Homeland Security

L and I have just returned from Texas, where we had a three-day celebration of my mother's 80th birthday, and then we drove to San Antone to visit his friend J, who used to work with him. Yesterday we walked up and down along the river, which is brackish and greenish (and not just from St. Patrick's Day, I don't think), but nonetheless has ducks and fuzzy brown ducklings and a cormorant or two making homes in it. We chose a nuevo-ish Mexican restaurant it seemed to me; it calls itself a Texas bistro) for dinner and L and J sat down at an outside table but I stopped to see why about a dozen people, including several waiters, were staring at the water. Turned out that a duckling had a pink snake-like object in its mouth. Some people thought it might be bubble gum; others, candy; others, a real snake. I thought about throwing something at the duckling so that he'd release it (in case it was bubble gum) but I didn't. I just stood and watched helplessly as the duckling gobbled up more and more of the object. I don't think candy would hurt a duck, but I think that bubble gum would do damage. I doubt any studies on this have been performed.

In Texas it was spring, with balmy weather and bright green grass and geraniums, floods of pansies, tall bright snapdragons--and azaleas, on their way out. And the state flower, the bluebonnet, and other wildflowers, Lady Bird Johnson's legacy. We saw very few lizards at first, which disappointed me, but then L and I walked around before the brunch started and for some reason found a lot of lizards on the cement borders of flower beds in front of the restaurant. I recommend Masraff's if you are looking for lizards.

My mother hadn't wanted any fuss for her birthday but she relented and it turned out she loved the events, which my sister, for the most part, had arranged. A friend of hers said, I hope I look as good as you do...when I'm as old as you are. She said it to be funny, of course, because they're almost the same age. We would all do well to look as good as my mother does. See photo below.

It was the first time I'd been to back for almost two years, since I stayed in Chicago last Passover instead of flying to Texas, like I usually do; I'd started chemo and and didn't want to expose myself to airplane germs. On this trip everyone told me how wonderful I looked, which may say more about how they expected me to look than how I do look. L keeps telling me to keep my hair short, and he was sure to pass along any compliments he could gather about my hair-do.

Here is a picture of me at the brunch. I swear I didn't have this much gray before chemo.

In San Antonio, J had thought that we'd gone to Houston to celebrate my birthday, so she had a birthday card for me and made a chocolate eclair cake for me. She put a little green candle in it and turned down the lights and she and her husband and L sang happy birthday to me. It was very nice.

We were both happy to be home tonight and we walked around the neighborhood. It was cool and not too windy. Yesterday was opening day for the Cubs, and there were still signs in the window at nearby Murphy's Bleachers, letting people know they could come to the bar from 5-9 a.m., when Mike & Mike from ESPN radio would be broadcasting live. I kept thinking the "a.m." was a typo, but a man standing outside smoking told us that people had indeed come to the bar that early in the morning; they were disappointed because the bar couldn't serve beer until 7 a.m., he said. The ESPN web site tells me that people were lining up at 4 a.m. and ventured that they "may have had some Bud Lights in their system already."

In San Antonio in a few weeks Fiesta will begin--a huge, 10-day festival. The Cubs are our continuing fiesta, and even their constant losing doesn't dampen the party. We humans need to gather together for a cause that is that is larger than ourselves, and for many people that thing is the Cubs. A baseball team is benign enough. It could be worse.

In Houston Sunday night, after the cousins and aunts and uncle had left for the airport, and I was returning photos to my mother's albums (we'd put a bunch of pictures in frames and set them on the brunch tables), I felt melancholy. Partly because it was so quiet after three celebratory days with a crowd of family. Partly because in going through the albums I'd seen pictures of so many people who had died--my father, my maternal grandparents, my father's mother, cousin J, Uncle C and Aunt M, cousin B, Aunt S, Aunt B, so many of my parents' friends, and on and on--and I'd looked at photos of cousins and aunts and uncles when they were so young, so very young. I was so young. And partly because a number of people at the brunch were my mother's friends I'd known forever and some of them weren't in great shape. I felt Time as an antagonist, a strong, unstoppable force like wind or earthquake. And just as indifferent. And at the same time I wondered how long the photo albums would stay in the family, how future generations in general will deal with their inherited surplus of tangible memories. Who will be able to name all the people at my father's 60th birthday party? And who will care?

