December 3, 2012 | The Deep: An Essay

The Colorado River cuts through layers of the earth's surface to form the Grand Canyon, reaching what Norman MacLean has dubbed "the basement of time." Some of the earth's oldest rocks, thousands of feet thick, was lifted 300 million years ago by monumental geologic forces into a great range of mountains estimated six miles high, the height of the Himalayas. Over time, the mountains eroded into a plain. About one billion years ago that plain was raised into a second mountain range, also worn away by millions of years of rain, wind and frost. During later ages, the entire region sank beneath an inland sea, primitive shellfish fossilizing in sea bottoms eventually hardening to shale. Life was crystallized here, caught in time to be forever part of earth. Eons later the region rose again as a high plateau; the former sea bottom now on top and the ancient rocks below. What rises must eventually fall and what falls will rise. The Colorado River then carved the Canyon inch by inch over the millennia - down, down, down - reaching ancient rocks and exposing evidence of petrified life almost a mile below the surface.

***

“She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Liesel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist's suit collection. She did not say goodbye. She was incapable, and after a few more minutes at his side, she was able to tear herself from the ground. It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on...” - Markus Zusak as Death, The Book Thief

***

We drove toward the Grand Canyon last week on a road trip. We were never made it. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing worth seeing,” Doctor Earl tells me. The eyes of the Flagstaff Medical Center’s physician were playful and intimidating, eating away at my last hope of seeing the massive crevice. It is four P.M. and the light outside is fading. Dr. Earl sports a shock of wiry gray hair and peers through thick rectangle frames of glass, without which I wonder if the bearded man would have quite the air of authority he does. “It’s just a hole in ground,” he gives a chuckle, disinfecting silver needles on a white plastic tray. “But I’ve heard it’s a pretty big hole,” I try to grin, attempting to keep up with his morose, doctor-like sense of humor. I am crouched across a sterile plastic table, an insipid green hospital gown falling at my sides to expose white flesh and the knobs of spine that jut up the center of my back in an emerging mountain range. “Think Halloween Cat,” he has told me, and I arch for all I am worth, hugging my knees to my chest. I’m aware that my pale breasts are exposed at the sides but don’t mind, as here I am a body, an object of skin and organs and blood in need of testing and fixing. “Okay, here comes the prick,” Dr. Earl pierces a needle between two vertebrae protruding at the base of my spine. James holds my hand as my nails pierce deeply into his flesh. A murmured “sorry” emerges from my quivering lips as tears begin to pool in my eyes. The needle keeps pushing, forcing, driving itself into the bone. Something is wrong. The “stop” that leaks my lips is the desperate cry of a child. I feel the needle inching out, wrenching itself loose. And again it enters in a new place, driving forward, splitting. “This isn’t working,” a fervent whisper is given from Dr. Earl to the physician’s assistant. “She has thick skin”. I want to laugh and cry out. Thick skin? I thought having thick skin was being able to handle a little prick. I thought thick skin was what I was supposed to have. “What else have we got?” The men pierce a larger needle into my back as my world begins to spin and black and red patches simmer inside my tightly crushed eyelids. I wish my body to fall away into a sleepy abyss, yet the needle persists deeper and deeper, jerking me from any solace I find in desperate fantasy.

Driving away from the Grand Canyon the next morning we made a promise to be back one day, and four days later I am lying flat in a bed at James’ grandfather’s house. It is the night after Thanksgiving. I urged James to leave tonight, to visit friends of his childhood in town. For days my head has been plundered with needles in any position other than lying dead flat, and I have relegated myself to bed, away from the world that blinds my eyes. “Everything is fine,” I have told my mum and her partner, Guy. It’s just a spinal headache: leaking spinal fluid. They’re common after a lumbar puncture. Yet Guy has just left a message on my phone. I clasp my legs that are beginning to sprout soft winter hairs as I rock side to side. “This is serious. I know it is heavy and this may be the most serious message you have ever received,” Guys’ voice echoes from a million miles away. “Bethany, you have two options. You can lie back and pretend nothing is wrong. You have one of the highest pain thresholds of anyone I’ve met and I know it is tempting to do so. Or, you can choose to fight. You can start banging on the tables. You can make this choice and only you alone can make it. Bethany I just don’t want you to finally see someone and they have to say, “I wish you had come in sooner”.” I know Guy is speaking on behalf of my mother and is speaking with love, yet my breathing hastens. “I know this is heavy but it is time,” he says. “It is time to start banging on the tables”. The room is cold and silent apart from my raspy breath. It’s just a headache, that’s all we know, just a headache. Yet why, I ask, was I just up a few minutes ago, secretly and furiously punching a will into a keyboard, making promises and prayers to a God I don’t believe in? Why do I fear for life and death in a way I have never felt before?

I am on my knees to life, I write. I promise I have more to give to this world. I promise I have more love to give. I promise I have a legacy of love to give. I’ve been thinking about it as I lie here in fear. If or when I make it through this, I need to have James’ child. I’ve been so afraid of that thought. I’ve avoided it like the plague. But I realize now the fragility of life. I’m not guaranteed. My mind is wandering. Imagine if I was gone and there were nothing left, no bastion of our love, no legacy of the dream we share? He deserves a part of me. I realize now that love truly is everything, love and family. Nothing else really matters. Tears rack my body and I begin to shiver. I’m trying to be strong but I’m scared. I’m really scared. I know something is wrong.

***

“A small fact:

You are going to die.... does this worry you?” (Zusak, 1)

Like many humans, Death tries to find ways to give meaning to his work in The Book Thief, the favorite novel of my childhood. Death, the narrator, collects stories of courageous humans such as that of Liesel, our young and idealist main character. He searches for hope in the gathering, reading, and telling of human stories, saying it is, "to prove to myself that you, and your human existence is worth it." At the beginning of the novel Death says the most painful part of his job is seeing, "the survivors, the leftover humans…the ones who are left behind, crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprise. Unlike any ideas of grim reapers and sickles, Death tells us that if we want to see what he looks like, we should "find a mirror". All humans die, and so, he says, we all look like Death. In a way, we're all united with Death, and he's the thing that unites all of us. He is part of what makes us essentially human.

