Unexpected detours upset plans.  Just as I was about to write about breast reconstructions, for some strange unknown reason to myself, my mind has just now been diverted to a vivid memory of one such road diversion on a Spring evening about ten years ago, shortly after Carlos and I got married.

We had just bought our first and only house at the height of the property boom in Ireland in 2005. We bought what we could afford at the time, which was a small three bedroomed mid-terraced townhouse in a new development between Swords and Malahide. We moved in straight after getting married in August of the same year to a dusty, concreted floor, with nothing to our names but 8% of that house (back in the day when the banks still threw money at people), some black sacks stuck to the windows for privacy, a sofa bed, fitted wardrobes, a fully kitted-out kitchen and our lives packed into a few suitcases.

At the time, apparently, that was all we needed in order to live our lives in the capital. I managed to make it in to my new teaching job in Bray, Co. Wicklow, clean (it was a struggle to keep the dust off my work clothes) and on time everyday. Before having children, the hour-long Dart ride from Malahide to Bray, was a most pleasant part of my day, in which I read, corrected students’ work, prepared classes and never tired of the coastal scenery. If I had to travel that trip again, I’m sure my breath would still be taken away by the surprise of the beauty emerging from the Vico Road tunnel, coming from Dalkey and approaching Killiney Dart station.

Carlos, not working close to a decent public transport route, had the luxury of the red Nissan Micra, our first set of wheels. So sometimes on a Friday evening, when neither of us fancied yet another weekend of laying floors, painting or some other house-related job, we would head for the southeast to visit Noel and Mary in Dungarvan for the weekend. On those occasions, I’d stay on in Bray and wait for Carlos to pick me up. We’d take the N11 coast road, instead of the, then N9, which according to Dad, the expert on these things in my family, is shorter in distance but longer in time, due to all things pertaining to bad driving conditions in Ireland.

The evening was pushing on and we were coming in to New Ross and instead of travelling straight onto the narrow streets, which take you down on to the quayside of the river Barrow before crossing it and driving for a very short spell along the border of County Kilkenny, a diversion pointed us in the opposite direction. It took us up on to long meandering roads, through countryside I’d never known before. The diversion kept going, skirting outside the town, at what seemed like very wide margins, no familiar landmark in sight. I was hungry, tired and impatient to get home home, as ones birthplace is often called in Ireland.

And then I saw a sign, pointing off to the south, for Tintern Abbey. Wasn’t that the name of a poem in the Leaving Certificate Soundings collection of poetry? I never had to study it but for some reason I thought that abbey was in England. Wasn’t it William Wordsworth who wrote that poem? What was he doing in County Wexford writing poems about an abbey? Even still before the era of smartphones and instant accessibility to all earthly knowledge, I filed away in my mind the desire to look up that poem and find out about Tintern Abbey, in County Wexford.

I still remember that Friday evening, being taken on a winding diversion, the unexpected signpost to a place belonging to a flashing memory (of studying poetry for my Leaving Certificate) suddenly opening up my eyes to the golden hues of the evening sun falling on the gently sloping hills that surrounded New Ross. I could see the River Barrow from higher ground and it was spectacular in its new perspective.

I soon got home and spent my quiet evening in number 26. And I forgot about Tintern Abbey and William Wordsworth. And just as I was sitting down to write this post on mastectomies and breast reconstruction, my original first sentence about detours, life and a mastectomy brought the memory of this unwelcome and unexpected detour around New Ross in County Wexford rushing back to the forefront of my mind, as if to bring some new significance to this instant of my life.

So Tintern Abbey had been filed away until now. I have read the poem: http://www.rc.umd.edu/sites/default/files/RCOldSite/www/rchs/reader/tabbey.html and how relevant to me are its sentiments of passing time and the change effected in ones interior by the maturing process. The mother abbey (Tintern Major) that inspired William Wordsworth to write this poem is in Wales.

Its smaller and far more modest daughter abbey is out on Hook Head in County Wexford.  It is also known as Tintern of the Vow because of the noble promise, the patron of the Welsh abbey kept upon becoming marooned by a storm off that very same Irish coast.

So what have all these ramblings on diversions and Tintern Abbey got to do with mastectomies and reconstruction? Well everything and nothing really as far as I can make out. On writing this post, I was reminded of a detour, which has taken me on another detour.  Whether or not it has been pleasant is a matter of taste and opinion but I’ve enjoyed taking a ramble, remembering a memory of a memory and seeing this diversion out to its conclusion in Tintern Abbey (albeit ten years later) in County Wexford and a poem by William Wordsworth.

It was certainly unexpected. I’m supposed to be writing about breast reconstruction but instead I’m left with a meandering blog post about everything to me and nothing and a feeling of inner contentment at sharing a sentiment with a bygone poet.

