A Bajillion Sonic Suns (Cancerversary #7)

What the heck? It's my seven-year cancerversary, and today I am at a writers conference listening to a guest speaker talk about publishing, with a posse of excited middle schoolers by my side. Deja vu. Seven years ago, I had turned up at another writers conference to give a workshop to middle and high schoolers, and I was toting a 1-day-old lung cancer diagnosis that took up a lot of space in my psyche. On that beautiful fall day, I sat with a dear friend under a circle of trees on a bench in a university quad and told him I was probably going to die before too long. The disease was stage 4, incurable, with a terrible prognosis, according to my "extensive" research online. He thought maybe a higher power had other plans for me. I was skeptical. Who was I to deserve any special consideration from the universe?

But he was right. I didn't die soon after that conference. Instead, I got treatment, well, multiple treatments of targeted oral therapy, infusion chemo, radiation, and more targeted therapy, which I still take every day. I was fortunate enough to join a clinical trial. And at seven years into this crazy cancer dance, I have crammed in a lot of living I never thought I'd get to do when I was handed a diagnosis that sounded a whole lot like a death sentence. Instead, I got a miracle. To honor that miracle, which has the hand of the divine in it, along with the hard work of researchers, my medical team, and the loving kindness shown to me by dear ones, family, friends, and even complete strangers, I am inviting you to support research into ROS1 cancer by donating to my personal fundraiser through Network for Good here: Leslie's ROS1 Research Fundraiser

And for your viewing pleasure below, to celebrate this miraculous stretch of life, last week I took one of my old radiation masks I'd been saving since 2019 when the cancer had metastasized to my brain, and I cut it up, painted it, and made a weird mobile out of. Plastic, wire, paint. I wrote a poem on it:

Your dreaming body

dreams of dancing

atomic be-bop

cells and organelles

muck and mud

germ and bud

a bajillion sonic suns

believe believe believe

breathe

And that's what I hope to do for a good long while...just breathe. Oh, and make weird art. And maybe, just maybe, make a wee difference by helping move the needle on cancer research.

Gratitude Post

 

And so, another year around the sun. Here I am again with the few remaining blossoms on the “memorial” cherry tree we planted 7 birthdays ago, when I didn’t think I’d be alive the following year to see it bloom again. Divine Creator had other plans it seems, so I am trying to live into whatever those plans might be with gratitude and joy. Thus, for the next several days, I’ll be celebrating in style as a volunteer with the Big Ears music festival in Knoxville. We’ve got all sorts of artists and performances in the line-up, big venues and small, from poetry to punk-cumbia, and everything in between. Plus there are those wonderful visits I’ll get to have with precious friends of many years. It’s my third go around with the Ears, and I’m more than thrilled to be working the festival. Heck, given my prognosis when we planted that cherry tree, I’m thrilled right now to be anywhere at all! 

So, if you see me grooving to some far-out Big Ears weirdness, say hey and ask me about miracles. I have some experience with them and would be happy to share.

Thanks to all my dear ones who sent good wishes and prayers that have gotten me to today. You keep me groovin’!

More Dreaming, Less Lessing

This past week I had the pleasure of reading lots of friends' New Year's resolutions on the socials. I also followed a trend where, instead of making a resolution or two, a person chooses a word or phrase that sets an intention for the coming year. I LOVED reading these words and the explanations for the choices, reveling in the connection with my fellow humans through our shared belief in the potency of words to shape our reality. It made sense that the words people chose were deliberate and positive: hope, kindness, determination, gratitude, etc. I say "YES" to all of them (risking accusations of toxic positivity). But I have had a hard time choosing a by-word of my own. 

At first I thought I'd go with the word "less," setting an intention to be less busy (2023 was pretty hectic), to acquire less stuff, to leave a smaller environmental footprint in every way possible. It's an important mindset for me to maintain, this one of taking up less space in the world, but when I really push on this idea of "less" my mind gets stuck in an infinity loop of diminishing returns. Yes, a "lesser" approach counters the overly-busy overachiever impulses and makes me hold more still, be more intentional in action and consumption, but I also keep hearing a big "NO" behind the idea of "less." As in "mustn't" and "cannot."

So after more consideration, I befriended the word "DREAM" and all the expansiveness, inventiveness, playfulness, and imagination that word summons. Dreaming (in sleep or in waking revery) is spacious, full of energy and air. It is an endless creative resource; it is where doing and making begin. But dreaming is also a thing unto itself—one may dream and not act at every instance. 

We shine full of story anyway, when we dream. It's enough to start a new year, a new day, a new breath.

P.S. I have the luxury of dreaming and even making some plans because I have once again received the grace of good scans and no active cancer. I am grateful every day, with every breath, for this miracle, this mercy to be alive and breathing, dreaming, and planning. And doing.