Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.
It's been used in everything from Shrek to House and sung by everyone except my next door neighbor's niece's cousin-by-marriage's brother-in-law.
At least I don't think he did.
.Overused, cliche, cheap meme to suggest depth and poignancy? Maybe. But I think it's love.
When you--when I--fall in love, anything, everything is an excuse to talk about the loved one. Air? Did I mention He breathes air? Milk? Too easy with a new baby. Shoes? My grandson takes his shoes off when he comes in the house. "Gotta hand it to you...." My grand daughter has two. Hands, I mean. Love is physical, visceral, the longing to taste a name on your lips, to bring them into every moment and space you occupy.
Poetry, music, a voice, the line of a dancer, beauty in all its guises is the same. The song plays you, the words write you.
Love You can love a piece of music with the same yearning to possess and be possessed as any other love..
Jeff Beck's Hallelujah plays my heart, grieves and elates me. When Cohen sings, I whisper the words with my lips and in my mind: it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah...And even though/It all went wrong/I'll stand before the Lord of Song/With nothing on my lips but Hallelujah.
I hold my lover close, trace the curve of his cheek, the line of his shoulder, play my fingers down his spine, my body bends to his. Love is not a victory march/It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah. I know this. I listen to him breathe, listen as I listened to my children, standing by their beds. Breathe, breathing with them, one breath follow another.
Please.
All breath stops. It's a simple bare boned fact. They leave us, we leave them. Fact.
You always disappoint the ones you love. Not every day, not all the time, but as inevitably as rain will come, you will hurt the ones you love. You can't unring the bell, if you rip your tongue out, the words can't be unsaid, 3:00 AM tears, and a thousand nights of kneeling on broken glass will not change one moment.
And--why should I even bother to say it?--the ones you love will disappoint you, hurt you, rip your heart out and samba on it with a partner.
The world itself will break your heart.
The poem on paper will never be what you wrote in your mind and the music you play will never be what you heard
And yet. And yet...there is the poem, a lover's touch, the baby's diaper may stink, but there is the intoxicating scent of baby, the soft gloriousness of a baby's skin. The sunrise over Haleakala flames with colors even if you're shivering in a jacket that isn't as warm as you thought and you the coffee's lukewarm and tastes like bad instant and the rock you're sitting on is cold--and besides rock is, well, hard as rock.
The is-ness of it all.
Pirouettes and pratfalls.
And so Hallelujah with every breath.
Imperfect and imperfectly. A song that sings me.
Because There's a blaze of light in every word/It doesn't matter which you heard/The holy or the broken Hallelujah.
I sleep next to my lover, hold a grandchild, my old dog slips away with one breath, then none all at the gift of the veterinarian's needle. I'll stand before the Lord of Song/With nothing on my lips but Hallelujah.
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.
What else is there? Hallelujah.
Imperfect. Flawed and failed.
Hallelujah.
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Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Me and Oral Roberts
Heal!! He laid on hands, this intense, florid man, sweating and teary eyed. The man, woman, or child kneeling at his feet--if they weren't on a stretcher or in a wheel chair--frequently were crying too. Their stories had been told, their need for healing proclaimed to the heavens and the congregation--along with us out in television land.
Oral Roberts seemed to wrest miracles from Jesus; the physical effort was evident . Nothing gentle about this.
And nothing quiet about the healings either. Rejoicing swept the congregation, the newly healed and Oral Roberts praised Jesus--and cried. Faith healings take place in in an ocean surge of waves, and spray, and salt.
I was eight and this was the 50's in North Carolina. We weren't always regular churchgoers but my mother was raised Baptist, Jesus was always watching us, and she read a chapter from the Bible to me every night.
I also lived in a world where grownups never lied and people were to be trusted.
My mother's health was fragile. She had bronchiectisis (a lung condition somewhat like cystic fibrosis) which regularly put her in the hospital about once a year.She nearly died having me and "was never the same." When my dad was gone--he was a Marine--I would slip into her room at night to check to be sure she was breathing.
So I wrote to Oral Roberts to ask him to pray for my mother to be healed. As far as I could tell, he never failed on TV and his prayers had to be just as effective at a distance. As I mailed the letter, I imagined my family's surprise and joy. I didn't want thanks--I just wanted my mom to live and figured that the Reverend Robert's prayers seemed to have a power my night time Our father who art's and God blesses didn't.
My theology was weak and so was my critical thinking--but I was eight. Not stupid, just ignorant and a bit naive.
I did get a letter back. There was a generic paragraph promising prayers for me and my loved one. They would lift us up to the Lord or something like that.
The rest of the letter was a two paragraph plea for money. I don't think it was explicitly said but my eight year old self found it pretty implicit that this money would make the prayers much, much, much more effective.
I was disappointed but not devastated. More like the dawning of Santa is your mom and dad, that growing awareness of the limitations of sleighs and realities of life.
I wish I'd written to thank him.
Some facts, like chicken pox, are best taught/caught young.
Oral Roberts seemed to wrest miracles from Jesus; the physical effort was evident . Nothing gentle about this.
I was eight and this was the 50's in North Carolina. We weren't always regular churchgoers but my mother was raised Baptist, Jesus was always watching us, and she read a chapter from the Bible to me every night.
