I just read an article in The Atlantic about one of my favorite people–Suleika Jaouad. At only 22, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. She began writing a column for The New York Times called Life Interrupted, about what it was like to be young, facing cancer. People connected with her, all sorts of people, and when she was done with treatment she drove across country with her dog and visited people who’d she corresponded with through her column. Then she wrote a book about it called Between Two Kingdoms and it and she stole my heart. She’s written and spoken about her health journey in many prestigious places, and married her old camp bud, super star and all around cool guy, musician, Jon Batiste. In 2021 the leukemia returned. She had another bone marrow transplant, while Jon hit mega stardom, which is beautifully illustrated (plus so much more about this miraculous being) in the documentary American Symphony, and in which they learn that she will have to have to have chemo for the rest of her life.
But she doesn’t just persist, she fucking thrives!
And this is why I follow her every move, because she is spectacularly inspiring– all HOPE AND POSSIBILITY in an “Oh Fuck” situation, a lightening bug doing the Watusi in a black-out, a solution seeker, an art maker, a life liver, a modern day Rumpelstiltskin, spinning manure into 18 karat gold.
I often think about how people presented with perfectly miserable circumstances can still wake up in a positive place finding even the most minute bit of light shining through the teeny tiniest crack. This is one of the things that most fascinates me. Obviously, it’s easy to throw up your arms, give in, allow yourself to be swallowed up by unspeakably difficult things, but those who can march their way through the combat, actually finding meaning and joy on the way, figuring out how to slay whatever beast they’re up against while still showing their pearly whites–those are the people I am in awe of.
Knowing how to live your best life even when your best life kind of sucks, takes brilliance and courage and patience and acceptance and fight and an Herculean life force. Gratitude to Suleika for being all those things plus so much more and teaching me (and I suspect a million other people) that there’s always a way to find a luminous path even in dark, black woods.
*the gratitude-a-thon 