No Left Field
The show for busting boundaries and expanding possibilities.
No Left Field
New Life Frames
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Welcome to Season 2 of No Left Field! A few months after our Season 1 finale, Rowena and Jason are back.
Moving through the "muck" of recent challenges, Rowena celebrates her partner Ed being cancer-free following a major surgery, while Jason navigates the emotional roller coaster of a grueling full-time job search.
We explore the pitfalls of "future tripping," the art of care partnering, and what it means to "hug the midline" and find presence amid uncertainty.
Key Takeaways:
- Hugging the Midline: Learning to gather our energy and regroup when life spins out of balance.
- The Power of Presence: Overcoming anticipatory grief and job search rejection by staying anchored in the current moment.
- Community as an Anchor: Why listening to the people who love us most is the ultimate tool for resilience.
If you enjoyed the episode, please follow the podcast and give us a 5-star rating. It will help others find us.
And please drop us a line: noleftfield@gmail.com
Welcome to No Left Field, the show for busting boundaries and expanding possibilities.
Speaker 6And we have fun doing it.
Speaker 3Do we though?
Speaker 6Hey listeners, it's good to be back. We can't wait to catch you up on Ed's Cancer Journey and Roe's caregiver takeaways. And the ongoing saga of Jason's Job Search. Plus, cheap trick. It's season two of No Left Field. Episode one, New Life Frames.
Speaker 6
Welcome to season two of No Left Field.
Speaker 4Ow! It's been a long time since we ended season one.
Speaker 6It's been a really long time. It's been uh well let's see, we recorded season one, episode one eight months ago. Nine months ago, August of 2025. It is May 22nd of 2026. And then I guess our last episode that we released would have been something we recorded till the end of September, so eight months.
SpeakerWas it?
Speaker 6Yeah, that was the navigating lengthy feats, I believe. That was the ultra marathon and care partnering episode. Oh, right. Okay.
Speaker 4I know that because I went back and listened to the final thing I was saying, and I just wanted to give her a hug.
Speaker 6Give that version of you a hug?
Speaker 4Navigating lengthy feet, very uh apropos for that situation. That lengthy feet that was the cancer treatment uh in September, we would have been pretty kind of in the middle of it. And then your ultramarathon, another lengthy feet, and how those things were similar, and it continues to um I think the cancer journey, and we'll we'll say like we're on a very different part of the journey now, spoiler alert, no more cancer, but there's so much um metaphorizing with it. And I I think I only because I'm in this chapter with a lot of that in the midst of treatmentness behind me that I can that I can see um just how how much pain I was in, how challenging it was, even as if you go back and listen to podcast one, you'll hear me reference the partying that was happening here. Right.
Speaker 6Right here during our convalescence in the tree house. Uh-huh.
Speaker 4Um, and that was such special, special times. But as I was thinking about, um, I think my last words of the fourth episode of season one were something like we're making our way.
Speaker 6I think that's right. I think those were the last.
Speaker 4And oh my god, like I was depleted, I was self-defeated, I was going through the motions of putting one foot in front of the other. I remember at that particular juncture having this kind of epiphany about how Ed was this tree, like not unlike Julia Butterfly Hill's tree, Luna, that she put herself in to save this tree and how she had to really have soft limbs and let the sap stick to her feet so that she could be more um uh safe and staying in the tree and navigating it instead of like fighting and battling the wind and trying to um be rigid and that I was really trying to adopt that. So there was a lot of like self-talk that's like you can do it, you can do it. And I think I was kind of like, can I? Really? Can I? And as we start season two, I went back and listened to our our sort of tagline, the show for busting boundaries and expanding possibilities. And it had this kind of like innocence to it, like, wow, I really thought, I mean, I think we, you know, we came up against cancer. Um, not, you know, the the podcast was not born of that um journey, but um, but there was a kind of, I don't know, there's a kind of like loss of innocence, like, you know, yes, even though the intention for the pod is this um idea of inspiring each other, inspiring our listeners to get out of their comfort zones, to open their minds to other possibilities, to embrace difference, diversity, radical inclusion of life. But when those circumstances are presented to you and it's job loss and cancer, it's not so thrilling.
Speaker 6It's not very expansive.
Speaker 4I mean it's very expansive.
Speaker 6It is very expansive. Okay, same about that.
Speaker 4Well, I think the growth, it's an incredible catalyst for growth. That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 6But okay, I'm talking about the subjectively.
Speaker 4Subjectively, you want to get very out.
SpeakerTotally.
Speaker 4Fuck you, go away.
SpeakerRight.
Speaker 4Adversity, diversity of experience, difference. I liked it the way it was. And that's what I was saying at the end of that episode was like, I really liked us and I missed us. And in that moment, I was like, I didn't sign up for this. Like, this is not more beautiful than I could ever imagine. And I just don't know if I have it. So I was thinking, you know, here we are. I'm in a completely different chapter of the cancer journey, which is to say, like, that if that was September, this is now May. Ed had this radical surgery in January, the mother of all surgeries, the 10-hour operation. Jason, you were there. I was very unclear about what was gonna happen, you know, on the other side of that. And what happened is Ed went into ICU and continued to sort of like surprise everyone with how well he was doing, even as it was like up and down and up and down for the the full what eight to ten weeks that they said it would take, like that was not linear in any sort of sense of healing progression, but Ed has healed so much. And so much so that like he has his normal amount or his like normal amount of hyper energy.
Speaker 6Like and he's traveling for work. He's going to conferences, and he's the day he gets back from conferences, he's going out for a late evening with his buddies to play frisbee golf in Glenn Park.
unknownOw!
SpeakerWoo, woo, right?
