At the end of it all

All the grasses are singing hymns.

As the sun sets low they humbly glow,

As the birds get still they gather,

As dusk arrives they gently wave,

To passersby and griever.

Fringed and reeded and meadow sweet,

Tufted and fine and common,

From prairied, salted, rice worn fields,

A chorus rises from the breath

Of all the love that’s always left

Still, at the end of it all.

What’s wrong with me?

My head is foggy. I can’t think of anything to write. I’m exhausted. Maybe I have some kind of ailment. Maybe it’s lack-of-fiber-myalgia or osteo-lyme disease. Or a serious case of how-will-I-eat-when-I’m-old-iosis. Whatever it is, I’m always searching for why I’m tired, why my left temple hurts, why the sound of people chewing fills me with rage. I’m always asking what, for the love of god, is wrong with me? Just ask my browser history:

January: depression statistics, New Hampshire vs. California

April: tightness in chest, sweating, anxiety

August: sudden dark freckle on forehead

October: pumpkin seeds and pain, lower left side

Clearly, the only thing wrong with me is that I’ve come down with a horrible case of seasonal googling disorder.

It’s astonishing how much time I’ve spent sifting through the days, searching for why I’m just not feeling right. Why I’m just so tired. And while there may be many legitimate reasons for my malaise that google can help me with, I read something a couple of years ago that really hit home. I read that the antidote for exhaustion is not necessarily rest. The antidote for exhaustion is wholeheartedness. And I wholeheartedly agree.

What do I care most about? What is the conversation I want to be having with the world? Am I having it?

Pamela! This is not a dress rehearsal. Don’t be afraid. The world is waiting for you. Terrible things and good things will happen. Go, look at the sky, lay on your back and see the stars, watch the red trees reflected in the lake, hear the owl, the woodpecker, the emergency alarm of the chipmunk. Leave your office chair turned on its side, slam the door behind you, put down the cell phone, get off of Facebook. Silence the noise outside of yourself. Silence the noise inside.

Pamela! Live wholeheartedly! There is nothing wrong with you, except you keep forgetting to live the life you were meant to live.

On our morning walk to gather chestnuts and ticks, Gilligan and I keep pace without the same agenda. What a relief to live fully in the presence of another, without smoothing the wrinkles of our differences, without gathering forces, without cause or word. When we get home there may be burr or bittersweet, but just now, moving in the light of silence side by side, what a gift; to meet at the altar of the day and find communion.

I’ve been told there’s a parachute somewhere that will help you land in your own color, but all I know is to watch for what propels you, what lifts you, where you circle back around. Are you light with grace, or limping numbly through?

Watch for the speck of sparrow in that endless, empty sky; how it catches the corner of your heart and swoops you up and toward it; I know a sparrow won’t pay the bills, but skies are dark where all the crows gather, leaving you blind and blackened and blank.

Watch for the red cap that hangs in the pine, the blue and urgent cry, the gold and purple finch. I’m here to tell you this is color enough to land, and color enough to fly.

I didn’t know I was expecting him but when he arrived I knew him all along, and invited him in without hesitation. This was the visitor I’d wished for all my life. This was love. And then, eventually, it wasn’t love at all – it was simply a distorted reflection of all my own broken bits, and I couldn’t stand looking, and so I left.

After all this, and several times all this, I’d still like to fall in love again before I die. Because when it comes!!!! Oh, when it comes? It arrives in a rush of pale pink lava-sparks, your brain-bones are replaced with wavy poet-bones, you hear cellos again, you love so much you even love thy god-awful neighbor. You leap out of bed in the morning as if propelled by pink fizz, and run into heroic pink arms.

Falling in love is such a high that some relationship spent their entire lives chasing that first perfect burst of pink flavor. That time when you laughed so hard you cried, that time at the cabin, that time driving to the mountains. That time you accidentally fell into hot lava and fused yourself to a tilt-a-whirl.

That time, and that other time, and the next time. But what a disappointment to sit in THIS time; watching him chew across the table, jaw making that wretched clicking sound, just the smacking sounds of disappointment and his skin tags to keep you company.