I also lived in a world where grownups never lied and people were to be trusted.
My mother's health was fragile. She had bronchiectisis (a lung condition somewhat like cystic fibrosis) which regularly put her in the hospital about once a year.She nearly died having me and "was never the same." When my dad was gone--he was a Marine--I would slip into her room at night to check to be sure she was breathing.
So I wrote to Oral Roberts to ask him to pray for my mother to be healed. As far as I could tell, he never failed on TV and his prayers had to be just as effective at a distance. As I mailed the letter, I imagined my family's surprise and joy. I didn't want thanks--I just wanted my mom to live and figured that the Reverend Robert's prayers seemed to have a power my night time Our father who art's and God blesses didn't.
My theology was weak and so was my critical thinking--but I was eight. Not stupid, just ignorant and a bit naive.
I did get a letter back. There was a generic paragraph promising prayers for me and my loved one. They would lift us up to the Lord or something like that.
The rest of the letter was a two paragraph plea for money. I don't think it was explicitly said but my eight year old self found it pretty implicit that this money would make the prayers much, much, much more effective.
I was disappointed but not devastated. More like the dawning of Santa is your mom and dad, that growing awareness of the limitations of sleighs and realities of life.
I wish I'd written to thank him.
Some facts, like chicken pox, are best taught/caught young.
Help! I'm Addicted to K Cups
I like to think I'm a good person and at least a pale shade of green. My recycling trash container is always much fuller than than the one that contains, well, trash. I buy recyled, local, organic, advocate for sustainable solutions at the architectural office I work at. I know what Cradle to Cradle is, unplug electrical things when I can and when they aren't needed....
I really really try to be a good person.
But my partner's daughter gave him a Keurig coffee maker for Christmas.
And then the Keurig showed up. And I mocked it--who know what kind of coffee really was in those little plastic K cups? I mean--PLASTIC? And they don't recycle.
Then we had the first cup of dark roast.
"OK," we agreed, "Not bad for when you just want a cup. Or for company." Quick, easy, flavorful, and kinda fun--all the buttons, the hissing noise, and the pretty blue lights.
Nice on occasion , we agreed.
The first hit was just experimental. Why would we abandon our old coffee maker which held so many cups and could be programed to have a full pot ready before we got out of bed?
In the next few days we blew through the samples that had come with the Keurig like a politician grabbing face time on TV. No limits.
Then--the supply was running low. Panic set in. Where do you go to get more--who's your connection?
Turns out Costco carries a big box of 80 of Newman's Own for $33.00.
I brought it home. John added up the cost and gave me THE LOOK. "Do you realize how much this costs a cup?" No. He told me. I just could not keep the number in mind; it always drifted away.
Besides, while not cheaper that making a pot, well, you know, sometimes we didn't actually drink the whole pot and then we wastefully poured it out. And the Keurig brew is certainly cheaper than Starbucks and their ilk.
I try not to look at the old coffee maker which seems to be lonely and saddened, asking what did I do wrong? It doesn't seem to be buying, "It's not you, it's me."
I don't even tell myself I can quit anytime. Turns out we ALWAYS want only one cup.
Really.
We pretend that pile of little plastic cups in the trash does not exist. And--after all--it is Newman's Own: organic and fair traded. The Newmans are very environmentally aware you know.
Now I'm wishing we had a Keurig at work.
I know I need help.
Is there a support group out there for me?
We could have coffee.
I really really try to be a good person.
But my partner's daughter gave him a Keurig coffee maker for Christmas.
Now, you first have to understand--we really enjoy coffee and drink it morning, noon, and night. When we first got together I did have to teach him that grocery store brand ground coffee made into pale brown water is NOT coffee. I introduced him to the coffee grinder and Trader Joe's Organic, Shade-Grown, Fair Traded Coffee. (It's the way I salvage my guilt over what I know can be an exploitive, environment destroying, high pesticide product.)
Then we had the first cup of dark roast.
"OK," we agreed, "Not bad for when you just want a cup. Or for company." Quick, easy, flavorful, and kinda fun--all the buttons, the hissing noise, and the pretty blue lights.
Nice on occasion , we agreed.
The first hit was just experimental. Why would we abandon our old coffee maker which held so many cups and could be programed to have a full pot ready before we got out of bed?
In the next few days we blew through the samples that had come with the Keurig like a politician grabbing face time on TV. No limits.
Then--the supply was running low. Panic set in. Where do you go to get more--who's your connection?
Turns out Costco carries a big box of 80 of Newman's Own for $33.00.
I brought it home. John added up the cost and gave me THE LOOK. "Do you realize how much this costs a cup?" No. He told me. I just could not keep the number in mind; it always drifted away.
Besides, while not cheaper that making a pot, well, you know, sometimes we didn't actually drink the whole pot and then we wastefully poured it out. And the Keurig brew is certainly cheaper than Starbucks and their ilk.
I try not to look at the old coffee maker which seems to be lonely and saddened, asking what did I do wrong? It doesn't seem to be buying, "It's not you, it's me."
I don't even tell myself I can quit anytime. Turns out we ALWAYS want only one cup.
Really.
We pretend that pile of little plastic cups in the trash does not exist. And--after all--it is Newman's Own: organic and fair traded. The Newmans are very environmentally aware you know.
