Thyroid cancer, many friends have told me, is about unexpressed words.
I am working the margins in orchestrating my cure--my upcoming treatment at MD Anderson (more about that in my next post), but in a lot of other ways. A variety of meditations that are about manifesting and the quantum universe, some talking to my amazing white blood cells and incredible immune system, some life style stuff.
And also going to Tarot card readers (one is a good friend and the other is her Tarot card mentor and Reiki healer!) The Tarot card mentor and my Reiki healer both said that there was something I'd been waffling on. At first I thought it was leaving my marriage behind. I had a few other ideas, too, and did some exercises that my Reiki healer suggested.
THEN, I woke up a day later and realized, it's my memoir! I first started writing what had the working title of Getting My Voice Back: Love, Betrayal and Rock 'n Roll in February of 2020! Now, yes I did write Jesus Is Not Republican (which is actually selling in modest but steady numbers). But I published that in September of 2021. Now, yes, I did get that diagnosis and spent October, November and December of 2021 and some of January 2022 working on that. And, yes I moved, bought a house, and stuff.
And I was writing what I am now calling Cured: A Tale of Badassery. But not every day.
And I did sign up for a Solo Show class, in a very telling piece of synchronicity. Back when my life was falling apart I dragged my good friend Nadine to see Maddie Corman's one-woman show off Broadway, Accidentally Brave, about what she did when her life blew up--covered in Page Six no less (the gossip page of the The New York Post for you non-New Yorkers). I went because I wanted to do a one woman show.
It was great. But I didn't do anything more on the show except talk to my brother John, a theater professor who has done hundreds of productions. Fast forward to about six weeks ago, when my dear friend Lisa sent me an ad. It was a Solo Show class that Maddie Corman--who Lisa knows and her writer/producer partner were teaching!!
"You have to take this class with me," Lisa said.
"It's too expensive. I don't have time." I protested, not recognizing the resistance that Steven Pressfield writes about in The War of Art.
But the Universe was at Lisa's back and the Universe kept kicking me through Lisa and I am taking that class and it is infucking credible. Maddie and her writing/producing partner Kristin Hanggi are incredibly supportive and helpful and everyone in the class is as well. And they are all people of incredible creative and big heartedness.
The me that went to see that show could never imagined that I would end up in a class taught by Maddie and Kristin and have them cheering me on and mentoring me the way they are now!
So it is all well and good that I am doing that. But I realized that I have to get this book out of me so I can move on!!!! Just writing these words thrills me and ups my vibrations!
So here is what I am doing. I have joined a NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month--I know I'm writing a memoir but it works) and committing to 1600 words a day. I was a reporter. I can put out words. I just haven't been.
AND, I have started TikTokking about Cured. I have an interim cover that I am using until my enormously talented and enormously busy cover artist can create for one for me. He's done covers for 50 NY Times best sellers.
And FINALLY, I have given myself a deadline by putting Cured: A Tale of Badassery on presale with a publication date of February 14, 2023. I am marketing it as a Valentine for women learning to love and trust themselves. Because I'm one of them.
It's hard. Because I am writing about how my relationship with my daughters' father nearly killed me. And I am writing about some of the things that he did. So I have told them not to follow me on TikTok, not to read the book and not to come to the my show when I do it in New York. But I AM telling them to come to the after party!
The thing is, both my Reiki healer and my Tarot card reader told me, is that Gary and I were meant to be. Which is super helpful. Makes me feel less like an idiot.
He's in my soul pod, my Tarot card reader told me. In a past life, I may even have been the man! (Shades of Dead Again, no?) I do think I would have been a better man than he is in this go round but who knows? She said there are lots of people in my soul pod. "Oh dear," I said. "I hope his mother isn't one of them."
Alas, she may be, because my Tarot card reader sees us high fiving each other.
"Really?" I said.
"Well, you will have achieved your higher selves," she hastened to explain.
Wow. That is going to be a serious elevation for both of us.
But, it's actually kind of cheering!
P.S. Lisa is the friend who created some meditations and imaging that I do every day! And here is a link to HER book, Soaring into Strength if you want to know more! She is a major mover in the positive psychology world but also a mystic. She is also a blast. as you would expect!
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