This is how I feel sometimes, muted, and unable to easily express how I feel in precise terms. I can be happy, but happiness tinged with self awareness is not quite the same as dumb joy happiness. Anger tinged with the desire to laugh is not equivalent to pissed off and murderous. My mute state bothers me when my neighbors talk to me, forgetting that I am unable to speak back. It bothers me when I walk Rally and can't tell him either no or yes, depending on the circumstances. To his credit he knows my grunted "come on" and moves appropriately. I do love a smart dog.
This mute frustration was never more acutely felt than last week at chemo when, having learned that my latest scan showed no neck or lung cancers, I wanted to leap in the air and scream with joy--damn the kiss and slap, damn the knowledge that bad news always follows good news in my life. I just wanted to tell everyone how much I felt when I heard that. I was that cup, full to the brim, quivering towards the overflow.
I have wanted to know I would survive, empirically. Bluff as I can be about living to 70, I've kept a box of uncertainty in my mind, and have no intention of being otherwise. As I have said, I want to be ready to live or to die, with equal preparation and equal dignity. As part of my Mark the Rational trip, I recognize the lack of polarity in my existence. I do not operate in absolutes anymore, I am forever moving through levels of meaning and shades of operation and curtains of events.
Yes, I played Miami Sound Machine's "Conga" and made the nurses dance me out, but what I couldn't do was tell those nurses how much they've contributed to running this race, and making the run so much more pleasant. There's something about an oncology nurse that is just so smart, and they do the best blood draws, and give the best needle sticks. I have been amazed as I entered the machine of American medicine at how little most doctors really know about people, and how much nurses do know. It probably helps that most of the nurses I've dealt with, hospital and infusion center, have been women. Aside from the sex thing, I'd much rather hang with women than most men.
I hate being mute, too, when Dr Dayton (smart guy, another great oncologist upon whom I luckily ascended), gave me the great scan news and I typed an excuse me, and got up and butt danced in the examining room. I'd like him to know precisely that his confidence in my optimism is a big part of the reason that optimism thrives; sometimes even a feeling needs a witness to testify that it's not stupid to feel that way.
Rally makes me walk fast around the neighborhood, which at first was a challenge, and one I worried I'd fail. But a few months of walking and I find the right leg where they harvested the bone for my now dead jaw is stronger and more stable, and I'm able to walk uphill pretty smartly, and I'm able to keep pace with a schnoodle on a mission to find, corner, and kill, any piece of vermin (cat included) that he can. Mute, I'm frustrated when I hear Charles tell him how much he loves him, and mouthless, frustrated when he plays kissy face with that sweet little grey face. So I hang upon him like a 150 pound life preserver and hope that he knows I'm just as committed, if a bit more silent. I'd like to think we understand each other in this reality--though, really, isn't all about treats?
I thought of kiss and slap on my walk with Rally this morning, an early half circle of the neighborhood before I had to leave for chemo at 7:45. Last night, as I was struggling with sleep, my right arm pit hurt--and it was a hurt I felt in California when I discovered lumps that announced Cancer 2.0. It would be perfect, after a clear scan, to find that this shitty cancer had recolonized the right side, a perfect illustration of how I believe that happiness is just a cream and reality is the shit it parfaits. But in a half awake stupor, with a grey dog snoozing by my side, there were no lumps. This morning, it doesn't hurt. It was an ephemeral visitor, a transient stab, a reminder: be grateful and celebrate now.
No one, of course, is guaranteed a thing. Health does not predict longevity any more than illness predicts death, except in the extremes. In this shady life, though, one takes the necessity of staying out of the darkest patches and edging to where the most light is available. For me, the light comes every week when they dump chemicals in me and those chemicals seem to be clearning out a horror story that has been etched in my mind.
This is a victory lap, make no mistake about it. I have worked hard to stay sane, to keep myself steady, I have put in the effort to be here because I can see no better way to act. I do justice to the incredible resilience of my ancestors by my own. If I am running this lap on an empty track, it's only because so many people who got me to this race are in the stands cheering as I do a slow but creditable jog back to life.
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