MOON CHILD

I remember my grandmother’s friend whispering at dinner when she mentioned cancer.  I was young, and curious as to why my star sign seemed to breed some sort of ominous superstition.  And as is usual when you start obsessing over something you see it again and again.  I noticed similar aversion to the word on tv, at school, in the super market.  Cancer was bad.  If you had cancer you were in trouble.  And I was a cancer.  I couldn’t get away from it.  I was born on July 7th! I hated equating myself with that horrible name.  I even began to despise crabs.  There must’ve been something wrong with me.  I was cursed.  Its unfortunate what children may come to think of themselves.  And now here I am.  Self fulfilling prophesy?  No idea, but not a curse.

I’m almost through the chemo journey.  At least the poison part. In a couple weeks I will be starting a different phase of this particular chapter in my life’s series.  And on it goes…   The phase of rebuilding.  I will be starting to bring this body back to health.  I’ll be figuring out what needs to change for good, forever.  A new turn in the evolution of me.  Far more a mental voyage it seems than physical.  Of course there is no knowing what will come and what bizarre new characters I will meet within the body.  And right now there is no need to know, because I’m far more interested in the attic above—the mind space.

I have read over and over that many find cancer the greatest gift.  Others not so much.  In my case its too early to tell, but I have wrapped myself in an obvious search for “meaning.” Whatever the individual experience, there does seem to be a tug towards the inexplicable ‘cause and effect.’  As if this was the plan all the way along and if I don’t figure out the mental triggers of my cancer, my true cure may never be found.  So of course I go straight to the shovel.  Mining for answers.  And I write.

I wrote in a little black book months ago.  It’s a mole skin that’s now covered in doodles but for a while it was my diary (I gave up on it as the days and words mounted into blocks of depression).  Paging through the margins recently, I noticed something odd.  For weeks I’d been writing  over and over “I AM NOT HERE.”  Usually in block letters.  In pages to follow I even began to make an art project out of the words.  Here was a starting point.  A perfect place for my shovel.  Something needed uncovering.  And slowly the words opened a door. 

In hospital and throughout my diagnosis it was important for me to disassociate from the depression and pain.  To exile my thought freely from the fear surrounding myself, my family and friends.  That’s where the mantra began, as if it was an early goodbye or desire to die.  And in a way I believe it might’ve been.  An effort to die before death.  To see the world without me in it.  And then this week, as I repeatedly spoke out the words “I am not here,” there came the alchemy within words-- the meaning changed. 

I began to realize that “I am not here” meant something more tangible and active.  Something a bit more obvious though I couldn’t see it before.  The letters formed a new code.  One that didn’t spell victim.  What it said to me was: I am not here in this disease,  I am not here in this genetic predisposition,  I am not here in the statistic,  I am not here in death,  I am not here as a casualty nor as mere survivor.  I am just here.  Now.  I am me and this is a part of my life.  A switch was flipped.  ‘I am not here’ was really a call for ‘here I am.’   

I’m usually not this yippie at all.  Yes, I have a house in Joshua Tree, yes I like to sculpt, write, play music and once I sat in a sweat lodge, but I also like to skeet shoot, ride a motorcycle, barbeque and listen to Steely Dan.  Point is, I pride myself with having my feet balanced on something old and solid.  But yippie or not I couldn’t stop hearing those three words “here I am” in a space that was light and not subject to gravitational pull.  As I sat there in this revelatory space I repeated the phrase in my head.  The timbre changed, the character of speech enriched- as if it was my grandfather’s voice.  A stronger voice.  Possibly my own true self with the ancestors thrown in as backup.  And as I continued to listen the meaning grew clearer.  It went beyond acceptance of where I’d been to an acceptance for who I am right now.  The beginning steps perhaps of really honoring oneself.  I’ll go further.  The steps to loving ones self.       

You see, I’ve been questioning for some time the possibly that for a little while I haven’t loved myself really all that much.  How’s that for a wordy admission.  There’s a part of me that hasn’t truly accepted that I am worthy of getting what I aim for. The artist/craftsman in me had allowed itself to be defeated under the pressure of success, industry  and the “American dream.”  Hard to admit, but I fell for the marketing.  The idea that as Americans we can “make it,” with the self-implication that if we don’t there must be something wrong with us.  And what does “making it” really mean?  I'd forgotten.   What was it that I really wanted?  I realized instantaneously that I was out of touch with what keeps me alive and kicking.  No wonder I got sick.  No wonder I’d invited struggle in my career, relationships and pocketbook.  I’d allowed my self worth to slip.  I’d allowed victimhood to overshadow my ability, and thus my faith in this benevolent universe (oh, yes it is).  

This ‘event’ or realization hit hard.  I’ve come to believe that until I find a way to honor myself better, redefine what I am and who I am, there is no real cure for my disease.  Sounds definitive but rings of truth.  As you can guess, I’ve started whacking away a new path.  Of course this means getting help and reading tons of new york times best sellers.  Not really. Sort of.  Probably a harder haul than chemo.  But it’s an intuitive treatment I know I need-- to understand myself more fully and lovingly embrace who I am in all of what’s seemingly incomplete.  A hard thing to admit in a public space, but worth it if can inspire someone to seek that love for themselves.  Because, as I’m finding,  with self care comes a higher awareness of what got me where I am.  Its beginning to signal the stressors in my life that aren’t healthy.  That contributed to my illness.  It’s my guess that with awareness and self-care we can truly change the parts within us that trigger our disease (and depression and everything else we take pills or vices to escape from).  If we can allow the triggers to dissolve then perhaps disease can dissolve right along side. 

This is towering talk I know, but something tells me a need for self love (self care- whatever you want to call it) is something more of us have in common than not.  Humans are pressured to perfection (even though we know there is no such thing), to keep the race at its pace, that we rarely allow ourselves to stop.  To look at where we are and like ourselves no matter the view.  As if our selves don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.  Not at least in comparison to the commercial or show.  It’s the the image, the fantasy, the game that matters most.  No wonder obesity, heart disease and cancer are at epidemic proportions.  We don’t like ourselves anymore.  And our bodies respond accordingly.  Are we too far down the rabbit hole of detachment and depression?  I hope not.  If only we can see ourselves as goodness, not broke or broken.  Its worth a concerted effort, don’t you think?  If not we might as well succumb to the poison and drip.  Take our chances and check out as so many do.  Don’t.  Its life or death, you see.   Honor the privilege of being here as we are.  And then… perhaps one by one with loving ourselves more deeply and spiritually we can swing safely away from the symptomatic credo of big pharma into a curative art of new modern personalized integrative medicine-- accepting that our mind space has just as much to do with our healing as genomes and cell biology.  And then (almost finished), and then maybe just then we’ll discover our own individual curative cocktail.  How’s that for high and mighty?  How’s that for starry-eyed?  How’s that for obvious.  Okay, I’ve exhausted even myself.  Preachers must sleep a lot.  But the challenge has been thrown.  Who’s with me?  Please say yes.  We can all love ourselves a little bit more.  And the cancer.  I meant the zodiac.  Beautiful isn’t it?  Reminds me of peace.