Aging Schmaging

Thank you, NY Times

A doctor I go to for the most basic of facials tells me I am looking old.  He says age is quickly catching up on me and with a quick botox fix on my forehead, fillers under my eyes and a collagen shot on my upper lip,  I should look better.  I will try not to begrudge him.  He has a trained eye to spot imperfections and to point them out.  It is his job after all.  He also tells me that beauty is now down to a calculated science.  That the distance between your eyes to your nose and something about the size of one's mouth (it is easy to lose your comprehension skills after being told you look ancient) can now determine the  perfect face. Calculated beauty,  I guess. I personally think it's a whole crock of  crap but I don't have the heart to tell him.  Ooh wait... if he reads this,  I just did.  Whooops. 

He doesn't need to tell me I am growing old.  I already know it.  Every couple of weeks,  grey hairs pop in to say hello  reminding me that they need to be hidden again in a camouflage of brown.  Those granny panties I used to laugh about are slowly looking like the perfect fallback plan to tuck in that stubborn flab that no workout on the treadmill or barre class can seem to fix. It is hard not to notice when the make-up artist I've been going to for over a decade seems to be dabbing way more concealer under my eyes than I remember him ever using.   While I used to do everything possible to tame my full head of wavy hair, I just brought home a pack of rollers.  My hair is suddenly limp and lacks bounce.  A sure sign it is growing old along with me too.  

I want to tell  the doctor that,  as crazy as it sounds,  the sight of those wrinkles is a sign of personal victory.  That, though it's such a pain in the ass they've arrived when I'm not even forty, I secretly rejoice at the sight of grey hair.  When you secretly suspect at 26 you aren't going to live past 30,  seeing a face slowly losing signs of youth isn't a bad thing altogether. They say each wrinkle is a battle scar for every trial we've faced. The lines on our face are stripes earned for the sacrifices we've made. Amen to that and that.   Yes, the sudden sprouting of cellulite on your thighs is annoying and so are those new fine lines at the corner of my eyes.  But at the end of the day  - some of which involves being stuck  under  the sun with absolutely no sunblock because the boys decided on an impromptu football game at the park  - reverse aging and a flawless complexion just isn't top of my list.  I can go on and on about beauty being more than skin deep but we've all heard that before.  Not to say either that I'm not getting suckered to keep applying that eye contour balm at night or that  Bobbi Brown's peach corrector isn't  a godsend.  

Age is catching up on me.  I'm leaving youth behind.  But I can totally live with that.  


With that, I'm off in a few hours.  Balm, sunblock, moisturizer, night cream.  Check.  

Birthday Times Four

I'm not too crazy about birthday parties.  At least not the ones where there are hundreds of people with thousands of balloons plus the  host and the caterer, the show, the arts and crafts table, the tattoo dude, the face painter,  the balloon twister, the bouncy house, the mobile beauty salon,  the snack stalls, the works.  If you live in Manila, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you don't, you must come and check one out  at least once in your lifetime.  Some are just out of this world crazy.  Always a lot of fun.  Just not my thing. 

Mak and Tato both beg every year for the whole circusy-gig. We compromised and agreed we'd celebrate their 5th and their 7th.  Still not the far-out levels were used to witnessing but a party nonetheless. (I also told them they were free to party-out on their 50th, 75th, 80th and 100th but that they'd have to plan those themselves)  Next week the boys turn six.  

Add to that the whole crazy business with Mak andTato sharing the same birth date as their daddy and granddaddy.  Two years ago, we celebrated GrandDad Doc's 80th. That was a big one.  MacDaddy turned forty last year so we went all out with that too.  Then,  of course, the boys got their party. It was their 5th after all.  I never got around to post the photos  so will do that now as proof for Mak and Tato that their corny mom (their word, not mine) who nags them constantly knows how to throw a party too. 

Thanks for the photos, Mon 

This year will be quiet.  Were off for a week with the four celebrants and the whole kaboodle to explore new places down south.  We also plan to make an important stop and visit GrandDadDoc's 92-year old brother. We took the boys to see him when they were months old.  It would be great for them to see him again.   I had been going back and forth over and over with this, not sure if pulling the kids out of school for an entire week was the smartest thing to do.  They aren't exactly in play school anymore.  But I also know that there is  much to learn outside four walls.  MacDaddy says  he wished  he had spent more time with his grandfather. He always makes a good point.  Deal sealed then.  We are going.