I’m finding out a long and difficult way that life is full of unexpected detours, which seem to upset plans.  But my excess of thinking time is leading me to a different conclusion.  Perhaps, after all, my plans have been my life-long detour and this meandering path, cancer and all, are all part of the bumpy way.  Maybe life isn’t meant to be planned into a smooth ride down-hill.

My repeated experience of meandering detours is showing me that the circumvention of the plan slows down the gallop to whatever finish line we care to see in the distance.   My eyes become more widely opened to the reality that’s around me now.  And when displayed from a new perspective a spectacular beauty is revealed, one that was always there but just took a diversion to view it in a different light.

I’ve no great talent when it comes to music. I came with a musical ear of reasonable quality, which allows me, if I’m not mistaken, to sing in tune to any song in the alto soprano voice range and to appreciate a good lyrical song or piece of music.

But I wasn’t blessed with the kind of musical genius associated with Johann S. Bach or Wolfgang A. Mozart for example. So no operas or even a simple song were penned by me at a tender age, or at any age for that matter. No, I, with my musical ear endured years of plugging through piano pieces, right hand, left hand and then hands together, line by line, page by page until I finally gave up at grade 8, realizing that it was a farcical waste of time. I’d never be a pianist and to this day I haven’t enjoyed the instrument in any shape or form.

Despite all this however, when I think back over the important stages of my life, there is always one song or two that stands out and defines my milestones in time.

Contrary to my own children who have all the music videos they desire at their disposal on YouTube, as a very young child, in my house, there was only one children’s music record that was played over and over on the old player sitting on the sideboard in the dining room as my siblings and I played. I can’t remember the name of the record but I do recall the song that never failed to make me laugh. Of course it’s “The Laughing Policeman” and I believe if anyone can listen to the entire song without at least smiling, they have no fun in their heart at all!

 

The first record that I could call my own marked an introduction to girlhood. Delivered by Santa Claus, it was a step into the musical world that only my babysitter Sharon knew about. I never really understood what she told us about The British Charts but it did sound cool and when I was at a loss as to what to ask for, I went along with the recommendations of my friend Carrie, and received Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album. It didn’t disappoint.

 

Abba’s “Dancing Queen” and “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush rocked me through adolescence and in university I buzzed to the entirely different sounds of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and The Smiths “Girlfriend in a Coma”.

 

I turned my ear to the European tones of French musique when I fell in amour pour la première fois. From those days I remember among others, George Brassens and “La Petite Marguerite”.

 

And then I met Carlos, my husband. He introduced me to Woody Allen and he still reminds me how I cried out in the English class, (in which I was his teacher), one day,

“I hate Woody Allen!”

Thanks to him, I discovered one of my favorite films, “Radiodays”, which plays great music classics of the forties and fifties. But the song that most stands out from that period of my life (meeting my husband to be) has to be, “When You’re Smiling”, which features in another Woody Allen classic, “Mighty Aphrodite”.

 

Then came our children. To contrast with my one-record-for-all exposure to music, when we take long road trips in Spain (six hours, Spain is a big country and the aunts, uncles and cousins live very far away), we all take turns requesting songs on the phone. Pablo, the rock fan, has always asked for “Cadillac Ranch” by Bruce Springsteen but his tastes are changing and now Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and ACDC’s “Thunder” feature more often. Ellen’s songs are constantly “Lavendar’s Blue” from the 2015 version of Cinderella and “Let it Go”, no reference needed. Well the girls’ turns are worth double really because they both benefit from each other’s similar tastes in music, for now at least. Ana Maeve invariably requests “Tomorrow” from Annie, and the version she prefers comes with the bonus of a clip from the film too.

 

The only era that’s left so far in my life is the Breast Cancer one. The era that I’m living patiently day by day now. It is the most challenging time of my life so far. Not because of the operation in itself, that was a piece of cake. But coming to terms with the loss of a body part and the consequent change in my image has taken its time. Enduring the suffering this needfully must cause and confronting disease and its overall significance has been a huge wake-up call for me. A call to assess and re-assess the meaning of my life, my purpose and my relationship with God.

My spiritual searchings have been exciting, fervent and I feel, in a way, lucky to have been woken up sooner rather than later.

And of course, there must be a musical piece that defines this all-important time of my life. Well I think there will be many more tunes as it’s a long road to recovery from cancer. But up to now there has been one piece that I listen to frequently and when it’s not actually playing I can hear it in my head.

I first heard it over a year ago. And even then it resonated deeply with me, like a not-so-subtle forewarning of what was to come. So, I wasn’t being melodramatic in deliberately searching out a tune, that was sad to the extreme. Simply, in the moments of profound realisation of what all this means, all I want to hear is this piece of music.

