Yes, in parts, perhaps, but certainly not as a whole. Tell me. xo erin (I walk over a bridge almost every day. Purposefully. I walk to it. A bridge. A fucken bridge. And this bridge represents so much to me. There have been times I thought of jumping off of it, surrendering to the water, but not to die, but instead to live.)
Between the snowflakes and sunsets, evening meals and morning coffee, Thursdays and Fridays and Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, between walk and talk and sit and work, dance and read and cook and looking the other way, dozens wait for the moments spent with you. As true is there is so much love for you in hearts near and far. Sending a truest, deepest hug in hope it reaches you.
I'd sit on the edge of the bridge with you, legs dangling over the side, talking until the pain lessened. Maybe we'd take wine and feel the sun on the tops of our heads and keep talking until we didn't feel the sun any more. If that's how long it took to find some pain relief.
There was a deeply interesting discussion in the XIX century between George Bernard Shaw and G.K. Chesterton about the nature of pain. They were two people in good acquaintance of pain themselves. They concluded that there's nothing more unreal than pain.
To all my friends, thanks for the warm words. If you see a drop in my blogging, only know I am working to heal myself. Thoughts and prayers are welcomed and appreciated.
SarahA, the feeling is more of disintegration. I no longer recognize myself and I observe behavior in myself as if in another--one I don't know and quite frankly, don't like. This aura, if I can call it that, pushes me deeper and deeper into isolation since the number of people, online and off, that want to be around me grows smaller and smaller. My sense of perspective is gone. I obsess over the smallest and pettiest things as if they were critical and significant. Joy, as I see it in others, as too laughter and drive and ambition and the ability to connect with another person, day by day, seems more and more alien to me--and I say this not in some intellectual abstract way, but in some sort of leaden sinking experience I have, one that my mind cannot get itself around in the way of watching someone do something and knowing that one can't conceive of how it could be done, like a child watching a magic trick. I've become a danger to myself. My ability to function has been slipping away and continues to slip away at an alarming rate. I have never been one to ever seek or want help from anyone. I hate being a burden and my instinct is to retreat, to isolate, to go away like a wounded animal goes off to die alone. Although my circumstances in many areas of my life is currently adverse, I can say without any doubt, this darkness is not directly linked to any one event or situation. The darkness comes and goes of its own accord and I have discovered nothing which can prevent its coming and nothing which can expedite its leaving. The best analogy I can think of is a storm. And my only protection is to stay indoors and away from, it seems, virtually everything. I am seeking help. I am willing to explore options I have never been willing to explore before. Because something has to change before all of me disintegrates such that what is left is unrecognizable. And to answer the question I get most often, no, there is nothing anyone else can do. If you believe in prayer, pray for me.
Constance, all I know is pain, this pain of disintegration. And as much as I love philosophy and intellectual debate, all of it stands outside of the circle, this fire of anguish, and brings no reprieve, offers no succor, quenches no thirst. My reality is only pain, front and center. I can see nothing else. I can feel nothing else. I am a fish to its water and words are some distant light that flickers above my head, as mysterious as the afterlife. I wish I could better convey what I am experiencing.
Gerry, thanks for the visit. The word 'true' in my question is a poor choice. It was the first word that came to mind in the midst of my pain, but I've never been satisfied that 'true' was the right word for what I wanted to say. There is a truth in pain I think that is different than the truth in pleasure. Of course, I'm using three words (pain, pleasure, truth) and all of them are so vague as to be meaningless.
When I was at university, I took Latin. I remember translating a statement and I can't remember who said it, but in effect it said, There is no vanity in illness. Forgive me for the terrible paraphrase. But I remember about that time having the flu or some like illness and thinking about that statement, that in illness, vanity slips away and we have some sort of 'core' experience--don't ask me to explain what a 'core experience' is. But it seems from my own life, what we find in pain and what we find in pleasure are very different things, and I'm not pointing to the obvious, but I think the fundamental processing of both is not related but rather as birds to fish or air to water or whatever example you want to use. Pleasure is a wide experience; pain, a narrow one. Where pleasure opens; pain closes. Where pleasure seeks life; pain withdraws, retreats. Or something like that.
