Searching For The Underbelly
Sunday, May 11, 2008
It is Mothers' Day today. And it is tragic. It is confusing. It is melancholic and anxious. There is some relief mixed up in there, a little hope, and a lot of wishing.
One year ago today, I announced that I had cervical cancer.
All these emotions are here somewhere, but I am not truly feeling them. I am taking muscle relaxants and listening to CocoRosie and wondering why I cannot turn any of these anniversaries over to see what they mean. It is as though they have no underbellies.
What does it mean to be told you have cancer? What does it mean to go through invasive examinations and day surgeries to see just how bad it is and then a hysterectomy at thirty-five? What does it mean if you have always resented this female body? What does it mean when you more or less made the decision not to have children but had that power taken from you, and now you feel even less visible as a cultural sub-class? What does it mean that I do not feel like the person I was before this, but that the difference is transient, nearly intangible, shifty as shadows beneath a tree on a windy day?
It makes me feel like nothing means anything on its own. I have often thought this, and it is not really a terribly sad thought. It means that we are responsible for our own creation, that we see the pieces and pattern them out into the maps we become.
Part of me wants all these things to mean something beyond myself. I want this to be the universal playing itself out in the particular. I want all of this to be greater than my body and my mind and not to die with me in fifty years. I want this to be more than human
I want this to mean something beyond my own survival. People are happy that I am well now, that I am alive, that it was not worse than it was, and I am happy about those things, too, but I am still aware of this fundamental shift within myself for which I have no words.
There is a larger place than me for these things I cannot even fathom.
I want to create gods out of experience; I want the gods to know themselves; I want others to see them.
There must be an embodied sum somewhere. It's wound around my fingers, if I can only feel it.
Labels: the body, the cancer
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14 comments:
Long time lurker, never commented until now. I just wanted to thank you for your candor and generosity in sharing your disease, how you continue to cope and how you use your considerable talent to inspire others. I admire your courage. I also owe you a big shout out because your post last year was the one that finally made me visit a gyne for the first time in at least 7 years after having several abnormal results. So thanks for that. (Everything is fine, btw.) I always look forward to your posts, and have had a ball following your tweets, too. Be well! -Barb (thinking I found you through Belinda)
Schmutz:
Your post just made ME feel a *little* bit of it, if that means anything to you. As always, your candor, even when you're unsure how to put words to your experience, takes my breath away. Thank you. Jules House of Jules
By writing about it, you are creating meaning, you just might not realize it yet. It has only been a year and you are still really close to it. By telling your story and getting women to go get paps and tests you are doing something great.
For totally different reasons I am having a tough Mother's Day as well, my heart goes out to you.
I think the only meaning that needs to be found in these anniversaries is the depths of character and courage that the events pulled out of you, depths that you may not have known existed. Maybe that is what it is all about. Another step on the journey to yourself.
I recently had some cancer anniversaries too (diagnosis, then mastectomy). Coming up in a little over a week it'll have been a year since my first chemo. Your post sums up the ambivalence I feel too about these anniversaries. It's peppered with being pissed off that I have them to "celebrate" in the first place.
Your writing touches people, makes them think about things they sometimes shy away from.
It makes them try and look deeper into their own experiences. Those tiny 40 portraits you fling into the internet every now and then are so beautiful, so delicate, contain a whole world of story in so few words. In your own searching you have created a space where others can find their own answers or simply reflect back questions they didn't realise they were asking. When i say they, i mean me. thankyou.
I wish I had something meaningful to say -
I wish I had assvice or something funny...I guess you just have to move through this and learn it.
I just read a blog -http://alittlebitofchristo.blogspot.com/2008/05/lifer.html
-Where hills are discussed and he says;"Zen teaching tells me that with every hill you come across you climb the one in front of you because that is your hill and not only do you climb the hill you climb the hill happily for two of reasons: happy that you can climb a hill, happy that you have a hill to climb. Sometimes it is a lot of little hills sometimes it seems like one huge hill with little hills in between but imagine a life with no hills, whats the point?". I needed to hear that just now and I'm passing it along to you Missy Schmutzie. Children come in many forms from many places and you are a very fertile and wonderfully creative person with or without a uterus. Your other comments say the rest!
Very very eloquent, and poignant. Posts like this not only display your skill with words and images, they also showcase your soul's depth and complexity. Here is your own piercing vision, and your ability to hold that vision in words for others. You are a jewel.
Mother's Day is hard sometimes for me too. I was happy with our decision not to have children until we found that we couldn't, even if we wanted to--and I began to mourn. When my sister became pregnant, I really began to grieve--not for her, but for myself, and then because I couldn't be as happy for her as I wanted to.
There is a subtle condescension well-meaning people offer those of us without children, as if we're ever-so-slightly less, or deluded, perhaps. I hope I don't do that to others.
I want to create gods out of experience.
I like this a lot. I want to stick it on my fridge to remind me to pay attention to life. And as far as I can tell, you successfully live by this. post a comment ~ Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] ~ main page
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