John Swinburn

No matter that I might want to write—or to have written—something profound or even moderately meaningful, I just cannot. There’s nothing consequential clawing to be released from the confines of my brain. Instead, there’s only emptiness in search of a place to setttle wherever it can. Motion without motive or meaning.  These days have become such useless routines. At least they have no value; and they have no cost.

Disjointed sleep patterns added a touch of interest to my life for a while. But the interest has evolved into something less appealing—more confusing and disturbing. When those patterns began to emerge, I found them somewhat curious and appealing, as if they might have the potential of introducing me to thought processes with which I had previously been unfamiliar. And so they did. Yet that did not “fix” the low levels of distress the changes brought about. Instead, I began to be concerned that the chemotherapy, the drugs, the adjuvant therapies, the radiation treatments, the metastatic evolution of cancer, and/or advancing age might be transforming me into someone I had never been, nor wanted to be. My concerns seem to have blossomed. I find myself daydreaming. As if ideas and thoughts that began clearly as artificial explorations discard their imaginary natures and become actual experiences or recollections. Odd. Unexpected. And, I hope, temporary. My oncologist mentioned, last week, that there may be times I might need a “chemo-vacation,” a rest between periods of being battered by treatments and simply letting myself recover from the onslaught.

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So much more to think, but so little capacity to think it. I may be in the midst of a “chemo vacation” right now. It’s been at least two weeks…maybe more…since my most recent chemo. My doctor tells me she wants to expose me to chemo only when my body can best tolerate it and when it will do more good than harm.

Flavors of Indian and Indonesian food urge me to change who I am and where I go. They invite me to crawl through the soft dominions of time and distance, seeking communion with moments too powerful to ignore, but too timid to claim as my own. I taste cinnamon, turmeric, cloves, ginger, paprika, garlic, corriander, funugreek, jeera, cardamom, and more. Assertively sweet, bitter, sour, and abstract—they insist on brandishing weapons as emphatic as they are dangerous. Their colors, aromas, promises, and piquancy arouse my senses with heat, love, and the intolerance of welcome frigidity. Everything about them is sensual, lascivious, lecherous, lewd, libidinous, licentious, and lustful. Yet they exude levels of unmatched purity. I need to experience combinations of lamb, garbanzos, tomatoes, cilantro, lemon juice, salt, aloo Manchurian, conquest, surrender, and certainty. Only when those experiences are bundled—with guidance from expert consolidators—can consumers hope for infinite truth that will overcome scalding contention. We can learn by embedding artificial intelligence (AI) into our thought processes; we must brave the hazards of derivative thought. Only through our willingness to recognize the infallibility of artifice can we ever hope to experience the intensities we seek. If we can write like an AI clone, we can think like an electropsychobiological mutant. And that’s what we’re after, isn’t it? Who among us can legitimately insist we belong to a level of classification that is below kingdom and above class? Food transcends that which we know, but not what we don’t.

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I may be wrong about damn near everything. My beliefs may be based on misunderstandings, lies, stupidity, arrogance, and an extraordinary level of hubris that merits the bleakest assessment of my ridiculously low level of intelligence. Would it matter? No, of course not. Intelligence is just a badly broken algorithm. That notwithstanding, though, we ought to acknowledge how flawed our beliefs have been and how much worse they are destined to become. Neither science nor religion  nor any other magical nor “knowledge-based” approach to understanding has any value in the search for truth. Truth is a card-catalog system that attempts to explain the inexplicable through the use of bullshit offered as evidence. Rational thinking has never existed, nor will it ever exist. Everything we claim to be foundationally rational has as much validity as “evidence” that colors have tastes and aromas—despite overwhelming evidence that colors are simply physical reactions to beings’ perceptions of illusory context. It’s not that hard to understand, except when it is impossible to misunderstand. How much clearer could it be?

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The time is approaching 7:45 a.m. in some places. But only because we claim time is an expression of reality…as if we had a clue what might constitute reality. Everything is artificial, including the things we acknowledge as imaginary. We willingly dismiss our disbelief, replacing it with delusions, illusions, and rock-hard ribbons of cotton-soft fibre. I really do wonder what makes any of us think we live in anything representing the “real world.” The “real world” is based on what the real world might be if we had the capacity to differentiate between what is real and what is impossible—although nothing is impossible. Fear and valor both occupy the undersides of valor and fear…at the same time (assuming time actually exists, which it does not). How do we know this? How do we NOT know this?I continue to think I have spent many of the previous 73 years (or thereabout) in the throes of a bizarre fantasy in which I think my perception is identical to reality, or at least similar to it.

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I realize, of course, my words on this page probably seem like the ravings of a mad man. If that’s how you want them to see, I am perfectly comfortable with your frame of mind. But comfort and reality do not necessarily live in the same place, nor in the same time nor the same dimension.

