a bad case of the FCCF

Frustrated caregiver cooking fever. FCCF. I've got it, and an awful case at that. 

My mind spends inordinate amounts of time thinking about food: what to cook, how to cook it, how to maximize calories for Mike, how to entice him, how to somehow make something so delicious that it overpowers the pain of eating and rehabilitates the whole ritual of meals into something pleasurable again.

This is something, the rational part of my brain tells me, that is simply not possible right now. Not today, not tomorrow. His throat is simply too burnt and ulcerated by radiation to be able to enjoy eating and drinking. He can barely get through a smoothie. Plain old water is a terrible challenge. Whether I roast or saute garlic before adding it to broccoli potato soup is not going to make one ounce of difference to him. 

And yet while I push the stroller, while I drive to an appointment, I wonder about that garlic. I consider adding an avocado to the mix, or maybe that cashew cream in the fridge. (Speaking of: a friend loaned us her Vitamix. I've used it four times in the past 18 hours.) It's not that I have too much time on my hands - it's that I feel utterly futile and frustrated by the fact that I can do so little to help. And cooking for someone is the most powerful way I know to manifest love, to soothe a hurt.

I was listening to an episode of The Splendid Table on a run the other day, fueling the cooking obsession, when I heard an interview with the Italian chef who cooked for the Pope during his visit in New York. She was so joyful and full of feeling as she described the meals she prepared: how she gathered vegetables from her own garden to serve him, how every choice was made with care. She talked about how food connects us all, and how feeding someone is the simplest form of showing love. 

After one of her lunches for him, the Pope surprised the cooks by coming into the kitchen and asking if he might share a coffee with them. The chef could barely come up with words to describe what this experience of drinking coffee and talking about their lives together had meant for her. I think I laughed and cried while listening. It's not just feeding someone; it's sharing the meal. 

The nutritionist at the cancer treatment center recommended a cookbook called One Bite at a Time that I've been cooking out of over the past week. I think it's great and would recommend to anyone else in my situation, whether suffering from FCCF or not. More than any particular recipe I appreciate the author's approach to cooking for someone undergoing cancer treatment - she advocates maintaining that person's connection to food and meals. Setting a beautiful table, adding flavor, color and brightness to food, using colorful dishes. Inviting the senses whenever possible. It is humanizing to fight against the tendency to view eating as taking one's medicine.

It helps me recognize Mike's great gift to us in continuing to sit down to dinner with his family, to patiently make his way through a bowl of soup while the children bicker and compare school notes and submit to one more bite of peas. 

Asking for a coffee was a generous act. Not that I really have any idea what motivates His Holiness, but I imagine that the coffee itself was less important than sharing the coffee with singular, beloved others. Just so it does not matter much what the soup tastes like for my husband; it matters that he is being fed, and that we eat the soup together. 

(Much to the children's chagrin: soup again?!?!)

p.s. On another note - isn't three year old Frances the baker adorable?

homemade time, the swearing edition

I recently heard myself say to a friend that I am sick of this crescendoing radiation bullshit. I really am. I am fed up with the whole scorched earth approach to battling cancer. 

Watching my beloved suffer is heartbreaking. And bone-breaking and soul-breaking too.

In conclusion: I fucking, fucking hate it.

p.s. Even when I'm mad, I still feel immense gratitude and love for all of you.

nurture and nature

As we lingered over dinner yesterday, trying to convince Beatrice that there is no dessert only dinner and watching her nibble a tiny purple carrot oh-so-slowly, there was a quiet knock at the front door. I opened it to find Kerry, with her beautifully open and kind face, holding an enormous bag full of soft and fluffy throws. A warm, snuggly blanket for everyone in our family, each selected with favorite colors and proclivities in mind. How did she know Mike had been shivering with cold yesterday, that he had casually commented that we really needed a cozy blanket in the living room?

And how had Hannah and Emily known that I have been overwhelmed by the beauty of this autumn, that I had just been talking to Gabriel about how we've never found a truly excellent way to preserve leaves? They brought a flower/leaf press with them from Annapolis, amongst other treasures. Milena must have known too, as she sent me this link yesterday as well. 

And in between Hannah and Emily and Kerry's delivery, there was Jessie and her family, bearing many individually portioned bags of frozen, lovingly made soup for Mike. Do you have a sore throat? asked little Elias when he walked into our kitchen. Yes, I do, replied Mike. Now Elias is acquainted with the intended recipient of his earnest culinary efforts. He seemed satisfied. 

