100 DAYS - James Navé

From the Introduction of 100 Days: Poems After Cancer by James Navé; available here.

The day I learned that I might have prostate cancer, I had forgotten that eighteen months earlier, during my annual physical, my family practice doctor, Elizabeth Twardon, had mentioned my PSA (prostate-specific antigen) numbers had risen from 1.2 to 2.0. She assured me then that even though a .08 PSA rise was a bit fast, there was nothing to worry about other than double-checking my numbers during my next yearly physical.

Nothing to worry about worked for me; after all, I'm healthy, and what's a few decimal points, I thought, which is why I foolishly waited eighteen months to schedule my next visit.

So, at my next physical, I sank in my chair when Dr. Twardon told me that my PSA had dramatically jumped from 2.0 to 3.1 and that I might have prostate cancer. I rubbed my face and said, Are you sure? She said, Your PSA numbers are moving fast, and you need to see a urologist immediately.

She assured me that even though my numbers were moving fast, prostate cancer progressed slowly, and there was an excellent chance I'd caught it in time.

I just sat there thinking, I don't want to die. Dr. Twardon waited until the shock settled. Then she handed me a piece of paper and said, These are my urologist recommendations. Call today.

When I left her office, I drove to a nearby café, ordered some coffee, and sat at a corner table thinking about my options. Even though Dr. Twardon had stressed that prostate cancer was a slow-moving disease, I was still terrified I'd caught it too late.

After leaving the coffee shop, I phoned my urologist friend, Dr. David Deholl, who invited me to his home for dinner the following evening. During our meal, David and his wife Tara listened to my worries.

David confirmed what Dr. Twardon had said: Prostate cancer moves slowly, and you'll likely have little to worry about because you've been on top of it all these years. He assured me that because I was a healthy 61, even if my prostate needed to come out, I stood a good chance of a long, productive life. Finally, David suggested I make an appointment very soon with his partner, Dr. Scott Donaldson.

I rang Scott's office the next day. When Scott walked into the examination room a week later, we spent the first ten minutes discussing why we both liked to write.

When we got to the medical business, Scott was confident he could help me. He said if I had to have surgery, it would alter my sexual function for the rest of my life. But then, he jokingly added, Better less sex than no life, don't you think? I appreciated how his humor softened a reality most men don't want to hear. Finally, he told me it would take three months to get back to normal and a year to recover fully.

Scott scheduled a biopsy for the next week, which came back positive. He convinced me that the best way to get all of the cancer was for him to operate with hands-on surgery rather than robotics. I've done this operation a thousand times. I know what I'm looking for, and I know how to remove it, he said. Because I trusted him, I agreed to his plan. Scott scheduled my surgery a month later, on March 31.

The following day, April 1, I woke up, relieved and groggy, in my bed at Pardee Hospital in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Tish Vallés, my life partner, handed me a cup of water and said, April is Poetry Month; I'm doing 30/30.

Every April, poets challenge themselves to write 30 poems in 30 days—thus 30/30. Since healing was my primary task, I figured why not join in. So, I dictated my first poem, "After Surgery," into a small field recorder. Tish transcribed it. I posted it on Facebook and my blog.

The following day, I dictated the second poem, "How Thunder Runs." I posted it as well, and all the poems after that. That afternoon, when I left the hospital, Tish drove us to A.D. Anderson's home in Swannanoa, North Carolina, where I stayed for the first two weeks of my recovery.

Each day, I wrote another poem. The work helped me navigate the day-to-day mess of recovery. Finally, on day twenty-seven, I thought, Why stop at 30? Why not write a hundred poems in a hundred days? Which is what I did.

I titled the book 100 Days: Poems After Cancer. In it, you'll travel with me to Paris, Ireland, West Africa, and the Philippines. You'll learn how to iron a shirt. You'll get a kick out of the loud mockingbird singing in New York. Gray-haired men riding motorcycles will inspire you. Landscapes will entice you. While singing on a car radio, Janice Joplin might tell you something you didn't know. Finally, you'll meet many friends who helped me during this challenging time.

