The Blue Zone

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzanne-perryman-/to-the-author-of-the-anonymous-note-left-on-my-car-window_b_3806012.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk1%26pLid%3D364417

I totally get this.

Click on the link and see if you get it, too.

It's so hard to resist the impulse to judge based on appearances. Case in point: People strolling, running, jumping--anything is wrong except a hunched over greyhead--heck, leaping out of their cars adorned with Handicapped plates. Judgment: they're abusing the handicap status. Stole their granma's car. Illegally parking in the blue zone, so they don't have to walk ten extra feet to the parking lot for the rest of us.

When I was taking chemotherapy, I looked for all the world like a healthy man. But when I opened my mouth, the rasp was the wheeze of a sickly old man. Inexplicably, the chemo took its toll on my larynx. And the gas tank, which is to say, my energy level was kaput. Zilch. Zero. I really needed to save every ounce of energy I could.

I rationed out my energy for the day, picking and choosing the things I could do not on the basis of the clock--your typical 47 year old's gutcheck. But by my energy. And the thing of it was, I always managed to have less than I needed.

I needed to park in the handicap zone. So I could save ten steps. So I could scrape my way into the Staples.

I never got a handicap plate. I just couldn't own up to it. Maybe I didn't want to admit to myself that I needed it. Maybe I wanted to, altruistically, leave the spaces for the greyheads. I wish I'd had it.

Overture.

It took me forever and a day to get around to this. This is not easy, an odd thing for a writer. Yes, writing about my collision with cancer is awfully tough.

Odd, that. I was a jazz critic twenty years ago. A prominent deejay on the local jazz station, which, being the nation's fourth largest City, was a calling card. A man of the media I was. An exhibitionist with a pen and mike. So, the silence is both surprising, and deafening.

A good friend said to just write (which is what I do, anyway), and post the blogs later. So, I did. I do. I'll put those thoughts up, in time. Meanwhile I'll be sharing my thoughts and some reactions to living and dealing as a 'Survivor'. Or whatever the hell it is when you're in remission.

So--there. And there, and there.