The middle-ground

Cancer is a sort of middle-ground between what was and will eventually be. This middle ground is unstable and forever shifting and changing — often daily. As unstable as it is, it also acts as an anchor. With a diagnosis and subsequent treatment, with life revolving around clinics and tests, trying to grapple with the “new normal” post-cancer, as well as the shift in perspective of life when the dust settles, patients seek refuge on this ground.

This middle ground, however, cannot hold, nor is it meant to.

To acknowledge that one is in remission is to become aware that the steps, however frightening, must be taken to move away from the middle ground to step forward. I have kept myself there in this gray area.

I can stay here forever. There is safety here. I’ll live here. I’ll build a life here.

This middle ground, however, cannot hold, nor is it meant to.

As horrifying as they were the circumstances in France rattled parts of me, they forced me to bear witness to the events that had taken place over the years. I was unprepared to handle the deluge of emotions from observing this. The events snapped me into such intense awareness of all that had come to pass, each and every brutal moment of my journey. The emotional scars became apparent. The physical scars radiated, and I could not look away from either or turn my attention elsewhere. My emotional being couldn’t hold out any longer; I was shedding layers, and the feeling of emotional nudity was unbearable. I was losing the self I had been constructing; who was Jeremiah now? This identity was slipping, try as I might I couldn’t hold it. Everything came to a grinding halt; I was literally and figuratively unable to take another step. Brain surgery had to occur during active treatment; there was no question about the procedure. When everything started to rise to the surface, when the layers were dropping away, the physical and psychological acknowledgment of this particular scar was the trigger that sent me into a tailspin.

I have been able to meditate on some of the imagery and hallucinations I experienced during my breakdown. There are some images that, until now, have remained mysterious or so tangled in metaphor that I couldn’t decipher them. One in particular was pulling a hair-like substance from my chest. This unnerved me, and I wasn’t ready to interpret it. I had been building an identity around cancer; it engulfed my entire life for so long that I took on that persona, that of a patient. ‘I have cancer’, I’d say to myself, or I speak about it as though it was current, that I still had it, that I was still in the place of treatment. Neither is true. This gesture of pulling this substance from my chest is so clear to me now, so obvious. I was trying to extract this identity, this version of myself that has since passed. The transient persona that I had outgrown yet was fiercely holding onto. From within me, from my core, I was trying to haul this out, to unburden myself of it. Not to rid myself of the memories, good or bad, nor the lessons learned, as there are numerous — a lifetime’s worth! I was trying to purge myself of all that didn’t serve me, holding me back from stepping off the crumbling middle ground.

I had to return to France; Golinhac was calling me. All this came about there; all that dormant within me rose fully to my attention — glaringly so! In return, I would leave the remanence of this deteriorating middle ground and my meticulously crafted persona. I’d keep the new awareness and lessons from the incidences experienced there and feel a sense of certainty in stepping away.

I put a ticket on my charge card and began packing. Just a few weeks after I left France, a complete emotional and psychological mess, I was going back.

Everyone expressed their concerns. They were worried that I was still very vulnerable and returning so soon, in a fragile emotional and psychological state, would be very unwise. Why, after such a short period of time, would I want to return to the site of my breakdown? To the place where, just a few weeks ago, I was admitted to the emergency room after being found screaming and howling in the middle of a footpath just outside of Golinhac. These questions started building in my mind, too. Why would I want to do this? The entire way to Boston, which on the bus felt like an eternity, I was wondering what on earth I was doing. What was I hoping for? I didn’t know the answer to anything. Even during my layover in Lisbon, I still wondered and questioned everything.

I admitted to a dear friend who has been an incredible support this entire time and someone I feel safe confiding in,

“I don’t know what I’m searching for.”

“I don’t either,” she replied.

This is the uncertainty that keeps a cancer survivor remaining in the middle ground. Not only the uncertainty of life, as explained, but that of oneself, the question of who one is — who is this Jeremiah? How has he arrived here?

I don’t need an identity here. I can stay here forever. There is safety here. I’ll live here. I’ll build a life here.

This middle ground, however, cannot hold, nor is it meant to.

I walked east out of Golinhac with ever-increasing anxiety. I had to stop and gather myself to go on a few times. At one point, I even considered returning home, admitting it was too soon for such an undertaking. But I was still drawn onward and slowed considerably, taking deep, slow breaths with each step. I stopped at a certain point, put down my pack, and started emulating the gesture of pulling the hair substance from my chest. Gently, slowly, without the frantic haste of my hallucination, I mimicked the action, one hand then the other in a rhythmic fashion as though softly pulling one long, continuous thread from my chest. The action became ritualized in its repetition, fluidity, and symbolism, bringing a deep sense of peace. I envisioned dismantling the persona that had been constructed around cancer, the identity that no longer served me. Bit by bit, as if pulling a single thread that unweaves a tapestry, I unraveled an identity. I simultaneously entwined a new Jeremiah, no longer the patient, yet holding the memories and lessons – the same thread yet a different weave pattern.

I stood still in the silence of the location and continued taking long, slow breaths. Dusk arrived, and with it, a chill. I retrieved my pack and walked westward back towards Golinhac.

The peace I felt there has remained. Returning to France, which consisted only of four full days, left me feeling as though I had undergone years of psychotherapy. It isn’t so much that I am thankful for the breakdown itself, as it was terrifying, rather, that I am thankful for that which it revealed to me and the metamorphic shifts that have since followed.

This is not to say that I have stepped entirely from the teetering middle ground, but I have one foot firmly planted on the other side.

