Margot Velvet

Category: Unplanned Thoughts

  • Post It Notes on Cancer-Cancer

    Post It Notes on Cancer-Cancer

    journaling in retrograde

    January 8th, 2022

    Sometimes you need to write out your thoughts so they stop taking up all your brain space. And I have scared thoughts that I would like to write so they no longer live in my head. But if I write them, they’ll be real and I don’t want that. Conundrum.

    January 14th, 2022

    I have dark, mean thoughts today. I acknowledge them. I don’t indulge them.

    January 15th, 2022

    Okay so, it is cancer. But it’s not like, CANCER-cancer, right?? Like the bad kind..? It’s the easy just-cut-it-out-and-you’re-fine kind?

    January 17th, 2022

    CT scans were today. Repeating this mantra while I do laundry obsessively: stage zero. Stage zero. Stage zero.

    January 19th, 2022

    “Do our best” is not a good plan, but it’s the only one we can muster.

    I’m trying to think of a lighthearted way to explain what we’ve been going through today and all I can imagine is a TV static vortex with someone’s muffled screaming panning from ear to ear.

    February 14th, 2022

    It’s Valentine’s Day and I’m sad.. Only because I love you so much and I’m scared and I want to make you feel good,
    as good as you make me feel,
    And I can’t because I am broken somehow,
    when I say things they just don’t stick,
    and I want to make you feel as good and as valid as your friends do but I can’t not cry without saying it so instead I just don’t say anything…
    I’m laying in bed alone and my head hurts and all I want is you.

    When you were Sad in the Beforetime I could always make you feel better because I was outside and different and not even remotely close to the cause of your pain.
    But now we’re married, tangled, and your pain is mine and I just cry your tears and secure the burden, tying it a little tighter

    and I don’t know why I can’t help you
    when the only thing I want to do is love you.

    February 18th, 2022 (surgery day)

    The living room is pink from the sunset (I’m grounded) and I am SO anxious to actually talk to him (I’m flying away).

    This is a primal, human feeling. The urge, the call to care for someone you love. It’s fiery and assertive and anxious and I can’t answer it fast enough.

    April 6th, 2022 (first chemo day)

    It’s Chemo Day #1, 1/3. While I don’t think any of this is fair, it seems particularly cruel to slowly administer poison to someone over 3 days through a hole in their chest. “It’s discreet, you can do normal things, you wear it in a fanny pack!” It’s undoubtedly NOT normal.

    May 2nd, 2022

    New things: FB support groups, caregiver Zoom meditations, doing “yoga for cancer” with hubs in the living room every night (w/o mocking it), friends moving to Sweden forever in 8 days (bittersweet goodbyes), cherishing the good days between, and clumps of hair in the shower.

    May 12th, 2022

    Today was really hard. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to scrub his sad, contorted expression out of my brain. He asked me to put it behind us. He is embarrassed. “Can’t we both be sad and still love each other?” I begged him.

    I cleaned the kitchen spotless, trying not to cry. He fell asleep on the couch. I did yoga. Now I am pathetically trying to sleep on the couch with him, just completely jonesing for a crumb of affection. A cuddle. A squeeze. Literally anything to make it seem okay.

    But it’s not okay because cancer just takes and takes and takes.

    Tomorrow will be better so … I hope I can sleep.

    Undated

    He is screaming in his sleep, his disturbance undisturbed.

    May 24th, 2022

    He falls asleep early every night. His hands are changing, they look shriveled and tight like a mummy. His fingertips are turning gray. His stomach hurts all the time. He feels like he’s vibrating on the inside. 23 days until chemo is over.

    PMS makes this worse for me. Most of the time I can deal. Grieve, process, heal, repeat. But today I just keep wanting to cry. I don’t want this for him. I don’t want this for anyone.

    I can’t believe the cure for cancer is to kill a person just a little bit for long enough that it gives up. It’s bullshit. We need a better way.

