Eye to Eye

I must check carefully in the mirror each morning, to look for signs of changes to report to my doctors. Each morning, I search and each morning I find one unreportable change. I swear there is a different me looking back from the bathroom mirror. Oh, the face changes a bit, brought on by treatment with certain medications, and there is a bit of new beard to remove. But, there is something deeper.

It is in my eyes. Each day my eyes are frighteningly different to me. Having survived another day, and finding that God has granted me yet another day to live, brings a wistfulness and joy simultaneously that somehow deepens the depths of those familiar brown orbs and maybe the light flickering in those depths burns a bit brighter. Maybe I just expect to find fear, anxiety, and deep sadness there, and I don't find them...just the knowledge that I have another day to live.

Mick

Eye to Eye

The image in my mirror keeps changing,

Each morning, I rise to face a new face.

It's not that the parts are rearranging,

Or this morning, my nose found a new place,

Like somewhere behind my left ear to hide...

And yet, they are shocking to realize,

When I focus on the place they reside.

Look past the bright bathroom lights and the glare,

When I stare into the depths of my eyes,

And shiver, for that's not me standing there;

Though he looks like me, the right shape, right size,

But the eyes focus much farther away,

Grown wistful, deeper, and darker each day.

Mick McKellar

May 2011

Big Boned

I've heard the phrase "big boned" since I was a lad, to describe most of the members of the paternal side of my family. Most of us (including me) started out skinny and tough as any kid on the block, but later added more than a few unwanted pounds. The whole big boned thing became the inside joke for an out-sized tragedy. We tend to be big people.

Still amazing to me is that I know of no paternal relative who has broken a bone. None. And that's not for lack of trying. I've fallen from icy roofs and off slippery ladders, and received only some nasty bruising. The question remains: Is it the bones or all that soft tissue padding that prevents breakage?

Mick

Big Boned

Wee Geordie, an ancestor must have been,

Or was somehow related to our clan,

For ev'ry male relative I have seen,

Has grown to be a large or burly man.

Skinny growing up, durable as hell --

I've never heard report of broken bone,

It's not we have not slipped or tripped, or fell

Or been dropped off a ladder like a stone.

There have been abrasions and cuts galore,

And nasty bruises when we hit the ground.

Perhaps those big bones let us carry more,

Of that wonderful soft-tissue padding around.

Or maybe that, pound-for-pound, ounce-for-ounce,

Big-boned people have a little more bounce.

Mick McKellar

May 2011

At the Edge

I saw in the eyes of a fellow BMT patient, the shadow of a place I call the abyss. He is beginning the transplant process, and fearful, was seeking reassurance. We talked for a few minutes, and I told him of my own fears, and how I found living a day at a time, understanding that each new day is a gift from God, overcomes the fear.

It is a dangerous risk we take when we receive a blood and marrow transplant, but the alternative is death. I very nearly died on May 26, 2010 -- the day I was diagnosed with leukemia -- a fast approaching anniversary. For a time, I wandered in the abyss, afraid and feeling very alone. Family and friends gathered quickly around and I discovered I was not alone. Now I can stand at the edge of that abyss and know it is only fear down there, and I can walk away and get on with living each day.

Mick

At the Edge

The abyss is always nearby you know,
Some days I stand and look over the edge.
I peer at the swirling maelstrom below,
And I struggle with unwanted knowledge,
Of what terror that depth-less darkness hides.
For I have beheld with benighted eyes,
The shadowy horror which there resides,
And with hopeless voice my future scries.

It was there I first heard the mouth of fear,
The first soundless sound, just a breath of air,
The first nameless dread whispered in my ear,
First doubts and forebodings encountered there.
Then voice becomes voices, a gallery
Gathers to measure my every flaw,
Free-forming an image to frighten me,
From failures, regrets, and injuries raw.

My nightmare self-portrait subsumes the voices --
Now seated, the conversation must start
At a table filled with endless bad choices,
All interconnected, each breaks my heart.
My spirit, sickened, refuses to choose.
I search through my image's lifeless eyes,
To find only myriad ways to lose.
Only then to finally realize...

