“I spoke about wings
You just flew
I wondered, I guessed and I tried
You just knew
I sighed
But you swooned
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon”
Mike Scott
Life can be wonderfully weird if you let it, or simply pay attention to it. Scrolling through Instagram I saw a tee shirt that caught my eye. People will testify, I do love a good tee. This one was a plain black tee with three words, written large , vertically, in a free hand style script –
Free
Fatima
Mansions
Or at least that’s what I thought it said. It definitely said ‘Free’ and ‘Fatima’ and maybe I, having scrolled past and then thought about it later, imagined ‘Mansions’ as the last word. Fatima Mansions was a Dublin Corporation development in the 1950’s to provide social housing to replace slum tenements. But , for me, Fatima Mansions, was a band fronted by Cathal Coughlan , after the much under-appreciated Micro Disney broke up. But that was all a long time ago.
But Fatima Mansions were in my head as I was working on something in the kitchen after dinner on Monday and was listening to ‘Only Losers Take The Bus’ by the aforesaid Fatima Mansions, when my phone rang. It was my prostate cancer consultant calling. This was odd for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I no longer have a prostate…or a bladder…or a left kidney..or other bits, but for some wonderfully bizarre reason, having gone in to be operated on for bladder cancer, they discovered that I also had prostate cancer, and even after having it removed I was still registering a PSA score, which should have been zero, but wasn’t. Anyway, I have a very low PSA score in all of my blood tests, so they keep an eye on it.
(**** Important note for ALL males over the age of 25 , if you are ever seeing your GP for anything, INSIST on getting your PSA tested in your bloods ! I make no apology for mentioning this as after I’d mentioned it before in a blog and a radio interview , three different people stopped me….again oddly, all in Flemings SuperValu, but not at the same time, and said that they’d read or listened to me saying it and had caught something early. How fucking cool is that !)
Oh, yeah, second oddest thing was that I’d completely forgotten that I was due a call from my consultant. For new readers , I have my actual consultant, the irrepressible and unreplaceable Dilly Little, and this prostate chap. It was one of his team calling. She introduced herself. Her name was ….Fatima !
Seriously ! I tell no lie.
She asked me how I was feeling.
I told her I was very tired , actually, tell the truth, I told her I was wrecked.
“Oh ! I see, tiredness, fatigue ?”
God yes ! I’m exhausted !
“Oh ! That is a concern because your PSA is 0.04 , which is the same as six months ago, maybe we should…”
Sorry, I’m wrecked because my Soulmate and a bunch or deranged people kidnapped me and made me run a half marathon in the Alps.
“Oh ! Oh ! I see …so you’re fine, if you can run a half marathon in the Alps.”
Well, I walked most of the uphill bits.
“Still, that’s very impressive.”
You’re right !
She had access to Ms.Little’s review a month ago, the CT scans, the blood tests, which she chatted through with me. We agreed to chat again in six months.
The next day I bumped into someone, nice chap, whilst getting a coffee. Obviously , in Monaghan, people who don’t know I have cancer are few and far between. It’s like that old adage , which I love, ‘How do you know that someone went to Trinity ?’ They tell you.’
Anyway, after chatting about Parkrun, he lowered his voice , and whispered ‘How are you ?’ , by which I knew he meant my cancer/health.
I love that old thing , which I’ve mentioned before, where when people are referring to something they’re not comfortable with and they lower their voice , in a sentence for just that word. During my lifetime those words have changed, at one time ‘Protestant’, then ‘Lesbian’, and now ‘Cancer’.
“I don’t think you’d like this village, it’s happily ….’Protestant’ “ – Belfast 2000, when Eileen and I were looking to buy a house.
“Do you remember ‘Victoria’ ( not her real name , I’m listening to The Fall sing ‘Victoria) ? You do ! She made her Confirmation the same day as you. You do ! Maisy’s niece. Yes ! Maisy that used to say you looked like a young McCartney ? Yes the one with bad eyesight ! Anyway, Victoria’s home and …she’s a lesbian now…”
I do have cancer. I like to think of it as Schrödinger’s cancer, in that I have it and don’t have it at the same time. And also because I don’t even pretend to understand Schrödinger’s concept, but I love the fact that he was a naturalised Irish citizen. Anyway, knowing that lots of people I love and regularly bump into, read this stream of consciousness weekly, I have cancer. I have had chemo-therapy and ‘radical’ surgery, and I’m fine. But my cancer is stage 4, which really isn’t as scary as it sounds. It’s there, but at such a low level, that it’s practically undetectable. That’s why I have two consultants, and six monthly CT scans and blood tests, because they know it will raise it’s head again, and the hope is that it will be spotted early enough that something else can be done to keep me in a fit state to annoy everyone. A challenge I relish !
“You wouldn’t know it to look at you.” A well intentioned friend said when I told him.
But not only do I not ‘look’ like I have cancer, I do not think about it. I generally do not think about it at all. I have never ‘Googled’ anything, read any books, worried , or fretted. If there is a problem, a lovely person in a white coat will tell me, and they will also have a solution. When I was in the depths of chemo and post-surgery I always felt that all of these nurses, carers, doctors, consultants , were doing their upmost to keep me going, so it would just be rude not to live my best life.
