I'm In Good Shape. My Cancer Means

I Think Culture Is Where Things Change In Us Deeply. But Right Now, I Think That People Are Very Traumatised. They Are Very Scared. Having Grown Up In A House With A Perpetrator Who Was Violent Every Day And Terrorising Every Day, I Feel Like That This Country Is Suddenly Very Much Like The House And The Family I Grew Up In. Every Day We Are Glued To Our Phones, Glued To Our Television; "what Is This Psychopath Going To Do Next? How Will He Embarrass Us? Who Will He Bully Or Hurt Or Humiliate Today? It's So Easy To Get Locked Into A Syndrome Where The Perpetrator Is Ruling Your Life.

You Will Touch This Joy And You Will Suddenly Know It Is What You Were Looking For Your Whole Life, But You Were Afraid To Even Acknowledge The Absence Because The Hunger For It Was So Encompassing.

With The Gulf Spill, I Absolutely Merged In The Time When I Had That Infection. I Couldn't Get Out Of The Gulf Spill. There Were So Many Similarities: The Drains And The Siphoning And The Tubes. And Also In The Way The Earth Was Hurt, The Ocean Was Bleeding. Remember The Video Cams Of The Oil Gushing? I Couldn't Stop Watching That.

Denial Is Really Death. People Think That When You're Connected With Other People It's More Painful. The Opposite Is True. When You're Connected To The River You Have Despair, But You Also Have Joy, And There's A Flow In The River.

What I Feel Now Is Connected To People. I Feel Connected And I Feel A Lot Of Love For People. I Feel The Possibility Of What Building Social Movements And What Working Together In Struggle Creates. Whatever That Energy Is, It Feels A Lot Better Than What I Felt When I Was Younger - Which Was Worthless And Disconnected And Isolated And Alone.