Tag Archives: Rashomon

The Martian

Isolation is real.

Whether in the case of astronaut Mark Watney, played in the movie by Matt Damon, stranded alone for a year-and-a-half on the surface of the planet Mars, or anyone experiencing isolation of any kind. I loved that movie BEFORE its implications meant more to me this year, when the common isolation of spring and summer gave way to another kind of isolation this fall.

In the last post, I talked about one kind of isolation. The one where you need to quiet the voices in a time of crisis. In this post, I’m talking about another kind of isolation.

Human beings make assumptions every day. A warm morning without a check of the weather app could mean not having a jacket with you when the rain hits that afternoon. A whirlwind romance without asking the newfound love of your life if they were raised by any character from season 8 of American Horror Story, and you could end up parenting the Antichrist. Or, making friends with people who are only there for you when things are good, could leave you wondering if there is some commonly held (but not by you because you make assumptions every day) belief that cancer is contagious, and that it can be spread through text messages or phone calls.

By the way, if, while reading this, you start believing the above paragraph applies to you…

*shrugs*

…maybe not. I mean, every disciple asked Jesus if THEY were the one who would betray him. And I have no friends named Judas. But really, there is no better way to know who was carrying the friendship load than for one of those people in that friendship to come down with a very socially awkward disease. And by awkward I mean, one nobody likes talking about because it makes them uncomfortable trying to navigate the feelings they get when that disease invades their comfy hi, how ya doin’ relationships.

And I guarantee you, I have done this myself in the past. I have self-preservation ghosted people before. Never explained it. Just did what I believed I needed to do for my own well-being, not even considering the feelings of that other person. Trust me, this recent revelation, the done to as well as the doing to, was eye-opening in a way that only having a potentially life-ending disease, and all the time in the world while living during a world-wide pandemic, can be.

So yeah, make that two *shrugs*.

Because everybody has their limit. Some people take the elevator. Some people take the stairs. Because not everybody can handle the stairs, and that’s okay. Some people just aren’t given a choice. So for now, this is my stairs. And anyone who wants to take the stairs with me, can. But if you feel the need to take the elevator, don’t worry. Maybe we’ll see each other when we both get to where we’re going.

(c) copyright 2020 William S. Friday

A Quiet Place

“I realized that my inability to process ‘noise’, be it dog whistles, Karens, or even hypo-manic friends, is probably a good thing, even if it brings a feeling of abandoning an aspect of myself in separating from it. I’m really only abandoning my codependency with ‘noise’ in the first place.”*

*Journal entry from Saturday, August 30th.

You ever see the movie “The Crow”? I know, TWO movie references in ONE post is unfair, I get that. Bear with me. The scene where Eric draws the morphine from the arm of Sarah’s mom. Well, in my case, if morphine was noise and Eric was cancer… okay, maybe a stretch… but my circumstances seem to play this one out.

I had become a noise junkie.

Not the kind of noise most people associate “noise” with, or relate to on any level, but the kind of noise that is often barely audible to the unaware listener. It’s analog, not digital, and therefore much harder to tune out. The noise I had become addicted to was… people.

There is a blessing… okay, a burden… alright, some might even call it a curse… with folks who intuit. Without dropping another dozen movie references and losing every reader, I’ll just say that (1) intuition on a level above most people’s ability to read tone of voice or body language in another person is real, and (2) it can become addictive. By August 30th, barely a week into my Summer of Cancer, I realized that all my blessing-burden-curse, what those who intuit (known as the “intuu”) was crushing me. Instead of that measured “receive and give” that intuition, much like breathing, something forced was happening in me. In my case, instead of a balance, it took on an edge, a jones in progress, a gift gone wrong. Instead of a feeling of well-being that can come from doing good, my recently jacked-up emotions had tuned my intuitive breath into emotional hyperventilating.

By the end of that day’s journal entry, I understood that my ability to process my own thoughts and emotions, something I desperately needed to do, had become an addiction response. I was using heightened emotional interaction with others in an attempt to make myself feel better, and I had to disconnect, immediately.

I had to find a quiet place, right fucking now.

Even writing this, five weeks after, I feel the learned behavior of steady, measured breathing take over. A deep breath in. A brief hold. A slow release of that breath. Repeat as necessary. Finding that place of internal quiet without interruption. Trusting that I have found that place in me again, more sure now than I had been… before. Knowing that recovering what was, for a time, lost, is stronger than before.

And mine again, because I know I’m going to need it.

(c) copyright 2020 William S. Friday

The Morning After

“Funny how nothing else in my life seems to matter after 5:24 pm yesterday. Women, food, to do list, job search, none of that… that’s about it except for which friend to tell.”*

*Journal entry for Friday, August 21.

This morning I read over the journal entries from those first, critical days in August, when my very ordinary isolation life became my very ordinary survival life. Besides my literary creativity in trying to best describe what a clump of dissolving-in-urine blood mass should be called, the 24 hours after First Symptom were spent repeating the phrase,

“I’m scared. Of course I’m scared.”

