Stabs of ascent

One thing we've learned over the past two years is that we usually see life more clearly in hindsight.

After a flurry of blog posts before the Easter holidays, writer's block has given me time to start to find some much-needed perspective. It's been a strange period where I've sensed something deeper shifting beneath the surface.

In my last post, I was left irrationally irritated when my PET scan results showed my cancer cells were inactive, meaning our anticipated return to Treatment World (the crappiest theme park ever!) was cancelled. I've also used the analogy before that when my cancer is stable and I'm off treatment, I can feel like an untethered balloon; liberated but not sure how to get back down to earth, aware I could pop (my cancer begin to spread again) at any moment.

After my PET scan results, I didn't want to go back to that blown-around, weightless, state. If I wasn't returning to treatment, I didn't wish my sense of hope, future and wellbeing to be dependent on the unpredictability of my three-month scan cycle. A part of me dug its heels in and demanded a new, more grounded, resilient way of living.

This way is about keeping both eyes open - one to the beauty of bonus health and life, and the other to the continual reality of my prognosis. It brings a greater sense of balance, counteracting both false hope and unnecessary doom. This feeling of recalibration, as it often does, has played out in recent weeks in my body as I've gradually recovered from a fresh bout of back and neck pain which meant a pause in running and playing rounders.

Although the root cause of the pain in both places is the cancer in my spine, I'm sure there are at times psychosomatic elements which aggravate the discomfort. As the pain has lifted - and I've been less physically restricted - I've begun to see things more clearly, and been able to get back to writing on here.

I've found the backdrop of Lent and Easter useful in situating this ongoing process of resettling. Lent, a time of waiting and enduring in the Christian calendar, gave me permission - or an excuse - not to have to rush to joy or resolution. I've often seen Easter as a one-day or one-weekend event. However, viewing Easter, as the Christian calendar does, as a longer season has been more helpful this year. A season which reflects the onset of Spring, as new life and light gradually increases, providing a more durable, slow-build, sense of hope.

These ideas deepened further on a two-day retreat I attended with nine other men (most of whom I'd never met) on May Bank Holiday weekend. I arrived tired after we hosted a barbecue the day before for my 51st birthday. But I was deeply nourished over the 24 hours away as we each recalled different periods of ups and downs in our histories. The Lenten compost of our shared lives - including 'descent' stories of divorce, experiences of racism, bereavement and mental collapse - were held alongside the 'ascent' incidents of growth in our families, relationships and careers.

The grounds of the hotel in which we stayed boasted many old oaks and other trees (some pictured above). Recently, a huge, diseased cedar of Lebanon had been felled and its wood reformed into an amazing pergola (pictured below) which was to shelter wedding guests that day. As I spoke of my cancer 'descent' over the past two years, including the felling of numerous life dreams, I was encouraged by the others to use the cedar and pergola as a personal metaphor. Sitting under the pergola soon afterwards, I had a powerful and reassuring sense that, even beyond death, I can continue to offer shelter and shade to others through the influence of my life, albeit in a different form.

Shortly before that weekend, I was moved by the death of Mike Peters (below), the frontman of Welsh 80s rabble-rousers The Alarm. One of my favourite interviews was with Mike 26 years ago when we sat in his dressing room after a sweaty solo show at The Varsity, Wolverhampton. He'd just beaten his first bout of the blood cancer which eventually returned to kill him. I'm not sure I've ever met such an optimistic person, which was borne out in the decades that followed where he campaigned tirelessly against cancer; registering thousands of potential blood stem cell donors at gigs often performed between chemo sessions, alongside his wife Jules, who has had her own cancer battle. Never a fashionable rock star, Mike embodied infectious, stubborn resurrection, even as he spent decades in the valley of the shadow of death.

My personal journey has seen a significant milestone in the past fortnight as I've completed my first hours of paid work since my diagnosis two years ago, for the national Church of England communications team. I'm hoping it will be a regular thing even though, at the moment, it is literally for an hour or two each week, which suits me fine. Then again, maybe the deepest stirrings of new life are the little, gradual stabs at ascent.

Lisa's helped me knock this blog post into shape as the last month or so has provided many different fragments of emotions and thoughts which have been hard to fit into a coherent whole. So, at her suggestion, I'll leave the last words to a popular music icon:

There's always gonna be another mountain

I'm always gonna wanna make it move

Always gonna be an uphill battle

Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there

Ain't about what's waiting on the other side

It's the climb

(Miley Cyrus, The Climb)