love

Once Upon A Time

/ Tash / 4 Comments

I used to write here almost daily–until, I didn’t; for oh so many reasons.

I became aware that certain people were reading. I became more interested in writing for publication. I became conscious of and conditioned to not write for free.

And yet.

Writing here is, and always was, about more than just me. It was, in so many ways, a conversation.

Blogs are not really the same thing they were in 2010 when I first started. And yes, at some point, I will probably promote my Substack.

But until I commit myself to writing consistently enough to have a Substack, this will have to do. And anyway, it’s the conversation I miss the most. I don’t know if people will comment anymore. I don’t know if that’s the done thing. But I’m back to find out.

Today, a poem appeared in my feed.

WATCHING MY FRIEND PRETEND HER HEART ISN’T BREAKING
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

On Earth, just a teaspoon of neutron star
would weigh six billion tons. Six billion tons.
The equivalent weight of how much railway
it would take to get a third of the way to the sun.
It’s the collective weight of every animal
on earth. Times three.

Six billion tons sounds impossible
until I consider how it is to swallow grief—
just a teaspoon and one might as well have consumed
a neutron star. How dense it is,
how it carries inside it the memory of collapse.
How difficult it is to move then.
How impossible to believe that anything
could lift that weight.

There are many reasons to treat each other
with great tenderness. One is
the sheer miracle that we are here together
on a planet surrounded by dying stars.
One is that we cannot see what
anyone else has swallowed.

This is the original version but it seems, edits have been made. And the below circulates in existence, too.

This is almost the version that Rosemerry reads here…

And, to whomever is reading now: Hello, and welcome.

Music Monday | Brand New Sun – Jason Lytle

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On Wednesday, it will be the twelve-month anniversary of when I took G to the hospital for strange, stroke-like symptoms that turned out to be brain cancer. The next two months will be filled with dates like these; that time he had brain surgery, the time he came home from chemo but developed a severe septic infection and had to be placed in a coma and his organs started to fail, that time after he woke up from the coma but couldn’t walk or talk or move…

I am not sure how I will process the next few months. I didn’t process any of these events or emotions last year; instead, I woke up every day and simply did the things that needed to be done without thinking about anything else.

Eleven months ago, I took myself to the emergency department for heart issues and chest pain while G was in hospital. The triage nurse took my blood pressure, looked at me and said, “Oh, sorry, it hasn’t worked–let me take it again.”

I asked what it was and she said “It’s 158/123”, which put me in the hypertensive crisis category.

“No, that’s right,” I said, “based on what I’m feeling.”

My ECG was normal, even if my heart rate was elevated. They diagnosed me with stress and suggested a follow up a few months later. That ECG in January was normal, too. But now, even though the stress has dissipated, my heart is still palpitating and thudding a couple of times a day. I still have chest pain, multiple times a day. So I’m typing this with a holter monitor hooked up to my heart. I’ve pressed the button several times for mild pain but I haven’t had a bad episode yet. And I don’t think 24 hours is long enough to register one. A month ago, I’d have had three-four episodes by now. A few weeks ago, the palpitations were so intense I had to pull the car over on the side of the road and wait until they had passed. But now, they’re only happening every few days so I’m sure we won’t record the problem–tests are often ridiculous that way. Unless there is more happening that I don’t actually feel?

So, as we approach what I’m calling “anniversary season”, I am going to focus on sorting out my own health and being grateful that G is still here–currently cancer-free, progressing in rehab, and making just as many terrible jokes as ever. Maybe we’ll get our 40 years together, after all.

You should hold my hand

While everything blows away

And we’ll run

To a brand new sun

Music Monday | It’s OK – Nightbirde

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If you haven’t seen Nightbirde’s golden buzzer performance of this song on America’s Got Talent, are you even on social media??

A couple of weeks ago (yes, it’s taken me this long to make time to post) I overheard G listening to something on his phone in another room. I wasn’t able to make out the words, just a soft melodic voice floating into the kitchen from the lounge room, and as I walked in to where he was sitting to find out who it was, all I could hear was “it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok if you’re lost, we’re all a little lost and it’s alright…”

Later that night, I googled it for myself and sat in bed listening to the voice of someone still battling cancer telling me that it was alright.

When G was first diagnosed with a rare and aggressive lymphoma last year, I spent hours telling other people that bad things happen to good people and that there is no rhyme or reason as to why some people develop cancer; one in two men will develop some type of cancer in their lifetime, as will one in three women. All the while, I was running through a list in my head of all the possible ways I was responsible for his cancer–everything from physical (I must have weakened his immune system by giving him HIV even though I don’t have HIV), to spiritual (God is punishing me for not believing in God anymore), to psychological (if I don’t perform certain rituals and compulsions then bad things happen to people I care about).

Being responsible for it meant that it was possible that I could resolve it, fix it–maybe–or at the very least, I was to blame–and that life wasn’t as uncertain as it felt when the outcome of this disease was entirely out of my hands. It’s not that I’m a doctor. I just feel like I should be able to fix everything for those I love. Because although G was the one with cancer, he wasn’t the only one impacted.

In Nightbirde’s AGT introduction, when she explains she still has cancer in her lungs, liver and spine, one of the judges says “oh, so you’re not ok?” and she replies “not in every way, no.” And then she says the thing I’ve spent the last year trying to teach and learn at the same time…

“It’s important that everyone knows I’m so much more than the bad things that happen to me.”

Music Monday | Punching In A Dream – The Naked and Famous

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For some reason, YouTube seems to be showing me a flashback of my playlist in 2010 as I search for music tonight. It’s almost impossible to fathom that eleven years have passed since I changed the course of my life. In early 2010, I began treatment for an eating disorder that had comforted me on and off for almost fifteen years. I left a marriage that was nominal only; my husband far more interested in women inside his computer. I had no idea what I was doing. And I was so ill, there was no guarantee I’d live to see the end of the year. So eleven years feels like some sort of achievement.