Speaker 6And then we think he's gonna be out tonight because he's gonna be tired after yoga, and he calls me and says, Can I come over? And I'm like, Sha, come over, please, because he's feeling all bubbly. So he's back.
SpeakerCheers.
Speaker 6Cheers. Cheers. Yeah.
Speaker 4And the hug, okay, to go back to like I want to give myself a hug, it's because in that moment you could have said, Rowena, be not afraid. And you did, and everybody did, be not afraid. This is like I had so much support, I don't want to diminish like how much help we had. It wasn't like uh the burden was on me, not at all, but I was so afraid. And I think moving through things can be so scary. And I guess like I'm not scared right now because the cancer has been dealt with for the moment. Um but I will be scared again, and so I guess I'm really interested in unpacking some of the learning so that I feel more equipped as much as I can be. I want to name some of the learning that happened and in this particular episode, like a little update of where where we both are. So I've been talking about my experience, but like we talked a bit about your experience in the previous season, and where where where are you entering into season two with your expansion, your your boundaries?
Speaker 6Today's May 22nd, 2026. It's one year to the day since I returned from my global adventures with that gap year program that left me a shell of myself.
Speaker 4Wow.
Speaker 6Yeah, one year to the day.
Speaker 4Wow.
Speaker 6Yeah. Um what a year. What a year. Oh my god.
Speaker 4Woo.
Speaker 6So where we were in in August when we recorded season one, episode one, uh I was a zero revenue generating, um accomplished professional who's had a lot of advantages and was feeling pretty cruddy about and very, very stressed about the situation that that we were in, that I was in professionally, um doubting myself, just really not not feeling great. Um and at the same time, also just feeling all of the abundance around the cancer, this weird experience that we were having, right? Of like this incredible set of blessings of our together time and the heightening of the moment um with the possibility of this going a different direction looming over us really was heightening our sense of I think appreciation for every moment that we had together. And that was so beautiful and wonderful.
Speaker 4My God, imagine if you hadn't been in the country or in the home for that.
Speaker 2That was that is something I don't want to think about because you were you were like such a key part of our care team. So thank you for zero reverse.
Speaker 6And I also I think we hit on that in that in that episode too, right? Was was and thank God. Right, that um that I was at least here and not somewhere some other part of the world.
Speaker 6
Um and so here now it's nine months since then. I still do not have full-time work. Thankfully, I'm no longer zero revenue generating. Yay! Yay. Uh it's not that much more than zero, but it's more than zero. Um, which is which is nice. Uh it's not in it's it's not just the little bit of money that's coming in. It's also um feeling engaged. Uh the work that we're doing now is when I say we as my business partner and I'm working with global interns, university students who are doing internships in other countries, and we're helping them to first of all adjust to cultural differences in the workplace, and then also to articulate the skills and competencies that they've gained in in ways that employers will value. So we get time with students every now and again, which is great. It gives us an opportunity also to develop a line of business, which is one of the only growing areas of business in higher ed these days. Um so there's there's potential there as well. So that's been really nice. And also, you know, recently I've been feeling pretty beaten down and battered by the job search process because I am looking for full-time work. So one realization that I've had in these last nine months is there are some things that I still like about quote unquote being my own boss. Um, but mostly I just miss being inside of an organization. I miss having an opportunity to lead. Uh to work with people every day in the muck and complication and wonder and sometimes joy of the workplace. I I just feel like be I think it's precisely because the workplace can be such a such a threatening place because it is like where we where we confront survival in ways that we don't necessarily just in our daily lives, because it's the job that gets us the resources to have shelter and food and all of the human, the basic human necessities. And so, and we also it's also where power can be flexed. It's like there's an org chart and there's bosses, and they have a lot of power over our um material conditions, living conditions. So the workplace is stressful by nature. And when we can manage to pull together and like like to counter that that basic underlying sense of threat and and bring out the best in one another and accomplish things together, it's exhilarating. It's absolutely thrilling. And I I got that, especially during that that year with the with the gap year program. I got a lot more than that that I didn't want. But I did get that, and of course the students, the students were so incredible.
Speaker 4Um I want to ask though, because like the student, I just in thinking of like a a balm to the nine months. Yeah, one of the things you've done is stay engaged with the students. Yes.
Speaker 6Even those particular students, the specific students, yes, uh, via another podcast. Yes, young global leaders, check it out. Young Global Leaders. Uh yeah, so by by by interviewing them on that pod has been gratifying and wonderful. And it hasn't gotten much of my attention recently because of all the so with the job search, just um sometime or sometime around December, I was getting so bored of my professional story. Like the I was just, I was getting uh here's I was pissed off because the writing was so bad. It's like, who is authoring this incredibly boring story?
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 6Who is authoring who is authoring this really boring? Fire the writer. Like, let's get a new writing team in here. Can we please just so you and I and Collette and Ed and Lynn and probably others.
Speaker 2Um prayed for the money.
Speaker 6Well, not just the money, right? But the the the the the better writing.
Speaker 2Right. The better writing, the better writing.
Speaker 6And that I have received that that prayer has been answered loud and clear. My story of looking for a job is has not been boring the last few months.
Speaker 5That's awesome.
Speaker 6Is it though? Because so be careful what you pray for. Be careful what you pray for, right? Because yes, it's had its exhilarating and its exciting moments, which has been great. But of course, who wants to watch or read or engage with a story where it's all rainbows and roses all the time? You gotta have some drama.
Speaker 4Dama.
Speaker 6Some drama. And so um there were there was there's this really exciting phase of expansion. So, first, there's this job overseas that was absolutely the perfect fit for me. And the money was great. The problem was I'd have to move a few thousand miles away.
