July 09 Update From Patient Siggy
Dear Friends,
I am stuffing myself with spring and summer like I would a smorgasbord banquet. Of course I can come to another book signing, another trip to the beaches of Ponte Vedra or another few days on the mountain of Monteagle, oh and certainly work in a few days in Nantucket. I’ll be right there. My bag is packed. And I have to work it all in before leaving for my beloved island of Mallorca on July 30th. I have no time to lose. I know by the end of September, my only trips will be back and forth to the eleventh floor of Vanderbilt where the small circle of rooms for stem cell patients awaits me. But as Scarlet put off thinking of Tara, so I can put off thinking about the fall and winter.
To celebrate the reprinting of my book, I arrange more books signings in Lake Forest and Atlanta and reconnect with old friends. Women are amazing. We can loose touch and suddenly come back together as if the last encounter was yesterday. We can go right back to times we cherished and pick it up with a single beat.
Reconnecting to a sisterhood from the past, with shared memories we still hold sacred, is life affirming. Yes, this is what we want to hold onto, this is the best of us as women, to be able to bond immediately even after more than ten years. I bask in the generosity of limitless hospitality, as women in Lake Forest and women in Atlanta give up a day for an old friend from so many years ago. An excuse for women to gather is so easily embraced.
None of my old friends seem to have changed very much, except maybe to become an even better version of themselves, more honed, more sure of their direction, even with too many wrenching losses and illnesses and struggles with mid life hurdles. Sharing my own journey unfortunately confirms we all face the trenches from time to time and have to just climb back up again.
What a joy to be able to share my story with small groups of women who I shortly feel could be my friends with just a little more time. As we share lives and identify mutual friends, a new circle forms which I hope will continue with email updates and responses and passing it all on. The setting in Joan’s magical house in Lake Forest, with the English oak and blue porcelain saying a loud hello as I entered and the luscious pink peonies and lilies waving and finger sandwiches lined up on the plate ready to devour, will stay a rich memory. And we all toasted Rose for bringing us together to ski so many years ago. Joan brought out one of the pictures we all keep close by of young women lined up across the top of Vail Mountain. Our faces are shinny and firm and smiling. I do miss the elasticity of that skin.
The warmth of Lynn’s living room in Atlanta, with her eclectic collections and paintings from world wide travels and another luscious spread of food and wine and flowers in every room drew me in and made it so easy to share my story.
And at a small dinner with my two hostesses, Lynn and Linda and their husbands, Linda and I reminisced about the Greek Island cruise in the rented yacht with eight couples when we sang each night on the back of the boat with harmonica and guitar.
I shouldn’t feel apprehension over these Patient Siggy readings with old friends. I love these readings but I hadn’t done one since the last edition of the book almost a year ago and the last round of cancer and chemo so I was out of practice and I wasn’t sure my short fuzz of hair was quite long enough to have given up my scarves.
Between trips I try to keep in touch with Nicky, who is spending more time in her family place in Pennsylvania, awaiting a grand child and attending her 97 year old father. And then, days after Nicky’s 7th grandchild is born, her dear father passes away. His obituary is in the Sunday’s NYTimes. She will need to cling to young Cole, her youngest, Craig’s second child and namesake of her older sister Collins. Nicky will climb another trench and hug little Cole and begin to heal as we all add prayers and commiserate with the lose of another parent, one of the few who was still here and as the number of years we live moves to numbers that should be our parents and not us.
I write this under the glow of the paper lanterns on the porch of Monteagle. At dusk the light and crisp, cool air helps me sink into the wicker rocker with my lap top on my knees and the anticipation of an old friend who is coming for wine and talk of her sister who just died from cancer. She was so young and the mother of five and the last year was hard so we know we must feel the power of the circle that is left. And as always I ask God why I am still here and dear Betsy and Nicky’s dad, Eads, are not.
Jim needs a Ponte Vedra fix at least once a month so we leave the mountains and head to the beach. He always plays tennis with the pro, as close to noon as possible and he is happiest if it is ninety. And we always play golf. Jim can play an hour of tennis in the morning, 18 holes of golf in the afternoon and come home and walk four miles up and down the beach. I have to pick one or nine holes and a shorter walk. I can’t believe that this time, on the front 9 holes of golf I have two pars and a birdie. On a par three, my tee shot lands on the green. I ask Jim, “Where shall I aim?” He says, “I have no idea.” The green looks as big as the fairway. I am down two hills, on that thicker rim of grass. Jim holds the pin as I can barely see my destination. We measure afterwards. A 70 foot put went over one hill and then the next and the little sucker went in, just like a magnet, just like some golf gopher swallowing it down. Oh my god. A circle of players – Jennie and James and Jim witness in silence and then I grin and whoop and carry and absorb the exhilaration of my first, maybe my only - ever birdie. On the back nine I shoot one more par. Jennie said she is going to start calling me Tiggy instead of Siggy.
