I was thinking the other day,
for various, to-remain-undisclosed reasons, that I would be a terrible cancer
patient. (Nothing is wrong medically; it was just one of those things. I’m
actually in absurdly good physical health considering my stressy lifestyle.) The
reason I would be a terrible cancer patient is because I am decidedly unplucky.
I harbor a stubborn and unshakeable belief that cancer only happens to plucky
mothers of three who exist in Lifetime movies. Plucky mothers of three who are
also “feisty” and ready to “battle” cancer for the sake of their children, and
determined to “think positive!” and not to indulge in an ounce of bitterness,
fear, rage or depression. If I had cancer, I would veer wildly from flat-out
fury to bed-ridden depression. What I would not be is: Plucky, positive, determined
and strong. Meaning, I would be a Bad Patient. I don’t have the positive-thinking
gene. I’m bad at enduring. I’m
somewhat phobic about hospitals, even though I work in one. And I simply don’t
have time to have cancer, unlike those perky women on the Lifetime network with
their handsome, supportive husbands and sassy, single best friends. The only two women
I know of in the public eye who have discussed their reactions to cancer
honestly are writer Barbara Ehrenreich and comedian Tig Notaro. They thumbed
their noses at the positive-thinking mandate and spoke truth to
medical-industry power. I say good on them.
I need to do a second, deep,
structure-altering, thinky, technical edit on my novel and I just don’t want
to, because it feels like work, and I only want to do the fun parts. The fun
part was telling the story, the high of the imaginative leaps that would happen
during the writing process, the fun of figuring out new ways to torment my immature
and self-destructive main character. The editing part feels like having to move
from finger painting with pretty colors to doing algebra. But my compatriots at Absolute Write have been
very supportive. I started a thread about what a sticky morass this second edit
feels like, and everyone has been super-encouraging. However, I also made the
terrible discovery there that opening a novel with a character waking up is
such a horrid, unforgivable cliché that book agents will automatically, universally
reject the book without reading any further. So I guess I will be re-writing my
“main character wakes up late with vicious hangover in downstairs neighbor man-slut spoken-word-poet crush’s bed.
*Sigh*.
This week, we held the memorial
for Jules at the hospital I work at. It was a beautiful event. Everyone who
attended had a chance to share a story about him. I was struck by how so many
people were deeply affected by the loss of this man, who gave so much love. A
lot of these were tough people who had endured a lot, and yet were weeping
copiously at his death. (I don’t like the phrase “reduced to tears” because I
don’t think crying diminishes us.) I sat there throughout the event thinking
about how, ultimately, we are all so squishy, so soft, so easily done in by the
loss of love. We can survive the loss of jobs, the loss of stuff, even the loss
of identity, but the loss of love breaks us. I’m still really sore from grief, and it’s making me a bit sentimental, so forgive me—but can we all
remember this week, in the words of Bill and Ted, to be excellent to each other?
We’re mushy, and we all need kindness.
--Kristen McHenry
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