Welcome, Chaos

Looking back at last month, I realize I was basically holding my breath, trying to be frozen so the big bad scary thing wouldn't see me, trying not to even think too loudly. Or maybe I wasn't hiding, which makes no real sense. Maybe I was just trying so hard not to think about what was scaring me that I had to stop thinking much about anything.

I didn't really read. If I were a more mathy person I could chart the curve to show how I read more and more to distract myself when things are bad, up to a tipping point where books or my own brain or body fail and I can't escape into stories anymore. This was one of those times that I could not pick up a book and focus my mind.

I did listen to an audiobook at night, in an effort to keep my mind quiet long enough to fall asleep. I just borrowed something my mother had been listening to.

Welcome Chaos, by Kate Wilhelm is probably impossible to talk about without spoiling the plot. But since it was published decades ago and appears to not actually be in print, I'm not going to worry too much. My mind is a bit too vague to spoil anything very specific anyway.

It's an old sci-fi thriller sort of thing that was written in the '80s, and has a woman as the protagonist, which is..nice, and surprising, all by itself.

The main character takes a leave of absence and heads to Oregon aiming to write a book about Eagles. And that rather lovely task is pretty seriously derailed when she is approached by some sort of gov't agent who wants to use her to gather info on her new neighbor out in the woods. And she quickly finds herself deeply and [i]very[/i] permanently involved in intrigue that could alter or destroy society. Vague enough? Too vague?

It made me think about what it means to have your health and a normal life expectancy. And what it is worth to gain more time. If I could be offered a perfect and complete cure right now, what would I risk? What costs would I accept? How would the world look if that were a real option?

I didn't love the story or the characters, but considering its age, it didn't seem hopelessly outdated, and that's impressive right there. And it did hold my attention sometimes, and ask some interesting questions.

This is the last day

Today is the last day of my chemo protocol. I've been letting my mind veer away from thinking about it too much. As though it's a ghostly, insubstantial thing that will vanish if you look at it straight on. I try to keep it in my peripheral vision.

I'm not ready for cake and joy yet. I haven't even gotten to full on relief. I honestly do not know what life will look like. I don't know how to be a cancer survivor, especially with the looming fact of high rates of recurrence and continuing biweekly lab checks. I think I will be holding my breath for the next two years. But I have a fair chance of getting to do that. And maybe getting to lie in a hammock with a good book in the garden, to dig my hands into the soil, and taste things at the farmers market, and have a glass of wine with the people who have helped me to survive through all this.

Thinking of gardens and good books, I visited Robin McKinley's blog. And it turns out that her friend and fellow author, Diana Wynne Jones, died today. And besides being a terrible loss for her friends and family, and a grief to all the readers who have loved her books, it was a biting reminder of the realities of life, and death, with cancer.

Part of me may always be waiting to fall off the next precipice. And I am baffled by the idea of living with that fear and also with the grief for all the folks who don't even get a chance to try.