How Does Your Garden Grow

So I rearranged the top header of this blog a bit. It's the first time ever this blog has had anything other than text at the top. Let me explain.

The image now in the header is the lotus flower, taken directly from a plate I purchased in Turkey right before I got listed for new lungs. At the time, I wrote a post entitled "Love Among the Lotus Flowers" -- somewhat of a play on Robert Browning's "Love Among the Ruins", which you should totally check out if you're so inclined. He's way more eloquent than I am, but I digress.

Anyway, when I purchased the plate from which this image is taken, the Turkish painter who made these plates by hand pointed out to me that the lotus was highly significant in his town's culture. He told me about the way this particular flower lives in water, folding itself up at night and reopening each morning with the sun in a type of symbolic rebirth. At the time I was suffering both from undiagnosed sepsis from a port-a-cath infection (and about to come home to the scariest hospitalization of my life to date, hands down) and from a severe case of preemptive nostalgia. I was acutely aware that this trip to Turkey would be my last "vacation" at all (and certainly my last time in Europe) with the lungs I was born with. I thought about it constantly, in fact: "this is the last time MY lungs will get on an airplane"; "this is the last time MY lungs will visit Europe"; "this is the last time MY lungs will get spit on by a camel" (oh yeah, it happened). Basically it was just one weird string of "this is the last time..." moments. And of course, underlying all of that premature sense of loss was the unspoken addition to my "last time" statements, which was my own unacknowledged awareness that Turkey might well have been MY last family vacation, my LAST visit to Europe, MY last chance to pretend for a few days at least that everything was totally fine. I wasn't focused on that, of course -- in true Piper style I decided to transfer all of that emotion onto something replaceable like, oh, say a vital organ -- but that sense of urgency was definitely there, and I was searching for signs throughout the trip to help reassure myself that all these potential changes in my life, those acknowledged and those best left unspoken, were going to be okay.

The story about the lotus flower jumped out at me as probably the best darn "sign" I could have hoped for. Here was a story of rebirth and healing, combined with a flower known throughout several cultures as a symbol of good luck. The colors on the actual plate are vibrant and alive, and the attention to detail in the painting makes me wish I had enough patience to master that kind of skill. It is truly a work of art for which, in my case at least, the overinflated tourist price seemed like a completely fair bargain.

In the two years since bringing home my precious lotus flower, I have come to a couple of conclusions. The first of these is that having new lungs does not mean that I will never again be "Piper" in the way I feared. True, I lost a part of myself, and think I'll always miss it on some level, however rotten it was to live with. And also true that I was lucky. I was able to release my old lungs into the world outside of myself and welcome in a new (to me) gorgeous pair without some of the scary complications that can, in reality, go along with that. But the end result, I'm happy to say, is that I feel like myself, again. And also that I feel like myself, for maybe the first time. I feel like I'm able to fully access the person I was before my surgery (both my strengths and my weaknesses, my virtues and my vices seem well enough and alive in this new, renewed self of mine), but I am also able to do things that would never have been possible with my CF lungs. Simple things. Even silly thing, really, like lying flat on my back on laughing extra hard at someone's joke and not stopping until I darn well feel like it. I've realized that letting go does not always mean losing one's connections to the past, or to the future.

I've also learned that there's more to life than symbols and signs, though I don't doubt that they can be helpful, and even necessary. They were for me, after all. One glance through my sketch pad from my pre-transplant waiting period shows multiple depictions of the lotus, all in different colors and sizes and intensities. I'm glad I had that image to hold on to, for sure. Looking back at all of that, I can still appreciate the lotus for all that it was in my life during a difficult period, and for all that it is now -- which is to say a very pretty plate. I can remember my conversation with that lovely Turkish man and artist and I can smile, knowing that he and I shared something of value that he might not have even known he was offering when he made his highly effective sales pitch. I wonder now what I would say if I could take Donor Bob on a trip and go back to that workshop, find the new plate of the same general design that I am sure replaced my own, and sit there pondering the real meaning of rebirth: replacement breathing on replacement; old eyes staring at a new rendition of a familiar depiction; old design impressing itself upon a new pair of lungs set inside a familiar body.

This blog, like everything else in my life right now and hopefully always, is a constantly evolving feature. As I move from a world of documenting my journey waiting for new lungs, to a world of documenting the joys, sorrows, fears, and triumphs of living with them, and through to a world of documenting life not beyond transplant -- not ever beyond transplant, or beyond any other part of my personal history -- but life with transplant, I thought it was time, perhaps, for one more sign. So I offer you the lotus flower, its colors slightly faded from a journey across cultures, oceans, time, and body parts, to symbolize not only rebirth and second chances, but the fragility, beauty, mystery, and downright miracles that can sometimes come from learning how to let go within the darkness.

