Running with China...

Fifteen minutes, four years ago, faster and faster.

My mind ticked off....Ben must be picked up at the pool, I have a repair guy coming to check our washer...we have nothing in the fridge for dinner. Evan's graduation gown must be ordered, I'm late for the Swim Banquet meeting and The Mama Ada Foundation needs funds wired to Kenya.

For a long time, I had felt a reasonable hum in my body.

A happy hum, a pretty well-regulated pace with good stuff. But when my oldest son started middle school, our family began a slide to something else...to the day we would take Evan to college and our family's life would change forever. Sensing the impermanence of our time, we sucked and gulped every drop by living it fast.

As we lurched toward this ending, my body's hum became louder. Random chunks of time appeared out of nowhere - impractical, smallish, awkward chunks - I was waiting for somebody or something, always it seemed. And so I darted those days - into the library, into Starbucks, into the (fill in the blanks).

Ahead of the game, ahead of the game, ahead of the game, I huffed and puffed...always on the move. My heart beat fast, my body faster, never sitting or stopping. Moving seemed an old talent; as a child, I would fall down on hikes, rather than say that I needed to rest.

Yup, I could outrun alot.

Until one day...

...I stood frozen on my home's front steps, terrified and talking with my sister. My doctor had called to say there was a mass, and his quick tone made me want to throw up...he didn't want to stay on the phone for this story, either. Twisting his words, I tried to change them, to be something less dire and serious. But despite my sister's and my attempts to distort my reality...we could not.

Turning to walk into my house, dizzy and disoriented...I had stepped into someone else's awful life.

Run, Julie, run...

...I wanted to run out of my body, to time travel or something fantastical. But the mundane remained.

So go somewhere, Julie, like the thrift shop...there is pretty china...yeah, you like it there. Go clean something, make a recipe, check Facebook or google how to get red wine out of carpet. But do not stop, do you hear me, Julie?

Do not stop.

But the thing is...I couldn't outrun this one. The chemo laid me low, aggressive in its merciful and merciless intent to clean my body. Moving unsteadily between bed and couch, days bled one to the other. My leg throbbed, so that I crawled sometimes. And with a weakened immune system, I stayed cloistered in the house to avoid Covid. Waiting, just waiting, for something else.

And my body said no...you can't outrun this one. In fact, you can't run at all, Julie.

At dusk one day, I lay in bed with the sun streaming in. My cats cuddled near, and I realized we were living the same life - my cats and me. For the first time in my life, I didn't have any expectations of my time or what I would accomplish in a minute or an hour. It was lavish freedom to sit and think in circles, to look out my window, to see the sunset. A lot of lounging happened, in between those always fearful and often terrifying medical appointments, with my life on hold. Waiting for clear answers, for something to end, for something to begin.

And gradually or all in one day, I began to look around with joy at the stillness of my life. Lots of hard stuff had happened; but I had learned to stay still and in one place.

To take a long look at my beautiful home, blessings everywhere, all the beloved people around me. Love came circling then, with casseroles and flowers and lotion and candles and a sweet sigh too.

I had learned to close my eyes and to breathe deeply, to find this center inside myself filled with golden light and peace beyond measure. To talk less, to pray more.

To stop.