***

It was always a race to find my brother’s grave. My family would visit him twice a year at the Awanui cemetery. My other brother Aden and I would leap out of the car and begin to scamper through the crowded concrete rows, our small hearts beating and eyes darting across the sea of pillars. Our brother, Campbell, rested somewhere between five and seven rows back from where we would park, and about five segments inward. This is very loosely approximate: we were never able to keep count to any more definitive measure as the cemetery was designed like a racetrack. So it was that Aden and I never knew quite where to find him, as we never knew if we were parking in the same place. The asphalt strip encircled the graveyard in a perfect oval, cutting a neat path between the fake flowers and neatly trimmed gardens that separated the military and commoners, the older sections and the newly passed on. If you kept on driving you could drive around it forever.

***

 “The cemetery is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place,” said Percy Bysshe Shelley in Adonais. To one that had to visit a sibling twice a year, this proposition seems rather preposterous. Yet if you look at a cemetery without one’s own selfish fear of soon abiding in such a place I suppose it really is a rather beautiful place. There is not a place that brings people together in such a reverence for our fragile life, with its scattered flowers and wreaths, climbing with ivy and green mosses. In fact, the cemetery, in its tranquility and unity, could be rather heaven-like. "Since the soul of the deceased was thought to need provisions for various wants in post mortem existence,” John Heller writes in Burial Customs of the Romans. “The ground about the tomb was often laid out as a garden, where the spirit might wander and enjoy itself in its own bit of the Elysian Fields”. Life divides many, death brings us all together.

***

There was once a solitary tree in the Awanui cemetery. It stood deep within the asphalt oval, one row back and three sections beyond Campbell’s grave. I don’t remember what type of tree it was, but I do remember it being deciduous, unlike the native evergreen trees that grew in the area. On Campbell’s birthday, August the 25^th, the tree would be stark naked, jutting up amongst a grey concrete sea under a grey sky. On January 6^th, the day he died, acid green leaves were budding, cloaking it from head to toe with new life.

I realize now that we always visited the cemetery at two distinct times of year: the very middle of summer and the heart of winter. In my faded memory there was not a time in January that Campbell’s small patch of earth in the middle of the sea of concrete wasn’t bathed in sunlight. Meanwhile there was not a single time in August that I didn’t catch a glimpse of my mum pulling her coat tightly around her body as she stood on top of my brother under gathering rainclouds. There were never any birthday balloons. This realization seems contradictory, yet I can’t manage to wrap this thought into a profound metaphor. He should have been born in summer like Aden and I were, when the leaves were budding, and he should have died in winter, not the other way around. Some say death is “meant to be”, but to us, it always seemed unfair.

***

The word cemetery derives from Greek koimētērion, or 'dormitory', which comes from koiman, 'put to sleep'. “Like death warmed up” means to be tired or ill, and the Germanic word “Tod” is the root of ‘to die’ (here I think of Hot Toddies and sleepy winter nights). Indeed I found cemeteries to be strangely sleepy places – there was something dreadfully calming about sharing a field with thousands who have fallen into the deepest slumber. After Campbell’s death due to suffocation after rolling over in the night, sleep didn’t come to my mother for three years. I wondered if she too, feared dropping into that same eternal state. As for myself, a young girl at the time, I don’t remember ‘sadness’ yet do remember long nights lying awake, defying sleep in fear of not waking up. The concepts of sleep and death blurred over the post-mortem months. Perhaps sometimes it was the simple daze of life, passing along from day to day. Living without sentient consciousness didn’t seem too different from death (I still feel this in shopping malls sometimes).

***

The tree was our one point of reference. I arrived on a hot summer’s day after being away in the United States for two years. My mother waited in the car first as she always had, and I climbed out to begin the search. Aden, walking beside me, veered off at a row that I am sure is too early. I chuckled. Wandering aimlessly, I tried to find clues in the names I have scanned over for years, treading over the grass growing from their remains.

Here is the old man and his wife who died together, they always have red roses placed neatly above them in silver pots of water. Here is the boy who passed at Campbell’s age who has a giant powder blue teddy bear engraved on his headstone. Here is Sophia – she was seven. Here is Mr. Matthews, whose stone is cracked down the middle with moss growing in the crevice. My Poppa tried to clean it off for a time – it grew back every time and we soon gave up.

With frustration, I span around in search of Aden. Pacing a few rows ahead of me, his head was cocked to one side in concentration as he scanned the rows. My brother’s feet were steadfast, no longer running as he once did, but methodical in his quest to find his younger brother. His shoulders were now broad and hair darkened, his rounded cheeks of boyhood given way to chiseled cheekbones. It was a strange place to realize my brother was no longer a boy. “Any luck?” he yelled at me, his hands raised slightly in defeat. I shook my head and he began striding toward me. Only then as I watched him striding tall above the strewn graves I realized the tree was gone. My jaw fell. Aden now at my side, his gaze also reached the empty spot my eyes were locked onto. With a sharp inhalation, forgetting our quest, we wandered over to the tree while a certain sadness gripped my heart. I wondered if this is the tug of sadness one is supposed to feel in a field of the dead. A shiver ran down my spine. 

The stub jutted from the ground, its trunk beginning to crack apart and gather rainwater in its crevices. Aden reached it at the same time as I, and together we stood peering at the quiet passing of life. “I guess we took for granted it would always be here,” I said to my living brother, still staring at the wooden stump. Behind us, our mother had arrived at Campbell’s grave. Silently apologizing to her son in the ground beneath her for taking for granted that his breath would continue, she knelt to the ground.

***

“I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - rarely do I simply estimate it. The same thing [can] be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant. I am haunted by Humans.” (Zusak, 550)

***

We are in a lavish hotel room - my mother, James and I. My headaches have departed and the three of us have walked out of our third hospital today arm in arm after three days spent as an inpatient. James and I have arrived back from dinner, a festivity my mum professed not be interested in, to find a half-empty bottle of wine. She wakes as we walk in. “Why are you back?” she asks, bewildered. Her blonde hair nests softly above her head and she blinks as we turn on the lights. “Aren’t you supposed to be gone? Where is Guy?” I walk over and stroke Mum’s forehead. “It’s okay mum, we’re back from dinner, that’s all”. I sit beside her on the couch. “Are you drunk?” I ask gently. “Oh, maybe,” she grins girlishly at me. “We brought some food for you mum, here, I’ll help you up”. And so the three of us sit around a polished hotel table high above Seattle, the city lights outside glimmering their winter lights, eating James’s birthday cake (it’s his 28^th today). Around the table we talk about Campbell for the first time. My mum tells us of the unfairness of it all, how she wishes Aden had a brother to grow up with, and how she still thinks of him each day. My mother’s eyes lock onto mine. “Death isn’t fate. I always hated when people thought my son was supposed to die. He should have lived.” I stare at her. The room is silent. Death hangs in the air like an unwanted guest.

