Monday, March 08, 2004
I've gone dark lately, as someone I know put it an inquiring email to me the other day. I haven't posted anything in here for ages (that kind of non-specific reference being the only one that makes sense to me these days). I haven't written many emails in weeks, a rare happening normally explained and apologized for profusely. But not now. Now, I'm just here.
I've gone dark inside of me, deep down into the darkness, until I could grab fistfuls of light at the bottom, then make the slow journey up, back to myself.
My stupid injuries are the reason for my ridiculous silence. In some ways, I have experienced a setback. In other, deeper ways, I think I'm finally starting to heal. Last week was exhausting. The day of the Oscars, I realized I just didn't have the energy to be around a group of people, even people I adore. So I couldn't attend the Oscar party I had known about for a month. That's not a good way to start a school week. Exhausted and wanting to avoid groups of people talking.
And then I started acupuncture, last Monday. It opened something in me, deeply, something that had remained guarded since the accident. Have you ever done it? This was my first time, and I'm convinced. It's extraordinary. First of all, they did an hour-long intake interview, asking me about EVERY part of my life. Whatever the consistency of my bowel movements, the frequency with which I turn red-cheeked during the day, or the color of my tongue have to do with it, I have no idea. Whatever they are doing by sticking little needles into various places in my body, I have no idea. But all power to them. At one point, the supervising doctor said, "I bet your bad headaches start right...here," and then proceeded to put his finger on the precise part of the occiput where the skull-splitting headaches are born. (I should call them the Athena-born-from-the-skull-of-her-father headaches.) I screamed and squirmed, and he calmed me with his hands. And then he put a needle there. This wave of cold rushed down my body, and I yelped. When I told them about it, they all just said, "Hm. Good." Okay. Whatever.
I left that night feeling utterly stoned. Deep within myself. Everything as it is. And as I walked back to my car, I realized, I was without headache. For half an hour, the first real time since the car accident. There's no way to describe the first time without a headache after twelve weeks of having one. Beautiful. How could life be better?
Except that I went back to school the next day and undid all the good work. Right back into the fray.
It's hard having a headache for twelve straight weeks. Harder than I can possibly convey, even to myself. But at the end of school days, I have a headache so bone crushing that I've taken to referring to it as my full frontal lobotomy headache. (I have a lot of nicknames for headaches, I've realized.) Ugh. Tuesday night, coming up Queen Anne hill on the #2 bus, I realized that I needed a day off school. I thought that would do the trick.
I just rested all day Wednesday. Went to Macrina for lunch, which felt like a decadence. Worked on my novel. Went to bed early.
But after a day off, and the first hint of real relaxation in my body in nearly three months, I thought I could go back to school on Thursday. And after another day at school, I realized one day off wouldn't do the trick. I really haven't taken a real break since the accident. Oh sure, there was Christmas vacation, but I was a wreck then. In total shock. Unbearable pain. Denial. And I went to Ashland, which made the sciatica pain flare up even more. Then there was the week off from school in January, but that was because I could only crawl on my hands and knees and sleep for an hour a night. Emergency care. And I went back to school the next Tuesday. And there was the week in February, but you read about that already, the nightmare of writing evaluations all week with a series of migraines. And then went right back to school.
Now I look at it, feeling much better along, and think, What? Why didn't I take a month? Partly because this society has all its priorities wrong, and we think we need to push, push, push. As much as I practice meditation and know that slowing down is the path to happiness, it's hard to resist that call. And also, schools are hard to leave. It did my psychology good to be among people I care about, to leave my own confines for awhile. But it's just that the pressures and decisions and craziness that is inherent in schools is not good for my physical space.
And suddenly, I knew in my gut that I needed a break. A real break, to heal. I'm going to some kind of therapeutic appointment every day, literally. And last week, I figured out that I was going to each one and working hard just to muster up the energy to gird myself up and go back to school the next day.
So at my physical therapy appointment on Thursday afternoon, I told her just how exhausted and shattered and still in pain I am. And before I could even say it, she said, "You need to take some time off." She phoned my doctor, who came down immediately from his office upstairs to sign me a form barring me from work. On Friday, I went to work to take care of the logistics. Signed forms. Told everyone I was going. Garnered sympathy. Told my students. Declared myself on medical leave, until... I'm not sure. We'll see. It might be that a week will do the trick, and then a series of three-day weekends in the successive weeks. Or it might be that colleagues will have to donate sick days to me, and I'll take two weeks. Or more. I'm going to let my body tell me. That's the deepest knowledge I have.
Today is the first day off school, and I don't feel at all guilty. It's gloriously blue skied outside, and the entire day is stretched before me. I woke up slowly this morning, took an hour to do all my therapeutic stretches and isometric exercises for my lower back, neck, and shoulders. Ate poached eggs on sauteed spinach with La Brea Bakery french bread. Drank an entire pot of french press coffee, slowly. Talked with a friend. Read three chapters of The Golden Compass. Noted down the ideas for writing and possibilities for jobs outside of teaching that are blooming in my head, as soon as I took the time to relax. Now, I'm going down to the Queen Anne pool, to walk in the water, slowly. A long conversation with a friend. Time to write. Slow lunch. A walk around Greenlake. Then an acupuncture treatment. I'll come home feeling stoned, free of headache and free of school. And then I'll sleep, sweetly and slow, long into tomorrow morning.
So that's how I am. That's why I haven't written before this.
And also because, I'm really fricking tired of talking about my car accident injuries and the recovery from such. I'm one track mind, in conversation, these days. I hate that. And so I've been waiting for other stories before I post again. But these past few days of rest, I've realized that I have to just work with what I have. There will be other stories, soon.
