luck and gratitude

walking out of our temporary apartment building yesterday to pick up our gluten-free jalapeno cornbread, i spotted a shiny penny on the carpet.

i picked it up. "hurray!" i smiled at rara, "i am SO lucky!"

she said, "it was face down, that's not lucky. you shouldn't have picked it up."

me: "i don't believe that. i pick up ALL pennies, they are all lucky!"

she giggled, "maybe that's why you have such bad luck."

me: "i don't have bad luck! i am one of the luckiest people!"

she said, "you have the worst luck of anyone - you got cancer, you lost your apartment, you got hit by a taxi, your new apartment got flooded, your car was eaten by rats - mama, you are NOT lucky!"

i started laughing myself: "i got cancer and i got well, we have another apartment in the same neighborhood, i survived the taxi accident with just a few scars, we're staying in temporary apartment on the 47th floor with the most beautiful views ever, the insurance fixed my car. my exhusband sued me and realized he had to drop the case, i do work i love. i have great friends and i have three smart and pretty daughters -"

rara interrupted, laughing, too: "ok, at least, you have ONE smart pretty daughter."

it made me think about tennessee williams' quote: "luck is believing you are lucky." there's a theory that luck is a psychological state rather than a psychic one. lucky people see the positive side to every situation.

and lucky people are grateful ones. as ariana huffington says, we should also "occupy gratitude."

there is so much i am grateful for. apart from all the things i already told rara, it's the pleasure of sitting in a stream of sunlight in the morning as i drink my tea. it's the ability to fill my lungs with air and exhale a satisfying breath. i am so grateful for breathing.

and there's the elasticity in my muscles when i swim laps - oh how delicious to be able to swim after my months of chemo - to be weightless and cocooned in the water and free of ivs and wires. and being able to walk around on my own, to think clearly, to remember. i love being able to sleep. sinking into a pillow at night and drifting off or the luxury of occasionally being able to sleep late into the morning.

and the surprising, painful joy of waking early enough to see the sunrise. that magical moment when anything is possible.

i am grateful that my children always have fresh, abundant food and clean beds to sleep in and more clothes than they know what to do with. they have lots of shoes and our apartment is warm and watertight. i am grateful that they know they are loved by their parents (even if their parents don't love each other). i am grateful that when it's raining or snowing, i can pick them up in a car and we can all drive warm and dry in the car, unlike so many people who must walk or sleep or live outside.

i am grateful that i am not frightened anyone will hurt me or that bombs will explode outside my home or the school. that my daughters all made it up to adolescence with all their limbs intact and without being hurt or molested or abused.

i am grateful for the small unexpected moments of luck that seem to show up on my doorstep - a shiny penny! the elevator right there when i walk out! the subway arriving just as i get to the platform! problems that find solutions (with a lot of persistence)! a new project that fills me with the thrill of an intellectual challenge as i rush to solve it.

finding white roses with pink edges in the supermarket and being able to afford to bring them home. having the vision to see them, oh they are so beautiful and alive! and the world is filled with so many beautiful things to drink in with your eyes.

how lucky, how lucky to be able to see.

five years ago, in november, i drove down the pacific coast highway from san francisco to santa cruz, california to visit my college friends. i was so struck by the incredible, brutal beauty of the cliffs and the sea that i had to keep stopping the car to gaze at it. the 2-hour drive took me 4. i kept thinking that those views were the reason i had eyes. that in some sense, i existed in order to witness that beauty.

two years ago, i spent thanksgiving in the emergency room at memorial sloan kettering and when i got home i was too sick to eat anything. but i am still grateful for my cousin noor who sat with me for hours and my friend and healer, penney leyshon, who appeared like an angel in my curtained cubicle and made the bleeding stop with her energy. my brother who baked a pumpkin pie with no dairy or sugar or wheat.

i am grateful for my skin, my hair, my body. that i regained all the nerve sensation in my fingers and i touch and feel so many lovely things.

i breathed a sigh of gratitude upon hearing that my friend mona eltahawy, the courageous egyptian-american journalist, was set free after being beaten and detained by the egyptian police.

the dog licking my toes under the table...

thank YOU to the Divine, God, Allah, Jesus, Brahma, Intelligence, the Universe, for all the pleasures of the flesh as well as the soul.

Each one of my particles called out with its own voice,
"All praise be to God and thanksgiving!"