I suppose I could have asked, Is there anything like pain, anything as pure and singleminded, anything that takes the stage with such force as to capture every eye and every ear, to transcend the white noise of life, to consume all and everything, insatiable. I don't know. I do know the pain I am in is like that, and, is unlike any other pain I've ever experienced, like some super virus resistant to all known antibiotics.
"When you find yourself feeling tragic all day long, every day, this is a clear sign of clinical depression. And science has proven that clinical depression is a matter of brain chemistry. Perhaps all you need is talking therapy. But when things get out of control, do be kind to yourself and get help. It's not noble to suffer needlessly. Take positive action to put an end to that feeling of hopelessness, when you fall into despair, because you tell yourself there is no way out. We are supposed to feel everything in this life, but we should not be oppressed by any feeling."
Have Commitment to seek help in understanding what you suffer from and learning how to end that suffering. Because only you can really help yourself to break free from your prison of pain, no? Reach out. And watch out that if you find hope, it won't sustain itself without any additional effort, it'll fade if you don't allow a professional to help you. You, like every other artistic personality, feel too deep to be able to have a clear vision all the time. We're too complex to heal ourselves, like the thaumaturge.
Cristian, I've never known if your first name is Cristian or René so forgive me if I have it wrong.
Yesterday, after the most horrific night I've ever experienced, and I don't use that word lightly, I reached the same conclusion. I have made phone calls and I'm seeking professional help. I did get one smile from my efforts: the first question asked was about money--did I have insurance and if not, how was I going to pay for professional services. But I do know, beyond any shadow of doubt (and almost a year of trying) that I cannot heal myself and the slope is only getting more slippery. I want to smile again. I want to know what that is like from an actual experience and not from memory. Feeling deep is a double-edged sword. I'm just on the wrong side of that blade at the moment and to bleed is to bleed.
Let me give one example, a small one, but something concrete. Last night I watched the movie La Vie en Rose, the bioptic of Edith Piaf. There is a scene from her childhood where her father is performing in the street and when asked if the child also was in the act, forces her to 'do something.' She was I guess about ten at this time, more or less. So, she sings for the first time. What was my reaction? I cried and as I'm crying I'm at a lost to explain why. I cannot, even today explain it. I cannot imagine anyone else having that reaction. And the feeling is disturbing, to have such an emotional reaction for no apparent reason--the scene was just not that moving. Even this morning, as I sit before my computer, my emotions have been literally like waves. One moment, for no reason, I am overwhelmed and tears form in my eyes and then, just as quickly, I feel normal, and then another wave hits and the seesawing back and forth is so intense, so quick, so sudden, without stimulus. This is what scares me. There is no stimulus. I'm just sitting here. Surfing. Just reading blogs and news, nothing out of the ordinary. Yet I feel as a small boat, tossed about in a stormy sea, just hanging on for dear life. That is how it is, this morning.
Here is another example, something else tangible and I believe a more recent development. Each morning my routine is the same. I get up, get a cup of coffee and check my email, blog and the news. So this is the scene, morning, me sitting, cup of coffee in my left hand, right hand on the mouse clicking through the "paper."
Just recently, however, I've noticed that my grip on the cup is white knuckled, the tension such to break a delicate cup. Nothing is happening. I'm just sitting, waking up, reading emails, nothing too stimulating or upsetting. And this tension arises and I am not even aware of it until I notice my cup is shaking and then I notice this death grip I have on the cup and I relax my hand and I sit completely perplexed at what is happening or why it is happening and equally perplexed as to what else might happen that I seem to have no say in, no control over.
My days in this gorgeous autumn are terrifying. I am in uncharted territory. These are new experiences. And I am as lost as I would be on an alien world.
Whatever path you choose, never forget to love your inner boy, as much as you love your son. Needs it more than anyone, and that's why the grown up sometimes needs to ask for help, not exactly because of himself, but because of his vulnerable zone of his soul, that we call the inner child. I'm glad you're waiting for an appointment.
Tree, I had an experience this summer in front of a painting. I thought it was a photograph but it was a painting. It was a self portrait by the artist. Chicago. Couldn't remember the man's name then and don't now. R something. It was beautiful. Fucking beautiful. And painful. He was pained. I have been saving these feelings since then. I've had them in my chest since then and they've grown little bean plant roots. They've grown into me.
