Way Cool Artsy Women

It was not easy to get a note from a friend from whom I haven't heard from awhile that said, I have been living with cancer. She is young, beautiful, a wife, a mother, talented, and she has been living with cancer. I read what she has written about her journey so far, and I think: This is not a journey that I would know how to go on, or know how to write of, or know how to endure, but there she is, in her own way comforting me, speaking of good doctors, a loving husband, the surround of friends and children, the future. She is speaking of what will happen next, a few days from now following her second chemo treatment, when her hair will begin to fall away.

No, I think. No.

But my friend Denise writes on: I am going to be one of those way cool artsy women with the scarves and big earrings.

What is my choice, then? Only this: To be one of those made-braver-by-her friends who will go out in search of the world's best earrings.

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What Matters: Dancing to Life

It was not a good day; it was not. It was a day in which I was reminded of just how difficult this writing journey can be—of how hoped-for support from a publisher does, indeed, fail to materialize, even if that support is as simple as putting a book forward for an award. Even if it is as simple as simple faith and advocacy.

But there was, in this day, a foxtrot-waltz with Jim. There was my son reading from his newest work, and oh, my son is a writer, a real one—funny (he's always been), plot smart (reliably so), dialogue rich (better than me), and now (wholly, fully) compassionate. And there was So You Think You Can Dance, which is not some mere TV show. It is a place where artists go to work and where people like me, who need artistry, who cry when it materializes, who are fierce and complicated and sometimes broken by the way they choose to live, go for communion, community.

Tonight Melissa and Ade danced a Tyce Diorio routine that portrayed a woman imperiled by breast cancer. Melissa, in this dance, fought to survive and to hope. Ade fought to believe in her journey, to lift her up. The whole was, in a word, unforgettable. It was strength and power and release and it was, damn it, don't take this life away from me. I cried, I couldn't stop crying, for the beauty of the dance and for the reality of one of my very best friends, one of my oldest, dearest friends, who has been fighting this cancer battle for an entire year now. She has fought, she has not complained, she has believed, and she is out there, raising her two sons, cheering them on at baseball games, and asking, when I call, How are you, Beth?.

How am I?

My friend's journey has broken my heart, and tonight she was danced for. Tonight all of those in the fight were danced for, and we were reminded of what matters.

I was.

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