Life in a high-rise

 For the past few years, my husband and I have been living in separate places.  He retired from his career at a small liberal arts university, and then accepted a call to ministry in a downtown urban congregation in Ottawa, about 1200 km away from home.  For a variety of personal and family reasons, we agreed that I would remain behind.  The original intent was for him to return after five years, but it is looking like his time away will stretch a little farther.  Although the reasons I chose to stay behind no longer exist, at this point, it doesn’t make sense for me to move to be with him for only one year.  

Parliament Hill, Ottawa

So this fall, I decided to take a leave of absence from my job and spend most of it in the city with my husband.  It has been fun to be here, especially as Christmas gets closer. I’ve done a variety of things one does in the big city – professional hockey and football games, concerts, craft sales, attending Parliament, visiting art galleries.  

My husband lives in a 14-floor apartment building that is part of a complex of three buildings.  It is an older building, and the apartment units are roomier than many of the newer units on the market.  There is quite a bit of green space around the complex, and it’s very close to the Rideau River and to the transit station, so it’s an excellent location.  

This is the first time I have experienced life in a highrise apartment building.  Over the past few months, I have had opportunities to observe a few things about this little community.  There are two 14 floor buildings and another taller (maybe 24 floors) building in this complex.  My wild guess is that there are approximately 1000 units in these three buildings.  It is mind-boggling to think that in this (relatively) tiny footprint, there are potentially as many people as live in the core of Sackville (not including students).   

There is a high ratio of people of other nationalities living in these buildings.  I am guessing most of them are immigrants and international students, and perhaps some refugees.  I have seen women in saris, many women wearing abayas and hijabs, and men and women in African attire.   

One of the best things about living in this vastly diverse multicultural community is the smell of cooking.  It seems like it doesn’t matter what time of day it is, when I leave the apartment and go into the hallways, there are delicious, mouth-watering food smells.  I often feel like I want to knock on some doors and invite myself for dinner.   

The apartment buildings each have outdoor tennis courts.  My husband’s apartment overlooks his building's courts.  I have very rarely seen people actually play tennis on these courts.  However, they are well used.  Almost every afternoon in the summer and early fall, in the late afternoon, a group of men came onto the court and played rousing games of cricket (using tennis balls), cheering each other on, occasionally hitting the balls over the fence.  Later in the summer, a small group of young boys occasionally beat the men to the court, bringing their junior version of cricket wickets and bats, and they played with enthusiasm and very few arguments.  Occasionally the two groups would play together. When the management company circulated an e-mail saying that the tennis nets were not to be removed for any reason, I was disappointed, but after a few days of empty courts, the cricketers found a way to work around the nets, and the cricket matches resumed.  

Almost every afternoon, a group of Muslim women, sometimes as many as 12 or 15, congregated in the green space beside the playground with their babies and young children.  They sat on the grass while their children played, sometimes for hours, before slowly trickling back into their apartment buildings.  I envied them a little bit – they seemed to have formed a mutually supportive community among themselves, and there was a lot of laughter. 

For several weeks, there were four young children who played outside regularly.  They didn’t appear to have a parent with them, but presumably the apartment of at least one of their families was easily accessible, and someone as keeping an eye on them.  There were three boys, probably between the ages of six and ten years old, and a small girl, who looked to be about two or three.  The children were affectionate with each other, and the oldest boy seemed to feel a great deal of responsibility for the others, especially the little girl.  They usually had a soccer ball to kick around, and the boys included Tiny Girl in their games.  Tiny Girl appeared to have some sass, and reminded me of some of the other Tiny Girls I’ve known.  I looked forward to watching them interact while
I sat on the balcony in the late afternoons.   

My husband’s apartment is on the third floor of his building, just high enough to be able to witness human interactions without being observed most of the time.  One of the sweetest things I saw was a young man trying to teach his wife how to ride a bike, holding on to the back of the seat like we do with children.  She was not having much success, and at one point, she stopped, leaned over and laid her head on his chest and burst into tears.  The man patted her back and talked quietly to her, and let her cry for a few minutes.  Then, she was back at it, and within about 15 minutes, she was joyfully riding her bike without any assistance!  

Now that it’s December, the activity outside has changed.  Kids are back at school, for one thing, and the lazy, hazy days of summer are long gone.  But the first snow fell yesterday, and as I left the apartment building, I could hear squealing and laughter from above me.  Looking up, I saw two young women, probably university-age, standing on their balcony without coats or mitts or hats, with their arms outstretched, catching the snowflakes as they fell, expressing their pure joy at the wonder of the snow.  (Someone cynically said “That will change once winter sets in,” but it was a lovely thing to witness).  This afternoon, there were a couple of parents with very small children and plastic sleds trying to slide down the VERY SMALL HILL in the playground, the children laughing with delight.   