Speaker 4That is a problem, it's a problem.
Speaker 6Figured we'd deal with that, but it's a true really exciting city, and there's a lot of excitement around that. That was the first job that popped up. Then there was another job at a university nearby. It was a much smaller job in a different kind of a field than I've been in. It was in career services, which was interesting. And then a remote job, no, then a job at a at a US university on the East Coast came up in a in a different like in the Chinese studies field, okay, um, which I have a lot of experience in from before that came up. And then a remote job for a non a US-based nonprofit organization with a connection to education came up. And then this job in a not too far away satellite campus of a university came up, and suddenly I had five jobs that I was interviewing for. Amazing.
unknownYeah.
Speaker 6Well, we're down to two now.
Speaker 5Okay. Okay.
Speaker 6We're down to two. Okay. One of which is the East Coast one, which I I cannot imagine a universe in which I would actually take that job, but I'm still in the process. And the the satellite campus of a nearby university job.
Speaker 5Okay.
Speaker 6Uh, the other three, the nearby university one I didn't really, really want. It would have been a long commute, four days a week for not much money and not much responsibility. They picked another candidate, and it's like, oh, oui, you know, because you know, you know, you want to be the chosen one.
SpeakerYeah, of course.
Speaker 6But it also simplified my life because I didn't want to have to say no to it, and I might have. Um the the the remote job with a nonprofit ended kind of unceremoniously and very quickly after it looked really promising, and then it just suddenly ended and spent about a day being sad and upset about that.
Speaker 5Okay.
Speaker 6Um, and but the one that really hurt was the was the first one, the job my heart was pounding for, the perfect job, the exciting job overseas with really good money and super exciting. And it's not just that I didn't get the job, it's that the way that the situation was handled by the employer, I think completely unintentionally, okay. Left me feeling like shit. Like, like, like not so I've been told no a bunch of times, right? And there's a lot of different ways that candidates, I mean hiring processes are designed to bring in a bunch of people and you choose one.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6And everybody else ends up disappointed.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6That's okay. That's part of how this goes. There's only there's there's only so many jobs for which I'm gonna be that chosen candidate. And thank thank God that that's happened for me many times in my life. I can handle the disappointment. I can work through it very quickly if I feel the process has been transparent and um fair-minded and all of that. This wasn't that. This was, and I don't think we need to get into the you know the details of what about the process.
SpeakerRight.
Speaker 6Felt so lousy, but I'm still kind of reeling from it. I mean, it was not not really reeling. I'm past reeling. It was nine days ago that I got the news. Um, but I'm still working through it because I have a lot of anger, which is based on a lot of hurt. And um I can, it's it's occupying enough of my bandwidth for me to know that I've still got some work to do on this one. There's some things I still need to learn from this particular turn of events.
Speaker 4Learn, say more. Learn about how to recover from this, learn about what to expect. Because I guess I I don't think we need to get into the weeds about the process, but I do think it's interesting, like it left you feeling less seen, less lesser than you in your entirety, right?
Speaker 6Which which so I think the baseline it shouldn't have that kind of power over me.
Speaker 5Okay.
Speaker 6It's natural that it would, right? Yes. So this is not this is not to this is not to invalidate any of the feelings that I've had about it, because I think they're very human feelings and normal and natural.
SpeakerYes.
Speaker 6It's the um the hold that this thing has on me. What I don't want, I don't want to let it define me. And I think I'm I think I'm doing a pr I think I'm doing a pretty good job of that. I think I'm doing a pretty good job of that. Um and that's that's thanks to you and Colette and Ed and Joel and Helen and my mom and dad and other friends who have just been lifting me up and lifting me up and lifting me up and under like just so empathetic and sweet understanding why it hurts so much. Um reminding me this doesn't define me. Um and that there is a greater purpose here that I can't understand, and this this this is, I guess, where I want to go next with this is like I don't know, like I've put a lot of stock into this, the one job left of the five that I'm excited about.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6What if I don't get it?
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6And there's there's a there's a yeah, I I don't know what the problem. Are right, but there's yeah, probably better than a coin flip that I'm not gonna get that job.
Speaker 5Okay, right.
Speaker 6So then what?
Speaker 5Yeah, right?
Speaker 6And um yeah. Well, I'll tell you what. Yeah, I'll tell you then what?
Speaker 5Okay.
Speaker 6I keep going, I keep I keep working my business, I keep applying for jobs, yeah. I keep doing the things, yeah. Just like uh if we go back to the season one episode four, navigating like the feeds, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Exactly. Just comply, just comply. Like that what there is to do is like and and there's some there's some interesting possibilities now in my business. I may end up just running this business after all. I don't know. I don't know, but it's okay for me to not know. It's like I want answers now.
Speaker 5Yeah. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
Speaker 6I mean the financial uncertainty. I mean, we've been really lucky. Uh if you had told me a year ago that I was soon gonna not have a job, and that a year from now we would still not have had a financial disaster, I would have said, okay, that's pretty good. That's amazing. Yeah. So, so, so, so, um, but it is, but it is, you know, we're we're we're we're we're we're at a net negative cash flow from month to month. That's that's uh by definition not sustainable. Yeah. Um or only sustainable for a certain period of time. Uh so I gotta be okay with that too.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6And just keep doing all the things and trust because this is the thing, bro. It's like if we look at the professional setbacks in my past, there have been many.
Speaker 5Okay.
Speaker 6What I'm going through now is not even close to the worst.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6The worst was Pennsylvania, losing my job in the middle of the economic crisis.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6I was younger, I was less confident, I had fewer experiences, I you know, I didn't have the emotional, I had fewer emotional resources for dealing with all of the hurt and self-doubt that came along with it. There's so many reasons that our financial situation was worse. I mean, like, way more vulnerable. This isn't that.
