Furiously Good Idea

A guilty pleasure of mine is following Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess (@TheBloggess).  Her blogs and tweets are ….well….real.  And while she has all the normal stuff we all do going on, she also has issues of her own she deals with.  I love her sense of humor in all the dealings (that she shares).  My motto, my family motto, is ‘good humor makes all things tolerable’.  So I’m drawn to how she deals with life.

In the course of dealing with life, Jenny interacts with easily thousands of people.  Jenny is sort of a force of nature.  When she has an idea, quirky or not, she is able to inspire  her many minions to move mountains for good.  One such good idea is The Travelling Red Dress.  (http://thebloggess.com/2010/05/the-traveling-red-dress/)  The Travelling Red Dress represents a lot of things to each individual, but mainly it is hope.  Women from all over donate red dresses and send them to other women needing a boost, affirmation, a laugh.  Other women volunteer to do a photo shoot of the recipient in the beautiful Red Travelling Dress.  It is an amazing project of hope that has been recognized and written up outside the ‘blogosphere’.  (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-parenting/post/the-bloggess-confession-about-self-harm-sparks-a-flood-of-positive-reader-reaction/2012/01/11/gIQAf4xeuP_blog.html)

The travelling red dress doesn’t have to be a dress.  It can be anything.  Jenny’s definition is: It’s anything you’ve always wanted but denied yourself because you thought it was too silly.  On 29 Jan, a woman I only know as @nwhepcat on Twitter, offered a red silk scarf as part of the Traveling Red Dress.  I chimed in an hour after her offer that I would love a scarf since I’m due to undergo brain surgery in March.  She responded quickly with “Oh, I must definitely send you one.”  To a perfect stranger.  A couple messages later, she stated she dyes the scarves herself, but will try to have the scarf out by the end of the week. 

The thought of the scarf arriving has made me happy.  I have plans for that scarf.  Before surgery, I’m heading on a cross-country train ride to California to see family and friends.  I plan on documenting my journey with that scarf.  It will be a conversation starter.  I plan on taking pictures with my best friend and me wrapped in the scarf.  Me and my mom.  Me and my sister.  Me any my nephew.  Heck, even my brother-in-law...mainly because he’d probably squirm!  These pictures will do many things for me…but most importantly they will make me smile.

I will use the scarf to cover my incisions as I deal with a partially shaved head during my recovery.  But I will not use the scarf to hide.  The emotional boost I anticipate will be key in my recovery.  I plan to continue to live life and to live life loudly.  Brain surgery will not sideline me.

The best part of the scarf is yet to come.  My surgery is at Walter Reed-Bethesda.  During my recovery, I will search out someone who is in need of the virtual support, the physical boost, that this scarf can give…that it represents.  I *know* I can find someone.  Be it a wounded warrior in the recovery process or the young mother I saw in the neurology waiting room with her toddler.  I will pass the scarf and the story on. 

For me, planning how incorporate the scarf into my surgery and recovery has been a great way to not obsess about the pending surgery.  Planning how to tell the story has been diverting.  Planning to pass the scarf on has been uplifting.

Thank you to Jenny Lawson, @TheBloggess, for the inspiration and to @nwhepcat for joining the ‘movement’ and offering me my Traveling Red “Dress.”

Stay tuned, life to follow.