Now I'm wishing we had a Keurig at work.
I know I need help.
Is there a support group out there for me?
We could have coffee.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
A Secular Christian?
Secular Jew is an accepted description of a person who identifies as being Jewish but is Jewish in a cultural, nonreligious way. OK, I do understand that being Jewish is different than being "Christian", since there's a whole tribal identification and--like being mixed race--in a sense you are what the world will name you.
Christians aren't quite the same, though shared experience can create a tribal feeling for sure: church suppers (just listen to Garrison Keillor), nuns with rulers, bathrobe Christmas pageants, Midnight Mass--. And, since many of the US's immigrants are traditionally Christian, you have the whole food and whatever connected to the holidays. Tamales, stollen, a German pickle, clam chowder, or Taco Bell so mom doesn't have to cook, whatever it is, it is, and hallelujah.
My parents were both from the South though my dad was very evasive about what he actually believed and we weren't constant church goers, I was raised a Protestant Christian. Jesus watched every minute of my day and was very sad when I did anything wrong. My mother read a chapter of the Bible to me every night; I said the Lord's Prayer and long list of God blesses kneeling by bed, hands porperly folded, before I went to sleep.
Christmas was magic. Mary and Joseph, shepherds, Wisemen, and all the friendly beasts clustered around a baby while the angels sang. Every Christmas Eve I searched for the Star as I also watched for Santa and listened for the reindeers' jingling bells.
Peace on Earth and a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I won't give up my claim on them.
That I don't believe in Christian tenets anymore in any orthodox or even unorthodox way, I believe deosn't matter--I cling to my right to my heritage. I collect nativity sets, sing Christmas carols when no one can hear (do unto others), remind myself that each person carries a spark of the divine and when I feed the hungry, clothe those without clothes, I serve whatever is holy in all of us. I should judge not and should remember that if I have two coats I ought to give one away.
For those who believe I still say I will pray for you. "To whatever is at the heart of all this and cares" may not be much of an address but I don't think it's the dead letter office and prayer is as good a name as any.
Tradition is good, love is even better, and stories that encourage children to believe that hope shows up in surprising ways, the angels sing of peace, and the scraggliest Christmas tree can shine like a star are, I believe, mine to claim.
Christians aren't quite the same, though shared experience can create a tribal feeling for sure: church suppers (just listen to Garrison Keillor), nuns with rulers, bathrobe Christmas pageants, Midnight Mass--. And, since many of the US's immigrants are traditionally Christian, you have the whole food and whatever connected to the holidays. Tamales, stollen, a German pickle, clam chowder, or Taco Bell so mom doesn't have to cook, whatever it is, it is, and hallelujah.
My parents were both from the South though my dad was very evasive about what he actually believed and we weren't constant church goers, I was raised a Protestant Christian. Jesus watched every minute of my day and was very sad when I did anything wrong. My mother read a chapter of the Bible to me every night; I said the Lord's Prayer and long list of God blesses kneeling by bed, hands porperly folded, before I went to sleep.
Christmas was magic. Mary and Joseph, shepherds, Wisemen, and all the friendly beasts clustered around a baby while the angels sang. Every Christmas Eve I searched for the Star as I also watched for Santa and listened for the reindeers' jingling bells.
Peace on Earth and a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I won't give up my claim on them.
That I don't believe in Christian tenets anymore in any orthodox or even unorthodox way, I believe deosn't matter--I cling to my right to my heritage. I collect nativity sets, sing Christmas carols when no one can hear (do unto others), remind myself that each person carries a spark of the divine and when I feed the hungry, clothe those without clothes, I serve whatever is holy in all of us. I should judge not and should remember that if I have two coats I ought to give one away.
For those who believe I still say I will pray for you. "To whatever is at the heart of all this and cares" may not be much of an address but I don't think it's the dead letter office and prayer is as good a name as any.
Tradition is good, love is even better, and stories that encourage children to believe that hope shows up in surprising ways, the angels sing of peace, and the scraggliest Christmas tree can shine like a star are, I believe, mine to claim.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Reading Confucius
OK, there's no question that the email surprised me. Actually I assumed that the writer had somehow gotten the wrong address because a) she wanted to send me a review copy of a book and b) she was doing so because she liked my website. I did my best mental Scooby Doo huh? and promptly emailed back that while I never objected to getting a free book she obviously had the wrong person.
But then she used the secret words: Barefoot on the Ground.
And that's how I got to read Confucius from the Heart by Professor Yu Dan, translated by Esther Tyldesley. (Translators should be recognized and applauded.) Published by Atria in October, 2009.
I'm very glad I did. And not just because of a certain implicit flattery in the whole exchange. (Just the thought that somebody else might be reading this besides those of you who love me and maybe do pity reads...wow.)
The back story on Confucius from the Heart is fascinating in itself--I had thought Confucianism in China had been pretty thoroughly relegated to the past and the bad old days before the Revolution. However, the Analects were/are still being studied in the universities, at least as literature and history, and in 2006 Professor Yu Dan of Beijing Normal University gave a week long series of televised lectures on Confucius for the modern world.