As for birthdays,  I hope the boys learn soon enough  that  precious moments and family adventures  trump the parties and everything that goes with it  any given day.  Hopefully in the next three hundred days. Next year is their 7th.  

Silver Lining

There.  I said it.  Monkey off my back. I finally got up the nerve to tell my boys that once upon a time, in a galaxy not far, far away,  their mother had breast cancer.  

It was easier than I had imagined.  We were all curled up in my bed all set for lights out because thats what we do on weekends.  MacDaddy was still in his dinner  and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to come clean.

Remember I told you I'm going to Davao next week?  And that I'm going because I will  meet hundreds and hundreds of sick people that might need help? I'm doing that because a long time ago Mama was sick just like them.  I had breast cancer also.  I was scared and didn't know anything about it.  And now that I'm okay I want those girls to know that they can get better also.

If you've been reading this blog for some time or actually spent more than five minutes with the boys you would know how different they are.  Night and day.  Day and night. And I mean it all in a good way.  Mak will sit through the scariest, most frightening scenes in a movie.  He will ask you every gory detail.  I once left him with MacDaddy and he sat through the entire Trainspotting flick.  I hear he didn't flinch once. Yes, even that scene with the vomit and the child demon on the ceiling. I know, I know.  Censor censor.  Whole other post for that one.  Tato, on the other hand,  needs to know the ending before a movie even begins before he agrees to sit through it.  He looks away and even runs away completely when a movie is sad or scary or springs a surprise.


If I made a bet  and guessed how each boy would  react,  I would have won big.    I had played the possible scenario in my head over and over again weeks before this and I was spot on.  Ha! I do know my boys.  

Mak:  You were sick before? What else?  What did you do?

Me: I did everything I could  to get better.  I listened to my doctor and followed him.  I even took this medicine that was so strong like a superhero fighting the bad guys that  my hair fell out.

Mak:  Wow! You looked like Papa with no hair?  Wow!

Tato: Forget about it.  Don't talk about Best Caster again.

Me: Its Breast Cancer.  Did someone tell you it was scary?  

Tato:  No I just know it.  Don't say it ever again. 

Me:  Okay deal.  But if you ever want to ask me anything about it, just ask okay? 

Bedtime prayers.  Bedtime hugs and kisses. End of story. End of discussion.  Lights out.

Days later,  all set and ready  to head to the airport to attend Silver Linings, our foundation's cancer conference and homecoming for over a thousand women diagnosed all over the country, Tato stood beside me and the bag I was packing and spoke in a whisper looking around making sure his brother wasn't around to hear it.  His pride gets the better of him lots of times. 

Tato:  Mama, what if you catch cancer from the girls where you're going?

Me: Cancer isn't like a cold or a cough, Tato.  And I'm not sick anymore.  I'm well.  

He gave me the biggest  kiss on the cheek and  we each went our way.  

My own little silver lining. 

Teaching Compassion and Empathy

When I grow up I want to be fearless like Joan Halifax.

She is a Zen Roshi, anthropologist, ecologist, writer, teacher, LSD researcher, scholar of the US Library of Congress and the only woman and Buddhist on the Advisory Council of the Tony Blair Foundation. Joan Halifax is described in her TED profile as "a driving force of socially engaged Buddhism." Her activism involves helping the sick and dying. In this TED Talk she describes the true meaning of compassion and empathy.

Her talk was enlightening and emotional in many ways. But aside from her clear description of what compassion truly is, here are my highlights, paraphrased:

Compassion is an inherent human quality. We are all born compassionate, but it has to be aroused.

Compassion has three enemies—Pity, Moral Outrage and Fear. To which my mind clicked… 1) Pity—Many people think compassion IS pity. This is what some dogmatic institutions lead us to believe. 2) Moral Outrage—This is why dogma is dangerous. 3) Fear—Which is why the most enlightened people are the least worried about outcome, mistakes, failure and loss. Which is why I aspire to be fearless like Joan Halifax.

Those who cultivate compassion feel suffering more, but they return to baseline a lot sooner. This is resilience. True compassion does not drain us, it enlivens us. It compels us to act.