I'm facing a mirror within my mind.
The whispering voices are memories,
Of failures, regrets, and acts unkind,
That unlock my fear with self-hidden keys.
With faith and a mere speck of fortitude,
I turn from the table and walk away;
From the fear-soaked darkness and solitude,
To walk in the light, where fear has no sway.

Now I stand here staring at that dark hole.
I smile at the sun shining on my face.
I shiver, once at a chill in my soul,
Remembering still that gloomy, dark place.
I shake off the cold and gathering rime,
Its lure and pull have been made to cease.
For choosing to live one day at a time,
God's daily gift lets me live on in peace.

Mick McKellar
May 2011

Subtle Symphonies

I've been known to shut my eyes when listening to beautiful music, the music that quickens the pulse but relaxes the spirit, the music that often brings tears to those closed eyes. From the rhythms of dancing Gypsies along a Romanian river to a waltz of flowers to the soothing sway of a nocturne, music can be subtle as a whisper or bring thunder from the heavens on Bald Mountain.

I've been known to shut my ears when the wondrous beauty of day and night dance with each other. I've watched the golden fire of the sun quenched in Lake Superior, only to see the silver ghost of the moon rise in response, plunging all into blue and indigo, flashing on the waves. Our own attempts at pushing back the night, stars shining up counterpoint the stars twinkling down, and the moving lights of vehicles become a river of stars. Morning sun plunging through the misty forest sings a mighty tune, and the subtle music of the heavens touches my soul. There is music all around to see and to hear, to taste and to smell, and to hold in the palm of your hand.

Mick

Subtle Symphonies

The music of the heavens calls to me,

Although, I'm certain, not to me alone.

Could day and night play such a symphony,

And leave unchanged all human minds but one?

Kaleidoscopic patterns in the night,

Send subtle, lifting, drifting, shifting hues,

In dancing shadowed, brilliant, flashing bright

Layers, all laced with deepest velvet blues.

Silver patinas grace the soft twilight,

As woodwinds, whispering of melodies

To come, infused with brilliant brass so bright.

A golden fanfare strumming through the trees,

Whose softly mellow chords that warm my eyes,

Build satin rhythms, blue and red to see,

The fiery tarantella of sunrise.

Else silver turns to pewter and the strain,

Becomes the rumbling, bumbling beat of drums,

The soaring strings in weeping of the rain,

Flash quicksilver in lightning's brilliant thrums.

The waltz begins, as fanfares clear the skies,

And rainbow chords play complex harmonies.

The sun and clouds weave music for the eyes,

And soothe my soul with subtle symphonies.

Mick McKellar

May 2011

My Twilight

Over the past year, since my diagnosis with leukemia, I have begun to doubt that old phrase about "better living, through chemistry." (One of the major chemical companies used it as a slogan on radio and television many years ago.) In the last year, I've had drugs as innocuous as Tylenol and some that would burn a hole through a tile floor pumped into my bloodstream or popped down my pie-hole. A substantial number warn me that they may cause drowsiness, dizziness, stomach upset, sensitivity to sunlight, and a host of other wonderful side-effects.

At times, the compounded effects of these drugs, when hitched to my wagon alongside a healthy dose of fatigue, take me to a twilight state -- not quite awake and not quite asleep. I can hear you, distantly. I can respond to you, but slowly. This is not the comfortable warm fuzziness of day dreaming or the languorous swim back from a nap. This is swimming in Jello with my head below the surface. It is dim world, where I feel connected and detached at the same time. It is not intoxication, it's twilight.

Mick

My Twilight

You sound so yonder when you talk to me,

Your voice, as though descending from a cloud,

Touches my ear as would the distant sea:

Calling, singing, but never very loud.

Heard imperatives, bear no urgency,

Or penetrate my soft, fuzzy cocoon --

In my redoubt from all emergency,

Where nothing needs to happen "very soon."

