Gill in Georgetown

I have often said that I moved to Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood to reinvent myself. But that is not true. I came to Georgetown in the spring of 2008 to escape. I was a soldier suddenly drafted into the war that is ‘breast cancer’ and as the bullets of my diagnosis, and tests, and surgery schedules rang out around me, I instinctively dove for cover. I was dodging the shrapnel of false sympathy and the shroud of death. My fox hole was made up of a few blocks of Airport Way South, filled with ink covered orphans, eccentric artisans and bikers- all drinking in dark bars. No one asked for my credentials as a bohemian when I rented my studio space, a check for first and last was fine. The policy was no pets and no smoking, and the visible cats, as well as the wafts of cigarette smoke throughout the 2^nd floor, made me comfortable no one would be objecting to the mind numbing green cloud that would seep perpetually from under my door.

I had been a Ballard/Greenwood based gal for about 10 years. I moved my office twice and watched the condo towers go up around me, the rents escalate and the access diminish. I knew I could do better. All I needed was a space to hang out in, to write and keep the archives of my business and maintain a reason to go somewhere each day. But I didn’t want it to be Ballard any more. Or anywhere the larger than life personality I was so well known for would be expected. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me and wanted to be where no one would notice if I had to get chemo and lost my hair, (just another skinhead freak in the crowd.) I wasn’t sure if I would get thin or fat and didn’t want to be around anyone who had a frame of reference for either or would notice if I no longer could carry my big briefcase. I knew it could become a messy battle so I hunkered down in my trench of anonymity, in a 10 x 12 room painted carnelian orange in the Forsyth Hotel, above Calamity Jane’s meeting house.

Many people would have done it differently. But those who knew of my diagnosis (it numbered less than a dozen people,) understood my need to escape. There was no way of foretelling that from the single, random choice of Georgetown that I would make some of the best friends of my life. Or that I would find a fresh interest in working with the public after so many years ‘in suits’. And above all, I had no way of knowing I would learn appreciation for a simple life, humbled by people’s kindness that came without an agenda or a business angle. Georgetown took me in without knowing it. I was usually the oldest gal in the crowd, the perpetually flirting ‘Cougar’, the writer, the WASP with a manicure in a monogrammed pressed man’s shirt, the acerbic bitch who told it how it was, perhaps a bit too directly. Yet, in spite of myself, I became one of them and escaped the label of ‘cancer lady’ and that was the therapy I needed that year and a half while the doctors were putting me back together. To simply be alive and drunk and silly and just laugh, laugh, laugh. This is my love letter- and thank you- to all of you, to my Georgetown.

The usual drill with this disease if it is found early, like mine, discovered following a routine mammogram, is doing the lumpectomy or partial mastectomy first to see if they can get all the cancer. I had this done in April 2008, three weeks before I moved my office to GT. And it was five weeks before I got on a plane to Paris, France with my two teenage daughters, with my husband joining us later. The trip had been planned for over a year, long before the cancer arrived, and I had spent a fortune on it. When I was first diagnosed I asked if I could just wait till I came back to deal with it. Procrastination is not a hallmark of cancer surgeons. My doctor said I would be fine after the surgery, not 100% but would be able to go on the trip and enjoy. However, before leaving in June we went to see the doctors and learned the pathology from that surgery showed the tumor was much bigger than they expected, and there was also additional cancer found. I would have to loose my breast. I asked, ‘To live?’ and they said ‘For a 90% chance to live a minimum of five years.’ God damn. I was 47.

We scheduled the mastectomy for August, two weeks after I would return from Paris. (You can read our funny blog from Paris -which does not mention my health- at www.escapetoparis.blogspot.com) I managed to get to Georgetown for a quick visit when I got home but told no one there what was happening to me and quietly disappeared for almost three weeks. My sister Katherine bought a plane ticket for my niece Tabitha to come up from Las Vegas and take care of me for 10 days with my husband, Ryan in our home in North Seattle. I would not have to have chemo or radiation; I had the cut-it-out-get-it-out kind of cancer. Tabitha was amazing and soon had me up and stretching in spite of my bitchy protests. My reward was a smoke, sitting in the sun on the bedroom deck Ryan had built for me as a wedding gift. I talked to the Goddesses quite a bit during those breaks. I was thankful. I was spared, but I didn’t know why.

