Seasonal Soundtrack: It’s A Funny Thing Loving Life

By V. Rose

On a comfy yellow couch in West Oakland I caught up with a friend last Christmas: “I’m getting a PET scan, and my cancer might be back,” I said then quickly asked what she had been up to.  She put her hand on my shoulder and insisted “Let me have my feelings.” We held each other by the light of a single candle and she offered to pull my card for the new year.  4 of wands, a card of community support and homecoming.  

I started my cancer journey in Portland, unknowingly putting myself in the hands of a doctor who botched my surgery, gave me medication that I was allergic to, and then gaslit me about it after.  As I recovered both physically and mentally I unearthed soothing music from the archives of my mind.  I lay on my bed surrounded by pink fairy lights, windows open to the light breeze as I listened to Arthur Russell’s World of Echo.  

“Place I know / Kid Like You” by Arthur Russell

Illness pulled me out of nightlife and into my own world.  I told friends what was going on, sometimes in uncontrolled bursts of emotion, sometimes with calm disassociation.   Nostalgia gripped me in it’s comforting embrace.  I pulled a record from my Seattle days, memories of dancing in living rooms, eating with roommates in our breakfast nook, coming home to VHS tapes on tv.  iji S/T spun while I folded my laundry, drove to doctor’s appointments, and stared out the window with my roommate’s cat.  

“In Motion” by iji

After working for a month to prop up my faltering health insurance I decided to return home to Orange County for specialized care.  Armed with 6 sandwiches from Taste Tickler and a skeletal itinerary of hot springs, desert highways, and a 10 hour detour to see a crush my bff and I hit the road.  Maxine’s truck was comforting and chaotic, cassettes covering every inch of floor space.  As we drove past salt mines and ghost towns we yelled along to “Over the Edge” and “Is this Real?” by The Wipers.  She unearthed a Greg Sage solo album that became our obsession and “Sacrifice for Love” our anthem.  

“Sacrifice for Love” by Greg Sage

A friend told me chemotherapy is a butterfly process.  At first I resented this comparison, I felt like there was nothing beautiful about getting poisoned every 3 weeks.  But then I thought about the caterpillar molting and dissolving inside a protective chrysalis.  As my body and mind turned to slime I felt the protective circle of friends and family holding and supporting me.  My new doctor was my guardian angel and strongest advocate.  With her unofficial endorsement delivered with a wink I started smoking weed.  I sat on my dad’s patio chairs, “Lese Majesty” by Shabazz Palaces drifting through my headphones contemplatively as I vaped in the California sun.  

“Dawn in Luxor” by Shabazz Palaces

I wish I could say I was creative during my medical leave but I was not. I watched 6 seasons of Futurama, nursing my own personal brain slug.  I played dark, fantastical video games about death and illness, axing enemies in Bloodborne and repeatedly defeating the god of time in Hades II.  I walked to the library every Wednesday, I read 40 books.  I learned the drug sending burning sensations down my arms was originally synthesized from the bark of 100 yew trees.  A graveyard evergreen, the yew is known as the tree of death and resurrection.  As the heartwood of the yew rots, a new sapling grows inside the trunk.  

Treatment has been successful and I will soon return home to Portland a sleepy butterfly.  But I do not take life for granted, nor the immense web of support that has held me.  Tell your friends that you love them.  

“Love on My Side” by Martin Dupont