Death: the permanent end of someone or something. Today it was confirmed a brain tumor is spreading through my right frontal lobe. Today I lay in a hospital motionless, peed in a bedpan too small and felt the warm liquid run down my skin and soak the bed sheets beneath me. Today the tears of my family and I sitting in the stark room sprang like a mountain spring, and today I told my husband that I would always love him and that I’m not afraid of dying. We lie awake every night in the large hotel bed, as the lights outside glimmer and our tears become one, knowing we will always be together.

***

I’m not supposed to talk about death and I’m not supposed to write this. I’m not allowed to wonder if I’m dying. I’m not supposed to plan for death, or think of it, or look up the meaning or origin of it. Death is a dirty, soiled word. But death, it’s a fact we all live with. It’s a place we are all moving toward. On Tuesday I will have a portion of my brain removed. A week later I will find out what kind of tumor I have, dictating the course of my remaining life. I no longer pretend that it will be forever. Tumors, they have told us, don’t go away. They grow by invasion. The average life expectancy ranges from eighteen months to five years. Granted, I plan to live much longer than any estimate they lay upon my life, as my mother cannot lose a second child and James cannot lose his best friend, colleague and wife, not yet. Yes, my heart aches as I write, and the tears I have learned finally to spill pool beneath my eyes.

We will return to New Zealand soon. We will return as autumn approaches the Northern Hemisphere. This time on August the 25^th I will kneel at the grave of my younger brother with a reverence for the impermanence of life never known to me before. Human to human, animal to animal, I will kneel at the base of the tree, forever now bare. The road around the cemetery will likely still be an unending asphalt path. And as usual, we won’t find my brother until passing the graves of many other fellow spirits who have fallen into their dormitories, from where they slumber eternally to sip their toddies, reminders of our lucid dream. Perhaps I’ll join my brother with these tired souls someday. Yet isn’t that the real key? Someday.

It’s a cliché a million times over, but it certainly stands. We are all going to die. By no means does my brother’s tombstone, or my brain’s tumor bode that I shall join the depths in an unnatural order. I do not resign my body. Not yet.

As for my spirit, the physical world may never take that. I’m told that energy cannot be created nor can it be destroyed. It can only change form. Does it not do that constantly, even in a lifetime? Mother’s lessons become truths, dreams become quests, journeys fulfill our metamorphoses, and new perspectives dictate our daily choices. In love and family my spirit, like all spirits, will continue shall I join my brother. I’m not supposed to write of death. But I cannot and perhaps should not run from the word. I am comforted that a garden awaits us: our body and our spirits. Cemeteries are indeed the Elysian Fields, the continuation of human life, the garden of our souls. It seems that the earth remains our eternal home, the most beautiful and sacred garden of all.  With that said, I still plan on returning to the Grand Canyon, whether it be in the near future or years down the road. For if I am to end in a hole in the ground, or ashes in the sea, why not take solace in the greatest grave of all? One that freezes time in fossils, in which ashes can breathe and rivers run eternally?

***

“At some point in time I will be standing over you, as genially as possible. Your soul will be in my arms. A color will be perched on my shoulder. I will carry you gently away.” (Zusak, 4)

December 4, 2012 | The Knife (from the other side)

“A stillness settles in my heart and is carried to my hand. It is the quietude of resolve layered over fear. And it is this resolve that lowers us, my knife and me, deeper and deeper into the person beneath. It is an entry into the body that is nothing like a caress; still, it is among the gentlest of acts. Then stroke and stroke again, and we are joined by other instruments, hemostats and forceps, until the wound blooms with strange flowers whose looped handles fall to the sides in steely array.” Richard Selzer, The Knife

It’s 3.20 in the morning and sleep is again failing me. The knife approaches with the ticking of each second, its blade is sharpened, poised, ready.

“Sickness” is a sallow word, one that this morning, I refuse to take on. I am not sick. I am not a victim of a shiny metal object that acts out its final will. Sometimes, I refuse to sit on the patients’ chair. I greet doctors with a firm handshake. With a newfound reverence for their profession, there is one thing that these men and women cannot forget despite its ease to do so. On the other side of the knife is life. It is entire families and memories and pains and joys. This could be you, your daughter, or your best friend. Remember this.

We were walking along the Western Seattle waterfront the other day, first grader Eve and I wandering a few paces behind collecting flowers, rocks and shells. Joy radiated from her young face as we discovered bright red berries that spurted dye and purple flowers that had already began to crust and dry as delicate paper petals. “Are you sick?” Eve suddenly asked me, he brown eyes staring up at me.

Eve may visit me in the hospital this week at the University of Washington Medical Center and I will look “sick”. My head will be shaved to the scalp and my skin flecked with lavender IV bruises and the blood that gathers in their sterile plastic tubes. I may even feel “sick,” mind spinning with anesthesia and sleep once again availing my body with hourly vitals checks to monitor that state of the life within me.

It could be easy to be a victim. Let me tell you, it is easy to walk through corridors and sit in buses and wonder, ‘why me?’. Why do I have a tumor growing in my head and you don’t? And he doesn’t, and she doesn’t? How can you laugh freely and carry on your life as if nothing is wrong? Now this – this is tempting. Yet I let my head hang and grasp onto the flecks of joy that remain in my own mind. Within me lies the hope of a contemplated future, the joy of love despite pain, the power of friends and family and an outpouring of love that only a flirtation with our own mortality can bring to the surface of our shared humanity. It’s the most powerful human force I have ever experienced.

“You cannot separate passion from pathology any more than you can separate a person's spirit from his body.” - Richard Selzer, Letters to a Young Doctor

So in saying that, and with just 15 minutes until I am expected to rise, disinfect my tired body, and catch a 4.45am cab to the Surgery Pavilion where I will be stripped into a gown, my hair shaved and my body again relegated to victimhood, I can confidently say that I am lucky. I have never felt so lucky. I spoke to a man doing vision field testing on me the other day in the Harborview hospital. We spoke of true humility that comes with realizing our own mortality – the humility that leaves you broken and open yet empowered as you realize the great power that comes from within and the power of human beings. I may not believe in a monotheistic or polytheistic god yet I’ve never so much believed in the intrinsic, loving, spiritual power of the human mind and the human body. Prayer and meditation allows us to enter into realms of power that are inaccessible simply as objects of flesh and bone. We are fighters.