It is the Cantata number 106, also called “Actus Tragicus” by Johann Sebastian Bach. He wrote it when he was 22 years of age (true musical genius) for a funeral of an unknown entity, perhaps his uncle, perhaps a local politician in the town where he was on commission at the time. It is no accident that he was a devout Lutheran Christian and so the true meaning of death, according to his beliefs, was contained in the music, surely pouring out from the depths of his musically talented soul, and the words, borrowed from the Bible and Lutheran hymns.

I find the sadness of dying (or suffering through your own illness or alongside a loved one, or the loss of a partner or a mother, a daughter, or just feeling the pain of being lost in life) is fully contained within the crying recorders in the introduction. Hope is repeatedly expressed by the soprano singing, “Ja, ja, ja komm Herr Jesu komm” and utter humility in the final “Amen”.

Now I know why I studied German in secondary school. Singing this as part of a choir (my tuneful but too soft voice wouldn’t allow for any solo performances) has unfolded a new unticked box on my list of things I would like to accomplish in life.

It’s not a piece for every stage in life. If you’ve just had a baby or recently got married or engaged or have changed jobs, I doubt it will resonate with you but I think it will pluck the heart and soul strings of everyone at some time in life. It takes over 21 minutes to listen to the four movements of one of the versions I like but in my opinion it is worth every second. (Look beyond the seventies attire and hairstyles and watch the scrolling version with lyrics if preferred here).

 

And when you’re finished there’s always “The Laughing Policeman”.  Enjoy!

In the last school I taught in Ireland, before we packed up our lives and sent them off in a ship to Madrid, I always had the sense that the principal and I didn’t exactly see eye to eye. After a prolonged maternity leave with Ellen, and before returning to work, I decided to join the staff including the school principal, on a trip to Edinburgh.

To my surprise, upon my arrival, she was the first to greet me with a very genuine warm embrace. That night, perhaps with tongues loosened by a little alcohol, or perhaps not, she proceeded to tell me a little bit about her mother.

I was both touched and overwhelmed, firstly by her reaction to me and secondly, by what she told me. So much so, that I was moved to think out a poem, which unfortunately I never wrote down. It’s been long forgotten and lost somewhere to the Universe. But I do remember the first line:

“Even God has a mother.”

I don’t think I’m a feminist because I don’t really know what that really means any more. I am a woman though and I know what that means.

Essentially, for me at least, it’s my physiology (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_human_physiology), which differentiates me from approximately half of the world’s human population (http://www.businessinsider.com/map-showing-ratio-of-women-and-men-2015-8).
I suppose sometimes it could mean I see dirty dishes and unfolded clothes and generally anything to be done around the house first; that my instincts are tuned into the humour of whoever is around me; that I love the bit of gossip shared with other women, preferably over a cup of tea or coffee; that I get a thrill, brief as it is, out of finding something to wear that really suits me; etcetera because this paragraph could turn into a very lengthy and politically incorrect soliloquy.

My double X sex chromosome, as opposed to the XY male sex chromosome, has lead to the expression of a host of physical differences, not least the greater expression in my body of the female sex hormones estrogen and progesterone compared to the male equivalent, testosterone. (Heck, they’re what’s driving this damned BC).

I’m neither qualified nor well-read enough to know what exactly makes my connection to other women so special and my connection to the men in my life, equally special but different, but I have a strong suspicion that it’s hormone-based and as a result heart-felt, also in a different way.

In recent months, I have been up-lifted by my husband, father, mother, brothers sisters-and brothers-in-law with their physical presence, driving, child-minding, cooking, supporting words of kindness and solidarity and David’s comical face gestures, which in my nauseated state have just now cracked me up! My mother, aunts, sisters-in-law, female cousins and friends in unison have raised me up with their prayers, lighting of candles, gifts, whatsapping and facebooking.

And now my sister’s hug awaits me.  Three months waiting and only two more sleeps remain to throw my arms around Catherine and embrace her tightly. She, with her interminable up-beat spirit and energy, that I so adore and admire, has just finished up her busy year teaching in a European school in Belgium, packed up her car with husband and three boys in tow, driven three long days down through France and Spain and offered her whole self for her entire summer holidays.

I have only one sister, like each of my two daughters. We are separated in age only by 13 months (I think I might have been a misconception, pardon the pun, of the anti-contraceptive benefits of breast-feeding). We share the same blood and the same up-bringing. My diagnosis of breast cancer – essentially a female dominated disease – must really have shaken the deepest fiber of my only sister, expressed by our cry in unison, one evening on the phone. With those tears, nothing more has to be said or talked about. Everything else is understood. That is the connection of two women’s hearts, which are very closely bound.

