- Published on
me. (almost) thirty and fabulous in NYC.
I’m turning 30 in three days. For the last six years, my dream has been to be 30 and FABULOUS in New York City. I was going to celebrate by picnicking in Central Park, seeing a Broadway show, and drinking fancy cocktails. Instead, I will be preparing for a second round of chemotherapy because I have a life-threatening illness called acute myeloid leukemia.
Cancer sucks. I’m not going to lie. No amount of Julie Andrews-Mary Poppins-Maria Von Trapp inspired positivity is going to change that fact. It has made me very, very sick. It makes me feel utterly, utterly exhausted. It has taken a toll on my loved ones. It has put an unfair strain on my still-less-than-a-year-old marriage. It has made our move to NYC harder, and more complicated.
Six weeks before my 30th birthday, I was faced with my own mortality. I was told that if I did not undergo treatment, I would be dead in a month. It was sobering. Treatment was no picnic. I feel like it was worse for the friends and family who looked on feeling helpless (they were not helpless. Their very presence was a gift), all I had to do was lie there. A week ago, I filled out a form that gave instructions for what to do in the event that I couldn’t make decisions for myself.
In terms of a bad situation, I truly don’t have the worst scenario. For now, I’m at home in Brooklyn (!!), in a sunny and spacious apartment, with my truly wonderful and loving husband. I’m receiving treatment at one of the top hospitals on the planet. I have been given an amazing insight into the truly wonderful support network and web of love I am a part of (as written about previously). I have been able to understand how I have positively impacted on other people’s lives. I am loved, held, and cherished.
Friends and family have started asking what I’d like for my birthday. I honestly can’t think of anything materially. I want to be cured. I want to be well. I want to live for another 50-60 years and snuggle my darling husband and tell him every day for forever how much I love him. I want to sing and dance on Broadway and trip the light fantastic and and teach voice and stage plays and write stories and travel to places I haven’t seen. I want to eat delicious food and grow my own veggies and volunteer in community gardens. I want to explore our new neighborhood. I want to play in NYC. I want to read books, see shows, watch films. I want to meet Julie Andrews and thank her for raising me. I want to meet Patti LuPone and thank her for inspiring me. I want to meet Geoffrey Rush and do a master class with him. I want to work. I want to play. I want to live.
In three days, I will be turning 30. I’m in NYC. I'm bald, and dammit, I'm fabulous. There will be no picnic in Central Park, or a Broadway show, or cocktails. That’ll happen when I’m better (you’re all invited. Details to follow). For now, here are my birthday requests (10 for September 10th). They are things I love and want to share. Please do one, some, or any of the below.
You are welcome to share this post. You are welcome to write and share your stories, I'd love to hear from you (although my replies may be slow... chemo brain is real!).
With love and gratitude,
Lu xx
Cancer sucks. I’m not going to lie. No amount of Julie Andrews-Mary Poppins-Maria Von Trapp inspired positivity is going to change that fact. It has made me very, very sick. It makes me feel utterly, utterly exhausted. It has taken a toll on my loved ones. It has put an unfair strain on my still-less-than-a-year-old marriage. It has made our move to NYC harder, and more complicated.
Six weeks before my 30th birthday, I was faced with my own mortality. I was told that if I did not undergo treatment, I would be dead in a month. It was sobering. Treatment was no picnic. I feel like it was worse for the friends and family who looked on feeling helpless (they were not helpless. Their very presence was a gift), all I had to do was lie there. A week ago, I filled out a form that gave instructions for what to do in the event that I couldn’t make decisions for myself.
In terms of a bad situation, I truly don’t have the worst scenario. For now, I’m at home in Brooklyn (!!), in a sunny and spacious apartment, with my truly wonderful and loving husband. I’m receiving treatment at one of the top hospitals on the planet. I have been given an amazing insight into the truly wonderful support network and web of love I am a part of (as written about previously). I have been able to understand how I have positively impacted on other people’s lives. I am loved, held, and cherished.
Friends and family have started asking what I’d like for my birthday. I honestly can’t think of anything materially. I want to be cured. I want to be well. I want to live for another 50-60 years and snuggle my darling husband and tell him every day for forever how much I love him. I want to sing and dance on Broadway and trip the light fantastic and and teach voice and stage plays and write stories and travel to places I haven’t seen. I want to eat delicious food and grow my own veggies and volunteer in community gardens. I want to explore our new neighborhood. I want to play in NYC. I want to read books, see shows, watch films. I want to meet Julie Andrews and thank her for raising me. I want to meet Patti LuPone and thank her for inspiring me. I want to meet Geoffrey Rush and do a master class with him. I want to work. I want to play. I want to live.
