The music began in a dusk of 1994 when this obsessive compulsive virgin from buffalo county had the inkling of getting frisky with a fast rower inside the rusty hull of a 1979 striped orange California-plated international scout. Their love rolled to the rhythm of tiny wipers whisking away loud pebbles of rain. ^#^she was wild with a voice and strong parts...and he, the oxen-blooded boob guy with incomparable hand-eye coordination. Those two rolled in it for seven some years. ^#^day and night; night and day. Then set up shop, made babies on a cozy little terrace just off the willamette river...and had a few balls. LOVE only got bigger for the millers. Their world was huge. ^#^came another September 11th eleven years later...falling leaves effortlessly reminded the happy people that everything must change. The family had just sat down to eat when a criminal (dressed in black crap) waltzed straight through their front door and hissed his own name: 'CANCER.' He pointed at each child, the mother, then father...and with cracked rotten teeth dangling from his blackened gums, laughed loudly at them all. ^#^holy shit. This is what I get leaving the front door open? a bloody prick with big intentions instantaneously owned our home. ^#^my husband scott, usually a fast-thinking fighter with instincts of a king beast, fell into his chair and couldn't get up. The kids and i stood as close to each other as possible, not sure how to NOT piss off the intruder. i held their bodies close to mine. There was no obvious escape route...but it wouldn't have mattered. ^#^we couldn't move. ^#^cancer tied scott to his chair, then proceeded to rearrange our heads. ^#^at one point i called denny, my neighbor, when I was really desperate and scared of what the beast would do next. ^#^denny raced to our house. ^#^but there was a barrier between us. i choked, hyperventilated and things spewed out of my nose for the 3 minutes that I stood standing horrified behind the gate, longing for his help. ^#^cancer called for me from the kitchen nook. (OUR nook!) i whispered goodbye to denny. i knew he wanted to help and needed to help. ^#^but there was nothing he could do except pass me a lasagna through the iron bars. i took the pan and said thank you. i checked on scott getting thin in his chair. ^#^he was fighting...i could tell. ^#^his focus looked the same as when he used to pull 2000m erg pieces in the impossible sub six minutes. That was the man i fell in love with: the ox. ^#^just looking at scott's face...
I could tell. Then i ran upstairs. The kids were not at school...instead screaming in their rooms, hitting walls and throwing their favorite toys at each other. ^#^all the while, master of hell sprawled at our table...eating our food, stuffing his pockets with OUR hard-earned money and keeping the barrel of a gun pointed at my heart. ^#^he seemed to not mind so much (even laid the gun down) when I seemed busy. ^#^so...
I wrote songs...in my head, at the table (across from him), using the piano (quietly), via email..on alphabetically organized key pads. This trilogy of albums was my vehicle to safety. ^#^even though he left our home months ago, I still see cancer's muzzle pointing at my face, pointing at my husband and children and my friends' faces...between curtains, through a window, in a reflection, or even at a party. ^#^broad daylight or pitch dark...he haunts me when he needs the hit. ^#^like any WANTED mother f*cking rapist, cancer left me wondering if somehow we deserved it. i wondered if the shame i felt was valid. i bought a vitamix blender and signed up for a membership at the local food co-op. ^#^maybe that was the right thing to do. ^#^it took one year, a legion of battling angels, several sweating surgeons, oncologists, dentists, acupuncturists, herbalists and law enforcement to finally slam the door on this putrid, irritant, blood-sucking stage 4A devil. There was a record-breaking flash flood in all of Portland, Oregon. ^#^it was the fifth of September, scott's 39th birthday. ^#^cancer finally washed away. ^#^down the drain. ^#^gone wit
