music

Music Monday | The Deepest Sighs, the Frankest Shadows – Gretta Ray (covers Gang of Youths)

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Lyrics

Cause not everything means something, honey
So say the unsayable
Say the most human of things
And if everything is temporary
I will bear the unbearable
Terrible triteness of being

Songwriters: David Immanuel Menachem Sasagi Leaupepe
The Deepest Sighs, the Frankest Shadows lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Pty. Ltd.

Virgo Season

It’s Virgo season, baby! And that means, it’s birthday month. Years ago, I started with birthday week–but I’ve now learned to stretch it out, long and slow, over the course of a month instead. Three days ago, my coffee machine died. It was just a small pod machine I purchased in Queensland from the store my ex worked at. It had done well to last nine years with the amount of use it received. But without coffee, I’m not that pleasant to be around. And since I’m off work for a few days and we are in lockdown number seven, G surprised me with one of my birthday presents; a barista machine. As much for his sanity as mine, I suspect. I’m going to have to get up half an hour earlier for work to make my coffee now, but even the almond milk I’ve converted to this year frothed nicely with the steam wand. Happy birthday to me!

What I’m Reading

Lately I’ve been ‘reading’ audiobooks. I started last year, when G was in hospital–there is something deeply comforting about having someone else read to you. In the last couple of weeks I’ve finished Sarah Krasnostein’s The Believer, Nardi Simpson’s Song of the Crocodile and now I’m working my way through Paige Clark’s She is Haunted.

The Believer is a narrative non-fiction of six separate tales expertly woven together through Sarah’s curiosity, non-judgement and her own life. In it she shares how her own beliefs (or lack of) intertwine with these six vastly different people and how we have more similarities than differences even if some people believe in ghosts, UFOs, heaven, and hell. It is a work of compassion and empathy, and, as the back of the book says, The Believer looks at the stories we tell ourselves to deal with the distance between the world as it is, and the world as we’d like it to be. How they can stunt us – or save us.

Song of the Crocodile was both heartbreaking and beautifully written. Nardi’s artful description and incredible story-telling contrasted sharply with the story itself and the pain of race relations between Indigenous and settler/coloniser families in this novel. I don’t read a lot of fiction but this was a stunning debut novel.

She is Haunted is the debut collection of short stories by Paige Clark and while I am only half way in, I’m hooked. Paige’s characters have compelling voices, and the collection features themes of transnational Asian identity, mother-daughter relationships, grief and intergenerational trauma. I will finish this book tomorrow; less than 48 hours from when I started–an extremely rare occurrence for me.

Music Monday | Hero – Mariah Carey

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We are still in Lockdown 5.0 in Victoria. I’m not sure how many weeks it’s been now. Two? No. Three? Like I said, I don’t know. So, I’ve reverted to spending hours consuming what I call “wholesome content” to keep me sane: Mostly YouTube–which is as close to a time machine as we have–and Mariah Carey, whose song Hero was released at the end of my sophomore year in high school.

I’ve also been reading, and have just finished The Believers by Sarah Krasnostein, and am now devouring Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson. I’m still reluctant to call it reading, because I’m mostly listening on Audible; I don’t have the ability to sit still to read with so much anxiety coursing through my veins. But I’ve “read” more this year via Audible than in the last three years together, so that’s something.

And for anyone else who also needs a little lockdown pick-me-up, last year, the Phillip Island Penguin Parade was livestreamed during our 112 days of hard lockdown in Melbourne–and they are bringing it back from tomorrow night. The Speed Cubers on Netflix is a documentary about friendship and the fastest rubik’s cubers out there. And added recently to my rabbit-hole (and not on YouTube) is an Irish dancing group called Cairde. Apparently they have a TikTok, but I don’t, so I watch them on Instagram.

We are hoping some of the lockdown restrictions will be eased tomorrow. I’m hoping I’ll get the results of my 7th covid test that I had this afternoon. And, more than anything, I’m hoping they’ll be negative.

Music Monday | Grateful – Rita Ora

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Anniversary season is hitting differently than I expected–in a good way. Yes, it is overwhelming to be revisiting all the dates of medical procedures and big information, but overwhelming gratitude has been the predominant feeling.

Today is the one-year anniversary of the day I took G back to hospital to begin the staging scans and assessments prior to treatment. By now, he’d had multiple CT and PET scans, an MRI, and a brain biopsy–which is as risky as it sounds. He had been diagnosed with primary CNS lymphoma, all within ten days of me taking him to the hospital, but it was this week coming that they performed further scans–lumbar punctures, ultrasounds, ocular exams and more PET scans–to confirm with certainty that the cancer was only in his brain and not anywhere else in his body (which would have made it secondary CNS lymphoma).

We are four days out from the anniversary of the commencement of his treatment, fifteen days away from the anniversary of him being placed into a coma, and sixteen days from the night they called me to say his organs were failing.

And yet, here we are. One year later. He is outside, pacing, as he speaks to someone from work on the phone. This is typical; he always preferred to stand and move when having conversations in the before times, and nothing has changed. He is working. Not a lot, just a few hours per week, but working nonetheless. This time last year, we assumed treatment would be a linear process. He would go to hospital, have chemo, it would work (or it wouldn’t) and he’d come home. We did not expect nor account for any of the complications he experienced. By the middle of September last year, we weren’t sure he’d ever work–or walk–again.

And yet, here we are. Grateful is an understatement.

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