JOYCE AND CAROLYN

  I love getting my haircut.. Something funny is usually said by someone … Either the beauticians or their clients… My cousin Joyce used to cut my hair at her house along with a bunch of women on Friday nights.  They were all friends of hers and she cut hair in her basement.  One woman was talking about her back being in bad shape.  She said she took a bunch of aspirin.  It was a ridiculous amount.  Every woman in the room gasped and told her how bad that was for her.  She yelled, “When you’re in that much pain, you’ll do anything!!!  If I thought sitting in a bucket of shit would help, I would do it!”

    When Joyce worked at a beauty parlor, she would charge me very little.  The first time it happened I said, “Oh my God, that’s so cheap, is that ok?”  She turned to see if anyone was looking and then she said, “Fuck her.”  “Her” was the boss.   One time she was cutting my hair at her house, and a friend of hers was talking.  It was just the three of us.

“Joyce.  Mary got her hair cut.” 

“Oh really?” 

“Guess how she got it cut.”  There was long pause.  A wedge.” 

“A what?” 

“A wedge.  You’re her God Joyce.”

Apparently, Mary got her hair cut the way Joyce did.  And I guess it was a scandal.

  Yesterday, I got my hair cut down the street.  It reminds me of the beauty parlor in Steele Magnolias.  It’s very small.  I have known two women that have worked there since I was a teenager.  My brother used to work with them.  Carolyn has always helped other people out ever since I can remember knowing her.  When a local firefighter was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease and Carolyn had her own shop, she took all the money that the shop made in one day, and donated it to help pay his medical bills.  Yesterday, she was talking about a nonprofit organization that she and her friends started called “The Swine Sisters.”   She said they call themselves that because when they were vacationing in a log home and one couldn’t stop eating, they called her a swine.  When they got home, she found out she was pregnant and was eating for two.  She said that they raise funds to help people in the community who need it.  One single mom had adopted some children and suddenly lost her job, so they raised money to help her out.  They have done other things like help people with medical bills, etc.  She said before and after every meeting, they snort like pigs.  The Swine Sisters.

MOVING TARGET

  I am on the fence still on the best healing modality for me.  I think that once you've been diagnosed with cancer, even if they get it all in surgery, you can't help but wonder if it will come back.  In 1985, I received extensive acupuncture 6 days a week for 7 months to help my overall health.  She also put me on a very specific diet.  Things that didn’t make sense, but it all worked. My infections that were monthly stopped and my back straightened a lot and some muscles that were atrophied due to paralysis, started to come back.  I thought it was just me, but others noticed.  I was still in a lot of pain.  The first three months I slept around the clock.  I ate, I went to treatments and I slept.  I have to say, it was the most relaxing "sleep", I had had in a long time.  I stayed with people that took care of me.  The acupuncturist took me off the strenuous exercise I was doing which made the fact that muscles were coming back very interesting.  She said, “Spend spend spend, you get zero.” She said, “You Americans are crazy.  You jog in the morning and then you go to happy hour in the afternoon.”  She said I had exercised too much and my body needed to rest.  I had to leave this doctor, and I went to a different acupuncturist.  It didn’t work as well and after 8 months, I stopped.  Now, I am going to someone new.  Acupuncture seems to help one’s immune system, and if I’m going to have radiation, I need something to boost it. I cleaned up my diet, and I take walks 4 days a week, do a yoga class, and now Tai Chi.  I like the yoga.  She does something different in every class.  The Tai Chi is so gentle, but it works.  I am sleepy after these classes.  I think I finally relax a little and that can’t be bad.  Tonight a friend talked about how busy I am, more so than before this diagnosis.  It's because I'm a tad uptight and if I keep busy and try as many things as I can to heal, I might not flip out..... 

FINAL STEP

     I am confused as anything about my next step.  The oncologists want me to have chemo and radiation and I opted only for radiation.  It is Stage 1 cancer, not in the lymph nodes. they say the "margins" are clean which means they got it all.  The problem is.... I am exhausted already.  Hell, I do the dishes, and I have to lay down after.  So how will I manage 6 weeks of something zapping my energy?  And it's not once a week.  It's five days.  The oncologist said, "We'll get you through this.."  I have no idea what that means... I asked but he didn't say.  Somehow, I think the only way to get me through this is to put me in the hospital... then they say your energy comes back in about a week.. I have talked to many about this.  So many women continue working while having this done and manage fine.. In 30 years, I haven't been able to hold a full time job.  Not that I don't want to, my body just won't let me.  I have been advised to read different books on different ends of the spectrum and I do.  Suzanne Somers has much to say about cancer.  I've got a couple weeks to think this over...   

