Change

I’ve never been good at accepting change. I hate it when people leave, when things don’t according to plan, when I find myself in a different place, with different people. I guess that one of my challenges has been to accept the changes that cancer – or any other illness – brings to your life. Having said that, I have striven to maintain my life as it always was, despite this illness. This brings me to another issue...I no longer feel justified in calling what I have, an illness. I do not feel ill and I do not look ill. In fact, the only reason I resent chemotherapy is that it makes me feel and look ill. Consequently, between treatments, I often forget that I have cancer. I think that this is a good thing. I am not, in any way, in denial. I know what is in my lungs, and I know that I could win or lose this battle at any time, but I also know that my body is saying to me: you’re doing alright! All the feedback I am getting from my lungs is positive. My coughing has reduced, I can walk up the escalator without collapsing at the top, I can carry bags back from Sainsbury’s, and horror upon horror, I am putting on weight again! I had a laugh with my barber last week as we compared double chins (he is 23 and proved to me that everyone has a double chin if they put their head down). Incidentally, Adam (my barber) and I cannot gossip about his brother Evan any more when he is cutting my hair because in the new shop, Evan has put in CCTV and apparently asked Adam why he is always telling customers (in other words, me) all his secrets!

Back to change. One of my couchsurfers is leaving this Tuesday. There have been occasions when I have welcomed a departure of one of my couchsurfers, but more often than not, I hate it when one of them leaves. We become a unit, a family, we learn to look after each other and we also learn when to give each other space. When one leaves, I feel what a parent must feel when one of the fruits of their breeding leaves home. Yet, we always keep in touch and yes, you do “get over it” and in no time, a new couchsurfer arrives with his or her own interesting personality and you move on.

Some changes that people have to face in their lives involve a lot more pain than losing a cheeky couchsurfer. Close friends of mine in Belgium have recently returned their son Timothée to Mother Nature. Having carried Timothée for 6 months, having known a lot about him via the amazing medical tools that exist these days, and having forged a relationship with him, my friends had to accept that he was not meant to be part of their physical life. Visiting them in Brussels this weekend, I am encouraged by the way in which they are adapting to this change, embracing their grief but at the same time, speaking about the future. Our minds and bodies have an amazing way of adapting to change and although it is considered a cliché, time does heal all wounds provided that we let it do this. We need to accept the challenges and sometimes negative changes that life throws at us, and more importantly, focus on the positive changes that lie ahead. This does not mean forgetting the past, but it does mean remembering the good parts in order to find the strength and encouragement to move forward. I believe that my friends are able to move forward towards a new and brighter future, rather than moving away from a painful past. Thinking about them as well as a certain young person in South Africa who is going through a painful breakup, I cannot help wishing that I could just “fix” it for them and anyone else who is facing painful challenges and changes. Just wave some magic wand and make it all better. All we can do for them is wish them strength and vision for the future. Believe in the ability of your mind and body to adapt to change and wait patiently or impatiently for time to do its healing thing.

Something that bothers me slightly about this blog is that I worry that people might think that I have turned into some kind of saint or authority on everything. A few of my friends have assured me that I could never aspire to sainthood – which is entirely true – and as for knowing everything, once again, life has a way of bringing us down to earth every time we get too arrogant. I have a young friend who crosses the fine line between confidence and arrogance and by his own admission people occasionally don’t like him because of this. However, people sometimes look up to you and in a sense, build you up which can lead to you becoming if not exactly arrogant, a little over self-confident. I remember learning the expression about realising that people have “feet of clay”, in other words, no matter how much you look up to someone or build up their image in your mind, they are simply human. My concern was that somehow, in my blog, I was giving the impression that I had all the answers, that I was this super-person who was told he was dying but has managed to accept this, cope with it, fix his own and the world’s problems, offer parting pearls of wisdom to everyone and who was going to part peacefully on towards sainthood. Nothing could be further from the truth (now I’m worried if that should be farther, rather than further!!!). I am often struck dumb with no answers to give, I am often angry and frustrated over silly and inconsequential issues, I still get a little nasty when I feel threatened, and there is still so much work to do and so many things to learn about life. I don’t want this blog to become a preacher’s pulpit; it has been and always will be a typed (and control-z) representation of my random and sometimes focused thoughts which, by virtue of my ability to never shut up, hopefully gives you all a serious and humorous outlook on what is going through my ever-busy mind and life.

As I said earlier, I am in Brussels, having raided my friends’ fridge and food cupboard. I woke up before 5am with the munchies (who would have thought that herbal tea could have the same effect as other natural herbs?), so I went downstairs to see what I could find, made myself a coffee and decided to write. My friends have redecorated one of their loft rooms for me and I love the colour (I would call it budgie green but that’s because I love budgies). Ha! I have just thought about Falcon College, many years ago, a great school in Zimbabwe. One of the activities the boys could choose was Falconry. For some reason, the boys called their falcons “budgies” (or maybe it was the jealous non-falconers who called them that). I remember a story about a certain Julian Stewart (I may be wrong) crying because another boy’s budgie ate his budgie. Budgiebalism rather than cannibalism! The sick part of me found that rather hilarious. Anyway, back to my budgie-green loft bedroom. As most of you will know, I love my own loft room in London and if I had my own way, I would get everyone who owns a loft to turn it into my guest room. There is something about being in the roof space that appeals to me. I can see the tops of trees, the sky and both at my place in London and this place in Brussels I can see and hear aeroplanes flying over the house. There is something cosy and safe about being at the top of the house. I love houses, consider myself a latent property developer and apart from lofts, I also love basements which I think should always be turned into wine cellars and entertainment rooms (for those of my doubting friends, remove the images of hooks, whips and chains attached to the wall that I KNOW you’re imagining I would have in my own cellar – I am well over that fantasy!). Houses in Europe tend to have both lofts and cellars. I guess that in Africa, you’d cook yourself live living in a hot roof space, and in England, most our houses are divided into two or three apartments so the chances of you having both are slim. Wherever I have lived, I have always created one special space for myself. In my little flat in Mafikeng, I had a tiny corny just outside my bedroom which I called my “sulking” corner. It had an antique armchair, a stunning lamp (which Pete and Karen made for me years ago and which I still have), and a selection of leather-bound books placed on a glass-topped table. That is where I would read quietly or just sit and think. In my current house, it is my loft room that is my special room, adorned with scarves of mainly orange colours, but with a new addition of a mainly (budgie) yellow Kenyan wrap which Ian and Storme gave me a week ago. My piano, ‘cello and guitar all have special scarves draped over them, and I guess the violin is coming out of storage – don’t worry, I shan’t torture anyone by playing it – to prop up the Kenyan wrap. I wonder if you have a special place in your own home? If you don’t and feel so inclined, maybe stake a claim on a spot and put your mark on it...something that will make you want to go there to be alone with your thoughts and secret pleasures.

This week is going to be challenging and will involve changes to my currently peaceful life. I have to return to London tomorrow and head straight to my oncologist, have blood tests, see my chest specialist on Tuesday, welcome a French friend and say goodbye to another French friend (I don’t deal drugs, I deal Frenchies), and face my chemo treatment on Wednesday which brings its own set of unpleasant challenges and changes in the days that follow. But, I can and will embrace it all as much as I don’t want to do so. It won’t be fun but it won’t be half as bad as I will make it out to be either. So, my dear friends and members of my dear family, it is 7am in Brussels, time for me to go back to sleep. Wishing you all an amazing end to your weekend,

Your orange-zest flavoured

Goose