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.

The Final Pages of Chapter One of January...

It has been an emotionally draining week.

Poe has an incident that required two trips to the vet. Burned 12 hours of sick leave, costs ran over 200$ but in the end he is worth much more to me than that.

He is on the mend now, eating and peeing as intended.

I am taking things slow and easy these days. I am working on one piece, just finished another, though it really isn't a piece, it is something out of my Moleskine Sketchbook. It was done with pencil and Unipen .005.

This weekend I intended to work on a piece that I have been wrestling with for sometime, but with the emotional roller coaster of Vet visits and trying to make everything meet, I am literally wrung out. (note to self: don't forget the B12)

I have been reading Gene Wolf's The Sorcerer's House.  It reads like a David Lynch movie that actually has a plot. It also may have triggered some really disturbing dreams I have been having lately.

January turns the page tomorrow and February begins a new chapter on Monday. The first chapter of this year was an interesting one, the plot is slowly developing.  Cultivating a normal life is my primary concern this year.  The only major change I am planning on is finding a new Oncologist. 

I am taking this year slow. I am grateful for what I have and I want to maintain it. The simple life is not so boring as one may think.

The cats, Poe and Lenore just had breakfast. Poe is trying to hide the left overs under a plastic bag as if he thinks it will keep it safe from Lenore. 

The morning sun is streaming through the corners of the dark curtains on the windows. The weather is going to be nice today. I am on the final pages of Chapter One of January. Think I will read them slow and carefully. There maybe hints of what is to come.

Year of the Crow...or how to live in a Fantasy World

It is the beginning of a new year. Though it is hard to predict whether the year will be one to remember for better or ill, I am starting the year with good intentions. But you know what the old proverbial saying is, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions...".

So in starting the new year with said intentions just maybe my undoing. The other is to take things as they come or do nothing.

My health is slowing returning. Vitamin supplements, fruit, green tea and plenty of sleep aided in my return to a semblance of normality.

Below are some sketches that I have whipped out the past year...my goal is to get back to drawing on a regular basis and try to manage distractions..ie TV, PC games etc.

As I mentioned, these are just simple sketches, not what I would even consider "pieces". I am slow, usually due to the amount of detail I work into a piece and also slow to how I build compositions.

These were done in my Moleskine sketch books I carry with me to work. Fortunately I have time between calls to crank something small out. But serious pieces take much more time and dedication which means working at home into the wee hours of the night.

But in the end it is worth it. So here is to a new year...which I dubbed "Year of the Crow"...actually on February 7th it will become the Year of the Horse according to the Chinese Zodiac. But I have often been accused of living in a Fantasy World and I am too old to change.

Time for breakfast tea then work...