In December last year, I hit a personal record for the longest time living in the same house. At the end of May this year, I’ll reach another milestone–seven years with my beloved–and not one “break” or break-up. These things may seem trivial but when our future–indeed, our present–has felt as precarious as it has in the last eight months, they are my touchstones. So tonight I’m remembering the woman from 2010 who was brave enough to seek help, brave enough to leave, and brave enough to live. And I’m saying thank you. These songs are for you.

Songwriters: Aaron Short / Alisa Xayalith / Thom Powers
Punching in a Dream lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

And, a bonus song!

Songwriters: Aaron Short / Alisa Xayalith / Thom Powers
Young Blood lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

OK, two bonus songs!

Songwriters: Oliver Sim / Baria Qureshi / Jamie Smith / Romy Croft
Crystalised lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Ltd., Universal-polygrm Intl Pub Obo Universal Music Pub. Ltd.

Music Monday | To Build A Home – The Cinematic Orchestra (ft. Patrick Watson)

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We are home.

After seven seemingly endless months, we are finally home.

Together.

There is a house built out of stone
Wooden floors, walls and window sills
Tables and chairs worn by all of the dust
This is a place where I don’t feel alone
This is a place where I feel at home

‘Cause, I built a home
For you
For me

Until it disappeared
From me
From you

And now, it’s time to leave and turn to dust

Out in the garden where we planted the seeds
There is a tree as old as me
Branches were sewn by the colour of green
Ground had arose and passed it’s knees

By the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top
I climbed the tree to see the world
When the gusts came around to blow me down
I held on as tightly as you held onto me
I held on as tightly as you held onto me

And, I built a home
For you
For me

Songwriters: Jason Angus Stoddart Swinscoe / Patrick Watson / Philip Jonathan France / Stella Page
 
To Build a Home lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Intrigue Music, LLC

Music Monday | The Final Countdown – Europe

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We’re leavin’ together
But still it’s farewell

Tomorrow, it will be six months since I took G to the hospital for strange stroke-like symptoms. We didn’t know, that night, that it would be months before he’d leave a hospital again. We didn’t know that we’d have to relocate our lives, in the middle of a pandemic, to the covid capital of Australia for his cancer treatment. We didn’t know it would be more than half the year–in fact, into a whole new year–before we’d be back to our home.

And maybe we’ll come back
To Earth, who can tell?
I guess there is no one to blame

And, while we are on the final countdown to going back later this week or next week, we are are still another six months from the end of rehab. Tomorrow, he has a total hip replacement; osteonecrosis, cartilage destruction, and collapse of the femoral head the result of a joint infection after his second round of chemo. And then, the real work begins.

We’re leaving ground (leaving ground)
Will things ever be the same again?
It’s the final countdown
The final countdown

Music Monday | Where Do We Go – Desiree Dawson

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The blisters on my cheeks where a face mask pulled tight across them for seven hours a day, twelve days in a row, have healed. It’s been a week since I’ve been allowed into the hospital. My visitorship was revoked as soon as my husband became stable again. It was disheartening for both of us but not unexpected having already happened twice before.

So I wait in anticipation of his return, in this small apartment that does not belong to me, and I have endless amounts of time to fret. Instead, I try to distract myself. I scroll, I clean, I read, I breathe. A circle of friends have organised themselves onto a roster to make sure someone calls me every day. At least once a day. Sometimes twice. Even, occasionally, three times if necessary. And it has been necessary. I am almost always ok until it is time to sleep, like now. It is then that I feel the low hum of anxiety that has been the background to my day start to rise.

And the only thing that helps me then is meditating in Love. Because in Love, I am reminded that we are all One. We are Connected regardless of time or space. In this connection, I can truly see that the Light in me is also the Light in everyone I meet.

It is difficult to focus on Now but it is all we have. And so I stay with it. With the uncomfortable feelings that rise, with the uncertainty of what might happen, and with the knowledge that the only place I can go from here is into Love. Because I am in Love, and Love is in me. And actually, it is all we need.

Where do we go, go from here
The present is cloudy, future filled with fear
The past is something we hold on too dear
So where do we go from here

Where do we go?
Where do we go?

But love is all we wanted
And love is all we need
Deep down in the dark is where we plant our seeds
Plant those seeds

I was given the sweetest treat when I started seeing myself in everyone I meet
You were given the sweetest treat when you see yourself in everyone you meet

Music Monday | Write The Fear A Lullaby – Ben Grace

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I have been writing to Love. Not my beloved, although I do write to him as well, but to the Great Love. The Love of the Universe. Collective Consciousness Love.

I have been talking to Love and praying to Love. Because there’s not much worth being here on Earth for, except Love.

And then I found this song. But before I’d even listened to it, the title punched me in the throat. I had been writing to Love in an effort to dispel Fear. But what if I wrote to Fear? What if I spoke to it softly? Soothed it with a song? What if I couldn’t dispel all my Fear by writing to Love, what if I needed to write to Fear as well?

And so I did.

I wrote a love letter – a lullaby – to Fear.

When the miles are much too hard
And roads are too long
If my face in your mind
Is an unfinished song
And you’re sure that the right
is all heading for wrong…
Hold on
Hold on

Won’t you write the fear a lullaby
Remind her it’s okay to cry
And find me in the folds of your desire
Tell the worries in your way
To try again another day
Shut up and love me til they all expire
Coz I’m not done with you yet
And this weight around my neck
Is nothing but a make-believe goodbye
So write the fear a lullaby