Linda Holman

  “ Recovery isn’t a gentle self-care spree that restores you to a pre-illness state. Though the word may suggest otherwise, recovery is not about salvaging the old at all. It’s about accepting that you must forsake a familiar self forever, in favor of one that is being newly born. It is an act of brute, terrifying discovery.” - Suleika Jaouad  I recently read over my New Normal blog from two years ago and thought it was time for an update. We are heading towards the end of the year and hitting some "cancerversaries" - 3 years since my mastectomy and reconstruction, and nearly 4 years since the diagnosis. Having lost my sister-in-law to metastatic breast cancer earlier this year I don't like to openly celebrate my survivorship - I'm glad to be alive and healthy of course, but making too much of a song and dance about it feels insensitive.  I've recently realised that the cost of my survivorship is a PTSD-like response to any kind of injury or illness - is ...

 "My friend Linda is having a mastectomy Her breast will no longer be next to me Instead there's a void Like when they removed her fibroid As part of a previous hysterectomy."      ~Matt Hunt Kia ora! I love that poem above, written a couple of months ago by my friend, and I'm glad to have had such well-rhyming surgeries! I hope you are well and are not getting run over by the Christmas madness. We are not putting up a tree this year as I'm struggling with the reminders of this time last year, when our lives changed utterly with my breast cancer diagnosis. I'm concerned I will stop loving Christmas if I associate it too strongly with all this waves vaguely . I am promising myself this will be a very short blog post as, a) who the heck has time to read a long episode in December, and b) I've not done much apart from recover from surgery . We will see how that pans out though... I do love to rant and rave a bit! Craft I have cut out a few patterns ...

 “From ancient times both Māori and European have, like many other cultures, enjoyed their new year celebration in winter. Winter is a natural time to pause and take stock, to reflect and make a new beginning.”      ~ Juliet Batten, Celebrating the Southern Seasons Kia ora whānau, thank you for being here. It is winter in the southern hemisphere and it's been an odd month of heavy rainfall (as in many places), cold nights but weirdly warm days. It has been interesting to sense attitudes around climate change finally shift as dramatic floods and wildfires stalk the earth, and I'm hopeful for a belated change in direction for humans as a whole. The season and chemotherapy have kept me tucked up at the cottage most days, and sewing has become my main creative focus. Craft I recently read a blog about how childbirth had affected the author's body and left her in a liminal state between her old life and the new. I relate to this as everything has shifted for me in th...