I am a teacher. I am a writer. I am producer. I am a cyclist. I am a member of the National Capital TNT Chapter. I’m cycling 100 miles on October 5, 2013 with my team in Salisbury, Maryland to raise money for blood cancer research and support the LLS (Leukemia & Lymphoma Society).
My “Team in Training” (TNT) Team has raised over $124,000 to help stop Leukemia & Lymphoma. I have raised $1,025.00 to date. I ride twice a week to train for the Century ride in October,
My honored teammate is Dayle Zukor. She is the wife of a close friend in Los Angeles, California. At 63 years old, Dayle was diagnosed with Hairy Cell Leukemia a form of CLL (Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia). Dayle is a grandmother of six, mother of two sons, wife, and successful interior designer. She was in a convent for one year studying to be a nun so she could “do for others & help the world become a better place.” Later in her life, she converted to Judaism.
Even with her CLL, with monthly IVIG immunotherapy treatments, and periodic hydrations, Dayle volunteers one day a week at the hospital. Her CLL leukemia was complicated by a lung disease called bronchiectasis which was diagnosed eight years earlier, so her treatment in August 2010 for Hairy Cell Leukemia became not only complicated, but grueling. For eight days, she had chemotherapy treatments that wiped out all of cancer cells along with the healthy immune, disease-fighting cells in her body.
April 16, 2012, Dayle addressed the Tower Cancer Foundation. This is an excerpt from her speech: “Let me say what cancer cannot be allowed to take from us: it cannot be permitted to cripple our ability to love or invade our souls, it must never shatter our hopes or dreams, it cannot be allowed to destroy our peace and cannot silence our courage and our spirit.”
Dayle Zukor is a true inspiration. Courageous, wise, loving and kind, she says, “I do not deserve to live in place of a child, a younger person, or a parent with younger children. I have lived a full blessed life.”
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First off I want to say excellent blog! I had a quick question which I’d like
to ask if you don’t mind. I was interested to know how you center yourself and clear your mind prior to writing.
I’ve had trouble cleaing my mind in getting my ideas out.
I do take pleasure in writing but it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are usually wasted just trying to figure out how to begin.
Any suggestions orr hints? Appreciate it!
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Hi Lenore,
Sorry this took so long to get back to you. Not exactly the swiftness associated with blogging, is it? I actually just saw your post this morning. Transitions are always the hardest. When you are making the transition from the “uncommitted state of mind” (as I call it) where you have the freedom to choose what you want to a “committed state of mind,” i.e. consumed by your writing or letting yourself be “taken” by your writing, it often on a deeper level brings up[ two questions: I am losing my ability to choose, and I am afraid of being alone because writing is a solitary activity.
So how do you break into the “lost self” where you are taken over not just by the perceived ideal or “desire” to write, but you ironically find yourself and your rel inner freedom by losing yourself. That bridge from one world to the next is write anything that comes to mind. Anything. Write it quickly as it comes to your mind, it goes from your finger to the screen. After you have “warmed up,” write something that you have toyed with… (From your meanderings, “I’d like to write this short story… or an essay on that… or begin a novel…”)
A final thought. Routine is the pawn of the writing chess game. Routine. Move the pawns because you must in order to play the game. Pretty soon, you are moving your knights, rooks, and then the Queen.
Good luck with your writing.
John