Passover

Passover's coming, and many prayers for "liberation" have been floating my way.  We Jews like to use the mythical liberation from slavery in Egypt as an opportunity to reflect on the ways that we may need to be liberated in our own lives - the bondage of materialism, of fear, of self-doubt or self-loathing, of over-reliance on things that numb us.  Sort of like a mid-year Rosh Hashanah.

I appreciate the wishes, of course, but I gotta say, cancer is pretty damn liberating.  When I was first diagnosed in 1999, I developed what I called "cancer eyes."  No fog of bullshit or delusion.  It's like putting on a pair of glasses for the first time - the world becomes crystal clear.

I'm not saying that I'm enlightened or anything, or that I don't fall into any of the traps of bondage that I listed above.  But there is a clarity that we cancer-dwelling folks get as a sort of prize for what we're going through.