D/other, live shows & life
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| Picture from Sideways 2022 by Johannes Salomaa. |
It's been almost exactly ten months since D/other came out in October 2021. The time has been layered with lovely concert hall shows, the despair of cancer and its gruelling treatment, disappointments and fear with Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine, worsening health and the preparation to die and then, the hopefulness of new medication, better news, rescheduled shows, spring time and summer time with some festival specials. In the richness of life at its best and worst, it has been a struggle to know which story to tell––which ongoing narrative to hold in silence and which to share. So, while I have been writing future works to be published, and while I have performed the D/other songs together with my lovely band, I have shied away from telling my story at present.
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| GLiveLab in Tampere, June 11th. (thank you for the photo to the audience member) |
Last September I defended my dissertation becoming a Doctor of Philosophy while in October I published D/other, my seventh solo album. In the same month I also began treatment for brain metastasis that continued to grow. The new drug was my last hope. Other available medicine struggled to pass the blood-brain barrier therefore doing nothing to prolong my life. It was a shred really, a long-shot, a wishful medical gesture that held little promise in my situation. I was lucky to receive access to a new medicine that was proposed to revolutionalize breast cancer care for my specific cohort. I thought it best to give it a try so as not to leave any unturned stones, but held little hope for any effect. In the past years, nearly all of my cancer sisters had died and I was preparing to. This meant that my priority was putting my energy into realizing the autumn album release shows in concert halls around Finland. Performing the shows gave me life, its joy, richness and meaning. Still, by early January I felt so ill from the treatment, I almost wished it wasn't working, so I could give it up.
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| GLiveLab in Helsinki, March 2022 |
It was then, a few weeks before I turned 40, that I got the news that my cancer was stable. I then went on a break from treatment and rediscovered my appetite for food and for life. I celebrated forty and my child celebrated 10 years on this earth together. Slowly, as I healed from side-effects I began to make plans, to dream and to write in my journals, notebooks and various documents on my computer. I proved to myself that I hadn't been depressed, just beaten by the new miracle drug washing through me every three weeks. I didn't give myself much of a horizon then, but I did begin to live in the year thinking of summer, imagining some distance of time where I might still exist. It is a tricky business learning to live with a realistic understanding of the limits of my time here and to make space for the uncertainty that comes with the understanding. The uncertainty means that I might remain longer than expected. But it also means, that I might not.
At some incoherent moment in time, I had a sense that my preparation for death was over, yet I just wasn't dying. I no longer felt desperate for support and understanding. I no longer cared to complain about the unavailability of any reliable professional support in my situation. I felt bored by the subject. Just then Covid-19 measures re-closed what had been opened and I recuperated in the heart of winter, waiting it out like a timid sprout under the snow covered ground. It was a long winter with a low hanging gray sky. My emptiness and unsureness was budding into dreams, plans and pages of writing. I was practicing for new shows, and when they got moved up, I played freely around what I had loved a long time ago, connecting with old strands that were there, waiting to connect to me. Being 40 didn't mean what I had imagined it might: the heaviness of the ground, loss and finitude. Instead, I began to play with the idea that 40 might be a beginning. A beginning of what?
In April I got the news that the cancer in my brain had begun to shrink. Tumours were visibly smaller than in the winter. The news was not a complete surprise because I was feeling so good. Despite my having suffered through a Covid-19 infection in late March, I felt healthier than I could remember. I sensed that had the medicine not worked, I would have by now fallen under the spell of serious side effects. Or, I would have fallen straight into my death: Last breath, boots still on, unable to call for my own ambulance. But I was here. Even back on the poison that was healing me by poisoning my body, I felt different than in the fall; I had hope.
Now the medicine that I had expected to disappoint me was evidently beginning to take effect. This knowledge created a lightness in me. A space inside that was filled with Nothing. A new space, a new possibility. An unexpected turn on a road that had been surrounded by seemingly endless thunder storms. I didn't know just how to exist in that space. I walked around carrying the newfound emptiness, which I wasn't in any hurry to fill with something. Not even meaning.