And now I see you and I'm afraid the opposite had happened. I saw you as a painting, your words, your creations. And now I realize you are a photograph, the real thing, no artist's safe rendition of one aspect. You are the photograph, the man himself. And you are in pain. I am sorry I didn't see it sooner, REALLY see it. I will carry you in my chest. Take root. I will pet you like a kitten in my shirt. Can that possibly help? I fear not. But I will do it anyway. It's all I have.
Thanks Erin. You know, when I first started blogging, other bloggers would say they wished they knew me, kinda like you did a month or so ago. They would say I was an enigma. My answer to them was always the same. Read my writing. I am completely naked within the fiction and the poetry--all of it. I wish I was good enough just to be fictional in letters and arts but I'm not at that level of craft. So everything I write is a shard of me, a sliver, a tile in the mosaic, perhaps the truest journal I could keep. When my characters are in pain, that pain is mine; likewise, when amatory, that is the energy in me. So when someone reads what I write, really reads it (as opposed to skims or just reads comments in order to comment, or just leaves a note to entice me back to their blog) I feel a rare connection--I say rare because it happens so infrequently and when it does happen it usually doesn't last. Few bloggers stay the course. Most are like shooting stars. Blogging is the hobby of the moment and like a lot of hobbies, fades from interest. The only different is, what also fades are those connections and relationships that occur when one is really, really reading another. My own experience is, those relationships are as real as any I've had or got in my 'real' life.
Hugs to you Erin. If I have a gift, it is intuition and I'm pretty sure I have it. And I'm pretty sure it is telling me you are a rare soul, brimming with love, as genuine and authentic and real as the dirt under my feet.
28 comments:
I drive over the Harpeth river
every day
over a bridge
over a fucking bridge
you know
what I'm saying?
you see
on 30 December
1864
about 4pm
on an indian summer
day
20,000 men
found no bridge
and
20,000 other men
with hot barrel
marching toward
and
five hours
later
10,000
yes
10,000
fill in
your
own blank
do I know what you're saying?
Yes, in parts, perhaps, but certainly not as a whole. Tell me.
xo
erin
(I walk over a bridge almost every day. Purposefully. I walk to it. A bridge. A fucken bridge. And this bridge represents so much to me. There have been times I thought of jumping off of it, surrendering to the water, but not to die, but instead to live.)
yes
there is a bridge, is there not . . .
I wish you could reach me, I do
but there is too much geography
too much history
too much time
never break management lines
if my son asks, tell him I love him
Between the snowflakes and sunsets, evening meals and morning coffee, Thursdays and Fridays and Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, between walk and talk and sit and work, dance and read and cook and looking the other way, dozens wait for the moments spent with you. As true is there is so much love for you in hearts near and far. Sending a truest, deepest hug in hope it reaches you.
Tightest of Hugs.
I'd sit on the edge of the bridge with you, legs dangling over the side, talking until the pain lessened. Maybe we'd take wine and feel the sun on the tops of our heads and keep talking until we didn't feel the sun any more. If that's how long it took to find some pain relief.
There was a deeply interesting discussion in the XIX century between George Bernard Shaw and G.K. Chesterton about the nature of pain. They were two people in good acquaintance of pain themselves. They concluded that there's nothing more unreal than pain.
To all my friends, thanks for the warm words. If you see a drop in my blogging, only know I am working to heal myself. Thoughts and prayers are welcomed and appreciated.
My thoughts and prayers are always with you.
As are mine, H. Good to hear your voice. :-)
Is the leaf
separate from the tree?
that it might appear to be
is pain
Hugs Tree. Warm thoughts, sincere prayers, and BIG hugs.
