When my body hurts, there is nothing I want more than to be wrapped in something warm and soft, cuddled into a cocoon where I can try to forget about the pain. Reading (the right book) is a fabulous escape. Writing is the next best thing. Needless to say, today has been tough.

Please, could someone please wrap me in a nice soft book? My body needs a new reality today; I’ve been combing the shelves for something cashmere bound and down filled, a balmy 76 degree place to nestle and nest.

Adventure, romance, travel, happy endings all, filling the pages with the appreciative murmur of satisfied characters, plot and theme essentially irrelevant so long as I get amber gold imagery conjured from mellifluous language, deep rooted words smelling of sandalwood and exotic fruits.

I’d like to lie back on this raft of silken words, a river ride of clouds and sun, and watch the galaxy turn in slow motion while shooting stars land in a whisper like so much dandelion fluff or milk and honey rain pitter patting soft and low, percussive kisses, feather light.

Give me a thousand pages where I can alight barefoot and quietly wander, methodically picking my way through the dense forests of metaphors and allusions, seeking but not lost, senses heavy with wonder, my mind electric.

In return, I will strip off this weighty dramedy and put it back on the shelf or lose it under so many cookbooks and catalogues. It’s pages carry the acrid smell of pain and jutting plot points, sitting in jarring juxtaposition to an underlying maudlin theme. I’ve never been one to cast aside a book, but this one needs some serious editing.

Fixed State, Change State

As Americans, we seem fully willing to acknowledge that our bodies are a work in progress. We have no problem telling someone how many hours we spent at the gym, how many pounds we lifted, how many miles we logged this week. Our FitBits celebrate our steps, MapMyRun shares our routes and times with the world, countless workout selfies and pictures of chia seed-laden smoothies serve as “fitspiration” to keep us on track. Despite the fact that many of us don’t get enough quite exercise, there is no shame in proclaiming to the world our progress toward our body goals.

My body goals have very little to do with my mile time. I’m not working toward the perfect six pack or buns of steel. I’m just really psyched to have an essentially functional arm and I’m working exceedingly hard at breathing these days. If I had a little gidgy to count the number of hours I have spent over the past 17 months in physical therapy, (trying to) exercise, visiting specialists, redesigning my wardrobe, attempting this or that new technique, or simply flat on my back in a tube being imaged, all in the name of getting my body to cooperate, I would be rocking the celebratory confetti.

So last week, after a particularly miserable episode of feeling like I was either going to A) drown, or B) be poisoned, thanks to an overabundance of stagnant lymphatic fluid hanging out in my upper torso, I happened upon a snippet of a TED talk (which I will try to dig up and reference later) that essentially posed the question, “What if we worked on our minds in the same way we worked on our bodies?” The speaker was noting how willing we are to work on our physical selves, but our subsequent inability or unwillingness, thanks to our classic American reticence, to talk about our emotional well-being.

Full stop.

There was never a doubt that I would have help regaining my strength or range of motion, and it has taken an impressive team of experts, including oncologists, surgeons, neurologists, physical and occupational therapists, and chiropractors to get me to where I am today. Last March, when I started manifesting symptoms of lymphedema, I added even more members to my already full roster of health professionals, including three different physical therapists, professional compression garment fitters, skilled tailors, and soon, acupuncturists.  As frustrating as it can be that my body still doesn’t function in a way I would like, all of this was essentially expected. There was never any question that I couldn’t do this alone.

So why did it take a team of wild horses (and my best friends, my wife, and my mom) to get me to agree to at least walk through the door of an oncological therapist? And why did it take me over a year to do it?

I grew up the proud product of rock stubborn Irish stock. One of my mother’s favorite sayings, proffered countless times as I lay in a heap of reins at the hooves of some horse is, “Are you bleeding? No? Buck up. It’s a long way from your heart.” This woman has severed her big toe and finished barn chores and taken a hammer to the face and continued building (separate incidences, but no less hard core). Couple this with the fact that she was the primary caregiver for my completely unstable grandmother for a lifetime and you get someone with very little tolerance for nonsense and shenanigans. And while she has never treated me with anything but kindness, understanding, and softer kid gloves than I ever would have expected through this entire cancer ordeal, there is an undeniable vein of steel that permeates my consciousness, one that has frequently served me quite well. Stand strong, work hard, be independent. We don’t do wussy here.   