— Jalaluddin Rumi

how lucky we are.

the end of childhood

just shy of 3 weeks' into her freshman year at the rhode island school of design (RISD), sasha finds herself bleary-eyed and lost outside the district courthouse in providence. she's running on 2 days' with very little sleep because she got back from her first weekend back home in new york city the night before. she's still wearing the sweatshirt she wore back on the train, "The United Nations International School, NYC." it's the idealistic school she attended from kindergarten to 12th-grade. the lunch ladies had known her since before she was too small to carry her own money.

she's a bright but shy girl. when she was a toddler, city testing showed high levels of lead in her blood. we think that's probably why she developed ADD in adolescence. it makes her dreamy and easily carried away in her thoughts, so it takes some mustering up of will to ask a stranger which way to get back to the college. she looks up the road to a church steeple that looks vaguely familar.

last night, she had a sleepless night in a freezing cold jail cell, because RISD public safety had her arrested for coming in to tell them she mistakenly ignited a piece of paper on a bulletin board as she was leaving the dormitory (even though she didn't leave the spot before she was certain the entire thing had been extinguished). it was out in less than a minute.

when every wisp of smoke was gone, she walked out of the building and heard the fire alarms and the engines coming. she thought she'd better reassure everyone that it was not a serious fire, nothing was damaged and no one was in danger. she did what she had been taught to do all through her education at the United Nations School. be kind. be conscious. be caring. when she made a mistake, she admitted it, apologized and tried to rectify the situation as best she could.

even that night, she was tired. the first semester at RISD is known for being grueling. she'd had a studio class from 8am to 7pm and then she worked on her homework in her room for 3 hours before she and her friends had decided to go out for a cigarette break at about 11pm. she was spacey and she was sorry.

providence is small but the RISD freshman schedule is so dense so she's not been off college hill much except to the library. she'd never been in this part of town before. there's no one there to pick her up, her I.D. and cell phone had been confiscated, and they didn't let her get her wallet so she guesses she'll just have to walk back. her wrists are still sore from being handcuffed to another prisoner for hours.

the security guard at entrance of the courthouse nods her to the direction of the college and she heads up the road. sasha had never lived on her own before. until now, the biggest trouble she'd ever gotten herself into was bringing waterguns to school at the end of the senior year. they were confiscated by the teachers before anyone got wet.

that said, she's used to being the oldest of three sisters and taking responsibility for the pack, especially since she and sisters were on their own with me for the past 12 years. she realized how serious her job was while I was recovering from months of chemotherapy. so she doesn't complain and she doesn't get angry.

she is blinking in the sunlight and still trying to make sense of what happened during her arraignment. it was her first time in a courtroom. unlike her sisters, she's not a fan of "Law and Order." one of the men asked her if she was pleading guilty or not guilty. her father told her afterwards that that was the public defender. she wasn't sure what she was being told to sign, but she did it because she was told to.

afterwards, her younger sister told her that "the guy who said what happened," was the prosecutor. sasha said he told the judge that she had turned herself in and the police report showed that she was forthcoming and remorseful. the judge allowed her to go. sasha thought it was over.

that night, police were loathe to arrest sasha but the burly RISD public security officer insisted. he'd probably had it up to here with the boisterous new pack of freshmen. sasha said that when she "confessed," he said, "this is serious! the police are coming!" the arson police. they questioned her and quickly realized it was neither deliberate nor malicious.

disapproving, the scowling RISD public security officer closed the door on the little room sasha was held in while he conferred with them. sasha heard the same RISD public security officer say, "let's teach her a lesson - let her spend the night in jail." the next thing she knew she was being handcuffed and put in the back of a squadcar and drove her down to the station. she was still in her UNIS sweats - and she ended being stuck wearing the same clothes for the next 24 hours.

sasha had never heard the term "paterfamilias." when I was in college, the college administration became your guardians. they were protective of their students and our reputations. they tried to keep us out of trouble with the police and help us learn our lessons within the safety of the school administration. they would never have wanted to ruin the entire academic career or mar a life with an arrest record - especially when their job was nurture us and help us grow.

when sasha got back up to college, she was worried because she'd missed her morning class. her next class wasn't til 4pm so she thought she might have time to shower and change and have a quick nap before. she went back to RISD public safety to get her ID and phone back so she could call me and her father.

when she got there, they told her she was suspended.

she was forbidden to be on campus without supervision. they told her she could not leave the office. no longer a person, she is an insurance liability.

half-asleep and disoriented, she was made to sit in a chair for the next 7 hours until james (her stepfather) could drive up from the city to collect her. she had no cell phone, no computer, no book but she kept falling asleep anyway. a kindly school administrator brought her back a bagel but she was too tired to eat.

back in NYC, I got a call at 1:03am from the head of RISD Student Life. "your daughter's been arrested and she's in jail," he was seething, so angry i could almost feel him spitting through the phone.

i said, "are you sure? sasha? why?"

he said, "she set a bulletin board on fire."

at first, I almost laughed, thinking this was some kind of joke. "really?"

