Some people detail their journeys with cancer through journaling -- like me -- and some use other mediums to express their emotions about this life-threatening disease. Marilyn Whitney uses watercolors to sum up her experiences. As she underwent all sorts of procedures for breast cancer, two thoughts kept crossing her mind. One thought was the tendency to flee and the other was that there must be some way to help others by describing her procedures.
So after each hospital session, Marilyn would go home and craft a watercolor of what she had just seen and experienced. Then she would add a poem so the viewer would fully understand the message she was trying to convey.
Prints and poems became Marilyn's method for comforting both herself and other women traveling similar roads -- and these prints and poems, all created in 1997, became pages of a book. This book -- The Tendency to Flee -- was published by the University of Florida's Center for Research on Women's Health and is full of colorful paintings and humorous words. In one watercolor, Marilyn depicts a radiation technician marking her body in preparation for the rays that would zap her. Next to the painting is a poem entitled, What's My Line.
WHAT'S MY LINE
- GETTING READY FOR RADIATION -
A soft touch -- the PEN swings free
MARKING LINES ALL OVER ME
A CROSS HERE, A CIRCLE THERE
PURPLE INK EVERYWHERE
Then PERMANENT TATTOOS so we know
WHERE TO GO --
Thank goodness MY BREAST is covered
SO NO ONE WILL KNOW --
They tell ME these LINES are the KEY
So the TECHS CAN AIM RADIATION at ME --
So HERE IS MY TECH and HERE IS ME --
WITH THE TENDENCY TO FLEE!
Other paintings and poems capture the emotions wrapped up in mammograms and surgery and celebrating the end of treatment. Marilyn's goal is to reach others, to help others, to bring a smile to someone's face. She has succeeded. I am smiling.
