How to not fall off a bike, and other observations

Friend watches me read outside Airbnb, Wellfleet

I took a little break, this time on another getaway, not as exotic as Costa Rica, but beautiful, and according to a friend who has traveled around the world, one of the most exotic places he's seen.

He was referring to Race Point, in Provincetown, and the bike ride we took through the dunes. Savoring the spring blooms still out, the beach flowers fragrant, the distinctive smell of the sea...we stayed for a while after finishing the loop. (Detouring here: Did you ever wonder how to describe that ocean smell? I looked it up and found that from poets to biologists, people had plenty to say. Why does the sea smell like the sea?, from Popular Science, takes the romance out of it but is an interesting read.)

I'd only been biking a little, and for some reason, though I went to a lot of spinning classes at the Y last year, it didn't speak to me this year. I do something most every day, so I think I filled those slots with yoga and a little more tennis because I joined an extra group.

(Tennis detour: I'm more relaxed as a "fun" player and during my outdoor summer league season with the Holyoke Dolls than in the regular leagues.  My record is pretty good with the Dolls and not so good anymore during indoor league tennis. Yesterday I played twice, first with my Monday morning group, and last night at Forest Park for the team. I was worried that I would be tired, but despite the heat and humidity, I was energized and played really well, getting balls out of range, I think  surprising the other players and also surprising myself. My excellent, fun, partner and I were a good team; I set some up and she smashed them. It was very convivial, more so than indoors, with chit chat on the side changes and laughter between two courts. We won, 6-1, 6-3. I wish this and other summer scores counted in my rating; scores in this league don't count. But, rating, shmating, it's like a test score that might not reflect what you do. I kind of understand why I didn't get asked to play this year on a senior team for which I didn't earn a win, but still, despite the "maturity" of advancing age, it's hard to always separate self-worth from tennis-worth. That's why last night was great, and it's also great that George says I'm playing my best tennis ever. It must have something to do with the light therapy on my blood, the extracorporeal photopheresis, although to be honest I can't exactly explain it except for saying it's loosened up my skin and made me more flexible.)

Therefore if I had fallen off my bike tottering in granny gear going up one of the Race Point hills, I might have had a better fall than my past crashes. But maturity overcame my desire to prove a point  when I was going so slowly up a steep hill that I could have lost my balance and fallen off. I GOT off and walked to the top, congratulating myself on knowing when I had reached a limit. I can't think of other times when I've gotten off; I didn't love doing it, but it was better than falling.

Another unusual thing for me was talking to a cat. That's Fiddle, the dog-like cat who hangs out at the sweet Airbnb where we stayed in Wellfleet, a short walk to town. Besides my cousin's (late) cat, Chloe, she's the only dog-like cat I ever knew. She sat with me when I read. I didn't do much reading, though, because I was either doing some work or doing outdoor activities with the friend who wishes to remain anonymous. Highlights included a hike around Great Island and walks along the beach and a last-day bike ride starting on the bike path in Wellfleet and then turning left for a ride to Coast Guard Beach.

We watched a couple playing with their grandson on the beach. It made me wonder how I can be a grandmother now, while, just the other day, I was in high school, riding around these beaches in a jeep with that first love who creeps into my thoughts in places that are connected to him. The beach can do that to you. I'm pretty sure that when we walked along the beach separately, me walking through the shallow water and him on the harder sand, that he was having his own thoughts too.

Entrance to Coast Guard Beach, Eastham

When we were exiting up the path, the grandpa was walking down with the lunch that he had gotten out of the car. I asked (jokingly) if we could have some. We got to doing the "where are you from" thing. He said he lives in Munson. I said I used to work for the newspaper (The Republican) that covered that area. He asked if I knew Jim Gillen. I said of course! He was an editor at the paper. The grandpa (Andre, I think, said he is a lifelong friend of Jim's and was staying in Jim's Cape house. He asked if he could take my photo and text it to Jim. I said of course; when he sent it I wrote a cutline saying "could I please have an extra inch?" That's how it used to go at the paper, with space getting smaller and reporters begging for more space.

It was the last week before the crowds arrive. The bike path can get crazy in season, but we had it almost to ourselves. It made me more relaxed because my concern on crowded bike paths is not so much falling, as it would be on a hill on the road, but bumping into kids or having kids bump into me.

I'm looking forward to going back in a couple of weeks, this time to Diane and David's, with my three (plus one grandchild). It took a lot of engineering to try to get everyone together, but I think that, with different cars, we'll manage at least one dinner and part of a day together. A friend took everyone on a cruise to accomplish a similar feat, but I'm not quite up that.