To nearly everyone's surprise, apparently including Professor Yu Dan's, it was a hit. (I'm not sure what would be comparable here--Socrates as an Oprah's Book Club selection?) Over ten million copies were sold in a short time.
Now it's been translated and brought to the English speaking/reading world.
I described to someone as the kind of book you keep reading long after youve closed the covers. And it is.
At first it seems not so much simple as it does simplistic. Follow your internal moral compass. Choose your friends wisely. Govern yourself before governimg others. Show respect to all. Don't compromise your principles for public honors and material rewards. Nothing new.
However, as you continue to read, the point of the simplicity becomes clear: becoming a junzi, the person who has found balance, equanamity, right thinking, and right action, should be attainable by all. The translator chose to use the Chinese word "junzi" throughout because, she writes, the concept has no satisfactory English equivalent. The simplicity of the writing does not suggest that becoming a junzi is easy, something that can be put on a poster and then absorbed. Rather it is that becoming a junzi is a process that does not require an advanced degree or esoteric learning.
But that isn't what I mean by continuing to read the book long after it's been read. When I started this review/essay I was sure I would be done over the weekend. which was two weekends ago. Looking back I should have listened to Confucius's statement that it is best to talk about one's achievements after they have been achieved.
Um, yes.
Recetntly I had the bad experience of finding out that someone I had referred a friend to, a person I thought was honorable, to be trusted, turned out to be not honorable, not trustworthy--in fact someone who tried to take advantage of my friend.
I woke in the night reading the lines that warn against those who are charming and say what you like to hear. Choose a friend who tells you the truth, Confucius says. And you can tell this person because the words won't drip with honey and will not always be exactly what you want to hear.
May not make a funny fortune cookie, but I wish I'd listened sooner.
I described to someone as the kind of book you keep reading long after youve closed the covers. And it is.
At first it seems not so much simple as it does simplistic. Follow your internal moral compass. Choose your friends wisely. Govern yourself before governimg others. Show respect to all. Don't compromise your principles for public honors and material rewards. Nothing new.
However, as you continue to read, the point of the simplicity becomes clear: becoming a junzi, the person who has found balance, equanamity, right thinking, and right action, should be attainable by all. The translator chose to use the Chinese word "junzi" throughout because, she writes, the concept has no satisfactory English equivalent. The simplicity of the writing does not suggest that becoming a junzi is easy, something that can be put on a poster and then absorbed. Rather it is that becoming a junzi is a process that does not require an advanced degree or esoteric learning.
But that isn't what I mean by continuing to read the book long after it's been read. When I started this review/essay I was sure I would be done over the weekend. which was two weekends ago. Looking back I should have listened to Confucius's statement that it is best to talk about one's achievements after they have been achieved.
Um, yes.
Recetntly I had the bad experience of finding out that someone I had referred a friend to, a person I thought was honorable, to be trusted, turned out to be not honorable, not trustworthy--in fact someone who tried to take advantage of my friend.
I woke in the night reading the lines that warn against those who are charming and say what you like to hear. Choose a friend who tells you the truth, Confucius says. And you can tell this person because the words won't drip with honey and will not always be exactly what you want to hear.
May not make a funny fortune cookie, but I wish I'd listened sooner.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Riding the Invisible Dragon
Once upon a time there was a princess who set at her desk most of the day and wept. She tried to hide her face from others because weeping at her desk was not in her job description. There were times she wept because something sad had happened, but sometimes she wept because the dragon she was riding dove for the ground.
Some days, some nights this fiercely beautiful, wildly untamable creature arches her neck, spreads her shimmering wings , as they soar to the high upper reaches where the stars are always bright and the moon always full. The dragon's flames light up the sky, the princess shrieks her joy. Poised precariously on her dragon's back, she dances until she falls, still laughing as the moon and stars spin past her.
Sometimes the dragon catches her.
Sometimes she keeps falling.
And sometimes they soar too high and the dragon twists, plunging down into deep water, into caverns where there is no light, until the princess begins to believe that light is an illusion and all there is, all there ever will be is darkness.
The princess, though, is the only one who can see the dragon. To everyone else she is gyrating frantically through the skies, shooting up, diving for the ground, and all of her own volition.
This is, of course, metaphor and an oddly mixed one at that, unless the princess's office is somewhere between Middle Earth and Hogwarts. Obviously, too, (or at least I think it is) the princess is me.
I'm bipolar.
When I was crying at work--I cry, only princesses get to weep--I was in the midst of the break that finally sent me to the psychiatrist who named the dragon. I had been treated for depression for years because who sees the therapist when you're flying high in a mania? However, this final break was triggered by a medication that works great on depression--not so much on bipolarity.
Crying at work. Certain that not only did no one like me, but sure that they were talking behind my back and telling everyone how damned incompetent I was. (They probably were but I wasn't being singled out--it was just the way things are sometimes.)
The 3:00 AM awakenings were especially fun. I would wake up crying. The dogs that slept with me would looked baffled and one even--how maudlin--would actually try to lick away my tears. (Shit--he probably just needed more salt in his diet.) All my sins and failures, especially as a mother, would come and sit on my chest, going over a detailed laundry list of my crimes against everyone. There was no washing away these sins, either. I knew I was unlovable and that the people who said, who thought, they loved me were either deluded or loved me out of pity.
