Almost November
I often say, “I can’t believe it’s almost the end of…” And whether it’s June, July, September, or October doesn’t really matter. But the truth is, I genuinely can’t believe it. And now it’s almost the end of October.
It’s a dark morning. Although I can’t really call it dark, because when I come out of the house, there’s a full moon in the sky. Almost immediately, my dog and I encounter two coyotes. Fortunately, they scramble away, and although the encounter causes a brief emotional disturbance for my dog, it brings no real danger. Frankly, I’m much more afraid of skunks than of any other wildlife.
There’s plenty of wildlife on our walks. Rabbits, skunks, coyotes—they’re all out there somewhere. Occasionally, I also see a mother deer with her two fawns. I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing that my dogs don’t seem particularly interested in them.
And suddenly, there’s that full moon again, beautiful in the sky, almost too bright to photograph.
I was surprised to learn that at certain times of the year, the moon rises in the wee hours of the morning and stays up well past midday. I didn’t know that. I had always assumed that moonrise followed sunset.
Like I said, October is almost over.
I’ve been perpetually exhausted and tired, and even finding the time and energy to write a journal entry has become difficult. There are so many little things that happen, things I want to remember, and somehow I never get around to writing them down.
Just a little more, and I’ll be at the two-year mark.
Once again, I’ve been trying to learn more about breast cancer diagnosis and prognosis, and to clarify certain terms that I hadn’t quite understood.
For example, I’ve learned that survival is actually counted from the time of diagnosis. I’m thinking that November 8 was that day—the day I decided to stop by and finally have the first mammogram of my life.
And now the two-year mark is approaching.
That is not to say two years cancer-free. That period, I assume, should be counted from the time it was determined that there was no cancer left in my body, which I suppose would be the day of my surgery, July 8, exactly eight months after the diagnosis.
I also learned that recurrence, especially if it’s not metastatic, does not automatically mean death.
Still, the hope is…
I don’t think there’s anything in existence that can ever make you absolutely certain that you’re cured. The thought of “what if” will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. And those what-ifs seem to multiply, forming an alphabet of their own.
When I went for my surgical checkup, I was quite frank about it. I told the surgeon that I could feel various lumps and bumps and had no idea what their significance might be. Realistically, I understand that there are postoperative changes, but that doesn’t mean I can always distinguish them from something more ominous.
And there I was, shortly after my appointment, with my entire chest wall covered in purple marker drawings.
I went for an ultrasound, which fortunately confirmed that all those lumps and bumps were merely thickened portions of AlloDerm and areas of fat necrosis.
Thank God for that.
Of course, it comforted and calmed me. But the reality remains that there are no absolute guarantees, no magical markers that can tell me with complete certainty that everything will always be fine.
My daughter’s sweet sixteen came and went. It wasn’t quite as dramatic and pompous as we had originally imagined. It fell on a working day, so we had a small family dinner.
I did make her a backdrop, although somewhat smaller than the previous two. And, of course, I had to Photoshop two of her friends into the group picture.
Once again, I failed to notice a mistake made by ChatGPT. There was some confusion about which legs belonged to whom, and I eventually had to conceal the problem by gluing a flower onto the backdrop.
I hope she liked it.
Although I suspect she enjoyed our mini shopping spree the following weekend even more.
I really don’t enjoy shopping. It’s always a burden to me. I tend to march briskly from store to store, rather than wander around touching things I don’t need.
But I also had a birthday party to attend, and it had been a very, very long time since I’d needed an outfit for a special occasion.
In an attempt to be cost-conscious, I pulled out a skirt that I had worn to my son’s bar mitzvah twenty-one years ago.
To my surprise and considerable satisfaction, it still fit!
And I was equally pleased to discover that it was a timeless skirt. Not only did it fit, but it could easily be worn today without looking outdated.
The top was a little more problematic.
Once again, I consulted ChatGPT. Laugh if you will, but finding a matching top turned out to be practically impossible.
Eventually, my daughter selected one for me.
And a couple of hours later, there I was, wearing my twenty-one-year-old skirt, a brand-new top, and my twenty-year-old shoes. Because I refuse to wear heels, and flats are all I wear.
And there I was, at what another friend described as a Great Gatsby party.
Everybody was dressed to the nines. Lots of glamour, lots of burlesque, lots of impossibly high heels, and lots of rather amusing fashion mishaps.
Being observant by nature, and perhaps even more observant professionally, since I’m constantly looking at people’s bodies for signs and symptoms, I couldn’t help noticing them.
