The Book of Life: Written Daily

4 years ago today, I stayed home from my job at the synagogue.  Despite it being the day before Rosh Hashanah and my duty to orchestrate a holiday service for nearly 1,000, I instead worked in my pajamas horribly sick with strep throat that was defying antibiotics.

By the day of Yom Kippur I was dizzy and sweating, and croaked to my friend to drive me to the ER -- her vats of chicken soup weren't cutting it.

As the sun went down on the Day of Atonement, the day we Jews are to be sealed -- or not -- into the Book of Life, I lay on a stiff, white cot waiting for the cute doctor to come tell me, "Take 2 and call me in the morning."

Instead, close on midnight, he entered the room, rolled a stool over, sat and declared: "You do have strep throat.  You also have Leukemia."

* * *

4 years have risen and set since that Day of Atonement.  Defying statistics, I remain alive, healthy, fertile, and in remission.  As my hair grew back, my weight rejoined, my stamina strengthened, they have renewed upon a woman who has emerged changed.

"You're a lot bolder than you used to be."  "You're more confident than before you were sick."  I have heard variations on this theme from friends, and as I prepare today to perform in community theater, reply to emails from my gradeschool teaching job, and confirm a practice session with my bandmate in our fledgling duo, it sure looks like they are right.

These steps in becoming whole in the world sometimes feel like an "Of course."

Of course I sing in public.
Of course I'll model for BodyPaint Day.
Of course I have an art studio, found a fulfilling career, became a cancer-survivor-adventure addict.

Sometimes, though, these changes cause me to widen my eyes in disbelief.  Whose life *is* this?  Who is this woman who consistently pursues new avenues of self-expression?  Surely, not the same wallflower, frizzy-haired, bespectacled teen who still knocks around inside me.

Am I someone new, or simply unearthing the core of my self?

* * *

My relationship with Yom Kippur has shifted seismically since my cancer diagnosis in September 2012.

At the start, I eschewed its entire meaning and the observance of this day.  I, instead, chose to engage on that day in activities that were emblazoned with who I am (becoming).  I flew a plane one year, visited my favorite museum the next, hiked along the Pacific Coast another.

To be sealed in The Book of Life, I don't need to stand in a crowded room, expounding and pounding my chest with all the "sins" we Jews have committed this past year.

The very idea of some divine Book of Life that we have to be holy enough to be sealed in seems anathema to me, my relationship with "G-d" having undergone a seismic restructuring these years as well.

And yet, there's this creeping idea, this pulse of confirmation of the way I, Molly, Survivor, mark Yom Kippur.  As the sun rises and sets on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, I now participate in what brings me joy, fulfillment, unfurling? ...

Of course I do.