Did I always cry? No. Anger and hysterical rage are also a part of mania. I could go from trembling lips and barely held back tears after being told I'd misspelled a word, to shaking anger and ice dagger words.
I had a sticky note on my computer with a list:. d. t., d. t.. d. e., l. p.--which stood for don't talk, don't think, don't eat, look pleasant.
Being carried by the dragon was no joy ride for me, but being anywhere near me was certainly no pleasure either. I wasn't always angry, I wasn't always tearful. I could still laugh--my family tends to have a pretty dark sense of humor--but I wasn't just fragile, I was brittle and ready to shatter at the slightest touch.
People (wisely) avoid being around you if they can and when they are--they tiptoe.
Or they try to help you. Usually they're rational and reassuring. People don't really hate you. Your kids--or "we" when it was one of the kids talking--have turned out fine, so you didn't ruin them.
Cheer up. Snap out of it. Let's go do something fun.
I tried my own drugs of choice: buying stuff and things for other people, trying to help my friends and family with their lives (I think it's actually called interfering), refusing to open any mail that looked remotely like a bill--because if you don't open them you don't have to pay them--spending the time I wasn't working curled in my recliner with a book and the computer on my lap and the TV on. Nothing could hold my attention for very long. Oh, and by the way, if you're ever shopping in this aisle, the, uh, "admiration" of men can be quite an excellent drug too. And you might be surprised at what can seem like a good idea at the time.
Humans tell stories and want to frame life and make order, or at least some kind of sense out of the chaos. When the dragon is taking you for a ride, you sometimes try to figure out why. Because there has to be a why, doesn't there? My ex-husband caught of lot flack on this one--blame for how I was feeling, blame for leaving me, blame for not understanding now, for being mean to me. Now we aren't divorced for nothing and there are people, including our own children, who are amazed the marriage lasted so long. We're both battered and scared, but the dragon didn't walk in the door he opened to walk out. I brought her with me and I got full custody.
There is also the explanation of simply being unlovable, unworthy, and a burden to everybody whose orbit touches yours. That's when people start watching you closely and don't like to leave you alone.
Most of the time though you're just too busy trying to hang on, flailing around for something to grab hold of. What's hard to explain--to others and even to yourself--is that you didn't choose to get on the dragon and you didn't choose this emotional crack the whip. To other people, the people around you, you're doing the crazy dance, but the assumption is that at some level you WANT to dance and you'd get off the dance floor if you really wanted to. (Do I have to remind you that the dragon is invisible to everyone else? It's the best I can do metaphorically, so please keep it in mind.)
But the hard thing for you, the rider--meaning of course me--is to admit that while you didn't choose to get on this dragon, there's really no one to blame for the wild ride, not circumstances, not other people, and not even your own unlovable and horrible self.
It's an illness. A mental illness.
Frankly I hated the term. When the psychiatrist first suggested it (her statement was, "I will not give you a diagnosis this quickly but if I were teaching a class to med students on bipolar--you would be a classic example to take to the class."), I went into a kind of disassociated mental fugue. Depressed was depressed but bipolar was really mentally ill. Mentally ill. Which really means crazy. It takes awhile to wrap your crazy head around that, and a little longer to tell people what your doctor said. You walk the road to acceptance in fits and starts and the dragon doesn't stop the ride any time soon.
The meds help amazingly. The clinical sounding words "mood stabilizer" don't convey the tremendous, rainbow-hued relief they can be. The clouds begin to lift and the reign of tears begins to end.
You learn that you can't cure this yet, but you can manage it. You can feed the dragon or learn to keep her in her stall. Take your meds. Keep a routine, which is hard when chaos has been the only life you've known. Take your meds. Talk to yourself (usually better in private and maybe just on paper or in your own head) when the dragon starts sidling up to you. Carrie Fisher (who talks about her own diagnosis) says, "The facts of my life don't change; the fiction does." That's when you have to remind yourself that feelings are only feelings and do a reality check.
I've learned to be aware of the signs that the dragon is creeping up and I'm putting on my riding boots. When tears are right behind my eyes, when fears of a rejection that hasn't happened knots my stomach, some of the time I can step back and repeat the mantra of "feelings are only feelings. They aren't reality."
I told my therapist on my first visit that my goal was to sort out what was fucked up brain chemistry and what was real in my life. I'm still sorting. It's like having diabetes, a good day yesterday doesn't mean you can be careless today.
Mindfulness. Self-awareness. These are the gifts of managing this illness, this whatever it is, because these are the tools that help to gentle the dragon.
I'm learning to embrace the dragon rather than fight her. Which is a fancy lame attempt at a poetic way of saying that while this illness doesn't define me, it is a part of me, and that acceptance is the only way to stay grounded.
And it wasn't all bad; I can still remember the glitter of the stars and a full moon rising, poems pouring out like honey in summer, love so intense it was like lightning, rolled like thunder, and lit up the sky.
But I live now where light is not a illusion and the ground is under my feet.
Some days, some nights this fiercely beautiful, wildly untamable creature arches her neck, spreads her shimmering wings , as they soar to the high upper reaches where the stars are always bright and the moon always full. The dragon's flames light up the sky, the princess shrieks her joy. Poised precariously on her dragon's back, she dances until she falls, still laughing as the moon and stars spin past her.
