Land of the blind

One of my all time favorite photos so far from Baja, moonrise over Bahía de Los Angeles

I was lying in bed in the dark this evening, thinking about my eye, prostate cancer (indolent or no), losing the loml, the void of graduate school into which I have been pouring so much of my labors and getting nothing at all back, having no prospects for post graduation, old age, what is probably gout in my right little toe that occasionally hurts like someone has taken pruning shears to it (to the doctor for that tomorrow), insomnia, depression and loneliness, and, frankly, there it was again, Walt Whitman's word, the word of all words, and it is still an anodyne. It's been one weird hell of a two years for sure. Highest highs, definitely. Lowest lows, so far, although, no thanks universe, you do not have to prove that it can always get worse. Thanks. Really. 

Fitting that impermanence, which poses the greatest challenges to us, also contains within itself its own relief. This too shall pass. See that my grave is kept clean. Because I will no longer either be able to nor want to give a flying fuck. 

I think it's definitely time to start working with a counselor again. I am in overwhelm just about every day and night these days. I do sleep, fortunately, but usually only from about 9 to 2 or 3. 

hello darkness my old friend. Darkness: I have a boyfriend

I am up for hours after that. And I'm thinking about suicide way too much. It's still just in that romanticized, wistful way, there's no equipment, there's no plan, but I've started to get to that place of wondering what it would feel like. How much would it hurt? How do people hang themselves? I found myself reading a website two nights ago with a list of "tips for blowing your brains out correctly the first time." Whoever put the page together had a resonant, dark sense of humor. It was mostly just out of morbid curiosity but I did catch myself and think "hey, uh, this is not cool." I deploy my deep background in teaching human anatomy. I think about the skin across my throat above the carotid and jugular, and know exactly where they are, or, I recall my suicidal girlfriend years ago explaining that razor cuts perpendicular to the axial direction of the wrist mean the hospital, but parallel to ulna and radius mean the morgue. How much would it hurt to slice through there? How long would it take to bleed out? But then, Virgo style, I am repulsed by the  thought of the mess it would leave, even in a bathtub. I fantasize about going out into the desert somewhere truly in the middle of nowhere and dying (not sure by what method), and being vulture and coyote food, and not causing anyone any trouble. I do know of several places where I would not be found until I were bleached bone and nothing more, absolutely guaranteed. The side benefit of being a botanist I guess. 

Anyway, at least, at the same time, I am cognizant of the fact that it is not what I want, to be living in these shadows, and I do know that I have tools for climbing out. I get a perverse feeling of rebellion and rage when I think about "working on" healing though. I guess I am still furious at the universe, and I feel defeated at the same time that I feel hope. My only power is to revel in sheer hopelessness. It's funny that people talk about being a "hopeless romantic." It's not as fun as it sounds. In fact, however, when I get down to the desolation, all of my fear goes away. No more fear if there's nothing but loss and deprivation. 

Amrit Brar's art has been an understanding companion in Hades lately

But these are all just fantasies and speculation. I have been alarming myself enough that I'll have to haul my sorry ass back to ASU counseling and see if I can either get a new counselor or start working with the old one again. Even I know when I've crossed a line into some dangerous territory. It's just been too much for me to handle on my own, beyond simply surviving one day at a time. Most nights these days, I face going to bed and I think to myself, "phew, you made it."

A tree in Minnehaha Park, Minneapolis, November 2018, telling me what to expect

And I have a devil of a time finding people to talk to about it. My best friend of more than 35 years is great, but I hate the telephone, and texting and messaging lately has mostly been making me feel worse, more lonely and more isolated. Everyone is so far apart these days. The loml is doing a good job of withdrawing and taking care of herself and her life, a much better job of it than I am, and I have no desire or ability to drop any of this her way. My sponsor is out of AA for the time being and I have lost a sense of people I can trust with this very, very dark stuff in the AA community here. There's a bunch of new people from Refuge Recovery, but those connections are all too new.

I think the most constant feeling is that I am trapped inside a catch-22 where I feel a desperate need for connection but just can't show how vulnerable I am or I will get eaten alive. I'll get good advice or I'll get told what to do or I'll have it diminished somehow. I am hyperalert to the tendency of my fellow humans to go directly to either solace or strategy, and it just pisses me off these days and exacerbates my despair. 

Photo collage by Noelle Oszvald

My trust level is just- ha, what? Gone. I honestly have exactly zero trust in any other human being right now, none. Another perfect reason to start working with a counselor again, as for some reason, when it's talk for money, trust doesn't matter to me. Like sex for money. Trust doesn't matter for shit there either. 

Sometimes I can picture a time when I'm done with the PhD, my health problems are on hiatus, the prostate cancer has remained steady and I haven't needed surgery for that and I'm still sexually functional, I have a job somewhere, hopefully out of Arizona, some new place, a new life, finally free of the crushing feeling of loss and absence and yearning, finally just putting all of this behind me, with some gratitude, but also with huge relief. Fancy free would be the best. No more of this emotional involvement with any other fucking human. No more. But the fantasy includes in it the idea that I am a block of ice. No more feelings. Fuck feelings. Invulnerable and unable to be hurt. Ice cold and completely self-sufficient unto the grave. And I pull myself up and realize I could, in fact, push that to happen, and live the rest of my life in that circle of Hades. I have it in me to do that. And that causes me anxiety. 