Speaker 5Yay.
Speaker 6I went through that and I learned a ton about my own resilience and persistence and love people of love that other people have for me and the mystery of it all, and what that led to next for me was the most amazing thing. The most amazing thing. And there's so many times I've looked back on that time and been grateful.
Speaker 5Yeah, okay.
Speaker 6Right?
Speaker 5And so we're getting to that.
Speaker 6Right, exactly. So so I just, who am I to say that I know what's best for me? Like right now, I really want that job. There's so much that's incredible about the job. There's so much that's incredible about that job, and I want it so badly.
unknownOkay.
Speaker 6Thank you. Um very well may not get it. I mean, by the time this episode is released, I may already know that I don't have it.
Speaker 5We'll have to come back, listener.
Speaker 6That's right. The cliffhanger, cliffhanger. Uh yes, but that's that I think that's ultimately where what I keep trying to lean back into is face.
Speaker 4
I think a lot of listeners can identify with this, first of all. Speaking of like the mini starts uh job, yeah, jobs running out, jobs changing uh, you know, layoffs and um and oh, and or like taking a leap of faith like Ed has to work for himself and having to cobble together a lot of work and having there be some real thin times, you know, two self-employed people in our household. Um so again, be careful what you wish for. Yeah, but I but I loved where you were going with gratitude because I think it's so like that's the slipperiness for me too. You know that our convalescence, cancer convalescence weekends were a highlight. And even coming over today, I haven't we've haven't been over nearly as often. And I remember with like pleasure waking up in the morning, you know, knowing that Ed and I both have care, having these leisurely long the clock with no hands kinds of days. Um and time, you know, in that moment, like I think you know, in yes, we had the clock with no hands, yes, I was loving that, and I wanted to be sort of like shuttled out and I think I referred to it as hyperspace so that I could like that's right, just be like, you know, be far enough away from this that by the time I got back, so many things were changed, right? But like how if we don't go through them, if we don't have the experiences, if I really had been like suspended in time while all y'all dealt with the cancer journey, I wouldn't be grateful. Like, I wouldn't have those fucking experiences which have made me a better person. And this is like how much of it is on me to not wish away, not not because you know, this is um this is May. I think in June, Ed has his first CT scan, which will be coming like once or twice a year because this is a this is a cancer that really likes to come back. Um we knew that.
SpeakerYes.
Speaker 4And so is this like a short-lived cancer-free time? You know, what if it is? Just like what if you don't get that job? What if we what if we're um, you know, having to make a decision whether to do this all over again? Because that's kind of what the choice is, like more chemo, another surgery, more chemo, another surgery, like and on and on. And I I think in a way, when you're in the crappies, it's like I don't know, is it is it is it like easier to just stay there at the at rock bottom? Because if you climb back up, like the possibility of rock bottom is below, is is there lurking. And I think like um I think I haven't really made peace with the journeying of it in a way. Like I like how we have um uh ascended out of that, the muck, as you say. And um, and this is where I really want to understand like what what are the tools, what are the I mean, I I I learned so much about like how to navigate a cancer journey in community is the bottom line, in community, not alone. Um, and Ed, you know, was so very um open and uh um transparent about what he was going through in in you know to the broader public, um, not just our intimate circle. And so we got all kinds of sport, and I believe that that we would get that again. We of course people would, you know, feel continue to feel for us, but um I guess I continue to feel oh, I don't know, like I'm still trying to understand time in a way that doesn't bug me out. Like, like I was writing, you know, time is so fucking predictable. We're only going forward. I mean, if if you choose to wake up tomorrow, time will pass, the sun will rise and fall, and you will be um faced with the opportunity to like get on with your life. That's that's it. It's linear, it's very predictable. And there can be these incredible, like, like right now, you're in this holding pattern of wondering about this thing, and it feels like time really, really slows down. And I feel like that too. A little bit like I'm trying really hard to make the most of the time that I have right now. It's healthy, and oh my god, we gotta do all these things. We just got back from Europe and we did this, and it's like, I think he's also feeling like I'm gonna die. You know, of course, we're all gonna die. But like there's that sort of urgency to it, and what I learned is thank you for letting me puzzle this out, but I feel like I'm learning that like I need to be present.
Speaker 4
There he is.
Speaker 6Yes, he's at the door now. We will greet him later.
Speaker 4Okay. Should we wait for the barking to no, we don't need to worry about it?
Speaker 6No, because um the list our listeners won't even hear the dog barking because of the magic technology that exists to filter out all that noise.
Speaker 5Right. Okay, cool.
Speaker 6So you're puzzling, go go back to puzzling out. What are you puzzling out?