Neuroscientists have seen how cultivating compassion is not just good for others and humanity in general. Compassion is good for our health. It enhances neural integration—hooking up all parts of the brain and making it work better. It also enhances the immune system. 

And now the highlight of my highlights is this… she asks, "If compassion is so good for us why don't we train our children in compassion?"

The next big query is, and there's already a long thread about it on TED: Exactly how do we train our children in compassion? I have my own thoughts, but it’s a great question to throw out there. Think about it. I'd love to hear your ideas.

TEDx Diliman

Something special for TEDtalks fans in Manila… There will be a TEDx event held at the Malcolm Hall of UP Diliman this October 8. The theme is How Art and Culture Can Change Our World. The line-up of speakers is very promising.

TED Talks with local flavor!

For more details and a chance to score an invite, visit TEDx Diliman's official website. Because TED rules allow only 100 participants, you'll have to make a case for wanting to go. In 200 words or less they want to know what you are passionate about in your life, your work and your community. 

The deadline for applications may have been August 31, but you can still try. TEDxDiliman just announced on Twitter: 1st set of invites out. So hard to choose & we had to pass on many deserving applicants. If slots open, some may still get in.

Thank you Universe and TEDx Diliman for dropping that invite in my inbox this morning! Confirmed. No, confeeermed! 

Getting Ahead of Google

In a Breast Cancer conference I attended in Orlando early this year, I joined a session called: The ABC's of Talking To Your Child about Breast Cancer.  The rest of the conference had us all generally upbeat with yoga classes, chit chat sessions,  and good news  on the breakthroughs and  trends in cancer. This session had us passing around the Kleenex box quite a bit.  It is true.  Tough as we are and  as mighty as we think we can be when we brave these storms, we all turn weak in the knees and marshmallowy-soft when it comes to our children. 

Our speaker was a top-notch surgeon who, after years of dealing with her own patients who in turn deal with their own children, discovered she had  cancer.  With roles reversed all of a sudden she was forced to talk to her own children about  her cancer diagnosis. She has since gone on to write several children's books for children that help them understand and cope with the issues that come part and parcel with being a child of a survivor. At the end of the lecture, when it was time for the usual Q&A I asked something I had not thought about initially and then suddenly been thinking about for sometime.

MY QUESTION:

"I am a twelve-year breast cancer survivor.  I have five-year old twins.  Apart from  my real job I work with other breast cancer survivors  so my boys are exposed to this, to other survivors  and know all about what we do as a foundation.  Should I tell them at all I have had cancer myself and if  I should when is the right time to do it?"

HER ANSWER:

"To your five year olds? NOW.  Now is the time.  How would you present it to them? You would say, you know what these women have gone through because you have gone through it yourself. What are you telling your children? Something bad has happened to you but you made something good out of it.  Now. "

Now.  To think that was seven months ago and I never got around to it. Blame it on real life getting in the way again or conveniently  just forgetting  or me just being  plain old chicken. So  why  - apart from the fact that the -BER months remind me that breast cancer awareness month is just around the corner  and that I need to make that appointment for my annual mammmogram - is this suddenly back into my stream of consciousness? 

Because the boys have discovered the wonderful world of GOOGLE. 

Tato: Mama, I am only in Google. It's the list with my finishing time when we joined the race. I am not in Google Images. I want to be in Google Images.

It seems they have also discovered the dangerously spectacular world of Vanity Googling.  

Ahh.. Vanity Googling.  Verb:  Searching for one's own name on a search engine to check out  what the world wide web has on you.  Synonym: egosurfing, egogoogling

And since it seems to be a trend in our own home, I decided to egosurf myself.  No humiliating high school photos, thank god.  Equally thankful Facebook and Twitter weren't around then to record the bad breakups and the equally bad hair dos.  I did discover quite a number  of articles and interviews I have done over the years about my own cancer journey.  

Tick tock.  I better get to it before Google beats me to the punch. And yet,  just like vowing you will never ever  sit through another excruciating episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians  the next time you chance upon it, some things are easier said than done.

The Muppets 2011

There's a new Muppets movie coming out this November. Hope it’s a good one! Their last few films were duds, but I still watched them when they came out. The last one on the big screen even—as I wouldn’t settle for a DVD copy. I will always be a fan. I grew up with them and Rainbow Connection is the song of my childhood. This dates me, I know.

