Hi from cloudy California. Just wrapped up a whirlwind conference, chock-full-o-schmoozing, green inspiration, and demi-celebs. I’m beat.
Overheard: Young woman on phone: “So many guys here are gorgeous and environmentalists. It’s great.”
Saw the founder of Breathe, spent nice time with my old Breathe boss, matched up lots of names to faces and said hi to familiar ones while sipping organic wine and Green-tea-inis sweetened with agave nectar. Also splashed around in my Holiday Inn Express hottub, walked over to disgusting Venice Beach boardwalk, indulged in free mini spa services, listened to Ed Begley and Mariel Hemingway and Billy Blanks. It’s so nice to step away from the computer and talk to people for a change.
Anyway. The New York magazine fact-checkers called. The cancer survivor issue will be out next week. So keep an eye out for my little face-dot in the group photo. I’m in pink toward the back. I’m guessing my eyes are closed, as usual.
It’s so funny talking to LOHAS-y people I know in a professional context. I suspect there will come a time when my survivorship will become more integrated in my professional persona as I write about it more. But for now, it’s the odd thing, like a secret. People ask about my “path” or “mission” and I leave it out, sticking to my spiritual pedigree stuff. Which is fine, appropriate, but I think I’m not just leaving it out for all the ordinary reasons of not oversharing and professional boundaries. I think I’m leaving it out because I really don’t want to have to make something up about how changed I am from it. It seems to disappoint spiritual people if you don’t say cancer changed your life for the better somehow–that you’re more grateful, alive, yadda.
I’m resistant to thinking of it as part of my spiritual path at all. Because it’s nothing I chose, it’s just something I went through with as much peace and bravery as I could muster. Just like millions of other people do all the time. I’m no more spiritual now, and I’m not doing the things cancer survivors are “supposed” to do to stay well. I mean I eat ok but not great. Maybe I just don’t want to be grilled about a regimen that doesn’t exist, one that I’m not exactly proud of not existing. One that someone in my job, with my career, should have in place. The yoga, the meditation, the cardio three times a week, the green juices daily, the supplements.
So without all of that, it’s just easier to leave it out, at least until I have something to be braggy about.
