SATURDAY, JANUARY 29

I STARE INTO THE CAMERA and stick up both of my middle fingers in defiance, telling my cancer to go fuck itself. It’s Saturday and everything is different now. Different from yesterday, different from last week, different from last year. I didn’t go to the market this morning or drink coffee on Westerstraat. On Monday, instead of going to class, I’ll be checking into the hospital for my first week of chemotherapy treatment. For the next two months, I am expected each week for a dose of vincristine, etoposide, and ifosfamide and God knows what else they’re going to pump into me.

But today I’ve decided I don’t have cancer. I’m at my friend Jan’s studio, with the Rolling Stones blaring through the speakers. I love Mick Jagger’s raw voice and the rip of Keith Richards’s guitar. I asked Jan to document me without cancer. Because after Monday, I’ll be different: I’ll be a cancer patient. Who knows what cancer will do to me?

I’m smiling, pouting, making all sorts of faces for the camera; I’m free. It’s the furthest I’ve been from tears since I got the news. This is the first time since last week that I’m not being comforted or trying to comfort someone else. In front of the lens, I feel myself growing bigger and stronger. I don’t feel sad and weak. I am going to get through this. With every click of the shutter, I grow, I let loose completely. My eyes glisten. I’m still afraid, but here, in front of the camera, my fear changes into anger.