Sometimes the dragon catches her.
Sometimes she keeps falling.
And sometimes they soar too high and the dragon twists, plunging down into deep water, into caverns where there is no light, until the princess begins to believe that light is an illusion and all there is, all there ever will be is darkness.
The princess, though, is the only one who can see the dragon. To everyone else she is gyrating frantically through the skies, shooting up, diving for the ground, and all of her own volition.
This is, of course, metaphor and an oddly mixed one at that, unless the princess's office is somewhere between Middle Earth and Hogwarts. Obviously, too, (or at least I think it is) the princess is me.
I'm bipolar.
When I was crying at work--I cry, only princesses get to weep--I was in the midst of the break that finally sent me to the psychiatrist who named the dragon. I had been treated for depression for years because who sees the therapist when you're flying high in a mania? However, this final break was triggered by a medication that works great on depression--not so much on bipolarity.
Crying at work. Certain that not only did no one like me, but sure that they were talking behind my back and telling everyone how damned incompetent I was. (They probably were but I wasn't being singled out--it was just the way things are sometimes.)
The 3:00 AM awakenings were especially fun. I would wake up crying. The dogs that slept with me would looked baffled and one even--how maudlin--would actually try to lick away my tears. (Shit--he probably just needed more salt in his diet.) All my sins and failures, especially as a mother, would come and sit on my chest, going over a detailed laundry list of my crimes against everyone. There was no washing away these sins, either. I knew I was unlovable and that the people who said, who thought, they loved me were either deluded or loved me out of pity.
Did I always cry? No. Anger and hysterical rage are also a part of mania. I could go from trembling lips and barely held back tears after being told I'd misspelled a word, to shaking anger and ice dagger words.
I had a sticky note on my computer with a list:. d. t., d. t.. d. e., l. p.--which stood for don't talk, don't think, don't eat, look pleasant.
Being carried by the dragon was no joy ride for me, but being anywhere near me was certainly no pleasure either. I wasn't always angry, I wasn't always tearful. I could still laugh--my family tends to have a pretty dark sense of humor--but I wasn't just fragile, I was brittle and ready to shatter at the slightest touch.
People (wisely) avoid being around you if they can and when they are--they tiptoe.
Or they try to help you. Usually they're rational and reassuring. People don't really hate you. Your kids--or "we" when it was one of the kids talking--have turned out fine, so you didn't ruin them.
Cheer up. Snap out of it. Let's go do something fun.
I tried my own drugs of choice: buying stuff and things for other people, trying to help my friends and family with their lives (I think it's actually called interfering), refusing to open any mail that looked remotely like a bill--because if you don't open them you don't have to pay them--spending the time I wasn't working curled in my recliner with a book and the computer on my lap and the TV on. Nothing could hold my attention for very long. Oh, and by the way, if you're ever shopping in this aisle, the, uh, "admiration" of men can be quite an excellent drug too. And you might be surprised at what can seem like a good idea at the time.
Humans tell stories and want to frame life and make order, or at least some kind of sense out of the chaos. When the dragon is taking you for a ride, you sometimes try to figure out why. Because there has to be a why, doesn't there? My ex-husband caught of lot flack on this one--blame for how I was feeling, blame for leaving me, blame for not understanding now, for being mean to me. Now we aren't divorced for nothing and there are people, including our own children, who are amazed the marriage lasted so long. We're both battered and scared, but the dragon didn't walk in the door he opened to walk out. I brought her with me and I got full custody.
There is also the explanation of simply being unlovable, unworthy, and a burden to everybody whose orbit touches yours. That's when people start watching you closely and don't like to leave you alone.
Most of the time though you're just too busy trying to hang on, flailing around for something to grab hold of. What's hard to explain--to others and even to yourself--is that you didn't choose to get on the dragon and you didn't choose this emotional crack the whip. To other people, the people around you, you're doing the crazy dance, but the assumption is that at some level you WANT to dance and you'd get off the dance floor if you really wanted to. (Do I have to remind you that the dragon is invisible to everyone else? It's the best I can do metaphorically, so please keep it in mind.)
But the hard thing for you, the rider--meaning of course me--is to admit that while you didn't choose to get on this dragon, there's really no one to blame for the wild ride, not circumstances, not other people, and not even your own unlovable and horrible self.
It's an illness. A mental illness.
Frankly I hated the term. When the psychiatrist first suggested it (her statement was, "I will not give you a diagnosis this quickly but if I were teaching a class to med students on bipolar--you would be a classic example to take to the class."), I went into a kind of disassociated mental fugue. Depressed was depressed but bipolar was really mentally ill. Mentally ill. Which really means crazy. It takes awhile to wrap your crazy head around that, and a little longer to tell people what your doctor said. You walk the road to acceptance in fits and starts and the dragon doesn't stop the ride any time soon.
The meds help amazingly. The clinical sounding words "mood stabilizer" don't convey the tremendous, rainbow-hued relief they can be. The clouds begin to lift and the reign of tears begins to end.