In three days, I will be turning 30. I’m in NYC. I'm bald, and dammit, I'm fabulous. There will be no picnic in Central Park, or a Broadway show, or cocktails. That’ll happen when I’m better (you’re all invited. Details to follow). For now, here are my birthday requests (10 for September 10th). They are things I love and want to share. Please do one, some, or any of the below.
- Write to someone you have been thinking kindly about. Make it a person you have not spoken to in a long time. Do it without expectation of a response. Tell them you’ve been thinking of them and why.
- Buy a copy of The Big Issue, or equivalent street mag, from the next vendor you see.
- Pay attention to your breath for one minute. Don’t worry about whether you’re “doing it right” or breathing “properly”. Just pause and watch your breath go in and out for one minute. Repeat throughout the day as you remember this request.
- Read an actual book. Not on a device, an actual book. Smell the pages. Feel the pages between your fingers. Savor the delicious feeling of being-almost-at-the-end and not wanting it to be finished.
- That instrument you’ve always wanted to learn? Work out right now how you can get a hold of that instrument, and seek out lessons. The internet is an amazing place.
- Seek out your local farmer’s market. Buy something you’ve never seen/eaten before and learn what to do with it.
- If you are willing and able, donate blood and/or platelets. Google it right now to find out where you can do so in your city. If you can’t donate, consider sharing information on how to do so.
- If you are willing and able, sign up to be a donor on the bone marrow registry in your country. You could be a life-saving match for someone. Google it right now to find out where you can do so in your city.
- Be kind to yourself. No really. Stop being so hard on yourself. You are awesome and more loved and valued than you realize.
- Remember that you are alive. Remember your passions and what makes your spine tingle with delight, your heart race, and your soul feel happy. Allow yourself to feel sad when you’re down. It’s ok. This too shall pass. The good, the bad, the ugly. Just be here.
You are welcome to share this post. You are welcome to write and share your stories, I'd love to hear from you (although my replies may be slow... chemo brain is real!).
With love and gratitude,
Lu xx
- Published on
The Bean Cycle Coffee Shop,
And Wolverine Farm bookstore
Fort Collins, CO.
Is the most perfect of coffee/book shops
Comfy couches
Walls lined with second-hand books
And poems
And artworks of local artists
The smell of coffee and old books
Handmade signs
Everything a little dusty
The old bicycle on the wall
Music plays
Audible enough to create a vibe
Chill enough to allow conversation
And reading
People sit
Sipping coffee
Absorbing in other worlds
Through words and print on paper
Type away on laptops
Face each other
Over round tables
Conversation
A background hum
The kids’ corner
Tucked away
The rocking chair and teddy bear and doll
Mom reading to her daughter
You are welcome to sit
And read
And browse
And drink coffee
Small children clamber up the stairs to the loft
They turn their heads
Grin the through the railing with cheeky smiles
The clanky old register
Books to be priced, stacked, and shelved
I can’t even begin to describe the satisfaction of
Rows of dusty books
Sorted by category and author’s surname
Every shelf
Contains treasure,
My “to read” list
Ever growing.
Even if I sat down and read books
Cover to cover
All day long
For the rest of my life
I would never reach
The end.
And Wolverine Farm bookstore
Fort Collins, CO.
Is the most perfect of coffee/book shops
Comfy couches
Walls lined with second-hand books
And poems
And artworks of local artists
The smell of coffee and old books
Handmade signs
Everything a little dusty
The old bicycle on the wall
Music plays
Audible enough to create a vibe
Chill enough to allow conversation
And reading
People sit
Sipping coffee
Absorbing in other worlds
Through words and print on paper
Type away on laptops
Face each other
Over round tables
Conversation
A background hum
The kids’ corner
Tucked away
The rocking chair and teddy bear and doll
Mom reading to her daughter
You are welcome to sit
And read
And browse
And drink coffee
Small children clamber up the stairs to the loft
They turn their heads
Grin the through the railing with cheeky smiles
The clanky old register
Books to be priced, stacked, and shelved
I can’t even begin to describe the satisfaction of
Rows of dusty books
Sorted by category and author’s surname
Every shelf
Contains treasure,
My “to read” list
Ever growing.
Even if I sat down and read books
Cover to cover
All day long
For the rest of my life
I would never reach
The end.
- Published on
Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie
Mary Wollstonecraft
Wrote 'A Vindication on the Rights of Woman'
In 1792
And stated that
That the low status of women
And the way in which
Society, and women themselves,
Perceived women
As individuals, and as a sex,
As weak and inferior
Would be done away with
If women received a decent
Education
But today we find
In 2013
That even educated women
Are still relegated secondary status
Are still perceived as weak and inferior
Because the society in which we live
Says that women
Are mere sex objects
And things for looking upon
We live in a time where educated women
Choose
To be viewed and judged
By their looks and sexiness
Appear spread eagled and naked in magazines and videos and online
Use sex
As a way to pay for their education
We live in a time
Where even if you have a college degree
You have to stand up and say
No.