    June 13th, 2022

    TIL candles are the best thing for chemo farts bc it will burn off the methane in the air.
    Today I put candles everywhere.

    June 14th, 2022

    Full Moon in Sag and the End of Chemo Thoughts:

    We play many roles in life. We cannot define ourselves as just one role (mom, daughter, wife) because it causes us to lose a sense of fullness and completeness. We are beautifully unique humans.

    For me, this means I need to let go of the “caregiver” and “perfect wife” roles. I was clasping onto them so tightly (sure, out of necessity.. survival, even) that the rest of Me was falling away.

    For a while, I was so depressed and scared that I felt paralyzed. Doing anything felt impossible but I found a tiny seed of motivation in the idea of using this experience to become a better Wife. I wanted to be a “pillar of strength” for my husband. I wanted to Do All The Things so he needn’t worry. I went all 1950’s Wife. Perfectly domestic and subservient. Serve your Husband, gladly. I imagined handling things with more grace, preempting his needs so nothing even needed to be asked. To make it as easy as possible for him to heal and rest and recover. That limiting mindset allowed both of us to survive the worst parts of chemo, but it’s completely unsustainable.

    I have learned that it is not in my nature to be nurturing. I am not clean or orderly or exact. I am not a warm, mothering person. It doesn’t come to me easily. I can be a good caregiver when it’s obvious that he is unwell. But on the days where he starts to seem better I relax and have to remind myself over and over that he actually ISN’T better (he’s just handling it better).

    But at the same time, I also learned that I am not as selfish as I thought I was. The last 5 months of my life haven’t been my own. I’ve dedicated all of it to caregiving, doing all the domestic and emotional labor, planning and preparing, etc and it’s gone really well. I packed our entire apartment, planned a move, set up our new home, worked 40 hours a week, got a promotion all while planning the logistics of his drs appointments and surgeries and treatments (with one car and a dog that can’t be alone), coordinating care, keeping up with chores and laundry, and tending to him physically, emotionally and spiritually. I don’t resent a minute of it. Not a moment. There is no bitterness there. The only emotion there is celebration – because I fucking did that.

    June 15th, 2022

    Chemo #6, day 1 of 3 is a go. 💗 So many emotions. I am making “chemo fried rice” while he is at the cancer clinic. I’m glad we figured out what food works best for him while he infuses but I really hope this is the last batch I ever make!

    June 29th, 2022

    I’d just like to document that things got super dark and scary and weird and both of us wanted to die (at different times and for different reasons .. sorta) and while I still don’t trust the badness is over, this is well deserved anyway and I feel like celebrating.

    July 18th, 2022

    14 hours until J gets his port removed. He’s getting de-ported. Last cancer surgery!!!!!

  • Stressed

    Stressed

    My husband has cancer.

    The doctor partially removed a “large polyp/mass”.
    3 cm. Too big to safely remove.
    Cancer markers in his blood are elevated.

    I am scared. I love him.

    /////////////////////////////////////////////////////

    This post was a draft from January 14th 2022. Today is July 21st 2022.
    My husband has been: poked, prodded, examined, disemboweled, eviscerated, implanted, sedated, poisoned and poisoned and poisoned, bloodied, sliced, medicated.. healed, loved, supported, nurtured, and carried along.

    He doesn’t have cancer anymore.

    Stage 3 to “No evidence of disease” in 196 days.

    Science is amazing and uncaring, indiscriminate, traumatizing and brutal.

    (I’m not scared anymore. I love him more than ever.)

  • When you don’t know how to pray, hum

    When you don’t know how to pray, hum

    I went to the Winfield Mounds today. It was my second trip. On my first trek, I couldn’t find the mounds but I did come across a lovely hidden grove where some other woodsy witch hung dried orange slices in a tree.