'the deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain'.....Kahlil Gibran
SarahA, the feeling is more of disintegration. I no longer recognize myself and I observe behavior in myself as if in another--one I don't know and quite frankly, don't like. This aura, if I can call it that, pushes me deeper and deeper into isolation since the number of people, online and off, that want to be around me grows smaller and smaller. My sense of perspective is gone. I obsess over the smallest and pettiest things as if they were critical and significant. Joy, as I see it in others, as too laughter and drive and ambition and the ability to connect with another person, day by day, seems more and more alien to me--and I say this not in some intellectual abstract way, but in some sort of leaden sinking experience I have, one that my mind cannot get itself around in the way of watching someone do something and knowing that one can't conceive of how it could be done, like a child watching a magic trick. I've become a danger to myself. My ability to function has been slipping away and continues to slip away at an alarming rate. I have never been one to ever seek or want help from anyone. I hate being a burden and my instinct is to retreat, to isolate, to go away like a wounded animal goes off to die alone. Although my circumstances in many areas of my life is currently adverse, I can say without any doubt, this darkness is not directly linked to any one event or situation. The darkness comes and goes of its own accord and I have discovered nothing which can prevent its coming and nothing which can expedite its leaving. The best analogy I can think of is a storm. And my only protection is to stay indoors and away from, it seems, virtually everything. I am seeking help. I am willing to explore options I have never been willing to explore before. Because something has to change before all of me disintegrates such that what is left is unrecognizable. And to answer the question I get most often, no, there is nothing anyone else can do. If you believe in prayer, pray for me.
Constance, all I know is pain, this pain of disintegration. And as much as I love philosophy and intellectual debate, all of it stands outside of the circle, this fire of anguish, and brings no reprieve, offers no succor, quenches no thirst. My reality is only pain, front and center. I can see nothing else. I can feel nothing else. I am a fish to its water and words are some distant light that flickers above my head, as mysterious as the afterlife. I wish I could better convey what I am experiencing.
pleasure?
Gerry, thanks for the visit. The word 'true' in my question is a poor choice. It was the first word that came to mind in the midst of my pain, but I've never been satisfied that 'true' was the right word for what I wanted to say. There is a truth in pain I think that is different than the truth in pleasure. Of course, I'm using three words (pain, pleasure, truth) and all of them are so vague as to be meaningless.
When I was at university, I took Latin. I remember translating a statement and I can't remember who said it, but in effect it said, There is no vanity in illness. Forgive me for the terrible paraphrase. But I remember about that time having the flu or some like illness and thinking about that statement, that in illness, vanity slips away and we have some sort of 'core' experience--don't ask me to explain what a 'core experience' is. But it seems from my own life, what we find in pain and what we find in pleasure are very different things, and I'm not pointing to the obvious, but I think the fundamental processing of both is not related but rather as birds to fish or air to water or whatever example you want to use. Pleasure is a wide experience; pain, a narrow one. Where pleasure opens; pain closes. Where pleasure seeks life; pain withdraws, retreats. Or something like that.
I suppose I could have asked, Is there anything like pain, anything as pure and singleminded, anything that takes the stage with such force as to capture every eye and every ear, to transcend the white noise of life, to consume all and everything, insatiable. I don't know. I do know the pain I am in is like that, and, is unlike any other pain I've ever experienced, like some super virus resistant to all known antibiotics.
I must use the words of a friend of mine:
"When you find yourself feeling tragic all day long, every day, this is a clear sign of clinical depression. And science has proven that clinical depression is a matter of brain chemistry.
Perhaps all you need is talking therapy. But when things get out of control, do be kind to yourself and get help. It's not noble to suffer needlessly.
Take positive action to put an end to that feeling of hopelessness, when you fall into despair, because you tell yourself there is no way out.
We are supposed to feel everything in this life, but we should not be oppressed by any feeling."
Have Commitment to seek help in understanding what you suffer from and learning how to end that suffering. Because only you can really help yourself to break free from your prison of pain, no? Reach out. And watch out that if you find hope, it won't sustain itself without any additional effort, it'll fade if you don't allow a professional to help you.
You, like every other artistic personality, feel too deep to be able to have a clear vision all the time. We're too complex to heal ourselves, like the thaumaturge.
Cristian, I've never known if your first name is Cristian or René so forgive me if I have it wrong.
Yesterday, after the most horrific night I've ever experienced, and I don't use that word lightly, I reached the same conclusion. I have made phone calls and I'm seeking professional help. I did get one smile from my efforts: the first question asked was about money--did I have insurance and if not, how was I going to pay for professional services. But I do know, beyond any shadow of doubt (and almost a year of trying) that I cannot heal myself and the slope is only getting more slippery. I want to smile again. I want to know what that is like from an actual experience and not from memory. Feeling deep is a double-edged sword. I'm just on the wrong side of that blade at the moment and to bleed is to bleed.