In Georgetown I was just Gill. I successfully shrugged off being ‘The great and wondrous Gillian Zed’, the launcher of products, the savvy marketing executive. I had chosen to have breast reconstruction and by the time I was through my third surgery that fall, unable to pull open a door and mentally exhausted from pain, I knew anonymity had been a wise choice. No one expected me to be strong or smart or in control. They had nothing to compare it to. I endeared myself to the locals with my biting humor and ruthless observation, and reports on, the behavior of others. When I told people I was a writer they accepted that without need for validation and it was true, I was struggling with completing my first full length novel. But the discomfort was distracting and it was hard to focus. I wasn’t getting very far.

Terri was the first- and only for a long time- person I told that I was on the lamb. She kept my secret well and I will always love her for that. We had met at Calamity Jane’s, where she worked part time while also suffering through a corporate job at the coffee king, in a downward spiraling economy. I had taken CJ’s as my own pub, not only was it downstairs from my studio, it was woman owned and run, and Sara, the boss, would become one of my greatest supporters over the next two years. Terri and I were improbable friends, 20 years apart in age, who bonded over being east coasters, boarding school misfits, and we made each other laugh. Her devilish giggle was always a great reward for my wit. I decided to tell her my truth after the several week absence of the mastectomy, late in the summer, when she came running out of CJs to say ‘Where have you been???’ I realized I had to be open with this girl with whom I was sharing the roller coaster of hellacious life changes. Sitting at the bar, Terri’s eyes grew wide with the news and she cut to the chase, ‘But you are going to be ok, right?’ And by then I knew, yes, I was going to be ok, but it wasn’t over. Also, I wanted the safety of someone in Georgetown knowing. I was taking a lot of drugs; the pain would come in waves, the tissue expander in my chest, put in October 2008, felt like a semi-deflated volleyball. When it was really bad I would take two pain pills and not drink at all. Terri grew to know the things about me that I thought I was so cleverly hiding. She could tell by the way I walked through the door if I was suffering and before my ass was on the stool would look me in the eye and ask. ‘How are you doing?’

My dear friend Josh had invaded Georgetown with me as my IT guru, working on projects and hanging out after his real job. His wife Mara’s gal pal had been diagnosed the same week as me, (we shared doctors,) and he was an amazing support to me. I would often leave my heavy bags in the car and wait to see if Josh would swing by for a beer, so I could ask him to take my crap upstairs. Terri got to know him and they formed a tight circle around me, I felt if something went wrong, if I fucked up my meds, if I needed help, I had it. And they kept my secret.

In a ‘cycle of life’ reality, less than two years later I would be blessed with being able to babysit on several occasions for Josh and Mara’s newborn son, Isaac, who Terri and I met when he was just a week old. Isaac (aka Wolfgang) could be fussy so, as his mom suggested, I would hold him closely on my shoulder, over my heartbeat. I marveled it was still readily felt under my apparently-cozy-enough-for-a-baby-nap reconstructed breast. I cried more than once about that little miracle.

The sassy girl with the sparkling hazel eyes and pixie smile at the local bakery was one of the first people to make me feel welcome in the ‘hood. I was silly enough to think her remembering my name and coffee specs was because she was secretly in love with me, and then eventually learned this was Michelle’s trick. The spell she cast. She pretends to be a ‘simple girl’ but watch it; she can control the universe with her sincerity. Pretty much people do what she says, go the gigs she says to go to, and support the local stuff she says to support. In my reluctance to be branded with the pink ribbon, we were close friends for over six months before Michelle guessed the truth. She asked me where I was going in December….I said to take care of some health stuff…and she looked me in the eye and said: are you getting a boob job? I almost fell off my bar stool. She remained a huge supporter who would call me on my shit when I was pretending I felt great. It was beautiful and wise Michelle, a massage therapist, who told me to go get a prescription for lymphatic massage, which helped my recovery so much. (Thank you Annie!)

