Jeff and I came back from Germany yesterday afternoon after what has been quite a crazy voyage, if there is one: a 42-hour round trip, from Montreal to Frankfurt to Montreal. As I said, crazy. But whatever the measure of nonsense that such an odyssey could be seen as for many, it was immensely significant for us. Besides the opportunity we had to locally ship over Europe and beyond all the packages from the From the City to the Ocean project, the reason for the trip was the utmost blessing we would have to spend a few hours with our precious brother Marcus, also known as my touring “Merch Captain” and the general operator of our HTR Germany imprint, along with our dear sister Jane, who’s the artist behind my yearly calendar release and one you may have seen alongside Marcus at the merch table or taking pictures in a venue or another.
If the four of us being together is never short of an amazing joyfulness, this particular rendezvous had a much more profound meaning, as it was designed to support Marcus as he is presently fighting an aggressive form of cancer he was recently diagnosed with. There’s nothing like family love to stand in the trenches of such a scary and unfair type of battle. We had to be there, and we were.
I was deeply troubled when Marcus told us the news as the year was only beginning. The images of my father struggling with his own invisible inward enemies came right back to me, like a massive low blow I didn’t see coming, one that left me breathless for long enough to revive that terrible pain again. I also thought about my beloved pup MacKaye, whom I accompanied through the countless chemo sessions and other experimental treatments designed to slow the devastating effects he had to undergo twice a week for the whole 6 months that lasted his incredible fight to survive a very rare form of cancer… It remains one of the most emotionally traumatic periods of my life...
I never truly recovered from MacKaye’s passing… Something pure and innocent died within me when he left. On top of it all, I recently had cancer scares of my own when my doctors had me undergo all sorts of tests before allowing me to play on Cruise to the Edge, as they were highly worried, considering that some of my health issues had too many symptoms corresponding to those associated with cancer. Thank God, it wasn’t, but still, it affected me profoundly as every single member of my paternal side of the family died between the ages of 40 and 60, every one of them from cancer. So when it came to Marcus, who’s such an uplifting force and such an altruistic person, I couldn’t fathom the idea of having to live in a world without his benevolent presence in it. And since I’m not a pessimist nor a fatalist in any possible way but a realistic kind of optimistic individual, I know what a caring “presence” can do for someone facing such a tragedy… And there’s no substitute for a warmhearted embrace.
That’s why, after my two friends’ recent sudden passings and regardless of the fact that I should have kept on working in the studio and maintained my focus on the production of my upcoming record, especially with just how difficult it’s been for me to abandon myself to it midst and that I’m pretty much past deadline (again) to deliver my album and that I didn’t want to let a whole lot of my highly supportive partners down for not being able to give life to what has been consuming me for quite a while already, I knew how hard such an insane transatlantic round trip would hit me physically afterwards… I knew it.
Despite it all, I just couldn’t miss the opportunity to fly to Germany to look at my brother Marcus in the eyes and tell him how much I love him, how much I care about him, and that his inner war is not something he has to undertake alone, that we will take one battle at a time. And I wanted to be there, in person, to hug him, to laugh or cry, for him to know that he isn’t on his own. There’s nothing more empowering than a human touch genuinely expressed, from the warmth of a smile and the grace of a meaningful reunion up to a communal eye-to-eye connection. Those intimate emotional elements are intangible healing enablers. I know all about that from having you in my life, my precious friends… It gives courage, strength, faith, hope, and purpose to be surrounded by so many earnest figures, shielding you from your discouraged self… and Marcus has always been there for me.
