Ornery! Who, me?

Yesterday two of my favorite oncology nurses called me ornery. I would prefer thinking of myself as a fun loving smart ass. While I feigned that I had hurt feelings, I rather enjoyed being called ornery.  I have a long history of orneriness of which I am quite proud.

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, I was busy checking out Christmas presents when no one was looking.

These brief exchanges with the nurses made me think of The Book of Joy by Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, where these two good people suggested that rather than asking how can we be happy, we should think of  how can we spread compassion and love...and that works for me.  According to them, there are eight pillars to happiness: perspective, humility, humor, and acceptance which all come through the mind. Forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, and generosity come from the heart.

What they said about joyfulness struck a chord within me.  Since I first got my cancer schmantzer diagnosis, many people have expected me to be sad and depressed and decrepit, but that is not how I roll. When people ask me how I am,  I usually say that I am fine, and I ask how they are. I prefer to make other people smile and to look forward to my making some smarty pants quips rather than going off on a sad sack riff.

Of course, all is not lollipops and unicorns in cancer schmantzer land. Usually, the day after chemo is not a walk in the park, but I see no point in wallowing in being miserable over things which I have no control. My health care team is kind, and they see me as a person rather than as a diagnosis.  They have addressed all of the questions that I have had. Then I figure that it is my job to put one foot in front of the other and deal with whatever lies before me. I try not to anticipate consequences until I have enough information to know how to deal with what lies before me.  Right now what lies before me is one more treatment....and my hope is that my care team will tell me that I am good to go.

Of course, if I had my druthers, I would not have chosen this diagnosis or any of life's other hardships, but there are many things for which to be grateful in this odyssey.

Despite the constant hammering by the purveyors of dissent and discord about how we should dislike people who are not like us, I have found that most people have the same hopes and desires for their lives. However, many people would rather dwell on what is wrong rather than trying to figure out how to make things right.

My anger and angst are usually not directed at my health situation but rather at the injustice that I see being done to others. Perhaps being ornery isn’t so bad when I can turn it towards helping others and towards fixing situations that keep us away from working towards the common good.

I have a long history of being an ornery smart ass. Until I finish my quixotic mission to right all of the wrongs that lie before me, I am not about to hang out the crepe and quit any time soon.

Test driving the handicapped carts at the grocery store

On Minions, Team Work, and Other Things

I usually start writing my blog while I am getting

Grocery shopping with my sister

chemo (my magical joy juice), and I have little else to do. These past few weeks have been mostly good, and yet my level of activity has been extremely exhausting, so that is why this blog is a day late and a dollar short.  On the plus side, we have had quite a few out of town guests visiting us recently.

Because one of the guests was in disbelief that my NEIFPE (Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education) friends call themselves my minions, we had a Minion party so that she and her husband could see that all of this is done in good fun, and usually, I am the butt of all of their jokes and silliness.

Having said that, my minions  have been a major source of strength both before and since cancer schmantzer has become the recent focus of my life. These good people have all stepped up to the plate to take over most of the responsibilities that I have usually assumed, which has resulted in the continuity and seamlessness of our work of supporting and fighting to save public schools. Through their care and concern, they have shown the true meaning of teamwork.

While many people think that teamwork is simply a matter of working together, I see it differently. Whether it is in the classroom or in any social situation, true teamwork is often an act of love as shown in these words from William Wordsworth in Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey:
...the best portion of a good [person’s] life; His [Her] little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love...”

In other words, these are people who don’t need to get credit for what they do, but rather what they do is a matter of working together for our sense of community, for the common good, and for what we all think is important, and one of our primary goals is to bring back the joy of learning to children which seems to have been snatched away from them.

My NEIFPE friends and I don’t take ourselves seriously, but we take our work seriously....and despite the fact that pushing back against the likes of Betsy DeVos and her ilk (and our Indiana legislature) feels like a Sisyphean task, we keep doing it because it is our calling.

We all face personal challenges, and while the challenge that I am currently facing is a health issue, that doesn’t make mine any more significant than those who are facing other life changing issues. While I cannot change or fix their challenges, my hope is that as we face our own difficulties, that we  deal with what lies before us with dignity, grace, kindness, and love (and a sense of humor), and we all might come out better on the other side.

Warning: Cancer Schmantzer-free Blog

Dear Cancer Schmantzer friends,

This particular blog post will not be about cancer, but it will be about something which I care about deeply.

I am reaching out because at this is the time of the year, many of us search for good, charitable causes. As you search for a good cause, I hope you will think about the Network for Public Education where I have been a Board member for 4 years.  NPE has about 330,000 members nationwide. Our mission is to protect, improve, and strengthen public education for this present generation and generations to come.

As many of you know, there is a real movement afoot to destroy public schools. This movement is being fueled by Betsy DeVos, this administration, and Congress. The agenda is to replace and privatize public schools by using vouchers and charters, and in many states (like Indiana), they have had great success.

NPE fights back. Through reports, writing campaigns, films, and newsletters, we let the American public know that public education is the pillar of our democracy and if we lose it, we will not get it back. Even though we operate on a shoestring compared to most non-profit organizations, all of that work costs money. You can learn more about us here: https://networkforpubliceducation.org/

I hope that you can share some of your holiday generosity with NPE by making a tax deductible donation. You can make that donation online at https://networkforpubliceducation.org/about-npe/donate/ or send a check to:

Network for Public Education
PO Box 150266
Kew Gardens, NY 11415

Thank you so much.

Phyllis