Shooting Star

Nine years ago I was diagnosed with lung cancer and two months later NHS operated to remove a tumour. Turned out it was benign. It was like being given a new life to live. Those two months were like a living death, especially when the consultant started talking about palliative care. I think he was the oncologist, so maybe he was touting for business.

After that reprieve I promised myself to live a full life and savour every moment. I've tried hard to keep my promise, and I think mostly I've succeeded, but I have to admit there are gaps when I really think I should have done more, enjoyed more, understood more, looked more, felt more, savoured more, seen more, risked more. But on the whole I reckon I can feel happy with my efforts at living life. Could do more, but who couldn't.

I'm not sure yet exactly what I have to confront this time round, need to wait for MRI and CT scans to tell me that, but lets hope it's only bowel cancer and not more, but whatever it is I'm in much better shape emotionally and psychologically to cope with it than I was back in 2004. I think.

So the thing now is to stay positive, which is easy to say as I sit here, but harder to achieve. Incidentally has anyone else noticed how often commentators and interviewees on the BBC begin sentences with the word "so"? It really gets on my goat. So unnecessary people. Get a grip.

I'm listening to Oh Mercy this morning as I wait for my big brother to arrive to visit and take me for lunch. Though he didn't say that lunch was on the cards. Oh Mercy is the album Dylan devotes a chapter to in his biography, Chronicles Volume One, which is definitely worth reading for the musicians amongst you. Have you read it yet Chris K? The stand out tracks are Man in the Long Black Coat, Shooting Star and Political World. Though the rest are worthy tunes too. Someone said I should put links on here to stuff I mention, but I don't think so. Concentrate! It's mostly on YouTube or Spotify if you use that tool, which I don't. I prefer the real thing still.

I was going to sort out my sock drawer this morning rather than write this, anything to distract me, displacement activity, I think it's called, but I realised that this is the best displacement activity, and in any case my socks are multitudinous and will need a major culling to sort, and the Sabbath is not the right day for culling anything.

Speaking of the Sabbath I see that Phillip Roth has announced that at the age of eighty (his birthday is the day before mine) he has given up on writing novels. His novels have kept me going many times over the years. I first read him in the sixties, when I got to know Portnoys Complaint, and have been reading him ever since. He is my favourite novelist, if one can have such a thing. It's hard to believe that I won't ever again be looking forward to the thrill of a new Roth. It's just seems unthinkable. So come on Philip get your finger out and onto that keyboard once more. I may come back to old Mr Roth another time, but if you haven't yet read his 2010 book Nemesis you should do so now.

"Seen a shooting star tonight and I thought of you"