Day: January 3, 2012

When I moved to Bedlam Farm, there were three things I dearly loved to do  in my spare time – read books, watch the Yankees once in awhile on TV, see movies. When I broke down, I was not able to do any of those things. Either they frightened me, or I was too restless and distracted to concentrate on them. I would go to bookstores, and buy stacks of books, and they would sit in piles in the living room, until I couldn’t bear to look at them and I gave them away.

Maria was in much the same condition when we met. We couldn’t even make it through a Disney movie together, unable to sit still long enough to read a book or watch a TV show.

We both remember trying to watch TV three years ago, and turning it off. I stopped buying books, cancelled the Satellite TV and Netflix, and the last movie I remember seeing until last year was “Pirates Of The Caribbean.” I blogged and started chasing sunsets with the Canon.  I have a sense of amnesia about the books, movies and TV shows of that time. It was as if we were swept through a huge black hole and people often mention things I have no memory of.

Last night marked a turning point, yet another in a time of turning points. Maria and I are each plowing through several books a week – this is really what we love – and are watching occasional episodes of “Seinfeld.” I got the satellite TV back,  and last week we re-upped with Netflix. Maria ordered a movie called Lars And The Real Girl,  a sweet, strange Indy film. It was a good choice for our first Night At The Movies. We ate corn chips, wrapped ourselves in blankets against the bitter cold, built a roaring fire (donkeys are in the barn), sipped tea and held hands when Maria cried. I think she will cry watching the Marx Brothers.

Some things are different. I’ve lost my taste for sports, even the Yankees, and for much TV. I think the Netflix thing will stick. Maria has never seen a John Wayne movie and that will change when “The Searchers” arrives, next up in our queue.

“Lars And The Real Girl” was strangely relevant. The heartbreaking small town hero breaks down, falls into delusion,and struggles to come back, aided by magical helpers. Hmm. Freud said there were no accidents, no jokes.

I think lots of people break down at different points in their lives. It is not that big of a deal. Most of us survive, and I know that some don’t. I am not interested much in recalling those days, but I remember an e-mail I got from a 15-year-old girl a couple of years ago, and I will not ever forget it. “Thank you for writing about your break-down,” she said. “I thought once of killing myself but decided not to. If somebody like you could have it and get through it, I could.” And she did, and e-mails me at least once a year with stories of her college, work, and impending marriage.

Some stories really stick.

It was nice to be back at the movies.

A philosopher once wrote that hell was a life lived in fear. I think I understand what he means. For me, a life lived in fear is like living in hell. Maybe, as the philosopher suggested, fear is Hell, and we are just not awakened enough to see it.

I’ve lived in fear for much of my life, and I expect it will shadow me in some form or another for the rest of my time. My experience with it has changed, though. It rarely runs my life, forces my decisions, makes me a refugee in my own life. I am sleeping well these days – for the first time in my life. Herman, my scary voice in the night, has gone to work for cable news, free-lancing online.  Last week, I told Maria I was conscious of having felt little or no fear for some days. A shocking thing for me, something I never said before. A glorious thing. I wanted to weep with joy. I remember the little boy who first felt fear in the night, and sometimes I talk to him now, and I say, we did it, we did it. It turned out all right.

Fear, like death and grief, is universal and like those things,  is  individual. We each experience it differently. Fear shaped and crippled me, nearly did me in. Fear is a life-killer.  But I have learned a lot about it, and made a great deal of progress with it. Doctors once told me my fear was probably genetic, that it ran in my family, and that I probably would need medication. That has not turned out to be so. Some long nights, but good nights.

I think I began to come closer to dealing with fear when I realized I would have to change the way I think. Tricky. Like dog training in a way, you just have to persistent, consistent and patient.  Meditation helped me to see how my mind worked, and I can’t say I was impressed. But fear is hell, I think. It kills love, stifles creativity, vanquishes hope and empathy and compassion. It is not healthy. It is not rational. I have rarely feared the things that happened to me, usually fearing only the things that did not. Fear and anger are first cousins, each feeding the other. When I feel fear – or anger – I stop. I wait. Something is wrong. In our culture, fear is marketed like candy, and it sells big-time. I think it is a drug now, like crack. Sold on every street corner, by journalists, doctors, lawyers, weather people, insurance companies,  politicians, bureaucrats, corporations, even some religions.

I am so grateful that I did not accept the idea that fear was a biological part of me, and that I ought to numb it with medication or accept it as a permanent part of me. That is a perfectly good choice for many people, but not for me. I think the philosopher was right. Living in fear is Hell, and I vowed not to end my life that way. I honor and encourage anyone strong or brave enough to live someplace else than in fear. I want to get up on some rooftops with a megaphone and shout, “don’t give in to it!  Don’t believe people who sell fear for money. It is just a space to cross!” But I can’t do that for other people. And I shouldn’t.

They have to want to do it themselves.

 

 

I wrote last week that I was surprised to get a number of grieving artifacts in the box from the crematorium that contained Rose’s ashes. These included a candle with Rose’s name on it, several packets of Rose’s hair, and a cement pawprint, as well as a tin box containing the ashes. This cost approximately $300. I said I hadn’t asked for most of these things, and I didn’t need them, and I said sort of jokingly that Rose would almost surely gag at the idea. Some people wrote me suggesting I was being a little hard, perhaps being a little too male. Some suggested women might be more comfortable with some of these things than I was. Maria was, in fact, comfortable with them, and she is saving the pawprint for the garden of our new farm when we get there. She brought out the Rose commemorative candle over the weekend.

I am continously struck by how individual a thing grieving over death is and also how conditioned we are to thinking about it in a particular way. I was shocked when the book tour for “Going Home” began in Ohio and I found myself looking out at a room filled with 200 people, many of who were laying out tissues in preparation for crying. No way, I said, I am doing a month long book tour like that. And I didn’t. By the end of the tour, we were doing some crying, and a lot of laughing.

Since few people like to talk about death or consider it, whether it involves animals or people, there is often great shock and confusion when it comes. Grieving for animals is sometimes even more complex, as we do it alone, without guides or guidelines. A friend e-mailed me a message recently saying he was sure my Christmas was sad and painful. It wasn’t, I wrote back. It was wonderful. He was surprised In his mind, the script called for intense and prolonged grieving. How could I have a joyous Christmas if Rose had died? We all live by the scripts we know, and when somebody goes off of the script, it is confusing.

Another friend wrote me about Rose and also talked about her mother’s long “battle with cancer,”and I was struck at the terminology, the idea that we can turn chronic illness – or death – into a conflict that can be won or lost. If we succumb to cancer, does it win, and do we really lose? Or is this, like the death of Rose, something that will happen to all of us, human and animal alike, in one form or another? I do not see death as a defeat, I guess, but as the conclusion of life, or at least life as we know it. Rose did not lose, and death did not win. I lost a friend recently, and I see no victory or defeat there, surely no battle.

I think Maria was right to keep the candle. It’s lit by me now as I write this, and I like having it. Talismans and rituals are important. By lighting it, I mark Rose’s life, remember her, and smile at the memory, experience what we call closure. I vote for tossing the rest out.

It seems to me that illness and death is about faith, love, connection, compassion and strength. The ultimate spiritual experience, not a combat experience. We are all heroes in this way, in that we will all face what my friend or my friend’s mother faced, and what Rose faced. I hope when my turn comes, I do not go to war. I believe my life- any life –  is itself a triumph, and a celebration. I hope the people around me see it that way and that there are no sad Christmases in my memory.