New

The purpose or direction of this blog I cannot say.  I guess it's like any other blog.  Since late last year writing became even more important than it used to be.  I communicated with close friends and other people in writing in the long months of my treatment.  Volumes of letters came and went, mostly emails but sometimes letters and cards in the post as well.  It helped me objectify and nurse my fears, and get on with the reality.  My kind friends' letters and emails gave me the love and support that I never knew I needed so much.  
















It was always private, though: my body, writing, my friends, everything.  While I was in the thick of it, I couldn't even imagine writing about it so openly.  That I've been playing with the idea of blogging for a while now probably means that things got a little better, or at least a little different.  But that doesn't mean I am not hesitant.  My experience of the past year is not exactly a pleasant business, and I don't always feel like dwelling upon it or talking about it--any part of it.  Not many people enjoy watching a documentary about diseases and other forms of suffering, and neither do I.  Part of me desperately desires to move on, leaving it all in the past.  Yet it is impossible to do so, obviously.  Then why a public display of personal exerience and feelings, when I much prefer bottling things up usually?  I still hesitate.  I do and do not want this.  But I could see why Dr. Susan Gubar wanted to write a book about her ovarian cancer, when I read that article about her in The Chronicle (http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/131611/).  

So here I am, thanks to friends who did encourage me to write (many thanks to Sheri, Kim and Anne!).  I don't pretend to a blueprint or a grand agenda here, though, much less any authorial stature or ambition.  And I unabashedly and desperately hope this isn't going to be my closing chapters like hers.  This certainly is neither to inspire nor edify, neither myself nor anyone else.  This won't be only about my breast cancer.  I still don't think that what I write would be worth anyone's while to read.  Maybe no one else will read this, and that would be perfectly fine too.  Call it therapeutic scribbling. Yet, it is also true that I am not writing this only for myself, although I can't quite say who or what I am doing this for.  Maybe I want to rechercher my own termps perdu in my own rambles.  Is there ever a reason.  Not having to justify anything is sometimes all the reason one needs.