"we take fire very seriously at RISD. sasha has a lot to answer for!" he speaks through clenched teeth.

"there must be some mistake, sasha isn't that kind of a kid. she doesn't do those sort of things. what happened?"

"sasha is 18. she is an adult. if you want to know what happened, you'll have to call the police station." he gave me the number of the police station and his cell phone - though he made it clear he despised all the freshmen, and sasha most vehemently.

like sasha, i am equally baffled. i have never been handcuffed or put in jail or had an arraignment. i call the police station and the kindly police officer who had arrested her, reassured me. "she's a good kid, don't worry," she tells me. "i'll try and tell her i talked to you. they'll release her in the morning and she can call you then." she tells me that she wouldn't have even arrested her at all if RISD public safety hadn't insisted. "there was no real damage to property, no harm to anyone," she says. "i don't know why they wanted to send her down here, but it will probably be dismissed in the morning. there's not even a real charge."

i call the director of resident life again and tell him i am a single mother with two more teenagers at home. i am six hours away from providence and not sure what to do now.

he sneers and tells me that his only comfort is that he never made the mistake of producing his own teenagers. "i really shouldn't do this since sasha is 18, but i'll call you tomorrow and tell you what's been determined."

the next morning at about 11am, he calls to tell me that it's likely sasha will be sent home. he's not sure yet, but one should make arrangements to collect her. i've got parent-teacher meetings for rara and zarina and james is shooting a movie but he manages to shut down his crew by 2pm and drive up to providence.

a week later, sasha is summoned back to the school for a "disciplinary hearing." in a panic, i take her to a clinical psychiatrist to see if i didn't understand - and she was secretly malicious. but no, a thorough examination makes it clear that she is the girl we know and love. no desire to hurt anyone or destroy property. on the other hand, she is diagnosed with ADD inattentive disorder. in other words, she is shy and spacey but gentle, not defiant. we bring the psychiatrist's report to RISD.

RISD suggests she find an advisor for a disciplinary hearing. after 3 weeks in RISD, she has no one to turn to. she tells them that, so they suggest another student, just one year older than her, who is equally clueless about how to respond.

for two hours, sasha is grilled by four administrators and four students, none of whom had read her telling of what happened or the psychiatrist's report or any of the additional papers she included. sasha is not given any of the information used against her by the college. though there is a scratchy, black-and-white security camera film - which only shoots a frame every 3 seconds. in it, sasha passes with a group of kids, laughing and horsing around. her hands are never in frame, so without her own testimony, there was no proof she ignited it.

despite the scowling RISD public safety officer, sasha has to prove that she turned herself in. that is not on the record. now those campus safety officers, locals with a reputation for harshness towards the artsy rich kids who attend the college, have full police powers.

of the other students who witnessed the event, two came forward and corroborated sasha's story while the third one was so intimidated that he simply threw sasha under the bus. he was a boy who'd had his romantic advances towards sasha rebuffed and wasn't inclined to help at the risk of looking bad (he'd been there and done nothing to help).

of course, under the pressure of scrutiny, sasha dissolved into tears and was unable to speak.

the results of the hearing? sasha is suspended for two years. she can re-apply to RISD then.

the chances that she can get a place in another college after a disciplinary suspension are infinitesimal.

one of james' friends wrote a letter to RISD protesting sasha's treatment. as the father of a college freshman at another art college, he talked about his fear of the current criminalization of students.

he talked about the way in which the world has changed and humanity has been replaced by the requirements of insurance and legal structures. the way in which what is happening at all the #occupy movements is echoing what happened in the arab spring - and the way in which brutal police force has become accepted in retaliation for minor infractions. that we have become so accustomed to being treated harshly by the authorities that we are too frightened to protest.

