Then There’s This Question

March 26, 2016 / Lisa / 5 Comments

Those who read this blog know I love any question that begins with ‘What if…’ and all the stories that question leads to. But over the past couple years I’ve been noticing a new question creeping in. Not sure I like it, not sure I want to ask it, definitely don’t want to hear the answer.

I think this new question has to do with the gray hair starting to come in. They both seemed to arrive at the same time.

‘Is this it?’

Not so much ‘is this the sum total of my life?’ or ‘is this who I am to be from here on out?’. Or even ‘is this all there is?’.

Those of course are deep questions that can be asked at any stage of life. But it’s not how I’ve been asking that question. It goes something more like this.

When a semi truck going way too fast on the narrow bridge over the Skykomish river confluence is way over into my lane and there’s no place to go but the river. That brief second before the driver gets the truck safely back into his lane.

When lying on the table with your breast covered in ultrasound goo.

When you’re feeling up your arm pit thinking, has the lymphoma come back?

When you’re standing in the pantry trying to remember what you went in there for, and then can’t remember if you even wanted to go to the pantry.

When you realize that the generation older than you is fading and you’re becoming that older generation.

It’s actually an odd thing to think about, but I assume as everyone ages they begin to wonder what their end will be like.

In a way, it’s a rather sick humor sort of version of the ‘what if’ question. That makes me laugh now that I think about it.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not brooding or even worried. It’s just occasionally the question pops into my head.

Is this it?

Well, not today. Today all is good.

Except for the housecleaning bit. But even that’s not so bad when music is blasting and the husband is helping and the dog is protecting me from the killer vacuum cleaner.

Touching Death in Art

November 11, 2015 / Lisa / 3 Comments

There were two years after I completed radiation for lymphoma that I didn’t write. I battled high anger and deep sadness. My wonderful doctors said my brain chemistry was messed up because of where I received radiation.

They told me it would pass and I would write again.

They were right. But…

Yesterday, while at the doctor for mundane reasons, I asked him why, after almost six years cancer free, that sadness was still there. It isn’t that I’m depressed. As I explained, it’s like an entity of sadness down in there somewhere. All I have to do is pause and look for it. When I consciously make that effort, I feel it and want to cry. If I let it come up, I do cry. I call those my blue moments. They are connected to nothing that is going on in life at that moment.

My doctor actually got a bit teary. Coincidentally, I’d asked him this question on the anniversary of a cancer related date for his wife.

He then said people who have been through cancer tell him the same thing. That they can feel something left behind. He hears it especially from writers, artists, creative types. And many of them tell him that in a way it’s an odd gift because they can dip down into that and use it in their art.

When he said that, I had the revelation that I’d done exactly that in the third book, Ghost Roads. As I wrote, and tried to imagine how the character of Harlow felt as she faced betrayals, I would pull up that sadness, ponder on how it felt, and use that to help describe similar emotions for the character. While I knew I was doing that during the writing process, I hadn’t put it into conscious thought until my doctor said that.

He then went on to tell me that his personal belief was that cancer survivors have briefly touched death, and that’s what the hidden sadness is.

Our conversation then went like this:

Me: I don’t think of myself as a cancer survivor. I didn’t have it that bad. I only had to have radiation.
Him: You were bolted to a table every day.
Me: Yeah, but I didn’t go through anything like my sister did, or friends are. I didn’t have to have chemotherapy. I only lost part of my hair.
Him: Your throat was so swollen you couldn’t eat. Water tasted like blood.
Me: Yeah, but…my sister invites me to go on cancer survivor walks but I don’t.
Him: You earned the right to wear one of those tee-shirts.
Me: No, not really. She did. She had it a lot worse. I just was sick for a while. I was never told I was going to die. I didn’t have to face the prospect of death.
Him: You still touched death.

And there we were back to the original topic.

Do I believe I touched death? Honestly, no.

I do believe something was left behind though, because I can feel that something in there. And yes, it does feel like a deep sadness, which is completely separate from depression. That’s a difficult distinction to explain.

And then there’s this realization I came to a little bit ago that made me write this post instead of working on the current story.

Every time I sit down to write, I immediately feel a weight, a sadness. Many times I can’t move past that weight and so instead of writing, I visit Facebook, or play solitaire, or chat online with friends. Occasionally, if I think about it ahead of time, I start music as soon as I sit down. The music distracts me from that weight, and I can then write.

In every day life that sadness rarely becomes visible. But I’ve just realized that every time I sit down to write, it surfaces.

After the visit with the doctor yesterday, and spending some time thinking about that conversation, I realize I’ve made a mistake.

When I sit down to write and feel that weight bubble up, rather than avoiding it with the internet, or drowning it in music, I need to learn how to control it. Let it become part of the writing process so that I can draw from deeper emotions.

I’m not quite sure how to do that and I imagine learning will involve forcing myself to write when I would rather give in to the weight and leave writing behind. After all, if I did that without realizing it while writing Ghost Roads, there must be a way to make it more of a conscious decision.

In the meantime, there’s a lot to think about. And that appointment yesterday? It ended with my doctor giving me a huge hug and thanking me for reminding him of the things he needed to mourn, and celebrate, with his wife that evening.

When Music Returns

November 21, 2014 / Lisa / 9 Comments

This compulsion called writing is a strange thing. The last few months working on book three has been very difficult. I was beginning to think the story had escaped me, had moved on to someone who might be able to tell it better. But I’ve been doing this long enough now to recognize that fear.

It’s not writer’s block because if I do sit down to write, the words are there; I just can’t put fingers to pen or keyboard. Maybe it’s a lack of trust in the story and the characters. Maybe it’s a lack of trust in myself. I’ve only had this problem the last six years, which makes me wonder if sometimes my brain goes back to its radiation days, moving away from the creativity. Because this feels like a weight. I wouldn’t call that weight sadness but I suppose it could be that. It’s a sense of just not having the energy to start, exhaustion.

I’ve learned however, that if I just keep pretending, if I talk like I know what I’m talking about, if I go through the motions without actually working on the story, eventually that weight goes away.

I used to try and force the story during these time periods, but then learned the only thing that came from that was throwing away a lot of words. The story knows when you’re faking or trying too hard. And that will also show up in the writing. I can read a draft and point right to the spot when the weight descended and I started trying to force the words. The voice changes, everything becomes stilted, unfamiliar. I know now instead of forcing the story, I leave it, and just pretend to others I’m still working.

So this evening, finally, the weight went away and the words came back. Why? I have no idea other than that this time, I put music back on. The familiar tunes I used to write to. Before radiation I always wrote to specific music. It gave me that restless melancholy, that ache that’s needed to write. After radiation, when I was learning to be me again, music was a distraction and I needed silence to be able to hear the characters.

Now I’m wondering if finally, finally, I’ve returned to who I was before lymphoma. Because tonight the music was there, the weight was gone, and the characters took me by the hand and showed me the story that’s been patiently waiting.

This may not be the final fix, the last cure. I’m sure that struggle will come back. Maybe it has nothing to do with the past few years. Maybe this weight is actually a waiting space I need to inhabit during each story, in order for it to grow. We’ll see. No matter how long one writes, the process is always evolving.

Or maybe it’s simply the return of music.