    This time I found the mounds. It was more emotional than I was expecting. Actually, I had no idea what to expect, but I didn’t think I would cry. I wrote some stream of consciousness stuff as soon as I got back to the car, which I will clean up for the sake of preserving the moment in a way that will make more sense:

    The messages are in the wind. The wind speaks in body language, forcing the plants into action. It’s a feeling. It’s purposeful. It’s important: The universe is naked, right here exposed before us. Learn to see it.
    The Great Spirit is here. The Universe is ready for us to breathe it in. To come home. Awaken.

    My muscles twitch. I can smell my sweat. I can smell something else, something delicious. I stop in the path and take several long sniffs, turning from side to side, snuffling like the mother wolf. I don’t know what the scent is, but I suspect a fragrant tender bud of tree leaves is opening somewhere close by. My goodness. It’s so good.

    I reach the mounds. I… I don’t know what to do. I am overwhelmed. My eyes water. The wind is fierce and powerful.
    I don’t know how to pray so I hum. I would sing something, but words are failing me. I feel sorrow. White guilt. I hum quietly, treading softly.
    I say thanks. So many thanks.
    I leave an offering: a pair of waxed pinecones and an intention on parchment sealed in wax. Where there was death, let there always be life. For the Fool, The Empress, and the spirit that connects us even now: the Magician.
    I hear a loud caw from a tree just before me and I am startled, I actually jump back, but I can’t see what made the noise.

    “I can hear you; what are you?” Three times I asked (once on the path, once in the mound grove, and once in the mowed prairie).

    I trace my steps back in a blissful daze. I wish I could talk to the trees. They know what happened here. They witnessed it, they nourished the ancestors then and are still here now.. Can they tell the tale? Share the old wisdom? How can I speak to the trees?

    More delicious smells. All my senses engage. I listen with my soul. I minimize my vibrations. I descend softly, closer to the Spirit.

    I reach the end of the pathway and emerge from soft earth to manmade gravel, exiting the covered trees in what feels very much like a portal: a whipping, swirling wind. It SHOULD feel like I am snapping back into reality, but it’s more of the opposite. I am shoved back into humanity (an un-reality), rushing cars go past, oblivious to the sacred site just beyond the wall of trees.

  • Rag Doll

    Rag Doll

    It glistens and gleams so tempting in the distance
    A twinkling mirage of wholeness, completion, the most comfortable surrender.
    In a moment of helplessness, it is erased, and the beautiful shimmering
    landscape is winked out of existence, replaced by a vast, terrifying emptiness.
    A vacuum of deadly space.

    There’s a hole in me, and the blackness is getting sucked in. A vortex.

    I want to feel something other than this endless, monotonous, buzzing numb.

    Baptize me in Hope
    Bathe me in the Waters of Plenty
    Sew up my broken parts with spring grass
    Stuff the gaps with earth and blossoms
    I will lie cocooned in a bed of tiger lily leaves, waiting, incubating
    The Universe’s raggedy doll

    I just feel like a fucking mess.

    I need to clean the house.

    Fuck.

  • Keep Reading // A Note-to-Self

    Keep Reading // A Note-to-Self

    Things I am thinking about: mystery schools. Esoteric, hidden, occult knowledge. Initiations. Lifting the veil.

    It seems the closer I am to truth, the harder it is to remember. I can sometimes touch Universal Truth, and then, if I don’t write it down immediately, it escapes with force, like I am not supposed to remember it… not equipped to handle it. It makes me think of Caligula, supposedly driven insane by learning too much too fast.

    I wonder, then, if these ancient mystery schools have been preserved. I read a lot of old books, medieval philosophy… learning the “language of the birds.” I wonder if the new schools of thought (as in wicca groups, witchtok, and the astro Insta/Twitter communities) are just winging it. A lot of things I learn from the old tomes contradict what I see around me everyday (ie, the meanings of Tarot cards, cleansing decks, the associations of planets with their stones and herbs). Am I just leaning in the wrong direction? Have I just not found the right circles to join? Is there a modern equivalent to the occult schools of thought of the past? If so, how do I get in? What work can I do? Are we being lazy by just googling things and believing them? Have the meanings changed, evolved over time? Or is it really all about intent, so rules don’t apply? I’m stumped – and I believe both things to be true. So then, what does that mean? Ahhh!

