It has been awhile since I’ve posted. Perhaps I’ve been holding my breath. Certainly, surgery was a turning point in the treatment. The grain of the experience subsequently has taken on an entirely different feel. P met with the Surgeon at the regular scheduled after visit. And there the Surgeon made the claim that, “All the cancer is gone now.” Some of my silence is, perhaps, I think trying to balance and adjust to being cancer survivors. What is the flavor of hope in a world of diminished expectations? Yesterday the Oncologist hedged a bit on the notion that the cancer was gone. That hedging certainly isn’t enough to tip us into despair, but, it raises questions. Is this just Surgeons and Oncologists talking past each other? We’ve seen that before. Is it the lenses of statistics that describe everyone and no one? We are particular people. I suspect that we will live with these questions, hopefully, for a long time to come.

This round of chemo seems to have less side effects, although, I’m beginning to see a cumulative effect of fatigue. P, is too, but, she is Winnie-the-poohing through. And that brings to mind some observations I’ve made about the toughness of women. Certainly, I risk overstatement, over generalization. But, I was intrigued to hear a dear friend, S, tell about her challenges with front squats in the gym. I don’t recall exactly the goal she had set, whether it was 1 rep max, or, what, but, in working up to it, she felt the tension rise, and the fear. And she went off to the side and had a little cry and centered up. And after that moment of self care came back and kicked gravities ass.

Persistence – Sarah gets her handstands from Bill Getty on Vimeo.

There is a subtlety to this, that many guys, myself included, miss altogether. Guys tend to kick their own asses into accomplishment. We take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and shake ourselves, tell ourselves to man up, shout a bit, kick furniture or whatever. But, to my mind, this psyching up is similar to Winnie-the-poohing through — not identical, but similar, there is something fictional, or one dimensional about them. Indeed P questions this herself when she asks if she has “tallitude”. I think P is struggling to get to and articulate the more subtle toughness that our friend S was exploring. I’ve seen it in her. But, it is a hard thing to talk about being gentle with oneself and at the same time grapple with the crushing physical or emotional weight of some challenge real or arti-factual.

P, wants to explore mortality and I think that is fine. Seeing ones own death is part of many spiritual practices. Yet, just at the moment I find myself struggling more immediately with the diminished expectations of middle-age, with a life direction etched and changed by disease. I’m not one for attending church, or at least, “church” as we often think about it. Yet, I’m daily in the gym. Is the gym my sanctuary? Are the exercise circuits my rituals? Are the 3-rep max efforts, and the personal records the sacraments? I find my own mentality changing as I mature and I continue with the arti-factual challenges of the weights, of gravity. I scream at myself less, I don’t let the failure swamp me in negativity. Instead, I break big challenges, say 21 reps, into 3 small challenges of 7 reps and I celebrate each accomplishment as I achieve it. If, I truly fail at something, I put it in the future, “I’ll try that again next week, I bet I can do better.” Or, when I hear myself slipping into negative self talk, I turn the statement around,from, “I can’t”, to, “That is really hard, but, I love the challenge!” I think this is closer to the toughness our friend showed when she stopped and relieved herself of the tension and fear, “a little cry” and then went back to the battle. Sure it was the little battle of front squats, an arti-fact of the gym, but, perhaps too an analog to other challenges in her life.

I wonder if because we create micro-environments, like church, or the gym, and practice elements of life in them if we don’t then imagine that life itself is practice for something bigger, hence, heaven and hell. What I’m seeing however, from P’s stories about “angels” (basically, just other folks, whose shit stinks too, but, who, seize the moment to “cry”, or rather to be honest, and vulnerable with another) that really life is enough. Death will take care of itself, but, life, is strange, beautiful, awesome, huge, ugly, frightening, and petty yet absolutely must be attended to.

From Tennyson’s Ulysses:
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in the old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal-temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.