Huntress of the Lens

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Saturday, September 12, 2009

Paper Airplane

I have come to relish these early morning hours, and I never thought that possible. When the alarm used to go off at 6:45 so I could fight with Molly about getting up and getting ready to go to a school she hated, for a day she would hate and complain about later. It seemed like a cruel joke that morning came at the same time every day and that I would have to fight with someone who didn't have to be anywhere for over an hour. This morning, like many, I find myself awake well before the alarm I set last night, and since I've left everyone else in the house to their slumber I get to have some solitude. 


When I was a teenager doing hard time in solitary confinement in my room the word alone was just the collection of bars on my cell. For four years my body was confined to one room for failure to comply; my only escape the words I could take in, the words I could write out and my weekly parole to my Dad's house. I hated being alone, I would dream of having a sibling to talk to, or a regular family, or the courage to sneak out. As an adult I will still sometimes punish myself by sending me to my room. I've heard of lions, moved from concrete cages to their new grassy habitats that still pace the confines of their former area. I've sometimes been like that.


Now solitude has taken on a different flavor, and it's savory and sweet at the same time. I can hear myself think. I can write without answering questions or feeling compelled to throw my two cents into a conversation. In the best moments I can just sit and let the silence speak to me. There is very little silence in a house with six people living in it.


This morning I'm pondering my health, and what may become of it as summer gives up her fight and makes way for autumn. I see Dr. E on Tuesday and get to hear lab results from a blood test that was taken a month too early to be current. I will once again ask him to take this renegade gland from my throat, not knowing if that will really make me feel better. When I went to see him with Nadia the other day he asked how I was feeling and I said "I've never felt worse in my life." and he said "Well, you've still got that smile." as if one's ability to smile were an accurate gauge to well-being. 


Yesterday while I was getting my hair done, I wasn't able to stay conscious. Shayla and Molly laughed at me and called it sleep, but it was different from inside where I was. I was completely out during my whole cut and color, and only vaguely remember any of it. I could hear them talking, but couldn't keep my eyes open or my head up. Molly took my picture and I don't look asleep I look dead. I wanted so badly to hold my head up and open my eyes, and I could do neither. It's happened at the nail salon as well. I think it's the sitting still that does it, I just get overcome by exhaustion, or whatever it is that forces me out of my body, and I have no control over it. It's the thing that happened the other night when Michael rushed out and bought a blood pressure cuff, because he was afraid I was crashing again. Thank God it's never happened at work, or that I haven't been able to fight it off while driving. Is this the "illness" that I have been diagnosed with? Will taking out my thyroid enable me to be or feel normal again?


I have this work person I become. Smiles and interest and production. It's as if my clients are sky hooks I can hang from to stay in the now. When I get home it's different arts that will hold me, if I lay down I'm toast. I blame it on my thyroid, because there is nothing to be seen in an MRI or CAT scan that says there's anything else that's wrong with me. I want it out, because it's a symbol of everything that isn't right with me, here in my physical body. My spiritual body, that glowing egg of light that surrounds me from the inside out is healthy and growing, but that little physical core that is at it's center is failing me. I feel fear, but I can let that go sometimes. I know I won't just become pure awareness and leave my physical body, because I am anchored here by the pain in my head and the lead in my limbs. 


These are the real moments of my life, these solitary bits where I don't have to smile or show interest, don't need to actively participate in loving anyone because it's just a state of being. I'm tired though, so very tired and here in my morning quiet I can just be that. I can choose to share or hide the torment of being physical, I can find one new idea to fold into a paper airplane to fly for one more day. I secretly cherish the hope that if I offer the sacrifice of my evil malfunctioning thyroid I will get my life back. Not that I want my old life back, but a new life where it feels good to inhabit a body and I can be and do all these things that for now I only feel. Both my clients for today cancelled, maybe I'll redo my thigh and let that other welcome pain anchor me for a change. It's old and needs the water to be made solid and bright. I haven't tattooed myself for a while, maybe that's today's bit of flying origami.

1 comment:

  1. A day for yourself? Fabulous! You DO deserves such an indulgence Laura. Please, make way for your own needs for once, and be dammed anyone that complains about it.

    I Love You so dearly this day.

    XO

    ReplyDelete

The fish can fly, the dogs and cats dance together and all the flowers are edible.