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Victoria Falls and the Beauty of Contradictions
Terri Wingham, Vancouver BC
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A surge of cold, angry water crashes over my hood and slides down the beige plastic of my flimsy poncho. When I step out of its stream and look up, past the wall of mist and water, a vivid rainbow slices the corner of blue sky in half. The smell of wet grass and freshly washed air mingles with the taste of minerals on my tongue and I lean back to catch the spray on my face. A shiver runs up my spine as drops of water escape to run between my collarbones and gather again in my belly button.
As I splash through a shallow pool of water, I reach out for a slimy wood railing and lean over to stare at an abyss of white water. One misstep and I could go over. The combination of both my proximity to death and the beauty of life fill my throat with a baseball size lump. Surrounded by clinging mist and roaring water, all of the thoughts and worries typically circling the drain in my mind have disappeared and I stand mesmerized by what the local Kololo tribe once called "The Smoke That Thunders."
Everything about being here feels like a contradiction: peace amidst the roaring water, blazing sun when I step out of the freezing spray, and solitude while surrounded by people from all over the world.
I can't help but think about the beautiful contradictions each of us face every day. Moments like the pain and joy of childbirth, the fear and hope we feel when fighting cancer, the joy and sadness of falling in love, and the excitement and apprehension about changing our lives in either a minor or a major way.
What if we gave ourselves permission to experience both emotions at the same time? I often think about this when I reflect on the almost two years since three little words changed my life forever. Some people say cancer was the best thing that ever happened to them , but for a long time I hated them for suggesting I see cancer as a gift.
When I sat sobbing on the floor of my shower because I held the remnants of my hair in my hands; when chemo made me so sick, I questioned whether I even wanted to live, and when I first saw the bright red, angry scars on my post-mastectomy chest, I did not feel grateful. All I felt was angry and depressed. I hated cancer. I hated my life. I hated that I could not escape either cancer or my life. |
Terri at the edge of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe Africa
But, time has given me the gift of perspective. In some ways, cancer was the cosmic 2×4 piece of wood I needed to stop working 80-hour weeks, to stop obsessing about trying to control everything and everyone around me and most importantly to stop beating myself up for my imperfections.
Now, people barely recognize me. I have become someone who starts a blog then quits my job to pursue a writing career without a concrete plan for generating income; someone who makes a snap decision to volunteer in Africa for six weeks because I want the most recent experience in my life to be about taking care of others instead of having to be taken care of; and someone who is about to set up a not-for-profit to help other cancer survivors volunteer internationally and then travel around the world to raise awareness for this organization.
So, although my experience with cancer was filled with depression, disillusionment, and anger, I can now see the biggest contradiction of all. I can now see that waiting patiently for me on the other side of this cancer-induced hell was a brand new life, or as I like to call it A Fresh Chapter.
Read Terri's thoughtful and entertaining blog at www.afreshchapter.com
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