It is almost time for me to return to my warm and cozy house and normal life back in the Maritimes.  And while there are a few things about apartment living that I do not enjoy (getting stuck in the elevator, and the nearby neighbour who continually smokes pot, with the smell leaching into this apartment, for example!), I must admit that a part of me will miss watching life unfold in front of me.  When I come back next summer for a visit, Tiny Girl won’t be so tiny, and maybe the cricket boys will have moved on to something else.  But maybe there will be new and entertaining things to witness.  Time will tell. 

The carousel of time

I don’t like listening to documentaries or news stories about cancer “survivors” and how their lives have been transformed for the better because of their cancer.  I try to avoid them.  But today when I was in the shower a documentary came on the radio about a man who was diagnosed with cancer when his wife was 33 weeks pregnant with their second child, how he went through the treatments and successfully “beat” cancer and underwent a complete lifestyle change and he’s now a rockstar at enjoying life to the fullest.

I am not one of those people.  I have not radically changed my lifestyle since I was diagnosed with cancer.  I did not suddenly become a vegan or start running marathons.  I haven’t travelled to exotic places on my “wishlist” or walked or biked across a continent.  I haven’t become a super cancer fundraising organizer.  Since my diagnosis 13 years ago, I’ve only attended one Relay for Life, because it was important to my daughter to see me walk the “Survivors’ Lap,” but even that one Relay was difficult.  Events like this always feature stories about the amazing things that cancer “survivors” have accomplished.  I don’t necessarily believe that’s a bad thing.  But that is not me.  I haven’t accomplished anything amazing because of my cancer diagnosis and I’m not much of a “rockstar” at anything.

My entire life has been footnoted at key times by cancer.  My mom had 5 surgeries for breast cancer.  Her first mastectomy was when I was a young child.  Once I had just left home to go to school.  She had cancer again just before I got married, and then just before my first child was born; the doctor I worked for at the time removed her sutures when she came for the birth.  My own cancer was diagnosed the week after my dad died suddenly.  The shock was not THAT I was diagnosed, but WHEN I was diagnosed.  So yes, cancer has deeply affected my whole life.  And it continues to affect me, daily when I take my medication and see my scars, when I have infusions and MRIs and mammograms and doctor’s appointments, and every single time I hear of a friend, relative, neighbour, or community member who has been diagnosed with or died of cancer.

I really dislike the terms “cancer survivor” and “beating” cancer.  They imply weakness on the part of those who don’t “survive.”  But I think the ones who don’t survive, and their families, are much, much stronger than those of us who come out the other side.  I have not fought this battle and won. This is not a game to be played, and really, in the end, most of the time, we have very little say in whether or not we will “win” the battle.  Unlike a war or a football game, there is no strategy that we can draw up on paper with x’s and o’s that will guarantee a “victorious” outcome if we do certain things.  I have had surgery and treatments that, fortunately or providentially, have “cured” my cancer, at least for now, and enabled me to continue to live my life.  I remember discussing my treatment options with my oncologist: chemotherapy, radiation, medication, eventual amputation of my breast(s).  I said to him at the time, “There’s no guarantee, right?  I could have all the treatments and still have a recurrence, or I could have no treatment at all and never have cancer again.  It’s really a total crap shoot, isn’t it?”  He agreed. 

In saying this, I’m not discouraging people from having treatment, or from changing their lifestyles to be more healthy.  I am fully aware of the fact that there are lifestyle changes that can reduce the odds of developing cancer.  And maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way, but to me, that’s what they are: odds.  Especially if you, like me, are genetically predisposed to develop cancer. 

I do appreciate the cycles of life more, I think, and I am aware that every spring (and summer and autumn and winter) could be my last spring (or summer or autumn or winter), depending on what my body’s cells decide they are going to do.  So maybe the biggest gift that cancer has given me is that it has taught me to try to intentionally appreciate each day and each season, and to try to find some beauty in every day that I’m on this earth, no matter how bad a day it might seem.  And most importantly, it has given me love and appreciation for the people in my life who are always there for me, most especially my family. 

For today, then, I am going to enjoy the beautiful things around me: the birds (mostly finches) twittering outside my windows, the sun breaking through the clouds, and the evidence in my surroundings that the circle of life does indeed continue to turn.

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

-- Joni Mitchell

* I do want to add a disclaimer.  This is how I have navigated my personal experience with cancer.  If it isn't your way, that's okay.  If you're a cancer rockstar survivor, that's fabulous, but that's your experience.  I'm not criticizing it, I'm sharing my own personal feelings.  There are no right or wrong feelings when it comes to dealing with cancer or any other traumatic illness. Love to all.