Fingernails, toenails, have stories to tell

This morning, when doing my nails, I thought about how my fingernails have stayed strong while the rest of me was falling apart. People have noticed. One of my healthcare providers pointed it out during cancer treatment.

I don't know why they're strong. I don't mess with them much...except when I occasionally go crazy and pull the skin off the side of a fingernail or tug on a dangling cuticle. As for the nails themselves, maybe, like a plant that is not overwatered, they are happy with benign neglect. I let them get a little too long, notice they don't look so great, cut off the tops, and file them into a curved shape.

When I did them, I had a flashback to when I was so weak that I couldn't do them. That was during my three and a half month residence in Brigham and Women's Hospital after my fourth bone marrow transplant. Diane did them for me. She knew that I liked them curved. She knew a lot of things.

Only occasionally do I get a manicure. The longer lasting gels don't seem to me to be good for your nails, plus you have to return to get the gel off, and the regular polish wears off so quickly.

When I go out to the garden with gloves on, I somehow end up with them off. The underside of my fingernails looks gross. The late Jean O'Connell, who when I knew her was the food writer at the Union-News, had a thing or two to say about dirty nails. They showed the type of person a person was. Also, their shoes.

I'll never be a hand model. I'm not happy about the way that little skin cancers and pre-cancers have messed my hands up. But my nails have not let me down.

Pedicures are welcome but not a regular indulgence. At one of our local places, they said that if you run around a lot, like I do, you should get them as part of good foot care. Maybe. Sometimes I do my own toes. I'm not bad at it. And I can even reach.  I do this more often than not, because of the money, or I keep the nail polish on so long that it is a half moon on the top of the nail.

But the whole pedicure experience is pretty relaxing. I'm half proud and half embarrassed about my partially blackened right big toenail. It definitely looks better when covered up. It got damaged during the 10-mile run I did in preparation for the Hartford half marathon. That was in October 2002, so, five months before my AML diagnosis.

Pulling the toenail off when it was loose enough, I felt like I was collecting my runner's badge of honor. (No, I didn't keep it.) A strip along the toe bed seems to be permanently damaged. As in, black. So if I'm going to wear sandals, I really need to cover that toe up. The rest look OK, but doing one would look silly.

It also is affected by the remnants of a toenail fungus. One time, a podiatrist gave me a medication for it. I had to have my liver checked. Looking back, I realized that probably wasn't a necessary drug to take.

At a recent pedicure, the woman cutting my toenails noticed from the shape that I had had ingrown toenails surgically removed. This was no fun, but it fixed the painful problem. They never grew back. She said I was lucky, because that's not always the case.

I liked the dark blue-gray color I got in Costa Rica. It stayed on for a long time.

When I was in Boston this week, Diane had the fun idea to get a pedicure together. I would have gotten the Costa Rica color, but the salon had a lighter version for spring. We both got the same color. Kind of when we used to wear the same outfits, only this time it was just our toenails dressed up.

On being in paradise and coming back

Daily yoga at Villa Pelicano

I think I surprised everyone by saying that I was going to Costa Rica with less than a week's notice, but I did it, and I had a fabulous time, and I have been feeling tired (from the energy expended)  and a little farblondjet (due to no longer being in paradise and trying to figure out how to maintain some of what I got over there).

Still, it is my problem at the moment and as a wise son says in this kind of situation, "It is what it is."

If that isn't a First World Problem and a Healthy Person's Problem, I don't know what is.

I surprised myself and one of my yoga teachers at the Hampshire Y, Megan, when I said I would look into it after she told the class that she had some spots left in a women's self-care and yoga retreat in Costa Rica ... happening in less than a week. After checking in with some of the people who watch me (mainly my daughter and my nurse practitioner), and checking to see that I had a valid passport, I pondered the discount she offered, a great one for seven days, with two meals a day that turned into three when you considered the delicious leftovers.

I sat at my kitchen table and thought about how my life is good, but wouldn't it be great to break out. I haven't gone anywhere major in a long time. I had appointments to rearrange and a lot of miscellaneous stuff, but I did it, well, most of it, and was so glad I went.

We were on a private estate with views of the water, yoga every day, and the sound of birds early in the morning. Maybe they were saying, coffee, coffee, but whatever, their call got me out of bed before dawn. The coffee was usually made by someone else who got up even earlier. All I had to do was pull down the lever, fill the cup, and settle in on a couch or chair and watch the day dawn.

