Back to school supplies: the good pens, my Buddhas, and a little bravery

Having discussed Takis v. Cheetos with me at great, nuanced length, I walked away from the small group of students at lunch when one shouted behind me, “Gruber! What is your sexuality?”

The question was not shouted in a cruel way, but in a way that took a good deal of courage to ask. This kid was especially young, and the topic sensitive, so the answer had to be 1) honest 2) brief 3) simple.

“I’m married to another woman, so I guess that makes me gay,” I told the student.

She jumped at my response, “What?!”

Given the sincerity and kindness with which she had posed the initial question, her reaction puzzled me. I shook my head as in “I-don’t-understand-your-response.” (I’ve noticed the culture of my new school includes a lot of nonverbal communication. I really appreciate this.)

“You are not gay,” she said emphatically. “You are a lesbian.”

The “what” was utterly semantical, and I laughed. “Yes, ____. This is also true.” (I am still learning kids’ names. That used to be a superpower, but now I cannot see their faces except for sometimes when they’re outside at lunch or in the park. I cannot see their faces, so I am constantly repeating their names to them like a weird. For example:
Hi, Allison. How are you this morning Allison? Oh? Really, Allison. That’s great to hear, Allison. It’s fucking unnerving, but necessary in the current fucked up iteration of our always fucked up country).

The student who boldly, but kindly, asked the question and then corrected her teacher, is in almost all of my classes. I remember that during the first week of school this child posed “bravery” as a topic for our year together.

This child is brave, and she was asking a brave question when she asked if I was gay. I realize that for many children I am a different looking woman than the kind they might be accustomed to. Because I am in my years I no longer fight with myself about who I am — I dress as I dress, I live how I live. I work hard. I try not to hurt anyone in the process. Really, these days, it is often that simple.

This child is also a strong writer — she suspects she is, but is awaiting “professional” confirmation, so I try to give her that as frequently as I can.

She says she “hates” English as a subject, but she’s smart enough about language to call my semantic error. That act was braver still than posing the initial question. She corrected, correctly, a teacher.

All this to say, just as I suspected I would, I adore my new school. Happy ending on the professional front.

Thursday, I see my new oncologist in Tucson. Naturally, this comes with all the stress, terror, uncertainty, pants-shitting existential dread that is endemic among those of us with a “touch” of the PTSD. And a “touch” of metastatic breast cancer. And a touch of only being in my forties and not ready to, you know, die anytime soon.

When I get going like this my pal Sal will say, “Would you shut up, and listen to yourself? Listen to yourself.” Saturday, she said “You spend more time thinking you’re convicted than that you are free.”

She may have added “ya waifish little queer,” to that statement. I don’t remember. She is from Great Britain and attempts to oppress me as an ancestral Irish person at every chance she gets. Her xenophobic tendencies are particularly antiquated in that they only manifest in a fierce and ruthless need to oppress me. And I’m totally kidding. Sal is one of the coolest fucking people I’ve yet met in Tucson, and I’ve met a lot.

Brave. Sal teaches me a lot about being brave. And then there’s the Anonymous Program whose tenets I try to follow as best I can (I’ve been sober for 157 days today) and Buddhist practices I’ve braided into my daily life, and I’m learning all the time how to be brave. Sometimes, it ain’t easy.

But what’s happening THURSDAY?!?! some readers may be asking themselves hysterically (or not) because, you know, The Cancer Thing.

The answer to the question is “I don’t really know.”
I am fairly certain I will talk with my doctor. We will review my awful, dreadful, no-good-very-bad case, and she will order labs, scans, et al. And then next month (I’m basing this on the timeline with which I received information/medical care from the Healthcare System On the Hill — not over that trauma just yet, folks), I’ll get results that will tell me things about what I should do to my body to stay alive for a little while yet. That is what’s happening Thursday.

The only thing I can know is how I feel.
I feel really good. Better-than-ever good.
I have energy.
I am slowly, but surely, teaching myself how to sleep with therapeutic and pharmaceutical helps.
I am slowly, but surely, learning how to honor my body with rest.
I am learning that I am a person for whom “relax” does not come easily. Part genetic, part shit-that-went down, and as far as I’m concerned, the cause isn’t as important as the cure. I am looking for cures in my life. Unfortunately, life, like fiction, has its awful way of never giving the main character what she wants right away. They often make her wait because the waiting makes the story more interesting. Most Fiction is just real life stretched as far as it can fucking go.

Sometimes, reader, I feel stretched as far as I can fucking go.
My Anonymous Program tells me to take shit one day at a time. My Spiritual Practice tells me desire creates suffering, stay where you are.

Last night, I talked to one of my very best friends. We’ve been friends since we were actual teenagers. So much history between us. This woman has borne witness to the greatest (in size/time) portion of my life.

During our conversation, in reference to our Boomer parents dropping us off at college, Kristine said Boomers said to their Gen-X progeny, “Be nice. Bye-bye,” after basically bringing us and the world around them to its fucking knees. (Boomers are not an Oppressed Class, and so I will hate on them without guilt so long as they continue their campaign of willful ignorance and destruction in this fucking country — and yeah, I’m talking about the White Boomers now.)

Brave.
Sometimes you just have to say what’s on your mind.

“Gruber, what’s your deal?”
“Gruber, what’s your problem?”
“Gruber, who the hell are you?”

And what’s hilarious is that I mostly don’t know.
And I’m mostly okay in “not knowing” today.
I have to be. When I wasn’t okay with the unknown, when I couldn’t settle into the present, and when I continue (and I frequently do) to engage with/exhibit behaviors related to my anxiety, I am only hurting myself.

“Who’s out to hurt you?” Sal asked me. “Look around you. Who is out to hurt you?”

For the first time in my life I am aware, thanks to people like Sal, thanks to the Dirty T, that I don’t have to be around anyone who wants to do me harm in any way: emotional, physical, spiritual.

I mean, I have to buy groceries and drive on the highway sometimes, and live my American life, so I will be around Asshole Americans sometimes — suffering is unavoidable — and I can choose to spend the vast majority of my life NOT in the company of Asshole Americans.

I’m learning.
I’m figuring out how not to be so afraid, and maybe I shouldn’t be as afraid of meeting my new oncologist as I am afraid of meeting John Wayne Gacy or some shit.
And yet here we are: I am equally afraid. My problem with fear (and alcohol) is portion control.
I’m a fear binger.
I don’t know why, because a “Good Fear Binge,” unlike a “Good Cry,” never really makes me feel better at all. Alcohol never made me feel better at all, and that’s why 157 days ago I removed that substance from my life.

That’s where bravery comes back.
Bravery is often, for me, a reigning-in of thought.
Bravery is often, for me, the ability to have a horrible, terrifying, dreadful thought, recognize its presence, “What’s up John Donne, Jr?” and then let him go.
Bravery is telling myself that it’s-getting-late-and-maybe-you-should-eat-before-bed-because-tomorrow-will-be-another day at school in a pandemic. We’re still in a pandemic, right? I live in Arizona and take in very little news these days so it is hard to tell if pandemic is over or pandemic is still happening. Wild West, man. Wild fucking West.

Naturally I will update this blog after I see my doctor. Naturally I am afraid. Having cancer is not a casual, breezy thing, contrary to what one without the disease might think.

Scary, scary shit and I am angry most days that I have to think about it at all when there is so much in this world that is so much more interesting to me than cancer. Like, I have zero interest in cancer. I just want to know who knows how to cure that shit, and move on with my mortal life without Cancer Demon riding my ass every fucking day.

Goodnight.