I have been traveling the last couple weeks, first to Utah, then a road trip to San Luis Obispo. I had wonderful visits with my daughter, then my son and his family. Before I left I made an appointment with a henna artist. I had been thinking about decorating my head ever since I lost my hair, but my head was very sensitive to cold.  I even wore caps when I slept. I kept thinking I will do it when it gets warmer or when I feel better. When I was finished with chemo I wasn’t ready to celebrate. My body had been untethered  from the IV pole but the rest of me still felt restrained, watchful; could it really be over?  Taking these trips helped me to extend my range and to recognize that my well being is slowly returning.   The snake coiled on my head is a symbol of the strong medicine that has gotten me through to this point.

I showed Darcy Vasudev at the Henna Lounge  my drawing of a snake from my journal and she drew it freehand on my head with henna paste. It took her just over an hour and it felt like a tiny massage as she moved her pen-like applicator over my head and we chatted.  When she was finished she took the first photo. I went home and peeled off the dry paste before I went to bed. The pattern was very light and I worried that I hadn’t left the henna on long enough even though Darcy told me it would darken over the next few days.

Here is a photo almost two weeks later. I have gotten so many positive responses. My daughter and her college friends love it. I was a little worried going to Utah that I might be mistaken for strange cult member, but that just shows my bay area prejudice. I got into a conversation with a business man who sat next to me on the plane and it turns out he has a son who was treated for leukemia five years ago.  After the plane landed, he was far ahead of me in the departing crowd  and he turned back and walked over and gave me a big hug.

Its been hot in San Francisco the last couple days so I have been able to show off my pate art here. Its been fun to stand out in the crowd but I’m ready to blend back into my usual camouflage as snake fades over the next couple weeks and my head shows a five o’clock shadow as it prepares to be covered with hair.

Here is something I wrote a couple of years ago before my latest run in with cancer about what the snake means to me.

4/27/10 – Ten years ago today, I was hiking alone in Big Sur when I heard a noise and something dropped on the trail right at my feet. I looked down and saw a gopher snake with a mole protruding from it’s mouth, fallen from the steep side of the trail. I was so fascinated that I watched the snake for several minutes as she worked hard swallowing the mole. I felt protective towards the snake and hoped she would finish her meal undisturbed. Finally, I continued on my walk, musing on the accidental universe that had allowed me, the hungry snake and the unfortunate mole to converge in that spot at just that time.

When I returned to San Francisco I got news that my brother-in-law, Fred, had died unexpectedly of a ruptured aortic aneurysm the day after my encounter with the snake. My sister. Karen, had died eight months earlier of melanoma and I was suddenly guardian of my six year old niece Sia. I thought often of that snake in the months that followed as I struggled with grief for the loss of my sister, brother-in-law and my life as I had known it, I felt great anger and resentment at being left with with the huge burden of caring for my orphaned niece who needed so much love just at the time when my heart had retreated into a shell.

My memory of the snake gave me hope that I would eventually come through for myself and for Sia, not because of any special strengths or qualities I possessed but because digestion is such a basic function. I hoped I too could eventually assimilate the tragedy that felt like it had lodged in my gullet and even draw nourishment from it.

Five years later I was diagnosed with rectal cancer, probably just a random co-incidence, but the meaning I chose to make of it was that I still had some digestive healing to do. That mysterious healing work continues to unfold.