still here, bowing to the Life Force

Still here, bowing to the Life Force.

Note the scar at 8 o'clock. This came from a wound incurred when I was maybe six. My beloved brothers were out in the (dirt) driveway throwing "frozen concentrate" orange juice cans filled with (driveway) dirt. They would load up the cans right near where earlier I described sitting and smashing quartz to smell it, near where I worked on getting into hickory nuts. That day I was near the barn, well away from them, also playing somehow in the dirt. I guess we got a lot of mileage out of that driveway dirt.

Lee and Kev say that if you spun around, much as a discus thrower does, you could put a similar spin on the can, sending out a trail of dirt that resembled smoke. They were competing for the highest toss, the longest arc, the smokiest trail.

I was sitting in front of the barn emptying dirt out of my red PF Flyers (for those who were born too late, these were sneakers that could make you run faster and jump higher). Kevie let go of a dirt missile at the wrong time in his discus spin, saw to his horror that the orange juice can was following a cartoon dotted line that led toward me, and shouted at me to Watch Out! I leaned far to the right -- directly into the can. Six stitches, as I recall.

What struck me as this scar appeared when chemo took the hair away is that my head must have been really small back then. The cut was originally at my hairline. This is the main evidence I have that my brain has in fact grown since I was six.

I also remember this incident being the first time I had an awareness of the payoffs of looking sad and pathetic. I was crying about the injury and checked myself out in the bathroom mirror, watching the blood drip down but mostly watching myself cry. Mom was calling Dr. Armbruster to let her know we were coming in with a nice flesh wound. Golly, I thought, between boo and hoo: look how sad I look. That's kind of cool. Everyone can see I'm hurt.

I am really over that now. Last night Laura, her mom, and I walked the "survivors' lap" at the Relay for Life on campus. I looked sad and pathetic, and everyone could see that I am hurt. I did not like it. Though I am sure cancer has provided some "secondary gains" in the form of loving kindness and attention, I am seriously outgrowing the need to get these things as secondary gains. I would like to make them primary gains of living a good and loving life -- not of having cancer. And sometimes I worry that blogging about my various symptoms and challenges is like looking in the mirror and pulling goodies out of my sad sack situation. If it ever feels like that to read, I invite you, implore you, to look away. Though I'm working on self-acceptance and all that good rot, the boo hoo part of me is neither appealing to me nor a great way of bowing to the Life Force, I imagine.

These two thoughts about the orange juice can/dirt bomb scar, though, in closing: first, it reminds me that I always thought I was leaning away from danger in my life, but sometimes you collide with it anyway, just 'cuz.

Second, the scar reminds me that I am wired to heal -- and even to grow. Life Force, accept my deepest bow.