I loved it when they put up their YouTube channel. Remember Bohemian Rhapsody?  I also had a mini freak-out out when I saw Beaker and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew as mascots in Disneyland. Yes, Disneyland  because apparently The Muppets franchise has been bought by the Disney Corporation which owns practically everything in Entertainment these days.

Hence, this very slick, (and okay, very commercial) reboot of the Muppets Theme done by OK Go—those guys who did that awesome treadmill video and that other one with the MIT-developed Rube Goldberg machine which we had gushed over here.

 

Indie music lovers may also want to check out the entire Green Album from where that came from.  It's basically classic Muppets music sang by alternative rockers. So far, I’m really liking the Wishing Song rebooted by The Airborne Toxic Event. The album is really trippy. Fray sings Mahna Mahna, Weezer does Rainbow Connection and Andrew Bird sweetly croons Bein’ Green. And this isn't even the movie sound track yet.

So…

The Muppets are now being handled by Disney’s marketing people. I can hear some folks (“the purists”) saying eeew. Well, I’m still going to get all nostalgic. It’s The Muppets! Also, I hope Disney makes them more relatable to this generation of kids. That can’t be too bad. I hope.

Oh, and a Spider!

Still caught up in the excitement that there is now more to Bear's reading than Tintin, Asterisk, Calvin and Hobbes, Geronimo Stilton, Kzone and DC Kids—I am reading my own First Chapter-Book-of-Note to him and his sister… 

I am not exaggerating when I say this is my First True Literary Love. The book that started my love affair with books. The one that made me realize words on a page can make you cry, crush your heart and put a knot in your stomach.

I was in the third grade when Charlotte's Web hit me. I even remember the day my Tita got it for me at the huge Barnes and Noble in the now gone World Trade Center. After tagging along on a Saturday morning to her office, we stopped by the bookstore and as a treat I got a pencil box in my then favorite color Lavender and the E.B.White classic which I ended up reading all the way until Sunday. 

Flash forward to decades later. Now I am relishing moments reading E.B White's words to two curious children who are loving the story, so far. We're not done yet. I wonder how they will they take the ending! Meanwhile, I look forward to nighttime when we cuddle up in bed and I get to read them beautifully-wrought lines and dialogue like these…

* * *

The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year—the days when summer is changing into fall—the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.

* * *

"When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle."

"What's miraculous about a spider's web?" said Mrs. Arable. "I don't see why you say a web is a miracle—it's just a web."

"Ever try to spin one?" asked Dr. Dorian.

Mrs. Arable shifted uneasily in her chair. "No," she replied. "But I can crochet a doily and I can knit a sock."

"Sure," said the doctor. "But somebody taught you, didn't they?"

"My mother taught me."

"Well, who taught a spider? A young spider knows how to spin a web without any instructions from anybody. Don't you regard that as a miracle?"

"I suppose so," said Mrs. Arable. "I never looked at it that way before. Still, I don't understand how those words got into the web. I don't understand it, and I don't like what I don't understand."

"None of us do," said Dr. Dorian sighing. "I'm a doctor. Doctors are supposed to understand everything. But I don't understand everything, and I don't intend to let it worry me."

* * *

Mrs. Arable fidgeted. "Fern says the animals talk to each other Dr. Dorian, do you believe animals talk?"

"I never heard one say anything," he replied. "But that proves nothing. It is possible an animal has spoken civilly to me and that I didn't catch the remark because I wasn't paying attention. Children pay better attention than grownups. If Fern says that the animals in Zuckerman's barn talk, I'm quite ready to believe her."

* * *

"Let Fern associate with her friends in the barn if she wants to. I would say, offhand, that spiders and pigs were fully as interesting as Henry Fussy. Yet I predict that the day will come when even Henry will drop some chance remark that catches Fern's attention. It's amazing how children change from year to year."

* * *

My nightly readings have made me realize this book is not just a classic, it's a classic that's great to read aloud. Revisiting Charlotte, Wilbur, the Zuckerman barn and the Arables with my own little boy and girl currently tops my list of Simple Joys.

I love you E.B. White... you and your elegant prose and existential truths in a most touching and riveting story that is Charlotte’s Web.