In San Antonio, J brought out a shoe box to show me. It was filled with letters her father had written when he was serving in the navy just after World War II ended. He was 19 and on a destroyer in North Africa. And then he came home, married her mother, and they had J. He died in a car crash when she was a baby. Because his life was so short, because she doesn't have memories, everything he left was precious.

We were in Texas at the peak of wildflower season. Because of Lady Bird, the highways are lined with bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, evening primroses (which I call buttercups), a deep red species of phlox. This is what Lady Bird wrote, five years before she died: "My heart found its home long ago in the beauty, mystery, order and disorder of the flowering earth. I wanted future generations to be able to savor what I had all my life." In the comment section of her on-line obituary in USA Today, some people ridiculed her beautification crusade. Yes, it's true she didn't speak out against the war in Vietnam. But she also didn't do nothing.

The Mothers

The Mothers have come and gone, and the sun is shining brightly on this warm, breezy day. The mothers are mine and L's; last year he came up with the idea of having both of them here for Mother's Day weekend. They'd only met once before, and yesterday and today they said they liked one another, and we believe them. My mother is an elegant Southern lady; L's is an earthy Midwestern enthisiast. I claim that she's an Animist, believing that inanimate objects are sentient beings, but L says I exaggerate. She says of many things, such as sweaters, scarves and baby blankets: That is a friend. That was a friend. L had a receiving blanket called Cover. She has a lovely little picture of him holding it. He also had a Teddy, whom he allegedly buried and who was never found, but was replaced. L does not remember what happened to Teddy. He may have decomposed by now.

I had to nap Saturday and Sunday afternoons so L took the ladies to the Niki in the Garden exhibit at Garfield Park Conservatory (below), to see Magdalena Abakanowicz's giant headless sculptures at Roosevelt and Michigan, and on a wildflower walk at the Heron Rookery in Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. As I said, I slept a deep chemo-sleep. I'm finding that I'm zonked out for more days after each chemo treatment, as predicted.

My friend M was in town for a bar mitzvah, and she came here Saturday afternoon and night. She looks more like my mother than I do, and is more ladylike than I am. An observer would probably think they were related. V (the local V) and her husband J dropped by. He had returned from the markets of Dakar, Senegal, with a scarf for me. It is large and red and black, anarchist colors, he pointed out, and he was apologetic that it was too large for my head. But I had taken informal head-wrapping lessons in an African import store in Hyde Park last month, and I knew how to twist and tuck. So I spent most of Saturday evening wearing a large turban. I felt like I should be singing, "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair." But L said it looked good.

The Tanzanian kanga cloth I bought in Hyde Park has bright blue, yellow and black markings and a proverb in Swahili that says God is good or wise or something like that. I also bought a soft blue hat in the store. I still had my Mohawk then. I told the store owner that I was going to lose all my hair. She asked why and I said I had breast cancer and was going through chemo. Oh chemo is not good, she said. Chemo is poison. When she realized I was determined to continue my treatments, she asked me for my name so she could pray for me.

A number of people are praying for me. As the archetypal Jewish mother says, It couldn't hoit. (This is the context in which I've heard that line: The son proudly treats his immigrant mother to a Broadway show. In the last act, the hero crumples to his death. The mother stands up and yells, Give him chicken soup! The audience tries to shush her and explain it's just a play. She in turn shushes them and yells, ever determined: It couldn't hoit! I think this is mildly funny.) I do not believe in any of those studies that show a relationship between others praying for you and healing. The studies seem flawed. If you yourself are praying, that's another matter, one that has to do with repetition and tradition and comfort and belief. Even being part of a placebo group can make you feel better, because you believe, as Jerome Groopman has pointed out; you have hope. Placebo: I shall please.

L doesn't know this, but I started reciting the Shema to myself at bedtime several years ago. I'd quit at some point after my childhood. I know that God doesn't exist, but I know the prayer exists and has existed for a long, long time. I suppose I'm an animist for believing that the prayer itself has a soul.