in the meantime, sasha is sitting at home, in limbo. she's been cooking for her sisters, helping around the house. going with me to movies and surviving on the texts and emails of her friends who are all in throes of their first semester in university. they tell her about all their new friends and their favorite classes. occasionally, she bursts into tears, saying, "it's just so unfair..." but usually, she just says she's lonely.

more bizarrely, she wants nothing more than to be allowed to go back to school. she loved RISD. even though she spent the past two years studying art intensively for the International Baccalaureat, she focused on her passion, photography. RISD opened up a whole new world - drawing, painting, design. it was terrifying and thrilling. she knew she was behind the curve because she'd never learned those skills, but she was inspired by her classmates. "everyone here is so creative! they are always thinking of cool new things to do," she was exhilarated by the energy around her.

since our apartment flooded this summer, we've moved from one temporary home to another. our current tiny apartment is now crowded with all the things from sasha's dorm room. sasha shares a room with me and zarina shares a room with rara.

at 18, sasha is an adult according to the law. though if something goes wrong, or the college needs to be paid, they call her parents. despite that, what we can do to help sasha is limited. like everyone else today, we are subject to laws and rules that seem to defy intelligence and common sense.

everyone - from her school guidance counselor to people who've known her since babyhood - sent letters and emails to RISD vouching for her kind nature. we've had artists simply email to protest RISD's draconian response to a childish mistake. the administration responded with emails saying they needed to consider the safety of the other students.

as if sasha was not a student. as if her presence alone was a threat. however, no one from RISD telephoned or emailed sasha to see how she was.

we are all growing up through this incident. learning that all the idealistic things we've taught our kids - always take responsibility for what you do, apologize, be honest, protect your friends, trust your teachers and the authorities to look out for your best interests - are no longer valid in the present society. we've learned that authorities are not reasonable and wisdom is less important than face value.

this is where the innocence of childhood ends. but what goes in its place?

housing works

feeling a little dejected today.

a friend laughingly said to me, "you must have been REALLY bad in a past lifetime because i can't believe how much stuff is happening to you."

i've spoken to a couple of real estate agents who smile dryly and say this sort of situation is all too common in new york city.

perhaps it's divine retribution of sorts. i am one of those people who is very attached to my home. even worse, my neighborhood. it gives me a sense of stability and structure that allows me to run around, work freelance in different offices, be as reckless as i want in the rest of my life.

my home is my sanctuary. my base. it's where i feel safe. it's where i feel like i can protect my teenagers from the dangers of the outside world.

in the past two years, my living situation has been on a bit of a downhill slide.

of course, my irresponsibly getting cancer and not working didn't help much. add to that, an exhusband who chose to play out his own revenge scheme just as the family income and my health hit bottom.

now i'm not really in hell, but i am in limbo.

the past sweltering week has been the worst heat wave in nyc in decade.

i normally LOVE the summer heat but prior to that, we had a couple weeks of rain crashing through the wall like a giant waterfall and flooding the girls' bedrooms repeatedly and eventually drenching mine, too.

now the resulting mold has gotten so bad that one is choked by the smell upon opening the door.

i usually run in to grab a few things and rush out with a shopping bag, a runny nose, a cough and a raging headache.

(apparently, mold is much more toxic for someone with cancer or who has had cancer treatment - perhaps because of our compromised immune systems - and for people who've had lyme disease and asthma. that would be zarina, so she's stuck at james'.

since people keep asking me to write all my secret health solutions down - here's today's information - i get immediate relief from large doses of vitamin c, tumeric and chlorella. then a shot of wheat grass a little later. but even a tiny bit of sugar or dairy can bring the reaction all back. also, at night my lungs get so clogged i wake up gasping for air. at that point, i put some silver biotics in a nasal spray http://www.silverbiotics.com inhale deeply and try and get it down into my lungs. by the way, you know it's bad when you blow your nose and the tissue is streaked with black mold.

if i remember i put a couple of drops of "thieves" oil on my pillow, too. if i've heard a diffuser is good for that.

additional life advice - after some extensive research, the best homeowner's/renter's insurance company is amica and i recommend EVERYONE scrape the money together to get some because they will rescue you, even if it's just temporarily. it does make you feel better.  also, state farm is not covering any of my destroyed furniture because it's the result of poor building maintenance. check your insurance policy for water damage and mold remediation, it's very common in nyc and lots of companies don't cover it. so the "like a good neighbor" is being put to the test.)

