281. After J.A.R.V.I.S. - Monica Rico
Mikalojus Konstantinas, Čiurlionis Sagittarius (1907)
Since my diagnosis, I hadn’t listened to any music. Every song reminded me of a time when I was healthy, when I was happy.
My birthday is next week. It will be the second birthday in a row that I am in treatment for cancer, though I won’t go into the details of my diagnosis. I have never liked being categorized, and with cancer, the hierarchy is staggeringly dismal.
When I started chemo, I visualized the Hulk, Captain Marvel, Thor, Iron Man, and Wonder Woman entering my body. I wanted them to fuck shit up. I have always loved superheroes. I was so in love with Wonder Woman that when I started kindergarten, I spelled my name with a W. My mother helped me write “Wonica” on all my school supplies.
Last fall, I started radiation, and I named the machine J.A.R.V.I.S., after Tony Stark’s AI assistant. (Since I already had the Hulk and Thor in my body, I figured I should also have a rational voice that would lead them all to the right spot to fight.) No one warned me J.A.R.V.I.S. played music, so when Aerosmith’s “Dream On” began, I didn’t know what to do. Since my diagnosis, I hadn’t listened to any music. Every song reminded me of a time when I was healthy, when I was happy. As I lay there, trying not to think about what the large doses of radiation were doing to my body, I chose to think of my cousins who loved Aerosmith. I thought of us talking too loud in a restaurant. I couldn’t stop myself from crying.
I soon learned that J.A.R.V.I.S. had very particular tastes. He liked soft rock, particularly Fleetwood Mac and Elton John. He also liked “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” Once, on a holiday weekend, he played “Girls, Girls, Girls” by Mötley Crüe, which I found deeply inappropriate in the most humorous way. J.A.R.V.I.S. played the same songs over and over again, and I fell under his spell. I began to let the music take me somewhere else.
Throughout my diagnosis, time has felt numinous and warped. Weeks seem like days and days seem like years. At first, I couldn’t write about what was happening to me. So much was happening, I didn’t have time to think, and I couldn’t open myself to the page like I normally did. I couldn’t let myself be that vulnerable, where we surrender ourselves to our work. I was in survival mode, and just staying alive took all my energy.
But fortunately I have fabulous friends who encouraged me, especially my friend Ellen, who agreed to start exchanging letters with me. When I did start writing again, I wanted to find a way to describe what I was going through, while keeping J.A.R.V.I.S.’s songs in the background since they’d come to feel almost like a soundtrack to my life. I wanted to tell myself how I felt, but I needed the help of a well-crafted pop song to do some of the heavy lifting. So I spread the lyrics of Elton’s John’s “Rocket Man” across a page, then began writing my own between them.
I’ve been writing so many of these mixtapes. For the first time, I don’t care if these poems get published anywhere. What I find valuable is the ability to speak through something else. It feels like a prayer. It feels like an offering.
- Monica Rico
