As some of you may know, the Chordoma Foundation is a recently-created charity whose goal is somewhat similar to the Ford Foundation.   Both were created to give something away -- Ford (who owes its existence to murderous treatment of workers) now provides money to assorted worthwhile projects.  Chordoma Foundation needs money given to it, so it can destroy the reason for its birth.

When millions are in the midst of war, starvation, torture, and when our world aches all over -- my feelings are mixed about a foundation seeking a cure for a relative handful, even when the person I love more than anything is in that handful.

To whom do we give our resources?  Can we triage love?

I don't know.

Candace

cancer patriotism

Four years ago, after the last presidential election, I met a friend for lunch, our first sit-down conversation in a couple of years.  Catching up, she spoke about her separation from her husband, his faults, her suffering.  I heard all of this before.  And because Rich was just recovering from his first surgery,  I wasn't, perhaps, as empathic as I could have been.

"It's all because of Bush," I said, jumping into the monologue.  "Rich's cancer.  Your marriage."

Thoroughly apolitical, she looked at me as if my head were on backwards.

"You're joking," she said.

"Well, a little..."

This wasn't the place or person, and I wasn't sure what more I could have said.

But I've been thinking about this.  A lot, recently.

And I wasn't referring to politics reflected in a confused and cracked health care system (my proximate concern) and economic struggles (a cause of her marital conflict).

It's that, little fish that we are, we all swim in the same big ocean.  And I'm getting scared of what's floating by.

I'm scared of anger, arrogance, greed, delusion.

In other words: Patriotism scares the shit out of me.

Except that patriotism has another definition.

Barack Obama calls it "empathy."  This fits nicely with the Dalai Lama's suggestion for true peace:  "I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends."

Marshmallow-headed liberalism?

No -- a solution.  That even the most "patriotic" and "conservative" have enacted, over and over. Our heads spin backwards trying to keep track who we should love (or at least make a favored trading partner) and who we should kill.  Russia?  In my lifetime, an enemy who became a friend and is now an acquaintance. China?  Ditto.  Similar reversals between the United States and Germany, Japan, Vietnam...you get the idea.

The current Republican team, in office and seeking office, doesn't get that their view of patriotism is a cancer, not any different from that snuggled in Rich's spine except that Rich's treatment is more painful and uncertain of success.  

Cancers don't realize that their neighboring cells -- enemies! -- are really their friends.  Cancer wins when their enemies/friends lose. 

Then, everyone dies.

I don't understand, but I can't despair.

Candace

"Yoga is life."  

So said my teacher last week, and while layers of meaning can be unwrapped, our discussion focused on what should be obvious.

Each session begins slowly, then accelerates as we move forward, back, twist, in and out of pain and fear and blocks -- ouch! -- and realize at some point "I can do this!" and "life is so good" and end with deep rest.

A typical day, isn't it?  Start slowly, pick up speed, bend in ways usual and new, say ouch once, twice, many times; then end in a place we have never been before.

And this happens every day, but illness is an excellent magnifying glass.  I have no doubt that there is life after death.  It's today.

Candace

no vowels

Two nights ago I had a dream.  I had written a play without vowels.  Each performance, the cast would decide what to say, not knowing, of course, how the other characters might respond.  "Lvd," for example, might morph into "loved," "lived," or "livid."  Comedy, tragedy, or simple confusion might result.

Some of you might know that Biblical Hebrew was once such a vowel-free language, before the spoilsport scholars added their jots and tittles, morphing divine ambiguity into human certitude.  As the history of religion has proven, there's neither fun nor safety in that.

Rich's adventure in Tumorland is, perhaps, the source of my dream.  I'm following him into a land where the jots and tittles are missing, and this leaves lots of wriggle room.  Too much, sometimes.  For how long will the surgery still the tumor?  Is another round of Sutent worth the discomfort and risks?  Will the "new normal" be better than the old?

Improv -- here we come!

Candace

a hundred years

Rich says he's not sure if he can go alone to a couple of his New York medical appointments while I meet a friend at my favorite pastry shop.  It's two weeks in the future.

"That's a hundred years from now," I say.

Or, he says, what about tomorrow, will I have the energy to take a shower ---

"A hundred years from now."

Okay, what about doing the laundry after breakfast --

"Fifty years."

There's a terrific feeling of relief in all of this.  Everything is a hundred years away. Who knows what can happen between now and the next moment?  Another crack of the neck, another rash, another bout of exhaustion -- or, a reversal of it all.  Or, at least, relief from imaging what could happen next, and when, or even why.

Candace

a quiet room

I'm writing this in the library, in the "quiet" room.  People have difficulty with this, I notice.  They whisper in voices that, as a background hiss, are more interruptive than out-loud speech.  They rustle newspapers. They're not aware that, coming and going, they're noise-making machines.

Right now, I'm craving silence, rest, peace.  A month or so by an ocean, my only obligations to write, walk, write -- a fantasy.

I'm here.  Most of the time, with Rich, who now that the steroids have worn off is realizing he really does need rest more than work, and lots of food (emphasis on sweet re-charges), and trying to make sense of itchy rashes and pops in his neck and extremity pain.

So I listen, I shop, I cook, and try to re-charge.  Rich's job is harder, and there's no fantasy to follow.

Candace

dinner at the pom pom diner

Nine of us examine the menu.  

One of us has a plastic tube snaking down his leg, encased in a bandage from knee to ankle.  He's in town to get rid of his bladder cancer and kidney blockage.  He looks fit and says he's feeling fine.

Another walks in supported by his cane and his wife, and quietly sits in the booth, re-adjusting to the world.

Our host orders a hamburger (make it medium-rare) with a side of fries and a bottle of root beer.

"I tried being a vegetarian for a week," she says.  "I found myself looking for pieces of meat buried under anything."

Still, she wants to pretend she's eating wholesome.

"Do you have whole wheat rolls?" she asks the waitress.

"You're too far down the road," I say.  "Go for it."

What the hell, she agrees.  White is fine.

I order two wraps to go, one for me, one for Rich.  An hour ago we arrived from the hospital, back at Miracle House, my home in New York for the past week.  Rich can't walk the two blocks, yet, but it's a wonder that he survived this most recent war on his body and, well...looks normal.  

This meal is free, provided by donations.  What we have in common, at this table, is serious surgery (liposuction gets no points here) or loving those who are being treated.  Our host is a Miracle House volunteer, setting a tone of kindness combined with laughter.  Lots of laughter amid "isn't this a small world..." exclamations.  

Strangers, but we discover we know the same people, went to the same schools, or once lived within a few blocks of one another.

What makes us laugh, though, is something deeper.  We're all facing something incomprehensible, terrifying, sad -- but underneath it all we've found the buried piece of meat that we're craving.

What the hell.  Why settle for a morsel, here or there?

We're too far down the road.

We're going for it.

Candace