Can't sleep thoughts

Tonight is the first night I haven't been able to sleep since this all began. I had my sentinel node biopsy this afternoon, everything went well, I'm not in any significant pain, but my mind won't shut off. So, while the rest of the house is peacefully at rest, writing is what I will do.

I was lying there perfectly still, cradled by pillows. I was not worrying or wondering about the future or sifting through "what ifs?" or anything to do with this change in my life. It was all about good memories--simple things like holding my babies and burping them (what a ridiculous and totally necessary activity--the giant "brrrap!" from that tiny body always made us laugh); the quality of the late summer light with the background sound of the first fallen leaves rattling across the driveway; sneaking through a hole in the park fence at sunset gathering pinecones for school projects; canoeing on the lake in a cool summer dawning; sailing "to Tahiti" with my dad; staying up late watching old movies with my mom; 12 years of amazing Girl Scout trips & activities; backpacking with Janet & Peter & my family in the Sierras; Thanksgiving dinners at the Willo house; the late night quiet at the radio station in college; hopping a freight train with Joann from Bakersfield to Stockton; Molly teaching me how to diaper Juli; Bill bathing Alex in the kitchen counter tub, every night in Vallejo; 5 years of Longaberger Bee slumber parties with my girlfriends; the pinochle club; birthdays & new years, picnics & parties, impromptu dinners, community gatherings, apple picking & camping trips with all our treasured friends in NY, and more, all piled together in a seamless tumble of reminiscing.

It's interesting, don't you think, that there isn't a NY winter activity in that list (especially when winter could last 7 months!). Okay then--I'll remember one now: Catching snowflakes on our tongues while walking to school with the kids; the palpable cottony silence of the woods during a snowfall; sledding on the school hill, with Loki chasing the kids down, as fast as he could.

These memories, these moments, this is the "gift" of having cancer. A slowing of the heartbeat, a slap upside my head to pay attention to the living as it is happening. The time ticks by inexorably, and we hardly notice it as it goes past when we take it all for granted. What I used to consider "normal life" wasn't really life at all, was it? Now it is, because it is a precious memory, but was I cognizant while it was actually happening? I was often just marking time with endless activity, always planning for the next thing, always focused on getting through the now to get to the next now and not really noting it with any significance. For all the Wayne Dyer-Dr.Phil-Oprah exhortations in our society to live in the present, we really don't do it, do we? Well, maybe the Dalai Lama does, but who else, really?

So much for my post-op morphine & demerol musings. That's about it, I think I'm done now. Time for more meds. I'll tottle back to bed and see if I can settle down. Thanks for listening.