My body is my own
And not yours to oggle and coddle
Please listen to what I have to say
Not how I look as I say it
Where does this leave
A Vindication on the Rights of Woman?
Yes, we must educate girls and women
We must learn maths and science
And drama and music
And history and English
And languages and sport
We must be equipped with knowledge and skills
We must go out into the world
But we also must educate boys and men
To treat women with respect
To not fear women with power
To learn how to speak with women
(And about women)
With terminology that doesn't involve sex or beauty or derogatory statements
Women are still weak and inferior
Because the misogynistic system
That has been in place
For millenia
Has not yet been replaced
With a system
Of education
That teaches compassion, and respect, and humanity
Above looks and impressions and sex
So yes
Teach girls and women to be strong
But teach boys and men
To be okay with the shift
That says women are no longer inferior
But equal
That is the vindication I seek.
The end.
Wrote 'A Vindication on the Rights of Woman'
In 1792
And stated that
That the low status of women
And the way in which
Society, and women themselves,
Perceived women
As individuals, and as a sex,
As weak and inferior
Would be done away with
If women received a decent
Education
But today we find
In 2013
That even educated women
Are still relegated secondary status
Are still perceived as weak and inferior
Because the society in which we live
Says that women
Are mere sex objects
And things for looking upon
We live in a time where educated women
Choose
To be viewed and judged
By their looks and sexiness
Appear spread eagled and naked in magazines and videos and online
Use sex
As a way to pay for their education
We live in a time
Where even if you have a college degree
You have to stand up and say
No.
My body is my own
And not yours to oggle and coddle
Please listen to what I have to say
Not how I look as I say it
Where does this leave
A Vindication on the Rights of Woman?
Yes, we must educate girls and women
We must learn maths and science
And drama and music
And history and English
And languages and sport
We must be equipped with knowledge and skills
We must go out into the world
But we also must educate boys and men
To treat women with respect
To not fear women with power
To learn how to speak with women
(And about women)
With terminology that doesn't involve sex or beauty or derogatory statements
Women are still weak and inferior
Because the misogynistic system
That has been in place
For millenia
Has not yet been replaced
With a system
Of education
That teaches compassion, and respect, and humanity
Above looks and impressions and sex
So yes
Teach girls and women to be strong
But teach boys and men
To be okay with the shift
That says women are no longer inferior
But equal
That is the vindication I seek.
The end.
- Published on
Illustration: 'Matilda' by Quentin Blake
There is a picture of baby me
Somewhere in a dusty album
Perusing books off the bookshelf
As if I understood the meaning
Of the swirls on the page
I have been a member
Of my local library
Since forever
We visited almost every week
A giant pile of books each
Growing up I read a book a day
It was marvelous preparation
For a degree in English
Though the books at uni
Were denser
And required more analysis
Than the books
I had grown up with
My memberships are a testament
To my moving record
Not counting
Automatic membership
For the four schools
And two universities
I attended
I have been a member of over 15 libraries
On three different continents
In my twenty-eight years
I love to read
I love the quiet of the library
I love the shelves and shelves of books
The order of them
The insurmountable amount of
Knowledge
Contained therein
I feel at home
When I've joined the local library
It's as important as packing tape
And boxes
To have that library card in my wallet
Access to books
And a quiet place
For exploring
The world
The end.
Somewhere in a dusty album
Perusing books off the bookshelf
As if I understood the meaning
Of the swirls on the page
I have been a member
Of my local library
Since forever
We visited almost every week
A giant pile of books each
Growing up I read a book a day
It was marvelous preparation
For a degree in English
Though the books at uni
Were denser
And required more analysis
Than the books
I had grown up with
My memberships are a testament
To my moving record
Not counting
Automatic membership
For the four schools
And two universities
I attended
I have been a member of over 15 libraries
On three different continents
In my twenty-eight years
I love to read
I love the quiet of the library
I love the shelves and shelves of books
The order of them
The insurmountable amount of
Knowledge
Contained therein
I feel at home
When I've joined the local library
It's as important as packing tape
And boxes
To have that library card in my wallet
Access to books
And a quiet place
For exploring
The world
The end.
- Published on
Today my little little sister
You turned ten.
The day you were born
I rushed to the hospital
And I was your first visitor
And I picked you up
And you snuggled into my shoulder
And it was like you knew I was your
Big big sister
Phoebe-Lulu days
Picnics in the park
Chocolate ice cream in the Botanical Gardens
Hours of painting
And swimming
And introducing you to musicals
Reading stories
Where does Thursday go?
