After writing my self-pitying albeit honest and necessary post about my low Monday, I received a message from my friend Katie’s Mom. She is an avid follower of my blog along with numerous other friends and family who faithfully read or comment or send me a virtual high five.

I have always written more for myself than for anyone else. Although there is the knowledge of an audience and the occasional self-censorship for this reason, it is mainly my way of process and release. It is also my way to share information without having to repeat myself five hundred times. For I am much more eloquent on paper than in person.

But another reason I do this, especially right now is because as isolating as the cancer itself is, I am a community person. I need my people and it takes a village, as they say. And just as I needed to process and release my Monday, I was just as in need of a quotation, texted across two continents and thousands of miles written by one of my favorite authors of all time. Best of all, I didn’t even know I was in need of this until it came. This is why I do this. Because quotations and silly socks and kind words and high fives are given just when I am in need of them the most.

So now, Ms. Nancy, I have two piece of writing hanging in my bathroom. Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou, given to me by my mentor teacher and friend before I left for Uruguay and a quotation from High Tide in Tuscan. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. High Tide! It may just have to be my next tattoo.

“Every one of us is called upon, perhaps many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job…And onward full-tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another–that is surely the basic instinct…Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.” – Barbara Kingsolver