Weekly Round-Up
Time for this week’s round-up of the best of the blog posts which I’ve read over the past week. These are the posts that have moved me, taught me something, inspired me, and which I’ve wanted to share with you. Don’t forget if you have written a post which you would like readers to see, just leave a comment below.
Nancy‘s summer blog hop is hopping. I really enjoyed taking part this week and checking out the other entries. The best part of this challenge is learning something new about the bloggers I know and admire – like Lisa DeFerrari and Abigail Johnston – but also finding new blogs to read – like Alene’s Journey to Badwater blog. I love how Alene describes herself as “a 57 year old Australian Shepherd mom to Velcro and Gypsy, partner through marriage to Dennis, oncology nurse now working in cancer research/data/technology, ultradistance runner, currently occasional writer/author/blogger/artist, and now recovering overachiever.” #biogoals for me 🙂
Gogs Gagnon, a prostate cancer advocate, is someone I’ve known for the past few months, but not as well as I feel I know him now having read his blog hopping entry. Gogs very kindly sent me a copy of his memoir, Prostate Cancer Strikes: Navigating the Storm and he mentions in his post how proud he is that the book is distributed free to everyone newly diagnosed across Canada by Prostate Cancer Foundation BC.
Another new to me blogger is Adelyn who blogs at On Word & Upward. A stand-out line from Adelyn’s post for me is when she writes about her goal “to change the way I am identified – I am more than cancer! – and to change the way I identify people.”
Elsewhere in the blogosphere..
I loved Ilene‘s latest poetic offering the fabulous named “four connected haikus about existence and sake”.
OurMBCLife shares a special summer bonus episode with MBC advocate, Shirley Mertz.
Dee shares tips for live tweeting an oncology conference.
A guest post from James at A Fresh Chapter, on how accepting contradiction guides his cancer journey.
Matthew guests on Chris’ Cancer Community blog with advice to patients diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Rod writes about using humor to cope with breast cancer in his latest ABC guest post.
Barbara offers tips on where to go for the best information on breast cancer.
Sending good vibes to Sarah who is missing out on a family vacation to Ireland because cancer has derailed her plans.
Good advice on proactively planning for the financial costs of cancer treatment on the Surviving Breast Cancer blog.
Terri‘s latest podcast episode focuses on lymphedema treatment and surgery with guest Dr. Ramon Garza III.
Kristie reflects on three years of blogging.
Both Lisa Valentine‘s and Connie’s latest posts shares thoughts on the solace to be found in nature.
Finally this week I was deeply moved reading Johanna‘s brief fanfare for the ordinary – such a perfect post in its simplicity but profundity.
Cancer has now been my companion for over five years. It’s been an unwelcome visitor, a deadly ghost, an iron wheel turning under the street. And yet my daughter lives, I live, my husband lives—and this first day back at school is a sword in hope’s stone. We claim it, it is ours.
Until next week,
May you find hope and solace
Yours with much love always,
Marie xxx
As always thank you for recognizing my poetry for whatever poetry as it is, amateur, and purely simple as I am able to move to make it understandable than to stand on a sack of word soup cloaking the meaning in a sea of non-sequiters and nonsensical self involved drivel. In seven years of writing, or nearly seven since my diagnosis, the poetry portion of the blog has overtaken in some ways the essay portion. When one digs a little deeper into the soul at the level of truth and the anguish as well as the small joys of seeing deer wander with her twin fawns up to my kitchen window or describing the delights of a sunset or a tree, how else can one depart from my dear friend Kristie’s term “cancery” things unless diving off a board and into a pool hoping the pools not only full, but that I’m still able to swim. I found a box of old photos marked “scanning project for Ilene” that never got scanned, so I’ll take phots of the phots – these days just as easy -and start to use those as a way to show biography. As isn’t that what we’re all in some way trying to do is tell our stories before it’s too late on some level. On our deathbed there will be no scribe sitting and waiting for our final words to come pouring out like Socrates waiting for the hemlock to kill him – swoosh – right off into the ethereal. I hope I get to meet Socrates and ask him a few questions if heaven exists and we can just walk up to people on clouds and be finally democratized to the same level – dead. Nothing much about being a famously dead person now is there? So I appreciate your sending my poem and piece to the people who might take a chance and read a quatrain of haikus and a treatise on sake. Somehow it irritated my sister because I said she was nauseated by raw fish. I thinks she scans my work looking for her name to come up anywhere and a chance to tear it down – though she does say “you’re a wonderful poet” but doesn’t understand poetic license. Poetry is in the eye of the poet and once unleashed it becomes anyone’s to interpret. And the license is bidirectional-for me to tell it and the reader to interpret. It’s a conversation not an argument. And I love you Marie for sharing my side of the conversation week in week out. Now onto my very last task of the morning here in California which is to finish Nancy’s blog hop because I want t to be early, have it just right, and finish it so that I may continue to publicize it for her and not that she needs it my goodness she’s our queen of content and we all love her – for not just continuing like you to celebrate all the voices that are out there but do it with a consistent quality and emotional investment that I love you both for…
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Looking forward to reading your blog hop entry Ilene and I love that description of poetry being in the eye of the poet and once unleashed it becomes anyone’s to interpret.
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Marie, thank you for commenting on my post about changing the way I look at myself. I so enjoy your weekly round ups. I have found some wonderful posts through it!
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Linda that is so lovely to hear – many thanks for taking the time to share a comment here
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Thank you so much for the mention, Marie. I’m thrilled to be part of the blog hop and learning to find my voice.
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Reblogged this on Gogs Gagnon and commented:
I’m proud to be mentioned in the Weekly Round-Up written by Marie from Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer. It’s a weekly collection of inspiring blogs written by people in the cancer community — a fantastic read, even from someone who’s had a different cancer diagnosis. I highly recommend following and reading their posts.
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