Happy Anniversary, Chemo

It wasn't until we got home from the hospital yesterday that I realized that it was my one year anniversary with chemo. Leannda asked me to find the picture from Day 1. Scrolling through my phone, I laughed when I looked at Leannda and she was wearing the same sweater, and I was wearing the same shirt on Day 1 that I wore to the Maggie Rogers concert on Tuesday night, chemo day 365. 

As years have gone by, touch points have arrived throughout my cancer journey and Maggie's music has turned out to be one of them. (And maybe Leannda's sweater and my shirt?) The month before my surgery in February 2019, Heard It in a Past Life was released, and in that month, I played the hell out of it. To make the point, the CD(!) is still in my car that has a CD player(!) and it will forever live there. This lead me to an earlier album (The Echo, also absurdly masterful), where I found "Satellite" and played it over and over in the February snow, waiting for my surgery date. There are days that are marked: before that day and after that day. Surgery day was one, but Maggie's music was accompaniment from the uncertainty and doubt before to hope and life after. A before that day, and an after that day.

On Tuesday night, we took the ferry to Seattle and walked to have dinner in Queen Anne before watching Maggie dance and sing like only Maggie can do. The show was ebullient, beginning middle and end. I couldn't help but feel so happy for Maggie's success as she filled every corner Climate Pledge with her own music and her own voice. Seattle's beautiful no-rain-in-sight night continued and with plenty of time until the next boat, we skipped the Lyft option and walked back to the ferry. We talked about our favorite songs (all of them), dancing, how there is such as thing as too much soft serve, said goodnight to the fish at the aquarium, and reminisced on how this is how Seattle "used to" feel. Walking late at night, enjoying the quiet, and enjoying the company of the people around rather than assessing if my self-defense skills were installed properly. (I'll never forget the lady in Portland, who approved my physicality saying I looked like I could hit someone really hard and said I'd be fine walking through a sketchy short cut). We got home at 1:30am and were asleep by 1:31am. Chemo day. Day 366. A day in the infusion room while happy and exhausted is NEVER a bad choice and we both enjoyed napping through much of it. 

I told me from a year ago what we did to celebrate a year of chemo and she said, "No fucking way!" with an all-teeth smile. Me from a year ago would've never thought it possible. There would've been zero chance of having the night that we had with Maggie Rogers--I wouldn't have been able to walk that far (and maintain anything of a cheery disposition), a wonderful dinner would've been chosen on what could I tolerate, not what I really wanted. I would've had to sit throughout the concert. Walking back to the ferry would've been an absolute no from my body. 1am, ha!, it had only seen behind closed eyelids and tucked away in bed. Never mind that it was all after an already full day of horses, teaching, and a long walk with Felix.

The difference a year makes.

Oh, P.S. VOTE