Deep in the bottom dark of the loss and unrelenting weird bad news and stuckness and all of it, there's a warlockian spellcasting fierce terrible and even darker energy that I have accessed the past few weeks. Along the lines of fighting darkness with more darkness. Self-protection and a truly odd gnarled old soul within, the male crone if such a thing exists. The Hermit, I guess, although that doesn't quite cover the feeling of witchery and snarling, blood rooted bone shards of dark-sparking spell casting energy. In the midst of contacting this chthonic weirding, I decided to go ahead and get Amrit Brar's Marigold Tarot, which has been calling to me at various times the past two years. Working with the images and symbolism of her dark-light cards has been congruent with that darker energy in me, a kind of fierceness that is at the very sinew of hopelessness, if that makes any sense. 

I've been especially enjoying the botanical/symbolic references, such as the wood anemone in the above Ace of Rings, a symbol of protection, adaptation and a bright future. Brar published some helpful guidance on the symbolism of the cards, much of which comes from her Panjab culture. (Which we call Punjab, but apparently that is an anglicization). For example, in The Star, above, the house crow skull echoes the symbolic importance of crows, which, in Panjab culture are signs of good fortune. Birds navigate by the stars, through the darkness, thus the feathers. The Star was the lead card in a reading I did today and it's one of the great protector cards of the tarot, and invokes faith, assurance that all shall be well, and a vision of the long game. This is good. I find I especially resonate with all of the skeletons in her cards, of course. 

On Facebook, the general idiocy and insensitivity of people has been most evident, where any sign of vulnerability on my part is met with a lot of teasing, hilarity, passive aggressive snark, "joking" and shallow idiocy. I have pulled away from Facebook as a result, at least insofar as revealing anything even remotely personal. It brings out the worst in people when they smell that blood in the water. I am so fucking sick of emotional cowards. I am also lacking in patience for the proliferation of profound-sounding platitudes that, when truly examined, end up being shallow and disappointing, and yet many people comment things like "So true," or "I needed this today."

I stumbled on this piece of facile nonsense recently from a FB page called "Higher Perspectives:"

     Oh please shut up. haha. Grief is so much more than this. I am not only extremely thin-skinned regarding the tendency of people to go to solace or strategy, I am also loathing reductive spiritual and sentimental bypass. In short, the deficiencies of being human in the face of the worst and most challenging experiences we can have are aggravating me these days. My own as well as others. I want people who sit with me and allow for all the space it takes for the one billion forms of grief to have room. Few have either the interest or the ability to do that. One friend who is, of course, a trained therapist *and* a Scorpio, recently messaged me and  simply offered space, and said "I see you, if you need anything let me know." Is that so difficult really? My AA cronies are all too quick to say it is just self pity. To recommend step work, or service. I agree that those things are extremely valuable. Yet, I got sober for the full, 360 degree experience of life. I do not want to substitute one set of controls for another. Many of my friend in recovery are terrified of emotion. 

  Meanwhile, this crossed my path:

I definitely resonate with the first few sentences- of course it's the case that there can be great love but no joining, for one reason or another. And how can we drag someone into that anyway? And what kind of foolishness would it be to try to "convince someone to do the work to be ready"? I start to resist a little bit there, since it equates someone choosing not to "meet us on the bridge" with them not being "ready," and needing to do work to be ready. The more solid reality sometimes is that people just can't or flat out do not want to. There is no work they could ever do and it's not the same as not being ready. 

with my one good eye, I pledge to stare unflinchingly into the truth, so help me non-existent gawd

So there's some wisdom in the beginning, I think, especially in this: YOU MUST LEAVE. It's such a difficult concept for me, to leave that which is not serving me, in a way where I maintain the advantage and have a shot at healing. If I'm alone on the bridge, no matter how great the love, if it's not coming to meet me, then- I'll wait and wait and wait and hope and sometimes even cajole or even verge on begging. Then when the inevitable happens and the love does not materialize, I feel even worse because I do not have the advantage and I do not have my dignity. I have not only the suffering of parting but also the suffering of feeling diminished by my own desperation. 

But when the above writing turns to: "There is more extraordinary love. More love that you have never seen. Out here in this wide and wild universe. And there is the love that will be ready." Well I reject a lot of that. I reject that it even fucking matters, really. The simple fact is: YOU MUST LEAVE. Whether there's the promise of "more love" or "the love that will be ready." I am skeptical, as you might imagine. And I don't want more. At this point, really, I pretty much just want to either spend the rest of my life with the loml and her offspring or be left the fuck alone, romantically. Company? Fine. Daggers in the heart? Not fine. Let's say instead, YOU MUST LEAVE, and the only thing you know with certainty you will have is nothing at all, and that will have to be enough.