Upon Changing Horses in the Middle of the Stream, Durer and I Can't Dance...

Friday  morning. The cats are fed, they are lounging about satisfied. Just finished filling out the disclosure agreements to have my medical records transferred to another medical institute. I am attempting to change Oncologists. I am also hoping that I am not changing horses in the middle of the stream. It is just at this stage, I want to make wiser choices. In a sense I am setting up a line of defense. Or to put it simply, I am taking care of myself.

Lately I haven't been sleeping well. I think the change has caused me to become a bit anxious. It wasn't an easy decision, one that I have been pondering for sometime. I am also beginning to cultivate a support group, I joined the Cancer Survivor's Network.  We will see where this leads me.

Creative impulses are returning again. I don't know where they will take me. That is part of the mystery. I am totally out of sync with the art world, if anything I do archaic art. I kind of like that term...archaic with a touch of esoteric mystery.

I blame Durer.

Melancholia by Durer

Sadly I don't think illustrators or comic book artists will ever be taken seriously by the established Art World. Personally I find that somewhat sad but also rather liberating. Besides the established art world is fickle, subjective and prone to fashion. Although anyone who makes in it, becomes recognized, has actually done a remarkable thing, it is simply a tight wire and the fall from its heights is devastating to many an aspiring artist.

Anymore art is more a healing factor for me. If other people enjoy my work, then I am pleased. But at heart I am a child with a pen drawing what pleases me. If anything my artwork is simply eccentric. I am not out to create political art, highly intellectual art or any form of great art. Just eccentric art.

Though I have won awards, been offered to do work for publications and was told by my instructor at Oklahoma University that I could go far in this field...I don't have the emotional makeup. I have accepted this about myself. I also understand how people can, with good intentions, set up people to fail. The art world is for those of strong fortitude. You have to wear many hats.

Me, I forget where I put my car keys sometimes, let alone my hat.

Though when the Big Sleep finally does arrive, I fully intend to share with him a chest full of writings and drawings.  I dubbed them Sacraments in Silence. Art from a somewhat childish and eccentric ego.

I started this Facebook page to showcase my artwork. Obviously I am not as prolific as I like to be. Sometimes it takes literally months for me to complete a piece. Between work, slacking off at the XBox or PC and dealing with health issues, I would consider myself at heart, lazy. It is not that I want to be, it is just the creative fire hits and misses and the consuming motivation is like a wave that tosses to and fro.

I am working to change this. Not that I believe I have anything great to say in my art or anything profound to share, the truth is drawing keeps me out of trouble and gives a bit more substance to my existence.

I don't consider myself mentally ill, unstable at times, yes, perhaps I am a functioning mental patient in a very structured world that has sharp edges. I also read a lot of psychology, a lot of spiritual material and philosophy. Most of my youth I considered myself on a journey, now I consider myself more in the role of an illuminator and scribe with a day job.

And if you think I consider myself anything special...this is my mantra below...

 

On Yelping in the Woods, New Age Guilt and Valentine's Day for the UnLovelies....

Sometimes there are moments, days actually, that I feel like doing this. Walking out into some snow covered woods and letting out a "yelp" of thanks. Anyone that has walked through a disease that could kill you and walked out the other side might recognize such gratitude.

In my own retrospect, cancer not only teaches us how to live, but how to die. I may or may not make it to age 80 or so. In reality I could get hit by a bus, have a piano dropped on my head by the Laurel and Hardy Moving Company or I may not. Or cancer may come back.

But I will die. People like cancer survivors are more aware of their mortality I suppose. Their senses are tweaked a bit. You don't know how many times when the subject has come up with people that either had cancer or has had a friend or family member that went through cancer and treatment I have heard, "they just weren't the same afterwards."

My usual reply is, "it's damn hard to come back from cancer treatment." The treatment wants to trick cancer into believing your body is dying.  You literally, not metaphorically have walked through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Learning to take care of yourself after cancer treatment isn't easy, in fact it is damn hard but it also can be rewarding.  The emotional roller coaster that you experience after chemotherapy has had volumes written on it.  There is also survivor's guilt. Why did people like David Bowie or Alan Rickman with all their wealth and access to medical care die and the average Joe like me survive?

Cancer doesn't play fair, it is blind to all this. It doesn't care how rich you are, how successful you are, your reputation, your social status or if you have a 1000 followers on Facebook. Cancer is insidious like that. So any guilt one might feel or is directed towards himself/herself is in reality groundless.

Cancer is simply no respecter of persons. Some people cannot comprehend this. It is alright, I always thought cancer was something that happened to someone else.

