Every evening I look into my back yard, with the raccoons and bunnies and possums dancing in the dusky light.
And I whisper...
...they are magic. These woods too.
Then I am back on a sofa where I lay for 180 days or so. I'm not sure the exact count of days, but I do know it was a long time. And next to the sofa was a table strewn with medicine, lotion and flowers. It is orderly now with a single candle chandelier, but then I had no energy or will to tidy up. For dazed hours I would stare out beyond the window glass. Into those woods, where the raccoon lives with her babies now.
It became a Forest Kingdom of possum princes and frog knights, because reality was hard. Too hard. Blood transfusions and chemo, radiation burns and vomiting. Terribly sad times, really. After appointments in the Big World, checkups and scans with sedatives, I would limp to fall back onto my sofa and look to those magic woods. To a wondrous place with squirrels in ball gowns and chipmunks with trumpets. And they would make me smile, like they do now.
So if you ask what got me through some very dark days, it was love, prayers, and fairy tales.
Back to today, I pick a jewel-toned story collection from my book shelf, and reality blurs with magic. Out of the corner of my eye she peeks around, urging me on.
Tell your story, our story.
Okay, Alice, but will they believe me?
It doesn't matter, she answers, because they will believe when their time is right. When they need to understand more.
Alright Alice, I will tell my fairy tale.
Once upon a time I stood on my icy driveway, frozen in January's cold. Pacing around and back, holding a phone, lost in conversation. After hanging up, I reached to open my pretty yellow front door. The one I had walked through countless times, the kind I thought would go on forever...to call out to my husband and sons, I am home, I am home, I am home guys! The happy castle where we had parties and laughter, birthdays and love, days upon days of whatever we like to call Normal.
But on this day, I walked into my home and nothing was the same.
Objects whirled, the floor tilted. Where am I? Who am I? What day is it? I wondered these things then, with an echo of the doctor's words...
...you have a tumor, something very, very dangerous. You must go to battle, Julie.
And my mind spun background noise to the doctor's words: I have a tumor, a tumor, and I have no humor. For I am too young, too young to have a tumor.
Breathe, breathe, breathe, I whimpered, leaving my home to fall down a hole. Dragons and monsters and witches peeked through cracks in the rock as I fell down and down and down. She is sick, said the creatures...or maybe it was my beloveds' voices as they tried to reach me in that hole.
Julie, oh Julie, where are you? You are dear to us. We are confused and very scared too...
...but as these voices faded, all I could see was a neon purple sign flashing:
Whatever Will Happen To Me?
Up was down and down was up, as I wished oh so badly to be Anywhere Else and tears came to my eyes. Stuttering some prayers, random words really, as a young girl approached me.
Alice. Oh sweet Alice. You are here.
She wore a gold bracelet (which I borrowed for later because I felt pretty wearing it and pretty is still important in Desperate Times). And Alice held orange flowers (so I bought bouquets later, on the darkest days especially, because beauty is still important in Desperate Times).
Then Alice said to me on that very cold and awful day...
..."will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance"?
And the only appropriate response was to call in the magic that I had always (sort of) known was there.
But I hadn't beckoned it before, because nothing had ever seemed quite that desperate, quite as scary as a Big, Bad Tumor. And I suppose you are a Lucky Person if you haven't felt that sort of awfulness.
When things go so Wrong you can't breathe....
...yes, Alice, I will dance.
And she smiled at me then.
You can do what you need to do, Julie, you are enough.
A few weeks later the news was precise, at least clearer than the desperate flashing neon sign. After scans and a biopsy came the verdict: Julie needs some care, she needs some help. And in marched a team of doctors and nurses saying we are here. Dear hearts and smart heads huddled around drawings and plans, took out potions and hatched a plan over tea in their garden.
And me? I looked out to those magic woods...
...to know I had been in that hole long enough.
So at the perfect hour, Alice took my hand and we walked into the cancer clinic, a place for Broken Bodies and Fire Spirits. Through revolving doors, then a maze of hallways, we finally came to a cubical with a bag of orange poison hanging in the corner.
And I sat on a throne under a warm blanket (these blankets always made me sigh). A nurse cooed and plumped pillows around, then the Dodo on her shoulder said: "The best way to explain it is to do it.". I looked down at the needle in my chest, connected to a tube pumping poison into my body. A motor somewhere: Whir, whir, whir. And the Doorknob muttered: "Come, come now. Crying won't help." Trying to gather my composure (breathe, Julie, breathe) I scribbled on a sheet of paper.
And I wondered how I would ever remember the nurse's cautions of possible side effects while I lay alone on that sofa...
...and then it all became Too Much. Just Too Much.
And I closed my eyes to leave that cubicle and fear, to go over the river and through my woods. All the way to those ancient Black Hills, the place of my birth, while Alice led our way...
...to a field of pine trees, where there was a small girl with brown hair in a pink tutu and baggy tights, laughing and twirling through her fears of starting school on the first day, walking home alone after dark, being run over by a car and surviving a flood. Of course there were many other grand (but harrowing) adventures of her Good Childhood.
Slightly older, she stood at the top of a mountain and her parents advised...you have skis and your courage, we will see you below. When her teenage mind melted with wondering doubts, she would rise up again, in search of herself. When her first salary seemed stingy, not nearly enough, she and her friends learned bags of potatoes were just a few bucks.
And then that Party Girl raced up hills at dawn. In search of her heart which she found to be strong, she stood on that rise with her face to the sun...
...so I watched that girl then young woman and older still, year after year after year.
And it was alright, I am alright, I said as Alice stood by. For I knew I could do what I had to do, and Alice gave me a wink and a nod.
Then a hug too and I danced oh I danced and I still dance at dusk...when the raccoon prances with a shimmy and the squirrels spin round trees.
And Alice still whispers: dance, Julie, dance, into the woods let us go.
So friends, this is the beginning of my fairy tale, Chapter One. It skirts the edges of the Big Magic that blew in with the doctor's call, taking me to my woods and beyond. As I search for fairy tales at the thrift shop now, I know they contain something that can help mend hearts.
For we become An Adventure.
Chapter Two will come next. Until then, remember you are not alone and you are enough, me too. And whether you believe in angels, archangels and all the company of heaven, and maybe Alice too...it is important that you remember your imagination is always beckoning at your edges...
....to dance away, as your heart beats: I am okay.
