What do you remember about the choices you made and the chances you took to get where you are right now? Is this where you were headed when you set off?
Poem 17, “For John,” from Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing. Listen here: https://youtu.be/4eHOAzWp-fw
For more video poems from “Frazzle”
In 2009 the world was in the midst of a major financial crisis and both of our grown kids temporarily moved back home while they tried to find jobs. Somehow we had chosen that time to remodel our house. What started as a specific project in the kitchen, expanded to a much-needed update of most of the house. My office was the only untouched room, although full of stuff from elsewhere. Stephen and I went from being well-adjusted on our own, in a quiet place, to true chaos. In a good way, of course.
Over the years, major illnesses have often been my teacher. I’ve gained many insights and deep healing of body, mind, emotions, and spirit. Was there any other—perhaps gentler—way to heal the past and transform my life? Poem 15, “Remodeling as a Transformative Device (Better than Illness),” answers that question. Listen here: https://youtu.be/TM_AvrHwE_Y
FROM:
THROWN AGAIN into the FRAZZLE MACHINE: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing
Some background:
In 2007 I was diagnosed with my third breast cancer tumor following a routine mammogram. Further testing showed I carry a BRCA 2 mutation, one of the genes which can lead to an increased risk of cancer. (My molecular genetics science-self found this to be a very interesting gene–as long as I didn’t think of it as affecting me.) I was stunned. This was 11 years after my previous cancer diagnosis and I thought I was done with all that.
It was summer. I sat on my garden swing in the back of the yard, to let the fear subside. I listened to my inner guidance and let the answer come to me…what to do? After gathering information and consulting with many people: doctors, family, dear friends, I decided to have the bilateral (double) mastectomy. Since I had so much radiation with the previous treatment, the tissue was very scarred and I did not to do reconstruction, a very personal choice. This is the kind of decision that jars you not just at the time, but later, when grief for what is lost can surface unexpectedly.
Writing continued to be essential to me during that time. Although not many of those poems have been published, my chapbook, New Year’s Eve Surgery, has a few poems I collected to give to my medical team. I needed them to know something about me—after all, they would be doing a very personal surgery and had not even met me beforehand. My sister had the idea for the entire medical team to sign my copy of the chapbook and they wrote me amazing healing notes of support. My poems changed the conversations from very medical and impersonal to very human and healing.
What insights came to you through medical experiences?
In Poem 14, “Scene: The Future,” from Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine, I am thinking ahead to a future when cancer treatment may have changed a lot. Listen here: https://youtu.be/05q2-bgEpQo
Listen to more video poems from “Frazzle”
THROWN AGAIN into the FRAZZLE MACHINE: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing
My husband Stephen and I met in college in January of 1972. I was 19 and he was 7 months older. We are no longer those people, who after becoming friends, fell in love that first summer and got married (once I graduated). We’ve changed over and over in 42 years of marriage. Often change is not in sync. It’s like that Bruce Springsteen song, “And if I fall behind, wait for me…” But we’ve been determined and worked through it all…to stay together.
Tonight we went to a powerfully moving recital by opera singer, Joyce Didonato. She continues to be a big inspiration for me to be fearless (including doing this video series). Because I wanted to see her, Stephen encouraged me to get the tickets. He found a lovely new sushi restaurant in Chicago and we made it through traffic to get parked and into the performance in good time, a feat in itself. Stephen liked it. I loved it, even tearing up by her last encore.
That’s one thing that’s kept us close. We each bring something different to the relationship. We’re willing to try something new. And we support each other. I am most grateful. What relationships are you grateful for?
Here is Poem 9 from Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing: https://youtu.be/VLhrqr0rk6k
Listen to more video poems from “Frazzle”
Dorothy is on the left.
It was 2014. I couldn’t quite settle on the title for a poem collection I was working on. I called my sister, Dorothy, and tried out a number of possibilities. She didn’t care for any of them. She is very honest. She asked, “Don’t you sometimes use a poem title for the book title?” I went back through all the poems in the book and came up with three choices. One in particular seemed to fit. I called my sister and she agreed. And so was named “Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine.”
The poem is about a phone call from my gynecological surgeon with a surprise cancer diagnosis. I was alone. It was a week after a hysterectomy that had gone smoothly and lab tests had shown no cancer. But further analysis picked up endometrial cancer. Crazy. No further treatment was recommended, just “enhanced surveillance” every three months for two years. We had made a crucial decision to do the classic surgery with a 10 inch-incision, not the laparoscopic procedure. This decision meant that the unexpected cancer cells had not been spread throughout my body, but were contained in the intact uterus, which had been completely removed. I had a bit longer recovery, but no cancer. (Last month I “graduated” from the enhanced surveillance.) So this poem was in many ways a capsule of what the book was about: life’s twists and how in the end it all turns out.
12/19/13
Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine
Phone call from Dr. Alok Pant
How long does it take to
find the ground
to wrap the mind around
another cancer diagnosis
life ongoing
remember that
the choice made
one recent night
to live…still
much to do
who am I now
alone and in relation to.
Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2013
Once the title was in place the cover image immediately came to mind. I had taken a series of photos the year before after a vacation in Wisconsin. We’d stayed in Sturgeon Bay and my husband discovered Popelka Trenchard Fine Art Glass Gallery. We watched a glass blowing demonstration, seeing a small vase take shape from the molten strands of glass. We bought the vase as our souvenir. Back at home I was sitting at my kitchen table looking at the intricate patterns and the sun shone down through the skylight. I was captivated by the swirling colors in the light and took a series of photos with the camera lens in the vase pointed at the bottom. One of them, “Light through Once Molten Glass,” turned out to be exactly right for the new book cover: a central vortex with light streaming through the darkness to create beauty. What had been molten blobs was skillfully shaped into a new creation we saw being “birthed.” Perfect.
What is your creativity “birth” story?