It’s a
relief. After cold and rain in both Wisconsin and London, I was ready for hot
and dry. Well, it’s the old story: the gods punish us by giving us what we
want….
The inner
climate has turned as well. I revisited the piece of music—and the writing that
went with it—that haunted me in the first week of March.
It was—like
Winterreise and the
late quartets of Beethoven—music that I’d been waiting to get into. And like
the other works, it’s not conventionally pretty music.
Nor was my
experience with it pretty. I willed myself to go back to that moment of
madness—my first panic attack in December of 2011.
Why? Is it
rational to revisit the irrational? Wouldn’t a sane person do anything to avoid
a return to the world of utter insanity?
Can’t say. I
could tell you that I had to go back to see it from the other side—the other
side being sanity. Or I could say I had to master my fear that the madness would
return by tempting the gods, daring them to fling me into the whirlpool again. I
could say I had no choice.
Possibly
true, all of the above. None of them feels right.
I only
knew, that first week of March (also the first week of Lent) that I was
operating on blind faith—and the love and faith of a sister in Tobago. And Raf,
who worried silently all throughout the period.
OK—site and
setting. El Morro, the oldest of the four remaining fortifications the
Spaniards built. It’s built—as is its sister in Havana—at the mouth of the
harbor. It’s huge. It is not—by design—inviting. It was early morning—seven,
perhaps—and raining / overcast.
And yes, for
the fifty minutes that Brahms takes to finish his struggle I took to finish
mine. I went back—I was on the same road (though technically not) as I had
been. True, there were no cars speeding past me.
There were
lashes.
I was being
scourged, whipped…and purified.
I came home
and wrote the experience as I’ve not written anything in my life. Actually, I
didn’t write. I took dictation.
A week of
exhausting struggle followed. I relearned everything. How to do the dishes. How to do a copy and paste. How to book
a reservation on Expedia.
I practiced
a mindfulness in that week that was excruciating.
“And how
are you doing,” said my doctor, a week or two later.
“How many
movements of the fingers does it take for you to log in and see your email?” I
asked.
She was
baffled.
“It takes
me three. I type a ‘g’ in the address bar and the computer suggests ‘gmail.’ I
click on that, and it takes me to the gmail page. As it’s loading, I move the
cursor to the area where ‘sign in’ will appear. I type ‘m’ into the username
and the computer remembers marcnewhouse333. The cursor is in place—I click on
that. The computer remembers my password. I press ‘enter.’ That’s how I get my
email….”
It was like
being a stroke victim—relearning the things we do automatically every day. And
it took an immense will.
I failed,
mostly. That’s fine—that’s what Buddhists do.
I learned
some things.
There is no
time. Someone always pulls me back—away from the speeding cars or the abyss of
pure insanity. That I’m here to serve. That my talents have value.
I’ve lost
most of that, now. (If you could see my apartment, you’d know….) But enough
remains.
