Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Heart Of Darkness

Got those summertime dark blues that I usually get this time of year. It's the blood-boiling heat, it's the unexpected sight of a snake slipping into the border grass, it's the way the light gives way as the day progresses and the storms build up and the cicadas sing either with joy or with the foreshadowing of doom.

It's my birthday. Soon. Fuck.
May just called and asked if it would stress me out too much if she asked what I wanted for my birthday.
I began to cry. Then babble-talk. Then make a funny noise.

My heart just feels dark today and people keep calling me to say, "Let's do this. Do you want to do that?" and I think, "No, no, no," just let me rot here in peace and misery and yet, I took a walk, I am going to town. I am going to the Opera House tonight for a read-through of a play that I've been asked to co-direct or maybe assistant-direct or maybe take notes for the director or maybe be the comic relief for since Colin isn't involved in this one. I am not sure.

I am either dying or else so stressed out that I hurt everywhere. I am either the busiest person on earth or the laziest. How can you tell when every fucking thing you do has results which are so transient that you can't tell they've been done?
I am either brilliant or a fool or somewhere inbetween and I am no more unique than one of the tadpoles in that dark body of water in my backyard which is going to be a pond one day.

I don't know but I know that I am soaked with sweat and need a shower and I am trying to accept my feelings of negative self-judgment without judgment. I am trying to accept my feelings of anxiety without any either.
I'm trying to work on world peace, too. I'll let you know how all of this works out.

It's just a day. Tomorrow will probably be fine. Or maybe even in an hour I'll be sitting in a restaurant with Jessie and I'll think, "See? This isn't so bad. Not so bad at all," and all will be well and oh yes, I'll be twenty pounds thinner and all of my clothes will fit.

That's me today. My heart is dark but I know there's a light switch nearby and the last thing I need to do is to sit and hide instead of getting up from my place where I'm curled up on the floor in the darkness and just reach out my hand to turn it on.

That's all. I know it.
Here I go. I am standing up. I am fumbling about in the dark. It's right here. I know it is. I'll find it.

26 comments:

  1. Just by writing this, you're pulling others -- like me -- up out of the darkness of the day, too.

    Love.

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  2. Love to you Mary. Let it pass on by.

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  3. You described the way I feel so often in the middle of the night. If I can't fall asleep or if I wake up and stay awake... I dwell in that dark spot of the heart. It's in all of us, but I feel like some of us are more affected than others. We feel it more. The extremes.
    The daytime heart darkness is so much more difficult to deal with. When I feel it coming on, I flee with the kids somewhere. When that's not possible it makes for some long, no good days.
    Sending hugs and love to you. Thank you for writing about it - because it really helps to know kindred spirits are out there.
    (end of selfish rambling...)

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  4. You write about the darkness so eloquently! Re the light switch.....I believe it isn't out there on the wall where you are groping....it is somewhere inside within reach if you could only see it. Oy....the pain.....seeking enlightenment hurts.

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  5. Yes, I know this heavy anxiety. You wrote: "How can you tell when every fucking thing you do has results which are so transient that you can't tell they've been done?" and it resonates so deeply within me. Busy busy BUSY and it feels like nothing is done...or undone as soon as I do it. If you get the chance, I recommend reading a book to Owen. Reading a book to a child always calms me.

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  6. You're a woman who makes paths and lights candles. An amazing woman.

    Hope the day feels better soon.

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  7. It was pretty funny when you started making noises. I appreciated it.
    I'm proud of you for going out to lunch with Jessie. It's one of those things that we mean when we say that sometimes the things that will make us feel better are the hardest things to do. I love you when you're happy, I love you when you're blue.

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  8. You just described what I have been feeling for about a week, but it is starting to lift now and I may be back to normal soon. I hope.

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  9. Mine comes with the full moon, without fail.

    I hope your blues are waning gibbous.

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  10. Ms. Moon, you may think that all the lights are extinguished in your soul, but your writing proves otherwise. Thank you ... and yes, this too shall pass ... like gas ;-D

    I've gotten to thinking of all emotions as weather ... and weather *always* changes, always moves ... eventually ...

    The heat is driving us humans crazy, I think. Too much heat = explosive exhaustion and a bestial enervation that can sear away our civility. I wonder if people in the Middle East are as maddened as they seem because of the heat -- the unrelenting, everywhere heat ... and the blasted air -- unless you're a $$-baron of some kind, you're breathing dust and ash. Add on the burquas that women are forced to wear and you've got suffocation on top of everything else. Add all the warriors doing their thing ... KABOOM.

    Whoops. I'm turning off my own lights by thinking my doomsday thoughts.

    You write, "...every fucking thing you do has results which are so transient that you can't tell they've been done" -- Sounds like housework, eh? ... I once found a quotation from Pema Chodron (a spot-on Buddhist sage) that turned me right around when I was convinced that *everything* I do comes around to chaos again, so why bother? ... Then I came upon these words:

    "Impermanence protects us."

    I don't know how, but ALL the lights went on, for an instant, and that's all it took. Somehow I apprehend the truth of Pema's words, even though my "fuck-it mind" doesn't have a clue.

    Words like those get me through.

    *Everything* is changing, all the time ... That truth is our bane and our blessing.

