Life Storms

Just about the time it seemed like life was going to become more manageable, a new storm has blown through and tossed me completely off balance. Unlike the weather-related storms that we experience from time to time, life's storms can gather amazing strength right beneath our noses without any warning of the impending catastrophic damage that is about to take place. The undetectability of this phenomenon inspires shock and awe when you experience it firsthand. It isn't the kind of joyous wonder you experience when you see something awe-inspiring out in nature that you've never witnessed before. It's the kind of thing that makes you feel overwhelmed and physically ill without any meaningful ability to change the situation.

One year and nine months ago, my mom was diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma, which is a rare and often deadly form of cancer that accounts for less than 1% of all new cancer cases in the U.S. each year. Just to make things more interesting, my mom presented with extraskeletal osteosarcoma, which accounts for approximately 1.2% of soft tissue sarcomas. It's kind of like being struck by lightning.

The only solution to my mom's original predicament was radical surgery to remove the aggressive tumor and two of her four quadriceps muscles. Thankfully, my mom had an amazing surgeon who did an amazing job. The tumor was removed and it was determined to have pathologically clean margins. Mom had to retrain her brain to use her remaining quadriceps muscles to do the work of the muscles that had to be removed. There was a lot of physical therapy and serious concentration involved. Mom made amazing progress and was motivated to plow through extensive radiation therapy in order to recover and get back on my parent's sailboat in order to sail off to the healing blue waters of the Bahamas. With an initial prognosis that was less than favorable to say the least, mom figured that she would do her best to do the things she loved and to make the most of life.

Every three months there have been scans to watch closely for signs of a recurrence or metastasis. Each time we sat on pins and needles not knowing what we would hear and hoping for the best. Each time she was scanned and we received good news, my family would heave a sigh of relief and we would grow more hopeful that the next scan would turn out clear as well. This process became slightly less nerve wracking each time, although the tension and anxiety always remained just beneath the surface.

This week after finishing my finals at school, the plan was for me to hop on a jet and arrive on the east coast with hopes of celebrating a break from school work and hopefully a clean cancer scan for my mom. We had intended to hop on my parent's boat for a sailing excursion where we could enjoy ourselves and just relax. That is how the week was planned. That is not how the week has actually gone. My mom's scans took place as usual, but this time the news was ominous, frightening, sickening, and somewhat unbelievable. I was sitting at my computer finishing some requirements for school when I received a message from my mom. It was very short and to the point-the exact message was "Bad news. Lung tumors. Will see surgeon."

I sat there stunned while I was staring at the message on my computer screen in complete disbelief. I felt as if someone had actually reached into my chest and was squeezing my heart tightly in their fist. My eyes welled with heavy tears and I felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the room. I felt completely blindsided in spite of the fact that I knew that this could happen at any time. Knowing that something can happen and actually having it happen are two entirely different things. Mom had rapidly been approaching a time when the odds of this happening would have dropped in half. It was so close, we could all taste it. Now there is just the bitter sting of bad news and difficult choices that remain.

We began discussing what options were available and potential outcomes. It's a horrible discussion with no easy answers and seemingly no good choices. It's difficult to describe to someone that has never experienced it before. It's as if you are watching helplessly as your loved one is being pulled out in a riptide and you can't get close enough for them to grab your hand. It doesn't matter how strong of a swimmer you are or how much stamina you can muster-all you can do is watch as they are pulled away.

It's as if we have been yanked back to square one and the opponent has grown more vicious than ever. Currently, the only hope is to remove the entire left lung surgically and hope beyond all hope that it doesn't spread to the right lung. It's difficult to fight an opponent when you don't know the rules or the rules change constantly. You can't anticipate with something so unpredictable and aggressive. Hopefully there will be surgery in the next couple of weeks and it will offer a shred of hope.

Right now, I feel completely hollow and there's nothing that I can do to change any of this. It's somewhat overwhelming to be yanked back into this situation again with no end in sight. At least when a hurricane is coming, you can see it and have some warning so that you can try to get out of its way. This kind of storm offers no such luxury. It's more like a tsunami that comes roaring ashore unexpectedly leaving nothing but destruction in its wake.

If you aren't familiar with how this all began, you can read about it HERE

The Rut

I've been in a rut. Have you ever been in a rut? I'll admit that a rut doesn't seem like a good place to be while you're in it. I've come to appreciate the parabola of creativity and know better than to try to force something that isn't there. It just doesn't work that way. The frustrating part about the rut is that you never know how long it's going to last. While it's sometimes difficult to remember exactly when the rut began, there's never any difficulty remembering where it ended. Sometimes a rut is artificially extended due to weather, life's obligations, or generally unfavorable circumstances.

After being in the depths of the rut for some time now, I'm starting to see the subtle clues that I tend to notice when I am going to emerge. Something unexpectedly fabulous or amazing is lurking. I never know when or where I'll encounter it and it does absolutely no good to look for it. It's one of those things that you have to wait for. I know by now that it's worth the wait, so I've developed a patience for it. I used to have the most frustrating experiences while I was in a rut. It wouldn't matter where I went with my camera-something would go wrong or nothing would happen at all. The big nothing. As you know, there's never really nothing happening anywhere. This is when I go out with my camera looking for something in particular, don't find it, and come home claiming that I have a memory card full of art. When I can't see what I'm looking for and nothing seems to be happening, I start to look at things with a different eye. I begin to see something where there had been nothing moments before. This usually begins when I start to pick up subtleties about light or angles in ordinary objects. Sometimes I see ordinary things in an extraordinary way when this happens. At any rate, it's a gift. It's like the world forces me to slow down and really absorb what is going on around me.

Even when I am not taking photographs, and that has been most of the time lately, I've come to notice that I see things differently than most people. I'm not necessarily looking at things differently, I just process them differently. It's something that I notice all the time. I see little flashes of details that most people don't seem to notice. I stopped asking people if they saw it a long time ago. Occasionally I am with another photographer and we both see it at the same time. It makes no difference if either of us were shooting at that moment, there is an unspoken communication that's registered. We both saw it. It's gone in the blink of an eye, which is why I describe it as a flash.

Tonight for the first time in quite some time, I don't have to do anything. There are certainly things that I could be doing and a few that perhaps I should be doing, but I needed to pause instead. So I carved out a couple of hours and accomplished next to nothing and it felt good. Again-sometimes nothing is something.

So, I'm eagerly anticipating my emergence from the rut and I'm waiting for something fabulous to happen. I feel like I've been waiting patiently - come and get me.