The world still sleeps as I farewell another chapter in life. To be honest, I’m excited. I’m excited to smile as I fall asleep in the bed this morning and I’m excited for the crazy wigs to cover my bare head (of which we all have one) already shipping from the mighty amazon.com. I’m excited to wake and know most of the tumor is gone, excited for the crazy hippy teas I know my brother is going to make me drink as ‘treatment’ and excited to be once again able to move and run and dance with more joy and gratitude than ever before. This morning I choose to trust the knife and with honest dedication trust the power of the human soul. I choose not to be sick, and choose to remember the joy of the smallest flower and shell and spoken and unspoken word.

“You turn aside to wash your gloves. It is a ritual cleansing. One enters this temple doubly washed. Here is man as microcosm, representing in all his parts the earth, perhaps the universe.”

The knife patiently awaits and I am ready.

December 6, 2012 | Godspeed: A Story From James

Hello all. It's been an interesting time, and I'm not sure I know quite what to make of it all yet. But I thought maybe I could share my reflections in the best way I know how. I've written a story for you.

James

Godspeed Good Godwit

There is only one thing I can promise you when the night stretches beyond limit. You are not alone.

Deep in the darkest and mirkiest blues, the moon shone through a speck of cloud. That very same moon who hovered above the earth for seemingly days on end. Beaming, shining, and glowing, the moon didn't move. Like never before, he just towered above the wilderness in an endless midnight kingdom.

The animals began to gather along the ocean shore to stare at the marvel, there up above gleaming in giant ripples across the ocean. They wondered at this spectacle. How could he just sit there? Why wasn't he driving steadfast across the sky chased by the sun? Would she never return?

When the sempiternal night clenches white knuckle tight, Good Godwit must go, its time for flight.

When the sun hides away, abandoning her northern stay, Good Godwit must go, to save the day.

Soon everyone was congregated in a bewildered horde, muscling back and forth, arguing amongst one another. Worried seagulls fluttered about the heads of walruses, aimlessly diving for minnows amongst the brilliant puddles sparkling on the beach. Dark black crescents crashed around frightened heads as a moose stepped with long lanky strides over seal pups, in search of her daughter. The wolf family crowded the flanks, singing haunted choruses as they corralled the chaos. Ptarmigans bumped blindly into foxes before beating away in the knick of time. Salmon huddled in a pool of silver moonbeams, confused by the enormous bodies of orca and bowheads who glided past into shallow shores. The great commotion was deafening as brothers called to sisters and mothers calmed children.

Desperate cries of hunger and cold, plagued the eyes of younger and old.

They began to see, something must be done. For it was clear to all, they needed the sun.

Desperate cries of hunger and cold, plagued the eyes of the scared and bold.

They began to see, they needed someone. Who could search the darkness to find the sun.

The crowd began to argue, escalating the chaos with accusations and bickering. The orca began to shout at the bowheads. He blamed them for not paying proper respects to the sun, they should have left earlier to meet her where the ice grows. A long bearded mountain goat stepped forward, berating the caribou. Then the fox snipped at the wolves, and the wolves growled at the looming ice bears who peered in from the foggy depths. Soon the entire mass clashed with foaming teeth, howls, and bellows, a whirl of splashes and wingbeats, and gnashing antlers. The rapacious assaults and raucous retaliations could barely be made out in the darkness, but escalating yips and grunts, followed by squawks and roars bore the most horrific cacophony one could imagine. Just at the point where the rolling stones, splashing waves, and stumbling boulders were deafened by the violent gathering a giant beast appeared. Barreling forward out of the darkness, as if incarnated by the fury to calm the wreck of shoving masses.

This does no good to hurt one another, stop this instant my sisters and brothers.

Don't you see, something must be done. For it's clear to us all, we need the sun.

Stop, do no more harm to each other, I'll climb the mountain to find our mother.

They began to see, what must be done. Brother bear would go retrieve the sun.

A little voice in the back protested, claiming Great Grizzly could not find the sun, only her, Good Godwit, the small flighty one. The godwit came forward, landing near the bear's trunk of a leg, standing barely above his paw. Her beak was long and slender, leading back to a chestnut plume, poised with graceful and confident posture. The animals, now more confused than before, stared blankly at this bold character who stood on the shore. The silence fell unanimously like the whisper of morning, only to be shattered by delayed laughter bursting into devilish uproar. How could this small beast possibly believe she was the one to save them. Her? She was the one to end the endless night? No, certainly not her! What could she possibly do that the others could not? Good Godwit could not fly as high as Eagle, and he had never touched the sun. She could not swim like Gray Whale, who never found the sun's resting spot across all of the depths of the ocean. Good Godwit could not run like Caribou, and she certainly never found the sun in all of her treks beyond the tundra. They shouted at her, and belittled her. Even if she could find it, she would never be able to bring it back, they said. She's too little, too weak, they said. The wolves howled, loons laughed, foxes yipped, wales sang, and moose snorted. They all laughed and laughed until finally Good Godwit bursted into a flustered and defiant flight. She yelled down to them, to stay in their misery, to fear and moan in the darkness, to have no faith, it mattered not, for she would return, and bring all of the warmth, hope and good grace of the sun upon her shoulders. Rolling in a tortuous tangle of laughter below her they scoffed, and sneered. They yelled sarcastically behind her, godspeed Good Godwit, godspeed! Interrupted by bursts of cackling madness, they screeched, do come back and save us! Godspeed! She quickly vanished into the horizon.

Godspeed Good Godwit, godspeed! You've got to believe Godwit, believe!

Full speed ahead Godwit, full speed! Yo've got to succeed Godwit, succeed!

Because of his strength, his wisdom and prowess, the animals agreed the bear was their champion. Following their disparaging farewell to Good Godwit, they laid all of their trust into the old chief. And with that settled he lumbered off through the willows. Great Grizzly travelled through the cascading streams, gurgling quietly in the still valleys. He marched up hillsides, through the northern yarrow and mountain heather, past the pines. Up and up, over and over, through the deep night he journeyed. His powerful paws carried him farther than he had ever been before, continually headed east, where she rises to bring a new day's hope. He came to the base of the Mighty Mountains. He peered into the dancing emeralds and sapphires that twirled above the ebony peaks. He began to climb, higher and higher, until the winds whipped his hide. Great Grizzly's massive coat stayed true. He fought through the banshee gales, past the ice caverns, and glacial tombs.

