Creativity, Calm and Cancer

I’ve read a number of articles in the press recently about creativity, particularly drawing and art, and how it helps to heal, and to promote good mental health and happiness. On 1 December The Guardian newspaper ran a story about Molly who doodled her way through depression, recording her experience on her blog The Doodle Chronicles.  On 3 December Robin Landa reflected on how making positively affects the brain in an article entitled “Draw Yourself Happy: Drawing, Creativity + Your Brain” on printmag.com.

These and other articles have resonated with me because I’ve never needed to find pockets of calm more than I have in these last few weeks. My husband’s family have a hereditary cancer gene.  They only discovered this recently after a series of deaths, including one of a young member of the family from a particularly aggressive cancer, rang alarm bells. It  turns out they have an hereditary gene for that particularly aggressive cancer (someone with the gene has an 84% chance of developing the cancer and it develops and spreads quickly). One by one they are being tested: you can only have a test if you have a direct familial link to someone with the gene – but that means that each positive test opens up the need for more tests as new direct direct familial links to family members are established.  So far only one family member has tested negative: my husband (who was also the first person to be tested).  As each new positive test comes back (and one of those tests has also come back with a diagnosis of cancer too) it feels as though I am living in the middle of a minefield, with mines constantly exploding around me. I’m watching my family being decimated by this disease, feeling blessed that my daughter can’t have inherited that gene but cursed by survivor guilt.

I’ve never needed calm more but even the mindfulness that I’ve been practicing for 3 years now isn’t enough to keep those thoughts away.  But drawing, sketching, is giving me pockets of calm when I can focus and forget and get lost in the page.  My world shrinks down to the tip of my pen, the page of my moleskine and trying to capture the object I’m looking at. It’s harder than it was a few weeks ago because I’ve noticed that a tremor has crept into my hand so I can’t draw a straight line – all my lines are wobbly and shaky.  And I’m struggling to keep my focus for very long because I’m very tired. But I’m so grateful for these pockets of calm, for something that allows me to get lost in the process.