Speaker 4I'm puzzling out that this isn't helpful. This thing that I'm doing right now, this this tripping on like how I need to be, how I need to be right now. It's not helpful. It's not helpful to not just be present, to not just be in this moment in this day, but to be anticipating, like anticipatory grief, I think is an expression, anticipating how how great it's how great it has to be right now leads to letdown, anticipating how fucked up it's gonna be if we get the CT scan results back and they indicate that cancer is starting to grow again, that's gonna be fucked up too. Like to be the future tripping, the future tripping, future tripping, the anticipating, right? That's not helpful, and yet it's it feels impossible for me not to do that because we have been given this chance to be cancer free, knowing what the cancer journey could look like. And and I was I was de I was wrestling with this, I guess like um what all what what I think about as like trying to be patient and trying to be present. And I locked into this um insight or pivotal visceral experience that I had in February, which I was writing about in an essay recently that involves the Olympic figure skater Elisa Leo, who is from here, Oakland. And you know, because I was looking back, like, okay, what what what did I how did I get through that? And that's what I was like, you know, I'm like in a moment, like, I did that? I I finished, okay, how? How did I do it? And I was like, I don't know, not that well. I mean, that you know, at the at a sort of like at the 30,000 foot lousy, yeah, at the 30,000 foot view, I was looking down like, you know, scraping, but I don't know. I just like my my my sort of like what's what the the emotion that rose to the top was like oh I hated that. And then I remembered a particular feeling that helped me, the feeling of watching someone that gave me bliss. So the the experience of watching Elisa's free skate on February 19th, I believe, 2026, like just watching her divine joy, her like sublime relaxation, her freedom that felt like it was ramping up throughout the however many minutes long Donna Summer's ballad went on, you know, just just like it. I felt like she's getting more and more entranced in her own freedom. And it gave me freedom. It made me feel free and it made me remember myself. Like I love feeling free. And I've had the experience of feeling free. And I think you can feel very unfree as a care partner for someone going through cancer. Yeah, you think you can feel very unfree as somebody who doesn't have a job, who doesn't really have an opportunity to like say, like, you know, I wish I'd answered this one question differently. I don't know if you're future tripping or get second guessing any of the things you did or said or choices you made in that interview process.
Speaker 6Definitely.
Speaker 4But like it haunts you, right?
Speaker 6One tries not to let it haunt one, but yes.
Speaker 4It haunts us. It haunts me that Ed called me Nurse Roach It, like instead of Nurse Ratchet from One Flew of his Pugs. Nurse Roach It on a number of occasions that I could, that my tough love could, that I could not. There he is with a fucking fentanyl drip and his little mini skirt nightcowns. Like his little, like, like all these lines coming out of him, like moving down, you know. And I'm like, do you have to go all the way around the ICU? Do not make a U-turn at the nurse desk. Go all the way around because my well-being depends on it. You getting better. Make a full lap, please. You know? And like, oh my God. Like, don't I want to hug that guy? I want to hug that guy who's like, I want to be like, yeah, I turn around, man. You did it. You did it fine. Turn back around, right?
Speaker 6I I'm gonna interject here. You may because I'm feeling protective of my friend Rowena. Uh, and I understand I think part of your process. So, so you know, I'm I'm an experiential educator, Rowena. Did you know that? And when you go through an intense experience, um reflecting on it and capturing lessons, that's a huge part of how we learn and how we grow. So, yes, great. And um, I think when you're doing this kind of post-mortem, thank God he's not actually dead. Um, but you know, post-mortem on this uh on this phase of your life and you're in Ed's lives together, right? Um part of the learning growing journey is looking at you know what what I want to do better next time.
SpeakerYeah.
Speaker 6Okay. I really, really hope, and maybe maybe you're going there. I really, really want to hear. And if you don't have things to say in this realm, I have plenty of them.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6What you did so well.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6How you were the most amazing care partner.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6Thank you. Including not letting him turn around at the nurse's station. Because that's one that's one facet, one dimension of care partnering. And because here's the thing we all, including Ed, have things that we're really good at and things that we're less good at. I don't know, and God bless you, Ed, when you listen to this episode, I don't know that, you know, that that that like really persevering through a difficult physical trial. I mean, we've seen him do I give him he's done triathlon, so I do want to give him some credit, right? Um but uh yeah, so it's yeah, I don't want to make that a general I don't want to put out a general Ed Ed is a tough ass dude when he really wants to be, right? He's a tough ass dude, and he's he's proven that many, many, many times. Um and triathlon's very much included. So let me let me reframe what it is that I'm trying to say. Um in his fragile physical state, yeah, there were a lot of pressures on him to not be active, to just be in that bed, let the tubes and the machines do all of the work that they were doing.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 6And can you just please leave me alone and let me be supine?
Speaker 5Actually, just kick up the fence and all of it.
Speaker 6Yeah, exactly. Kick up the drip a little bit. You want to make that dripple flow? You want to do that for me right now, please? Oh and I don't think that you were incre it is true that him going a little further benefits his health.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6It is true that it benefits you for him to be healthy. Yeah. It's also true that it benefits him to be healthy.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6So you look at that a bunch of different ways.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6And and the way I'm choosing to look at it is like that was that was a that was good care partnering. It was good care partnering. Thank you. It landed as cruel in the moment, maybe. Yeah. But I mean, so maybe you were more of a the the one of the hats that you're wearing is coach. Coach.
Speaker 5Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6Sometimes coaches gotta be a little harsh.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 4
Um, love you and thank you. And yes, thank you. I think I was I was spiraling just a minute ago. I was spiraling, and this is it, right? It's like what you were saying earlier about like there's part of it that has a hold on you. This, like, how you were responding to the um overseas job, non, non-job. Um yeah, it has a hold on me. It has a hold on me, and I want to get more balanced. And so here's where my mind goes is to this expression hugging the midline.
Speaker 6Which you you and Ed taught me recently.
