Having a Moment Here (and Now)

The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things, I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
crow voice
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,
and never once mentioned forever
                      --Mary Oliver

I turned thirty years old standing on a bridge in Yoyogi Park in Tokyo. It was a Sunday, and on the concourse below, bands were playing, lots of them. Rock-a-Billy. Punk. Metal. Thrash. 60's Covers. You name it. There were at least 30 bands jamming away. All at once. Each with varying degree of expertise and talent, all with much enthusiasm. And people were dancing, or at least moving their bodies in interesting ways, with fans of particular bands dressed in the same style as their pals on stage (punk-a-billy was by far the most popular ). This exuberant display of organized rebellion happened every Sunday, the guidebooks said. Young Tokyo-ites would pile all their gear -- guitars, drums, generators – onto the subway, emerge at Harajuku Station, and set up one band right next to or across from another, creating a corridor of sound at this particular spot in Yoyogi Koen. It. Was. Amazing. And really, really loud, so loud the cherry blossoms shook. Well, maybe that was wind, but still, loud.

I was pleasantly surprised to be suddenly thirty and living in such a country, where I happened to be teaching English to rich housewives and corporate executives. It's not that thirty was a big deal; it wasn't. I hadn't accomplished anything in my life at that point, really, and was sort of hiding out in Japan from embarrassment. I didn't own a house, had no kids, no spouse (are those accomplishments? hmmm), no prospects, and no clue what I was doing. I'd squandered my twenties on pub crawls and college with not much to show for it. But I remember that moment on the bridge as one in which I was particularly glad to be alive, and walking through that crazy, joyful corridor-o-sound that day had made me even more glad.

With thirty a long way behind me now, I still feel that way about my life,
glad and grateful to be in it, moment to moment. And I feel that way especially when I go out to hear live music with my family, something I get to do a lot of in Nashville. For instance, this past week, my sweet step-daughter took us to see one of our favorite San Francisco artists, Chuck Prophet, with his band The Mission Express. They played at a small club not far from my house, and I spent the entire show being really, really happy. Also, Chuck was wearing a Waylon Jennings t-shirt, so bonus happy there.

And, I got to feel that way again yesterday when I got the report on my new set of scans. It was a really good report. It said that there is no visible cancer in my lungs, that all the tumors that were there are gone. It said that the constellation of tumors in my brain has gone mostly dark, except for one little 2 millimeter spot.  It said that spot was there on the last scan too, but it hasn't gotten any bigger. So basically, I have 2 millimeters of visible cancer in my body. And I think there's a good chance that 2 millimeters will disappear with continued treatment on lorlatinib. We'll find out with the next set of scans, but I am wildly optimistic. And it's funny to be happy about the fact that I have 2 millimeters of cancer, isn't it? I mean who else would be happy about having any cancer at all? Still, 2 millimeters feels like a win to me. But that win isn't mine. It goes to the researchers who created this medicine. It goes to all who have prayed for me and wished me well, and to the one to whom you have offered those prayers. I take every breath with gratitude.

So, is my cancer nearly cured? Not exactly. I still have stage IV metastatic disease. And that disease can rear its ugly head any time it decides to become resistant to treatment. But lorlatinib is a really potent treatment, and right now, it's working. So I'm having a moment here. And it's a pretty fucking great one!