Aliza Pollack – on leaving the cancer zone.

Los Angeles
October 4, 2000

Dear M –

I just got back from Montreal and New York, where I was visiting everyone for the holidays, and it was weird. It was my first time out – of L.A., of the cancer zone, of the bubble that is my apartment and my life, of whatever is vaguely within my control – since all this cancer business began. I walked through the airport like a complete idiot: “Oh wow! Food court. That must be the smell of over-boiled hot dogs. Cool.” So this is what remission looks like.

I had to reconfigure my plans in New York around sixteen thousand times. At first I told myself, Only three plays, one gallery, one museum, a few friends, family, and the rest is naptime. A day into it, I said, Okay, two plays, one gallery, no museum, two friends, and family. Then I went out for too long one day (five hours – can you believe?), got a cold, stayed in on Saturday and Sunday and reconfigured again: no plays, no museums, no galleries. One friend in person, one friend on the phone, immediate family only, perhaps a walk down the street and many a nap in my sister’s very large, very comfortable and very welcoming bed. Was this productive? Did I really use my time in New York City? Well, the old me would think, not particularly, but the me that is, that must deal with certain physical limitations, must say, good enough.

Yet again, what else is new? I am at another stage in this whole cancer situation. Post-results, post-treatment, the shock has worn off. The shock that allowed me to be in it and to do what I had to do – it’s worn right off. It was like a coat of strength, and now I am naked. Lord, am I naked. I think of chemotherapy now, I cringe. I absolutely cannot stomach it. I don’t feel the chemo nausea, but I feel something leap to the top of my throat and settle there. It is very hard for me to think about it, talk about it. I don’t recognize myself as having gone through it, and if I let myself think about it, I wonder: If I were to have to do it again, how would I?

While I was in it, I talked about it because it was there, it was what was happening. The appointed day would come, a family member would arrive to pick me up, I would get in the car and we would drive to the doctor. Needles were inserted, vomit was expected, and saltines were eaten. While it felt horrifyingly real, technicolor real at the time, it never felt as real as it did when I landed in New York and Montreal, when people I knew, people who had, from a distance, asked after me, thought about me, wrote to me, cried for me and prayed for me all hugged me tightly and wished me good health. Oh boy. The weight of it all. I couldn’t really believe they were talking to me. What did they mean, health? That’s something that you say this time of year, right? Rosh Hashanah rhetoric. Happy New Year. A good year. A healthy, happy year, but what does it mean?

It means. It means.

When I walked into synagogue in Montreal that first day of Rosh Hashanah, and people smiled at me (the so-great-to-see-you smile – though they really meant it), and my mum put her warm, perfumed arm around me and the cantor sang and the shofar was blown, I was pretty much overwhelmed by the meaning of it all. When I was young, the high holidays were time off from school, endless synagogue-sitting, and much, much, much too much brisket. But in the last few years, as I have chosen, on my own, to make the effort to mark the days, I have really thought about its meaning, thought about the significance of closing one year and getting ready to start a new one. I love the symbolism. I love that it forces me to treat that day as different, as something more, bigger than just another Wednesday or Sunday. I like being forced to stop and look at things differently, take a breath, reflect on what has been.

This time, though, as the congregation stopped chatting and we were allowed to sit in silence, I didn’t have to think about what the day meant, how significant it was to me. It just happened. It just was. I knew. For the first time in a really, really long time, I felt a relief so intense I could not control it (and I have become quite adept at controlling it). It wasn’t a relief like letting go, though that component was certainly there. It was more incredulous. It was more like amazement-relief, if there is such a thing. I am here, I am here. I was blown away by the fact that I had made it, that I was there. For the first time, I really understood what I had been through, what it was about. It’s wild that it took a little soulful Hebrew tune (not even the words) to allow me to cry finally, and close this year.

I hope you and Peter are well. I can’t wait to see you. Happy new year to you both – much goodness and no crap this year. Well, realistically, and I am, always, a realist, if there must be crap, let it be manageable. In the spirit of Yom Kippur, if I have wronged you in any way this year, I apologize.

All my love,

Ali