On Photograp...Gotcha! On Attitude. On Meditation. sort of?

Who Knows, really?  


     I have two months of blog post topics planned, laid out, and in a format for me to stick to, but each week I look at it and just give it the finger. I might be the most irresponsible blogger of all time. Do I count as a blogger if I'm the only one who reads it? Well...the answer to that is addressed in this blog! Sort of.

   Today it's all about attitude. Objectively speaking, my life sort of sucks. I was living the dream as a world renowned thespian in Los Angeles when out of no where my colon was tickled by the kiss of cancer. I had to throw away my dream, abandon the progress I've made, and move back into my parents' house in Arizona. I've also been unemployed for over a year, which sounds great, but it gets old. I'll address that in the forthcoming photography post.

"My colon was tickled by the kiss of cancer."

    That was the most satisfying use the a) the quote function, and, b) Comic Sans.

    I think everything is awesome. I'm awesome, you're awesome, my dogs are awesome, your dogs are second place awesome, everything is awesome. I don't always show it, but I truly, truly love everyone I meet and everything that's come into my life. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but the amount of appreciation that I have for literally everything that I've experienced is...large. How's that for a adjective based let down?

     I meditate two to three times per day. Mindfulness Meditation when I wake up and before bed and various moments of self reflection drizzled in throughout the day . The two MM sessions keep me focused, grateful, and open, but the fleeting moments of loneliness that I spend with myself are where the real magic happens. I quickly, deliberately draw upon every problem in my life and deeply focus on each one. I then let them all go and quickly, deliberately draw upon every blessing in my life and deeply focus on each one. If you're being honest, it will be overwhelming and incredibly emotional.
I'll do a quick on on having cancer: I was swimming in the ocean of cancer past all the things about it that I can't change and I arrived on the shore of Friendship Island.

“…fleeting moments of loneliness that I spend with myself are where the real magic happens”

Honestly, and I'm crying now, cancer has been one of my biggest blessings, too. It threatened so much of my year. It threatened to not let me see my best friend marry the love of his life, it threatened to not let me meet my brand new nephew or to see the unadulterated look of happiness on my sister's and mom's faces, it threatened to abandon my loving girlfriend in a desert by herself, it threatened to take my parents baby boy from them, it threatened to take Brody and Gertie's dad away from them.

     Friendship Island is my favorite place in all of Cancer Ocean. To use my buddy's wedding for example; I was a walking ball of happiness and anxiety the entire night. I was so, so, so happy for him. periodically though, as I looked around at everyone dancing, I broke down into a peculiar dump of emotion. You see, one of the doctor's that I first sought an opinion from gave me a pretty fresh three month time line. I said no to her or course, but oncologists don't just make up their estimates, they do come from somewhere, so the severity of it all was very apparent. When I coupled that feeling of surrealism with the happiness I was experiencing, it made me realize: I almost wasn't there, I almost wasn't able to watch my best friend walk down the aisle. I almost wasn't there for my best friend if he needed me. That idea brought me to tears whenever it came to mind (currently) but the benefit of it all...I am still here! Just that very brief thought, and it is brief, has opened my eyes to just how much I care about those in my life. It's a very vague description and I'll elaborate in a forthcoming YouTube Channel with the BruCrewBros, but it allows me to participate in each moment deliberately in ways that I could never have imagined.

“Friendship Island is my favorite place in all of Cancer Ocean.”

I truly believe that this method of deeply experiencing your sorrow and following that up with deeply experiencing your happiness is one of the most refreshing things I've ever done and can be scaled accordingly, of course, because problems are all relative.