At Calamity Jane’s I became a beloved nemesis of the tradesmen regulars. Months later I would hear about my snarky exchanges with some of them about politics or music or sports, growling over our laptops, crosswords and PBRs. I often did not recall the conversations because I was on a lot of oxy, but have been lucky enough to make many of those guys my friends. As time went on, and I felt stronger, I became more comfortable telling the truth about my situation and to the man, they were all great supporters: Steve (and dog Jake,) Harlow (who I ended up working a great brunch shift with,) Greenie (gentle back rubs at the bar!) George (from Boeing) and of course, Bill (suspenders!) who became a dear friend. Bill was my benefactor the last six months in Georgetown when I was living there full time in my studio with no kitchen, keeping me in meals and wine (and smoke, thank god,) as the clock to my exit wound down.

About the one year mark, before I was working at CJ’s, I dragged Terri to play bingo at a dive bar up north. We had a good time. When Sara said she was looking for something to generate business on the deadest night- Mondays- I suggested with Terri that we do bingo. It was a small investment for the gear and we had plenty of pals in the neighborhood to come out and lots of swag from the beer folks for prizes. We had no idea it would become a destination for so many people, there for the all you can eat spaghetti night, cheap beer and for a chance to win some print porn from my personal collection. I was getting ready to move and clearing out old pulp novels, erotica compilations and –what would become our signature give away- vintage Playboys from the 70’s and 80’s. Over the next nine months we would build an amazing following. Chef Janice said more than once to me, ‘Bingo…who have thought?’ Terri and I simply shared with the crowd the witty banter that was always between us. Our ability to mock people- and ourselves- while they laughed along with us was easy entertainment. Cara was the bartender for bingo nights and she completed the team with her sexy smile and stellar memory for customers’ drinks. And she wasn’t afraid to lob a biting, hysterical comment across the bar to us at the bingo table. Many tried and true regulars were also not shy about being vocal, (Marty, Audrey and especially the aforementioned Michelle, famous for calling out ‘Ping Pong’ towards the end of a game to rile the crowd.) Friendships, romances and a few business deals all were born on our bingo nights. But the best part was, always, just being with Terri and our friends, eating, drinking and laughing our asses off.

My breast reconstruction took forever. Just when I would feel strong again, there would be another procedure that would reset the healing clock. It was so much more of an undertaking then I imagined. It was certainly not the TV version of a boob job, where there is one surgery and 20 minutes later she is jogging on a beach. Matching a natural breast to a reconstructed one required an extra round of surgery and an implant replacement. A lot of women choose to prophylactically remove both breasts, but I pressed to keep my healthy one. After three surgeries over 15 months, I still had feeling in my remaining nipple, so it was totally worth it. In the end, I love my new breasts, how they look and feel. Only one in ten women who have mastectomies opts for reconstruction. I am blessed with excellent health insurance and an extremely supportive husband, or it would probably not have happened for me. Likewise with my follow up mammogram and MRI, costly tests for the uninsured but exactly the kind of affirmation of health that survivors need to lead less stressful lives. That issue would lead to my creation of The Princess of Georgetown Fund, a collection of donations to fund these tests for uninsured breast cancer survivors in the Georgetown community, women who are our friends, but choose to remain anonymous. Just like I was. In the beginning.

After being in GT a year, Artopia, the big community wide event was upon us, and while warming my usual stool at CJ’s I casually volunteered to help them out. From the craziness of that weekend, I was baptized into the world of food and beverage, and within a few weeks would be trained in as Sara’s newest brunch hostess. Terri had finally quit the evil empire and was CJ’s manager, and I was lucky to be working with my best girl. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone I had no experience in the front of the house- except as a customer-I had the schmoozing skills needed. Sara taught me the basics, and I watched her and the other servers to keep learning more. After ‘retiring’ from the world of marketing products to focus on my health, I had returned to the doomed gift industry in a dead economy. I was burnt out but found the remaining product I was interested in was hospitality. I figured if I still wanted to buy it, then I could sell it with sincerity.

Terri and I outted myself as a survivor, (a word I rarely use in self description because it somehow seems negative to me,) at Bingo early October 2009. After being gone for 10 days, we told everyone I had been absent to get my boobs done, and I took a bow in a new cleavage revealing top. When one of the young fans said, ‘Oh, what did it cost?’ Terri turned to her and – on mic - quipped, ‘A year and a half of breast cancer treatment.’ I was not embarrassed to have traded a potential tragedy for a middle aged woman’s dream bustline and unabashedly told folks when they asked about the motivation behind the plastic surgery that it was because I had lost a breast to cancer. I found many people had already been touched by this disease and I also personalized it for the youthful GT community. It was Calamity Jane’s informal ‘October breast cancer awareness program’ on Bingo nights.