I believe in love, but I’m wary of too much pink; I’m made dizzy by its fun-house lies. It seems to me that falling in love always falls away. It disintegrates like cotton candy in the rain, and if you aren’t careful, when it pulls away it leaves behind a freak show. And you are the freaking star.

Is there anything more painful than to stare into your own reflection and see an endless stretch of disappointment; a squat and shrunken heart; a round bloat of expectation; a huge headed rage? After all the pink, you stand before a funhouse mirror and don’t recognize yourself. You don’t recognize him. He doesn’t recognize you. What the hell happened to the carnival lights? To the bubbleyummy flip? To that tilt-a-whirl of love?

I’m not sure, but I think if it visits me again I’ll be brave enough to let go of the safety bar and step off the ride. I’ll be strong enough to make eye contact with his skin tags. I’ll be wise enough to know what I’m really wishing for. Maybe next time I fall in love, when all the lights have pulled away and the night gets quiet, I’ll be left standing in an empty field under a sky of god, hand in hand with flesh and bone, where love can come to stay.

They say mental illness runs in families, but I think, more accurately, it sneaks up behind the back of the ordinary. For instance, ordinarily we have no problem with illness, but anything mental belongs shuffling through hallways in another part of town.

Except mental illness doesn’t show up in a hospital gown. It shows up everywhere, and is very good at concealing itself. It hides in the deep pockets of political power and is often wrapped and shoved under the family tree.

But I think it’s far more prevalent than we want to believe, it’s simply obscured by what passes as sane: a preoccupation with how many steps we’ve walked, our cholesterol numbers, our organic consumption. And it’s not always where you think it should be. It might pass the time in the home improvement aisle, in the sale rack, in the crowds on black Friday. It hangs out in color-coded walk-in closets and in the clutter and crush of the homeless. It shows up at parties and it eats alone. It runs endless errands, pops Ambien, travels the world and never leaves the house. It uses needles, people, an iPhone, wine; anything it can to hide.

Sometimes mental illness just can’t help itself so it goes Nurse Ratched on us; it lines things up, it washes its hands over and over and over, it has panic attacks, it hunches under covers avoiding eye contact and being awake. It breaks down, slams a cupboard, or posts a nasty Facebook comment. It buys a gun.

But mostly it hides in the ordinary. Its secrets are kept by Google searches and medicine cabinets; by small talk and the suffocating weight of shame. If it’s very lucky, it finds cellos, poets, and birds to keep it company. But usually it’s hiding in a silent crouch, waiting for an extraordinary act of love.

I think anxiety is summoned when we refuse to move on. When we are caught in the middle of an I Dream of Jeannie blink; in that tiny moment after she closes her eyes and before she nods her head. When we are trapped in the pause between this land and the next, in a fixed moment in time, in yet another predictable episode, and oh god, is this outfit inappropriate?

I’m not sure any of us wear anxiety well, but pink crop tops look especially unflattering on those of a certain age. And rose-colored veils are just sad. Surely by now, you see things as they are? Surely you know that no one is coming to free you – and that you don’t have to stay where you are?

But anxiety forgets. It’s conjured in the wee hours of the night, like an unrelenting theme song, pushing out all other possibilities. It fixates on a tired tune because at least it’s familiar. At least it can hum along.

Anxiety is desperate for syndication, refusing to accept that life goes on. It’s stuck in an old wish for rescue, trying to change its given time slot, and re-enacting the same impossible, ridiculous scenarios. It will give anything to be saved; saved from the unknown, saved from the next step, saved like time in a bottle, (Jim Croce, meet Barbara Eden). And even though it’s bored with its self, even though it’s the most painful thing in the world to watch, it definitely prefers reruns. Because at least it knows the ending, and the ending is that life never really has to begin.

And so it continues, with excellent staying power, to pace in small circles, muttering to a master it doesn’t really need. It tries to escape, only to return again and again to the same tightly-coiled space. With each reentry the world gets smaller, the air gets harder to breathe, and all the light that ever was gets corked and dusty on a shelf.

Anxiety happens when we fixate on a moment. Don’t forget that time keeps moving. That in the blink of an eye the scenery shifts, and new endings are written. This time you might actually escape in a weightless billow of blue. This time, life might actually go on.