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Leaders of nations serve as role models. Many of those “models” should be preserved in a perpetual bath of formaldehyde and corrosive acid.  The speeds of Earth’s revolutions around the Sun feel dangerous. Worse than that—deadly, as if the slightest deviation away from perfect balance will thrust us into the swirling, razor-sharp spinning blades of a murderous rage designed to rip, shred, and torture. The only evidence I need to confirm that monstrous revelation: an article on the Associated Press website, which reports that a 9-year-old was found last Monday, locked in a van in eastern France since 2024, in Hagenbach, near the borders with Switzerland and Germany, malnourished and unable to walk. Brutality and its miserably cruel cousin, sadism, placed the boy in such impossibly bad circumstances. The only excuse for such horrors? Twisted expressions of so-called “humanity.” The only legitimate reactions to it? Rage. Compassion. Hatred. Love. Clarion calls for the incineration of humankind. Oh, there are more. Among them might be the imposition of unimaginable levels of pain on the responsible parties for thousands of years. But there are so many other incomprehensible crimes that deserve at least the same, if not more horrible, eternal agony. No matter how much I think humanity needs redemption, though, it is not attainable. It is undeserved. There is no power anywhere—on, near, or beyond the edges of the Universe—sufficiently powerful to grant it.

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Solutions to insoluble problems do not exist. The only reactions to those problems are, at best, acknowledgements. Reactions, no matter how extreme and no matter how punishing, barely touch on the fringes of the deep revenge that should shake every foundation of every emotion ever felt. I hate the loathing I feel for the perpetrators and I hate the fact that my loathing is too late in coming and too mild in reply. On the other hand, would I feel any better if I could plunge a sharp screwdriver into the eyes of the perpetrators? Would my own rage or compassion or a deadly, violent, convulsive, frenzied response relieve my anger? Probably not. But that’s not what anyone should be after, is it? My relief is not part of the pursuit. What, then, should be the end-game? For past acts, perhaps it should be comfort for victims. For potential actions not yet taken, maybe it should be prevention and training. There’s never an answer, though, to any of the millions of questions we always have when we stumble into ugly reality. I want to sprint, head-first, into the limitlessly powerful propellers of a jet airplane. But that is, still, NOT the reply we need to give. Somewhere in our little emotionally fragmented tiny brains we should be able to find the ONE SINGLE reply that will “fix” all our human problems. It must be this: the confluence of immeasurable regret and endless compassion, all wrapped into a soul-consuming reaction that dwarfs every other emotion and leaves every one of us with a sense of finality that’s far greater than every beginning and every end we have ever embraced.

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Humanity cannot be cleansed. That weird dream has always been nothing but delusion; intended to save  us from ourselves.

This place is not suitable for a man who relies on weakness for balance. I can stay upright, I think, only if someone has lashed me to a mast. Or until I surrender and submit to external control. Perhaps I will last a while simply by pretending hard to be far more powerful than I am. Timeworn.

Yesterday afternoon, while sitting in our “entertainment room” watching Jeopardy with mi novia and mi cuñada, I was struck by the amazing scope of knowledge of the television participants…and by the people sitting alongside me. How, I wondered, can the human brain be so flexible and so capable of storing such enormous amounts of facts, figures, and general information? My appreciation of the brain’s capacities goes well beyond the mere ability to recall information. Our brains do not simply store data. They also allow us to develop a deeper understanding of what the data tell us by interpreting and manipulating it. That means we can use our creativity to magnify the value and density of the data we absorb. Simply by dedicating mental energy to understanding relationships between the abstract and the concrete, we multiply the impact of exposure to information, as well as the practical application of that exposure. Sitting here at my desk, that concept seems remarkable. But, then, everything is.

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When I was hired by an association management company in Chicago in 1985, I was assigned a client I was to serve as executive director, the Association of Rotational Molders. Before my first day on the job, though, the association decided to contract with a different association management company. Perhaps that should have been a sign for me. Yet I did not read it that way. Things might have been very different had I  seen matters through a different prism.

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Isolation imposes on us a cost, while simultaneously creating a barrier between us and the dangers of seclusion. Isolation separates us from the damage of being “too close” to harmful circumstances. The costs of isolation are counterbalanced by the reduction of the dangers that often accompany seclusion. It could take me pages and pages to adequately explain what I have just written; but the value of the explanation might never reach a point at which I think the explanation adequate. My head is spinning in confusion. I need to empty my mind of the chaos that has infected it for so long. Quiet stillness and softness, alone, can permit me to achieve the serenity I want and need.

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Sometimes, I feel like I am at the point of breaking; shattering into thousands of brittle, sharp fragments. Yet I do not know whether such a “coming undone” would be a good or a bad thing. If I were to splinter in such a way, I might be forced to form a new entity; possibly an entity that would have no remnants of its chaotic foundational roots. On the other hand, I might discover that the fracture left only dust and debris—the same composition as before, just more distorted and unsatisfactory. No matter what followed, though, a web of jagged, tangled nerves and a mist of confusion probably would envelope me. Years ago, I watched a television movie called The Shout, starring Alan Bates, Susannah York, and John Hurt. I feel like I am the title character of the film (the shout, claimed by Bates), who claims he can kill a person with a mystical shout. No, that’s not quite how I feel; I feel like the dark energy that channels the horrible sound and its destructive power. But I cannot know that’s how I feel, can I? Why, I wonder, does that crippling darkness seem like it lives alongside me; occupying the same brain, the same space, the same timeframe, and the same disturbing proximity to both my surface and my substance?