I also did not know but there is a term by Physicians that they have labeled "New Age Guilt". Below is a video where a Physician, who is also a cancer survivor, discussing this attitude where a brother blames his brother for not "thinking right" or "wrong thinking" (ie being negative) for his brother's cancer returning after being in remission.

I could tell you things that were and continue to be said to me since my return from cancer but it would be pointless. Much of it is simply ignorance. You simply cannot expect others really to understand and in most cases it is fruitless to even try. You move on. You also learn to avoid manipulative and controlling people. Your life just simply isn't the same.

I think you learn a deeper sense of "reverence." In that reverence you realize everyone has to figure or understand things on their own terms. Although we are all unique, sometimes what we go through is not. But those who have not gone through the grinder of cancer, it is really not their ordeal nor should you even try to convey it to them. All you can do is simply pray they don't experience it.

You learn to be a bit more selfish. In other ways you learn to become more compassionate.  You learn to love the unlovely. Those that have been neglected and left behind by family and friends usually because their disease became too much for them to deal with. I don't say this to shame them, I know all too well that we are hard to deal with and not everyone has the fortitude to be a caregiver. Part of this is simply the society we have become. But you, you who are left behind should feel no shame either. Your path have simply become different.  You simply hope for the day that somehow your path will cross with the path of the living again. Until then it may seem that you are lost in the woods. Enjoy the woods you are in..."Yelp".


A suggestion, become a bit more selfish and self caring. If you are going through treatment you will not feel like that. To those that have to deal with going through treatment alone...I know what that is all about. I am not talking about friends coming over and seeing how you are doing, I am talking being alone late at night wrapped in the embrace of chemicals flushing out of your body. I know how that is. It is the "Dark Night of the Soul."

So to all you unlovelies, since it is Valentine's Day...this is for you. It was done on a Moleskine notebook with a .005 Unipen.

Happy Valentine's Day...to me you are beautiful...

Gene Wolfe and February May Have an Agenda...

We are into the second week of February and I suspect she has an agenda.

I promise more art soon. (I am supposing that is why you are here?) I know you are not here to read into my personal world.  After all I am just another smuck blogging on the interwebs.

Right now I am having a rather love/hate relationship with Gene Wolfe.  Reading The Sorcerer's House.  It began like a dark country road overhung with tree limbs frozen in an obscure semaphore illuminated by the moon.  Then out of the corner of your eye you see a lady in white funeral tresses with black eyes pointing an accusing finger at you. You almost want to stop and go back to see if she was really there but then decide it is better not knowing.

Then it escalated into fantasy. Sometimes I think my imagination is too finite for Wolfe. I loved the beginning and concept of The Shadow of the Torturer, but it lost me somewhere in the middle.

I am very happy to be reading again. There was a time when I actually couldn't digest a paragraph let alone a sentence. Everything you read about Chemo brain is real, even I didn't want to believe it at first. I wanted to say it was anxiety, perhaps a combination. Thankfully though, people like my Mother, who has been through chemo and others that went through it gave me hope that it would pass. Though my short term memory is still rather shot, it is getting much better as time passes. 

 
It is Friday before a three day weekend which means it is going to be a long one. It is also payday...and I know where an awesome book store is.

February Is A Blowhard and Time IS On Your Side ...Yes It Is...

February walked in, it didn't creep in, but walked in. She brought nice weather for a change, but she is a bit of a blow hard. The wind has been relentless.

I have been detaching more and more lately. Changing priorities.  Doing my artwork still remains high on the list. But other factors have become important as well. Health, family and personal goals...there is a reason why personal goals are called..."personal".

This March I will be cancer free for three years, I think I am calculating that right. If I recall correctly, my last chemo was March of 2013. It has been a hell of a ride, lots of lessons learned, lots of wisdom gained...much personal loss and sacrifice. But in the moment, I am right where I need to be.

Healing is a slow process and thankfully, time has been on my side.

When you cannot be what others want you to be...be who you are meant to be. It is really as simple as that. You have to face the harsh reality that people will leave...that they will not approve of the choices you make, that they will discuss you, judge you and dismiss you. But in the end, it is you that you have to face in the mirror, not them.

Sometimes there is no graceful way of doing it. But there is a time you have to take care of yourself.

It is those people that understand that are gold. Usually they are people that went through hard times themselves. Whether it is illness, family issues, divorce, financial wreckage, social rejection etc. at some level they hit ruin and through it all realized their worth and recognize the scars in others. They don't become bitter, they become something more human.

It is a metaphor for death and resurrection.

I personally don't believe in spiritual ladders that you can climb upon and look down at the rest of humanity. The whole concept speaks of a certain spiritual arrogance to me, like incense that is too sweet and hides an inner rot.

Sometimes you have to open wounds to let the festering infection out. Healing takes time.

And to those that are afflicted, time is on your side.