So, I decide it's best a note to write,

But now my fingers feel so faraway,

And in this growing gloom, I'd need more light

To find a piece of paper anyway.

I will try to remember what you said,

At least, what has not leaked out of my head...

Mick McKellar

May 2011

Losing Hours

When I was introduced to the finite nature of my residence on this Earth upon hearing the words "you have leukemia," my future collapsed from a panoramic scope to a tiny lens in an instant. On the ambulance ride to the medical center, I faced backwards. There on that gurney, I watched miles slipping by at high speed as though sliding into my past without a view ahead...a rapidly receding past and no future. As I grew up, leukemia was a death sentence, and though I knew it was no longer a certainty, I now had an expiration date.

That was May 26, 2010, an anniversary swiftly approaching, stirring within me both gratitude for God's gift of each new day and trepidation about losing or wasting a second of those precious hours. Despite my best efforts to just accept and fill that time with the best I have to give, I still harbor fear of missing the treasures of hours that somehow fly away. It is a wonder I can sleep at all, and when I wake in the wee hours, sometimes I feel those hours flying away, lost forever...

Mick

Losing Hours

The hours sometimes fail to touch my soul,

To sway aloft on silent silver wings,

Or drift in darkness on wings black as coal,

And abandoned, my earthbound spirit sings.

Slow measure and dark melody, forlorn

Hymns that echo emptiness in their cry,

From my most human breaking heart are torn;

The plainsong of my soul streams to the sky.

In answer, silent wings may swift comply,

To carry me through golden instants bright,

Or lifted on unseen currents to fly,

And leave my spirit stranded in the night.

Although more hours each gifted day contains,

My fear of losing precious time remains.

Mick McKellar

May 2011

Erratic Attic

In recent journal entries and e-letters, I have referenced my Erratic Attic. It is a weird and wonderful place, full of images, memoirs, and memories, and it can be difficult to describe. Therefore, I thought it would fun to describe a "first journey of discovery" to that exciting, yet dimly illuminated storage space.

I guess I never bought into the "Nurnberg Funnel" concept of the mind, even as a child I knew that it continued its business while I slept or worked on other things. When I began writing, I learned the value of "sleeping on" an idea, or a particularly tough prose nut to crack. The poem below is simply one little story about how I might have discovered a little darkness and a bit of magic in my Erratic Attic.

Mick

Erratic Attic

I went digging upstairs, in my attic,
Just thinking I might find some treasures rare.
After all, an attic must be static,
And what's put there ought to remain right there.
Yet, somehow my things have propagated;
And you cannot imagine my chagrin,
I found piles of stuff I thought I hated,
Right next to my good stuff, or all mixed in.
And somehow, my attic had grown larger,
I could no longer see its boundaries.
My flashlight was downstairs on the charger,
Yet in the murky gloom I saw with ease:
Boxes, trunks, and bags were cast and scattered,
Folders, files, and photos stacked in between,
And years of dust lay on things that mattered,
I don't know why I thought they would be clean...
Odd thing is, I had no trouble finding,
The things I knew I had recently stored.
As between those stacks my step was winding,
Were piles of dusty items tied with cord.
Was my attic now self-organizing?
And who was moving my old stuff around?
After all, who was I criticizing?
I must have put it all here, I'll be bound.

The first of many mirrors caught my eye,
It shimmered and it shone like liquid glass --
Couldn't touch the surface on my first try,
Somehow I missed on each successive pass.
I moved on to specula more stable,
To older mirrors, some of them with rime --
All reflected me, yet I was able,
To see the me was from another time.
Just beyond, some movement caught my vision,
Just in between the darkness and the light.
There, velvet on velvet, with precision,
Dark shadows danced at the edge of my sight.

I turned to run and stumbled in the gloom.
I fell and somehow landed on my bed.
I woke up from my nap in my bedroom,
And knew I had been visiting my head.
Perhaps the best description I can find:
My dark, erratic attic is my mind.

Mick McKellar
May 2011