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| Autumn Leaves - John Everett Millais, 1856 |
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I'm living some halcyon days right now.
By all medical measures, I'm doing so well. As I've mentioned before, my tumor markers continue to go down, my scans seem to be stable, I'm feeling pretty good, getting in my steps (just hit the 2 million mark this past week!), and even the pains in my hips have been there through 2 stable scans which I take to mean, whether they're arthritis or nerves or something else, at least they're not cancer. Even the drug side effects are predictable and consistent, which makes them a lot less worrisome and a lot easier to deal through.
Halcyon days, indeed.
I have to confess, I needed to google that phrase to figure how how it's supposed to be spelled. The way it sounded in my head, I had assumed it had something to do with Helios, the sun, but it doesn't really. It's actually from an ancient Greek story about a husband who died at sea and wife who followed in grief, untli both were transformed into sea birds, halcyons--the 7 peaceful days were a gift her father, a god, gave her each year to lay her eggs on the beach. I learned something new there.
I don't know where I first heard the phrase "halcyon days" (or read the phrase, really), but it always reminds me of some well loved Victorian children's books or something by Tennyson. Knowing the story behind the phrase, I like it even better. I like the idea that it's not just a label for sunshiney pleasant days between the darker times, but something more intentional than that. An actual gift, a grace of peace to hold on to when the harder times come. I like that halcyon days aren't just here and gone, but rather part of a cycle that will return when the time is right again. It's still bittersweet, but beautiful, too.
I'm never sure just how to think about these kinds of days in my life. I can remember very clearly thinking of that phrase, halcyon days, the summer my daughter turned one. As I was watching her grow and change so quickly, I was acutely aware that those glorious summer days of spending our time together exploring and discovering couldn't last forever. It's a notion that I think about often, as she and my stepkids grow older. As my husband and I do, too. Time continually moves on and, as it does, I'm usually left questioning if each lovely thing will be back again in one form or another, or if circumstances, time, and place will never quite fall together that way again and this time will actually be the last. And at times like those, I'm usually left wondering why there would be such a craving for consistency in an ever changing world. I honestly don't understand what God was thinking there.
I know I don't want to waste these halcyon days--here, now--worrying about the next storm, or at least worrying about what the future might bring. I know with the cancer, like everything else, there's no real way to know if these particular days will be over in a few months or many years. I know what the basic odds are, but have no way of knowing where my own life will fit in to them. But I also know I don't want to look back at these times and regret that I spent so much of them worrying about what was next.
By all medical measures, I'm doing so well. As I've mentioned before, my tumor markers continue to go down, my scans seem to be stable, I'm feeling pretty good, getting in my steps (just hit the 2 million mark this past week!), and even the pains in my hips have been there through 2 stable scans which I take to mean, whether they're arthritis or nerves or something else, at least they're not cancer. Even the drug side effects are predictable and consistent, which makes them a lot less worrisome and a lot easier to deal through.
Halcyon days, indeed.
I have to confess, I needed to google that phrase to figure how how it's supposed to be spelled. The way it sounded in my head, I had assumed it had something to do with Helios, the sun, but it doesn't really. It's actually from an ancient Greek story about a husband who died at sea and wife who followed in grief, untli both were transformed into sea birds, halcyons--the 7 peaceful days were a gift her father, a god, gave her each year to lay her eggs on the beach. I learned something new there.
I don't know where I first heard the phrase "halcyon days" (or read the phrase, really), but it always reminds me of some well loved Victorian children's books or something by Tennyson. Knowing the story behind the phrase, I like it even better. I like the idea that it's not just a label for sunshiney pleasant days between the darker times, but something more intentional than that. An actual gift, a grace of peace to hold on to when the harder times come. I like that halcyon days aren't just here and gone, but rather part of a cycle that will return when the time is right again. It's still bittersweet, but beautiful, too.
I'm never sure just how to think about these kinds of days in my life. I can remember very clearly thinking of that phrase, halcyon days, the summer my daughter turned one. As I was watching her grow and change so quickly, I was acutely aware that those glorious summer days of spending our time together exploring and discovering couldn't last forever. It's a notion that I think about often, as she and my stepkids grow older. As my husband and I do, too. Time continually moves on and, as it does, I'm usually left questioning if each lovely thing will be back again in one form or another, or if circumstances, time, and place will never quite fall together that way again and this time will actually be the last. And at times like those, I'm usually left wondering why there would be such a craving for consistency in an ever changing world. I honestly don't understand what God was thinking there.
I know I don't want to waste these halcyon days--here, now--worrying about the next storm, or at least worrying about what the future might bring. I know with the cancer, like everything else, there's no real way to know if these particular days will be over in a few months or many years. I know what the basic odds are, but have no way of knowing where my own life will fit in to them. But I also know I don't want to look back at these times and regret that I spent so much of them worrying about what was next.
Occasionally I do get back to the mindset I want to be in, something like Matthew 6:27, "And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?" But, lets be honest, it takes a lot of effort for me to get past the feeling in my gut that if I don't worry about things, if I let my guard down and just enjoy the present, then some crazy universal all powerful karma enforcer will notice what I'm doing and punish me for it. I know, when it's down in a sentence like that it sounds pretty crazy, right?
I think that's part of why I really like the Greek story behind the phrase "halcyon days." I like thinking that halcyon days aren't a final peace to think back on when the inevitable troubles come but part of a continuous cycle. That each year for a certain time, the storms will subside, the gale winds will calm and roiling waves will settle, and the halcyon bird that was once Alcyone will have a time of peace to line her nest and lay her eggs before the storms rise up again. Every year. Always. Like a promise.
I think that's part of why I really like the Greek story behind the phrase "halcyon days." I like thinking that halcyon days aren't a final peace to think back on when the inevitable troubles come but part of a continuous cycle. That each year for a certain time, the storms will subside, the gale winds will calm and roiling waves will settle, and the halcyon bird that was once Alcyone will have a time of peace to line her nest and lay her eggs before the storms rise up again. Every year. Always. Like a promise.
As I sit here now, typing a blog post, listening to the sound of my daughter's keyboard as she writes an essay for school, looking at the blessing of a young woman the little imp of that summer years ago has been growing up to become, just as her brothers and sister have done, seeing the sunshine streaming in the windows of our snug little home on this chilly autum day after another summer has come and gone, I try to stay present in the blessings I have here, now. I try and trust that it's safe to enjoy them and not worry. And I try to remember that I've had in my life many halcyon days. There have been other times of storms and shadows, to be sure, but those, too, have been followed by different kinds of halcyon days.
I know at some point I will reach the end of my time here, the same way the ancient Greeks did, the way the author of the book of Matthew, the Victorians, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson himself did, immortal as some of their works may be. I like to think of Alcyone's bird children, born of those halcyon days, carrying on through life in times of storms and back again to halcyon days of their own. Its's a cycle that includes them but neither begins nor ends with them. It sounds a little sad, but I find it comforting, and beautiful, too. A never ending circle of halcyon days dating back to the ancients and leading forward through the future until kingdom come. A promise bigger than all of us, carrying forward through the ages. And a promise, which right now, that I am very blessed to be a part of.
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