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The pills, the chemo, the radiation, the distance between who and where I am, and a thousand other factors cover me, as if I have been dropped into a tank filled with white flour. I only imagine that is how I feel; new realities have nothing against which they can be compared, so we can only create artificial experiences. Nothing new can he experienced entirely on its own. We compare and contrast what was to what may be or may become.

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Sleep. Again. That must be the answer. Even without knowing the question, I think sleep must be the answer. We shall see, sha’n’t we?

Phaedra is hungry, she claims. She wants food and attention. I have given her both. I hope she finds them sufficient.

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REVISED: I’ve lost track of time again; the majority of the last six days—more or less—exist only as fragmented memories that seem to rely on a blend of experience and the compensation my imagination provides. I’m sure the recent radiation treatments of my brain (ending March 27) are largely responsible. Unfortunately, after those treatments were interrupted and after I was carted off to the hospital by ambulance on April 6,  a visit from my niece and nephew was interrupted; nonetheless, the visit was much-appreciated and enjoyable when I was sufficiently awake and aware to enjoy their company. Still focusing on the positive side, I was quite happy to be sent home later the same day. As the ER doctor (and as my oncologist reiterated during yesterday’s appointment at her clinic) the cancer experience—both the disease itself and its treatments—constitutes a series of ups and downs. I find it incredibly frustrating to sleep so much, to feel so “out of it” so often, and to be unsteady on my feet, but when I see and hear about other patients’ experiences, I recognize that my frustration is insignificant compared to theirs. Still, I suppose the way I process my experience is understandable, if bathed in self-pity.

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While at the hospital on Monday morning, I overheard one end of a few telephone conversations between a young woman outside my ER “room” and various people with whom she was speaking. The woman, who I believe mentioned she was 22 years old, said she was an alcoholic and was seeking a place where she could get treatment. Apparently, the hospital did not have (or could not provide her with) a bed and treatment. Calls to several other facilities (and to her father) provided no relief.

The woman’s conversation led me to believe she is destitute; no money, no insurance, no car, no place to sleep, etc. When speaking to someone she called “dad,” she said she could not make her way home (to her father’s house in Mena, I think I heard) because she had no way to get there. On one hand, listening to only her side of the conversation, I could understand her difficulty in getting help. Her comments seemed to me to be delivered by someone who wanted people to understand she was a needy victim of society. On the other hand, she said she understands she is responsible for her predicament and that she just wants a little help getting free of addiction.

Finally, she spoke to Adult & Teen Challenge, which provides “holistic addiction recovery through medical care, counseling, and long-term discipleship,” and says on its website that “Our programs focus on healing the whole person – physical, mental, and spiritual, through inpatient and outpatient care, relapse-prevention support, long-term discipleship and aftercare.”  The woman’s conversation led me to believe she is destitute; no money, no insurance, no car, no place to sleep, etc. When speaking to someone she called “dad,” she said she could not make her way home (to her father’s house in Mena, I think I heard) because she had no way to get there. On one hand, listening to only her side of the conversation, I could understand her difficulty in getting help. Her comments seemed to me to be delivered by someone who wanted people to believe she was a needy victim of society. On the other hand, she said she understands she is responsible for her predicament and that she just wants a little help getting free of addiction. The outcome—as much of it as I know, anyway—was that Adult & Teen Challenge agreed to send someone to provide transportation to the nearest recovery center. And a very kind woman approached her and told her she had overheard her conversations; the woman said taking the first step, to seek treatment, was a wise one. The woman then gave her a hug and $20 to get breakfast. Observing someone in the midst of such a trauma strengthen my  wish that our social safety nets for people who need help were stronger and more easily accessible.  I can only imagine how difficult it must be for people in crisis to overcome both the obstacles to getting access to care and to the stigma so often attached to needing help.

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Since my last post, about a week ago, the lunacy and viciousness of the monster occupying the office of President of the United States have been on full display. His insinuation that he was prepared to commit heinous war crimes as a follow-on to his unilateral decision to attack Iran is yet another example of the man’s absolute unfitness to hold office. I am equally distressed—incensed— that so few of the sitting members of Congress have failed to acknowledge the dangerous recklessness of his actions and words. This country’s experience with the current occupant of the highest office in the land (and congressional complicity with his high crimes and misdemeanors) should lead to changes in the U.S. Constitution that would force Congress to act and would give voters the right to remove Federal officials from office.

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Sitting alone to contemplate myself and the world in which I live is an opportunity for which I am extremely grateful. The time I spend in those contemplative moments does not always lead to positive outcomes, but it allows me to think deeply about things that inspire me, that annoy me, that frighten me, or that generate intensely emotional sensations. In every case, the time I spend is enlightening, especially when I force myself to ask more questions about WHY I feel or think or sense what I experience. The more time I spend looking internally for understanding, the more I come to realize how important that time can be. Simultaneously, though, I discover that the time also guides me toward a better understanding of listening to and trying to understand others’ perspectives. I still am in the chemo/radiation “fog,” so I doubt I am writing lucidly as I’d like. Maybe I can return later to read what I wrote and clarify things that do not seem to me to coherently express what I intended to say.

