It's time to be real
Last October, my lymphoma returned for the third time. Before treatment started, I bought a new camera and embarked on a series of photojournalistic adventures around Los Angeles. I figured you’d all enjoy reading about sizzling meats and look at gravity defying Asian noodles at Smorgasburg LA; preview the outdoor wares at the Rose Bowl Swap Meet; experience horseback riding in Bradbury, and visualize how Los Angeles looked two hundred years ago at Olvera Street.
From November up until now, I’ve spent a lot of time at City of Hope where I’ve endured long days of blood draws, biopsies, tests, scans, chemo infusions and unpredictable inpatient hospital stays. It’s depressing, exhausting and scary and not real fun to write about. Discussing the details and explaining all the reports is tiresome. I’m not even that curious about what all the medical terms mean or why most of my pills have three different names. But I don’t like the phony “get well soon” platitudes and the F**K cancer hashtags and t-shirts either.
So, here’s my “real” as I like to define it—pared down and simplified—with a mixture of hard truths and optimism: I am now in remission; although I’m not done with treatment. I have to get an unrelated donor bone marrow transplant which will be even more grueling than the one I had last year using my own cells. But luckily they’ve found a perfect match: a young European male, most likely from Germany. I’m an Ashkenazi Jew and it’s ironic, humbling, fascinating and miraculous that he would donate his cells to me. If I stay in remission after two years, and if he so chooses, we can meet. It’s too overwhelming to think that far ahead, but there is still hope. So for now, it’s living one day at a time, sometimes five minutes at a time.
In between these medical struggles, I am determined to remain a photographer and find new inspiration. Here are some florals I’ve shot at Descanso Gardens, Huntington Botanical Gardens and my own garden, experimenting with my macro lens. Close up focusing within inches can be complex because of the tiny depth of field. Should I concentrate on the outer petals or the inner workings of the bloom? Or do I back up and show a larger perspective? I’m also experimenting with paper textures, both real and digital. They add depth and symbolism to each image: with blooms there’s decay; with beauty there’s grit; with sensuality there’s science, and with light there are shadows.
My next post will be after the transplant. It may be three months or even six months from now, depending on the side effects. I’ll spare you the morbid details but give you enough of the “real”. Life is hard but there’s always some hope and joy. I look forward to showing off more florals or some other undiscovered gems.
Remember: we’re all a work in progress, finding the “real” of our own existence, and whatever you choose to focus on, it’s always worthwhile.
