A Foreigner's Body

Health Journal

Today I noticed that my hair on the top of my head is growing back. And so have my eyelashes and beard. Still, after six months of chemotherapy off and on, I feel that I’m in a foreigner’s body. I’m still struggling to get rid of the stiffness in my legs, and I’m hoping I will be relieved of the feeling of my calves and ankles being squeezed while walking. I’m never in pain, but it’s awkward to feel this way, and I'm afraid of my legs losing their power. At the same time, I struggle with the writing, hoping to come up with the goods. I always write at the round white table in the living room. It’s bright there, and there is always a breeze that comes through the windows. Still, I have to remember to get up and walk, because the longer I sit or lie down on a bed or couch, the harder it is to get up and walk. And I can always walk, but the stiffness is irritating.

Everything I do from the moment I wake up in the morning until I go to sleep at night is some form of struggle. Therefore, I’m never bored. But I do have this feeling of restlessness, waiting for something to happen, and it seems this essence never leaves me because nothing dramatic does happen. I imagine my life being directed by Robert Bresson.

My feet are still numb, and there is tingling in both hands and fingertips. Still, I can type and feel things through my hands, but there is this layer of numbness that I’m already getting used to. At the moment, I can picture myself eventually taking a shower on my own, and the long-term vision is the staircase outside the entrance. Still, I can’t see myself at parties, art openings, or even shopping in a bookstore or music store. It’s hard for me to stand with a cane for a long time. I can focus on a bookcase or music stands, but I would probably have a hard time focusing on chit-chat at a social event. Once the conversation becomes boring or reaches its natural end, my legs will tell me to leave the spot and go somewhere else. And that is something else I have to deal with finding chairs or couches in public and private places where I can easily sit down, and especially be able to get off chairs. Many people in their homes have low chairs, and I still need a place to sit with armchairs to remove myself.

At the moment, I’m turning my Substack and private journals of my stay at Kaiser and dealing with cancer into a book. I think it will be good, but at times I have a hard time writing and editing the manuscript; I think it's due to the trouble of getting my head back in the game, even after a month. I very much want to live and think in the present, but my writing tends to be in the distant and current past. Therefore, I have to place myself in a scary landscape, and although I know I survived, it is still a trip into a time tunnel that gets darker and darker.

I know the past, and I get the present, but the future is cloudy, and I'm not sure whether there will be full sunshine or a deep fog. In a manner, I feel at 71 years old that I’m beginning life all over again. It’s not the end, but a new beginning, and I’m using my cane to tap against the walls and whatever I can’t see in front of me as I wander into a world of mystery, the unknown, and hopefully something I can articulate artfully, with no hesitation.