100 Days contains my reports from the field. Although slightly altered, I trust more now than ever in what life will bring. I am not the same man now, nor will I ever be. May this book benefit you and those you care about.

01 After Surgery

I was still whole, so little gone from my body.
Groggy after going in and out of morphine sleep,
I looked around my hospital room: clock on the wall,
8:30 a.m., blue curtains covered the door. Last night,
I was warm and felt no pain. Tish slept beside me
in a chair. I gave myself over to being loved, a miracle
we all deserve. What a strange, strange relief it was to live

and breathe, to feel my mouth so dry; all I wanted was ice.

• How do your losses translate into insight, self-awareness, and wisdom?

02 How Thunder Runs

Restless on clean sheets, I woke from the second night
of my hospital stay thinking of how thunder runs through
everyone’s life, not lightning, thunder, the boom, an expression
of emergence. Last night I dreamed a friend pulled me from
the sea. Thunder rumbled. I woke, looked out the window, and realized
that thunder has a pearl-like quality; every boom is singular, like explosions

you hear in a war zone, but that’s not thunder. That’s the sound of a whale

with a broken back. My back is not broken. There are no wars here.

• What makes your back stronger?

05 First Shower

Just after breakfast, I showered

for the first time since my surgery.

Hot water ran down
my shoulders
my spine
my arms
my chest
my stomach
my thirteen staples
my legs
my feet
over my toes
into the drain.

• What will you allow your next shower to wash away?

14 Swirled Away

I’ve always wished
I could be one
of the ten thousand

blackbirds swirling
into autumn trees.
Now that April has come,

let’s remember those who have gone away.

You and I know

who they are—
so do the young roots,
and the goats along the fence,

and the old raccoons.
Let’s raise a glass and praise

their absence with a song.

• How often have you admired the unexplainable, like the murmuration of blackbirds in the autumn sky?

33 Jesus Going North

Out on the Great American Highway, going west on I-40
around Little Rock, Arkansas in 2004, I noticed a neon sign,
Divorce Classes in Progress: Call Antioch Full Gospel, 329-5133.
I was already divorced, so I had no reason to dial, but that didn’t stop
me from thinking of heartbroken people with sad eyes as I drove west

through light rain past farms, fields, a Bible Factory Outlet, flood plains,

and a Mack truck with Jesus painted on its side. Yesterday, driving north

from Black Mountain to the Presbyterian village of Montreat,
I slowed for a bearded man shouldering a cross, with a wheel attached
to the bottom, rolling along the white line. He smiled and pointed to the sky.

Today, wind, rain, lightning, and thunder disturbed the afternoon. I relaxed

on the screened-in porch overlooking Lake Eden and thought about how
I’d veered away from Jesus, pulling his cross up the road in the afternoon sun.

• What burdens do you carry down your road?

50 The Risks You Take

The sun above the Sangre de Cristo Mountains brought to mind
the burner on my mother’s kitchen stove. Don’t touch that burner;
it’s hot, Mother said. The coils looked cool to my five-year-old eyes.
I pressed my palm and fingers down. My skin sizzled. I jerked
my arm back and stared at my new blisters. Over the years,
I’ve often wondered why I branded my hand instead of testing the air

above the stove to gauge the heat. Most stories rise from the risks you take.

If I’d done nothing but wave my hand over the coils, I’d have no story
to tell. Walking the fence is the biggest risk you’ll ever take.

• Can you list the risks you took that turned into indelible memories?

57 Stare into the Perfect

The ease of Taos continues. I’ve gained much contentment
from the magpies in the trees and much camaraderie
with the regulars here at Wired Café who would believe me
if I told them I was eating plums inside the bounty of my dreams.

Dreams belong to this land. Far away, up in the mountains,

a young shepherd tends his flock. He stares into the perfect

openness of passing hours. His voice is a deer coming out of a tree.

Eyes see everything when they are allowed to look.