I can build an identity here, one that is linked to (the) cancer via memories and life lessons and not one that is torn between two worlds, two worlds that ultimately hinder the desperately needed stability required for reconstruction.

A Question / An Answer

Greetings, dear friend,

I have been in a fight with cancer for 3 years. It has, as you can imagine, altered my life. I keep looking back, gazing longingly at the past, and thinking, ‘It was much better then; life was easier then.”

I catch myself and feel angry and guilty for thinking about this. Even during meditation, I’m annoyed thinking that life was more straightforward then.

Can you offer some advice about being gentler during such a rough time?

Many thanks,

Jeremiah

Hello dear friend Jeremiah,

Thinking about how things were more accessible and better in the past is a natural part of grieving what you have lost. However, what you lost was not your health but your innocence. It was easier then because your problems seemed of a lesser magnitude than your problems now. You still have plenty of innocence, and you still don’t know what the future holds, but when you live with cancer, you have all your other life problems plus cancer. You have a much deeper perspective that can’t ignore the fragility of life. Looking back at your earlier self, you can think, Lucky me, I didn’t know what was coming. You still don’t know what is coming, but you don’t feel as lucky, or you may feel unlucky or cursed. Yet, you are vibrantly alive. It is outrageously courageous of you to sit meditation. Meditation is where your deepest fears vie for the light of your attention. It is where your mind processes your grief. Thinking about a simpler time is a fine thing to do. Wishing for past and future health is a big part of the

process. Feeling guilty and angry for having thoughts is a reaction.

When you notice those reactions, practice responding.

A response is an intentional reaction. When you respond, you can include compassion. Meditation is a time to let go of thoughts. As your attention is on your breath, there is no other thought. You think about the past and notice the thought, then bring your attention to your breath. Feeling guilty for having a thought you didn’t want is another thought, so notice that and bring your attention back to your breath. Your getting angry is another thought; notice that and return to your breath. You don’t need to sort your thoughts into good or bad, right or wrong; you just have to notice them and bring your attention back to your breath. That is repeatedly throwing out your mind. When you finish meditation, you can let your thoughts run again, but meditation is a time to practice dropping off your thoughts.

If dropping off thoughts isn’t working for you. Practice a more active form of mediation. Practice thinking about gratitude. Practice loving-kindness meditation for all of the people in your life. Imagine how others suffer; breathe in their suffering; peace and wellness for them. If you are in the hospital with other people, practice healing them. Breathe in their sickness, and breathe out peace and wellness for them. That kind of thing occupies your mind more than a more open form of mediation.

Walking meditation is also good for that. You move and drop your thoughts off as you focus on your feet, touching and leaving the ground.

Overcoming a pervasive fear takes a lot of practice. Fear digs in and spins off things like guilt and anger. With practice, though, you can change your pervasive habit.

It is still essential to embrace not knowing. Not knowing brought happiness before you knew it, and you must remember that you still don’t know. As you await test results, remember you don’t know. Not good, not bad, just don’t know. As you experience the joy of a positive test result, notice the nirvana of the fears going away. Pain comes and goes. When it goes, that is bliss.

Peace,

Peter

Mandala

“When the mandala is finally finished, however long it takes for the
monks to deal in this divine geometry of the heavens, they pray over it —
and then they destroy it. They sweep up every last grain of sand and give handfuls of it away to those who participate in the closing ceremony as a final memory of sublime possibility. Then, they throw the rest of the sand into the nearest living stream to be swept into the ocean to bless the world. And that’s it. It’s gone. In an instant, after all that artistry, all that work, it’s over.”

I am burned out.

I have spent the better part of today trying to sift through GoFundMe updates and re-constructing this blog based on them. Gofundme isn’t, as I’m sure many know, a blog, the updates don’t really work/flow like that. I was trying to cut and paste and get the dates in some sort of order so that it made sense – IE, it was chronological, concise, etc. For the most part, the cutting-and-pasting was fine, or at least relatively quick and easy. I would read just a few lines from each update, hunt for the photo contained with it, and then post it. This was like stepping on landmines. I became so triggered. It is a year out from my first transplant, but the memories are so fresh. Even if it were after a decade, I could easily feel this knee-jerk reaction and slip into this state of paralysis.

I don’t know why I keep pushing myself in such a way. I seek to escape to get over things. But I am in a labyrinth, walking around, disoriented, lost. Of course, healing is a maze, and one must work patiently to find the route. More so, which I know logically (philosophically?) but have difficulty accepting, is that one must embrace wherever he/she is – even if it is a confusing, endless maze.

I often think of a mandala. The metaphor is loosely connected to this, but it still stands. I think about these monks working endlessly on this beautiful sand “painting,” fastidiously laboring over it. The attention to detail is of utmost importance, but so is this sense of being present, of working in the moment. The work isn’t seen, or at least I believe it isn’t seen, as a whole. I believe the monks begin and work from breath to breath to breath. The skill they have acquired is so precise that they are masters at work. But the mastery comes with a patience that is only possible from moment to moment, from breath to breath.

Try as I might, I am not in this place. I look in the mirror, and though I see the present Jeremiah, who looks back with brightness in their eyes, I can’t help but see Jeremiah, whose eyes have a vacant and sickly look. These two (and many other forms) stand side-by-side, I can’t.

How do I let this person go? I know it isn’t possible in all aspects; this person has defined me in many ways. But like the mandala crafted by the patient monks who let it go, destroy it by the hand that labored over it, wash it away in a river… how do I let the pale and sickly Jeremiah go, embrace the Jeremiah that is now?

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”
Pema Chödrön