MOXIE

      I got to rehearse with my friends today.  I always enjoy this chorus rehearsal.  One particular moment, Lona did her solo.  She was ecstatic to get it as this was her first time even though she has auditioned before. She was so excited that she ran around and  high fived the director and another singer, Jan, who helped her learn it.  She knows very well the anxiety that comes over her when she sings so she stands up to sing it. Today, she asked the director if she could face us.  She said it would help her.  I thought this was such a smart thing to do.  When she started singing, she seemed to like the feedback from us even though we were backing her up with “oos” like the Pips as one woman said.  She was more expressive looking at us.  I was thinking how cool to look out at an audience and see the support in people's eyes.  After she was done, she was thrilled and danced back to her chair. Her close friend sitting next to me said quietly, “I’m going to cry.”  I was too.  Whenever I see somebody so brave like she is, especially a good friend, I get emotional.  

help

  

Dear Friend,

I'm in deep trouble.  I violated a friendship and it looks like I lost you for good.  The last thing I wanted to do was to lose this person, as you were one of the kindest.  But I think its over.  I asked for forgiveness as my mouth has gotten me into trouble more than once, but I think it's too late.  So, lesson learned.  May our spirits meet again in the next life and may I be much kinder.

Love,

Me

NAPKINS

  A couple of days before I had surgery, a member of the chorus I am in asked if she could come over to give me something.  When she got here, she gave me a red cloth napkin that said, "Love".  She explained it belonged to a  former member who passed away.  Bunny.  Bunny had a massive heart attack the day after a performance and was in a coma for a while and died.  We were all deeply shaken by it. I liked her alot.  I thought it was "cool" that she got to do what she enjoyed, which was singing in this chorus, and then was done.  When Kathy gave this memento to me, she explained that whenever anyone is going through a crisis or a particularly tough time, they get this napkin to sort of remind them that they are not alone.  I also took it to mean Bunny was watching over me.  A friend came over and I shared this story and she said, "Don't you think you should have something with 'live' energy?"I asked if she meant, as opposed to something from someone who has passed ... She said, "Yes."  If this was an issue for me, I'd have to get rid of many things in my home as they are passed down from my dead parents.   I feel strongly that it was the gesture that mattered and the love that these women have shown me. When Kathy shared the story, I was almost in tears.   I think that "things" carry energy and  I think the energy was gentle and loving, and incredibly supportive....That's all I care about.

ITALIANS

    Lately, I have been thinking about all the funerals I have been to.  I think they are a strange way to say goodbye.  Even the funerals for my parents.  My parents had so many siblings.  And so  I went to a lot of funerals while I was growing up.  One of my dad’s brother’s died when I was about 21.  When I went up to the casket,  I remember looking at my uncle and grinning.  I wasn’t close to him at all.  So I felt almost nothing and thought that it was messed up to be in a casket like that.  I watched a cousin in tears and I wondered how close she was to him.  Then I saw my parents and they weren’t too shaken.  They would just make the rounds and see everyone.  One time my mother was walking out of a wake for another uncle and my cousin Lynette stopped her and said, “Aunt Eva, are you bringing your cannolis tomorrow?  My mother said, I am defrosting the dough to make “Pit than quze.”  I am phonetically spelling this but they were these spinach pies that my mother made from a recipe passed down from my dad’s mother.  Lynette said, “So?” My mother said, “So I don’t have time to make cannoli’s.”   Lynette said, “Well, what about tomorrow?” My mother said she was making a different kind of cookie tomorrow.  Lynette followed my mother out the door trying to convince her to make her famous cannoli’s.  It's all about the food for us.  My cousin Jeff at one funeral went up to a cousin, shook her hand and said, “Thank you for coming.”  He handed her a picture of herself in the 60’s. He was so serious when he did it, that she thought he was upset that our uncle died.  He wasn’t. It was her high school picture with the Dr. Zhivago French twist that all the girls wore back then.  We all giggled over this.

  Nothing beats my Aunt Kay at my mother’s wake and funeral.  We kept the casket closed and I’m glad, but she began crying and then screaming, “Eva! EVA!!!!” She sounded like a monkey.  My mother was the youngest of seven and Kay was the oldest.  My mother was also the first to die which threw her siblings for a loop.  They all expected her to outlive them.  “Eva!  Eva!”  Then my mother's sister, Aunt Clara,  started shaking and doing the same thing.  I heard one uncle say, “There they go.”  I guess this is what they did at funerals, but I never saw it.  So my cousin Joyce tried to calm down Aunt Clara and told me I had to come over.  So I did and Aunt Clara couldn’t let go of me.  Her husband came over, tried to pry her arms away from me and said, “Ok.. let her go.”  She wouldn’t.  It was like a Marx Brothers routine. Then at the funeral, my Aunt Kay did the same thing.  As the priest was saying the Lord’s prayer when we were all outside at the cemetary, she started screaming again.  We passed out pink roses as those were my Mom’s favorite  and she threw her’s and hit my My Uncle Joe with it. Uncle Joe was one of my mom's brothers.  He tried to restrain her and she said, “I love you Joe, but I love EVA!!!”  When he died about a year later very suddenly, his daughter Micki told me Aunt Kay would look at the open casket and scream, “Get up Joe!!! Get up!!!”  I had missed this and I am glad.  After my mother’s funeral, we talked and laughed about everyone.  We kept imitating Aunt Kay.  So much so that pretty soon my not quite 2 year old nephew was doing it.  It seems we could have had as much fun giving a party.  It would have been cheaper.