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I received a wonderful gift last week, delivered by two very nice friends from church. The gift was a glass jar filled with short notes from them and other people in and around church, expressing thoughts about me. The gifts were so very kind and generous. I plan to generate enough energy to respond to every one individually via email. I truly appreciate and value the comments written to me by these wonderfully kind folks who were able to submit notes for the gift jar (and those who would have if they had been able to do it when they were collected):

Ducky B.–Sara S.–Deb B.–Daryl K.–Ruan R.–Marily M.–Judy J.–Jerrian N.–Sue M.–Dave D.–Sue–Rose W.–Maria R.–Dee O.–Kathy G.–Salli F.–Colleen B. (mi novia)–Dane N.–Susan C.–Susan J.–Cloe G.–Bill J.–Inice O.–Susan J.–Jay W.

My original diagnosis of lung cancer, around Thanksgiving in 2018, did not correspond with a big increase in traffic to this blog. At the time, my blog had even fewer followers than it does today. Reading the posts, today, that I wrote back then is a bit like stumbling onto a secret few people shared. That was so long ago. The world has since changed in unimaginable ways. An ugly place has become worse.  A grim future has begun to take shape, replacing unpleasant possibilities with increasingly strong likelihoods. These days, my desire to remain “positive” feels quaint and stupid—as if I am attempting to cling to misguided delusions that can occupy only the mind of an idiot. In fact, I do not know just what to expect, neither with regard to substance nor with respect to time. Does one feel a growing weakness, or is the sensation more like a decline in strength? I doubt the two are synonymous, though they must be similar to one another. Despite having had my hair cut very short within the last few weeks, my sudden experience with significant loss of the hair that’s left surprises me. Clumps of hair appear to be unable to remain connected to their roots, dropping thin grey globs of hair mixed with strands of what used to be hair that’s no  longer there. I try to express my silly confusion with whimsical verse. Instead, I think the effort falls (or fails) like follicles. It’s almost 10:00 A.M., yet today’s blog-birth has yet to come to fruition. My thoughts remain scrambled; not yet congealed. Like eggs—beaten but not exposed to heat. More than six minutes have passed. Still, though, the eggs remain runny and cool. If I had time and patience, I could make replicas of feathers, using only beaten eggs and whisps of hair. I do have enough time, I think, but my patience is inadequate. My willingness to endure falls short of what’s required to construct wings. Why, I wonder, do I feel pain where I feel pain? Are the feathers’ quills stabbing me, or is there something else trying to cause me to erupt in a violent outburst against intrusive attacks on what’s left of my serenity? If I could launch missiles with a touch of my finger, I might introduce massive explosions to this quiet neighborhood…but it’s not really so quiet. The sounds of an ambulance punctured the solitude a few minutes ago. Damn.

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The time has somehow slipped by, unnoticed. I’ve already written most of today’s post…in just the last two hours. And I’ve had my espresso and taken a few pills and otherwise paid homage to modern medicine. I am now ready to be sleeping, pain-free and deep in the clutches of delightful rest. Why is it so much later now than it was when I woke? Why can I not control more of my environment or my responses to it? My toes are cold. My hands are colder. On a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable and satisfied am I? Is it a 3? A 5? Or a 2, perhaps? Is my comfort still lingering near the bottom of the scale? Of all the saints, which one is the patron saint of serene sleep and maximum comfort? One day, I will ask the question  in a more serious way. Until then, I will substitute dreams for reality and hunger for satiation.

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My order of patchouli incense cones finally arrived a few days ago. If the outdoor temperatures were a tad warmer (e.g., 73°F versus 61°F) and the sun a bit brighter, I might go out on the deck with a cone. But it’s too cool outside for me at the moment. Inside, the smoke can be overpowering. So, I will wait.  Television writers are wont to say perfection can be the enemy of the good. I am impatient. Not perfectly so, but sufficiently. Adequately impatient. Abundantly impatient. I have taken pain pill (more on that in a moment). I may consume a relaxational gummy before long, just to scrape off some of my roughest edges; there are so damn many of them. I might want to polish those rough edges to a fine sheen, but they may be too rough and too resistant to sculpting. So, a bit of scraping and sanding and buffing may be all those edges get until I have enough energy and motivation to break through the coating of grit that dulls the shine I’m after.

