What my friends say…
So I hear you: let go of nonviolence when you are talking about cancer. I get it, sure! Though, as my priest Gary told us once in a sermon, there are two kinds of pacifists: those who stress the paci- and those who stress the -fist… I don’t think you need to be told I tend to be of the second type. What I meant to ask was not to describe (my) nonaggressive attitude toward cancer. You bet I am going to do everything in my power and in medicine’s power to get well, if only for Alessandro. Yes, I am going to kick its ass! I guess that I started thinking about this when I read what Melissa Etheridge said in an interview. OK, I am no fan of Etheridge, I mean I didn’t even know who she was until I heard in the news that she had appeared bald at the Grammy’s. I still don’t know any of her songs. But she said something that intrigued me: she had a problem with the phrase ‘cancer survivor’ as, she said, it gave cancer way more credit than it should have. Likewise for me using the terms ‘battle’ or ‘fight’ or anything that implies a formidable adversary is… well… scary. Or I could see myself as the David against Goliath, but why should I? I mean, David was this improbable hero, right? But there are millions of women who have won the ‘battle’, so there is nothing improbable or heroic about my case. I do want to take this as an adventure, an opportunity to learn something (I don’t know what yet) and, yes, to get out of this alive, somehow better than before.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Dear, dear Catia, to defeat even the most trifling physical discomfort, you would not hesitate to ingest antibiotic medication, thus overseeing the wanton slaughter of countless — and arguably innocent — microbes. The cockroaches proliferating in your food preparation area will be found unresponsive to rhetorical persuasion; if ejected unharmed, they will return in force, likely with a new understanding of you as an insufficiently ruthless adversary.
Toni shares with us many valuable insights, not least a stark recognition of my “incredible†qualities. While the urge to acknowledge such may be understandably overwhelming, it is superfluous in the discussion at hand (and, incidentally, any perceived pomposity is for entertainment purposes only; I am, without doubt, the most humble and modest person I know). Further among Toni’s contributions is a close(r) reading of your original request, along with an admirable and downright Aristotelian strategy of realignment. To favor and perhaps condense this line of reasoning, I submit it is possible to love that which you kill. Cancer may deserve no spite, but neither does it deserve any quarter. People will declare war on ants in their bathrooms. This isn’t about the ants, it’s about the bathrooms. Honor and treasure the bathroom that is your body, Catia, and fight a righteous war.
..And to think, no one yet has mentioned Jihad. Oh, oops.
Catia, your body is your temple…um, I mean your bathroom…wait, that doesn’t sound right either. Damn Alan, your analogies are fucking with my cliches.
Cynthia, your cliches are running roughshod over my metaphors. Stop it.