Speaker 4Yeah. So our our yoga teacher, um, you know, in a in a sort of in speaking of yoga, in speaking of a yoga pose, um, describes the sort of um approach to that uh that uh technique. I don't even know. Scratch all of that. She says, as you're standing in Warrior One, hug the midline. And what that means to me is gather, gather energy, and gather, you know, energy from your legs, gather energy from your arms, gather energy from the earth, gather energy from the sky, and draw it all in to the midline, to the middle channel, to your spine, to your uh solar plexus, to the middle of you. And another thing she says is stay with it. And so these two sort of practices, mantras, have been a big part of our lives in the yogic sense, and it remains it's it's an expression that has just been coming to the fore of my thoughts as I spiral because it helps me regroup. It's like a regrouping, it's a gathering in and reestablishing a kind of balance. And the thing about balance is there's no real such thing as perfect balance. Like there, there's temporary balance, but there's this sense that balance is really a dance, you know, between like falling and recovering, falling and recovering. When, you know, you're we're we're we're continually asked to put one foot in front of the other, which is a sort of like falling, right? Falling and recovering, falling and recovering. And I want to have grace when I fall. I want to have grace when I fall out of balance, when I spiral, when I'm nurse roacheting and um and and bringing more tough love than is appropriate to that particular moment. Um and not stay there. And this is where the presence really comes into play because it's this idea of like staying, as I was saying earlier, like there's like this impulse to want to like stay on the bottom because if you rise back up, then you have to try to stay up and not, you know, bottom out. Um, but um, having grace for the bottoming out times and regrouping and hugging the midline, coming back to your essential, untouchable, divine self and what you said many moments ago about like, I don't want this, not getting this job to define me. I don't want those circumstances to define me. I feel like the the you, what talk about like essential you that cannot be defined by anything else than what you know to be your divine self.
Speaker 6You want me to put my definition, you want me to create a verbal definition of my divine self right now?
Speaker 4Could could you could you identify it?
Speaker 6I would actually, I would I I know is the answer to that question. No and no and exactly. Um I mean I I would what I would I think for any of us, I think hearing from people who know us best would be the best way to to to get at that. Okay, I'll say a few things. I I I I under based on I think honest feedback that I have from people closest to me, um I think that I'm a pretty open-minded person who's been through a lot of things. And I can help and and I I tend to see I don't want to say I tend to this. One one of my baseline orientations is I think seeing the strengths of other people and also where people could grow and helping them see greater possibilities for themselves, etc. So I mean I could I could I don't wanna this getting very uncomfortable for me right now.
Speaker 4That's awesome. I love this. I love that you I mean I and I think I I'm thinking even more like spiritually, like you know you have a divine self, right? That is untouchable by any of the outside influences that could come and try to crumple it. Yes, you trust that.
Speaker 6Well, most of the time. But yes, that's at a baseline, yes. Yeah. And one of the one of the skills that I'm trying to improve at is having that, which is God, be closer, more accessible, more present for me moment to moment in my life.
SpeakerYeah.
Speaker 6I think and I think I shared this with you, a a prayer that almost feels like a mantra. Um that I it just occurred to me two or three weeks ago as I was going through a pretty intensive interview process, which was uh God let me feel you today. That's to me that that that feels powerful because if I'm really feeling God then that's all I need. I don't I really don't need anything else. I mean, you know, food, water, shelter to keep the meat sack alive. To keep alive the physical vessel, right? And of course community and loved ones and all of that, right? But but what I mean is like then all of this, all of the other the negative stuff, the keeping up with the Joneses, the like I'm not good enough, what didn't they see in me that such that they just treated me like I was nothing, all of that stuff then just goes away, just evaporates, goes poof. And if it doesn't exist, it can't really have a hold on me.
Speaker 4Our yoga teacher has this great thing where she's like, okay, starting there from poof, you, then what is your prayer?
Speaker 6I don't understand the premise.
Speaker 4If if we if it is a given that you are you have God right there close to you, and all of these things evaporate, all of these other concerns, criticisms evaporate from there. You don't have to answer this either, as he puts that out there. Like, then what is the prayer? Because you can't pray for those like things to work out because we're we're we know that all you need is that.
Speaker 6Well, I guess where my mind first went when you asked that question just now is what they say at the conclusion of the Episcopal service that I semi-regularly attend at All Souls Episcopal Church in Berkeley, California.
Speaker 5Okay.
Speaker 6Is let let us now go out into the world and I don't remember the exact words, but it's like it's like we've partaken in communion. And we've taken the the body and blood into us, uh, this divinity. And our job is to go forth into the world, carry that with us wherever we go. So my prayer. The divine spark.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6Right? And and so so that that would be my prayer that I may yeah, like have bring it into the world every always and everywhere, everywhere that I go.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6And um, it's always gonna be aspirational.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 4I mean, I remember after I think there's many times I would say.
Speaker 6Yeah, but it's funny, it was, you know, like uh right after church last Sunday, because I was I was having a very hard time. Like church was great, and then we get out there, and like instantly there's some driver doing something stupid. I didn't hog my horn or anything like that, but it was just like I think I indicated my displeasure with the behavior of this driver. And I'm just like, okay, well, all right, well, that's fail number one.
Speaker 4God, right?
Speaker 6Totally.
Speaker 4I hate that. I hate that, not what you did, but I it's like, oh, those snap judgments.
Speaker 6Totally, totally. And right back it, right back, right back down to earth, as it were. It's almost slapstick. It's almost slapstick. There's yeah, there's actually there's there's more I want to say about that, but I think I'll save it because I think we're gonna do another episode that that is specifically about spirituality and religion in our lives. So maybe I'll bring I'll bring this forward. I'll make I'll put a pin in this one for that conversation.
Speaker 4Okay, yeah. No, but I really appreciate you going there. And and I've loved your response. And I think that that bringing your divine spark out into the world is a beautiful thing to think about when our teacher asks us, like, if then, if that, then what? What is your prayer?
Speaker 6
Can we hold here for just a moment? I I don't want this to get lost in whatever wherever we're going next. I will just say for our listeners who don't know you as well as I do, well, some of them do. Okay, a select few, um, that you uh have been an incredible care partner for your beloved and our beloved Edward Edmund Fraunheim IV. Um I mean showing up every day. Oh my god. Legend.