    I am not pagan. I do not practice wicca. I only sometimes feel like a “witch.” Is there another word for what I practice? Is it simply “magic”?

    I’m also thinking a lot about Mercury. I think it is my favorite, for many reasons..
    -Gemini vibes: wordy, airy and maybe volatile
    -Genderless/gender fluid/androgynous (and celebrated for it!!)
    -changable, transformation (winged feet to change from earth-creature to god)
    -a bit of a thief, trickster, borrowing ideas, being a catalyst for change
    -messenger of the gods, a go-between for secret knowledge

  • Dreams of Mirrors

    Dreams of Mirrors

    My last post was about mirrors and I think it’s funny that I left off with “my dreams are reserved for those I love.” I had a dream about someone I didn’t recognize, and it was a bit eerie. Obviously, it also involved mirrors and reflections.

    Last week (and I wish I had written down the day it happened) I had a dream. I lived in a house I’ve never seen before, but I knew it well. It was a log cabin, 2 stories, surrounded by tall skinny trees (like in WI or MI). I came home and was standing in the driveway (gravel) and noticed something peculiar upstairs — I couldn’t tell what was “off” but something just didn’t seem right.

    I went inside and headed upstairs. I realized quickly that there were 2 rooms hidden in the house that I had NO IDEA were there. I realize this is a common trope in dreams, but the shock and confusion seemed real. I opened up the first door. There was a skinny twin sized bed with white sheets. The frame was too simple. It reminded me of the metal bedframes you see in movies from the 30’s and 40’s – or in old abandoned hospitals *shiver* (https://i2.wp.com/my1929charmer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Crochet-Bedspread-Iron-Bed-Vintage.jpg)

    The headboard was against the outside wall, to the right of the window, directly facing me. A deep, yellow-orange light had the room glowing with warmth. I noticed that there was someone sitting at a vanity just behind the door, to the left. She sat in a black (?) lacey dress. Her hair was parted down the center cleanly, pure white, in two short braids tied with a black ribbon. I immediately took a step back, embarrassed that I had walked in on someone. “Oh, I’m sorry to disturb you,” I managed to blurt out. She stood and turned toward me and her face was blank. Just white, shapeless skin. Confused, I turned to look at what she had been doing at the vanity, sitting in front of the mirror, since she had no face (lol). When I turned back, her features were filled in. They were not particularly memorable or shocking in any way but I don’t think she looked old, so the pure-white hair seemed to be the strangest thing about her. She said something I don’t recall, but she had a very sweet and passive energy. She seemed a tinge sad but definitely unbothered by me. I excused myself and closed her bedroom door. I noticed the other mystery door just down the short hallway to the left, but instead of investigating it, I went downstairs to find my husband and tell him about the weird extra rooms and the lady. Why didn’t we notice this? And then I seemed to remember that we knew she was there all along, or was supposed to have been there, but we just never saw her around. And then I remembered I was alone, and I would not find my husband there to tell him. I remember thinking “Oh, duh, we knew she was here, we just weren’t sure where she was! I have GOT to tell J about this… oh no, I can’t.”

    All very strange.

    I’ve read that discovering a new part of your house in a dream signifies that you are ready to, or actively are, learning about a new part of yourself. It makes sense: the house is our Self and the new addition is a new aspect coming to light. This lovely white-haired lady was not sat at her vanity (altar) gazing at herself in the mirror, but using it for some other purpose. I assume magic.

    Is this symbolic of me now? Learning and reading and crafting spell jars? And what was behind the second door? Will this be a second big revelation? A second life-altering self-discovery later down the road?

    Or is this a glimpse of future me, a widow in her dream house, staring emptily into a mirror?

