The time passes quickly. The nurses offer water and juice, pretzels and crackers. They ask if I need a blanket or a pillow. After a few pleasantries and hooking me up to treatment, the nurses go about their business with other patients--but they are always a few steps away if I need them.
I listened to music through my headphones during my first two treatments. Last treatment, I read a few pages from How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels, by Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden. I have been thinking about and tinkering with the rhythm of a three-panel comic.
The image above are some of my notes from the earliest pages of the text--mostly background on the original Nancy artist an creator, Ernie Bushmiller.
At my treatment, I reread some passages that stuck out to me...making a mental note to go back to craft some notes about them in the near future--which I have done periodically for a quite a while. I like doing it for a couple of reasons. It helps me spend more time with texts I want to think about more deeply. And I find it is a task that helps me relax. It is comforting. Actually, so many of things I find comforting intersect through silence (on the outside)...even though so much is happening inside and coming through on a page.
A few samples from the past five years:
All of which is helping me understand why I turn the tv off sometimes when I am home alone. I like the silence.
And why I like to read and write and draw. I like the silence.
And why I may not listen to music or read or do anything except just be, just practice being in the moment, at my next treatment.
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