Speaker 4Can I talk about some of the highlights?
Speaker 6I hope you will.
Speaker 4That's super sweet. And just like with the cancer convalescence weekends, there were some super sweet times that I identified not right away. It was uh the 10-hour operation, it was the seven days in the hospital, and then getting at home, which um it was was complicated. I mean, complicated at home. There was but there, so there was like wound care. And you as you remember with the um I had to like unhook the bulb of chemotherapy from him. And do you remember how I remember there were some challenges? There were some challenges. Yes, there were Ed was terrified that I wasn't doing it in a sterile way and I was gonna kill him. And so there was like a learning curve with the wound care, too. But I think like that ended up being one of my favorite things to do because we decided to get in the shower together. Oh we got in the shower together and cleaned him all up, and then there was like the blotting, there was the like very careful like taping of the gauze, and it was like this tender like way that I could support and care for my sweetie. Um another thing that we started in the chemo time was reading aloud.
Speaker 6Yes, I remember, and sometimes you read the colette in me as well.
Speaker 4Yeah, and we just continued to do that. Like, you know, if your honey's like spending a lot of time on the couch, it's really nice to um find sweet things to do on the couch together. So we watched, you know, we watched some shows, but we continued to read aloud to each other, and um, we aren't doing that right now. Like we talk about it. Oh, do we have a new book? You know, but um we're we're not showering together right now either. Um so you know, amazingly enough, like I will miss some of those um practices and aspects of recovery. Um also just the small uh you know moments when I preemptively provided care. I Ed has like a lot of neuropathy in his feet, and so I gave him a lot of foot rubs and I started to really love it. I started to really love his feet. Um, Skyla, if you're listening to this, I know you don't share my enthusiasm for your dad's feet.
Speaker 6Um, but I fell in love with that's normal and natural, my godchild.
Speaker 4I fell in love with Ed's legs, which were a part of his body that I hadn't spent that much time, you know, appreciating. Um so, you know, little things like this, like um that that were bonding, that were fresh, you know, ways, you know, that I think I would not, I definitely would not have probably uh had those experiences if it were not for the cancer care. I wanted to bring it back to the Elisa Liam moment though, um, because you know, when I so I had the experience of watching her, and then I kind of got obsessed and watched all these reels and interviews and learned that after the Beijing Olympics, when she was 16, all of 16, and got a bronze, she retired and basically said skating wasn't worth it, but she had like given up her childhood um and you know wanted to love herself again and like took time and goofed off and and hung out with siblings and took vacation. And I think um learning that and then came back that you know, two years later, I mean, they talk about it as like an in the most improbable comeback. Like people don't take two years off in the, you know, at this heightened time of their lives, but she obviously has unbelievable amounts of grit and determination to skate on her own terms. And that was the sort of salient piece for me where it was like it's not like I I it's not like I didn't have control. I didn't have control obviously over the cancer, but I did have control over my response to my responsibilities as a care partner. And I was just overdoing it. I was overdoing it in my mind. I don't know if I was overdoing it, you know, overdoing it over, overwork, I don't know, over having excessive amounts of anxiety, which is, you know, Ed will be the first to tell you, I have a tendency to catastrophize. And I know, like, um as we learned right out of the operation that they had to um remove his spleen, which is an organ that like helps so much and fight him, fight infection with immune, with the being not being immune compromised. I was like, oh fuck, we're fucked. Ed's gonna catch every disease. I am happy to report that we have traveled. Ed has traveled, Ed has not been sick. Ed has not been sick once. Like he did have to get some vaccines, but like he hasn't even caught the like, he didn't get the flu, he didn't get the, you know, and he's just not living in a bubble. So like I need to not be overwrought in my commitment to thinking like that I I have to be perfect, you know. What I have to be is present. I have to be present. And when I'm present, I can receive the care, you know, I can receive the community offerings, I can receive my own, I can hear myself say, like, it'd be a good time for me to step back, it'd be a good time for me to take a walk, and to to ask for support if I need support, but also to trust that if not right that second, if right stepping away right that second isn't an opportunity isn't the best choice that I'll still be okay if I need to hang out for another hour or another week. Like I'll be okay, like to just trust that I actually really love myself enough feel close enough to God, feel close enough to essential my essential life force, which I work so fucking hard. This is a thing too. This is why it's this is why I can feel so self-defeated, is because I spend so much time cultivating qi, cultivating energy. I mean, I'm like I'm I'm a literal mover and shaker.
Speaker 6Yes, you are.
Speaker 4I'm a fitness instructor and a dancer, and I work with older people who have, you know, lost a lot of facility capacity to cheer them on, to like help them feel their life force again. So I I I don't I how I can be such an obstacle to my own is the thing that I'm like faced with working on and just being present is so hard. It's so hard to stay in the moment, and yet it is the key to everything. I think if it's the same thing as saying, like, when I know that God is right here, when I know that God is right here, I am present. You know, when you know, Lord, may I feel you today, may I feel present right now is the antidote to that future tripping and anticipatory grief. And I'm gonna, like you said, I'm gonna fall out. I'm gonna, it's impossible as soon as I pull out of the parking lot. I know I've um lost that sense, but maybe naming it, writing about it, talking about it, and sharing a an episode, season one, season, season one, chapter over, season two, a clean slate, carpet diem, table rasa.
Speaker 6Uh-huh. So I might love, yeah. Yes, until the next thing. Like, sorry.
SpeakerPlease.