I love you to the moon, and back
I started uni that year
My whole life changed
A whirlwind of theatre and classes and the library lawn
It seems like a life time ago
Orientation week and Yellow Shirts
Cat Empire concerts at the Metro
Surprise birthday parties
A snapped ACL and knee surgery
(Do you remember visiting me in hospital?
You toddled into the room
Holding a pink geranium)
Broken hearts galore
Becoming vegetarian
Moving out of home
Traveling the world
A broken engagement
Moving to London
It's all happened in the past ten years
I don't know your perspective
Or what you'll remember
I remember turning ten
We had a family picnic at Centennial Park
I got a bike helmet
And my first diary
We had a party
At Death By Chocolate
(now closed, it was decadent
They had plates made out of chocolate)
I remember feeling that
Ten
Was very special
Because I was no longer single digits...
In just under two years
I'll be three times that age
Holy moly!
It makes me laugh
It makes me shake my head in wonder
And I think back
To the moment when I first met you
And it was all just beginning
The end.
You turned ten.
The day you were born
I rushed to the hospital
And I was your first visitor
And I picked you up
And you snuggled into my shoulder
And it was like you knew I was your
Big big sister
Phoebe-Lulu days
Picnics in the park
Chocolate ice cream in the Botanical Gardens
Hours of painting
And swimming
And introducing you to musicals
Reading stories
Where does Thursday go?
I love you to the moon, and back
I started uni that year
My whole life changed
A whirlwind of theatre and classes and the library lawn
It seems like a life time ago
Orientation week and Yellow Shirts
Cat Empire concerts at the Metro
Surprise birthday parties
A snapped ACL and knee surgery
(Do you remember visiting me in hospital?
You toddled into the room
Holding a pink geranium)
Broken hearts galore
Becoming vegetarian
Moving out of home
Traveling the world
A broken engagement
Moving to London
It's all happened in the past ten years
I don't know your perspective
Or what you'll remember
I remember turning ten
We had a family picnic at Centennial Park
I got a bike helmet
And my first diary
We had a party
At Death By Chocolate
(now closed, it was decadent
They had plates made out of chocolate)
I remember feeling that
Ten
Was very special
Because I was no longer single digits...
In just under two years
I'll be three times that age
Holy moly!
It makes me laugh
It makes me shake my head in wonder
And I think back
To the moment when I first met you
And it was all just beginning
The end.
- Published on
Imagine realizing that Virigina Woolf
Walked the streets of London
As you are doing
You knew it as a fact in the back of your mind somewhere
Virginia Woolf lived in London
But to suddenly encounter it
To be living it is a whole other matter
To know that she once stood beneath the arches of the British Museum
And looked up at the names inscribed into the walls
And thought,
All this knowledge! How will I ever come to terms with it?
And to sit reading
A Room of One’s Own
Whilst sitting in a room of one’s own!
In London!
Is entirely novel
And wonderful and funny and joyous.
Because six years ago
You read Mrs Dalloway
And looked at women and fiction
And you never even imagined
Even for a moment
That one day
You would have a room of one’s own.
And the best bit?
The glorious romance novel cliche of it?
Reading the writings of Viriginia Woolf
In your very own window seat
Overlooking the garden
Overlooking the rooftops of London
And you are independent
And you are free to speak your mind
And perform upon the stage
And write
And do exactly as you please.
And you thank all the people who have bought you here.
And you thank Virginia Woolf for paving the way for women writers (even if her end was tragic).
And you think of all the women that didn’t, and still don’t, have this privilege.
And you resolve to keep writing. And keep singing. And keep acting. And hope that you too can make a difference.
The end.
Walked the streets of London
As you are doing
You knew it as a fact in the back of your mind somewhere
Virginia Woolf lived in London
But to suddenly encounter it
To be living it is a whole other matter
To know that she once stood beneath the arches of the British Museum
And looked up at the names inscribed into the walls
And thought,
All this knowledge! How will I ever come to terms with it?
And to sit reading
A Room of One’s Own
Whilst sitting in a room of one’s own!
In London!
Is entirely novel
And wonderful and funny and joyous.
Because six years ago
You read Mrs Dalloway
And looked at women and fiction
And you never even imagined
Even for a moment
That one day
You would have a room of one’s own.
And the best bit?
The glorious romance novel cliche of it?
Reading the writings of Viriginia Woolf
In your very own window seat
Overlooking the garden
Overlooking the rooftops of London
And you are independent
And you are free to speak your mind
And perform upon the stage
And write
And do exactly as you please.
And you thank all the people who have bought you here.
And you thank Virginia Woolf for paving the way for women writers (even if her end was tragic).
And you think of all the women that didn’t, and still don’t, have this privilege.
And you resolve to keep writing. And keep singing. And keep acting. And hope that you too can make a difference.
The end.