At last, long awaited and hard to climb, the mountain is conquered at this precipitous time.

Now fast, where's the sun you came to find, through valleys, hills, and over mountain side?

Finally, with ice clinging to his fur, crystals in his breath, and a view above the clouds, he surveyed the horizon. Even at this peak the only light came from Moon, who sat pridefully above the world with his troop of ballerinas. Searching far in the east, along the horizon, he looked for even a sliver of light. Anything beyond a moonbeam. But no, there was nothing but boundless blackness. He turned to the south, back to where he came from, to the north, nothing. This couldn't be. Darkness, eternal, stifling darkness was all that could be seen from the highest peaks of the Mighty Mountains. Great Grizzly returned to the shore with his head bowed in sorrow, bowed in shame.

When he returned from whence he came, he bowed his head in perpetual shame.

The beasts spoke not a word of blame, not even to mention as much as his name.

The others said not, they knew what was found. All hope was forgot, there stirred not a sound.

The stillness of the mournful crowd was overbearing. After silence like glass the whales began to moan in agony, followed by the wolves. They cried up to the moon asking him to bring back the sun, together the families howled at the obstinate king of the night. The moose could muster not a single sound, petrified in worry of the future to come. The others wailed in their own ways. All of the animals huddled in tighter, forming a mass of solemn kinship against the bleak shoreline. They stared out into the ocean, each secretly asking, secretly hoping, but daring not to say a word. Their sullen faces longed to see Good Godwit return, to bring the sun upon her shoulders. Finally, Great Grizzly spoke.

All hope is not lost and we are not done, for we still have strength to find the sun.

You each have talents, unique unto you. Travel the darkness, follow through.

Those who swim, swim, and run, run, All of you like Good Godwit, find the sun.

You each have strengths, endowed unto you. Travel the darkness, may your hearts be true.

With that said they all took off. Each creature took to their own pathways. The orcas, bowheads, grays and other whales pushed out from the shore. The bison and caribou took to the arduous plains. The terns, eagles, and swans stormed the air in a flash of feathers. Mountain goats searched for the highest peak, as the vole looked for the deepest underground passageways. Everyone did their part. They bumped along through the darkness, forever they seemed to disperse. The birds flew farther than they ever had before, beyond their usual lakes, beyond the mountains, beyond the forests, where the weather was warmer, even hot and wet. It was of no use. Beaten and desperate the famished beasts returned. One by one, the hooves clattered back to that cobbled shore. The wings touched down, and paws padded over the logs and creeks. Each exhausted animal collapsed back into the huddled mass. The wolves smashed against the moose, the ptarmigans warming the fox. Not a beast even had the energy left to turn on another. Shrouded in the ink of the universe, with hides dowsed in sweat and ripped by wind, bleeding claws, hoofs, and talons, frozen coats, and sitting along the shore of deep and dark waters, the life of the world heaved from their failing lungs to gasp their remaining breaths. Afraid and weary, each began to retire. Each looked out unto the sea, each muttering their final words. They released their prideful desires with one last glance, finally unabashed, they whispered, godspeed Good Godwit, godspeed. Their oppressor stared down in flagrant apathy, beaming over the hope lost in his infinite kingdom, the joy that seeped into the darkness.

This is the end of the world. This is the end of all things. When shadows consume all hope, and joy is lost. Death is no evil, no looming cretin waiting to devour the hearts of all those that love, all those who pump fiery passion into the springs of life. Death is no monster, slashing and burning, casting lots into the ovens, cutting throats, and milling through the souls of those lost. All of the heartless and deranged misfortunes of an erratic and unstable universe, are mere vehicles. They are the deliveries, dumping bodies at the feet of eternity. They are not death. Death is deep, cold, hollow, and alone. Huddled in our masses of hope, we are slowly ripped away, one by one, by one. Death is eternal night and endless shade, it is the obstinate misgivings of an oppressive kingdom.

As the last beast closed his eyes, he felt the most intense joy he had ever dreamed, warm and calming. It stilled his massive heart and brought peace to the wounds and worries of an incredibly tired old bear. Great Grizzly felt the fire of life warming his coat as he drifted, further away into hidden memories, the best ones. Those special moments he saved for himself. His first salmon. The willow patch next to the two pronged log. The view of storms barraging the range. Those moments, the ones that remind him of how happy he is to have lived his life. As the memories stirred, so did his blood. The giant heart lurched piping blood through his veins as he felt himself floating into the warmest pools and brooks. He thought of his cubs with their mother, drifting through the meadows, splashing with the minnows. For the first time in his entire life, he realized how truly happy he was to have it. He did well.

Death is not a choice.

But time is. And this, my friends, is not that time.

As Great Grizzly drifted into the warm springs, the others experienced this sensation as well. Their eyelids warmed as they thought of the love and joy they knew, the happiness of arctic squalls crashing an ice bed from deep below, the spring flowers dotting an endless expanse, the pups, cubs, and kids. Life was more beautiful in their moment of death than they ever knew. The warmth spread, tingling throughout as they relived their individual worlds. This is the beginning of the world. The heat grew and grew into a raging wave of immense pleasure, until they opened their eyes to see the golden brim of the sun crowning over the sea, blasting rays of hope, disintegrating black to blue, to purple, with cascading oranges and yellows of a reborn meadow. The ocean radiated in scales of golden and silver embers, blinding the moon, and relegating him to a fleeting existence forever amongst his troop of twirling sisters. Eagle began to screech, look there! Look there! All eyes awake, all in awe, the animals stared in amazement, as Good Godwit pulled ahead. Starting a speck, just a silhouette, dashing ahead of the incredible chariot, she came streaming towards them, sun on her back. Brought to their feet, cheering, barking, and screaming, the animals strained into the sun to see their hero. The livelier pulled the weaker, the big helped the small, all working together, renewed with hope and faith in the world. She did it. She truly did it! That brave and beautiful little bird did it!

Godspeed Good Godwit, godspeed! You've believed Godwit, and succeeded!

Full speed ahead Godwit, full speed! You've found the sun Godwit, and retrieved!