Speaker 6I'm not trying. I'm not trying to be cynical. I just remembered something really freaking hilarious. This is from see if I can get the year here. It's just the calm year. So this was 2000. In the summer, um, Colette and I and our dear friend Matt were co-leading a group of 12 high school students from the United States to various parts of China. And we were in a re a Tibetan region called Calm.
Speaker 2Calm?
Speaker 6Uh K-H-A-M. Calm. Calm. Yes. And um there was uh this monk whose name was Loire. It's a French name, but he just told us to call him Lori.
unknownOkay.
Speaker 6Love that. Um and he was, he was like, he was, he'd spent a lot of time in Hong Kong. Like he was a city savvy Tibetan monk, spoke great English. Um, and he was leading us on this trek up to a monastery, and we were sitting around having a debrief of the day, and we were asking him some questions about his own spiritual practice practices as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. And one of the questions one of us asked him was, Do you feel ready to die?
Speaker 5Wow.
Speaker 6Right?
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6And he said, Great question. I thought I was making progress. Like I thought I was making meaningful progress in this realm until a few days ago when I was in bed and a rat scurried across the room and I freaked out. So I'm thinking that could be a great metaphor for uh for whatever, for like the the annoying driver after church for me. Like um for what whatever it is that knocks us out of the moment, and the divine presence and the divine spark.
Speaker 4The rat scurrying across the room.
Speaker 6The rat screwing across the room. I love it. Like they're gonna scurry. They're gonna happen. Uh, and there's I think a lot the theme, a theme that I'm picking up on in this conversation with you now is like the place to focus our attention and our effort is on what happens next. So the rats great across the room. Okay. Now what? How are we gonna how are we gonna respond to that? How quickly can we get back to that midline?
Speaker 4Can
Speaker 4
I read something Ed wrote?
Speaker 6I hope you will.
Speaker 4I hope you won't.
unknownDo it!
Speaker 4You I was talking about the midline, and you texted, I wonder what midline I could be hugging during this challenging phase of my professional life.
Speaker 6Right, and this was in the immediate aftermath, maybe even day of getting this rejection from this. Yeah. So yes, please. Yeah, it was such beautiful thoughts and words.
Speaker 4And then yeah, he said, Jazz, one way I think about your midline is just how good I think you are at your core. Look at how you cared for me this past year. And my lady. Look how you've cared for Lauren and your brother, plus the rest of your fam and friends. You give it away. And maybe there's a way to hug and hold on to that goodness during this rough patch. Maybe to let us hug you back as you've hugged us.
SpeakerSo sweet.
Speaker 4I love that he's identified like how good you are at your core.
Speaker 6So we come back to community, right? Like sometimes we just need to listen to the people who love us most.
Speaker 4Yes. And dance with them.
Speaker 6You would. That's very on brand for you, Rowena.
Speaker 4Dance with them.
Speaker 6We would dance with them.
Speaker 4The last time I was here, we had a dance party. It was supposed to be my birthday party at the sauna, but it was like an unbelievable storm.
Speaker 6Yes.
Speaker 4So much rain. Like, and we're really wind, it was very dramatic. It was like a dance party.
Speaker 6Yeah.
Speaker 4It was like absolutely a blast. And I wanted to ask you this. Do you right now have a hype song?
Speaker 6A hype song. So a song to get me like super jazzed up.
Speaker 4Yeah. Especially when you're feeling rejected.
Speaker 6Oh, okay. That's interesting. Right. So a song that I could go to when I'm feeling down?
Speaker 4Yeah. Yeah. A song to get you up. And you could use it when you're feeling down. Or when you're faced with something that you don't really feel like doing necessarily. Yeah.
Speaker 6Feels like a leading question.
Speaker 4It might be.
Speaker 6Like there's a right. I really want to know. No, there's no answer. No, it's interesting because what I'm noting is like when I'm really down, I actually some of my favorite music to listen to is the St. Louis Jesuits Earth and Vessels album.
SpeakerOh.
Speaker 6Um yeah, such beautiful.
Speaker 4That isn't a crazy hype song, though.
Speaker 6But it's just it's not a hype song. It's not a hype song. I what happens is like the really high-energy songs that I love listening to, like I played a couple of them for you and Ed in the park. There's um the song by Eat Things I Need. Yes. That I played for you. And then there's Been Caught Stealin' by Jane's Addiction. Yeah. And there's Standing Next to You by Um Junk Cook from BTS. Like those those were my three go tos for a long time. Just like Fuck yeah. Like I'm just but but I listen to them when I'm already in a high energy. State and they just amp me up even further. Okay. When I'm feeling kind of down, I don't like listening to like super peppy and upbeat songs. But maybe maybe you could introduce me to some, Rowena.
Speaker 4Well, I have a pair for us.
Speaker 6Oh, Judy and it?
Speaker 4Yes.
Speaker 6Okay.
Speaker 4And they are both um by the legendary rocker's cheap trick. Really? Yeah. Oh, wow. So the one for me is surrender. Surrender! Just seem a little weird.
SpeakerSurrender.
Speaker 4Surrender. But don't give yourself away. Yes, so that give yourself away to me is sort of the equivalent of like, uh, oh, you know.
Speaker 6So my god.
Speaker 4I suck. Self-deprecating. Okay, and for you, it's another cheap trick, song.
Speaker 6Oh my god.
Speaker 4In this in this liminal moment.
Speaker 6Don't tell me it's I want. You don't want to be. You don't want me. I need you to I'm begging you to beg me. Totally. That is so freaking apropos. Okay. Thank you for that. Welcome. That might be a nice uh um uh note for us to go out on.
Speaker 3I think so. That's all for this episode of No Left Field. If you enjoyed it, give us a five-star rating and follow the podcast. That will help others find us. Until next time, may our left fields be ever expanding.