So you think that the second time you ride a roller coaster, you’d know what to expect. But no.

A bit rougher this time around, because health is more than a simple chain reaction of chemicals.

Thursday I wrote in fragments. B. died.

It felt like someone unlatched the gate, and let the all the horses run wild into the meadow.

Where there is loss, there is release.

Warm, wet faces.

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Last time we went running together, she ran ahead (she’s always been ahead of me) and saw a young elk in the meadow. I was too busy worrying about bears, looking for tracks in the snow.

*

Becky died at 51. We talked about it – how she was so relieved it would be 51, and not 50. It just seemed “better” somehow. And not because it was a year older & wiser or anything rational like that.

It was something akin to onomatopoeia, or auras maybe. I don’t know: something perceived in the gut – and something about how it wasn’t what the Norwegians call a “round” number: it was/is a satisfyingly specific number.

This is why were were friends from the start. We “got” each other on a plane that defied rationality. We had nothing and everything in common. We gravitated toward the same spot, where we would revel in the fact that we couldn’t put words to experience, and couldn’t not try.

This fact makes life more interesting.

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In terms of cancer diary facts:
1. My eyelashes are falling out now. Entering turtle-territory.
2. Hemorrhoids. No one mentioned hemorrhoids. Please.
Who benefits from decorum when talking about chemotherapy?
3. The most recent biopsy came back.
The second lump in the left breast is also cancerous.
4. Still waiting on the BCRA results.
5. I wake with headaches every single morning.
Sometimes at 2 a.m., again at 5 a.m.

I take pain relievers around the clock – staggering the different prescriptions. I take a nap when I need to. I take a walk with the dog when he won’t stop laying his snout over the keyboard to get my attention.

And I give everything I have to metaphors.

But I am grateful to have the play to work on now. B. is whispering in my ear that it is just a matter of “getting it done”. No excuses. Meet the deadline.

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It’s almost 9 am. I’ve walked Leonard and clipped his nails. On my third cup of coffee now, I can settle down with the adaptation. I am honestly happy that I don’t make my living writing, because it makes the work that much more joyful. It’s a little revelation to myself after all these years. My motives are clear – if I ever had any doubts.

I can hear the rain coming down outside the window. Leonard is breathing heavily in his sleep.

Lear says, “When the mind’s free,/The body’s delicate.” I think there may be something to the idea that it is also true that the delicate body can free the mind.

_{*Mål = Goal Line.}