Cancer doesn't discriminate, but that doesn't make it good.

Cancer is terrible. So when I read a very well-written email from a mere acquaintance, asking for help with an event to benefit a friend of his and his family, I couldn't see a reason not to participate. While I can't divulge the entire contents of the email, I can say that there are people who love Bruce Siart, he has cancer but not a very good prognosis, and he and his family are going to need money to pay for expenses.

From what I can gather, Bruce loves music, he has a wife, and he takes pictures. If I knew him, I know we'd have at least two things in common.

That said, the benefit will take place at Ralph's Diner in Worcester on April 10th.

This being my own blog, I'd also like to add that it took me a few days to decide whether or not I wanted to donate my time and/or money to a family I don't know. Three things fueled my decision.

1. I've lost loved ones to cancer, and I've known survivors of cancer. I have health insurance, and I'm lucky enough that my employer offers cancer insurance. But I know insurance, and I know it's never enough. Between deductibles, lapses in employment, loss of wages due to appointments and shorter term absences - and the lack of physical stamina during treatment to do even the most menial tasks yourself - it's a huge expense. People sometimes need help due to circumstances beyond their control.

2. I've received recently a barrage of requests for donations. The internet makes it easy. For victims of the Haiti earthquakes, for homeless families, for drug and alcohol intervention programs, for bands trying to put together enough money to record their next album (fostering creativity would not be an ignoble cause in my book), for rape victims...the list is endless. And I wasn't feeling good about ignoring ALL of them. Problem number one, I don't have a lot of money these days. Like most people, my budget has finally been stretched as thin as I'm comfortable with. Thinner, perhaps. I chose this cause because I can both participate and donate, so I won't feel so terrible when I donate less, but participate more.

3. It's been a long winter, and I haven't been doing very much in the evenings or on the weekends. Given my budgetary woes, what's been a short bout of contentment (growing longer by the hour), and the realization that too much contentment leads to apathy, I decided that the best thing to do is say, "I'm in!" and ride it out 'til I've followed through.

I don't think there's anything wrong with any of these reasons. To quote Nick Hornby, "Human beings are millions of things in one day."

If a couple few of them are good, it's better than none.

a thousand names.

Illusions. Like my bank account, and that guy I was going to marry once; like my job, my car, and Christmas. I was looking at old pictures last night, and it made me feel as though I've lived a hundred lives in the same place without a single common thread. I don't think this is good or bad. I don't seem to be repeating any patterns, in that none of them were the same in any way that I can reasonably identify. Except maybe that I fall right the fuck down and always find a way get back up. Even then, it's never the same.

Sometimes I jump up, brush the dirt off real quick, and manage to gather enough grace to make it look like it never happened. Those times, I don't look back. Other times, not so much. Some things take a long time to get over. Everybody knows this.

So while I'm halfway upright at the tail end of one of the very long time things, I'm also at the starting edge of yet another time of my life. I think that this time will be good, just like all of the other times were good or better. I think this because I choose to give the gone wrongs their proper due and then let them go rather than applying adjectives to myself that indicate there will never be another good time. Adjectives like scarred, or hurt, or damaged. Fractured. Those words are just excuses not to say yes to yet another lifetime, common thread or none. I may not be voicing an emphatic yes, but it's a yes nonetheless.

My advice to me. Never punch a gift horse in the mouth.

even the rain can change overnight.

It's as if I'm waking from a deep sleep. I could stay very still and listen to the cats meow around, and the house creaking, and the rain outside pecking at my windows. Or, I could jump out of bed, make a fat pot of strong-ass coffee and give this day (all of these days) a fair shake. Either way, it could be beautiful.

I'm a little early, but spring's just around the bend. I have plans. I want to hike more, because they don't call it the out-of-doors for nothing. A door's better than a window, even if a window's better than a wall. There's something about the trees and a lesser-trod path that makes you feel like you're a pioneer. I say this now, where I used to prefer spring walking around a city full of walls and windows taller than any tree could endeavor to grow, in fact where trees are somewhat scarce, except where they've been transplanted from faraway places. I could reference more than one point here, but that only leads me back to nostalgia. I'm not going to talk about spring and talk about nostalgia at the same time. They're not going to meet in the middle today, because memories can sometimes foil even the best laid plans.

I'm not saying that I'm starting anew, because I've grown enough to know that when it comes to this love, ain't no such thing as a do-over. I meant to write "this life," but for as much as I've practiced thinking before I speak, I'm not exempt from the occasional Freudian slip. But guaranteed, there's always another spring for as long a life as we're allowed. Always.

So few things are like that. Always. I like the way the word sounds, though I'm wary that I'll mix it up with memory.  I might have, at times. I like things I can count on, and I'm not counting on winter to make me see anything in a new light. I could count on fall, except just by definition, I don't think it's going to pull me out of a rut. Summer's nice, too, but so often the air becomes thick and stifling. Spring, though. It can bring so much.

I don't know if anyone else appreciates that like I do. Frankly, my dears, I don't give a damn. I'm just in it for the oxygen. Without it, none of this could happen.