Ah, Ren. I hear you. The Red Devil is tough. It threw me under the bus. This month it is five years since I found that lump. Mostly, I forget about the cancer, but it's always there, needling me. What if it's come back? But it taught me that life and love are what matters. Wishing you well, my friend.
Stories can help in many ways. Other people won't or can't tell their stories; if you can--I think it's useful to yourself and your readers. Is it ethical? Eh, maybe don't ask that. Ethics is a spectrum of stuff. Maybe your grandmother wanted to take things to her grave. And did. But you still have what you know of her story, and that is YOUR perspective, and your story.
Thank you, Ann. That is a helpful perspective. She did take so much of her story to the grave. I am entirely clueless regarding entire marriages. Maybe I need to let go of having to cleanly dissect the truth from my impressions. Maybe I don't owe anyone that?
Fiction is a thing, you know…a thing often based upon the loose threads of incomplete or suspectedly-inaccurate stories. Look to those lacunae as opportunities for imagination. You may end up closer to the truth than you realize.
Interesting and moving on so many different levels. I get the vein thing; last week was yet another phlebotomist trying both arms and then ending up in my right hand because at least that appeared to be alive. And all this, of course, without my body having to deal with anything but constant tiredness (hence the bloods) and occasionally malfunctioning hamstrings and quads.
The thing about writing - we often overthink it. When we tell stories about other people's influences on our lives, we're actually telling our own stories. We're not telling theirs. We're not betraying them. We're telling our truth, our truths. Yes, there may be boundaries of intimacy which we might choose to observe, or if we've been asked not to say something about something. Personally, I think death releases us from most of those boundaries.
I did see a comment here about the power of fiction. I think that's absolutely true. If we really want to keep things anonymous, we can just make up fiction around them. No-one knows where our fiction ends and our fact begins, and vice versa. It is a sad reality of life that people come up to me and say "you're so-and-so in that novel of yours," and I have to very patiently explain that, actually, ever character in a story carries different parts of the writer's soul, and that some characters might even just be the people we wish we could be.
First, I’m sorry you’re feeling so low. I assume the Zomata is zoledronic acid, and you had breast cancer? I find the ZA infusions seem to wipe me out a little more each time and yes, I do lie awake at night wondering what they’re doing to your bones. But the thing I relate to the most - to the point of shuddering as I read - is those repeated attempts to find a vein. It sometimes seems that it’s a matter of stubborn pride for a health care professional to go on jabbing and refuse to call in a more experienced colleague. I can honestly say that of all the aspects of cancer treatment, it was the one that I feared the most. And yes, that includes losing my hair.
Thank you, Laura. I have a friend who is a biochemist who reminds me that every body is continuously making and (when heathy) killing cancer cells. I find it comforting and not simultaneously. I can vouch though that pei9le behave as though it's contagious.
Good morning, Ren. You were my first read of the morning. Your post today brought me back to my own months in the chemo lounger, 18 years ago. I had a ten year old and fourteen year old then and I was determined to live. I never could get past how the nurses who put the needles in my arm were dressed wearing lead-lined aprons--and that's the stuff they were shooting into my veins?
I especially loved these lines in your piece: "But I will never be the person I was before I understood that there are cancer cells floating round inside my body."
And, "It is a strange web of cells, of life-gone-mad. There’s a stickiness about the disease that I think of everytime my skin rubs uncomfortable against the orange faux leather of the chemo chair. Like spit or urine or pus, this sticky, tacky interface with the world is a part of what makes life, life."
I also wanted to thank you for your transparency about where to go with your Stack and what's appropriate to write about. I'm in a similar process of re-evaluation after casting my Stack with a very narrow (though passionate) focus.
I am so happy that your recent scare wasn't anything more than that. We must have had different treatments, no lead-lined aprons for me after the original radioactive CT.
I am still looking to role models for navigating the balance between the personal and the private in my writing. Also it my own goals. I genre-hop, but I'm afraid it is out of insecurity not desire. The question, "what do you have to offer..." just won't leave my head.
I think what we have to offer really is ourselves, not a topic. At least for me, I've been doing a lot of teaching lately, and been thinking why do people come to my classes and retreats?
It's the topics I talk about yes, and when I'm leading travel trips, it's the places we go, and it's always connected to writing in some ways since I'm a writing teacher, but I think people come and those that stick stick because of the way I build community, the presence and compassion and experiences I bring, because of who I am, and the way I hold space for people that is expansive and safe.
