The Simple Things

More than ever these days, I want to shrink the world to the couple of rooms in my house where I’m most comfortable. I’ve been declining requests to meet for lunch or dinner, and the social whirl is less compelling than it ever was. To me, a perfect evening often means stretching out in the bedroom or living room, watching netflix movies and playing with Eliana. I am sure most new moms feel like nesting, but I have the additional urge to stay indoors and not engage in human contact (other than my family).

Over the past year, as I went through hormone therapy to get pregnant, then became pregnant and dealt with putting on 60 pounds of weight, then birth and dealing with a newborn and finally, cancer. This year I have been coming to grips with my new vulnerability.

I have to admit that the impulse is more dangerous now, as I struggle with treatment depression. It is a thin line between the womb of healing and cutting yourself off from the world.

Even so, I want to nest. I’m doing ok physically — only headaches and fatigue are left — but my spirit is still convalescing. I crave homely days built around writing, reading and time spent with family and friends (and occasional window shopping.. unable to do actual shopping for the obvious reasons).

I’m still reinterpreting myself in the face of cancer, and that takes time and quiet. It can’t be rushed, and I can’t do it successfully if I’m caught up in our culture’s unrelenting ruckus.

I don’t want to be among the herd of people shrilling and shrieking at a bar or a club- that is so passe and absolutely ridiculous to me now. An hour of hushed conversation at Starbucks is more than enough, is the true DNA of our finite lives.

Through all of this I’ve been simplifying my life, both consciously and subconsciously, as if trying to flense myself to something elemental.

I long to travel though. It makes me sad that I wont be able to for quite a while, but I long to go to a far away place, take in the sights and sounds of a foreign land, taste foreign foods, and play my favorite game: "where did X food originate from and how did it get to this place? In the meantime, I will curb my craving by watching movies.

In the meantime, I’ve been gorging on books about travel and far away places.

I feel as if I’m questing after my travel junkie self, trying to conjure the dreamy girl who spent hour upon hour at a museum taking in all the sights and sounds of a far away place, or the girl who loves to explore markets in places like Dubai, or New Delhi.

I miss the girl I was — who couldn’t imagine having cancer or doing the zombie shuffle through the shadow land of depression.

As I took the cure in my bedroom recently, inhaling The Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac, in beween naps and caring for Eliana, I realized that I’m trying to recreate that care-free girl, trying to make my world manageable enough right now to wrap it about myself like a 100 percent alpaca shawl.