    Thank you for your rare and lucid words ... Be well.

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  11. Ms. Moon - I hope you find that switch soon and feel better.

    You describe it so perfectly. Do tell me where the switch is when you find it.

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  12. Ms. Moon, every time you fumble for the lights and tell us about it I feel a little less in the dark. The snake slides into the shadows, and sometimes the world is not enough. Or we are not enough for this world. Somedays you eat the bear, somedays the bear eats you. Stephen Stills, I believe. Hope you're eating bear soon. Hope your birthday doesn't make you sad. I hated this year, quite a bit. Hope the Opera House makes you smile. Hugs.

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  13. Ms. Moon ,

    Sometimes it can be a perfectly normal day, and I just want out. I cry for a moment , on the back porch, watching the finch and a cardinal or two. I don't understand much of anything. But I do love that there are women out there that understand this.

    It just is sometimes.

    May it pass quietly.

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  14. I am either the busiest person on earth or the laziest. How can you tell when every fucking thing you do has results which are so transient that you can't tell they've been done?
    I am either brilliant or a fool or somewhere inbetween and I am no more unique than one of the tadpoles in that dark body of water in my backyard which is going to be a pond one day.----

    THANK YOU for writing and sharing this. We aren't alone.

    xo

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  15. You make me feel so much better about my own darkness. In yoga, the teacher said surrender, and it helped me try to let go of other people and how I expect them to be what they aren't. It helped, but your line about the light switch also helped.

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  16. Knowing that this too shall pass has helped me. In the meantime, I just have to let the fears and the "stuff" flow through. Hope tomorrow is a better day.

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  17. Ms Moon-

    Whether you like it or not, you change us. You heal us. You get us through. I could say "me" but I'm sure it's "us".

    Not everything you do is transient. Not by a long shot. You helped me through the worst (and best) year of my life.

    And I love you mucho

    The love is the light

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  18. @Deb -- YES ... Thank you for articulating this with such lucid empathy ...

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  19. Elizabeth- Hell. ONE of us will find the light-switch.

    Jo- Thank-you, sweetie. It will pass. I know it.

    Corinne- NEVER do you selfishly ramble. I think we all go through this.

    Lo- Exactly! The light switch IS within us and we can run all over creation trying to find it when really, we just have to turn inward and well, wait, sometimes. Thank-you.

    Lora- I agree. Unfortunately I do not always have Owen to read to. And he's still at the age where reading to him is more like, "See the puppy? What does the puppy say?" Etc. Still, it is somehow soothing.

    Ms. Trouble- Indeed.

    Kathleen Scott- I feel like a woman who stumbles around from tree to tree. But thank-you.

    May- It was so wonderful to be with you and Jess at the Goodwill. I wish we had all found one garment apiece, at least, which made us feel beautiful and rich and happy. Sigh. But you know what? My babies make me feel that way. So.
    I love you.

    Lois- Oh! I hope so too!

    Lisa- And do your periods as well? That's pretty personal. But.
    At least you can plan for your dark times!

    Jaliya-
    "Impermanence protects us."
    I am going to ponder this. Thank-you.

    Mwa- You're about to find yours big time, honey-chile-new-mama-to-be-soon.

    Mel- I think I will eat the deer tonight. How's that? The Opera House always makes me smile.

    deb- The older I get, the less I seem to need to ask "why" but just understand that some things ARE and try to learn to get to the other side of them. Even if it happens daily.

    Maggie May- As John Lennon said, "No one, I think, is in my tree. I mean it must be high or low."
    But. He was John Lennon.

    Nancy C- Surrender IS important. She's right.

    Syd- True. Too true.

    Michelle- You help me every day. I swear. I think of you and I think of the brightest star in the sky at night. And chickens. Which makes me so happy.
    Love you.

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  20. I am in your tree, goddammit. The terrain seems very similar. I could have written what you posted here, just not as well. Not as well.

    I hope today is better for you.

    Your ass is loved.

    SB

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  21. My birthday is on Friday. Double Fuck. Just wanted to let you know there is someone a thousand miles away sharing your misery.

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  22. Ms. Bastard-Beloved- I can't wait to meet your real ass so I can beloved it to pieces.

    Judah- Oh. I do appreciate.

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  23. Wonderful writing!

    Summer blues are so difficult...people expect everything to be so damn sunny in the summer, and for some of us, the heat simply fries our brains and leaves us defenseless. Ugh.

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  24. i love what everyone said.
    i esp loved the transient line too.
    i think you are wise and helpful.
    i hope you're feeling better by now, for now.
    i know what you mean about the light switch. sometimes it is that simple, and that hard to find. but it is always there, somehow, isn't it?

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  25. Like so many above, boy can I relate and appreciate your words!! As the temp climbs to the expected 100, tomorrow is my birthday and I just finished my first week of a 6 1/2 week process of daily radiation treatment - and i'm whacked on tamoxifen so hot flashing night sweating and wondering when will I feel okay in my own skin again. Will I ever feel a sense of 'normal'?! Shouldn't I just be happy to be alive?!?! So I ask myself to get over myself and try to visualize autumn breezes, days without daily medical appts, and for normal to be at least a little more clearly defined. Thank you for putting words so honestly to some of the turmoil within, Karin

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