Knife Dance

I would say the dance began because SpeedStick was my deodorant of choice. I mean, if you think about the name, it was inevitable. As a last-minute morning effort, after having thrown on clothes and guzzled coffee, I would apply that green regular scent, but even in a hurry I still dawdled.

I attempted flashy, fast ways to apply the SpeedStick, perhaps flipping it once with my right hand and side-catching it with my left hand before spiraling towards my left armpit and trying to pluck off the cap without halting its passage. These endeavors would sometimes end in failure with the SpeedStick sprawled across the floor, its one massive internal green organ smushed into the carpet.

As the SpeedStick accumulated more elaborate throwing, spinning, and catching techniques, it ceased to be a mere instrument of hygiene. It was no longer resigned to morning applications, and it'd hurdle from hand to hand whenever my mind needed a jolt. All the same, it grew stale, the worst consequence of poor coordination was a deodorant-gummed carpet, so I started trying to do the same movements with a knife (minus applying the blade to my armpits of course).

I could do the single flips and side-catches with the sharper ones but stuck with butter knives to learn the one-and-a-half flips and side spins. Another new addition was accompanying music and footwork – not quite a dance, since I had to move my feet whenever an errant knife plunged blade down into the floor. Back/cross/sidesteps – movements that I performed in private. Any girl that I've danced with can testify that I'm a lousy dancer, immune to all but the most obvious of beats – but the spastic, weird movements of the knife dance felt natural.

It became a ritual, a way to throw myself toward the incoming day. I stuck with sharp blades and would sometimes only stop when I nicked myself slightly. As my feet moved, my hand movements evolved, little milestones of achievement. Two years ago, I bought a entirely black, well-balanced knife, which made it harder to distinguish between spinning handle and blade. I also learned how to do a reliable double-flip by timing alone. The early dozens of times where my hand didn't shy away and the handle somehow landed in my palm were exhilarating. I never saw this as destructive; rather, it was a way to accept small, obvious risks and focus my mind.

Tomorrow, I'll be going to my first check-up since my February surgery. Like last time, this will include blood work, a chest X-Ray, and a CT scan. I've also decided to ask my Urologist about the lump on top of my left testicle. By the end of that day, it's likely that I'll know whether or not my SuperBalldom will hold.

I'm left wondering what emotions/states of mind this knowledge of tomorrow should conjure. Should I be angry/defiant/scared/humbled/reluctant/sad/happy/energized/exhausted? Yes to all of those, since it's better than being asleep/disconnected/numb. Still, I want an overall theme, a framework for the dance that will take place tomorrow. I stumbled upon the poem Gravy by Raymond Carver:

No other word will do. For that's what it was. Gravy.

Gravy, these past ten years.

Alive, sober, working, loving and

being loved by a good woman. Eleven years

ago he was told he had six months to live

at the rate he was going. And he was going

nowhere but down. So he changed his ways

somehow. He quit drinking! And the rest?

After that it was all gravy, every minute

of it, up to and including when he was told about,

well, some things that were breaking down and

building up inside of his head. “Don't weep for me,”

he said to his friends. “I'm a lucky man.

I've had ten years longer than I or anyone

expected. Pure gravy. And don't forget it.”

The author, Raymond Carver, was a hardcore alcoholic who didn't expect to live past 40. However, he quit drinking and had been sober for about a decade when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. When he knew that it would kill him, he wrote the poem above.

I'm not trying to make a direct comparison. My cancer was only life-changing while his was life-ending. Also, I still drink too much too frequently, and I'm far from middle-aged. That part that shook me was the man writing that poem was thankful.

And when I think of how I was before, I have to thank a little lump for waking me up.

I'm thankful for catching it early, for having insurance and a Doctor Dad to pay for this whole mess, for not knowing where or with whom I'll end up, for reconnecting with old friends and making new ones, for writer correspondents and pen pals, for adventures and challenges yet to come, for being able to name and confront my fears, for regaining feeling.

I'm thankful that today is a good day of uncertainty.

I'm also thankful for the chance to rethink and add to my dance. At the very least, there's now a new addition to the knife dance. I throw the black blade up and don't watch it spin for what I hope is three times. My hand is waiting to catch it. And I know that it will – I'm just not sure how.