With the extra round of surgery and the following treatment, I would not be done until early 2010, keeping me in Georgetown for several months after my husband had been relocated for work to Boston. Ryan and I have been together for 12 years, my daughters Pleasant and Fedora were just 5 and 7 when we moved in together, and he has always been the stable rock for us. It was lucky for me we married four years ago because as Mrs. Smith I enjoyed health insurance that Gillian Zed would never have had. Throughout the cancer ordeal, he never mentioned money, (thousands of dollars were owed, even after insurance.) He never rushed me to get back to work or finish up my surgery schedule faster. He never told me that Georgetown, a bit rough around the edges, was perhaps not the smartest spot to be for a middle aged woman recovering from multiple surgeries. But it was Ryan, ironically a molecular biologist working in discovery for a major pharmaceutical company, who explained to me that I could not negotiate or deny cancer away. He understood all the acronyms and numbers and codes on the scary pages of truth and told me I had to do whatever the doctors said was needed to prolong my life. Someone asked me in the midst of my early days post diagnosis what I believed in vies-a-vis a faith tradition. I told them I believed in science. Ryan gave me the ability to believe in it.

Once living full time in Georgetown I embraced the lifestyle with a vengeance. I spent more time with my neighbors and got to know the late night crowd at the bars and closed them often. Wendy and Don (who both live in the Forsyth) and Becca (who moved into the Star Brass Works building next door last summer,) and I would end up at 9lb Hammer drinking cheap beer, watching Cara play pool. The community I would come to know on a first name basis, (‘Hi, I’m Gill with a G,’) included members of the Dead Baby Bike club, servers and bartenders from places along Airport Way and various self-identified artists, glass blowers, metal workers and an assortment of musicians. We all drank and smoked and avoided responsibility as much as possible. Halloween, just three weeks after my final major plastic surgery, was a social highpoint with everyone dressing up and partying downtown and in GT. Don (literally half my age,) and I went as The Cougar Hunter and Prey. (His idea!) Cara (who went as a sexy robot,) and I had spent a fun martini drenched day together, going all over Seattle finding costume stuff for everyone. The pith helmet! The canteens! We rejoiced like kids when Don won the ‘Best Male Costume’ prize.

In November I gave up my beloved little red car, unable to keep paying for it, knowing I wasn’t going to take it east in a few months anyway. It was a pretty sad day, and I all but wept sitting at CJs with my pals. Within a half hour Josh had texted me he had a bike I could use, the girls had bought me a shot and the kitchen boys took me out for a smoke. I lamented out loud that the big loss was not being able to get to Ballard twice a week for my massage therapy which I had grown to count on to ease the swelling in my armpits following a weekend of carrying heavy trays and plates. And Pleasant, 17, my younger daughter, lived in Ballard too, (not that she had any time to see me!) Becca and I had been buddies for only a few months but she didn’t hesitate to say, “I have a car you can use. It’s a piece of crap, but I won’t be able to drive it in another two weeks anyway.” And that is where the Georgetown ‘flex-car’ was born. I would chauffer Becca around (she had lost her license for two years,) in exchange for use of the car. Cara shared the duty and we all paid for gas. I found Becca to be an amazingly loyal friend, and we grew very close quickly. My last two months in GT she had gotten sober, and I liked her even more. She became part of the group of oddly matched people that I braided together as a GT family. I really felt everyone’s support on that crappy day. I let them help me.

My older daughter, Fedora, 19, came to visit this last February. She was here for a bingo Monday and also a small gathering at Terri’s girlfriend, Dr. J’s house. Three things Fedora said to me at the end of that visit ring out to me as prophetic. First, she observed that ‘all of my friends were much younger than me,’ which was funny but true. My best pals were all 20 years or so my junior, in fact Becca and I rarely ventured into the world without someone asking if we were mother and daughter. (At 23, she certainly could have been.) The second observation Fedora made was that throughout the week, even though plans had fallen through, people were late and other social challenges occurred, I had not once lost my temper, yelled at anyone or verbally slaughtered someone for a perceived slight. This had clearly been my pathology throughout her life, while working as stressed out marketing executive who never could let anything go. I was a tyrant as a mom and a boss. ‘I don’t think I have actually ever have seen you happy, and you seem happy,’ was shocking to hear. I theorized that cancer had at least given me that, a perspective that not everything was a meltdown, and to sweat the small stuff was simply a waste of time. Life really is short. Getting shorter all the time.