For me, writing is the vehicle, but it's what happens in the community space that bonds people to each other and to me that differentiates what I do. In those spaces I may be teaching them how to write a better scene or how to get to the deepest truth in their words or that they'll make it through something tough in life.
I was looking at Amiee Liu's stack yesterday and I think I'd be hard-pressed to post writing craft advice every week; I could do it sometimes, but I'm just not that kind of writing teacher.
I like posting about surviving the political catastrophe in the US because I think it's critically important, but I don't only want to post about that.
I love beauty and photography and poetry. I don't only want to post that. The truth is I've been eclectic in my teaching and I guess my stack needs to be that way, too. I never like feeling boxed in in my work life. And really, I am the common denominator in all my offerings and in my books and writing. I am "the brand"--I've been clear about that for a long time. But how to broaden my substack to reflect that, I don't know that yet.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to reflect.
And it just occurred to me. It would be interesting for me to write to a dozen people who know me extremely well and have followed my work over the last 40 years--both friends and long-term students, some of whom have become friends--and to ask them what it is I do and what they think my core offering is over the course of my career. I think I might get some really interesting answers.
It's helpful to write this and think about it, and then thinking how that translates to Substack is a whole other matter. I know from what you've said before in Notes that what I do may be the antithesis of your orientation, but I guess we're all in the niche that works for us. I just don't like being stuck in a niche!
I think about August: Osage County—how Tracy Letts cracked something open. And I believe all of us have one of those stories in us. For a long time, I thought I couldn’t write mine unless someone died. And then my twin died. And somehow, almost by accident, I wrote our story.
But then comes the question: Who do you leave in? Who do you leave out? The scope. The ones who remain. Their privacy. I’m wrestling with all of that too.
Don’t not write it, Ren. Get it out. Get it said. It’s your truth. It’s your story. Only you can tell it.
Send me your address—I want to send you something.
Ah, Ren. I hear you. The Red Devil is tough. It threw me under the bus. This month it is five years since I found that lump. Mostly, I forget about the cancer, but it's always there, needling me. What if it's come back? But it taught me that life and love are what matters. Wishing you well, my friend.
Likewise, Sophie! I admire how you made meaning out of it all with your book. https://www.hero-press.com/d-is-for-death
Thanks, Ren
Stories can help in many ways. Other people won't or can't tell their stories; if you can--I think it's useful to yourself and your readers. Is it ethical? Eh, maybe don't ask that. Ethics is a spectrum of stuff. Maybe your grandmother wanted to take things to her grave. And did. But you still have what you know of her story, and that is YOUR perspective, and your story.
Thank you, Ann. That is a helpful perspective. She did take so much of her story to the grave. I am entirely clueless regarding entire marriages. Maybe I need to let go of having to cleanly dissect the truth from my impressions. Maybe I don't owe anyone that?
Fiction is a thing, you know…a thing often based upon the loose threads of incomplete or suspectedly-inaccurate stories. Look to those lacunae as opportunities for imagination. You may end up closer to the truth than you realize.
Such beautiful, human writing about such a horrible process. Thanks Ren. Wishing you comfort and ease x
Interesting and moving on so many different levels. I get the vein thing; last week was yet another phlebotomist trying both arms and then ending up in my right hand because at least that appeared to be alive. And all this, of course, without my body having to deal with anything but constant tiredness (hence the bloods) and occasionally malfunctioning hamstrings and quads.
The thing about writing - we often overthink it. When we tell stories about other people's influences on our lives, we're actually telling our own stories. We're not telling theirs. We're not betraying them. We're telling our truth, our truths. Yes, there may be boundaries of intimacy which we might choose to observe, or if we've been asked not to say something about something. Personally, I think death releases us from most of those boundaries.
I did see a comment here about the power of fiction. I think that's absolutely true. If we really want to keep things anonymous, we can just make up fiction around them. No-one knows where our fiction ends and our fact begins, and vice versa. It is a sad reality of life that people come up to me and say "you're so-and-so in that novel of yours," and I have to very patiently explain that, actually, ever character in a story carries different parts of the writer's soul, and that some characters might even just be the people we wish we could be.
Klem, som vanlig, R
Sending hugs. Chemo and radiation are not fun. I’m off them for now, hoping…
First, I’m sorry you’re feeling so low. I assume the Zomata is zoledronic acid, and you had breast cancer? I find the ZA infusions seem to wipe me out a little more each time and yes, I do lie awake at night wondering what they’re doing to your bones. But the thing I relate to the most - to the point of shuddering as I read - is those repeated attempts to find a vein. It sometimes seems that it’s a matter of stubborn pride for a health care professional to go on jabbing and refuse to call in a more experienced colleague. I can honestly say that of all the aspects of cancer treatment, it was the one that I feared the most. And yes, that includes losing my hair.
