The First Post

I have started this blog to give myself a place to write about my life living with cancer.  However, my cancer does not own me, nor consume me, nor overshadow the rest of my life.  I am still myself, and I plan on continuing to be that way.

Which is why I chose the title "Still, Life!"  It is a nod to my passion as an artist and my career as an art teacher.  Still life paintings are often of food, or flowers, or other inanimate objects with symbolic significance - all subjects I will likely discuss in this blog (seriously, food is awesome).  Also, still life artists often play with the concept of mortality in their work - flowers that are just past their prime, fruit on the verge of going bad, flies circling a glass of wine.  Having cancer has forced me to think more about mortality than I ever expected to at my age.  Be warned: it will come up in this blog.  And who knows what other parallels there may be?  Other art aficionados may know more about the concepts behind still life painting, or you can peruse the Wikipedia page.

However, the title "Still, Life!" has important punctuation to consider (yay, grammar!).  I have cancer, but, I still have life.  And I certainly plan to live it as fully and as best as I can while I've got it.  Because, why not?  There is so much out there to be excited about, to be grateful for, and to love, and I plan to do just that.  With an exclamation mark and probably some profanity, dammit!

So, don't expect this blog to be entirely about cancer, because remember, this is about living with cancer.  And I wouldn't be doing much living if I only thought and talked about one thing all the time.  And besides, I would get really bored writing only about cancer, and you'd be bored reading about it.  So, please enjoy the written word of what's inside my head, and thanks for reading.