    After writing this out and thinking about it more, maybe I was right all along. Maybe my dreams are reserved for those I love, and perhaps I am coming to love myself.

  • On Mirrors

    On Mirrors

    When I was young, maybe 6 or 7 or 8, I watched an episode of Fact or Fiction that changed my life forever.

    If you are not familiar with the premise of the show, they tell 4 stories. Some are made up and some are real. They are frequently paranormal and deal with ghosts or UFOs or some other taboo subject. At the end of the show, they tell you which ones were based on fact, and which were complete fiction.

    In this particular episode, a woman moves into a new home. She sets up a large mirror in her hallway outside her bedroom. After a few weeks, she notices the apparition of a woman appearing in the mirror every time she walks past. Sometimes her own reflection is distorted into the image of the ghost woman. Eventually, she ends up covering the mirror because it causes her so much distress.
    One evening, a man breaks into her home through the bedroom window. There is a struggle, and she runs out into the hallway. While she is trapped in his arms, the sheet gets pulled away from the mirror and the assailant sees the ghost woman. Completely spooked, he runs off but is caught by police. He reported that the woman he saw in the mirror was one of his previous victims.
    The story turned out to be true, and the dead woman was there to protect her, not scare her.

    Immediately after watching that, I took down the mirror in my bedroom.
    When staying in hotels, I will cover the mirror.
    When I spend the night at my parents’, I cover the mirror.
    At home, I make sure the mirror on my vanity is turned away from the bed before I go to sleep.
    Two weeks ago I rearranged the living room and had to move the TV just so I would not catch my reflection in it. I have no other mirrors in my house other than the necessary one in the bathroom. (As a 32 year old adult, I still freak out a little when I go into the bathroom and the light is off; I constantly imagine Bloody Mary waiting for me when I flip on the switch.) Mirrors in general just plain give me the creeps.

    I understand that, in the case of the Fact or Fiction show, the spirit was there to protect someone. But couple the fear of seeing the unexpected with the horror tropes from Hollywood — it’s just a burnt in phobia for me now.

    Anyway… getting back to the point of all of this: I dreamt of my grandma again today. In my dream, I saw her reflection in a TV screen. I won’t go into detail about the dream just now, but I find it interesting that that was how I saw her. As a reflection.

    I wonder if the MODE of how I saw her means anything. Mirrors. Reflections. Images. Imprints. Suggestions. Scrying. Gazing.

    I wonder if I would be good at scrying. Perhaps I avoid it because I am not ready to utilize it. I have to get over my irrational fear first.

    I feel my spirit strengthening. I feel like I am coming in closer to being in tune with the universe. Am I learning the language? Interpreting the signs correctly? When I am ready, I will find the perfect obsidian bowl to use for water scrying. I’m not sure I will ever be ready for a straight up mirror.

    —edited to add, briefly: I used to have a ghost companion (a story for another day) and the only time I could see him was through my rear view mirror. And again, I saw the ghost of Mr. Wysock at my grandparent’s house also from my car in the side-view mirror. At my cabin, I took a photo of my family and captured a silhouette of a deceased family member in the sliding glass door – a reflection. This confirms it. And it seems so obvious. If I want to communicate with the dead, I personally will need to use something reflective. A mirror. Water. Crystal ball. A TV. (My dreams are reserved for those I love.)—

  • Lucky

    Lucky

    She is a wave, an ocean.
    Moving, spinning in layers of chiffon clothing, soft sighs and
    wispy clouds. She is the mistress … no.. there’s a better word.

    Embodiment of a sea I’ve never seen. But I can feel it in her,
    roiling deep, tumultuous, raging, beautiful destruction, controlled chaos,
    wielding the power of both death and new life: a theme so very
    familiar. Making waves, etching landscapes, capturing the heart
    of anyone who likes the crisp pre-dawn air.

  • On Magical Places (pt. two)

    On Magical Places (pt. two)

  • On Magical Places (pt. one)

    On Magical Places (pt. one)