You learn that you can't cure this yet, but you can manage it. You can feed the dragon or learn to keep her in her stall. Take your meds. Keep a routine, which is hard when chaos has been the only life you've known. Take your meds. Talk to yourself (usually better in private and maybe just on paper or in your own head) when the dragon starts sidling up to you. Carrie Fisher (who talks about her own diagnosis) says, "The facts of my life don't change; the fiction does." That's when you have to remind yourself that feelings are only feelings and do a reality check.
I've learned to be aware of the signs that the dragon is creeping up and I'm putting on my riding boots. When tears are right behind my eyes, when fears of a rejection that hasn't happened knots my stomach, some of the time I can step back and repeat the mantra of "feelings are only feelings. They aren't reality."
I told my therapist on my first visit that my goal was to sort out what was fucked up brain chemistry and what was real in my life. I'm still sorting. It's like having diabetes, a good day yesterday doesn't mean you can be careless today.
Mindfulness. Self-awareness. These are the gifts of managing this illness, this whatever it is, because these are the tools that help to gentle the dragon.
I'm learning to embrace the dragon rather than fight her. Which is a fancy lame attempt at a poetic way of saying that while this illness doesn't define me, it is a part of me, and that acceptance is the only way to stay grounded.
And it wasn't all bad; I can still remember the glitter of the stars and a full moon rising, poems pouring out like honey in summer, love so intense it was like lightning, rolled like thunder, and lit up the sky.
But I live now where light is not a illusion and the ground is under my feet.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
I THINK I Believe in Being Positive. Maybe
Oh, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief" used to be one of my favorite prayers--along with "Send my roots rain," and "please, please, please let there be enough money in my account to cover that last check." (I don't know if it's true there are no atheists in foxholes, but I'm pretty damn sure there aren't too many the day before payday when you really needed that check two days earlier.)
A good friend pointed out that in my previous blahblah blog (I Am Like SO Sure) there's more than a smidgen of negativity. I think my point was the strength of my conviction--or yours, or anyone's for that matter--has nothing to do with being right, whether it's about a baseball game or the meaning of life.
Still hold with that and she didn't disagree.
However, her point is that believing does make a difference. And, on reflection, I think she's right. Within the limits of rationality. (And I'm a lover of Lord of the Rings and a universe of infinite possibility and all the weird things light and subatomic particles do--but I don't think I'm going to play for the NBA no matter what I believe.)
On the other hand--which is where I frequently go without ever having gone to the one hand--belief shapes behavior. That's an easy postulate. We don't have the time or resources to check everything in the world and sometimes we have to act on faith--faith that the waitress at Carrow's isn't out to poison us, that space aliens aren't sending messages through our fillings, all that. Paranoid schizophrenia is an incredibly debilitating illness. And whatever the opposite might be--trusting everyone and everything?-- is, in my opinion, equally lethal. Believing that everyone has a soul and is a child of god should not lead to going home with the guy with chainsaw unless he's your tree surgeon. There are people who do not wish us well and situations that do not end happily.
Beyond that, I think MM is right in that if you think you can do something, you are far more likely to do it. And if you believe you can't--well, that's pretty likely too. If I believe I can go to college, I'm far more likely to look for possibilities for colleges, financial aid, majors I would like.
That's elementary duhness.
Attitude is important too. If I expect good things to happen I'm going to act in ways that have a chance of attracting good things. By and large people like to be around positive types unless they're good looking dark and brooding types with an ironic twist of bitter phrase that makes you laugh.
Of course, for a lot of us that might still fall into the category of expecting good things.
Be that as it may....
But where is the point that belief and denial converge and should divide, or--? I read a story once about the actor Richard Dreyfuss who said that he almost literally never heard negative comments on his acting and his chances. He was so focused and so sure that he would be a successful actor that no alternative ever entered his thoughts.
Wow. Straight ahead tunnel vision maybe can move mountains, one more kick will churn the butter (an Irish saying about the frog in a jug of cream), refusing to listen to the people who tell you "why try?" can pay off.
However, and there's always one of those, at least when I'm writing, when I worked as a chaplain's assistant at a hospital I worked on the oncology floor--I worked with cancer patients. This was at the height of the attitude determines prognosis movement. There were patients who wore smiles always, except--perhaps--in their sleep. Nothing was painful, nothing was difficult, and there was no possibility of anything but victory over the disease.
So, what was wrong with that? Well, for one I don't think denying that having cancer is an absolute bitch is realistic or healthy.
I could be wrong.
What I do recall is the self-flagellation I would see if a negative thought was permitted to cross patients' lips or minds. And if the cure didn't happen, if they were dying, the fault was theirs because they didn't try hard enough, weren't positive enough. If the family shared this belief, the person died because she didn't want to live.
As Americans (in general) we love fighters. We're right there raging against the dying of the light. Passive acceptance is not our way/
But life happens and death happens (a nurse once reminded me that death is the one appointment no one is ever late for). It's happening now, as my fingers hit the keyboard and the microwave beeps and I remind myself I need to do my timesheet. A pretzel stick is soothing my soul and the slightly old and somewhat bitter coffee is hot. Now.
My bare feet are planted on holy ground. Wherever I stand, holy ground. I'm not sure what this means and where believing in my dreams fits in to this.