And sweetly my first born smiled at me and asked the third thing that really made me pause. ‘Is suit mommy gone forever?’ And I thought about it. About how as a hostess, making the guests laugh, remembering their names and drinks, I had garnered perhaps more personal satisfaction then from a quarter million dollar product launch. I reflected that my writing had become more relaxed and genuine. And I realized in there somewhere, with the support and acceptance of my Georgetown family, who had zero expectations about what I could do for them as just Gill, I had truly learned to ‘let it go’.

‘Yes, I think she is gone forever,’ I told Fedora. I am quite certain no one will miss her. I do not.

Although, I was not able to complete my big novel, I spent the spring and summer of 2009 on my bar stool next to Terri’s at CJ’s writing what turned out to be a great-and my first- children’s book. It is, perhaps predictably, about breast cancer treatment. My next step has been to write the queries needed to seek an agent for it, and that task is actually harder than it sounds. Another project I worked on was a collection of local photographer’s images published in a small format book. I had come up with the idea as a self promotional piece for my good friend John D at Quality Press in Georgetown. I was the editor of Local Color: Images of the Pacific Northwest, choose the photos, wrote the text, art directed the layout. John had confidently given me the project to drive and it was one of the only things I accomplished or finished in two years of recovering.

There was a lot of discussion about my going away party, what it would be, where and how big. I realized I could get the biggest crowd if it overlapped with bingo and we proceeded to plan a ‘Roast and Toast Gill’s Leaving Georgetown Bingo.’ With my treatment behind me and my new boobs in front of me, I felt so blessed that I wanted to ‘pay it forward’ and decided to make it a fund raiser. I created The Princess of Georgetown Fund to raise money to cover treatment for fellow breast cancer survivors, with no medical insurance living in GT.

Sara, Terri, Cara, as well as the new Bingo babes inheriting my chair, Becca and Audrey, and I all agreed on a plan and over the course of a few weeks had it nailed down. We hoofed up and down the street, asking for contributions from local businesses, most of who donated generously. There were gift certificates for food and services, great swag from the brewery, assorted cool stuff and it was all assembled into themed gift baskets we raffled off at the party. Cara and Sara donated their tips. Several people handed us cash. In the end, it had been a great party, fun bingo, standing room only, and we raised $3001. I was thrilled that this was my parting gesture to a community that had- perhaps unknowingly- nursed me back to health. A ‘Georgetown Princess’ would have the costly follow up MRI she needed to hopefully learn, like me, cancer was behind her, for good.

Leaving GT in late March was hard. Although I was ready to join Ryan, and live beyond a 10 x 12 box, I lamented leaving my dearest friends. My brunch regulars and bingo fans all mourned my impending exit. Tears were shed. Cara told me that I had taught her to give people a chance, beyond their age or social clique. It was one of the best compliments I have ever received. And I hope I showed that to the GT community too. That people could not so easily be boxed up and dismissed- as yuppies or punks, straight or gay, old or young or whatever. But I learned something beyond that in Georgetown.

I had given up all my social power to cancer. I put what ever fight I had remaining towards healing and recovery. There was nothing left in me for pretense or manipulation or a power play. I learned to ask for help. I learned to allow myself to be vulnerable and occasionally, exhausted and in pain, let myself just cry, cry, cry. But the biggest thing I came to understand was that just as a person, not as an executive, or a middle aged mom, or a writer of silly stories, these people saw value in me. Somehow, they wanted to be my friend, even if I was not all the things I thought identified me. It was enough to make them laugh, to share a cold beer and gossip over a crossword puzzle. I look down the road at my future, and I see that it goes for a long, long time with no end horizon in sight. After two years I feel oddly empowered to stroll, not run, down this path. Georgetown showed me a different way to look at who I really am, and I have given myself permission to relax and enjoy the rest of my life. I am proud to be Gillian Zed, with all of her history and all of her potential, but I will always be thankful to Georgetown for letting me be just Gill.

For my Georgetown family, especially Terri, and for Ryan, who was kind enough to share me with them.