That's the Stuff!

That's the stuff is a slang term which lately seems to have been replaced by "that's the s*#t". I never cared much for this vulgarization of pleasant things. It can be used to refer to a great meal (eew!), a beer, great sex, or what ever seems to float your boat at the time. I am not apt to use the term, however, I recently had my own experience, where it seems appropriate (literally!)

Last week I got a stomach bug. Nothing big, just the run of the mill bug that most of us have experienced from time to time. It came with the cramping, aching and fever and of course diarrhea that such bugs carry. I was completely immersed in being sick for a few days, when it hit me, I hadn't once thought of cancer in that time. Odd that illness can take your mind off of well....illness, but it can. It actually became a welcome relief. No, I can't say that I was actually enjoying getting up every 45 minutes or so to run to the bathroom, but it was a break from my past nine months where everything out of the ordinary must in some way be related to cancer. And for the most part it is because almost everything is. I still suffer from exhaustion, a common side effect of chemo and radiation. The swelling and inflammation which is a side effect related to having my lymph nodes removed and radiated. Lack of appetite, etc. Almost everyday brings with it some cancer related gift.

In survival and recovery it is important to move beyond the illness. Our thoughts must be aligned with health and wellness in order to bring about the desired result. So this little bug brought with it a gift. I got to be a normal person for a week! No cancer, just frequent trips to the restroom. What a great trade off. Yes my butt hurt, but nothing like surgery. I was whiney and week and wanted to be waited on, but never once thought of my partner Ken as my caretaker. He was once again just my partner having to put up with me acting like a baby (yes, I am a typical guy when I get sick. I want my mommy, a nurse and maybe a hand full of old movies thrown in). There was no education I had to involve myself in. I already knew how to handle this. Plenty of rest, fluids and little food. Of course Ken kept telling me that I brought this on myself by not washing my vegetables properly, but I just tuned him out and was content with my illness. By the time the thing had run it's course a week had flown by. A week of no cancer. Just being a typical guy! Now if that isn't the shit, I don't know what is!

What a World

One of the best parts of visiting my Dad is the drive both to and from the airport. It's one of the rare times I get him all to my self. In spite of the fact that he isn't usually much of a talker there is rarely silence on our drives. We discuss politics, our family and one of my favorites, my dads stories of growing up in New Mexico. This weeks trip was no different. As we drove past a horse farm and I made the observation that on of the horses was on its side and wondered out loud if it was dead, dad assured me that for some reason in Texas this was common. He wasn't sure if it was the breed of the horse or what, but it was a common sighting even in winter. This of course brought up the conversation of the horses he had as a child on the farm. He mentioned that some of their horses were used as a team to pull a wagon. I listened but wondered in my head if my dad as a child ever imaged that he would be driving his own son to the airport to fly several hundred miles back home? As a child did he know that his world was about to make a major change? His world has probably made the most changes of any generation in recent memory. Once the industrial revolution hit, there was no stopping the change. His family farm would soon be sold so that they could move into town. His parents would open a restaurant, eventually close that and move to California. He lived through the great depression and served in the Korean War.

That's a lot of change especially when I compare my world to his and yet I see history repeating. We are currently in a depression yet noting like the one that grabbed and shook my fathers generation. Our revolution was technological. I have read about people protesting the power poles being strung across the nation the way people have protested nuclear energy. Amazing is all of this is the vast majority of people have not lost their faith. Most believe in God. And yes we struggle with it diagnose it, subject it to science and yet come out of all of that believing in God. I watched a show on the cosmos and listened as one of the most brilliant minds of our time, Stephen Hawking, proclaim that because there was no time prior to the big bang, there could be no God. My first thought wasn't wow, I guess that there is no God, it was that Stephen Hawking does not understand the nature of God. The other amazing thing is that I doubt if Mr. Hawking's findings  would change anyone's mind who believes in God. For those who have been  touched and changed that is the one thing we most likely won't give up.

I am not speaking of religion, but in our own personal spirituality. As a gay man, I have pushed back against much of organized religion in my life. They had rejected me so I would reject them. In spite of that in just about every place in the world I have visited my first stops were to Cathedrals and Temples. I can tell you I have a great love of architecture, but this was always something more. I find peace in the house of God. I commune with the Divine in the house of God. I find it shocking that so many people visit a church and manage to find hate. To reject their fellow humans. Yet this behavior has been going on for centuries. The belief that one religion is superior to another. That one country is superior to another. That piece of the earth is holier than another.  While I was in Texas, my Dad's Presybeterian minister spoke about the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. He used the metaphysical explanation that it was not a miracle where Jesus actually turned the meal for five into a meal for five thousand, it was a story about sharing. Because of a willingness to give what little he and the disciples had, it started a ground swell of sharing among the crowd. I was brought to tears thinking what a world: A christian and be a metaphysician! To take it farther we do live in an amazing world at an amazing time. A world where people who have done bad things can also do amazing good. A world where there is so much going on, that it should be a crime for anyone to become bored. A beautiful world, where people care about each other and the environment. A world where I can walk into a machine and fly several hundred miles and get to spend four hours in another machine driving down paved roads listening to stories told by the man responsible for my existence! What a World indeed!

The Search

It seems to me that we are all searching for something. Some of us have figured out what that something is while others of us have not. I have lived the vast majority of my life feeling like I was on the outside looking in. An observer if you will, and a willing one at that. While for some outsiders, there is a sense of longing to get to the inside, I have been content to hold my position, nose pressed to the window and wait. The problem is that I never knew what I was waiting for. Some people think that this may be a sad way to live, but it has served me well. During my career as an apparel buyer, it was because of my being an outsider, that I could so clearly see what people wanted next and stay ahead of the trends. In my career as a manager it has enabled me to read people quickly, and make good hiring choices.

Since being diagnosed, I have realized that my life is not about my career, however. I no longer receive my identity, by what I do, and rather by who I am. This shift has been subtle and yet a quick one. One of the gifts of the shift is an amazing increase in self confidence. Being my job, I was never good enough, never "ahead" enough. Being me, I am strong and can take on anything that life throws at me. I can also relax more now. Before, if I had a day off, I couldn't really enjoy it because I knew something somewhere was about to go wrong. I'd call work just to check in. I look back and see a man who didn't trust himself and therefore could not trust the world. Today, I trust that God has it all handled, so I don't have to. That in itself is a relaxing thought.

Yesterday I returned home from seeing my Dad in Texas for the second time in a month. This time I was able to stay longer which was a good thing. It feels like I have a lot of years to make up for. Just sitting around and talking, I became painfully aware of what I've missed over the years. I look back and think how many times I couldn't go back to see him because I was "blocked" during the holidays or had a set up that prevented me spending early spring with him. On and on... I listened to my Dad and Doris talking about holidays past, visits and vacations that I was not a part of. I realized with a bit of shock that I did not have cherished memories of the times I spent at work while they were gathered at the Thanksgiving table. What was it that I was searching for back then. I clearly didn't want to "fit in". I didn't want to be a family. Now I realize that I am part of a family, we all are. Sure we can choose to reject it, but that doesn't make it go away. Those people are all still there, building memories. Going home to see my Dad, it surprises me just how easy it is to be part of a family. You just have to show up. Being willing to share makes the experience even richer. Listening makes it even more so.

We search and search only to find sometimes, that we are enough, just being who we are. Home is not a destination, it is a place in our hearts. Granted sometimes that place in our hearts has a destination attached to it. For some it has a time line attached to it. Yet it seems, once again by observation, that for the truly free there are no strings attached.