     Stay Tickled

-Safford McGivens

On Photograp.....wait, no. On Cancer

     As I stated in my previous post, I came down with a touch of the cancers. I’ll throw you all a quick timeline bone without getting too much into it now. I’ll tell you all a more in depth story about it another time, but it’s pretty heavy and emotional so until then, you get this:

     June 5, 2015 I was living in Los Angeles at the time and I was out at some cover band night at Dirty Laundry, a bar in Hollywood. It’s a great spot if you ever get a chance to visit. You need to go down a dark alleyway, go down a creepy set of stairs, and walk into an unmarked, sketchy door to get inside, but once you’re in the party don’t stop. It’s in an old basement and there are different rooms set to different themes; Trick rooms, lounges, bar tops, music room complete with a stage and sound set up, etc. Very cool stuff. I was there with three of my roommates and a few friends from work to let loose a little. I’m not very good at attacking something half assed and when I drank it was the same thing. One whiskey ginger ale turned into eight in about an hour and I was feeling good on a Wednesday before you could say “Grande fat free, sugar free caramel macchiato please!”

     I stumbled on home at around 2AM (by stumble I mean took a cab because I lived in the Hills and I wasn’t going to walk up a mountain inebriated. Or ever. Because fuck that.) I didn’t sleep so well that night and had some general feelings of stomach discomfort, but I attributed that to the fact that I drank so much in so little time and I don’t sleep well ever. Totally normal, right!? Wrong!

     At the time I was working behind the bar at a vegan tequila bar in West Hollywood by the name of Gracis Madre. Once again, if you make your way to Hollywood check it out! It’s delicious and has easily the best cocktails in the city. Easily. Over the next few days my stomach really started to bother me. I was in severe pain from laughing, breathing, reaching above my head, and really any amount of movement. I was planning on just working through it and getting to my day off and hopefully sleeping away the pain as I’ve always done, but I was in the process of courting a lady, who also happened to be my boss, and one night at my place I woke up with night sweats for the third day in a row and the stomach pain was worsening. She told me not to go into work, if I did she would have me fired she said, and to go to the ER. So when I woke up in a pile of sweat the next morning, I hopped into my car and drove to Ceder Sinai in Beverly Hills. Because I’m a world renowned thespian and I belong in Beverly Hills.

     This post was originally supposed to be about my growing interest in film photography and photography in general, but apparently it’s not so easy to introduce the ol’ stage 4 cancer at 25 bit. I’ll finish this up quickly and my next post will be about photography.

            So…Cedar Sinai, great place. The staff couldn’t have been friendlier. Or better looking. I felt like I was in the middle of Grey’s Anatomy episode so in a way I achieved my goal of landing a role on a major television show within a year. I went in to sit in a waiting room for a few hours on a very empty stomach (I stopped at Wendy’s on the way, but I got suckered into giving my freshly purchased food to a homeless guy who just had his food thrown away by a police officer because he was protecting and serving.) I finally went to the back, had to submit a bunch of tests, and it ended with an ultrasound of my liver. All of the doctors were accusing me of being an alcoholic, having Hep C, or cirrhosis.

 Was I an alcoholic? Ehhh…debatable, but I was 25. I drank a lot, but c’mon. Hepititis? I mean I dabbled in some dibble I shouldn’t have dabbled in I suppose, but….nope. Cirrhoris? No. My only reason is because I hear about it in commercials. I’m not a commercial disease kind of guy. I saw the images. I’m not an idiot. My liver was riddled with almost two dozen spots and you don’t get that kind of liver damage from drinking on the weekends. I had an instant gut feeling that it was liver cancer as soon as they started questioning me. Now you’re probably asking: Hey, you said it was colon cancer!! Oh, I did. This shit is metastatic, son. Go big or go home.

            I’m going to leave you with that for now. It’s a good ending point. A routine ER visit turned into a weeklong stay at the hospital full of biopsies, needle stabs, bood tests, and scared parents coming in from out of town. The first week of June is really the beginning of my journey back to Arizona, my fight with cancer, and the stress it’s put on all my relationships (spoiler alert: My former boss moved states with me and became my girlfriend. DUN DUN DUN!!!)

As you can see, really like photography!