Home, Sweet Home

You know you’ve got angels on your side when a king-sized bed appears in your room out of nowhere. My bed is massive. I love it. Mom found it on the side of the road through divine inspiration and brought it over early Sunday morning to the new digs. My brother James, sister Erin and I have been busy as bees decorating, moving furniture and really trying to make this small two-bedroom apartment feel like ‘home.’ The entire thing has been a labor of love; every piece of furniture has a story behind it, some friend who stepped in to assist, not to mention our grandma Mimi—passed on three years ago—whose charming furniture and even more charming spirit watch over the apartment.

I have been so fortunate to be carried through this ordeal with the help and assistance of friends like Tom and Laurie Eastwood, the Salvatori family and most recently the Voros family. My sincere thanks is owed them for giving me temporary homes. Still, I can’t tell you how it feels to move into a new apartment and have a place to hang my hat more permanently. My room is full of beauty. I’ve hung a traditional Congolese healing mask above my bed, and a similar mask representing courage watches over me from the opposite wall, dramatic but appropriate accents to the space. I’ll need both. James, Erin and I will be staying here until after the new year, when I plan to return to New York (pending my good health). So for the coming holiday season, this is perfect. The apartment is located in downtown Salt Lake City, in an outdoor shopping bonanza known as ‘The Gateway.’ We chose the apartment for its central location, which makes it easy for me to access many things—libraries, parks, Anthropologie—by foot. It feels like we’re living on top of some magical, antiquated film set where I expect to look down and see Judy Garland strolling down the cobblestone streets, inevitably being wood in song by Mickey Rooney. Plus, the view from our window looks out easterly to the Wasatch Mountains, which this time of year are covered in deep reds and yellows that make you speechless (autumn really is the best time of year to see Utah’s beauty). For all of this, and for all those who stepped in to assist us in creating this home, thank you.

It’s fitting that I have a new space of my own to take on chemotherapy; it’s been challenging. It seems no sooner did we unpack our bags and hang the last photo on the wall then chemo took over and started doing a fairly vicious number on me. The past three days have been rough. I’ve been feeling sick, weak and anxious, which has made sleeping and resting difficult at times. A sharp pain in my side, which I’ve been complaining to my doctors about for several weeks, is finally being addressed through a series of CT-scans and tests. Hopefully we should root out the cause of this extreme discomfort soon and I can get on with my life, unfettered by unnecessary pain. These few past weeks (including this one) I’ve had chemo treatments four days in a row. The side affects compound, and by Wednesday or Thursday, I usually feel pretty crummy. But I have the weekends to recover, as well as the knowledge that we’re slowly inching our way to the end of round two of chemo! Days pass slowly, but months rush by. Already, I’m a fourth of the way through this ‘year of the mohawk.’ I’ll be back in action soon, I just need some good incubation time before that happens. I can’t think of a better place to be doing it right now than in this new home, with my family.