Do I even know what those dreams are worth, what could be, what should be? At one time I would have ripped my right arm off with my teeth to have our family be the living avatars of the Brady Bunch.Turns out that instead we are us. Broken marriage but unbroken family--although a lot patched, glued and mended--events happened that couldn't be resolved in 30 minutes or 30 years, just endured and survived. Are their things I would change if I could? Good Lord, yes! But I don't know if I would, if it meant losing what is. A situation that almost anyone would describe as disastrous resulted in a grandson who is the light of so many lives, who, his mother says, saved her life.
I'm not a person who believes that everything happens for good or is part of god's plan. If there's a deity that planned Rwanda, I'm not lighting any candles. But I do believe in quilts and mosaics. Take what is torn and broken and try to piece it together into something that, if not beautiful, might be useful.
It's holy ground. There's no point in standing in shit and calling it roses--but I can, you can try to plant roses or at least some onions in it and hope they grow,.
So, I guess I do believe. In believing.
Help thou my unbelief.
A good friend pointed out that in my previous blahblah blog (I Am Like SO Sure) there's more than a smidgen of negativity. I think my point was the strength of my conviction--or yours, or anyone's for that matter--has nothing to do with being right, whether it's about a baseball game or the meaning of life.
Still hold with that and she didn't disagree.
However, her point is that believing does make a difference. And, on reflection, I think she's right. Within the limits of rationality. (And I'm a lover of Lord of the Rings and a universe of infinite possibility and all the weird things light and subatomic particles do--but I don't think I'm going to play for the NBA no matter what I believe.)
On the other hand--which is where I frequently go without ever having gone to the one hand--belief shapes behavior. That's an easy postulate. We don't have the time or resources to check everything in the world and sometimes we have to act on faith--faith that the waitress at Carrow's isn't out to poison us, that space aliens aren't sending messages through our fillings, all that. Paranoid schizophrenia is an incredibly debilitating illness. And whatever the opposite might be--trusting everyone and everything?-- is, in my opinion, equally lethal. Believing that everyone has a soul and is a child of god should not lead to going home with the guy with chainsaw unless he's your tree surgeon. There are people who do not wish us well and situations that do not end happily.
Beyond that, I think MM is right in that if you think you can do something, you are far more likely to do it. And if you believe you can't--well, that's pretty likely too. If I believe I can go to college, I'm far more likely to look for possibilities for colleges, financial aid, majors I would like.
That's elementary duhness.
Attitude is important too. If I expect good things to happen I'm going to act in ways that have a chance of attracting good things. By and large people like to be around positive types unless they're good looking dark and brooding types with an ironic twist of bitter phrase that makes you laugh.
Of course, for a lot of us that might still fall into the category of expecting good things.
Be that as it may....
But where is the point that belief and denial converge and should divide, or--? I read a story once about the actor Richard Dreyfuss who said that he almost literally never heard negative comments on his acting and his chances. He was so focused and so sure that he would be a successful actor that no alternative ever entered his thoughts.
Wow. Straight ahead tunnel vision maybe can move mountains, one more kick will churn the butter (an Irish saying about the frog in a jug of cream), refusing to listen to the people who tell you "why try?" can pay off.
However, and there's always one of those, at least when I'm writing, when I worked as a chaplain's assistant at a hospital I worked on the oncology floor--I worked with cancer patients. This was at the height of the attitude determines prognosis movement. There were patients who wore smiles always, except--perhaps--in their sleep. Nothing was painful, nothing was difficult, and there was no possibility of anything but victory over the disease.
So, what was wrong with that? Well, for one I don't think denying that having cancer is an absolute bitch is realistic or healthy.
I could be wrong.
What I do recall is the self-flagellation I would see if a negative thought was permitted to cross patients' lips or minds. And if the cure didn't happen, if they were dying, the fault was theirs because they didn't try hard enough, weren't positive enough. If the family shared this belief, the person died because she didn't want to live.
As Americans (in general) we love fighters. We're right there raging against the dying of the light. Passive acceptance is not our way/
But life happens and death happens (a nurse once reminded me that death is the one appointment no one is ever late for). It's happening now, as my fingers hit the keyboard and the microwave beeps and I remind myself I need to do my timesheet. A pretzel stick is soothing my soul and the slightly old and somewhat bitter coffee is hot. Now.
My bare feet are planted on holy ground. Wherever I stand, holy ground. I'm not sure what this means and where believing in my dreams fits in to this.
Do I even know what those dreams are worth, what could be, what should be? At one time I would have ripped my right arm off with my teeth to have our family be the living avatars of the Brady Bunch.Turns out that instead we are us. Broken marriage but unbroken family--although a lot patched, glued and mended--events happened that couldn't be resolved in 30 minutes or 30 years, just endured and survived. Are their things I would change if I could? Good Lord, yes! But I don't know if I would, if it meant losing what is. A situation that almost anyone would describe as disastrous resulted in a grandson who is the light of so many lives, who, his mother says, saved her life.
I'm not a person who believes that everything happens for good or is part of god's plan. If there's a deity that planned Rwanda, I'm not lighting any candles. But I do believe in quilts and mosaics. Take what is torn and broken and try to piece it together into something that, if not beautiful, might be useful.
It's holy ground. There's no point in standing in shit and calling it roses--but I can, you can try to plant roses or at least some onions in it and hope they grow,.
So, I guess I do believe. In believing.
Help thou my unbelief.
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