Oh! And in the midst of so many comings and goings, Rhoda's big box arrived, filled with gifts and most especially the fabric for a fleece quilt for all of us to make together.

It seems our family and friends are determined to keep us warm and well fed, to maintain a steady flow of music and books and art into this borrowed house. I decided to let it be known via Mike's Caring Bridge site that we could use some backup soup for him, now that only liquids are tolerable. Days later our freezer is full of nourishing broths and purees. Eating has become hard, but I do believe eating food prepared with love and kindness is a little easier going down.

I'm not the one with cancer, but still I say cancer has had a clarifying effect. So much in my life these days has a certain brilliance, a force to it: the color of the sky, the warm spices in a pumpkin muffin, yellow late afternoon light on brick, delight in Beatrice's eyes. The necessity of receiving the care that flows towards us with grace and love. 

A recognition that both reaching out and receiving requires a generous spirit. These past months have stretched my heart's capacity for reception. I'm making space. Sometimes it hurts.

Also: figuring out what is essential. Food, warmth, beauty. Reading aloud together. Walking, biking, making art. The flaming brilliance of the season. The people whom we love and love us, and the people who love them, and the people in turn who love them. The signs of what we mean to each other.

p.s. Our first annual apple picking trip inspired one of the very first posts on this blog. How things have changed! How they have stayed the same! This time we met in Pennsylvania, and Gabriel was missing, and Beatrice has joined us, but Nathaniel still likes to pull a lot of kid weight in his wagon.

missive from the other side

This is a portrait of me and Mike. Or Mike and me. We are sitting in a waiting room quietly, with our own thoughts, with our own burdens, together.

Actually the sloth (such a new addition, I cannot remember his name) and Ha Ha the Monkey sit there companionably, per Gabriel's arrangement, on the headboard of his bed while he sleeps at night. And nearly every night when I come in to stretch out beside him and do his bedtime routine, I imagine them as me and Mike, a worn out pair whose present duty is to sit and wait.

I have been writing blog posts in my mind for weeks now. I have told you about so many things, most of them in the bleak dear diary vein. I don't usually compose when things are going well - though truth be told, most every beautiful and joyful thing these days feels at least a little weighted with grief and worry. I never seem able to find the time, or spiritual energy, to translate that 'writing' into actual writing. Maybe someday I will tell you about the past two months.

The first dividing line in my life was when my dad died. Everything was then understood as belonging to either before or after. A few precious things belonged to both sides, but even they became bifurcated: my friendship with so-and-so before Dad died, and my friendship with so-and-so after Dad died. The second line was when my first baby was born: before and after parenthood. Everything changed.

Now I am, muddled and tired and scared, making my way through the swamps of a new unknown. Mike's diagnosis was the third dividing line. It breaks my heart that it also marks the first such line for my children, who are all still very young. I suspect that there will be good things about this transformation for all of us, that we will grow in love and empathy. I hope so. Regardless of the specifics, I feel certain that we will be marked by this experience, changed forever.

I started running more after Mike's treatment started. One day in the heat of August I was at the track and saw a bald, shirtless guy running up and down the bleachers with an enormous sandbag slung across his shoulders. He was sweating and grunting and stumbling every once in awhile. I felt like I could barely finish my run at my usual slow pace, slogging along in the humidity and heat. But look at that guy - geez. What is he thinking??

I am, per usual, a feelings sponge. These days soaking up the emotional flow of my husband and children can be a bit harrowing. But then also the trash still needs to be taken out, the car still needs new tires, the children still protest piano practice. Every so often I get brittle and exhausted and feel so small and mean - a caregiving and general life-living failure. I snap at Frances, I invite conflict over peeing with Beatrice, I cry - a lot - when I can't find a parking spot and walk into the first yoga class in weeks very, very late.

But then I think of that guy with his gleaming bald head and his grunts. It wasn't pretty. But he was doing it. He was getting it done. My sandbag can be a real bitch and the effort it takes to lug it around is evident, but basically, I'm getting it done too.  

With, of course, serious help. So many of you have been supporting us from near and far, in more ways than I can count. Without that constant flow of love I surely would have slipped and fallen right off the bleachers long ago. Thank you for keeping me upright!

I've missed this space for reflection and connection. Hello, hello. I'm so glad you're here.