let it rip.

And then I saw the turkeys out the window, my beloved turkeys. Even with the dog whining and pining to go outside, the morning rage slid out of me, like feathers falling. I watched them meander past the wood pile, pecking the ground, hanging out together, 

a cloud of turkeys.