My name is Tim Hannigan. I am currently being treated for cancer.
This will not be about my cancer or my treatment. There are endless columns, books, blogs, personal stories about “battles with cancer”, most of them “inspiring”. In any case, my prognosis is excellent, and I have no wish to overplay my own condition. This will not involve lengthy descriptions of chemotherapy, or doctor’s waiting rooms, or light-hearted nurses… this is not about that; this is about something else.
The crux of my short adult life has been travelling. For a decade – less than that even – my years have been marked by where I went, which journey I made. It became my trade.
Where did I go? Nowhere truly remarkable: many of my journeys were standard backpacker fodder, but I like to think I travelled with a sharper eye than many. I have a bundle of hardback notebooks with lined pages and red or black covers, and a peeling white sticker on the spine marked with clumsy letters: “Pakistan 2004”, “Indonesia 2005”, “India/Bangladesh 2002”.
For the moment I see strip-lit corridors and narrow beds, too high off the floor – and if I am lucky perhaps a head-twist window giving out onto grey concrete and a winter sky. But if I close my eyes I can still see the yellow road between the bending poplar trees that runs to the pass in the bitter wind… so I will write about that.
© Tim Hannigan 2007
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