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When nurses ask me to describe my pain on a scale of 1 to 20, my frustration with the question spikes. The impossibility of giving s rationale answer is akin to how I might respond  if asked to “describe the odor of a color between beige and seventy-seven.” The answer is at least as crazy as any question that might generate a reply. Pain is uniquely personal. A sensation I might describe as excruciatingly painful could be experienced as a mild irritation to someone else. Or, someone else could be in intense agony, while my experience with the same stimuli  might be barely noticeable. These variations in feeling pain may have more to do with a person’s history of exposure to unpleasant sensations than with the measurable level of discomfort. If, for example, the worse pain I ever felt was a pin-prick in the finger to draw blood for a measure of blood sugar, slamming a finger in a door could be experienced as beyond tolerable. Only by comparing that intolerable experience with something far worse—say, a gunshot to the abdomen—could the pain of the experiences be properly evaluated on a scale. Assigning a number to any point on the scale is essentially arbitrary without the ability to compare that number with others is a wasted effort. A child might experience his first mosquito bite as intense and barely tolerable; his hundredth mosquito bite may be almost unnoticeable. At this very moment, my “pain number” is comparatively low, but the same level of pain I feel right now would have felt considerably worse three or four years ago. So, I suppose it would be legitimate to say pain is contextual; whether it’s legitimate or not, it seems that way to me. I can more readily adapt to this pain than I would have adapted in the not-too-distant past. How bad is it? Bad enough to have awakened me around 5 AM, but not bad enough to have driven me to the medicine cabinet in search of hydrocodone. Yet doctors tell me to take pain medications at the earliest signs of pain, rather than waiting until the pain gets worse. My thought processes tell me the effects of the painkillers will be more noticeable if I wait; doctors say the pain will be harder to control if I let it get more intense before I respond to it. In the past, I’ve been given fast-acting injections that quickly reduced my pain. Pills do not act so quickly and so completely. For that reason, I think I would be more likely to turn earlier to fast-acting pain-killer injections. And that probably is sufficient reason to stick with the pills…and to wait until I feel a more intense need/desire to reduce the pain. I don’t think my pain has gotten appreciably worse over the years, but I think I just may be tiring of it more quickly and more often. It seems really silly to me to be constantly aware of my pain, especially considering the fact that it is rarely “bad.” It’s just annoying. But when it disappears completely, I feel such unexpected relief. Enough that, when I finally convince myself to take the pills and they start to kick in, I think I should pay more attention to the doctors’ advice.

The desire for solitude competes with the need for company or companionship. Fulfilling one has the effect of making the other unavailable or otherwise impossible to obtain. Those conflicting needs/wants make as much sense as wishing for the temperature to be both lower and higher at the same moment in the same place. Whether nonsensical or not, though, those desires can and do exist simultaneously.

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Neither life nor death can exist without the the other to validate the other’s existence. Yet that makes no sense to me. The definitions of both demand the existence of the other, but if life must precede death, what precedes life? Another way to put it is this: which came first, the chicken or the olive? That calls into question the concept of a “beginning.” What came before the beginning? And what will follow the end? Every question has at least one wrong answer; right answers, though, are not so abundant.

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The perils of blogging—in the way I do (by documenting my stream-of-consciousness thoughts and observations about whatever occupies my mind while I write)—include leaving day-by-day evidence of my fractured mentality. Later, when I read what I wrote, that evidence can slap me in the face, revealing things I’d rather not know about myself; for instance, evidence that I may not be up to the mental challenges that accompany terminal illness. “Up to,” meaning able to remain more or less positive while I feel myself decay. That’s not quite it, but I cannot summon words that successfully describe the indescribable. Some mornings, even the simplest thoughts seem almost overwhelming. Those days begin with wanting to return to bed and sleep for as long as it takes to outdistance the disease. Or to return to a state of mind I remember from “before.” Before my late wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and before cardiomyopathy took its toll on her, before I was diagnosed with lung cancer, and before the progress of my cancer asserted itself by robbing me of a future I want to share for much longer than will be possible. My pity is not limited to myself, but it tends to dwell on my experience, more so than on the ways in which my experience impacts people around me. Acknowledging that self-centered perspective does nothing more than to emphasize and remind me of my egocentricity; which I document through blogging, thereby keeping it in front of me. The concepts of “self-fulfilling prophecy” and “Catch-22” and more flood my thoughts and compound one another in cyclical ways that seem inescapable.

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Not quite six years ago, I wrote the following sentences and published them in my blog. “In a universe so remarkably complicated, chaos and randomness would erupt in the absence of a natural tendency toward balance. I think the universe seeks balance. I say “seeks” not in the sense of intent but in the sense of natural affinity; the way water on planet Earth, thanks to gravity, seeks to flow downward.  The concepts of good and bad, happy and sad, night and day, light and darkness, heat and cold, etc., are expressions of balance. Each pairing is enormously complex in its own right—and in some cases the “pairing” is virtually impossible to understand or even to see. Taken collectively, though, opposites represent the universe seeking balance.”

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I’ve been up for well over two hours, but still haven’t had breakfast; nor have I fed the cat nor swallowed my morning pharmaceutical products. The prescriptions are not the simple kind…the “take one a day” pills. Some of mine call for one tablet once or twice a day…or one tablet for five days, followed by 2 tablets for 3 days, then 1 tablet for seven days, then 3 tablets for 3 days, then…on and on. Not a simple set of instructions. I think pharmaceutical cessation may be in order…just stop taking everything. Flushing all foreign matter from all of my systems could be THE ANSWER. Now, I need to think of THE CORRESPONDING  QUESTION . Perhaps, Instead, I should just return to bed and, then, after I wake up again, start the day over. that has more than a little appeal. I would be willing to start with a shot of whiskey, but the drugs I am taking should not accompany alcohol. Instead, I may have a gummy to ease some minor pain and polish the sharp edges of my of my thoughts until they become soft, gentle curves. Only by giving the matter time will I learn the outcome of my contemplations. And off I go.

