I usually write these missives on Sunday. It's my down day for the week and my mind is free to wander. But Calene and I spent the weekend in San Diego, hanging out with our oldest son to celebrate his birthday. There was no agenda. We wandered the waterfront to start the morning, stopping to tour the USS Midway, something I suggested because I'm writing a book about the Battle of Midway and the visit felt like a fine symbolic gesture. I also thought it was a great way to kill an hour or so.
Last week in this space I hinted at some good news about Calene's cancer. It's actually great news, the first positive steps the fight has taken in two years. But I've learned that in the cancer world it's best to hedge your bets. Every cancer ward has a bell, for instance, usually hanging in the lobby. I used to think that ringing the bell was a sign that the bell-ringer had defeated cancer once and for all. Only recently have I learned that some people ring it after a course of chemo or radiation, celebrating the stepping stone. This bothered me, though it's really not my place to be bothered by when and why people decide to ring the bell.
Dawn Friday. Ocean Beach. I force myself out of bed and log stiff morning miles. Sports park with too many holes in the turf, straight along the bike path above the estuary. Salt air blowing in from the dog beach. White herons standing up to their knees in low tide. Tomorrow is my oldest son's wedding and I have a toast to write
Sitting in the cancer ward while Calene gets a PET scan. Not a bad place to write, all things considered — plush chairs, quiet, so-so WiFi. So far this morning I've checked and rechecked stats from Friday's cross country meet, cancelled a trip to London, read the LA Times, and checked my American Express balance. I didn't sleep well last night, doing the 3 am wake-up and not falling back to sleep. Sometimes when this happens and I struggle to find a comfortable sleeping position I remind myself that this is where "toss and turn" comes from.
When you write your book, as I believe we all should do in this life, if only for our grandchildren, you will be tempted to read your Amazon reviews. It's inevitable. Writing is a needy act, as storytelling has been since the beginning of the craft. Way back when tribes sat around a campfire to share their vignettes in the most dramatic fashion possible, you told your story to get a laugh, a tear, a knowing glance. Nowadays, we call that an Amazon five-star review.
I surprised absolutely nobody yesterday when I tweeted that I am going to continue coaching. It's been almost eighteen months since Calene was diagnosed with a rare cancer. You never know what's going to happen with a Stage IV situation. So as we got used to waiting rooms filled with other cancer patients and the wonderful nurses administering chemo, it just made sense to step away from anything that prevented me from focusing on getting her better….
Thanks to my copy editor, I have learned that I am fond of using a dangling modifying phrase. I did not know this. In fact, I will admit that I have no idea what constitutes a dangling modifying phrase. I was never good at diagramming sentences. There's a myth out there that writers are master grammarians, but I think the truth is that most of us stumbled upon this career because we like to read, do not play well with others, and quietly wondered what it would be like to live the writing life.
I was walking into Lowe's the other day. A father and his two young sons were walking out. He was probably mid-forties. The kids were maybe eight and ten…. One of the little boys said nothing at all. For the purpose of our story, he might as well not have been there, other than the fact that his presence broadened the impact of the event which had just taken place. "Why did you call that woman Karen," the older child asked his dad. "Was her name Karen?"
