Dr. Susan Love, who has written the Bible about breast cancer, makes an interesting point. She notes that to 'sex up' the news, most of the time a journalist does an article on breast cancer--be it a new breakthrough treatment, advice on getting a mammogram, etc.--they show a young woman, often in her 20's or 30's, who is in treatment. The fact that young women get breast cancer is tragic, and needs to be addressed. However, Dr. Love points out that the vast majority of breast cancer patients are over sixty years of age. Because of this discrepancy between the media perception and the reality, many young women are needlessly terrified of getting cancer at their age. This is an ironic turn of events, given that for once, it isn't the women 60 plus, themselves, who are paying the price of invisibility in the media. This time, our daughters are also suffering. And while we're at it, with so many survivors afoot, walking marathons, running governments, and so on, maybe those amongst us who are beyond are 20s and 30s should take the media reports determined to terrify us with a grain of salt, as well. As my spiritual upbringing has taught me, expect the best, trust yourself and life that you'll be able to handle whatever life sends your way.

Carol Orsborn

Pet Peeve: that certain companies get elevated as the case histories for one positive thing or another. Maybe they got mentioned in a Tom Peters book ten years ago (the rest of us forgetting and/or going into our own denial that he has been revealed as having fudged some of his research...) Or did something positive once (i.e. how this or that company handled some PR crisis in a forthright manner, again some years back.) Then the same stories and company names get recycled over and over again. New articles come out talking about who's doing such a good job, patching together anecdotes and unattributed references in new variation of old, unquestioned themes.

Christiane Northrup revealed a key piece of intelligence on her PBS special last night. The mother, it turns out (in this case, that would be me) carries left-over fetal cells from her children in her own body for 27 years! (Not sure what left-over fetal cells means, my what would have been my daughter's third eye?) Never mind. This notion works here best as biological metaphor. That our kids are really, truly in our very bones much longer than you'd think. They've left the house, graduated from school, found significant others--and they're 21, 24, 26 and you (the mom) feel every breath as if they were still in your, ahem, tummy. They rant and rail, not understanding why you're clinging so tight, overly involved, living every drama as if it were your own. And now, Christiane enlightens us: that it's their own cells crying out in empathy. You see, Grant and Jody, I'm innocent, innocent I tell you! And Grant, turning 27 in January, the light is at the end of the tunnel. What I could once never imagine, that I could live a day of my life thinking about myself and others--and not about my first-born flesh of my flesh--is upon us. I felt it anyway, with all your accomplishments and independence, your maturing love for others, the separation that you and I both thought was supposed to take place at 13 or 21, at the latest, is finally upon us. And the last remaining cell or two of you that have not yet quite been sloughed off, have just enough oomph left in them to shed, yes, a tear. The only question remains: is it a tear of sadness or of joy? My guess is: both.
Carol Orsborn

Julia Roberts told one of the Entertainment TV shows that she insisted on being awake for the long, lugubrious process of having forty pounds added onto her for one of her roles (she plays her star sister's assistant in that John Cusack film, the name escapes me.) She said something along the lines that she would have been mortified/petrified to wake up and suddenly find herself fat. That's one of the advantages, says I, of having been chubby as a youngster, having put on a few extra with each child and gradually becoming more fully myself--or perhaps more accurately, more fully of myself--over time. I look in the mirror and there's no desperation. No loathing. Just myself as I've come to know and love me.