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The memory of psychological pain lasts, for me,  far longer than does the recollection of physical agony. Now, as I write this, I wonder “whether psychological” is the right word. Perhaps I should have used “mental,” instead? If the difference between psychological and mental mattered to me more than it does, I would have explored the meanings of both word; selecting one or the other based on the results of my research. But, obviously, the contextual importance of the words was—and remains—insufficient to warrant the time and effort involved in pursuit of certainty. But explaining why I did not bother to delve deeper into the matter DOES merit spending time to clarify why I did not dig deeper? Had I spent more time considering such trivia, I might be in a better position to understand and express my reasons for going seven days without writing anything to post on this blog, Maybe, because I did not dig deeper, I cannot remember my reason(s) for ignoring my morning habit for so long. It strikes me that I used “morning” correctly in the sentence I just wrote. I could have called my my habit of posting to this blog my “mourning” habit. My writing sometimes expresses, in one way or another, my sensation of mourning; whether profound  sorrowful bereavement or mild regret. I wish I knew the underlying cause of this propensity of mine. There must be something, whether hidden just beneath the surface of my conscious thought or buried so deep I cannot unearth it, even after trying hard to understand the root cause(s). If I had enormous sums of money that I could use to fund unnecessary expenses, I might use part of the funds to pay for psychological analysis. But even if I had the luxury of obscene wealth, I would not know how to find and identify therapists who can help clients “connect the dots” in ways that enable them to understand themselves more thoroughly. And more reliably. And with a great degree of confidence. In other words, I seek the services of a magician who reads minds, can uncover unconscious or hidden motives, and who can help erase memories of the past that contribute in some way to anxiety or depression or mental (or psychological) pain. It is entirely possible that those memories are not responsible for whatever-it-is that creates discomfort. It’s possible that one of the umpteen prescriptions medications—either alone or in concert with other medications—are responsible. Whatever. I am just curious. And I have certain requirement of a therapist. I want the therapist to be female because I am far more likely to trust females than males; no reasons I know of to explain that predilection, but perhaps informative in and of itself. I want the therapist to be someone unknown to me and vice versa. I want the therapist to be someone whose compassion is obviously real, not someone who has been trained to “behave compassionately” for the purposes of engendering trust and respect. I probably have more criteria that I have not yet articulated.  Enough about my neurosis or psychosis or other “osis” that might respond to therapy of one kind or another (or, an “itis” if that’s what is responsible for…whatever).

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Yesterday, while mi novia was otherwise occupied on an errand, my late wife’s sister and her friend brought me lunch, a Volcano Roll from West Village Hibachi. ‘Twas a delightful lunch and conversation. It’s nice to have company, especially an unhurried visit involving food and relaxed conversation. Before that, I chatted via Zoom with my three remaining siblings. As usual, Zoom was not entirely cooperative, but it worked well enough for a good conversation. Despite promises to revert back to the free version, I had not done that, which was good; we spent an hour and 45 minutes in total on the conversation, which would have given us only 40 minutes under the free plan. The capabilities exist for reliable tele-video services at reasonable rates, I am sure, but my expectations are greater than my experiences, I suppose. I need more espresso. And I need to drink my Ensure. And I need to return to bed for another hour our four of sleep.

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My radiation treatment for the brain lesions discovered as a result of my last brain MRI are behind me; finished Friday. Their impact, if any, should be known within a couple of months, plus or minus a few days. Chemotherapy probably will start again this week or next. Beyond that? Who knows? I would love to be rid of this crap, but the unlikelihood of that  desire being met is rather high. I think I’ll just have to get used having ongoing treatments from now until then. Whenever “then” is. What is the timeline, I wonder? Where will it take me? And when?

I feel little else. Just the naked pursuit of purity. If only the chase could be paused for a while longer, I might become the predator instead of the prey. I realize, of course, the words I place on the monitor amount to no more than gibberish. It is a trick. A deceptive act meant to confuse, startle, annoy, and surprise. When words are cobbled together like a mermaid’s shoes, sunlight spills from everywhere except that crucial spot; that place nobody is willing to explore.

I stumble on dust. I trip over pieces of thread. Empty air, too thick and steep to overcome, behaves like a mountain of granite blocking my way. The immeasurable chasm between here and there refuses to be bridged. Whether I cling to the rope or let it go does not matter. My grip weakens as my hands hemorrhage strength.

I heard myself moaning during the night, but I did not realize until much later I was the one making the sounds. Until I determined I had been responsible for the noise, I felt both pity and scorn for the source of the sound. Once I knew, though, my perspective changed. I cringed in embarrassment. I felt myself clutching at the weeds; trying to disguise myself by covering my face. Half an hour crept by, unnoticed, while I attempted to distance myself from who I had been.