There was someone wearing impossibly uncomfortable shoes with enormous heels, made even more uncomfortable, if that was possible, by rather pronounced bunions.
Someone else wore a beautiful, fancy backless dress, but there was an enormous, angry red pimple right in the middle of her back. And somehow that pimple was the only thing one could see.
Another woman had a beautiful top with an open back, which would have been perfectly fine, except for the multiple folds of fat on either side that made the whole effect somewhat less flattering.
Interestingly, this is something I try to teach my daughter.
God gave us clothes to conceal our imperfections, not to advertise them.
Another absolutely astonishing thing about that party was that every single person read their speech from a mobile phone.
Every single one.
And I found that sad.
First, because phones have become such an indispensable part of our lives that apparently we can no longer do anything without them.
But more importantly, because it’s not even a question of eloquence.
If you’re talking about somebody you love and cherish, somebody you spend your days with, how can you not simply say what’s in your heart? Why does a sentiment like that have to be read from a mobile phone?
I don’t know.
Perhaps it’s hard for me to understand because I’ve never been afraid of public speaking. Quite the opposite. Once I start talking, I just talk. And even if I have a script, I’m almost certain to wander off it and continue speaking until somebody finally stops me.
Well, my contribution to the party was a song, created with the help of my dear, dear friend Suno.
Suno AI.
Frustrating at times, but ever so helpful.
It’s never quite one hundred percent the way I want it. And Suno has certain habits that are almost impossible to overcome, rather like a human being.
Still, the results are certainly better than anything I could have sung myself.
Suno has come to my aid again and again. And for me, the fun part isn’t creating an original musical score, which I don’t do, but experimenting with completely different genres and seeing what comes out of it.
In the meantime, the world around me feels like a boiling pot.
So many things are swirling around in it, and none of them feels particularly good at the moment.
Political turmoil. Ongoing wars. The continuing erosion of rules and order. The feeling that there is less and less control over anything.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to endure.
And in the middle of all this, nature is quietly preparing for autumn.
Throughout October, against all odds, I kept hoping to go up north for a weekend to see the yellow leaves. But every time, something got in the way.
And it never happened.
Here in Los Angeles, the leaves haven’t really turned yellow yet, and the weather hasn’t been particularly cold.
Yet, for me, the swimming season came to an abrupt end when my pool turned green and my pool man couldn’t clear it quickly enough.
The mornings have become dark. At five o’clock, it’s truly dark, and I walk in that darkness. For the past week, my morning walks have even required gloves.
Gloves! In Los Angeles!
And I’m already dreading next week’s time change, when it will be dark by four-thirty in the afternoon and the day will seem to be over before it has properly begun.
I hate it.
I hate it much more than the darkness in the morning.
Perhaps it’s a kind of situational depression, but it makes me feel as though I haven’t managed to accomplish anything all day.
Some of my girlfriends continue along the path of self-improvement, with faces increasingly devoid of wrinkles but, at the same time, increasingly devoid of facial expressions.
I’ve stopped doing any of that.
I look at my face, and I can’t say I like what I see. The wrinkles, the jowls, the uneven contour of my chin and jawline.
But somehow, I don’t care as much as I used to.
And I think that perhaps this is something cancer has done to me.
I’m happy to be alive.
Despite everything.
And being alive is so much more important than anything else.
I know people who undergo facelifts and other cosmetic surgeries. And although everybody seems to think that I have easy access to surgeons and anesthesia, I’m simply not vain enough to put myself through an operation for something I don’t truly need.
For exactly the same reason, I declined a third surgery to further perfect my already perfectly fake breasts.
In the meantime, I’m dealing with my mother’s ongoing recovery from surgery, taking on more household responsibilities, and trying to keep up with my own work.
My days feel like an endless succession of driving my daughter to school, picking her up, taking her to after-school activities, managing her social life, and somehow attaching a shopping trip to every other excursion.
Grocery shopping, of course.
And that’s where I really feel the ever-climbing cost of living.
I honestly have no idea how people who are less fortunate than I am manage to cope with it.
Still, I’m very much hoping that at some point I will get to see those yellow leaves.
That I’ll be able to breathe the crisp autumn air, feel my chest expand fully, and simply experience the joy of it.
I’m still hoping to enter my third year of survival and make it more productive, fuller, and more meaningful than the second one has been.
I’m still hoping that somehow I’ll manage to ward off this ever-present fatigue, this feeling of never having slept enough, which seems to follow me everywhere.
I’m still hoping that at some point in my life, my children will develop five cents more empathy and kindness, and five cents fewer expectations that I will take care of absolutely everything.
And with that hope, I’m ready to welcome November.