I keep starting this post and going back to it because it almost seems like a dream that is hard to recreate. 

This might seem like a small thing but my laptop (to some friends' understandable annoyance) has become an extension of me. I didn't bring it and therefore didn't do the writing I had thought I might do. Otherwise I would have done some blog posts in real time.

At Manuel Antonio National Park

It seemed to us that there was as much uphill going down as there was going up. This might not make sense but it was because going both ways, there were a lot of ups and downs. (Note to self: Write something for my new gig at Health-Union.com about how this was a lot like cancer treatment.)

To save space, I instead took an iPad (a gift) that had flung itself off my counter when I was packing and didn't make me want to write on it, due to the crack across it and my clumsiness in figuring out a new format. Plus, it might actually be broken because when a new friend tried to help me scroll up and down on a blog post, it kept getting stuck. I put it away and was more unplugged than I have been in a while. I think this was a good thing.

I wrote a little something on Facebook on April 28:

"I want to move here, which is what people on vacation often do. I’m at a private estate, Villa Pelicano, in the town of Manuel Antonio, with a group of eight fabulous yoginis from around the country, plus our teacher Megan. Every day has a theme. Yesterday was fortify. I did it with a 12-mile round trip hike up to a waterfall. We walked over a suspension bridge to get there and then got into a pool. It was exhilarating. They were surprised that I made it. On the way back in a tropical downpour, my knee started to hurt a little. I jogged towards the finish, thinking that if I got there faster there would be less time for it to hurt. Last night, instead of being tired, I was wound up and energized. I really love this group. We do yoga every morning on the outside deck seen in the photos. Then we have activities. We get two free treatments at Holis Wellness Center, down the road a few minutes. It is so interesting to get to know people from scratch in this special environment. We talk about anything and everything. Oh did I say we our own chef? And the coffee is perfecto. I want to ask her to do it again and maybe get some friends from back home to go. When you break down what you get, it is a great bargain!"

That was all I could manage to write on my iPhone. I want to add that I couldn't have done the hike without the new friend who walked with me. There was supposed to be one group to go the whole route and another to take a car and start a little farther up. Those who I asked for recommendations suggested I go on the shorter hike. I would have done it. But one by one, the people in that group decided not to go at all. It was either the whole or nothing. They kept talking about a bridge that I wanted to see.

Most said they wanted to go fast. I knew I couldn't do that. Alison volunteered to go with me "slow and steady." We stopped briefly along the way to look at bugs and plants; she knew a lot about both, and it was an educational distraction. I zigzagged up and down and took it bird by bird, or in this case, rock by stone. We talked about so many different things that by the top, it seemed like we had known each other for years.

The others, who had gotten to the lunch spot and waterfall before us, gave us a round of applause when we emerged. Then we walked over the bridge to the waterfall and took a dip. I didn't look down, instead looking ahead to Alison when she got to the other end. She was so positive and fun to be with that she was a great focal point.
On the way back, she recited a mantra. I didn't know what she was saying, but I hummed along. 


Going over the stones to get into the pool was probably the hardest part, but it was worth every step of the way. Athletic Rachel from Colorado went in for a second dip and provided encouragement. It was a peak experience. Coming back through a tropical storm added to the magic. All the creatures woke up. The green was greener and the flowers brighter. The frogs were so loud. It was starting to get dark. 

Triumphant with Alison McKee at end of bridge

 A bug bite on my back is driving me crazy. I took a Benadryl so I wouldn't lie there itching for three hours. I think the new Fellow on rotation might have thought I was in bad shape because I was slurring my words. Afterwards I asked her how you hold on to all that Zen. 

The challenge, of course, is bringing some of it back with you. I got back around 1 in the morning last Tuesday after making a connection that gave me just enough time to board my second plane in Charlotte.

The next day I went to ECP. Then I came home and played tennis. Then I tried to reorganize. I have several writing projects going at once. Yesterday I had ECP, two weeks in a row, because they didn't want me to skip too many due to vacation. 

Before ECP I actually skipped a Wednesday, the day before yesterday, at the Canoe Club. It would have been my first outside lesson with George of the season. This was big: The Canoe Club is another kind of paradise for me. But I wanted to go to Megan's yoga class, to hear her voice and do her calming yin yang yoga and feel myself back in Costa Rica just a little bit.

"Don't judge yourself," she said.

For people of a certain ilk, like myself, this is hard to do. 

In our circle we had talked about trying to be less goal-oriented, to be more like the sloth that we saw, to go with that good old flow.

Hopefully I can keep just a little bit with me.