My brother Stephen, sometimes poignant, but always loving , and LOVING in the purest form there is, said to me recently “Don’t take this the wrong way, but getting cancer has been the making of you.” And without a second’s hesitation, I knew exactly what he meant, and we hugged.
Someone else, again, incredibly well meaning, and with love in their heart , said “How do you cope with knowing…” and , yes, ‘knowing’ was a guilty whisper, like Protestant/Lesbian/Cancer.
And I brushed it off with a nonchalant shrug, and said ‘That knowledge is a gift that lots of others don’t get.’
I don’t cope.
Because I don’t really think about it.
When I’m out running in Rossmore with Ray, I’m counselling him not to say what he says to me to anyone else. I’m thinking ‘I hope he says ‘We’ll walk this bit’ before I have to.
When my Soulmate and I are having a candlelit dinner and chatting about our amazing kids, I’m thinking about us being nervous , giddy teenagers, lifelong companions, and her sexy aura. (* I always let her read my blog before I send it, and she’ll delete that bit, and I’ll pretend that I mistakenly uploaded my original version.)
When I’m at a gig with my friends Baz, Karl, Adrian, or , even better, sorry guys, Robyn, Jake , or Elliott, and just being there in that moment that no recording , video, or ‘live recording’ will ever capture.
When I’m having breakfast on a Friday morning with my brothers John and Stephen in the Screaming Bean and we chat about tv shows, us, our weekend plans, everything and anything.
When I’m organising a weekend in Belfast where my friends from school, general day-to-day goodness, Kildare, Dublin, Monaghan, Belfast, and we all meet and I’m the only common denominator and I have absolutely NO FEAR because they are all such incredibly wonderfully cool people that I know that they will just immediately all get on.
I am attracted to those kind of people.
That’s why I don’t worry about anything.
I used to.
And then I started to listen to the people around me.
Obviously , not all of the people around me, some of them have a way to go yet ….no names…not judging.
I have been incredibly fortunate throughout my life to have people around me that saw the complete picture, not just pieces of it.
*( I started to name a few and each one led to a paragraph…and it’s something I’ll return to , but not today )
Before I mention the person that I held in my mind when I started this , I would just like to mention that my ‘philosophy’ of being aware of a ‘big thing’ but not being consumed by it, and welcoming the the ‘wonderfully awesome, just smiling at people, feeding a squirrel, cuddling a cat, throwing a stick for a dog that not’s yours…and not being afraid to tell someone that you love them…or you like their scarf’ bits.
Anyway.
The Whole Of The Moon.
I have always adored this song.
I’m ashamed to say that I failed as an older brother, and that it was our John that introduced me to the The Waterboys, The La’s, The Farm, and The Wonder Stuff…
Last year I got to experience a supremely magical moment at Electric Picnic when our Robyn, Elliott and I roared our heads off to The Waterboys classics in a big tent in Stradbally. Elliott hadn’t wanted to go , as he considered them to be ‘crusty’s’, but surprised himself by knowing all of the choruses.
Proud day for the parish.
The Waterboys released ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ in 1985.
Forty years ago.
When my Soulmate told me a year or so ago that she’d like to go to New York to run a half marathon on St.Patrick’s Day with Georgie Crawford, and wanted me to go too, I replied “I don’t know what that is ?”.
We ended up in New York for St.Patrick’s Day , running with Georgie’s ‘Good Glow’ posse. And it was a wonderful, life affirming weekend. We met a LOT of incredibly lovely people…and then we went home…with memories. Magic moments.
At some point later I had a silly idea, based on a project I’d been involved with 10 years earlier, but to do in an Irish context, to match kids undergoing cancer treatment with a runner who has . or been through cancer, so they’d have photos of a run, a place outside of where they were, and a light at the other side.
It was a woolly concept.
I really didn’t know Georgie at all , apart from having spent a weekend in NY with her group. But I messaged her and asked if she thought it was a good idea and would she be interested in being involved.
“Yes x 2 “ was her reply.
Georgie has been through her own cancer journey, and is passionate about helping others.
But I think her real gift, which I don’t believe she properly appreciates, is that she makes disparate people connect , who, other than for her , would never connect. Maybe that’s her true gift, not knowing her true wonder.
I have taken part in an ‘Empathy Panel’ for medical professionals doing a degree in Trinity in ‘Cancer Survivorship’ for the past 2 years. When I was invited again this year, I said Yes , but asked if they were struggling for past warriors/patients to take part, and they said , ‘Always’.
I asked Georgie if she’d be interested.
“Yes,”
My Soulmate and I have a network of true friends, with a common shared experience, all sparked by her….and some bloke called Javier…no, wait. .Jehus….No, I got it …Jamie !
That is class !
If she was anymore brilliant , you’d swear she was from Monaghan.
It’s her 40th birthday today.
She sees the whole of the moon.
We see parts of it, reflected.
Happy Birthday GEORGIE, we love you!!!
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. For Georgie , The Whole Of The Moon