When I learned about my cancer, the radiation, surgeries, potential side effects, and, you know, the possibility of dying, I truly didn’t expect for it to have a profound effect on me. I thought, Suck it up, Buttercup. Many people have been through so much worse. I thought that I would be able to buck up, get back on the horse, and continue life as usual without much interruption. But for so many varied reasons, that has not been the case. And mentally, emotionally, I was not prepared. I was not prepared for anxiety, depression, and fear. I certainly wasn’t prepared to need help doing something about it. And for all of that I have felt so damn weak.

Cancer changes your life. It changes your body, your health, your job, your family, your sense of safety, stability, and well-being. It changes you. No matter how hard I wanted to believe that wouldn’t be the case when I was first diagnosed, no matter how hard I have fought for it to not be true after my surgeries, there is simply no denying this fact. Trust me, I tried for all I was worth.

This week, thanks to more body work, I achieved 15-20 degrees more range of motion in my arm. No one knew if this would be possible, and in fact, there was no indication that it would be. I also went to therapy and talked about my life adjusting to cancer. I didn’t think that would be possible. The fact that my body still shows signs of growth, rather than being frozen in the static state it has been stuck in for the past year, gives me hope. And more than simply giving me hope for strength and mobility in my arm, it gives me hope that my mind will continue to grow, adjust, and settle, as well. There is no shame in working on it. Now if I can only find an app that will deliver chocolate every time I hit a new milestone.

Erase Hate. Educate.

I was nine and my brother was three the first time my parents were asked, “Aren’t you afraid to leave your children with them?” referring to their gay best friends.

I was ten when our friend Greg was murdered, and his family was told by the state police, “He was gay. We’re going to just assume it was a ‘crime of passion.’ We’re afraid it’s not going to get a lot of attention.”

I was twelve my great aunt refused to come to our house anymore, for fear that she would contract AIDS.

I was sixteen, with my short burgundy hair and freedom rings (“Aren’t you afraid of what people will say?!”)  when I was told in the middle of my sociology class that all the gays should be put on an island and bombed. That the world would be a better place.

Shortly thereafter, the "gay plague" of AIDS took the first of our friends. His family didn't know he was sick because he had been afraid to tell them.

I was a first year teacher when I was told we needed to be afraid for Ryan, because kids were getting mean, and being not only gay, but a hemophiliac, if he got beat up, he could die.

I was an adult when my mother reminded me that we do not live in Boston or Burlington, when she apologized for encouraging me to be too liberal, too progressive, too bright and female and empowered, to work in the North Country and admit to my boss that I was in love with a woman. That that would be too much. She was afraid I would lose my job. 

I was an adult when I was asked by a closeted friend if I was afraid to walk down the street holding that woman’s hand.

It was this past spring that my wife’s parents sent her a letter, telling her that they were afraid they don’t know how to support her, through my cancer journey or really at all, because they fear she is an abomination and is going to burn in hell. 

It has been more than 25 years that I have sat with the fears of people coming out, staying hidden, praying for something different, because they were afraid of losing their friends, their families, their college funds, their faith, their safety, their lives. And I have always been afraid that I couldn’t do enough. 

I refuse to live a life of fear. We cannot live in fear.

In fear, our bodies and minds change. The way we see the world changes. We become primal. Are we going to flee, hiding from that which makes us afraid? Are we going to freeze, the proverbial deer stuck in the headlights, and do nothing? Are we going to flock, finding other people, similar people, with whom we can shelter from our fear, or are we going to fight that which we are afraid of?  From fear, we develop anger, from anger, hate. And from hate, all too often violence. 

But what if we refused to let fear control our lives and poison our hearts and minds? If we said enough of the fear and hatred bred of ignorance. If we decided to defeat violence, hatred, and anger back at their very roots.

In the words of Jonathan Larson, the opposite of war isn’t peace; it’s creation. Peace can be passive. Creation cannot. Similarly, I believe the opposite of hate isn’t love; it’s education. Active, concerted, meaningful, education. If we want the violence to stop, if we want our world to be a better place, if we want to start living with less fear in our hearts and our world, we must seek not only to tolerate, but to truly know, to empathize, to be educated in the lives of the people around us. To see them as we see ourselves. 

Life is too short, too precious, and too precarious to live in fear. As we come together in this space at this time when so many of us are left wondering, let us commit to not only filling the world with love, but understanding. Let us commit to educating ourselves and the world around us of the possibility of a world without fear. 

ERASE HATE. 

EDUCATE.

The opposite of war isn’t peace; it’s creation.

The opposite of hate isn’t love; it’s education.