The creatures were ecstatic, jumping and splashing, diving and dashing, and running all about. She truly pulled it off. They were saved. That is, all except one. The great bear still lay where he rested, smiling and thinking of fresh flowers in the glen, cubs, and salmon. For Great Grizzly was ready, he had been to the mountain and back. He had grown old, and seen his cubs. He was ready. For Godwit however, she needed to know that there was still a world full of love and beauty. She had more to see, more to do. She had a choice. She knew it was worth fighting for, traveling to the ends of the earth for. Good Godwit flew nonstop to the ends of the world, to pluck the sun from its hiding place. Her graceful wings carried her with confidence, despite the fears and doubts of others. She was unbeatable and courageous, gorgeous and passionate. She launched herself through an endless night to find the one she loved. She needed the sun.

Godspeed Good Godwit, Carry on!

Godspeed Good Godwit, be strong!

January 9, 2013 | A Letter to James

I wrote this to you last night after heading down to bed. I hope you don’t mind me posting it here.

I woke this morning wanting to write to you and it was in my list the whole day. As always (yes, even when you are with me, if that’s not too strange to say), I can’t get you out of my mind. I keep thinking about how it will feel for you to drive in to Moscow and to wonder at the strange loss of the feeling of coming home, or to see all your friends that so clearly love you and to know that you must be kept apart from them by distance, money and all that stuff, and most of all, how it will feel to walk into 120 South Polk and see the remnants of our life strewn about there. The weight of what you are doing for us is unfathomable. It’s silent but for the wind down here in the den and I have little tears gathering at the corners of my eyes at these imaginings.

My guilt is sometimes, just sometimes, overwhelming. Guilt for turning not only my own but other peoples lives upside down. Guilt for acting differently after surgery and as I waited for treatment to begin. For not being strong enough or loving enough. This is my own choice to feel this guilt, and you know that I refuse to dwell on things that can’t or couldn’t be changed. I choose to feel it because I know I could have been more loving and dynamic and brave over the last few weeks, and it only makes it worse that you too knew it, and was the only one to voice your belief in me…and I let you down. It’s funny, that’s been the hardest thing. Not the surgery, not the jabs, not the fear of death, I’m really not too worried about that stuff. It’s the fear of letting you down and of being a burden.

I’ve felt really great in the past few days. I’ve wondered if I should feel guilty for saying that, as it’s not something polite people say to others just after they have left. But as you know, ‘polite’ isn’t the first adjective I shoot for (there are much more exciting ones, like wondrous, phenomenal, sparkly or intrepid). Anyway, let’s just say it was since our breath-of-air escape into the mountains that I’ve felt good, that perhaps the fright in the night and the icy water woke me up a little. In the past few weeks I’ve taken the saying ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone' (or compromised, or limited, etc.) to be a metaphor for life…. and in the meantime, was forgetting that it’s the goodies inside of life that go unappreciated. The little tears keep wanting to creep back as I think of the awful nights you spent with me in hospital, or tending to me when I could hardly walk, or even worse, putting up with me as I recovered from the ordeal physically before mentally.

Today I ran the Highbury Fling twice. The feeling was incredible, flying through that greenery and feeling my body strain up the hills before gasping that gorgeous clean air and dodging the twisting trees on the way down. I sat by Harriet by the fire and discussed her favorite books and how she gets them out of the library, and cooked a lovely meal for Karen and Carolyn with ma with Electric Guest on full volume. She and I hugged as I wandered down to bed tonight and as I hugged my wheatie-bag, amongst a chorus of sweet “goodnights” between everyone. And now I stare at your pile of clothes and can’t believe that you have traveled across the world for all this.

I can only hope that during this time away you will be able to understand that this here isn’t the life I’ve chosen either…that neither was necessarily Moscow. These things have happened and we’ve found ourselves amongst them, and learnt to adapt and enjoy them wholly along the way. No, the only life I’ve really chosen is the one with you. I may be looking forward to radiation on Monday and be happy being with family, but I loved our life we were and are creating and there is absolutely no way I will ever give up on it. Our dreaming brought us together and we must cherish our dreams always, wherever we are.

The wind is gusting at 140km/hour tonight, and I’m blowing you a kiss good night. I hope it’s carried right to you across the seas, and I love you for knowing what a kilometre is (thanks).

x, your B.

February 7, 2013 | James: A Godless Communist

A Godless Communist

There's something about home cooked meals, hours of sleep, and conversations with loved ones that resets an inner compass. This essay is no more political than a love note. Granted, love can be a controversial subject at times.

After a battery of debates with my father regarding different 'hot button' issues, the most recent of which was my stance against civilians owning military grade fifty caliber sniper rifles able to tear a hole through the side of armored vehicles. I was described in jest to my mother as a Godless Communist. Now obviously, there's some truth to his statement, despite the love backing this portrayal. Despite the brevity of my escape to the motherland of red mud, cowboy hats, and barbeque joints, I was able to pull to the surface some much needed strands of insight from their dormant abyss. Ben warned me about his trip back to Oklahoma. He said that it was the best conversations he had ever had with the parental units. In fact, it persuaded him to stop running – at least for now. It always seems that reflecting on my values, and seeing my roots, tends to make problems shrink.

My father and I went back and forth every chance my mother wasn't there to intervene. Father - son bonding time I reckon. Whether we were discussing homosexual rights in regards to the Boy Scouts of America, gun control, socialized medicine, homicide rates in the 'developed world', the importance of a standing army, abortion, or taxes, two themes continued to circle like vultures as we realized we were arguing in a similar direction, with different solutions. People should have incentive and accountability. Why is food service in New Zealand often abysmal? Because they don't treat front of house staff as well respected members of society. Commission and percentages speak a hell of a lot louder than wages. Why do you have to be extremely cautious when picking your favorite saltena vendor in Bolivia? Because you're not getting a dime out of anyone in court for losing three weeks of your life to the oral and anal flood that will ensue if you choose poorly. People must have accountability for their actions, and they need incentives to perform immaculately.

Of course it seems like I'm derailing this blog, but I can assure you there is a legitimate point I'm trying to build. Through the midnight hours of discussing possible solutions to the myriad of issues that are continuously thrown into simple yes/no bins of patriotic conservatism, or flaming liberal propaganda I began to realize this isn't so different from the issues I'm facing in my life. I don't honestly give a shit if someone wants to call themselves a member of the Tea Party, or a libertarian, or a progressive. It doesn't really mean much to me. Secondly, I don't think it really means much to the progression of solutions for our society. It's easy to get worked up about things that seem awful in our lives. It's easy to join the ranks of some new hope, fighting the villainy of past transgressions. It's easy to do nothing in your life while you scream bloody murder on Facebook. It's a lot harder to sit down and think about realistic options available in the wake of grief or chaos.