Let me give one example, a small one, but something concrete. Last night I watched the movie La Vie en Rose, the bioptic of Edith Piaf. There is a scene from her childhood where her father is performing in the street and when asked if the child also was in the act, forces her to 'do something.' She was I guess about ten at this time, more or less. So, she sings for the first time. What was my reaction? I cried and as I'm crying I'm at a lost to explain why. I cannot, even today explain it. I cannot imagine anyone else having that reaction. And the feeling is disturbing, to have such an emotional reaction for no apparent reason--the scene was just not that moving. Even this morning, as I sit before my computer, my emotions have been literally like waves. One moment, for no reason, I am overwhelmed and tears form in my eyes and then, just as quickly, I feel normal, and then another wave hits and the seesawing back and forth is so intense, so quick, so sudden, without stimulus. This is what scares me. There is no stimulus. I'm just sitting here. Surfing. Just reading blogs and news, nothing out of the ordinary. Yet I feel as a small boat, tossed about in a stormy sea, just hanging on for dear life. That is how it is, this morning.
Here is another example, something else tangible and I believe a more recent development. Each morning my routine is the same. I get up, get a cup of coffee and check my email, blog and the news. So this is the scene, morning, me sitting, cup of coffee in my left hand, right hand on the mouse clicking through the "paper."
Just recently, however, I've noticed that my grip on the cup is white knuckled, the tension such to break a delicate cup. Nothing is happening. I'm just sitting, waking up, reading emails, nothing too stimulating or upsetting. And this tension arises and I am not even aware of it until I notice my cup is shaking and then I notice this death grip I have on the cup and I relax my hand and I sit completely perplexed at what is happening or why it is happening and equally perplexed as to what else might happen that I seem to have no say in, no control over.
My days in this gorgeous autumn are terrifying. I am in uncharted territory. These are new experiences. And I am as lost as I would be on an alien world.
Whatever path you choose, never forget to love your inner boy, as much as you love your son. Needs it more than anyone, and that's why the grown up sometimes needs to ask for help, not exactly because of himself, but because of his vulnerable zone of his soul, that we call the inner child.
I'm glad you're waiting for an appointment.
Take good care (of little Treé).
C.
Did that about ten years ago, and it was good and helpful. The little guy is fine. It's the big guy that needs help. :-D
Tree, I had an experience this summer in front of a painting. I thought it was a photograph but it was a painting. It was a self portrait by the artist. Chicago. Couldn't remember the man's name then and don't now. R something. It was beautiful. Fucking beautiful. And painful. He was pained. I have been saving these feelings since then. I've had them in my chest since then and they've grown little bean plant roots. They've grown into me.
And now I see you and I'm afraid the opposite had happened. I saw you as a painting, your words, your creations. And now I realize you are a photograph, the real thing, no artist's safe rendition of one aspect. You are the photograph, the man himself. And you are in pain. I am sorry I didn't see it sooner, REALLY see it. I will carry you in my chest. Take root. I will pet you like a kitten in my shirt. Can that possibly help? I fear not. But I will do it anyway. It's all I have.
much love
erin
Thanks Erin. You know, when I first started blogging, other bloggers would say they wished they knew me, kinda like you did a month or so ago. They would say I was an enigma. My answer to them was always the same. Read my writing. I am completely naked within the fiction and the poetry--all of it. I wish I was good enough just to be fictional in letters and arts but I'm not at that level of craft. So everything I write is a shard of me, a sliver, a tile in the mosaic, perhaps the truest journal I could keep. When my characters are in pain, that pain is mine; likewise, when amatory, that is the energy in me. So when someone reads what I write, really reads it (as opposed to skims or just reads comments in order to comment, or just leaves a note to entice me back to their blog) I feel a rare connection--I say rare because it happens so infrequently and when it does happen it usually doesn't last. Few bloggers stay the course. Most are like shooting stars. Blogging is the hobby of the moment and like a lot of hobbies, fades from interest. The only different is, what also fades are those connections and relationships that occur when one is really, really reading another. My own experience is, those relationships are as real as any I've had or got in my 'real' life.
Hugs to you Erin. If I have a gift, it is intuition and I'm pretty sure I have it. And I'm pretty sure it is telling me you are a rare soul, brimming with love, as genuine and authentic and real as the dirt under my feet.
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