The transmission

As a child, I remember the prayer chain our church used when a family was in need. Its typed numbers were posted next to our gold rotary telephone. I can still see my mother in our galley kitchen, leaning onto the counter while she cradled the receiver on her shoulder, writing the message in shorthand.

She’d pause to take it in, then collect herself as she read over her notes before passing the message on. There was a protocol: if the next person wasn’t home, you skipped them and went to the one after to keep the transmission going. Meals were organized. Prayers were offered. People were held.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020, a friend suggested something wild: tell people and ask for help. The prayer chain came back. I was scared, which helped me reach out to some dear friends to ask if they’d be on my support team. Tears flowed down my cheeks as their responses came in, thanking me for allowing them to help. Perhaps that gave me the courage to send out a wider email the day before my double mastectomy:

I go into surgery tomorrow…I believe I’m ready. I’ve put my wishes out into the universe for whatever happens to be the best outcome for me. Would you send yours to join mine in whatever that looks like for you? Prayer, meditation, positive energy, interpretative dance — it’s all welcome. Right around 7:15 a.m. would be a perfect time…I love you all more than I will ever be able to say.

My husband was only allowed to bring me into the waiting room because these were still the early days of Covid. When they called my name, he hugged me and whispered, “I’ll be right there with you.” I went into the operating room alone, but with spiritual company, and woke to videos with poems, jokes about me being on drugs, and people wanting to know I was okay. Food deliveries began the day I returned home and continued for a few weeks. They came with notes, flowers, and company.

Cancer taught me how to receive love and also that I was surrounded by it. When I healed and returned to my life, though, I missed that bubble. In the years that followed, I realized that the shorthand I’d learned about love—that it was something to be sent, received, and managed—was only half the story.

The transmission wasn’t a distance to be bridged, but a frequency to tune into. I began leaving self-compassion breadcrumbs in the notes app on my phone. Types of self-love: physical, emotional, relationship, spiritual. Lines from my meditation mantra: may I be patient and gentle with myself, may I love and accept myself just as I am. Inch by inch. Day by day. Year by year. I felt love’s message begin from inside.

Love as Compost

Ruined. ---- Changing.
Striving. ---- Undoing.
Scared. ---- Held.
Wounded. --- Open.
Earned. ---- Born.
How it should be. ---- How is it?
Darkness. ---- Abiding.
Control. ---- Care.
Absorbing. ---- Observing.
Unworthy. ---- Who?
Who we are. ---- Here we are.
Stardust. ---- Stardust.