[2020-11-19] Enjoy the ride
The CBC's Tom Power recently talked with Michael J. Fox about his new book No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality. The conversation is well summarized in the article 'I'm out of the lemonade business': Michael J. Fox on the day his optimism ran out, but I appreciated the opportunity to listen to everything Fox had to say in the full 32-minute interview.
Fox's latest book, which he describes as cranky, was borne out of the "lousy year" he experienced in 2018. In that one year, he lost his father-in-law, had extensive surgery to remove a benign tumour from his spine—which necessitated his learning to walk again—and crushed his arm.
"That was the point where I went 'I'm out of the freakin' lemonade business,'" Fox says. "I can't put a shiny face on this. This sucks, and who am I to tell people to be optimistic?'" He says he found himself asking: "So what good has optimism done me? And that began a kind of a semi-quasi journey to find my way back to being an optimistic person."
Throughout these ordeals, Fox made notes. "I took all these notes, and I said, 'There's a story here to tell.' And for some reason I feel like telling it." The notes were like bread crumbs, enabling Fox to look back on what he thought and felt in the moment.
I related to this analogy. My daily blog posts are my own bread crumbs, which I will be able to review in the future when I'm in a different place to remember what it was like going through cancer treatment. It is so easy to forget how we lived an experience, even more so when we look at it through the lens of the present day.
Fox says he had a hard time pitching the book to the editors and publishers, who wanted to know what happens. Fox says he replied: "I don't know what happens because it hasn't happened yet."
And that's the beauty of journaling (or journaling in the open, as I'm doing). Once we get far enough in the story to know how it's going to turn out, we have the benefit of notes kept throughout the journey so that we can accurately reflect our state of mind at different points along the way.
I also liked this analogy: "Life is choice and circumstance," Fox says. "You make a choice and end up in a circumstance because of that choice you made. It's snakes and ladders and you find your way to wherever you find your way and it's neat to have bread crumbs to go back and find out how you got there."
Life is like snakes and ladders: sometimes, you land on a ladder and make great progress; other times, you encounter a snake and lose ground. (Cancer feels like a snake, but I'm still in the game!)
But the interview—and, no doubt, the book—is not all pessimistic. After reflecting on his year and on people in his life, Fox seems to have regained his sense of optimism, saying: "I just kinda came to a place where I said that's just who I am. That's the way I respond to things regardless of this gauntlet I went through."
Like Fox, I'm naturally optimistic, but that hasn't stopped me from reflecting other emotions in this blog and for giving both myself and others permission to feel all the emotions that a diagnosis like cancer brings up. As Power says to Fox: "There's great power in saying, 'It's hard.'"
My favourite line, which comes towards the end of the interview as Power questions Fox on his contemplation of mortality, is this: "At some point, you hit the exit," says Fox, "but until then, enjoy the ride."
Yes, let's enjoy the ride.