not that i should really be complaining because limbo means living a few blocks away in a 4-star hotel with powerful air conditioning.

however, as sartre explains, hell is really the waiting room.

our no-exit is a gigantic bed in a tiny room as befits new york city. fill it with a few teenagers and a dog and the hotel california gets a lot less glamorous.

nightly chocolates on the pillows lose their appeal when you've eaten all your meals in the bed (since no other furniture fits in here).

i desperately want to cook and sit at the table. i want to buy flowers. i want to have bowls of peaches ripening in the sun. my organic diet and juicing routine have gone out the window.

the puppy's getting antsy in the miniscule space. she now barks like a maniac every time someone comes down the hall and runs around in circles like a wind-up toy. i've smuggled in a few steak bones to quiet her down but i'm worried the rest of guests might not be friendly too much longer.

back at home, it looks like a sinking ship. we've dragged as much stuff as we can save into the one part of the apartment that didn't have water pouring into it. we run in from time to time to get the stuff we need.

the amazons can't find their clothes. sasha's lost her passport and the pieces of her college application she needed to do over the summer. rara is down in dc with my parents but she's panicked she won't be able to come back.
 
my homeowner's insurance says that they are ready to rip out the walls, clean the mold and put everything back in again but my building's insurance is dragging their heels. just as the building refused to repair the leak over the past four years. one of my neighbors, despite being a banker, knows a bit about construction so i asked him what was going on. he told me to call my handyman. i asked if he had anyone he could send over.  he laughed, "i'm not going to pay for it!"

another of my banker neighbors muttered, "just fix it yourself. that's what i would do."

not to sound all-girly and clueless, but i did pay a number of people to fix the leak over the years and now that i've been forced to be up on the roof regularly, i can see they didn't do a great job.

is the moral of the story that you should learn to do your own construction?

it's funny, in the legal tangles i've faced, i've spoken to lots of lawyers who've repeated what the most recent one did.

a kindly and high-powered gentleman, his retainer was more than my monthly mortgage payment. "i'm so sorry, my dear. it doesn't matter if you're right, it matters if you have the financial backing to prove it in court."

trying to think what a real amazon would do.

i just want my home back.

ah, new york city.

day 17 - you looked fantastic!

 left side

 rightside

head-on

so i got that text message from my friend tony today. i'd dragged the amazons to see him in macbeth and we were all a bit tired still from the eid festivities and my mum and dad visiting the previous few days. so i zipped myself into my standby herve leger skirt that is so stretchy, it fits immediately post-chemo and now that i am 12 pounds heavier, too.

i texted back, "not fishing for compliments but what looks fantastic?"

he texted, "hair looked nice, well-dressed, nice make-up and earrings."

since the extent of my make-up is kajal (which i put on once every few days) and blush (which i put on after the pool in the morning) and the only thing i was wearing which he hadn't seen before were my grandmother's earrings, my reaction to his enthusiastic compliment (and he doesn't give lots of compliments either) was:

"wow!"

so the cream is working.

i walked in on mary schook who is madly preparing the shop to be the msapothecary winter wonderland holiday destination and she said, "oh my gosh, your cheeks are higher!"

the current consensus: the beaucell cream has - in 16 days - taken about five years off my face.

again, it costs $2,000 and is only available in korea, japan and, possibly, at mary schook's shop (if it keeps working).

in case you couldn't remember what my face looked like in april (2 months after the end of chemotherapy) - here's my college trip with sasha and aaron up to syracuse university. sasha filmed me sitting on the shore of the river.

what's tragic is that i thought i looked GOOD. phew. i must have looked really really bad during chemo. i remember reading some kind of statistic when i was working on anti-ageing skincare for loreal. about 75% of women don't realize how much they are ageing and how much their faces have changed.

i do know that i don't look in the mirror often - and when i do, i am so surprised at how different i look that how i feel (like 10 times bigger, taller) that i rarely get past that to notice the details - like the little wrinkles around my eyes or my sagging jowly chin - until i see a photograph or a video.

those have to be pointed out to me by my daughters.

also, i am so thin and pale in the video that i am amazed i thought i could jump in the car and drive 6 hours back and forth to show sasha colleges. no wonder people were alarmed!

anyway, if you have $2,000 to spend on face cream - i should add that this is an ENTIRE kit: day cream, toner, eye cream, night cream, face masks, so you needn't have anything else and the texture and scent (very very mild) is really nice - this DOES seem to make a difference.