I lay with my left arm outstretched, waiting for the needle stick to numb my skin...so that I could have a permanent IV line placed in my upper arm.  It felt like the last straw over the last seven months of treatment for cancer.  The technician was thorough as she explained the procedure.  I could see her expressive blue eyes above the mask she wore over her mouth.  "You know," she said, "Sometimes the body just says no more.  And that's what your veins are saying.  No more punctures.  We've had it.  So we're going to give your body a rest, give it a a break.  No more sticks.  This will be the last one for a while."  I appreciated her try for optimism, yet I wasn't sold on the idea of the permanence of a needle in my arm.  It felt like another way I was held captive in this journey to prevent the cancer from coming back.  In fact, as I continued through the procedure, the technician kept talking.  She said, "You know, I think chemotherapy is a lot like being held hostage. You know at some point you'll be released, but you don't know exactly when.  It's not only a fight physically, but also psychologically, spiritually and emotionally." 

When the insertion of the IV line was over, I looked down at my arm, swathed in a type of fishnet bandage for protection, and thought of the technician's metaphor.  "Boy, she was not kidding when she said chemo is a lot like being held hostage."  Now I couldn't even take showers anymore.  In my head I screamed, "This sucks!" And it does.  Yet as I've thought about the place I'm held captive, I can also say in many ways it does not suck.

My husband suggested I give my bicycle to a neighbor who had no transportation.  "Priscilla, you haven't ridden the bicycle for over a year.  Our neighbor could really use it; I see him walking everywhere."  I didn't have much of an argument.  I kept thinking that I'd ride the bike someday.  I would research the trails at a nearby park, and then I'd go on lots of adventures.  I'd buy a helmet.  I'd take the bike to the beach.  Someday.  I'd seen the neighbor too, carrying his back pack, every day walking up and down our street.  And still the bike sat in the garage unused.  I told my husband, "Give him the bicycle.  I'm not going to use it."  Every time I saw our neighbor on the bike, I felt good that he was getting some use out of it.  But I had a feeling of regret that I'd never made a decision to go on those explorations I'd contemplated, that I'd never bought a helmet and set out to discover new trails.

There is almost nothing like morning light.  Sometimes it is subtle, pink luminescence hugging cumulus clouds.  Other days the display is more dramatic, clouds scudding by to reveal a shimmering sun.  Swirls of cobalt and coral fill up the sky, the great Creator layering color in the heavens.  The show is not to be missed, yet I often am asleep in the radiant light of morning, especially on weekends.  But when I rouse myself to walk on those early mornings, I'm always glad.  The sunrise is like touching palm to palm with God, that contact a divine mystery I cannot truly explain. 

I was reminded of this confounding notion when I watched a movie this week.  Regularly I sojourn to the library in search of books and movies that might bring pleasure or stir my imagination.  As I twirled the rack of DVDs this week, I came upon a movie title, Contact. I knew I'd seen the movie before, yet I coudn't really remember the premise, just that I knew I'd been intrigued.  I noted that it had been produced in 1997.  I almost didn't select it.  Had it really been twenty years ago?  Too old.  But wait, it would cost nothing to check it out.  If I didn't like the movie, I could turn it off. 

Isn't it funny how you run across a message just when you need it?  This week I was rummaging through my poetry file and found a poem I'd written in longhand after hearing it on NPR's, The Writer's Almanac.  The poem is entitled, Lost, by David Wagoner.  In part it goes like this...

Stand still.

The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost.

Wherever you are is called Here.

And you must trust it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes.  Listen.  It answers.

Then a kind friend (you know the type of friend who gently reminds you of what you already know?) sent an email reminding me of psychologist, Marsha Linehan's concept of radical acceptance.  The construct includes these points: 

Were I to proceed to tell you how much I enjoy...architecture, sculpture, painting, music I should want words.~Thomas Jefferson

Lately, I'm especially grateful for You Tube.  I can find most anything I want there.  I've been gravitating toward downloads of "best auditions" of people trying out for America's Got Talent or Britain's Got Talent or The Voice or X-Factor.  What most fascinates me is the the look on peoples' faces when a little child begins belting out opera, or a disheveled man sits down at the piano and plays so beautifully you want to weep, or when a duo performs a magic act that leaves you gasping and asking, "How in the heck did they do that?"  Or when dancers move with such grace and precision, you don't want the performance to end.  The judges and audience just can't quite take it in, this drive of human beings to sing, to dance, to write songs and play instruments, to create...it's in our DNA, and I believe the great Creator placed it there in all of us, because he so loves to create and endowed us with the innate desire to make art.  There's a slight catch, though. Creating takes patience. To create requires process.

When I scroll through the multitude of You Tube downloads and watch ten auditions in a row, thirsting for more, I forget something.  I watched the two-minute audition.  I got the finished product.  I didn't see the hours and hours of that singer practicing in front of the mirror perfecting hand motions and body movement; I couldn't count the number of rejections the magicians received trying to get their act on the road.  I probably have no earthly idea how long it to took the dancers to choreograph their piece--how many times they fell down and got back up.  I can't measure the courage it took each person to try out.  I probably can't fathom the number of times the artists must have felt like quitting.