Every life-changing illness feels like a lonely, under-lit narrow corridor assembled with an endless number of locked doors, perfectly aligned on both sides of you, daring you to try them all, one by one, as each bears a potential escape alternative from that nightmare. And you try, and you try, and you try. If not this one, maybe the next, or the next after. One by one, depriving your spirit of its fierce conviction along the way, until you don’t even care to look inside the doors that are slightly opened. Despair is not some sudden kind of emerging sentiment, it’s a well-designed process that patiently assembled its desolating pieces so you end up completely resigned in the face of an impossible trap you now find yourself lost in. It’s imperative to be able to discern a loving voice determined to guide you back into the light again, otherwise, there’s no possible victory. You just keep losing yourself deeper and deeper into a thick and wide darkness only you can sense, a bleakness that will soon offer you a sort of sadistic comfort as you’re sinking more and more into the abyss of your own desperation, a reflection of your growing hopelessness…
Therefore, apart from making sure we’ll have a wonderful moment of familial togetherness, I wanted to share with Marcus that the ultimate cure isn’t really based on the degree of radiation his body can take — even though it is obviously necessary — but it’s something that lies within us that ultimately makes all the difference. It’s emotional, which is the only thing physicians and experts don’t pay any attention to whatsoever through that whole awful and distressing process… It isn’t only a biological affair, and I firmly believe that the matters of the heart and soul have the ability to influence our physical condition as modern science pushes the limits of our impermanence...
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should stop your medication or treatment to rely on wishful thinking and a positive attitude (even if I did try at first!), but I’m mostly referring to the imperceptible and indefinable factors recalibrating the balance between our dreadful fright before the unknown and our uplifting faith and confidence in better tomorrows, whatever they might be. That balance is at the very center of our existence, and that’s where recovery holds its leverage over any of our personal illnesses, over any of our worst impalpable feverish dreams, over any of our tangible pain and disarray. And we all have our fair share of those paralyzing apprehensiveness and colorless tremors. Some fear dying, others long for reasons to live. We stand somewhere in the vast introspective spectrum of life at one point or another on our journey, which is particularly true when we are unexpectedly brought to face our own possible demise...
It’s no surprise that our day happened to fly by incredibly fast. The weather was generously rich with its gentle sunrays and soothing soft wind. We walked, talked, and laughed. We did close to 30,000 steps, punctuated by coffee stops and several other ones so we could try an impressive amount of delightful local flavors that Marcus was enthusiastically determined to make us discover along the way. We decided to have dinner at the Picknick Café, where we had a meet and greet a few years ago, to have some of the best Moroccan food I ate (outside of Morocco!), remembered the moments we shared in Tangier while promising each other to keep our New Year Tanjawi rendezvous tradition ongoing, a way to defy the implacable nature of time and to confess that our future is not the product of our respective shaky health conditions. We couldn’t stop laughing as we were enumerating the incredibly long and exhaustive list of elements we are determined to do and experience in the near future, insisting we didn’t have time to be sick or to deal with that type of bummer... There’s too much to live for.
We drove back to the hotel only to stretch the day a little more, going for a last coffee that ultimately turned into Jeff and I drinking Bavarian beers (I hate beer), herbal tea for Marcus, and Jane ordering a special mocktail lemonade, all of it being an excuse to keep on talking some more, about music, projects, art, humanity, to add even more elements to the already long list of everything we wanted to experience, a loving moment that wrapped a beautifully soulful and joyfully inspiring get-together with a purposeful vision of a life made of determined intentionality and willful consciousness.
We went to bed around 11 pm and woke up at 5 am. Short night — or afternoon — since we didn’t have the opportunity to feel the jet lag kick in yet. I barely slept anyway, as I couldn’t stop thinking about everything we had shared and promised ourselves. I felt so grateful... It’s hard to explain, but I was peaceful and serene, which is quite special for me in the circumstances. Not only do I hate departures, but I even more despise the sentiment of uncertainty associated with the essence of time always looking to reaffirm its grip on our longing emancipative existences... We got to the airport at 6 am, where we hugged Marcus some more until we would see each other again, laughing at the idea of calling my next tour the “No more bullshit, it’s about life now” tour in the process. Yes, it’s indeed about life... Not only now, but always!
My upcoming week couldn’t be more about that fierce perspective to truly “be”, since my annual health tests are set to be pretty intense. Scans for my brain, grafts, heart, and lungs, up to all sorts of physical and cognitive exercises, all that while having to complete my next record… I would lie to say that I’m not concerned about it all, but solace comes from the perfect day we had with Marcus. It’s how we choose to manage what we can’t control that truly matters, and it’s not their possible outcomes that defines us… JOY!!!
Life creates life.
Your brother and friend,
Alex
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