In 2021 I found out I had melanoma. To be precise I had amelanotic nudular melanoma, which occurs in only 1% of melanomas. So rare is it that the 'specialist' to whom I was referred for initial diagnosis was totally surprised by the biopsy. Not surprised by the type of cancer but by the fact is was a cancer tumour at all. It is a sneaky version of melanoma as it lacks melanin and as a result is often misdiagnosed. Luckily, I was referred to a more specialised specialist who got me injected with something radioactive to see if the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes which luckily it hadn't. I was whipped into the operating theatre and emerged with a 15cm scar across my cheek, later augmented by a 2.5cm scar on my upper lip, the result of more surgery when I developed  squamous cell cancer several months later.

I like to think these scars give me a somewhat rakish look as if I had an adventurous youth spent dueling at the University of Heidelbeg and could afford an expensive plastic surgeon to patch me up. So good was my surgeon's sewing skills that many people have commented on how the scar is 'almost' unnoticeable. This always reminds me of one of my more embarrassing faux-pas. I was at university in the late sixties when young women often wore wigs for fashion rather than oncology reasons. A friend, whom I greatly admired but who was way out of my league, arrived to a lecture sporting a new hair style. Without thinking carefully enough, or indeed thinking at all, I blurted out, "Wow you look stunning. You'd never know it's a wig."  I have nothing further to add to that anecdote other than we never went out on a date.

Like everyone who gets a cancer diagnosis I rushed off to look up survival rates because, lets face it, that's the first thing you think about.  Broadly speaking, over a ten year period, it looked as if my chances of dying from cancer and old age were roughly equal. I was relatively happy with this statistical dead heat and felt there was less urgency than I had originally thought about choosing whether I wanted to be resuscitated or not and which of my vital organs I might consider donating.

The best way to cope with uncertain mortality is to be grateful to get to the end of the day without falling off the tight rope of life that becomes unsettlingly slack and unsteady as the years fly by. I never understand people who bemoan the arrival of a birthday. At my age, every birthday is an achievement to be celebrated.

As a photographer I'm appalled at this excruciating stock photo depiction of the perfect birthday party for seniors. Note the carefully positioned string of light bulbs at neck height. Who thought that was a good idea? Is it an allegory or a metaphor? I'm a little troubled by the very odd flattened cake which either had an accident or had to be hastily assembled from available materials because someone forgot to bring one to the shoot. Someone also seems to have forgotten the alcohol - or indeed any drink - or plates for that matter.

I mention my medial history as it helps to explain my increasing awareness of the oncoming train of mortality coming to pick me up. For the moment, my melanoma is not causing any concern but the good fortune of avoiding one train doesn't remove the possibility that a train coming in the opposite direction will catch you off guard. The husband of one of my friends went out for a game of golf, had a heart attack between taking his beloved Callaway driver out of the bag and putting his ball on the tee and died instantly. I could recount many such stories but you get the general idea. Death is capricious and often inconveniently timed.

My father, in his more maudlin moments would wax lyrical about the need to contemplate death if we are to understand life. This would drive my mother mad as she saw it as morbid and depressing. As a teen salivating over the expanse of life's possibilities lying just out of my reach, I took my mother's side. What I didn't know at the time was that my father was following Buddhist philosophy without knowing it. He was practising his own version of Maranasati, the mindfulness of death. His job as a cancer surgeon gave him plenty of opportunity for putting this mindfulness into practice but that wasn't something I connected with his seemingly morbid musings. I should have.

Faced with any suggestion of mortality people often blurt out Horace's annoyingly ubiquitous maxim 'Carpe Diem'. This platitude has wormed its way onto everything from tea towels to bumper stickers. Even the atelier of Louis Vuitton has jumped on the cliche bandwagon and produced what must surely be one of the ugliest watches ever conceived called the 'Carpe Diem' watch. Only the seriously rich can afford to wear this monument to Louis Vuitton's faith in the vulgarity and bad taste of their customers as the price tag is a tad under $500,000. I suspect most people would prefer the mug.

Carpe Diem has become a sort of shorthand for 'I want to Bungee jump from a helicopter over Machu Pichu.'  It is as if this pointless experience will give a meaning to our life that it otherwise lacked. Somehow, a bowel-loosening terror fest will give us the reward that more mundane activities like being a good parent/child/partner and all-round decent human being fail to provide. Carpe Diem tempts us with the adrenaline of a life lived in the fast lane. Buckled up, we press the accelerator of life and the world outside becomes a blur as we experience the maximum thrill of our interior unshareable happiness.

If I have learned one thing over the past 71 years, it is that we have a tendency to conflate happiness and contentment. I was very happy when, a year ago, I went out and bought a motor bike. In retrospect, I realise that it may have been a reaction to the cancer diagnosis.  One last fling and all that. However like all shiny toys, the happiness of procurement gave way to the familiarity of possession.  I have christened this process NPS, or New Phone Syndrome. If I have to explain then you have obviously never purchased a shiny, beautifully boxed phone only to realise a year later that you now want the latest, shinier successor with more pixels and more gigabytes. 

Contentment, is in so many ways the obverse of the coin of happiness. They can exist together but are fundamentally different. Happiness is often a solitary experience whereas contentment is so easily shared. Contentment is a state where we don't yearn for things that are just out of our reach but rather we value the things that surround us in the here and now. On Christmas day this year I looked at the ten people sitting around our table and felt the deepest sense of contentment that it is possible to feel. We were sharing food, wine, conversation and laughter. You could have offered to swap me that dinner for a private jet stocked with crates of Jaegermeister to pick up my helicopter in Machu Pichu and I still would have refused.

So how does this all connect with a trip to Europe? It's simple. I am at a point in my life where I am lucky enough to have a surfeit of the things that money simply can't buy, love, time and health. I'm going to take these gifts and pack them up in my suitcase and set off to see some more of the world. I'm not travelling to see the wonders of the world. I'm going to wonder at the beauty of what I have in my life and look out at the world from that perspective. And as I travel, I will recite one of my favourite E. E. Cummings poems and congratulate myself that I'm not dead. Yet.

i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes