Famished

Quick and easy: steamed kale, cannelini and black beans, dulse flakes, toasted walnut oil, salt, pepper, and a squeeze of fresh lemon.

Soup for breakfast: buckwheat soba (gluten-free!), red onion, carrot, spinach, pinto beans, ginger, dandelion-leek miso.

Now that cancer treatment is behind me, I feel like I'm famished - not for food (though I couldn't title a blog post this way and not show you some good food), but for life. There is so much I want to do, so much on my mind that eating and sleeping feel like chores, though I do both daily, in a sort of fever. By no schedule except the insistence of my stomach, I prepare the simplest, healthy foods I can throw together, clean my plate, then back at it. I put myself to bed only when my eyes are heavy with the need for oblivion, and I'm awake early, mind racing in the dark.

I am pigging out on LIFE, working, running with the dog, swimming with my mermaid buddies, dreaming and scheming and feeling excitement for each day like possibly never before, thanks to new found courage, focus, and clarity. To what do I credit this surge of zestfulness? Fear of death, of course!

I am scared that one of these days my scans (ultrasound in six months, and then another, plus mammogram, six months later) or blood tests (four weeks from now and every three months after) will derail me. My only defense is to LIVE like this moment MATTERS. Because it does.