Melissa & Paul

- I'm Melissa and this is Paul. And we've lived in Tacoma since, I think we just decided 2010. So I grew up in Westchester County, New York. Chappaqua, New York. And I kind of moved around, I went to school in western Massachusetts. Moved to Boston and then eventually got here via Houston, San Francisco, where we met in San Francisco, and then, up here. But I'm definitely, the west coast is where I wanna be. In truth we met at a bar inside the club. But we met on a bar stool.

- Happy Hour, that's when we met at the club, yeah.

- At the ATM machine at the entrance and Paul just walked in and said, "Oh, your car's no good here" and kept walking. And I don't know, but somehow it won my heart. We're getting into the time of the year where I will get up to meet Allison at Ruston Way and get in before, like while it's still dark. And we swim while the sun rises. We usually end up talking for 10 minutes putting it off because I don't think we ever really want to get in. Somehow I've had lots of times where we've shown up and I've wanted to skip, but that's the helpful thing about having the other person there. But I think it's important to just get right in. My face gets cold. My hands, you know in the winter, my hands start to lose function when I'm swimming. Your fingers dry. You call it the claw, like your fingers just get sort of paralyzed and you're swimming like this It's fun. So I just feel like I'm in this other world, like I'm literally swimming in an aquarium or someplace I'm not supposed to be. So I always feel like I'm not allowed to be in there. And that's something I feel more at Ruston. It sort of feels like I'm this renegade. You know, getting in for the first time there I just felt like the cops are going to come. A cold, warm sandwich feeling in my stomach, that I can't quite describe, but it just feels good. It's like a physical warmth, glowing thing that I feel. That lasts most of the day. It's worth it. But I think one of the things that's best about it is it's different every time. I think it's just sort of a habit, a ritual. I kind of think that I feel like I'm missing something. Like a weekend that I don't swim in the open water I feel like I'm kind of I feel off. Or I feel like I just missed an adventure. Swimming in cold water is a completely different sport. Sometimes it makes me emotionally fragile when I'm that cold. Like I think I'm going to cry or something and I think it's just all must be some weird bodily response to near danger or actual danger. I... love it. I've never been able to describe perfectly how much it feels like I'm on top of something which I don't feel in a pool. I think water's super cool. I mean I love the idea that I can swim in the water and move around the way I can move around in the water. But in a pool, it's pretty boring. But having the sense of space below me and the clarity of water here, because that's something that's also different from where I've swum before, it is crystal clear. Absolutely, it takes my mind off work. It takes my mind off other things. I remember when Paul was diagnosed, I think it was that weekend, I came out here and swam by myself. I don't know, it's one of those places where I can either think a lot about something, or I can not think about something. But my mind doesn't flit back and forth on all the stresses in my life as much as it does everywhere else that I am. I think it's a good sort of place to go in my head and physically.

- [Paul] February of '15, I was diagnosed with colon cancer. So that's been really my and our main focus for the last three plus years now. I'm not always very capable, physically capable. So it's been hard in terms of things like keeping up with cycling or being able to ride my motorcycle, things like that. I didn't have a license before I was diagnosed and once I was diagnosed, I got a license and bought a motorcycle. Much to my mother's displeasure. And I've enjoyed that as much as I can, during the treatment process. First time that I physically noticed something myself, I had, it was in Fall of '14, and I had rode in a regatta in San Francisco. And when we were finished, I said to a friend that I just felt like our last quarter of a mile wasn't very strong and I just I wasn't getting enough out of what I was putting into it. I wasn't tired necessarily, but I felt like I could've done more. But I didn't feel like I was holding back, but I just felt that there was a wet blanket on it. And that was kind of the first time, and that was three months away from the diagnosis. So things moved pretty quickly after that.

- [Melissa] But it's just interesting to see what you can become so close to that you don't notice. Or things that we start to think, "Huh, that's weird you don't like beer anymore." Just suddenly lost his ability to drink or interest in drinking. I'm with Paul everyday, it just came on so slowly that I didn't really notice and it's only when you look back. And you think "Oh my gosh, that's a lot of weight loss." And tremendous changes in appetite.

- [Paul] Stage four diagnosis I think is typically a two-five year survival rate with full treatment. Cancer isn't a "yes" or "no" thing there's a lot of "wells" and "maybes." I try not to put too many labels on it or try to define it precisely. I just keep plugging on.

- [ Melissa] The response from friends when Paul first got sick and the amount of people wanting to come over and visit or help us with garden, yard work, that's been great. It's been harder more recently when Paul hasn't been as up for seeing people. I personally feel like I feel much more of a hermit lately and I just want to be in my house. Which is hard because I think what we need also is to see people. But they're just people. People love Paul. Love Paul. People like me more because of Paul I think. - It's hard to know how I feel about things in the sense that I think it changes pretty regularly. I don't know that I have really a concrete base that I'm working from. Being grateful for the opportunities that I've had and certainly trying to not focus on my woes so much. When you see a kid... get towed out in a wagon so he can have some sunshine before he dies. It's hard to worry about yourself when you see something like that and you see that on a pretty regular basis in this scenario. You find yourself, thinking about a lot of other folks, too. And that's a pretty easy game to play then to look back and wish you could've done things differently. But at the end of the day there's some element of that, but I think I've done a pretty good job of not picking that apart in my head all the time.

- I kind of hate this word, because what does it mean "you're so strong," "you're being so strong about this," "you're both being so strong about being able to talk about things." But I don't know it doesn't feel, it feels like it's just sort of normal. Normal to think about it, normal to talk about it in practical terms.

- At the end of the day, it's not going to change anything to get myself all stressed out over what I could or couldn't have done or should or shouldn't have done. You know people just have been great and been open and brought their piece of it to me. I did have a good chuckle once. We were at the Red Hot - - Melissa was enjoying an IPA and I tasted that. It was a little bit too big for me so I was enjoying a Diet Coke and the woman seated next to me at the common table leaned over and told me, "you know that'll give you cancer." And I thought, "well maybe so."

- We look back and he should've been like "Got it."

- The irony being that alcohol actually is linked to cancer. I decided not to say anything back and smile.

- It's just, it's a normal topic of conversation for us and I think some of the more interesting conversations come out of just being like, "hey, how are you feeling, what's going on?" Instead of, "how are you doing?" We were raised not to really talk about what's going on with you. But I've always been a sharer and I find that some of the coolest conversations come out of talking about what is going on with you. And you learn what is going on with someone else that they might not have shared with you and it just becomes more intimate. The friendships that have really been strengthened during this are a lot of times because of that. And that ability to carry on a conversation and not be weirded out by it. I don't know, people are generous here. I mean, just I think in general in Tacoma or maybe it's Washington. It's a different, it's just a different kind of place than San Francisco was.

- The only advice my mother gave me when I went to college was to remind me, to implore me to say hi to everybody. You never know who they're going to turn into or be, or how they're going to fit into your life at some point down the road, whether it's a class or beyond. So, try to maintain some of that going forward or that going forward. I think that certainly applied to the neighborhood here.

- Mmhmm.

- And people were quite receptive and did the same to us. So it worked out.

- Oh, I don't have life advice, but always have frozen balls of cookie dough in your freezer.

- Life advice, huh? - Mmhmm. - I don't know. Play hard.

- Yep. Say "hi." Jump in. You'll get over the cold.