The spring with its good news brought more usual niggles. They were welcome, thought always annoying. Now that I wasn't letting go of this life just yet, I needed to return to vacuuming, cooking, planning, planting, traveling, dreaming and arguing. I needed to at least try to see myself as a member of a family and various communities. I needed to pull my weight. And also, to remember that I am ill and do not possess energy and ability the same as "everyone else". I remembered again, just how difficult living with hope is. Surprisingly, it requires re-continued exercise routines, muscle work and stamina. It demands giving up a diet of cake and candy in service of the possibility of ageing. Hope offers the danger of being disappointed again, of being hurt; falling again. I edge toward my hopeful routines now treading carefully and taking my time.
Now, in July D/other continues to feel like a new album for me, one which I love and hope for everyone to listen to. My wish is for it to become a companion to so many lives, so many unexpected turns.
Meeting audience members at my shows these past months has been fulfilling. It has been a sustaining gift. These meetings have been special because everyone is now aware of the precarity of connection. Often, I have felt overwhelmed by the words, looks, presents and flowers that I have received. Thank you!
In releasing D/other in October 2021 I was certain I was putting out my last album.
Now no such certainty prevails.
I joke sometimes that this all must have been a really good advertising plan. But then again, if it had been, I should have sold more and had more of those illusive "listens".
New show dates and brand new performance plans are being made as I write.
Just a few days ago I also received the news from my doctor that my brain tumours continue to shrink. Many have disappeared completely. I have no idea what the future holds, and I am in no hurry to get there. I am happy to exist in this in-between space where nothing is certain, yet much is fun and discoverable. I will gladly keep reporting from here in the many forms that may suit this unexpected narrative.
Thank you for reading!
XO
Now the medicine that I had expected to disappoint me was evidently beginning to take effect. This knowledge created a lightness in me. A space inside that was filled with Nothing. A new space, a new possibility. An unexpected turn on a road that had been surrounded by seemingly endless thunder storms. I didn't know just how to exist in that space. I walked around carrying the newfound emptiness, which I wasn't in any hurry to fill with something. Not even meaning.
The spring with its good news brought more usual niggles. They were welcome, thought always annoying. Now that I wasn't letting go of this life just yet, I needed to return to vacuuming, cooking, planning, planting, traveling, dreaming and arguing. I needed to at least try to see myself as a member of a family and various communities. I needed to pull my weight. And also, to remember that I am ill and do not possess energy and ability the same as "everyone else". I remembered again, just how difficult living with hope is. Surprisingly, it requires re-continued exercise routines, muscle work and stamina. It demands giving up a diet of cake and candy in service of the possibility of ageing. Hope offers the danger of being disappointed again, of being hurt; falling again. I edge toward my hopeful routines now treading carefully and taking my time.
Now, in July D/other continues to feel like a new album for me, one which I love and hope for everyone to listen to. My wish is for it to become a companion to so many lives, so many unexpected turns.
Meeting audience members at my shows these past months has been fulfilling. It has been a sustaining gift. These meetings have been special because everyone is now aware of the precarity of connection. Often, I have felt overwhelmed by the words, looks, presents and flowers that I have received. Thank you!
In releasing D/other in October 2021 I was certain I was putting out my last album.
Now no such certainty prevails.
I joke sometimes that this all must have been a really good advertising plan. But then again, if it had been, I should have sold more and had more of those illusive "listens".
New show dates and brand new performance plans are being made as I write.
Just a few days ago I also received the news from my doctor that my brain tumours continue to shrink. Many have disappeared completely. I have no idea what the future holds, and I am in no hurry to get there. I am happy to exist in this in-between space where nothing is certain, yet much is fun and discoverable. I will gladly keep reporting from here in the many forms that may suit this unexpected narrative.
Thank you for reading!
XO
Astrid
