«After having cancer, everything has a new flavor. You become a little innocent

Immersed in the presentation of the book of her life, Life Elsewhere, Isabel Ordaz (Madrid, 1957) she reveals herself emotionally and mystically about one of the most difficult moments she has had to go through, overcoming cancer. Those “six rogue letters with an accent” that have made her have “an interesting intimacy with death”, because as she says “to talk about death is also to talk about life.” And now she faces it without fear and full of projects.

—From what I see you are at your best…

—I’m full, yes, yes, yes. Right now my situation is happily very positive and I am supposedly clean.

—I see you very changed and great.

-Yes I’m very well. Everything is fine, I continue my life as an actress, and now as a writer with the publication of the book, where I tell a little about that past, which was painful and which, furthermore, is a bit now fiction. The story and events told in the book are based on my own experience, my own body and my own pain. But it is already a story that has become literature.

—«Life elsewhere», how has that journey around cancer been?

—At first it was going to be subtitled as A Journey Around Cancer, because it is the story of a brutal illness that, unfortunately, so many people have gone through, continue to go through, and too many have not overcome. In the end he decided on Life Elsewhere, because after a diagnosis, life stops being what you knew and becomes something else. To be constantly on the lookout for the danger of dying, to abandon all your projects… Your calendar appointments fall off and you no longer decide on your destiny. Pain and fear begin and a series of very cruel emotions and feelings appear. From there, you try to rescue yourself in some way. I achieved it through writing, through storytelling. I needed to find a way out so as not to become depersonalized. To not stop being someone who has to continue living with herself.

—It’s a very deep book…

—It is full of silences, perplexities, search and poetry. It is written in poetic prose because, sometimes, language is not enough. Apart from the fact that, suddenly, you stumble over words that you don’t understand. Your entire grammar is altered and you say: “But hey, what does this mean?” You start to be a stranger inside yourself. It is an experience that has some mystique, metaphysics, pain…, but also a great opportunity to learn about the human condition and its fragility.

—There are people who read a lot to avoid illness…

—I read compulsively, wildly. Because that reality, the matter, the body… betrays you with the disease. You are betrayed by reality. That reality that is called the world and that is called the body and that, suddenly, you no longer possess, you are no longer the owner of it. And the world begins to leave you a little by the wayside. You are no longer up to par. In reality, the disease stigmatizes you. Society is built on the paradigm of success and triumph. And what this shows is to what extent it is a fantasy, because we are very fragile. It gave me a lot of meaning and awareness about the fragility of human beings.

—In the book you also say that when you felt bad, writing freed you.

—Yes, at some point I said that I didn’t want to eat, I wanted to write. She took away my hunger, the only hunger I had was for words, the search for meaning. Because the disease leaves you senseless and pushes you to have an interesting intimacy with death. A dialectic is established between being and non-being; and seeing your face again tomorrow, the face of the world, of the dawn, of your friend… But when there is extreme pain you are nothing anymore.

—Up to that point?

—There is nothing more alienating than pain, it is the meaninglessness of life. You feel kidnapped. You don’t think anymore, you just cry or want to disappear. You stop being a person, you are a body that laments. And somehow you need to collect the crumbs. What do you do with your dreams, with your life, with your profession, with your ability to be autonomous… All of that remains in stand by. You become very dependent. You need assistance. And you have to heal yourself emotionally from that misfortune and that enormous experience. So, in writing I found that space of calm and giving myself a second chance. I didn’t want the story to stop and that diagnosis, that cancer, had stopped me. There was no more story. There was no more, except what the oncologists told me.

—You talk about “six rogue letters and an accent.” What was that moment like when you were diagnosed with cancer or did the hardest thing come later?

—It’s the whole process, it’s a journey. It’s like if they tell you that they are going to put you in a spaceship and that they are going to take you to the Moon or Jupiter, and then you tell them. It is a journey that, evidently, awakens great brotherhood, great solidarity and great empathy, either because you have gone through it or your loved ones have gone through it. But it’s a kidnapping. It was three years. And it is the complete journey. You barely realize the diagnosis. Conscience does not retain the news. It’s as if, suddenly, you think: “But what if it was day and now they say it’s night?” And I still see light. We are that way. We don’t understand it until it begins to be part of your life, your intimacy and your reality. From that moment until the end. Whether it is a good landing or a tragedy occurs, which is dying. I didn’t feel anything. It took me a while to cry. It was a depersonalization. In your consciousness, a sea opens up inside you, little by little, which helps you understand that you are on another planet.

—Are you the same as before or can you never be the same?

—Things change in you. I am a continuity, which has been altered by a very limit experience. And that, in my case, I decided to do something. Things are always done. When you go to those radiotherapy and chemotherapy sessions, in the oncology ward, the relationship that is established is strange. You see little of yourself with others, because you don’t want to be there, you isolate yourself. But, in the end, you come into contact with other people. I remember a woman who said that this was already the third or fourth cancer she had gone through. An atrocity. And she said that her daughters had rescued her. There is always something because, truly, illness makes us very human. I am the same, but I am more human. And I have other priorities.

—Do you always take a positive reading of everything?

—There is positive and negative. What you have to do is manage it. You can’t spend your life angry.

—Do you overcome the fear of a relapse?

—Yes, you don’t think about it. In that you learn to be positive, because you have nothing more than present. It seems like a cliché, but it is reality. You are positive to the extent that you are here and decide to learn to live with more awareness, to support yourself or to enjoy the beautiful things in life and to manage the cursed thing, the darkness. But we only have one life. And whenever we talk about death we talk about life.

—Is there something that you missed and that you have rediscovered after cancer?

—Everything has a new taste, a new smell. You become a little innocent. You are amazed. You delight more in the beauty of nature. Nature is vital when you are in a process like this. A friend invited me to leave the city in the first phase and welcomed me into his house. He lives in the countryside. It was quieter to live there then. Nature does not judge. I didn’t feel watched, I didn’t feel like a failure. The countryside is innocent and welcomes you with greater simplicity. Life and death are cycles there, animals don’t think if you’ve failed or if you’ve had to say no to a movie. Nature integrates you. It has no differences, no classes, no hierarchies, no rivalries, no rush. But I have learned to be more patient and appreciate the details of the little things and the peace of mind.

—Tell me about your new projects…

—Well, now I just finished a tour with a play, Eduardo Galán’s The Professor, which has gone very well. And I’m very involved with the book. I present it now at the Madrid Book Fair. And then I have another play pending, but it’s still very much in its infancy.

—Has Araceli from “La que se cerca” been your great role?

—No, in no case. There have been many roles. I have been doing theater, movies and other series for 30 years. And I did works that have changed me and made me a better actress. That was something very nice, that has already happened. I know they still show it on TV, but it’s been almost 20 years. It was very popular because television is a popular medium. And it reaches many homes, many people and they liked the character. But I don’t remember anymore, really.