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My oversight is haunting me. I allowed my medical marijuana license to lapse. My next objective, then, will be to go through the necessary hoops to recover it so that, afterward, I can have ready access to the flimsy, funny serenity that accompanies consumption of gummies.

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The time is approaching 7:00 a.m. Or, maybe, I am approaching that moment in time, instead. Regardless, the next phase will involve additional sleep. I have come to love sleep. Sleep is my refuge; a den into which I burrow. I can fall asleep in the passenger seat of a car, thereby transforming the vehicle into a retreat. The car’s metal cage becomes a protective shell; an impenetrable fortress that can save me from injury but cannot prevent intrusion by disease.

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This is an odd atmosphere…this place between reality and fantasy. It does not…cannot…exist, but its denial is an exercise in pointlessness. Dreaming while awake and alive must be an experience unlike any other. This post seems to encapsulate madness at every angle, doesn’t it? It is an intentional endeavor, meant to avoid the hum-drum meaninglessness that is so often as solid as hardened epoxy and as fluid as free-flowing glass.

I wonder whether a recent string of confusing absent-mindedness…or whatever it is…is just coincidental or is related to my condition and/or the treatments for it. On one hand, I really want to know, but on the other I do not want to call unnecessary attention to something that need not be a subject of focus. If I can just sleep my way through the confusion, I will be content to ignore it. I did that last night. I took a “nap” at around 6:00 p.m., I think. I woke at 9:30, long enough to eat an ice cream bar, then went to bed. Phaedra woke me again sometime after 4:00 this morning and here I am—sleepy and wanting nothing more than another few hours of unconsciousness.

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The second radiation treatment was of much shorter duration than the first. That, I was told, was because the first treatment involved the radiologist double-checking to make sure the treatment was in alignment with the plan. It was. So the eight remaining treatments should be tolerable…I hope. I do not do well on a hard, flat table; my body rebels with excruciating pain. I am a wimp.

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Yesterday afternoon, I listened to the tail end of an NPR interview in which Terry Gross discussed the current state of events in Iran and the rest of the Middle East with Karim Sadjadpour, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Sadjadpour says the “war of choice” that was started quickly became a “war of necessity” when Iran opted to close the Strait of Hormuz. By the end of their conversation, my understanding of the turmoil had improved; but so had my appreciation for the extraordinary complexity of the circumstances that helped trigger the current crisis. I am confident that simple solutions to the problem that is Iran do not exist. No matter how badly the rest of the world wants peace and stability in the region, it will not arrive on the wings of jet fighters and bombers. How—or whether—it will ever arrive probably will not be answered for a very, very long time.

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Now that Phaedra and I have both been fed, I think it appropriate to return to bed. My mind is unwilling to function coherently at the moment, so any efforts to continue writing would be wasted. I hear a low, growling buzz in the background, as if the ground on which this house was built is being raised in preparation for lift-off. Perhaps the entire State of Arkansas is an alien environment placed here many generations ago by visitors from distant galaxies…and now those visitors are preparing to return to their stellar roots. And, lucky me, I just happen to be living in a house that is about to be transported to galaxies that exist in reciprocal dimensions, trillions and trillions of light years distant.

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Serious thoughts refuse to stick to the sides of my brain. Except when there’s pain involved; then, shit gets serious. But aside from that, nothing going on but cackling. I do not want to do ANYTHING today. Not radiation. Not eat food. Not read the news. Not be entertained. Just be unconscious. Asleep. Comfortably numb.  Well, it’s time to find out just how long that can last. Off to bed again, to dream the impossible dream. To wax poetic in my slumbers. I’m tempted to take another painkiller; then another in six hours. Yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do. And to all, a good sleep! I wonder whether all this is due to brain bumps?

Try as I might, I cannot think deeply this morning. My ability to think philosophically seems to be inoperable at this moment. Actually, that is not quite true—I purposely avoid introspective exploration at this instant because I sense it would trigger the failure of an emotional dam. Torrential emotions are capable of sparking fear, hatred, hopelessness, rage, and worse. They can drown restraint, enabling the free exercise of monstrous behaviors without regard to the damage, destruction, or even death they may cause. So, I do not want to explore the moral corruption of MAGA. I do not want to consider whether humanity has a snowball’s change in hell of overcoming its own overwhelming sickness. I do not want to risk discovering that human life has no more meaning than a grain of sand has intellect. When I read some of what I have written in the past, I wonder whether I was a different person when I wrote those pieces? Of course I was. Life experiences change us. Joy brings about change. But so does misery. Acceptance and denial compete for dominance. Control and powerlessness expose strength and weakness, while hiding the emptiness of both. Stream of consciousness drivel with purpose? I should have stayed in bed.

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Phaedra (the cat) has been allowed back into the “owner’s suite” for a while now, thanks mostly to the generous affection bestowed on her by her Cat-Mama and the fragile tolerance extended to her by her reluctant Cat-Daddy. Lately, though, she has begun testing the limits of tolerance—by rattling the wooden window blinds and meowing loudly around 3:30 a.m.  She is a nocturnal creature, as cats are wont to be, whose ability to sleep during the day exceeds even mine. Unlike me, though, she cannot seem to exercise that ability all through the night. After the sun goes down, she must pace, pounce, race, poke, and otherwise expend massive amounts of dark energy. I mention  all of this by way of explanation as to why I began, yet again, writing a blog post at 4:40 a.m.

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The radiation of my brain yesterday did not bother me. The bother was the pain I experienced while in my lower back and my gut on the hard, metal table. During the short (10-15 minutes?) procedure, the pain in my back increased quickly—exponentially—to the point that I wondered whether I could tolerate it any longer. Even though I took a hydrocodone/ acetaminophen tablet a hour before the procedure (having experienced that pain before), the experience was excruciatingly painful by the time the procedure was completed and I was finally allowed to sit up. The good news, though, is I have only nine more sessions to go. 🙁  The hair loss I expect to experience probably will begin sometime around the last treatment (in two weeks), but it “probably” will grow back within six months or so.

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Mi novia’s daughter glimpsed a tiny glint in the rocky soil behind our house a couple of days ago. When she investigated, she discovered it was a dark brown stone combined with an extensive network of quartz crystals. She dug up the stone and spent hours cleaning it and then coating the gleaming specimen with tung oil. It is now in our possession; a beautiful piece of evidence of the geological diversity and attractiveness of this little piece of land on which we live.

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I shall return to bed in a moment. It’s not yet 5:40 a.m. I could get a little more sleep before the day begins in earnest. I ache in earnest for sleep.

I wrote the paragraphs below this one shortly after I awoke this morning, when I felt more energetic, more hopeful, and more powerful than I feel now. Reality settles over me like low-lying fog hovering above a river in the early morning. The stuff is so thick I fear I’ll drown if I breathe in too deeply. When life becomes so attractive and appealing that it threatens to burst with joy, it can implode instead. With the collapse of overwhelming beauty, fog becomes smoke. Smoke thickens into tar. Tar hardens into something impermeable and unbreakable like obsidian, almost invisible in its eternal blackness. The last stage of rage follows—absolute silence except for the gritting of teeth and the snapping of bones in one’s clinched fists. But it has nowhere to go, no targets to destroy. So it tries to consume itself, leaving hideous collateral damage in its wake.

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The warmth of Spring disappeared with a vengeance yesterday afternoon. Temperatures, which had reached into the high seventies (perhaps even higher) in recent days, retreated into the upper twenties or low thirties by late evening. Weather reports from around the state and the region show that tornadoes and straight-line winds did substantial damage as the cold-front swept through. For us, there was wind and a bit of rain, but nothing as severe as the devastation surrounding our area.

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Last night, mi novia hosted a family dinner at The Porterhouse, an upscale steakhouse in downtown Hot Springs. The family included: mi novia, her daughter, her daughter’s son, mi novia‘s ex-husband, my late wife’s sister, and me. When dinner was over, several of us took vast amounts of food home with us. My take-home included an enormous chunk of my entree, a monstrous bone-in ribeye steak with bourbon and mushroom glaze. Delightful evening! Earlier in the day, while I was napping, mi novia‘s daughter dug up a huge mass of quartz crystal in our yard; she spent considerable time cleaning it, revealing an extraordinarily beautiful piece of natural art that has been hidden from our view.  Before that, the child-grandchild pair did work for which we ancients had little energy; re-stuffed pillows into newly-cleaned upholstered covers for our deck furniture. The two of them are great company; if only they lived closer so their visits could be more frequent.

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Beginning this afternoon, for each of the next ten weekdays, I will go to town to undergo a procedure called whole-brain radiotherapy with hippocampal avoidance (HA-WBRT). The purpose of the procedure will be to reduce or eliminate a metastatic lesion in my brain. I know. I’ve already said this. I’m saying it again to emphasize, for myself, what is at stake. Without treatment, the cancer probably would spread quickly. There is no guarantee the procedure will stop the development, but it is certainly worth a try. The likely or potential short-term side-effects (fatigue, alopecia, nausea, short-term cognitive issues) typically do not last long, according to both the radiologist who recommended the procedure and Dr. AI Google. A medication (memantine) I am to take to accompany the process for a period of several months, beginning today, has some side-effects of its own, including:

• Dizziness and headache: Frequently reported, particularly when starting treatment.
• Gastrointestinal issues: Constipation, diarrhea, vomiting, and decreased appetite.
• Neurological symptoms: Confusion, drowsiness (somnolence), fatigue, and insomnia.
• Other: Hypertension (high blood pressure), anxiety, pain (especially back pain), and cough

Thus far, my experiences with cancer have been less than pleasant, but far from intolerable. I am quite fortunate in that regard; I have seen many patients whose experiences have been nothing short of horrible. My hope, of course, is that my own experiences do not degrade into that territory, in which the treatment experience may be dramatically worse than the disease.

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Diving into the depths of a good day, one is bound to encounter a few sharp rocks and stray bullets.