Self Sorrow

Well, it was my own damn fault and I knew that, and…

…just made it worse.

I was racing against time. I had an hour to apply for a TED fellowship, and needed to enter the URL for this blog into the application form. And could I do it? No, a back slash was missing, or I had typed too many “p’s” or a “www” was required. I kept diminishing the form, going to the blog, and trying to figure it out. I finally got it—just do a copy / paste of the damn address bar. 

OK—did that, went to maximize the application form, and discovered…

…I had hit the tiny red “x” button, not the tiny yellow diminishing button.

It’s all different on the Mac, you see.

And all my work was gone….

I erupted in fury, raging into the kitchen. I was hungry, my jaw hurt, I had to teach in 20 minutes. I broke down and started crying for…

…my old life at Wal-Mart.

Which is paradoxical, because in some ways I can’t believe I ever did that job. It’s another lifetime ago. ‘Wow, that was the weirdest gig I’ve ever done,’ I often think.

But there I was, sobbing for a job gone away. And I realized….

…it’s mourning.

And always, you think you’re done with it. ‘Got that squared away,’ you think, and then find yourself in tears a moment later, when you flip on the radio and get “Turn, Turn, Turn.” (“To every thing there is a season, a time to laugh, a time to cry….”)

The wise Harry likens it to peeling an onion. You do layer after layer. The onion gets smaller and smaller. But there’s always another layer.

And I had lost 200 friends. Or were they? Weren’t they just students, co-workers, people I knew and liked?

Something in me says no. I sat with these people for hours in my room, hearing their stories, laughing, condoling, crying. I think now of a presentation a student gave, ending with the ultrasound film of the baby she was carrying. You could see the heart beat. Everyone in the room was in tears.

I think of the very tough speech I gave my students after Franny died. A student had just dumped a load of very negative energy because her boss needed a report, thus interrupting her work.

“You know what?  This is not a problem. This is a stupid minor issue. This is an annoyance. I’ve just spent three weeks helping my mother die. That’s a problem. That’s something that took more from me than virtually anything I’ve done. I’ll carry that to my grave. So no, you don’t have stress. And don’t tell yourself that this is a problem. You have a job and you’re healthy and your kids are OK and guess what? Don’t bring this attitude into my classroom.”

The students were shocked.

Right—so shouldn’t I take my own advice?

There’s a difference, I think. I ate something. I took a deep breath. I went and taught my student, and it was a good class. And then another student—also a good class. Then I got a break—two cancellations. I came home at 4, not six. Took another deep breath, went to the computer and re-did the form.

And the Mac remembered my copy. Worked like a charm. I hit “submit” and got a confirmation email in seconds.

It’s fair, I think, to wail. It’s stupid not to. I had been, being the good soldier—chin up, shoulders back. I had been strict with myself—to-do lists, no veg’ing out, no naps or reading or doing Sudoku for hours at a time.

I had imposed a structure, and that was good.

And then I thought—why?  What difference does it make? Why shouldn’t I play Sudoku all day? Isn’t this all so artificial, this “structure” of mine?

Yeah, it is.

But it’s also necessary. Just as it’s necessary to wail, to sob, to cry for a life now gone, and for 200 people who vanished in 20 minutes. We don’t have a word for it—this feeling. It wasn’t self-pity, but self sorrow.

And justly so….

The Climate Inside and Out

Rain, today, and at last. It’s been the second driest June in history—day after day of unrelenting heat, and milky blue clouds (the result of Saharan dust in the upper atmosphere.)

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.

The d minorPiano Concerto of Brahms. 

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.

The Glorious Whatever

Is it a symbol or a symptom?

Everybody else has uncomplicated relationships with everything—or at least so I imagine. How would I know?

They live in normal houses and have normal wives and sure, the kids are probably smoking dope, but kids do, don’t they? I did. Still would if I could.

Auden wrote about it: “When there was peace, he was for peace. When there was war, he went.” That’s a rough quote—the damn Internet is still down. Can’t google it.

They drive their lives by me, standing at the bus stop, waiting for the achingly late yellow bus from Caguas. That’s fine. I’ve nothing else to do, and it gives me time to think. Anyway, I don’t have enough money for a car (not true, I have the money—I’d rather go to London….)

So I don’t have a normal relationship with anything. But today’s the Fourth of July—Independence Day! Should be able to get this right, right? 

Well, I could do a rough approximation. There’s a Walgreens up the street—they’d probably have the sparklers. Supermax certainly sells wieners. But Mr. Fernandez—would he eat them?

Yeah, with hollandaise sauce.