In recent years, I know my sister and I have not seen eye-to-eye on certain worldly issues, just like I intuited with my former boss in the school in Ireland. But that doesn’t matter. If I can look a person, my sister, my boss, or anyone else, male or female, eye-to-eye and read what’s really in those eyes, sadness, anger, joy, peace, love, and that somebody else can do the same with me, it could be the beginning of a heart-to-heart connection, the kind that I think really matters, and which unites us all in spirit around the world.

 

Baking with my mother is one of my earliest childhood memories. My mother didn’t work outside the home when we were little and of school-going age. I have many fond memories of her mending and sewing clothes, knitting school jumpers and dollies clothes, shining up silverware and mahogany, and …baking. (To name but a few).

Small enough to sit on the high kitchen windowsill, I remember peering into the big baking bowl: the creaming of the sugar and butter, the mixing of the eggs (and mind they don’t curdle), the sifting of the flour and the lining of the tins. It was forbidden to touch the bowl, to avoid accidents with the electric mixer, but the prize for being patient was the scraping out of the bowl and the licking of the spoon.

Apple tart, apple cakes, apple and rhubarb crumble, chocolate cake, lemon cake, coffee cake, fruit cake, Dundee cake, Madeira cake, Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, mince pies, meringues, buns, scones, pavlova, Swiss roll, roulade, soda bread.

One afternoon in sixth year, a classmate, who came to school from Ring by bus and therefore “stayed in for lunch” with sandwiches and a cup of packet soup everyday, asked me what I had for lunch.

“Roast chicken.” I replied

“With what?”, she continued.

“Eh, carrots and roast potatoes”

“And gravy?” She was licking her lips by now.

“Eh, yeah!”

“And dessert. Don’t tell me you had dessert.”

“Apple tart and custard.”

“You lucky b****!”

From then on, every afternoon she used to quiz me on my daily menu and I was beginning to get a small inkling about the kind of privileged upbringing I had.

The baking utensils were dropped in college but I was reminded once again when a French Erasmus student asked me for the recipe for scones to keep in her diary of baking recipes. (Now why hadn’t I thought of that?). That was the start of countless frantic calls back home,

“Mum, what was that recipe for…?”

As a working Mum, I have kept my baking minimalistic, sticking to the simplest and favored in my household: buns, scones, the staple chocolate cake for all the birthdays, traditional Christmas cake and a Spanish-influenced version of the plain Madeira cake.

It is called familiarly by my in-laws the 1-2-3 cake, by virtue of the fact that all the measurements are either 1, 2 or 3 yogurt-cartonfuls of any particular ingredient in the cake. So, it’s 1 carton of natural yogurt, 1 of light olive oil, 2 of sugar, 3 of self-raising flour sifted, 3 eggs, the rind of 1 lemon, a spoon of baking powder, all mixed up in a bowl, poured into a ring tin and baked at 180 degrees until it’s done. It couldn’t be easier and even my children can almost do it with their eyes closed. And it’s delicious with a glass of milk or a cup of tea.

I haven’t baked since this whole BC saga! And I’m beginning to miss it. You know you’re healing a little when you start thinking about other things. So thank God for baking.

Ever since I started chemotherapy, I’m on a quest to keep the body healthy, the inner tissues alkaline, the liver detoxified and the immune system strengthened. So I’m believing what I’m reading about food being your best ally. Plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, organic and in season, sugar and salt to a minimum, very little meat, legumes and lots of whole grain everything.

So where does that leave my baking?

This afternoon, I’ve decided to adapt my 1-2-3 cake and I’ll cheekily call it Aunty C’s Madeira Cake and it goes like this:
1 carton of organic natural yogurt (if I had been hippy enough, I’d already be living on a farm and of course it would be home-made but I wasn’t and so shop-bought will have to do)
1/2 carton honey, 1/2 carton agave syrup (very in vogue natural sweetener with low glycemic index. Incredibly expensive and hence the half carton).
1 carton of light olive oil (not first cold-pressed extra virgin which is of course the best in salads but since this is not an olive oil cake, the light refined version will have to do.)
3 eggs, the luminescent yellow kind you get from neighbour’s chickens (I did from my sister-in-law’s in Galicia) or the free-range organic ones from the shop.
3 cartons of organic whole grain spelt wheat flour (a more nutritious version of wheat flour, which you can read about here: http://www.veg-world.com/articles/spelt.htm)
The rind of 1 unwaxed organic lemon
1- 2 Heaped teaspoons of baking powder (depending on the results of my experiment with spelt flour, which by The Internet’s account, can require more raising agent than if using normal wheat flour).

I haven’t made it yet but I’m looking forward to experimenting. I hope it will be differently delicious but still familiar enough to enjoy with a cup of tea and good company.