• Take a walk and make a of list of the things you see, hear, smell, feel, and taste. Can you turn your list into a piece of writing?

59 Helmets Be Damned

Hundreds of Harleys invade Taos every Memorial Day weekend. The bikers,
mostly men with graying beards, ride their HOGS, jackets unzipped, hair blowing,

boots propped above power stoking engines that boom through silver pipes past
Taos Gems & Minerals, Song’s Asian Restaurant, and Anthony Lopez’s law office.

Harleys were rumbling through Taos years before Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper

(who died of prostate cancer) rode easy over the Rio Grande looking for adventure

and a place to smoke, lightning into the 21st century where they would never grow

old, like the bikers this weekend. Helmets be damned, these cats ride with their souls

free down the long road that always curves through Sunday morning. They lean
into the warm air, never noticing how their shadows ripple across fence posts, barbed

wire, and No Trespassing signs.

71 One-Eyed Chess Player

My healing that started in the Carolina rain and continued
under the Taos sky carries on in this city that roars perfection,

imperfection, identity, doubt, ambition, and despair. Last night,
a storm rattled food carts, shook umbrellas, slowed cars,
and forced Tish and me to huddle next to a one-eyed chess player

under the arch in Washington Square Park. While we waited
for the storm to pass, I recited a poem. Never ask children
about the language of steel, laws, horsepower, and smoke.
Ask instead why grass is fur on a tiger’s back. Never ask
why children race down sidewalks faster than their fathers

chasing behind under summer maples. Run, Lad, run, your daddy

will not let the big bears eat you. The boy flies out of his shoes;
he will recall this running for the rest of his life and how later,

after supper, his father gave him an illustrated comic book

that told him why the sun was more than a ball of fire.

• Name five seemingly insignificant occurrences that have dramatically influenced your life. Can you pick one and write about it?

75 A New York Afternoon

At dawn, the Buddhist shrine above M.J.’s fireplace reminded me of the Tibetan

monks I once saw smiling and singing while making a colorful sand mandala
at the Telluride Mountain Film Festival. This afternoon, I was no more a Tibetan

monk walking up Broadway than I was a few summers ago when I persuaded

a Taos Inn bartender I was a monk on vacation from my monastery.

I paused at Madison Square Park. Pigeons fluttered around the lunch crowd waiting

to order burgers and fries from the famous Shake Shack’s zinc-clad, ivory-covered

fast food stand. I headed north up Madison Avenue, imagining what people would

think if they saw a group of Tibetan monks lined up at Shake Shack, laughing and

talking about the transitory nature of life while waiting to order burgers and fries.

• What do you get when you mix your factual memories with your imaginative leaps?

82 Sing Out of Tune

Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry” drifted over B-Cup Café. The barista served

my chili in a green bowl, then poured a Coke into a glass from an old-fashioned bottle.

Summer passes like the Harley riders leaning into the warm air. That’s why
it’s wise to watch old movies projected onto brick walls, like the film I watched
last night flickering above a basketball court in the West Village. It’s also wise
to express tenderness, let your heart open, lean into warm air, sing out of tune,
and take a day off when it rains.

• Can you list five things you’ve recently done you felt were wise?

100 Slightly Altered

Just west of Spring Street, I paused under a maple for a phone conversation
with my friend Julia Cameron in Santa Fe, who told me a grassland whiptail

lizard had just scurried over her rug, paused behind the trash can, then darted

out her kitchen door into the desert, perhaps to dig for termites or find shelter

under a log in the noonday sun. I have found refuge over the past 100 days in the

Appalachian Mountains around Asheville, in the high Taos desert,

and in New York City. I trust more now than ever in what moonlight can do.

I am not the same man I was before my surgery, nor will I ever be.

• Change is inevitable. What happens when you resist it? Or when you welcome it? Write about a time when you resisted change. Now, write about when you welcomed it.

James Navé is a poet, teacher of writing, and a member of the Order of the Rocking Chair.