On Laughter, Bitterness and Joni

Dear Ones,

As is often the case here, I feel like I am telling more than one story at the same time because this is how life works. All of these parts of a life, all happening at the same time, overlapping and interweaving, sometimes competing for attention. Finding balance in between is the challenge.

While I never intended to write about music as much as I do, I guess it is fitting since music is a source of such joy and healing for me, especially live music.

And so I tell you that I had the great privilege of hearing Joni Mitchell at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this month. If you are a Joni fan, you’ve no doubt read about these concerts, the Joni Jam, and every magnificent thing they say is true.

Joni sat front and center surrounded by incredible musicians, headliners themselves ordinarily, who were there to be her band and backup singers. She chose her setlist of 27 songs, including deep cuts and one that I think she said hadn’t been performed live before (The Sire of Sorrow). Dancing with her cane, keeping her unique rhythms, she sang and told stories. And Joni laughed. Between every song, she laughed. What happened on that stage that evening was such a moving and extraordinary act of generosity among the performers.

They spent months learning her songs, musicians learning their parts without a score. And on those two evenings they came together simply as Joni’s band, playing a supporting role so that Joni could shine. And Joni herself went from performing not more than a few songs at recent appearances, to performing twenty seven songs! May we all have the tenacity and joy of Joni Mitchell, and the generosity and humility of her supporting musicians.

I think everyone there knew we were witnessing a historic evening. Even the moon conspired and rose over the Hollywood Hills as Joni sang Both Sides Now.

After the concert, I made a playlist from the setlist for us to listen to on the long drive home. It has been on repeat ever since. I included three versions of Both Sides Now on the playlist. I like to hear the evolution and changing perspective of the song sung when she was at the beginning of her career, again in the middle, and now at the end, her voice deepening through the decades. I think it is particularly poignant when sung while looking back over a whole life.

But the song that keeps echoing for me is The Sire of Sorrow (Job’s Sad Song), a song I’d never heard before. She opens with:

Let me speak, let me spit out my bitterness,
born of grief and nights without sleep.

In the refrain she sings:

Oh you tireless watcher!
What have I done to you?
That you make everything I dread and everything I fear come true?

I have reached a hard place in cancerland. All the details are not yet clear, and I’m still absorbing it all and not ready to write about it. For really the first time since my diagnosis, I’m angry. I’m pissed. Not just with my story, but with so many cancer stories of people I know. Anger is a part of grief, though I don’t believe that grief comes in linear stages, more like an everchanging, spinning Tilt-O-Whirl.

All this is happening against the background of pink October, a loathsome tradition for many of us. This is a month that focuses on “saving tatas” rather than saving lives. It is a month when corporations profit off of breast cancer with their pink ribbons. (Look up what they actually are giving to breast cancer research.) And it is a month when those of us with Stage 4 remember that only 5% of all breast cancer research money is given to research on metastatic breast cancer. All research is beneficial, but how ironic that research into the only stage of breast cancer that kills you is almost an afterthought. (One organization that gives 100% of their research dollars to researching metastatic breast cancer is Metavivor.)

Cancer spreading to bone, Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Cancer is merciless and cruel and fucked up. Cancer is also random, which is why I know that when I ask “why”, I am asking a question with no answer. I could just as easily ask “why not”.  I can ask “how,” as in how do I want to live? I can ask “what,” as in what do I want to do with the life I have? And what is important to me now, what makes a good day? I can ask “who” as in who do I want to be, and who do I want to be with?

Working through tough emotions means actually feeling them, so that they can move through. I let my anger sit with me. It will move through, and I will move on. I will not be overcome by bitterness; I will spit it out. I will find my way back to seeing how “something’s lost, but something’s gained in living every day.” I will remember how Joni, who has overcome so much, laughed.

Wishing all of us strength and honesty when we are touched by grief and anger and bitterness, and the return of balance and laughter.

Thanks for being here. I appreciate you.

Lots of love,

Maija

Songs of the Week: We have the 2022 recording of Both Sides Now on our playlist already. Today I’ll add the 2000 recording of Both Sides Now, which to me sounds like a deep, beautiful, mid-life musing. And of course, The Sire of Sorrow (Job’s Sad Song).

The entire Healing Happens playlist is available on Spotify and Apple Music:
Healing Happens on Spotify
Healing Happens on Apple Music