I've been trying to dig into my own issues with this affinity for accountability and incentive. There has to be a way to pull myself back on course. Back to the love I know is within me, and the strength to be a good steward, while maintaining an optimistic and realistic view of the future. Of course there is, and I believe, finally, I'm headed back to the right path. What is a Godless Communist after all? An indirect compliment? I think it's probably a way of describing my love for life on earth, and passion for strength in our families and communities. Obviously, it's a bit of a false moniker, as I would describe myself as more of an agnostic who finds serenity in the sacred tabernacles of nature, and a capitalist with heavy socialist leanings as far as community outreach and general standards of living are concerned, but I think he was on the right track. It has become clear to me that disappointment is directly related to expectations and goals. Bethany and my quality of life are products of our accountability to one another and the incentives to reach our expectations. Our incentive is a product of the expectations of our goals, which are completely up to us to decide. Furthermore, the accountability to remain dedicated to achieving our goals is also completely up to us. So perhaps redefining my goals is in order. I know I've convoluted a relatively simple argument for apparently no reason. But I suppose it's therapeutic for me to work out all of the little twists the rabbit takes in my mind. The elevator pitch of this entire essay is straightforward.

Bethany, I started to find myself lost without the clear goals we had spent so much time establishing, and subsequently eased my grip on my own accountability towards such goals, which threw me into quite a spiral. But I see once again, so many of those goals we once set are truly subsidiary. The only priority I absolutely have to work on right now is getting the two of us through this mess as smoothly as possible. Everything else can wait. And, in due time, bit by bit, we'll start building our empire once again. After all, as a Godless Communist, I'm only here to survive, there are no pearly gates for me. So I'd better make the best of it then, and I need you for that. So what do you say babe? How bout we get back to basics, and start focusing on just you and me? I'll see you in the morning.

March 3, 2013 | Age

Eighteen. It’s my second time visiting the bright lights of Wellington. Mum and I are visiting her new boyfriend, Guy. Guy is the first boyfriend she has ever had that I have thought was adequately suited for her. We’re visiting his house, a nice old villa like none I have been inside before. It seems fancy. We’re getting ready to go out, and my heart is beginning to race. I’ve only ever been ‘out’ in sleepy New Plymouth, which has about seven bars and one club. I’ve heard all the stories about Wellington nightlife, and I simply can’t believe that I’m going to be a part of it. I slip on a tight dress that shows off my summer legs. I’ve heard you have to dress ‘nice’ to get into clubs here, but I’ve also heard that if you’re a girl and show enough skin, it doesn’t matter. Whatever, I do look ‘nice’. I team the purple and blue flowers of the dress with some little black flats – ‘I’ve got to be able to dance,’ I think excitedly.

The drink selection is overwhelming at the first bar we go to. Guy tells me to choose anything I want. I'm baffled. I have no idea what to choose, so just get what mum gets. $15 for a cocktail? That’s ridiculous! How can prices differ that much between cities like that? I hope Guy is okay with that, although I guess he must be used to it. Looking out into the street, music blares from the clubs, smoke pouring out and lights dancing. The night is young. It’s another world, and I can’t wait to explore it. I’m eighteen and finally an adult, out on the town. Here I come!

***

James and I went out last night. It was my first night ‘out on the town’ in Wellington since I was eighteen, and a stark indication of the growth that I’ve been through since last being in the country.

“Isn’t the breeze cold, you should put some clothes on!” a voice says in my head as we wander past crowds of girls wearing dresses smaller than the one I wore over three years ago. I laugh uncomfortably to myself, wondering at how boring I have become. But no matter how I scoff at it, the voice won’t be quieted. I hold in my breath and squeeze James’ hand as we walk through another hoard of them squealing in pitches that transported us to a kindergarten playground. As a high-school aged girl stumbles past almost vomiting, the aged prude in my mind couldn’t help but frown inwardly. Who have I become?

The entire time I was in the US, I thought the 21-year drinking age was ludicrous, and made it known. I would tell people that a younger age limit teaches people to drink responsibly, and would be amazed to see 21 and 22 year-olds being excited about drinking to the point of endangering themselves. “That wouldn’t happen back home,” I ranted. Nowadays, Wellington has changed my mind. I do think that people should be able to drink at 18, even earlier, but binge drinking needs be discouraged and can be. James and I were talking about the options as we drove in to go to dinner before the concert. Perhaps if 18 to 20 year olds were only allowed to buy drinks at bars, it would fix some of the binge drinking problems here - at least they would be in a supervised place and couldn't purchase packaged drinks for their younger friends. Plus, a basic beer here costs at least $9 at a bar so cost would be a discouragement in itself for the young‘uns. There certainly never was a shortage of alcohol from when I was fifteen, as there were always plenty of people at school (we thought those people were lucky) who had older siblings who were eighteen. Or there were people who were friend with the seventh-formers. And then I was suddenly eighteen, getting together with friends to down cheap wine from a grocery store before heading into town. It’s what we all did. I guess upon reflection, I never saw the drunken twenty-somethings, as I grew up in a town virtually void of twenty-somethings.

As James and I sat in the old Wellington town hall before this adventure, watching the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain play and thoroughly enjoying it, we felt old. In a strangely wonderful way. I know sometimes the tinge of nostalgia can creep up unexpectedly for the old wilder days, as we drink tea after a night of a couple of drinks. In a way, we feel growing pains, but it’s not all that painful at all.

I used to say I felt like I had skipped my childhood, as I was forced to grow up with the death of my brother when I was four and the divorce of my parents at seven. I wasn’t even good at being a teenager – the party stage only lasted a few months before I was sick of it and hit the books again, on a continual and sometimes painful plight for self-improvement. And now I sit in the early days of my twenties and wonder if the typical 20-somethings are already slipping from underneath me. Truth is, I could happily be an 80-year-old, and simply can’t wait to get there. You can trust that I’m going to give it my best shot anyway. It just seems so blissful – a lifetime of wisdom and love behind you, license to do whatever you want, be it gardening or writing or reading. Maybe by that point the back of my hair will also be wispy so I’ll be all matching and could give up on wigs…or simply wear luscious ones!