Very moving, Ren. I am sending all love xxx
So moving and visual. I feel as if I'm seeing a painting and want to say "Paint it, Ren!" But you already have. Thank you.
PS: My secret theory (proven by absolutely nothing and no one, is that cancer is contagious). I hate it.
Thank you, Laura. I have a friend who is a biochemist who reminds me that every body is continuously making and (when heathy) killing cancer cells. I find it comforting and not simultaneously. I can vouch though that pei9le behave as though it's contagious.
Good morning, Ren. You were my first read of the morning. Your post today brought me back to my own months in the chemo lounger, 18 years ago. I had a ten year old and fourteen year old then and I was determined to live. I never could get past how the nurses who put the needles in my arm were dressed wearing lead-lined aprons--and that's the stuff they were shooting into my veins?
I especially loved these lines in your piece: "But I will never be the person I was before I understood that there are cancer cells floating round inside my body."
And, "It is a strange web of cells, of life-gone-mad. There’s a stickiness about the disease that I think of everytime my skin rubs uncomfortable against the orange faux leather of the chemo chair. Like spit or urine or pus, this sticky, tacky interface with the world is a part of what makes life, life."
I also wanted to thank you for your transparency about where to go with your Stack and what's appropriate to write about. I'm in a similar process of re-evaluation after casting my Stack with a very narrow (though passionate) focus.
I am so happy that your recent scare wasn't anything more than that. We must have had different treatments, no lead-lined aprons for me after the original radioactive CT.
I am still looking to role models for navigating the balance between the personal and the private in my writing. Also it my own goals. I genre-hop, but I'm afraid it is out of insecurity not desire. The question, "what do you have to offer..." just won't leave my head.
I think what we have to offer really is ourselves, not a topic. At least for me, I've been doing a lot of teaching lately, and been thinking why do people come to my classes and retreats?
It's the topics I talk about yes, and when I'm leading travel trips, it's the places we go, and it's always connected to writing in some ways since I'm a writing teacher, but I think people come and those that stick stick because of the way I build community, the presence and compassion and experiences I bring, because of who I am, and the way I hold space for people that is expansive and safe.
For me, writing is the vehicle, but it's what happens in the community space that bonds people to each other and to me that differentiates what I do. In those spaces I may be teaching them how to write a better scene or how to get to the deepest truth in their words or that they'll make it through something tough in life.
I was looking at Amiee Liu's stack yesterday and I think I'd be hard-pressed to post writing craft advice every week; I could do it sometimes, but I'm just not that kind of writing teacher.
I like posting about surviving the political catastrophe in the US because I think it's critically important, but I don't only want to post about that.
I love beauty and photography and poetry. I don't only want to post that. The truth is I've been eclectic in my teaching and I guess my stack needs to be that way, too. I never like feeling boxed in in my work life. And really, I am the common denominator in all my offerings and in my books and writing. I am "the brand"--I've been clear about that for a long time. But how to broaden my substack to reflect that, I don't know that yet.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to reflect.
And it just occurred to me. It would be interesting for me to write to a dozen people who know me extremely well and have followed my work over the last 40 years--both friends and long-term students, some of whom have become friends--and to ask them what it is I do and what they think my core offering is over the course of my career. I think I might get some really interesting answers.
It's helpful to write this and think about it, and then thinking how that translates to Substack is a whole other matter. I know from what you've said before in Notes that what I do may be the antithesis of your orientation, but I guess we're all in the niche that works for us. I just don't like being stuck in a niche!
There's so much in that ending parenthetical.
<3
I did have a little cry in the afternoon. Unrelated maybe, but all of it accumulates, right?
I think about August: Osage County—how Tracy Letts cracked something open. And I believe all of us have one of those stories in us. For a long time, I thought I couldn’t write mine unless someone died. And then my twin died. And somehow, almost by accident, I wrote our story.
But then comes the question: Who do you leave in? Who do you leave out? The scope. The ones who remain. Their privacy. I’m wrestling with all of that too.
Don’t not write it, Ren. Get it out. Get it said. It’s your truth. It’s your story. Only you can tell it.
Send me your address—I want to send you something.
xoxo,
Aud
Thank you for this!
I often look at things like August: Osage County and thing - oh, so over the top. Oh. So true. xoxo
Beautifully written, Ren, so much here. ❤️
Thank you for reading and being here are you are so often!