But in the meantime, here I am.
I've gone dark inside of me, deep down into the darkness, until I could grab fistfuls of light at the bottom, then make the slow journey up, back to myself.
My stupid injuries are the reason for my ridiculous silence. In some ways, I have experienced a setback. In other, deeper ways, I think I'm finally starting to heal. Last week was exhausting. The day of the Oscars, I realized I just didn't have the energy to be around a group of people, even people I adore. So I couldn't attend the Oscar party I had known about for a month. That's not a good way to start a school week. Exhausted and wanting to avoid groups of people talking.
And then I started acupuncture, last Monday. It opened something in me, deeply, something that had remained guarded since the accident. Have you ever done it? This was my first time, and I'm convinced. It's extraordinary. First of all, they did an hour-long intake interview, asking me about EVERY part of my life. Whatever the consistency of my bowel movements, the frequency with which I turn red-cheeked during the day, or the color of my tongue have to do with it, I have no idea. Whatever they are doing by sticking little needles into various places in my body, I have no idea. But all power to them. At one point, the supervising doctor said, "I bet your bad headaches start right...here," and then proceeded to put his finger on the precise part of the occiput where the skull-splitting headaches are born. (I should call them the Athena-born-from-the-skull-of-her-father headaches.) I screamed and squirmed, and he calmed me with his hands. And then he put a needle there. This wave of cold rushed down my body, and I yelped. When I told them about it, they all just said, "Hm. Good." Okay. Whatever.
I left that night feeling utterly stoned. Deep within myself. Everything as it is. And as I walked back to my car, I realized, I was without headache. For half an hour, the first real time since the car accident. There's no way to describe the first time without a headache after twelve weeks of having one. Beautiful. How could life be better?
Except that I went back to school the next day and undid all the good work. Right back into the fray.
It's hard having a headache for twelve straight weeks. Harder than I can possibly convey, even to myself. But at the end of school days, I have a headache so bone crushing that I've taken to referring to it as my full frontal lobotomy headache. (I have a lot of nicknames for headaches, I've realized.) Ugh. Tuesday night, coming up Queen Anne hill on the #2 bus, I realized that I needed a day off school. I thought that would do the trick.
I just rested all day Wednesday. Went to Macrina for lunch, which felt like a decadence. Worked on my novel. Went to bed early.
But after a day off, and the first hint of real relaxation in my body in nearly three months, I thought I could go back to school on Thursday. And after another day at school, I realized one day off wouldn't do the trick. I really haven't taken a real break since the accident. Oh sure, there was Christmas vacation, but I was a wreck then. In total shock. Unbearable pain. Denial. And I went to Ashland, which made the sciatica pain flare up even more. Then there was the week off from school in January, but that was because I could only crawl on my hands and knees and sleep for an hour a night. Emergency care. And I went back to school the next Tuesday. And there was the week in February, but you read about that already, the nightmare of writing evaluations all week with a series of migraines. And then went right back to school.
Now I look at it, feeling much better along, and think, What? Why didn't I take a month? Partly because this society has all its priorities wrong, and we think we need to push, push, push. As much as I practice meditation and know that slowing down is the path to happiness, it's hard to resist that call. And also, schools are hard to leave. It did my psychology good to be among people I care about, to leave my own confines for awhile. But it's just that the pressures and decisions and craziness that is inherent in schools is not good for my physical space.
And suddenly, I knew in my gut that I needed a break. A real break, to heal. I'm going to some kind of therapeutic appointment every day, literally. And last week, I figured out that I was going to each one and working hard just to muster up the energy to gird myself up and go back to school the next day.
So at my physical therapy appointment on Thursday afternoon, I told her just how exhausted and shattered and still in pain I am. And before I could even say it, she said, "You need to take some time off." She phoned my doctor, who came down immediately from his office upstairs to sign me a form barring me from work. On Friday, I went to work to take care of the logistics. Signed forms. Told everyone I was going. Garnered sympathy. Told my students. Declared myself on medical leave, until... I'm not sure. We'll see. It might be that a week will do the trick, and then a series of three-day weekends in the successive weeks. Or it might be that colleagues will have to donate sick days to me, and I'll take two weeks. Or more. I'm going to let my body tell me. That's the deepest knowledge I have.
Today is the first day off school, and I don't feel at all guilty. It's gloriously blue skied outside, and the entire day is stretched before me. I woke up slowly this morning, took an hour to do all my therapeutic stretches and isometric exercises for my lower back, neck, and shoulders. Ate poached eggs on sauteed spinach with La Brea Bakery french bread. Drank an entire pot of french press coffee, slowly. Talked with a friend. Read three chapters of The Golden Compass. Noted down the ideas for writing and possibilities for jobs outside of teaching that are blooming in my head, as soon as I took the time to relax. Now, I'm going down to the Queen Anne pool, to walk in the water, slowly. A long conversation with a friend. Time to write. Slow lunch. A walk around Greenlake. Then an acupuncture treatment. I'll come home feeling stoned, free of headache and free of school. And then I'll sleep, sweetly and slow, long into tomorrow morning.
So that's how I am. That's why I haven't written before this.
And also because, I'm really fricking tired of talking about my car accident injuries and the recovery from such. I'm one track mind, in conversation, these days. I hate that. And so I've been waiting for other stories before I post again. But these past few days of rest, I've realized that I have to just work with what I have. There will be other stories, soon.
But in the meantime, here I am.
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