When I think back on the Park Slope brownstone, the place feels dark to me. While it literally was filled with dark wood paneling and not a whole lot of light shining into the second floor, my memories are also tinged with personal shadow. As 2000 became 2001 and Y2K did not bring apocalyptic times as computer systems crumbled, I continued my hard hustle to make money while also not paying attention to the nagging question of what had happened to my writing career. I still toyed in my head with calling myself a writer, given I was a part of an organization called Teachers&Writers and still went to readings and gatherings where I was surrounded by authors of some sort or another. The thread running through that I both recognized and felt intimidated by was how these folks were always working on something, shopping things around, or continually workshopping a piece of writing to get it ready for publication. I was not doing any of that while also holding onto the idea that someday I would be an active writing person again. I didn’t have any interest in returning to journalism, so a lot of my thoughts were I’m transitioning into writing fiction … someday.

In the meantime, I was teaching, doing script coverage for Fox Searchlight, and working some weekly shifts for a focus group organization where my job was to call up people from a list and interview them to do paid focus groups on things like toothpaste and cereal. All of this was scrappy freelance stuff that paid by the hour and there wasn’t much room for time off because even though Park Slope was not the kind of expensive it is these days, the guy and I were still on the outer limits of our budget rent-wise for our beautiful (yet dark) apartment. I would occasionally wonder when I might get on with the next part of my creative life, but mostly I filled my calendar with bits and pieces to pay the bills and barrelled on. I would sometimes be taken by surprise at the choices I’d made. One of those moments happened as I was standing on the corner of Park Ave and 21st street wearing a t-shirt with the focus group’s name across the chest, trying to find people of a certain age (& other profile-y kind of ickiness) to sign up for a group on, I don’t know, cashmere socks or some-such. As I clutched my clipboard on a beautiful spring day, I saw a writer from my SPIN days who I’d assigned stories to, gone to backstage parties with, and hung around musicians alongside, coming down the sidewalk toward me. My first sensation was mortification, which froze me. I tried to pretend I was invisible, that I was a statue, that he would not recognize me, even though I still sported the same bangs and bright red hair in a braid down my back that I had back in the day when I was a big-time charlene in the music industry. As he came closer, I swore I saw recognition dawning on his face so I did what any person in a confused identity crisis would do: I turned and walked into the closest building, which was a bank. The security guard nodded at me and I proceeded to wander with great purpose around the place, stopping at the ledge along the wall so I could study the deposit slips, and looking seriously at the long line at the teller windows. Then after enough time had passed that I figured he’d be gone, I stepped back out. The almost-famous-no-more moment passed, but the sense of How did I get here? lingered.

Naturally, I shoved that thought deep into my psyche and carried on with my connect-the-money-dots life. Then, in May of 2001, as I was hustling off to a school to teach, I coughed up a bit of blood. I’d been getting over a cold, which, given the Achilles’ heel of my lungs, meant all my colds always settled there. I actually was not as startled as one might think when one notices blood somewhere it shouldn’t be and thought it was an aberration, although as the week went on, the instances increased. The internets were in their early days but yet I jumped into the rabbit hole that was available, and, after scaring the bejeezus out of myself, made a doctor’s appointment. I did have insurance now, and that’s what it was for after all. The guy was out of town when I went in for my lung X-ray after blood tests had ruled out TB, which had been the first thought given I worked in the public schools, lived in NYC, rode public transportation.

In an X-ray situation, here’s what’s never a good sign: after the first set of photos, the technician came in and had me move the braid that hung down my back saying she thought it was getting in the way. Then, after the second set, she didn’t come back for a long time, and when she did she said, “I have your doctor on the phone.” My memory is one of absolute chill where my mind became disengaged from my emotions, and I felt myself functioning without actually feeling anything. I took the phone, I heard my doctor tell me we’d need to set up an appointment immediately to talk about what was showing up on the X-ray, then me saying, “Yes, of course” and giving the phone back to the technician, getting dressed, and going home. I felt annoyed that I’d have to cancel my teaching workshops for the next day, worried that the school would be angry with me. I did a lot of things to avoid having to feel scared, but of course, I was terrified without really knowing what to do with that. Until one of the cats climbed onto my lap. That’s when I lost it. All it took was a cuddly fur-ball who was my heart and who’d been with me for longer than my relationship with the guy, all the way through the recent career bullet train of trauma, to settle in my lap for skritches while purring for me to let myself go. So I sat there and fell apart: waves of fear, disbelief, and helplessness rolling through messy as all get-out and bringing the realization that I didn’t have any idea what was next.

But I also didn’t want to tell anyone. Perhaps because on one hand I thought if I didn’t say my worst fears out loud, then they wouldn’t exist, and on the other hand, l didn’t want to have to comfort anyone else or ruin their current moment (yes, I know). So that night, I just sat still on the couch with the cat and had all my feelings. As I remember it, that was really the last stretch of emptiness I existed in, given the rush of action around figuring out next steps becomes all-important and fairly relentless.

Next week, the land of medical oz and the art of what’s behind the curtain.