Okay--so a number of you didn't know what the hell I meant by that little verse below. Has May lost her mind? Or just her ability to write?
I am tired, so tired, of pink ribbons. We all smile and wear cute pins, and "celebrate" survivorship. Except that my survival will be severely limited, and I find it hard to celebrate when 40,000+ women in the U.S. alone die of this disease every year.
So why, oh why, do I set myself up to be reminded of the feel-good, arguably useless public waving of pink grosgrain? I heard that the Hygienic Art Gallery, which used to be the Hygienic Restaurant, where my mother worked in the early 1970s (until she was fired for being too outspoken), was having a special show in cooperation with a breast cancer awareness organization. They solicited work from artists who've had breast cancer, or their relatives and friends, which covers just about anybody. I did a self-portrait, which looks rather like me, but not like someone who's celebrating surviving breast cancer, and entered it in the (non-juried) show.
The show opened last night. I wanted to be able to tell everyone that it was a wonderful experience, but it fact I felt totally isolated, and, ultimately, not proud or gratified, but angry. The art was less pink and fluffy than I had expected, but there was something about it all that made me want to scream, I'm dying! This isn't about celebrating! This is about a disease that has a lifetime risk factor for women of 1 in 8, and which can be helped to a limited degree by routine mastectomy and breast self-examination. Breast cancer gets (shamefully) many more research dollars than lung cancer, but many fewer than AIDS, which killed 15,798 in the U.S. in 2004, the latest year for which figures are available. Socks in Walmart with pink ribbons on them may make us feel good, but make miniscule amounts of money for breast cancer. Much breast cancer money that could go to research goes to awareness campaigns instead. In my estimation, this is a dubious use of resources.
I never thought I'd be a 54-year-old curmudgeon, much less a bitch. But some things just bring it out in me.
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2 comments:
You are right to be angry. Why should breast cancer cut your life short? Why should so many of us suffer - whether personally or through our friends and relatives - and yet be made to say everything is fine and fluffy?
Cancer is hideous, the treatment is hideous and righteous anger may help you live a lot longer than sitting back with a pink ribbon pinned to your suffering chest and pretending everything is fine.
I appreciated your poem, whatever its literary merits!!!!!!! And I'm betting there were women at the art show who also appreciated the rawness of your self portrait. More people feel the way you do than admit it in public.
You';re a wonderful woman May! I'm glad I know you :0)
Sal x
Thank you, Sal. I'm so very glad to know you too!
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