And how to blossom with the sunshine.

You Probably Think This Blog is About You

Today I received a package in the mail, and when I opened it up I found a few copies of American Way Magazine, the official magazine of American Airlines, for those of you who keep your feet on the ground most of the time. (Take it from me: it's a great magazine for those of us who like to walk around with our heads in the clouds!) American is also the amazing sponsor of the AA Celebrity Ski event benefiting the CFF. And I have to be honest here, I knew this was coming, but it was still a huge delight to open the glossy pages and see this article:

The Fight of Their Lives

Wowza, right?

Okay, I'm not gonna lie: it's always fun to see yourself in print. That part of it was great, and I'd be a fraud if I didn't admit that I went squealing around my apartment and basically called/texted/emailed/sent-out- (lung friendly) smoke-signals-to every single person I knew to make sure everyone was reading this article. That was, truth be told, the very first thing I did when the darn thing hit my greedy little hands.

After my vanity died down a little bit though, I decided to sit down and actually read the article. So I opened a copy and started to digest the words, and the meaning, behind the story. I read about two of my very best friends from Colorado, my former neighbors who also have this disease and who are living amazing lives every single day despite its nasty grip on their routines. I read about their parents, two wonderful people I have known my entire life who would move mountains for their three daughters, and who actually do so in small ways all the time. I read about the love that family shares for each other, which came pouring off the pages in every sentence. I read about my own story. I remembered. I marveled at the way the article paints me -- paints all of us -- as brave, when most of the time I feel somewhat overwhelmed and fragile. I was flattered that someone would see us in that way. I was amazed that the words rang true and that I could suddenly, at some level, recognize that spirit within myself.

But most of all, guys, I was humbled.

It is no secret whatsoever that I am this community's biggest fan. Without sounding like more of a sap than I already do on a daily basis, I really love all of y'all. You guys inspire me. You encourage me. You remind me of why I'm here and why I'm still fighting -- why I will work to kick this crazy little monster's butt until the day it kicks mine. You make me think. You make me wonder. You make me crazy. You make me cry. And you make me laugh. More than all of that, though, you make me super-duper-uper proud. Every day, every minute, and every breath.

Which brings me to the thing that I like best about this article (other than the fact that I'm wearing SUNO in the pictures!). What I like most is that this article isn't really about me, after all. It isn't even about Sam and Libby, although it probably should be. And it isn't about CF, because goodness knows I'm not gonna let that bugger steal any of the spotlight. Nope, it isn't about any one of those thing, or at least not in exclusivity. Because this article, guys, is all about us.

If there's one thing I've learned from all of you guys out there it's that it takes a village. And preferably in an ideal world, that village would be chock full of thinkers, lovers, fighters, dreamers, learners, teachers, motivators, storytellers, writers, players, and doers. You guys embody that village for me, and that, without exaggeration, is the one and only reason I am still around to be featured in this story (or that I have the breath to shriek at its arrival!). I am alive quite literally because of the kindness of the beautiful souls who gave me these lungs, but it is equally because of my own village of friends, family, doctors, CFers, role models, confidants, CFF staff and volunteers, sponsors like American, and readers that I am even typing these words. Or, to put it another way, it's because of you.

What the article really gets at, from my perspective, is that people with CF are fighters. That we overcome challenges, and that more often than not we do it with a smile on our faces. It's about how we live each day of our lives with this disease, knowing it's there, understanding what it means, but still doing some pretty kick butt things while we're here. And that isn't, of course, a trait unique to CFers -- though it does seem pretty much rampant in the CF community so far as I can see. It's really about how any group can rally together and realize its strengths and its challenges through the individual and collective actions of its members. It's about how you, me, and all of us are finding new ways to live better even when things can seem a little crazy, overwhelming, or just downright hard. And, of course, it's about life. About living it, about embracing it, and about sharing it.

I think my favorite moment in reading the article was coming across the quote toward the end, where I said in a fit of inspiration that "I didn't want anyone using this disease as an excuse not to live life." I still believe that statement wholeheartedly, but I've also come to realize that the person I was talking to when I said was myself. And the community I have to thank for showing me that there is another, better way, is composed, in all honesty, of all of you. There is a better way to live with this disease, and more often than not, that way is simply to find your village(s) and to embrace them with everything you've got -- and then, if you're truly one of the lucky (and brave) ones, to learn to be yourself within that larger whole.

With love, light, and eternal gratitude to the village that sustains me always,

xoxo,
Piper