Since getting cancer, I find myself beginning too many
thoughts or conversations with that prelude, then stopping short of the answer.
I’m also blaming (or crediting) my cancer for everything from my head to my
heart to my herebefore and thereafter (I may have that backwards, but it works
for me either way).
“Life is---”
Well, right now it’s a rose and a potato. On the porch
at home, we have both, growing in pots.
I was thinking today about that botanical odd couple of
tubers and flowers just as the rotating wings of the radiation machine begin their targeted circumferencing of me and my shadow. I had to. The Radionettes were
playing some numbing background elevator music, and I was trying to move that evil
audible into good imagery.
Surprising, because as you’ve seen thus far if you’ve
been following along, they’re usually my spot-on DJ’s. I asked them about it.
“Why those saccharine tunes? Have I been a bad
patient?”
“Frankly, yes. You don’t realize it, but you’re squirming,
singing, breathing abnormally during the treatment, and it upsets things. We
thought this would help calm you down.”
“Well, I’ll have to think about which is worse: cancer
or canned music.”
So, I turned to the profundity of disparate potted
plants in my mind, and that helped neutralize those soulless strains in the
air.
Why is life like potted roses and potatoes? Maybe I
should ask why MY life is like compacted buds and spuds. Your life may be like
soybeans and palm trees.
Yes, it’s unusual to grow a potato in a pot, but it
will still flower briefly just before harvest.
And, though it’s not common to use roses as a food
source, we do have rose wine. They may not be a nutritional mainstay as a whole
plant, but their petals will partially dress up a salad, or a smoothie, a jam, a fish
garnish, even a rosy cupcake.
So, here we are halfway through my treatment regimen,
with a food that flowers, and a flower that feeds. Somewhere in there is why my
life and my cancer may not resolve, but they will reconcile.
Oh, and when my treatments end, you’re all invited
over for potato pancakes and rose tarts.
More as we go, El