We play the next day on the harder course. I didn’t want to play the harder course – I wanted a repeat of yesterday - but no one asked me. I am back to my one par on 18 holes and happy to keep it under 120. James had the birdie. It was beautiful. It was his moment. But he was silent. He would never have mentioned it if we hadn’t seen it. Jennie and I did the cheering. What is it about these guys who are so self contained they don’t need the applause?
That evening, while Jim is grilling the salmon, I ask James. He said, “I have no idea.” I say, “Not good enough. Try again.” He gives it more thought, “The truth is. I have made a lot of birdies over the years. In the army I played often. Now I moan about what use to be. There was a time in my life when I shot in the low 80s, high 70s so now I wish I could still make more birdies and lower scores.”
So I guess if you’ve already soared to golf heights, it’s no big deal. Maybe it’s just as well I took up golf late and I am just coming into my stride, unlike tennis which I remember playing so much better than I do now.
Is there anything to compare with the power of being in the zone when playing a sport? Maybe peppermint ice cream on chocolate cake? Is the occasional zone what sports is all about? We practice and play and are discouraged and think about giving up completely and then we find ourselves in the zone, even at 63, even with hair the length of a mole.
People say my hair is cute. People are very polite in the South. I wear a cap and have side burns. I shed my scarf about two weeks ago. It is so hot. I have a buzz cut. Military style except I think of soldiers as having hair standing straight up and mine is against my scalp, small rodent style. But that didn’t keep me from hitting the hell out of that ball, hitting it out of the park. No, that’s not right, I mean keeping it in the park and on the tee. I am so focused. I keep my score card so I can refer to it when I want to remember the power of the rodent.
I am home on Sunday and go back to the Monteagle to host a dinner party –don’t worry – it is totally catered by super cook Emily – for Margo, the owner and editor of the new Flower Magazine, who is the speaker on Tuesday at 11. One of the energizing things about summer in Monteagle is the Speaker’s Platform with an interesting talk at least twice a week, varying from politics to history to workshops for painting and basket making and bridge and lots of music concerts. Before Margo’s talk, I take her on a tour of some cottages on the grounds. Monteagle Sunday School Assembly was established in 1882, patterned after a Chautauqua Community and is a fenced property with 171 cottages, some very large and stately, most small and cozy. They are all named: Porches, Balconies, Shadowland, Veranda, Idlehour and even Mint Julep. The cottages are painted in a combination of pastel hues and mountain greens and reds and greys. All have porches and wicker or painted rockers and swings and paper lanterns. Some are breathtaking, some are ketchy, but all have a sense of the history of the place, an old piece of furniture, a portrait of the grandmother who first came here, a cut glass plate with oval spaces for 16 deviled eggs. Most have paintings and craft items from artists on the mountain, just as country homes around the globe are prone to reflect the culture around them.
Then I go home to repack for Nantucket and for Marcella’s grey shingled cottage in the little town of Sconset, filled with stacked Nantucket baskets and watercolors and prints and hooked rugs and models of the ships that used to pass by during whaling days. We have no agenda but to ride bikes and walk the narrow streets of Sconset and drool over overflowing flower beds and every shade of pink rose vines. We play bridge and visit with other islanders, Connie and her daughter Lindsey and her children Ellery and Thomas and my friend who knows Mallorca and survived cancer, Acklen.
Rock while you can, I think as I watch the Michael Jackson memorial as I take a day off to have a round of Rituxan dripped into my body to keep me in remission until the fall. I know Michael Jackson was a strange and troubled soul but what a star, what a performer, let us remember the best of his singing, those three octaves of notes, and the call from Fred Astaire to acknowledge, his acrobatic and original dancing. Michael balanced on his toes at the end of the moon walk is my favorite. Was there ever anything better? Neverland will be turned into the next Graceland. Sadly I agree with the reporter who said Michael’s death and Elvis’s death were “a good career move”.
We read Slaughterhouse Five for our book club this spring and every time something ghastly or wrenching happens, Vonnegut says, “And so it goes”.
“And so it goes,” the births and deaths and struggles with illness. Life is messy and you can choose to take a rollercoaster or stay under a rock. You know the road I choose and I hope you all continue to come along.
I constantly add new comers to my emails from my signings and travels. With work on another book, however, I am only sending updates every three months or so.
Jim and I leave for Spain on Thursday. I look forward to hearing back from many of you. Every few days, Jim and I will walk to the internet café in the little town of Alcudia, a mile from our Mallorca beach home to check our in boxes.
If you are a new contact and would like to read more, my last update is on my web site at www.patientsiggy.com.
Hugs, Sigourney
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