Well, I’d scarf them down, of course. But that’s only because of the drug I’m taking—Remeron. Two hours after I take it, I descend to the level of a seven year old demanding his Lucky Charms. There’s nothing I don’t eat—or crave.

But it does seem that the day warrants a serious piece. Think of it—a gringo living in OurIslands and Their People. Yup, I’m serious. That’s the name of the book—actually, it’s two books—that came out in the first decade of the 20^th century. (Hey, the 20^th century—remember that!  Sorry, digressive here….). Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands—all those lovely little gems that were gonna get stuck on the crown of American imperialism. It was meant to be instructive about their islands and our people, although that doesn’t seem quite right. 

I’ve lived almost more time in Puerto Rico than in gringolandia. Shouldn’t it be Their Islands and Us?

Well, well—it makes for jarring reading. Puerto Ricans are a friendly people, we are told.

True.

We / they are also…um….

Lazy.

Well, it doesn’t quite get put like that. I mean, post-Victorian manners dictate a gentler approach. But read between the lines. It’s right there.

I thought about this this morning, as I was annoyed by the construction / reconstruction / demolition / remodeling of the building across the street—nobody quite knows what’s going on there….

Point is—something was going on. And it wasn’t Puerto Ricans, but Dominicans. Working on…

…yup, the Fourth of July.

Not surprising—a decade ago, we had Dominicans working in the apartment above us on Christmas Day.

And the Dominicans lack the post-Victorian genteel manners of Our Islands / our islands. They have a word for us boricuas. Los mantenidos.

Literally, the kept. As in a kept woman. 

Well, why not?

It was a frequent theme in classes—those days gone by when I had a job. What in god’s name were we doing to ourselves? Getting up at five in the morning and taking the sleeping baby to mamita’s and coping with the corporate craziness and going home and studying with the oldest kid while cooking dinner—ok, cancel, we stopped at KFC or ate at mamita’s house—and putting our tired carcasses in bed at midnight and God it’s only Tuesday and…

…driving twice a day past the caserío. 

…which had cars newer than mine in the parking and satellite dishes and they only pay 5 dollars for electricity and do you know what my last light bill was?

Right. Once you got on this bus, you stayed until the school bell rang.

Many times, past….

Sin vergüenza, raved the students—no shame. 

Well, we were paying a high price for our vergüenza—that was for sure. Because however much the Puerto Ricans—those people in our islands—didn’t work in the first decade of the 20^th century, we were busting ass in in the first decade of the 21^st.

Well, a third of us.

Other third works—here a good Puerto Rican throws up his hands and paints invisible quotation marks—for the government.

Hah!

And the other third lives in those caseríos….

Being kept.

And quite well.

It was a paradox as curious as a gringo living in their island.

Normal

It’s wonderful, when at last things settle down, and you experience…

…normal!

It’s been a time when many things got resolved, some things got relearned, and other things were dropped.

And in the process, time has vanished or warped.

I don’t remember some things—Christmas, or New Year’s.

I remember other things—Taí sitting with me on the floor outside her bedroom, cab rides, a pharmacist checking side effects of Bupropion on her iPhone.

The first week of Lent, and a trek to El Morro. Facing my worst fear—hurricanes—and learning to love the wind, and to call it its name: Domine.

Starting to pick my life up again. Waking at a bit before six, taking my walk, eating a good breakfast of granola and yogurt and a banana in front of the sea.

While listening to Bach…

Coming home, organizing the day, starting to write.

None of the feared events in the anticipated dread occurred.

I’m not wasting time.

I’m not being unproductive.

I don’t miss or yearn for my previous life.

In fact, I tried to remember, last night, what it had been, in those days when I slavishly did my robotic routine. And I can’t connect.

Person is gone….

Or has blended in to the other people I have been—a night nurse, an itinerant cellist, an indifferent student.

And now, I’m somewhere else. 

There is such joy in it. 

Reading what has been dictated, seeing a house get cleaner, feeding and eating well.

A cat who nestles in the crook of my arms, in the hour before I start the day….

Getting to five o’clock, and knowing that my work is done.

And knowing that I know how to do things. 

I receive automatic responses from a publisher whose author I seek to quote?

I call them up, and gently tell a girl—she sounded all of 25—that I submitted the request three months ago, and could she tell me the status of that request?

She’s apologetic.

I reassure her.

And when will that request be granted?

“Today?”

That will be fine.

I go about my day, for which there is a “to do” list.

Most of it I will do.

Some I won’t.

Steps on the stairs—Raf.

The cats move to the foyer, I hear the click of key turning, and shout “Yo!”

He will cook.

I will do the dishes.

And go to bed…

…and rest.