Untitled #43,862

I am a man of signs.
I look for them everywhere.
The harbingers of death and the pallor of requisite endings.
That's who I have always been.
The kid and the teen and the adult wondering about lasts.
Rather than firsts.
So when my neurologist calls me in for a talk after my MRI.
I see that sign.
That's a billboard on a traffic-jammed highway.
It's not the subtle mark of a snapped twig on a hunt.
I show up in her office the next day.
She has tombstones in her eyes.
She starts to speak.
Stops.
Starts again.
Then pulls in a deep, long breath.
You see, she can feel the pull of transference.
She cares about me.
And once she realizes it.
Her voice turns clinical.
She breathes in deep again.
I'm glad that she does.
After all, if you don't believe in oxygen you're already fucked.
And she can't be pulled under the tide today.
She reminds herself that she is not dying.
It is just me, this stranger, this man, this patient, this human in front of her.
Her voice lowers.
It becomes a soft whisper.
The most boring conspiracy of light you've ever heard.
She's reciting the recipe to a soufle that she's expecting to rise.
She says fancy words.
Words like left-frontal convexity.
Meningioma.
Gamma knife and chemo.
A brain tumor.
A real killer recipe if I've ever heard one.
She asks me if I have any questions.
I nod.
I lean in close.
And I ask.
Can she validate my parking?
Because I'll be damned if I'm going to pay parking fees for this news.ㅤ

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It has been a year now.
I still look for signs, but things have changed.
I'm no longer searching for the scattered faces of the reaper.
He's already here.
This is not a hunt any longer.
We're nearing the gathering phase.
Life is just a matter of time.
It is never left complete, but abandoned.
So I mostly look for the signs of why I want to stay.
I take pictures of honey bees now.
And snails.
And flowers.
Especially the tiny yellow ones that grow up through cracks in the sidewalk.
And I photograph trees.
The big craggy brutes that are balled up like a storm.
Those are signs.
When I swallow my handful of medications each morning.
I like to think about the sanctity of coffee.
And chocolate. And turmeric.
And the way fog clings to the earth and doesn't want to let go.
Fog and I have a lot in common.

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A long time ago, I read a book about disillusionment.
It pegged the truth that nothing in this world really matters.
It was hipster nihilism.
Nihilism before it was cool.
And I was a nihilist until I got better.
Or before I got sick?
It's hard to tell.
Because if nothing matters, then everything is a miracle.
That you are here listening to me speak.
(and have not yet fallen asleep)
Is a miracle.
I want you to know.
You might not get a nice clean chat in a doctor's office.
There might be no neurologist to tell you about the clock.
The one that's been ticking since you were born.
I hear it now, even when I sleep.
Tick tock tick tock
I am captain Hook and Peter Pan.
I am the sad old Pirate and the carefree lost boy.
You do not get a second chance to dance the first time.
You do not pass go.
You do not collect two hundred extra years.
Even if you didn't want them.
The price of transference is loss.
And sometimes loss feels so, so, so heavy.
I am no longer confused why Captain Hook was so angry.
Why Peter Pan learned to hold onto happy thoughts.
The price of admission, my friends, is death.
The price of love is grief.
The price of living is empathy.
And don't let them convince you otherwise.
The costs keep piling on each other one by one by one.
And I have decided in this twilight.
In this Winter.
However long it lasts.
That I will pay them all.
I will adore each tithe paid to the executioner.
Each morning.
Along with my medications.
And my coffee.
I will continue to wonder at turmeric.
And honey bees.
And signs.
So go look for them tonight.
And tomorrow.
And every day.
And I'll be here.