I guess being forced to think about children in doing IVF and think about mortality more than I would have ever have had considered can age a soul. I know I’ve done a lot for someone my age, perhaps packed a lifetime of stuff into a short amount of time, but it was certainly interesting to feel disconnected from most of the females my age out yonder.

I’ve been thinking a bit about the fact that I did pack so much into my short lifetime, as that was one thing that would carry me into nightmares when I was first diagnosed. I could envisage my obituary – it just seemed to eerily make sense. I worried that perhaps it was my time… that I had had my shot at life and done it well, and now it’s time to move along. But I no longer think this. Sometimes I feel that perhaps my soul was tired. I’m not saying that the cancer was a lesson that I needed, but I do think that I had tried to pack in an incredible amount and I wasn’t stopping there, I had plans.

Perhaps I needed to stop.

***

My friend Nicola, who I will be seeing next week in my hometown of New Plymouth, wrote me a card with this quote on the front:

“Life is what we are alive to. It is not length but breath. Be alive to goodness, kindness, love, purity, music, poetry, flowers, stars…”

I’m sure I’ve already talked about life being the quality of what it’s made of rather than the quantity, but I guess this also applies to growing ‘old’ in soul. Taking a break from all the madness, being alive to flowers, music and poetry. And tea and baking. I think I’m ready to grow up. In fact, I don’t feel that we really have a choice in the matter. But of course, you can either age with sparkles in your eyes, or let them fade. And so, the image of the slightly frail man with long white hair rocking out to ‘born to be wild’ on the ukulele with his hair swinging is a good one to keep in mind. And, as it will always be important for us all to understand the screams and excitement, I now simply hold on to the memories of the days when the bright lights and beats would summon me into a tantalizing trance.

March 13, 2013 | Farewelling the Old Path

I guess when you look at the facts of it, my entire life as I knew it was suddenly gone.
Gone was the grad school application and plans to move to Maryland. Gone is the
wedding plan. Gone were the hours spent studying – they were suddenly rendered futile.
Gone was the sweet little house we planned to stay in until leaving Moscow, gone are my
friends. Gone are the late nights and crazy morning hairstyles.

With simply the bare facts, I should feel empty.

But I don’t.

There’s something about being home that makes one feel somewhat fulfilled. Wait, that’s
not quite the right word, fulfilled implies going off and following your dreams. Breaking
free. No, there’s something about home that makes one feel somewhat ‘filled’. That’s
better. Whole. Comfortable. At Ease.

James and I are staying at my dad’s house this week, the old country home with
sprawling flower gardens and multitudes of birds singing that I grew up in. That familiar
trampoline that I have spent countless hours flying high above the earth on, into the vast
blue sky that at night is speckled with millions of stars. The lounging cows out the front
that stretch their necks over the fence and nibble on dad’s native trees, the sheep named
Bruce, and my old grey cat daisy who has survived 18 years on only fish and refusing anything else.

While mum and Guy are holidaying at a beach paradise up north, Whangapoua, with it’s
golden sands and perfect weather, I couldn't be happier to sit in the living room writing
this with a few clouds floating around the mountain, black sands and rugged
coastlines just a few minutes away. I couldn't be happier to snack on toast as we always
did, daydreaming and cooking for the guys within walls brimming with memories.

Yes, that old life is gone. But in a way, I’m happy it has. Because it’s given us a clean
slate; a future which we can begin painting once again. It took me a while to come around
to it; for a month or so after surgery, still in a slight state of shock, I would smile and nod
when James would begin talking of future plans. But all I’ve needed was a dash of belief
and a dollop of hope, and we’re back on track. Now, the future is one of my favorite
topics.

I know when we’re on a certain trajectory, it’s so easy to feel locked into that and there’s nothing you can do about it. I wish I had known sooner that no, I didn't have to continue in Anthropology, I didn't have to be an academic, I didn't have to be ‘the best’ at everything I did. Everything was a choice. You see it so often – someone who followed that same trajectory until it wore out, then at 50 realized “I wanted to be a school teacher all along, who was I kidding?”

It’s as if we are laying our entire lives in the hand of the seventeen-year-old us (which we
would never do otherwise), trusting them and saying, “yes, self-conscious, confused teen,
I will follow this choice you made to study at university until it wears me down”.


For much of my degree, I considered myself more of a writer than an anthropologist. I
knew I would write someday, but I had to continue, I had to get a sensible, successful,
internationally focused job. I did all the right things – ticked the international experience
box, work experience, volunteering, grades, whatever they needed. All so that someday,
after multitudes of academic publications, I would have the freedom and respect to write
whatever I wanted.

I've enrolled for a journalism diploma beginning this July. It’s a one-year multimedia
course, consisting of writing, photography, television and film, and radio. I know, I’ll be
in the middle of chemotherapy, but with a cohort consisting of many high-school leavers,
I think I’ll be able to do it. Plus, the medical warnings of side effects are always the
worst–case scenarios. When I told my dad, he was pleased, saying that although
‘journalism’ seems a little below my capabilities and training, I’ll be able to do it well. It’s an
interesting stage in life, this early-twenties thing. Pick a way to go and you’d better hope
you've picked the right path…

Nicola and I were talking about an old friend of ours, Alice, who gave university a go for
a couple of years knowing it wasn't for her, but was too afraid to pull out. Nicola had
signed a lease with her, and a month before they were about to move in together for the
next year of study, she received a call from Alice, in tears. She told Nic that she
was so sorry; she was going to pursue hairdressing and couldn't come back. Nic was
ecstatic, as she had known Alice had always wanted to be a hairdresser, yet had been afraid of
the societal analysis of the job.

Aden never went to University, in fact, he never finished high school. Yet here he is,
doing his grocery shopping with us and talking about his saving goals in his job, which he loves.
Yes, he picked fruit and trapped possums for a while, but I couldn't have been prouder.
It’s so important to do what fits you well and not cave in to judgment, and my little
brother has taught me this.

We’re also working on a short film for a festival at the moment, which has a deadline of
just before the journalism course begins. I won’t give the plot away now but plan on publishing
the script and film here once we have submitted it.

With these new directions in jobs, plans and lifestyle, I guess ‘fulfilled’ is the right word
for this unexpected stage in life. Although not as 'successful' by societies standards, hanging out with my parents while on the sickness benefit and wanting to write, it just feels right.