Original poem: Ode to Langston Hughes

Harlem - By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up

      like a raisin in the sun?

      Or fester like a sore—

      And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?

      Or crust and sugar over—

      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags

      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?

My poem:

Ode to Langston Hughes’ “Harlem”

I have a dream

I’m sorry, chemo brain gave me the wrong black history guy

I want to scream

The weight of his words

Falling from the sky

Flittering like birds

Ideas stuck inside of me

My brain is running dry

Can cancer make you not love me?

We carry this shared weight

You and me, and we, and I

Hope seems like cruel bait

The future is a trap

Time just keeps going by

There’s only so much around which my mind can wrap

Langston Hughes infects my memories

Of literature classes gone by

Will my students remember me?

Langston Hughes knew what to do with the words

With the right words, we can fly

I have a dream of being a bird

-         25 March 2020

Fave Quote of the Book: Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Amazon describes it like this:

Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim’s odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most.

One of my favorite bits:
The narrator reads a book by a doctor who write horror novels. In that book, the narrator reads, "No art is possible without a dance with death" (Vonnegut 21).

I am no doctor, and I am too much of a scaredy-cat to write or read horror novels, but this one sentence really spoke to me. Seeing as how I have cancer, and have had three brain surgeries in the last nine months, I'd argue that I've danced with death, at least a little, here and there. I'd also argue that some of my best writing has come about after my diagnosis, if I may be so bold as to toot my own horn here.

My diagnosis has made me even more cognizant of my own mortality, but beyond that, I've realized that I have so much left to say. The words pile up inside of me, as I write this blog, letters and cards to my loved ones (SNAIL MAIL!), in my own journal, the book that I'm writing. I have so many words, and even when I'm exhausted from the terrible insomnia, and even when I'm goldfishing, I've stories and poems and memories to share. I write and I write, and eventually, I sleep, and I read, and I write. If for nothing else, this has been a blessing for inspiring me to put ass to chair and hands on the keyboard, and I write and I write.

So it goes.

Obligatory New Year's Post

Happy not-quite-so New Year!

So let's talk. I'm not making any resolutions. For 2019, my only resolution was to read 4 books a month. I was doing really well and keeping on track for the first half of the year.

Then this happened. I hate to admit it, but recovering from brain surgery, a second brain surgery, chemo, and radiation, all things that were completely out of my control, completely derailed my progress last year, and. If you must know, I would much rather have spent 2019 reading books, teaching, writing, anything besides have cancer.

Because cancer sucks.

So, no resolutions. Instead, I am going to look to someone who really inspires me:

Be water, my friend." Bruce Lee

Before I talk about Bruce Lee, I want to talk about 2019. 2019 was objectively and undeniably the worst year of my life.

Of course, there were bright shining sparks through the year.

• My 10 year anniversary with The Husband. 
• Having a student contact me long after the semester was over to tell me he was inspired to teach because of my class. 
• Reconnecting with the instructor whom I consider as the source of my own inspiration to teach.
• Making real and deep connections with students, including the dual enrollment high school kids, the non-traditional students like the single mom with two jobs or the Navy veteran who was so excited to finally use his GI Bill, I got to connect with students who were poets, musicians, painters, theologians, and photographers. I also made connections with students who had the STEM-mind and could engineer marvelous (and mysterious to me) projects. 
• These two clumsy goofballs who have learned the fine art of snuggling when the baby sister weighs ten times more than the older of the two.

 

 

• This ornery old man who brightens my day (and some nights) by patting my nose and singing the songs of his people (usually not simultaneously).

Of course, I could keep going, listing all the ways that 2019 was actually not that bad, but then I remember this.

I can sit here and say that being diagnosed with a particularly frightening type of cancer was a blessing in disguise. I can sit here waxing poetic about the amazing life lessons I've learned, the peace I've found, the acceptance that washes over me.

I would be lying.

This is not a blessing. Cancer is an a-hole. Not only is cancer an a-hole, but it strikes without discrimination. Cancer does not care if you are a good or bad person (I'll let you decide which one). Cancer does not care if you haven't fulfilled your life goals yet. Cancer does not care whether you deserve it or not. Cancer does not care if you had other plans.

I am not making resolutions for 2020 because the most important thing I've learned is that even if I make a plan for the near or far future, there is simply no way to know if I will be feeling well enough to actually follow through on the plan. I've already had to last-minute cancel plans with friends on multiple occasions because of the fatigue, the nausea, or the bad mood.

So, instead of making plans, I will try to be water. Yes, that means that I will do what I can to go with the flow. However, I do not want to be misunderstood. I have had to remind some people of my boundaries. It should not be forgotten that it was water that carved that giant hole in the ground. The Husband was very brave to get so close to the edge and I was terrified that he would fall into the Grand Freakin' Canyon and no there was no possibility that I would be joining him that close to the edge are you crazy?*

Look at that sexy beast!

What was I saying?

Oh yeah! It was water that carved that giant beautiful hole in the ground with The (Not Yet) Husband in front of it, and I want to be clear in communicating my boundaries yet again. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water.

*I realize that was a run-on sentence, and that I should have better grammar as an English Instructor, but I argue sometimes it is more important to communicate your point efficiently, even if doing so is technically incorrect.**

**Also, don't get me started on the use of standard grammar vs. non-standard grammar, and how people are judged by how articulate or inarticulate they may be. The use of so-called proper grammar has a time and a place, and sometimes the point is more clearly articulated by slangin' it up.

Goldfishing

So The Husband and I came up with a term that more people should be familiar with: goldfishing.

We all know that goldfish have a memory that lasts 3 seconds, right? Wrong. Goldfish have memories that can last months. For the purposes of this post, we are going to stick to the idea that goldfish don't remember so well, though, because I have a point to make here.

Chemo-brain (similar to mommy brain or pregnancy brain) has made me quite similar to those goldfish. Maybe having 30 doses of radiation aimed at my brain shortly after having not one but two brain surgeries did have some effect on my short term memory.

I want you to know, I keep on getting distracted as I'm trying to write this d*mn blog post.

A scenario:

Me: ... blah blah blah stuff that happened blah blah... [I trail off into silence...]
The Husband (TH): Are you okay?
Me: I forgot where I was going with that story. I don't know.
TH: [very kindly does NOT laugh at me]

My attention span is shot, and my short term memory is a joke right now. I'll set down my phone and immediately forget where I put it. I'll pick up a pen to write something down and suddenly be unsure what that something was.

I'm not stupid. I promise I'm not stupid.

But the effects of what I've been through are no joke. All in all, I have had very minor cognitive defects. Sometimes I have trouble finding the right word. Sometimes I lose track of time. Sometimes I get distracted and forget that I was in the middle of something else.

[I just got distracted by my cat.]

What was I saying?

Oh yeah! For all intents and purposes, I have healed remarkably well from all of the stuff that has happened in the last six months. I didn't need occupational therapy. I didn't need to re-learn how to walk, talk, or read.

However, because of where my tumor was located, the issues with attention span and short-term memory are unsurprising.

Some days, I have full attention span and no memory issues. Some days the opposite is true. I let The Husband know when it's a bad goldfish day, and he is always so understanding when I get stuck on a word or forget that I already told him this or that thing.

Goldfishing is frustrating, though. I wasn't like this, and I don't know how long it will take to get back to how I was before. In the meantime, I make notes to myself, I set reminders, and I do the best I can. But I can't help but feel a sense of loss of who I used to be.