I had another seizure yesterday. We’re attempting to get the medication right, and I stopped one and increased another. Yesterday, however, I wasn’t at the target dose. That’s the only logical explanation. Regardless, it has left me, as all my seizures have, physically and emotionally worn.

It happened while on a woods walk with my mother. Luckily, she was there. I had enough of a warning that I was able to indicate its arrival. She, in turn, sat me down safely… then it arrived.

I distinctly remember the cold earth underneath me when I started to come around. Though we were in a place along the path with no snow, the earth was cold and damp.

My mind was a jumbled mess, as it always is afterward, but somehow, we managed to walk back to the car. In a post-seizure state, at least for me, nothing adds up for a while.

Today, I realized what was going through my mind as I came to that damp earth: the memory of being a child of about 3 or 4. Evidently, I had asked my mother if, when the snow melted, I could play in the mud. So, I did just that. I sat in this puddle of mud, & plastered it upon my legs. The most vivid part of this is the cool dampness that soaked through the legs of my pants.

I have been told I have the memory of an elephant. Though, I think this was initially meant as an insult, as I tend not to forget things. It isn’t that I choose to remember the positive over the negative, or vice versa, I just remember things. During treatment, the traditional “chemo brain” affected certain cognitive functions, but my memory held strong. They became little islands I could swim to when the storm raged.

I believe in memories and their potent influence to transport someone.

Two years ago today I went to my dear Friend Jose and his partner’s house for dinner. I immediately felt this sense of warmth and comfort in their abode, feeling welcomed. They both exuded this; it came from them as individuals.

I love Chicago. I wish I had left on different terms and not for medical reasons, but such is life. I didn’t, however, enjoy the graduate program I was in there. I feel privileged to have studied there and received my MFA from such a school, but the program, or my home department, didn’t agree with me on many levels.

Jose was one year ahead of me in his studies there, and we became friends. He had a very older brotherly feel, and I felt comfortable sharing ideas and speaking openly about several things. This comfort, naturally, was part of the welcoming energy that greeted me for dinner that night. We sat casually in their kitchen, had delicious homemade vegetable stew, drank sparkling juice, and talked about life and art. I clearly remember walking up several flights of stairs to their condo entrance and, once at the top, wheezing and being winded. It was strange and disconcerting to be so breathless from just a few flights of stairs. The dry cough appeared a few times that night, too. A few weeks before our dinner meeting, Jose and I met at Starbucks and decided to take a little stroll after our tea and coffee. In mid/late March, Andersonville has such a nice feel — spring is just oozing out of everything and ready to pop overnight. The dry cough was present then, and I said I didn’t know what it was from, but I couldn’t get rid of it.

This nagging cough didn’t prevent us from having a lovely dinner a few weeks later. I hadn’t met Jose’s partner, now husband, but I enjoyed his honesty about art. It was a breath of fresh air to step away from the heady, overly conceptual art-school realm and just hear someone speak openly about what they thought and how they perceived the work. We talked about my thesis work, and I was excited to tell Jose how I did, eventually, decide to have this large painting I was working on split into two. I say “painting,” but it was a gestural study that consisted of ritualizing rubbing carbon dust onto linen. When we had last met I hadn’t decided if splitting it into two was the best move for it on a conceptual level. I finally opted to do so because the two, in my mind, divided time, past/present.

The division of time… I haven’t considered this phrase before for the various circumstances that would occur very soon. The following day, the most definitive division of time occurred in my life; I awoke and felt nourished by the delicious soup and conversation, happy that I had discussed my thesis work and received feedback. I was still full, literally and figuratively, from the evening. I felt positive that the end of this chapter in my life coming to a close — I was ready to move on from grad school. However, the cough was more present, and I began to feel worse as the morning went on. It was a bodily feeling, this heaviness, this burden that seemed to rest upon me. This pervasive feeling that something wasn’t right deep inside of me. Sluggishly I prepared myself for the day. Outside, the weather was glorious, and I stood for a few moments in the sun to soak it in. I envisioned the sun’s powerful rays penetrating my being and ousting whatever was causing the cough and the feeling that seemed to weigh on me. I felt even worse as I approached the red-line stop closest to my apartment. I thought it’d be best to return home and rest, to let my body be still for the day, put aside the demands of school and work, and just rest. I turned around and made it just a few paces before my body contorted in a way I had never experienced. This lack of control spread across my face and rendered me incapable of calling for help. It ran down my arm, bent my fingers inward, and took the strength from my legs, and I collapsed, then… darkness.

I hold onto memories as a means of self-preservation. I think, oftentimes, about how I would describe something in a book or how it would appear in a play, how I might see it and hear it from an outside perspective. By description and recall, there is a solidification, a movement from, perhaps, a fleeting moment in time and space to a solid foundation upon which something can grow and be constructed. How would I describe the kindness I felt entering Jose’s for dinner? How would I word the fear I felt when I had my first seizure? In remembering, in actively assisting in the solidification of memories, one can access the warmth during the cold and recreate the laughter during the flow of tears. One can nurture compassion and love for those struggling. Being sick has taught me this. I held onto memories before, well before my original diagnosis, without any real understanding as to why. Like the matriarch of the herd of elephants who leads the other members miles and miles to a certain watering hole during times of drought, memories can save us; they can nourish us.

The photo attached is a still from a performance video Jose and I collaborated on. I’ll refrain from drowning you all in the ‘heady, overly conceptual art school” BS I am happy to have left behind. The basic premise; two beings tethered by a length of rope, each takes a turn walking while the other remains the grounding center, a place of pivot. One can walk as little or as much as they wish. The other merely witnesses and rotates with them. It, for me, was about an exchange of guidance and care… it was about trust.

This is a memory I hold dear.