health – Jonathan's Journal

My experiences last year in hospital and the time spent in Intensive Care clinging onto life has taught me a great deal. I was a frail, sensitive child. The archetypal seven-stone weakling. Yet, I have surmounted the seemingly insurmountable. I have stared death in the face and found myself, even in my weakest moments (both physically and mentally) and against all odds, able to keep up the fight to remain here.

I was listening to music earlier. It’s the relationship with silence which makes music so moving, for me at least. It’s in the interplay of the music against the backdrop of silence which was there before the song began and will be there when it has stopped, which makes music so affecting. The omnipresent silence therefore the canvas onto which music is sonically painted.

As it was then last year when my life hung in the balance, the silence of non-existence juxtaposed against the fight to stay here, even though one day I’ll be gone. I just knew my journey wasn’t done, that more of life needed to play out. I likely will not amount to much in societal or worldly terms but that’s not the point. I am reminded of the quote spoken by Warren Zevon back in 2002 as he edged closer to the silence having been given the diagnosis of terminal cancer. “Enjoy every sandwich” he opined on Letterman.

You know, I never really understood that sentiment until fairly recently when I was once again able to eat and enjoy a sandwich. Up until then I had been very careful about what I ate due to the extensive nature of the bowel surgery I had undergone. Life is strange. I had been wanting to go fully vegan before all the drama of last year and had successfully cut out red meat but still occasionally ate white meat and some dairy. Now, all of that makes me feel physically sick and I end up on the toilet a lot, which leads to that area stinging and burning, so in a way what happened forced me to adopt the life I always wanted but hadn’t given myself fully to before.

So it was then, I took a bite of a sandwich.

The softness of the bread, the tastiness of the filling, the feeling of doing something usual again after so long of eating in essence, bland foods. Before all of this, I would have needed to have been taken to a great restaurant with the most extensive menu to feel anything like that but nope, there I was, sat in my kitchen tucking into a regular sandwich and it tasted incredible.

But more so than that, it took me directly into that given moment. I could never get my head around the concept of Living In The Moment. I was always thinking about the past or planning towards a future. I understood it in my head but it never resonated with me fully. Now it does and I get it. I am now completely focused on whatever it is I am doing in any moment and I give my all to it, whatever it happens to be.

The backdrop is always silence, whether it be the knowledge that one day I won’t be here in the form I am now, as I once again enter non-existence or just writing in ‘silence’ which is never possible as there is always some sound happening whether it be one of the cats purring, the hum of the refrigerator, an owl hooting outside, rain pelting against the window. I’m okay with not existing as we all reach that state anyhow.

The simplicity of the moment is always there, perhaps making a cup of tea which has now become a minor ceremony as I imagine how many people, how many pairs of hands, how many lives were involved in the process of getting the tea from the Sri Lankan fields to my warmed teapot and then a flavoursome brew. It can be watching the refuse collectors first thing in the morning, as the truck makes its way up the street and often under the cover of darkness. The unsung heroes who work the menial jobs with little to no thanks and who get up at ungodly hours to work a totally unglamorous job, just so our lives run a little smoother.

Everything is different now.

My entire outlook has changed and for the better. I don’t just sense the interconnectedness between all things, I see it, I hear it, I KNOW it. But what I have been completely unprepared for is how much I have become the silence which is always there, playing out against the backdrop of my own life.

I am sitting here listening to a song, The River Knows Your Name, by my favourite singer-songwriter, John Hiatt. It’s from the album Walk On which was the first album of John’s I bought and still the one which captivates me the most.

In the town in which I live are three rivers and the smallest one flows into a larger one and then further along that river flows into the largest. So there are 2 points along the journey of each river where a river merges with another and becomes one before individuating once more.

I am reminded of the quote attributed to Rumi – “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” I like that. We don’t have to surrender our individuality in realising we are each more alike than different.

I was thinking about water and how it often represents emotion and just as the song began, rain started to pelt against the window. There’s a whole world outside that window. I used to get up really early and walk about and streetlights would be on and the occasional lighted window in the houses around me but by and large, everyone would be in the land of slumber having hopefully nice dreams and who knows, maybe some astral travel as well.

The rain hit the windows hard and I was reminded of the musical warrior, Gord Downie. A remarkable individual. I was introduced to him through the parent band, The Tragically Hip. The album was Live Between Us. It was so different to anything I had heard before yet I was captivated at once by the sound and feel of the band and the deftly poetic allusions created by Gord as he expressed himself artistically through song.

The first studio album I heard was In Violet Light and I was especially taken by a song called “It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken.” Gord Downie died in 2017 of an aggressive form of brain cancer, called glioblastoma.

In the time remaining after his diagnosis, he went on a final tour with The Hip and that last show is on YouTube in its entirety. The song Grace, Too is incredibly hard to watch because in the screams contained within the song is a man railing against the dying of his own light. He begins to cry. The screams become a cri de couer. It makes me want to reach into the screen and hold him and tell him everything will be okay although he and I would know that it wouldn’t be. I would still want to reassure him in some way. At least to let him know I value/valued his presence on this Earth.

Gord also recorded a haunting album entitled Secret Path which charted the short life of Chanie Wenjack, an Anishinaabe boy who ran home one night from an Indian residential school before sadly succumbing to hunger and exposure. His body was found next to a railway line. He had walked for 36 hours in sub-zero temperatures, wearing just a windbreaker. It’s a powerful musical statement pertaining to a terribly sad time in the history of Indigenous peoples living in Canada.

When I was in Intensive Care last year, I got chatting to a nurse who worked there. She was mad keen on the band Rush, another group of incredible Canadian musicians and it was through her I reacquainted myself with them. The drummer Neil Peart had himself passed away due to brain cancer. I had in the past been crazy about the band and had seen them in London on their R30 tour. The only concert I have been to where people not only stayed for the drum solo but awaited it with baited breath and Neil didn’t disappoint. Three master musicians.

Anyhow, I started watching YouTube videos and I came across a performance of “It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken” performed at the 2021 Juno Awards with the remaining members of The Tragically Hip and with special guest Feist on vocals. It broke me in two. Here I was, still close to death and yet suddenly remembering how precious life was/is. Sometimes I forget. I have healed and life goes on. Gord isn’t here. Neil isn’t here. Their music however remains, as do I.

And as do you reading this.

If I could, I would reach out from this screen and hug each and every one of you and let you know, in no uncertain terms, how grateful I am that I know you.

Thank you for your Earthly presence in my life.

Tag: health

Silence As The Backdrop To Life

Contemplation Time