here there and everywhere.

hArD rEtUrN. i am back in the city, back at work, back to my studio, back to my life, but far from back to normal. not that i really even know what normal is, or think it applies to me. but whatever. i'm here but part of me is elsewhere. i feel a little scattered and unanchored and like i'm sleepwalking. as though i am just an observer on the outside, not really a part of all that is going on around me. perhaps that sensation will fade away over the next couple of days, or perhaps it will stay with me as long as my mom is sick. time will tell...

the trip home was brief, a bit of a whirlwind. in the end i barely felt like i had gotten through the front door and was turning around again to go back to new york. and, yet, at many times during those brief 60 hours, i was amazed at how much we were accomplishing and how much time there seemed to be. the passage of time is slippery and elusive, especially when it comes to family and illness. one on hand, it is slipping through our fingers, too fine and too quickly to get a grasp on, blink and 2 days have gone by, emails and calls still to be composed and made, people to be informed, errands still to be run, preparations still to be undertaken...and, on the other hand, meandering leisurely and slowly like that obnoxious woman in front of you on the sidewalk who is taking her sweet old time, all the while zigging and zagging at every moment you try to get around her to move ahead at the pace you need and desire to go, blocking your way. there is much to do, perhaps too much to do, this week in order to be ready for 30 days of radiation therapy, but, still, it feels like it will be impossible to sit tight and wait another week for them to begin. we still have to wait 6 days for the "dry run" and then another 3 for the first treatment and then 30 for the conclusion. to be on the other side of the radiation, and, hopefully, on the other side of this cancer. and i say we and that is ridiculous. it is my mom, my poor mom, who has to undergo all of this. i am essentially a concerned bystander. and, so, from afar, i will wait and count the days - until treatment begins, until i can go home again, until this is over...and i will be here. and i will be there. and i will be everywhere and nowhere.