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Last week I was visiting my sister in California. We’re really close and we had a Blast together. We walked, we shopped, we cooked, we talked, we drank wine, we watched funny YouTube videos, she shared her iPod playlist with me. It was just The Best. Our last day together was killing us because we knew we had to part that afternoon. So we decided to spend the entire day speaking with British accents.

             

We used to do this as children because we worshipped Hayley Mills. We wanted to be Hayley Mills. And we really sounded like little English children. We were very good. So that afternoon we start talking like we work for the BBC but we soon realized that actually our accents are rather bad. We sound like British ex-pats who have been too long in the States and have lost their plummy BBC English. 

But we do the best we can all day and she drives me to airport and comes in with me and we look at the schedule and bollocks! my flight is two hours delayed. So we decide, well, why not have drinks and dinner?

             

We walk into the restaurant and my sister leans over to me and whispers, “We’ll have to stop with the accents now.”

             

And I replied, “Whatever for?”

             

So we sit down and the waitress comes and says, “Hi, how are you? What can I get you to drink?”

             

And I reply, “Why I think we’ll have two Margaritas!”

             

She asks, “Cadillac?”

             

And I say, “Splendid!”

            

 So we have this marvelous dinner—arugula salad with blue cheese, pears and pecans, a roasted Portobello mushroom with sun-dried tomatoes, melted mozzarella and fresh basil. 

After dinner, we got into a discussion about how we felt like completely different people speaking this way. I, for one, spoke less, because I was aware that my accent was not perfect and I found it so much work. But also, I said to Lynie, “I can’t be loud. It doesn’t feel right.”

             

And she said, “Yez.” She said that a lot, “Yez.”

             

And I said, “And I suddenly feel it wrong to criticize how people are dressed.”

           

 “Yez.”

            

 Then I said, “You know friends have told me that when they speak French they feel like entirely different people.” 

            

 Because inside I really did feel different. Who was this person? Who was this quiet, accepting, thoughtful woman? Clearly she was me so where is that Me when I am American?   

Could it be that speaking with an accent is perhaps a way, a strange, weird way, to explore your inner self? What if it’s a way to discovering who you really are? 

Sisters Are The Best Medicine

I'm sure my I.Q. is lower because my sister was just here and I laughed my brains out for five days straight. Seriously. I looked like this photo 90% of the time. Well, okay, maybe I didn't look quite this good. (David Belisle took this as a possible cover photo for the paperback coming out this Fall.)

Lynie accompanied me to a breast cancer conference in Denver. We had a blast eating dinner in the hotel, shopping, drinking tea in bed and talking at night, drinking coffee in bed and talking in the morning.
I really cannot explain why I feel so refreshed and renewed. I've come back from other conferences tired and sick of cancer. So I can only guess that it was because Lynie was there.

I was really losing my mojo for work: sick of all the technological changes that were adding hours to our days and fed up with administrative duties that made me want to scream. When I received an e-mail telling me that I needed to come in for my annual TB test, I thought perhaps I should burn down the employee health building. I felt as if I just couldn't fit one more thing into my day. When was I supposed to see patients?

I missed my happy self. And yes, I suppose it was also because a month before I went off all my hot flash meds which are really anti-depressants. Like many cancer survivors, I was just sick of taking pills. Besides, I was, as my oncologist said, on "homeopathic" doses: 37.5 mg. of Effexor XR in the day and 25 mg. of Trazodone at night. Since the doses were so tiny I simply stopped taking them. I couldn't believe the sadness and rage I felt a few days a later.

I now know that I should have taken them every other day for a while. But because I was taking them for hot flashes, it never occurred to me that they might be affecting my moods. Because when you take an antidepressant for hot flashes, how does your body know? While I was on them, I would have told you that I perfectly fine---well, maybe not quite as sharp as I used to be. But who is?

But once I stopped taking them, I realized that the world is going to hell in a handbasket and I can't do a thing about it. And did I mention all the reckless morons on the Burke-Gilman trail who are trying to run me down on my bike? And horrible lighting in my hole of an office?

Funny I never noticed any of this before.

So it took a good month to get those drugs out of my system. And then I got a good whopping dose of Lynie and every since then I've been right as rain. I knew I was back to my old self when we were on the plane home and the guy in front of me had his armrest up, with all the volume buttons staring me in the face, taunting me, tempting me.

I poked Lynie. I silently pointed to the buttons. Her eyes widened. Then I pushed the volume button all the way to twelve, which is the highest it can go. We were laughing that kind of wheezy, silent laughter that made us weep and jerk like widows keening at a grave.

The guy never put his headphones on, but every time we looked at the armrest we fell apart laughing. The flight attendant came down the aisle and I expected her to say, "You girls go to your rooms right now!"

But she just said, "Seat belts?"

I would have answered, but a hot flash came on. Yes, the hot flashes are back, but so is my mind. They are not as bad as they were a year ago, so I'm just going to deal. And if things get really bad, I'll go visit my sister.