The fear which consumed me, and navigating those feelings, through “very ordinary” things like eating and sleeping… and at that point, having not yet told anyone… well, I can barely remember what that felt like, even while reading my words as I compose what I’m typing right now.

By the way, my chosen simile for what came out of me every time I was brave enough to pee was “hibiscus tea”. You’re welcome. Let THAT image carve its own space in your brain going forward.

“And now the questions… How long will I live? How will my quality of life be? Who will be there in my future? Seriously, will I even see the election? What comes after that? What DOES come after that?”**

**Same journal entry for Friday, August 21.

You know, it’s been 11 weeks and I still ask most of those questions. The election question just seems silly right now, but on August 21st, November 3rd seemed like one hell of a long ways off.

There is a thing said of athletes as they mature, and as experience begins to show itself greater than any ability with which an athlete plays the game. That thing said is, “The game begins to slow down” for them. It is that moment when experience and a history of being good at something, trade places, and the doing of a thing is made easier merely by having been there and done that so many times, that there is an almost unconscious take-over by the body, of the mind. Call it Gladwell’s ten-thousand hours. Call it simple muscle memory. It’s how I know I could still roller skate when I haven’t laced up a pair of roller skates in decades. How I know I can field a ground ball behind second base and, all in one motion, throw it, without looking, to first. And it is how, without ever having been this scared for my life, the game of life slows down, and I am able to make check-box decisions, one after the other, even when, in my head, I hear myself screaming louder than the crowd of spectators that surrounds me.

Call it time served on earth.

“How many times have I mentioned that I’m scared? At this time yesterday, I was peeing clear, felt fully hydrated, healthy, alive even. This morning, I feel like I need to get my affairs in order. Seriously? In 24 hours?”***

***Even later journal entry for Friday, August 21.

(c) copyright 2020 William S. Friday

Rashomon

“When that long-anticipated first conversation with your oncologist leaves you feeling like the words, ‘Today, you are cancer-free’ are as temporary as a sandcastle at hightide.”

This is a day for catching up with the present.

(flashback)

For the last three days, I have written about what happened to me during that week in August, when an innocuous trip the bathroom (“There Will Be Blood”) turned into a completely unexpected diagnosis of cancer (“Panic Room”) and soon after, how having nothing to say isn’t necessarily a bad thing when there’s nothing left to do but the next thing, and the next (“Requiem for a Dream”).

You may have also noticed that every post title is taken from a movie I’ve seen.

That’s also something that, if you know me, you know this is how my brain works, and how it will keep working, all the way through this series. This day is for flash-forwards and flashbacks. No particular order. Just telling the story as it tells itself. And this is a story about those who know me best.

(flash-forward)

Yesterday, four weeks to the day since my surgery to remove a cancer-ridden kidney, I had my talk with an assigned oncologist. It was not what I expected. In these protracted days of Covid-19, first conversations take place on the telephone, not in person. In the case of this first conversation, the oncologist spoke and I listened. I took notes and then asked questions to the best of my untrained and overwhelmed ability.

When I want to be, I’m pretty good at asking questions in a vacuum. Yesterday, I did my in a vacuum best. But after an hour of statement-question-reply-question-answer, I had a full page of handwritten notes, and now, one day later, even more questions than yesterday I had answers for. Today, I did something about that. I asked my friends who have been there and done that. A friend who has survived cancer. Another friend who’s father lived five years with late-stage cancer, with her as his primary caregiver. And one other who has been down the kidney disease road, and come out on top. Their wisdom, both theoretical and practical, helped me navigate more than just a resetting of my understanding, but more important, a repurposing of my personal strategy to overcome this shit, and live.

(flashback)

In mid-September, I sent out the first of a series of texts and DMs to people I had considered what came to be called the “First Circle” friends. That is, those who would be told first, by virtue of the frequency of communications between the two of us. A couple of dozen folks. The essence of that message was to tell them that I had been gotten a preliminary diagnosis of renal cell carcinoma, and that I was waiting for further steps to be taken, which would ultimately lead to surgery. In late September, having been given a date for my surgery, I sent a second round of texts and DMs to the First Circle, and a similarly-crafted message to folks in what came to be called the “Second Circle”. Ultimately, with a couple of days to go before the surgery was to take place, a final “Third Circle” message was sent to let those who, for a multitude of reasons, I had not previously informed.

So, you know how you can think you know someone… until you REALLY know someone… and then you realize you really didn’t know them at all? I will never assume anything about a Circle Friend EVER again. Through this, I have learned that a friend is not that person you assumed they were. A friend is someone who exists in reality, not in your mind. And not in your own wishful thinking about them. And a good friend is someone who never thought they needed to try and convince you of who they already were all along.

(flash-forward)

(c) copyright 2020 William S. Friday