The pink and green dot

So, New York’s cancer survivor issue is out. I’m a pink and green dot on the cover in the upper left, under the first “V” of the “W,” and there’s a teeny portrait of me with my name on the inside, page 31. Right next to Andre, the young guy with the great hat. I look pink, but like something has happened to my eyes. But they’re fine, really. If you’re looking as closely as I am, which you’re not.

I’m cropped out of the online version, so you’ll have to grab the real thing to see my moment of pixelated glory. But here’s the story to get you started: The Survivor Monologues

Hi from cloudy California. Just wrapped up a whirlwind conference, chock-full-o-schmoozing, green inspiration, and demi-celebs. I’m beat.

Overheard: Young woman on phone: “So many guys here are gorgeous and environmentalists. It’s great.”

Saw the founder of Breathe, spent nice time with my old Breathe boss, matched up lots of names to faces and said hi to familiar ones while sipping organic wine and Green-tea-inis sweetened with agave nectar. Also splashed around in my Holiday Inn Express hottub, walked over to disgusting Venice Beach boardwalk, indulged in free mini spa services, listened to Ed Begley and Mariel Hemingway and Billy Blanks. It’s so nice to step away from the computer and talk to people for a change.

Anyway. The New York magazine fact-checkers called. The cancer survivor issue will be out next week. So keep an eye out for my little face-dot in the group photo. I’m in pink toward the back. I’m guessing my eyes are closed, as usual.

It’s so funny talking to LOHAS-y people I know in a professional context. I suspect there will come a time when my survivorship will become more integrated in my professional persona as I write about it more. But for now, it’s the odd thing, like a secret. People ask about my “path” or “mission” and I leave it out, sticking to my spiritual pedigree stuff. Which is fine, appropriate, but I think I’m not just leaving it out for all the ordinary reasons of not oversharing and professional boundaries. I think I’m leaving it out because I really don’t want to have to make something up about how changed I am from it. It seems to disappoint spiritual people if you don’t say cancer changed your life for the better somehow—that you’re more grateful, alive, yadda.

I’m resistant to thinking of it as part of my spiritual path at all. Because it’s nothing I chose, it’s just something I went through with as much peace and bravery as I could muster. Just like millions of other people do all the time. I’m no more spiritual now, and I’m not doing the things cancer survivors are “supposed” to do to stay well. I mean I eat ok but not great. Maybe I just don’t want to be grilled about a regimen that doesn’t exist, one that I’m not exatly proud of not existing. One that someone in my job, with my career, should have in place. The yoga, the meditation, the cardio three times a week, the green juices daily, the supplements.

So without all of that, it’s just easier to leave it out, at least until I have something to be braggy about.

Well, Dr. Z said I have “graduated.” Two years, babay! Two years of it being all-gone. Cat scan was “perfect,” bloodwork, also, “perfect.”

This means I only have to go to that building with the dying people and the getting better people, and the in-between people and their guests TWICE a year. TWICE! Like, hey tyke, no more training wheels, you go, girl. And I only have to be injected with radioactive goo ONCE a year. Upon my “woo hoo!” Dr. Z said, “Well, you’re glad, but I’m not sure how I will bear it.” I heart my doctor.

Speaking of graduated, I went up to my high school’s alumni day yesterday with T. It was lovely and sunny and sweet as it almost always is those days. I get pangs of missing myself around every corner. In the meeting room I remember how I learned the sound of my own truth (in addition to some under-pew groping, of course), and what it’s like to be in a community of people all doing their best to care, even when they’re bratty fucked-up adolescents. It truly seems like a miracle to me, that place. That there’s this incredible oasis two miles north of the city, that I found, and that saved me. The Quakers aren’t big on anything so flashy as miracles, but it feels that way, even in the simple meeting room with shiny new wood floors.

I could tell whether people knew I had been sick by how they greeted me. “You look great,” was weighted somehow, drenched with meaning that wouldn’t be there if they were just commenting on my complexion. A few people asked how I was doing and I was glad to give the good report. Saw my first love there, looking distracted and distant, there with his adorable daughter. Sigh. I think if I could bottle that sweet want-less yearning we all feel for our first loves, I would. I’d dab it behind my ears whenever I was feeling rootless and sad. Even if the reality now has nothing to do with what was then. Because it reminds you of something that seems so pure and easy, even if it was just pure pheremones and wasn’t actually easy at all. Ya dig?

Anyhoo, waiting to become famous; New York magazine did a photoshoot of New Yorker cancer survivors a few weeks ago. The turnout was way less than they had wanted, but we all lined up in Tavern on the Green, winding through those crazy mirrored hallways full of reflections of crystal chandeliers to have our individual portraits taken by hot gay photo assistants who looked more suited to snapping Kate Moss than us ordinary survivors. I felt dowdy and frizzy and nervous. Clearly the Asian 24-year-old hottie will be featured, as will the 30-something cuties in the red polka-dotted dress and jaunty scarf. But not me, it was clear from the photographer’s face.

The real photographer was yelling at the assistants, “When do you shoot someone below the neck?! When do you do that? Raise it up, raise it up!”

I milled out onto the patio when other people’s stories started to overwhelm me and I met Max, a cool survivor gal who liked my lotus ring. Then we were all herded onto Sheeps Meadow. The day was sunny and a bit windy and warm. The cherry blossoms were exploding with pink. A day that anyone is psyched to be alive, much less 150 people in various states of recovering from a formerly and sometimes still fatal illness.

He had us do small smiles, big smiles, look proud (but not angry, the photog was quick to point out from his cherry-picker crane). We all chatted with each other and it was uneasy fun. I sort of hated myself for being nervous because clearly, as a cancer survivor I should care much less about my hair than I do.

Anyway, it was lovely and we all are waiting for the issue. Hope spring is rubbing away the winter from all your dark corners. Love.