Some Girls Prefer Carnations: I haven't felt this good since October 20th, 2010

Monday, May 16, 2011

I haven't felt this good since October 20th, 2010

An excerpt from The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T. S. Eliot, that describes how I felt for seven months during cancer treatment:

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep … tired … or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid

= = = = =

A quotation from the journal I wrote on our family vacation to Hawaii in 2005 that describes how I've felt for the past three days, "Oh my goodness I have been so excited that I haven't been able to sleep for days!...I [am] seriously as happy as I get."

= = = = =

This is the best way I could think of to describe for you how great it is to have energy and be coherent. This is how great I'm feeling IN SPITE OF the pending recovering (chest wall, throat, left arm). This is...glorious.

Sounds like I'm going to have to redefine my happiness scale with a new maximum. Might I suggest, "frighteningly happy"?

8 comments:

BeckyMay 17, 2011 at 8:07 AM
My most favorite line of Prufrock as long been, "I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker..."

I'm so, so glad that you're starting to feel better.

Flickering greatness - for sure.

xoxo
ReplyDelete
Replies
FrankMay 17, 2011 at 4:38 PM
Ah Prufrock. I've always sympathized with that guy. Talking and talking and talking and just having people (well, OK, ladies of the night, but they, they're people too) stare back and say "that is not what I meant, not what I meant at all." Scuttling through life like a crab on the bottom of the sea.

However, you can be assured that when the mermaids sing, each to each, they are also singing to you. Keep feeling better.
ReplyDelete
Replies
DadMay 17, 2011 at 10:48 PM
As Billy Chrystal would say...you wook mahvalous! When I see your glow...before you even speak a word...I can tell...she's baaaaaaack! I'm so happy for the happy day's you, Ian, & the girls are now experiencing.
ReplyDelete
Replies
MallaryMay 17, 2011 at 10:58 PM
I am a cryer. To hear that you are feeling happy makes me so happy it brings tears to my eyes.XOXO
ReplyDelete
Replies
NormMay 18, 2011 at 9:14 AM
This calls for tea! and cakes! and ices! You are the strongest person I know.
ReplyDelete
Replies
AmiMay 18, 2011 at 9:50 AM
It is odd from an outsider's perspective to read that you are finally feeling that you are coherent. On your worst days, you were still more lucid and smarter than most everyone I know. Although... you do seem to have very smart friends!

Yay for feeling better. Yay for energy. Yay for dance parties. Yay for frighteningly happy.
ReplyDelete
Replies
LoriMay 18, 2011 at 5:54 PM
I am sorry that you've had to endure so many lousy days that you remember the last good day. Down the road, when someone mentions this time of lousiness you'll have to stop and think and say, rriigghhhtttt . . . I'd sort of forgotten all that. And then you'll go right back to the magnificently wonderful science/wife/mom/friend/normal person thing you were doing. No more flickering for you!
ReplyDelete
Replies
JacqueMay 18, 2011 at 9:54 PM
Sure do LOVE the good vibes flowing on your blog these days. And I love reading the loving, supportive posts from your huge fan club. It's quite a smart and nurturing group you have surrounding you and family. Bravo to all!!!!
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Books I've read recently

TRUTH AND BEAUTY by Ann Patchett "'Grief isn't something to "be gotten through." It has no life of its own like that, it's just plain and simply there.'" and "History is strangely incomprehensible when you're standing in the middle of it."
THE PATRON SAINT OF LIARS by Ann Patchett "I wanted to be able to stop hoping that she would turn into something else."
MY OWN COUNTRY by Abraham Verghese "I remember the acts of human kindness that illumine our world."
IN THE COMPANY OF CHEERFUL LADIES: No. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY NOVEL #6 by Alexander McCall Smith
CEREMONY by Leslie Marmon Silko
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barbery "There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature..."
A WALK IN THE WOODS by Bill Bryson
THE LACUNA by Barbara Kingsolver "'Soli, let me tell you. The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.'"
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE by Lucy Grealy "Sooner or later we all have to learn the words with which to name our own private losses..." and "Part of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people..." and "Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them."
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sarah Gruen "Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse."
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett "'I have decided not to die.'" and "Oh, I just break down then. It's like two years a doing and trying and hoping all come out at once."
THE TENNIS PARTNER by Abraham Verghese "Would that I had the chance in my sons' lifetime and my own to one day explain to them all the forces that moved me."
THE BLUEST EYE by Toni Morrison "And then the tears rushed down his cheeks, to make a bouquet under his chin."
REMARKABLE CREATURES by Tracy Chevalier "My life led up to that moment, then led away again, like the tide making its highest mark on the beach and then retreating."
RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 8 by Beverly Cleary "Mrs. Quimby smiled and said, 'I can tell you're beginning to get well when you act like a wounded tiger.'"
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived so very much that now I can enjoy everything so well."
THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN by Kate Morton "The happiest folk are those that are busy, for their minds are starved of time to seek out woe." And, speaking of hospitals: "An irony that a place relying so heavily on routine should operate so resolutely outside time's usual rhythms."
THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins "Of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late."
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot "That cancer was a terrible thing."
THE THIEF OF ALWAYS by Clive Barker "Was there some way...to take back the stolen years, and live them here, with the people who loved him, and whom he loved dearly in return?"
CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese "The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not." Best book I've read in a year

Some Girls Prefer Carnations

Pages

Monday, May 16, 2011

I haven't felt this good since October 20th, 2010

8 comments:

Contact the author

Total Pageviews

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid