Somatic Adventures #2

Somatic Adventures #2
Or, You’re Not a Kid Anymore

Not that anyone in middle age feels old. We don’t. The young have no clue on this point. The mind is as young as ever. Not the brain, the part you can time doing crosswords or IQ tests, but consciousness, awareness. I don’t even consider myself middle aged. Or, ok, I’m over 65, so maybe I am, just.  But “consciousness” doesn’t have an age. For example, as a Zen koan asks, when did it begin? Oh really? Is that your memory or is that a speculative idea? Even if one can barely add together two and two, the one who looks out of your eyes hasn’t changed. It’s seen more, sure, but it hasn’t “aged.” Young as ever, even if you can hardly see.  Which brings up another koan: just how old is it? Or did I already ask that?

“I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him.” A quote Aitken Roshi often repeated.

Yep. Like you were in an accident. Or alien abductors needed some vital fluids and took them from you. But the “scene” is as bright as ever. The young usually miss this point. Ever wonder about those old guys sitting in front of the donut shop? The ones who wear hats saying USS Saratoga or something? All the history of the scene is still bright and fresh, it’s all still happening. Who did what. Who did who. Who seduced who’s wife. Stuff that was good. Stuff that was bad.

Ok, maybe those guys aren’t the best example. They’ve been exactly the same age every time I’ve ever watched them for the last forty years. For as long as I can remember. I’m actually not always sure who they are, or what they are. I try to sit close to them so that I can overhear what they are talking about. I know they are speaking in English, but I can never quite parse what’s going on.

And OK, there are grey-bearded guys of my own generation six stores down the block in front of a coffee shop/organic bakery with WI-FI. They all have laptops open. None of them feel old either. And none of them seem to groan when they stand up. I’ve never felt very connected to my “own” generation, but that’s changing fast.

Another one down.
Did you hear about —-,  got pancreatic cancer, was dead in five weeks.
Did you hear about —, Yes. Yes.
Operation. Pathched together.  But that’s what happens to old people.
And another one down. And one with a PEG tube. And another who beat lymphoma and Hodgkins twice and then the third time it got him and they say each cancer was distinct, was not a recurrence. You have to have good luck just to cross the median.

I’ve heard it said that cancer is no more prevalent than it used to be, that people are just living longer, but I’m not sure I believe that. Breast cancer, and that hits the young also. Testicular cancer. Ovarian cancer. Brain cancer. Name it, it can kill you, to paraphrase Takuboku.

Si recte calculus ulrique naufragium est.
“If you calculate correctly, there is shipwreck everywhere.”
–Petronius, quoted by Milton in the preface to Lycidas.

I was going to talk about prostate cancer. Nothing like loss of a body part to bring on a consciousness of mortality. The young feel immortal. Protected by angels. I was able to hang onto that illusion for decades and decades. Yeah, but I’m special. I’m better. It’ll kill the others but I’ll get away with it. And so I thought for years.

The first chink in the armor was a minor elevation in a couple of liver enzymes around 20 years ago. A doctor friend laughed and said “Oh, it’s probably Hep C.”

Hip Who? I’d never heard of Hep C. They weren’t even going to test for it until I asked them to. And, sure enough, there it was. Yuk. Boy, was that depressing. I thought that I’d snuck through, that I’d gotten away with it. That I’d snubbed my nose at God and the Devil and they’d been too slow to hit me back.

I went to UCSF way back then, but they did not recommend me for the interferon treatment. They were right. I was way too depressed already. “Do you ever have suicidal thoughts?” the interviewing doctor asked. “Doesn’t everyone?” I answered. The doctor just frowned and wrote something on his pad.

So there was nothing to do. Except I got through my divorce, finished a book, remarried, finished another book, moved to the mountains, and found a new liver doctor. He told me to drink no alcohol. That was depressing for a while also, but saved a lot of money—not buying a bottle of wine every night is like having an extra part-time minimum wage job. Every six months we would check my liver enzymes, looking for any change, and every year we’d do a liver ultrasound, looking for any spots. The cirrhosis, or scarring in the liver, is caused by the Hep C virus. The scarring is where cancers come from. Even if they were able to cure the Hepatitis C, I’d still have had the same high risk of cancer from the scarring already there.

Last year the doctor saw something and ordered a CT scan. The radiologist who looked at the CT scan didn’t recommend any action, but my gastroenterologist, following a “hunch,” had another radiologist look at the scans. Again, the evidence was marginal, but the radiologist said that if it were his own liver he would have it biopsied. I did, and there it was.

But I was going to talk about prostate cancer. One man in 36 will die of prostate cancer. Here are a few:
* Bud Abbot
* Joseph Alioto
* Don Ameche
* J. G. Ballard
* Stokely Carmichael
* Winston Churchill
* Eldridge Cleaver
* Ty Cobb
* Gary Cooper
* Gregory Corso
* Bernard Crick
* William Demarest
* Robert Fagles
* Orval Faubus
* William Gaddis
* Merv Griffin
* Sterling Hayden
* Bob Hayes
* James Herriot
* Charlton Heston
* Dennis Hopper
* Langston Hughes
* Robert Hunter (journalist)
* Christopher Isherwood
* Hank Ketcham* Timothy Leary
* Lester Maddox
* Herbie Mann
* François Mitterrand
* Mobutu Sese Seko
* Pablo Neruda
* Floyd Patterson* Walker Percy
* Johnny Ramone
* Dick Sargent
* William Saroyan
* William Shockley
* Pierre Trudeau
* Sam Wanamaker
* Ludwig Wittgenstein
* Frank Zappa

Oh yes, and my uncle, Alvin Embree. And Sam Francis, the painter.

A person in your shape shouldn’t be writing.

Shipwreck.     Everywhere.