First Anniversary of Diagnosis Report

Well, Hi there all, so here we are
With one year gone and just a scar
Without and not within, though there
Is clearly lodged a bit of my chagrin.

These traumas just accentuate
What lies beneath – we hesitate
To Drag it out for all to see
Our weakness as humanity.

So festers on this weaker side
Such great resource we waste to hide
What can to all be clearly seen
When lines aren’t read, but in between.

We played around with tempera paint –
A folded Rorschach blot did make
To then create a picture fair
Of what we’d just become aware.

When paper then unfolded was
I knew I’d not go there because
It scared ‘be-Jesus’ out of me
That scene from Hell’s captivity.

Once last week’s issue laid to rest
It seems my mind could see see what’s next.
A semi-random ink-blot test
Revealed what lay beneath my chest.

I couldn’t cover fast enough
And move along to other stuff
Which was I guess quite well and good
So long as I that understood.

Amazing our transparency
Through plastic art especially.
I see so clearly in the rest –
I’m quite sure for them no less.

I’ve not been able all my life
To handle all this inner strife
In public there for all to see
The demons that inhabit me.

I know, from work, I’m like the rest
Who struggle these from life to wrest –
They move on then as newly freed
And leave behind both thought and deed.

It’s strange how all leads back to Cree
And English conflict, here in me;
And how that clash wrecked up my life
And generated to much strife.

I see so many also bound
There deep within, without a sound.
It’s in their eyes, and where they look
They're there to read like open book.

It’s not as bad as used to be
Here in this host community;
They used to hold all trouble in –
So bogged down they could hardly grin.

Not now, not with this weight on me –
I long to leave captivity.
With no or little energy
There’s none to waste so stupidly.

One year ago right now I heard
The doctor say those words absurd:
“I just was looking at your file –
Jeez you got cancer!” then he smiled.

It was at that point I went numb
And to the shock I then succumbed.
Three days of giddy laughing then
My world collapsed and head did spin.

So here we are to hell and back
On side of head I took a whack.
Though doctors acted stupidly
My biggest challenge – always me.

My picture here most angry was
That it would be I knew the cause
But far below, now plain to me –
Cross-cultured sexuality.

Anger like candy – chew it goes
The other, sex – like gum it’s woes
Are worked around till change their shape,
With no more flavor to partake.

Pandora’s box to open up
Within this group – where would it stop?
Two questions – can the lifeguard swim?
And would the rest with me jump in?

It’s not that cancer sex wrecked up,
For that, thank God, has been my luck.
It’s more that shadow-side in me
Which causes lots of stress to be.

And stress to cancer’s dynamite
So bids us deal with inner night
Where that is done is up to us –
It’s either that or prolonged fuss.

These three years past the source I’ve seen:
Third culture Kid’s past journey’s been.
It left relationships back there
Across that pond quite unaware.

“Death, sex, and our religion, are
Three themes entwined”, said Freud – “by far
The most pervasive drives within
When one’s derailed, lets trouble in”.

So, faced with death, by far I was
The hardest thing to face because
My horizontal world to me
Was not as good as vertically.

When Christ boiled Judaism down
To ‘lite’ for export-duty bound
To flavor, light, and lighten, our
Quite foreign cultures, then so sour –

He said it was reduced to two
Things that we could both think and do:
The first to love with whole heart God;
The next our neighbor, which seemed odd.

That is, one-half of Church takes God,
The other half takes man – the clod,
They each, while half the Gospel take,
Think have the whole, and half forsake.

I’ve known, of course, that quite a while,
But TCK part made me smile
Because when cultural home is found
All else is changed, and we rebound.

I’ve had a while to cogitate
Upon that fact, but now must make
The jump to public forum bare
So I to others can give care.

The fear in me is of ‘unknown’
It’s all new turf this taboo zone
Child of my times, like each of us,
For me that means ‘pretend no muss’.

Well, I’ve a week to think that through
Like how to handle turf that new
To face, each, our humanity
Despite such vulnerability.

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