Grounding the Zaps

One of the things we are is an electrical system; if we were houses, we'd have white wires strung through holes drilled in our studs, connected at various points for diversion to various outlets, which then would power such intricacies as coffee pots, computers, perhaps old-fashioned vibrators.  Our nervous systems perform pretty much like those wires, conducting our physical, mental or psychic impulses to the appropriate activator, walking to the garage for a new roll of paper towels, kicking the car's tires while we're there, pouring soup from a can into a pot, just generally getting our business done, or whiling away our free time in the pursuit of happiness or at least quelling boredom.

Continuing the metaphor, if we were houses, we'd have our electrical power strung in from the gods in the form of PG&E or ConEd or some such, through a box that counts its increments and contains it, but before it does either of those things, it Grounds the Power.  If it didn't, we'd blow up all of our favorite devices, and, of course, ourselves.  Ungrounded electricity is pretty wild and woolly, searching everywhere (like lightning) for some ground but in such a way that when it finds what it's looking for, it blows it up or burns it down.  (There's a second lovely metaphor here, all about being careful what we wish for, self-destruction, sabotaging relationships and so forth, but that's a whole 'nother blog, isn't it?)

Now we know perfectly well what it feels like to be an ungrounded yet sensate creature: dizzy, a little frantic, clumsy, afflicted with free-floating anxiety, fretful, snappish, almost seasick, right?  It's not pleasant, and it absolutely doesn't serve the creative or even the productive impulse.  Everything starts with being well grounded, and if we're not, nothing gets done and people start avoiding us; we'd avoid ourselves if we could, in fact that's what we're trying to do because lack of ground erodes or obliterates any self-esteem we might have built up in our solid states, and we just don't like ourselves much at all.  So, well, ick.... Gotta get grounded.

I was born lucky in this respect, because I am almost always grounded.  I am so grounded that it is difficult, even painful, for me to elevate my thoughts, my spirits, my attitude; my default psychic tripwire is depression, and it frightens me more than I care to admit.  For this reason, I really can't say from my own experience how to GET ground when none seems available.  I do know from observation, however, and I've been told by my more lofty-minded or giddier friends that the very first thing to do when the ground is slipping away is to stop.

JUST STOP.  That increasingly mindless, hamster-wheel racing of the left brain is the most common form of giving up the ground, and there's no way we're going to get back to ground if the sound of our own wheels is exactly what's making us crazy.  (Thank you, Jackson Browne and Glen Frey -- clearly they knew what I'm talking about.)  When we finally grind to a halt, we can begin to hear and see again; life stops whipping past us in that frightening, colorless blur, and things clear up a bit.  We can even feel our own breath, which is where everything lives.

BREATHE.  In, out, repeat.  We're doing it anyway, so we might as well be deliberate about it, and count it.  I found a trick (on the old Oprah show, where a surprising number of enlightening processes were revealed to anybody paying attention) about breathing, and that is to count out a series of breaths, like so: 

• First, breathe in to a count of four: this is distinctly not a deep breath, it's a short one, but it brings in enough oxygen to sustain us for the rest of the exercise.  
• Second, hold that short breath for a count of seven: holding the air still and quiet allows it to collect from within our system all manner of toxic gases that our fearful, angry, frenetic pace has created.  (There are always biological consequences to crazy thoughts and acts, and this is one of them.)
• Third, breathe out slowly and evenly to a count of eight; on eight, give a little puff to expel that last bit of the air: breathing out more than we breathed in at the beginning gets rid of all those toxins, ridding the system of the remaining yuck that crazed us in the first place.
• Fourth, repeat those three steps four times, to steady and cleanse the system.
• Fifth, just breathe.  Breathe normally, evenly, and listen to its rhythm.  Pay it very close attention for just a few minutes, and thereby find some peace.  

My father, one of the funniest people I've ever known, would yell, "I just want a little goddamned peace around here!"  Obviously, he didn't get it with this tactic, but he craved it, as did we all, living with old Mt. Vesuvius as we did, as do we all today in this time of madness.  Grounding brings us peace, even if only for a little while, and when we know it and claim it, we can start over, yes?

Of course yes.

Falling 2018

For those of you new to my blog page, a word about the title “Angel on Bulldozer”: The phrase comes from an old acquaintance, standing next to me in a painful rehearsal of a tiresome Respighi choral piece.  Mary Badarak was conducting, and doing her damnedest to extract a light, descantic sound from the sopranos, asking them to sing like angels; my friend, an alto channeling her whole section, said, “Yeah, angels on bulldozers.”  Big laugh, from everybody, even including a couple of sopranos, and it really stuck with me.  It’s rather how I think of myself — I have good intentions always, but on occasion am apt to be heavy handed.  (I’m so sorry for that, my dears; all I can say is that I’m working on it really hard.)

Several years ago I wrote a blog that I thought my friend and brother Keith Fox would enjoy, and so sent him a link to it.  Later I thought he might not know who authored it, and so I emailed him asking if he knew the Angel-on-Bulldozer was I, and he replied, “Who else COULD it be?”  So, well, there we have it.  Along with a pensive Hobbes the tiger as my Facebook portrait, I have not yet come up with a better self-characterization.

*****

Falling 2018

I’m prone to emotional sagging in autumn, exhibiting symptoms that range from ennui (dragging around, sighing heavily, snapping at my nearest and dearest for no particular reason) to real depression (immobility, weeping, dredging up old slights, neglecting people and things that depend on my attentiveness), so this year I thought I’d try to blog on a regular basis, to write my way out of the worst of it, as I once wrote my way out of a migraine (I really did — it was a miracle!).

Here’s my first effort on my own behalf.  Thenk yew fer yer suppoaht.

*****

The Best Always Happens

One of the most hellish periods in my life was the third quarter of 1995.  Mary and I had made a harrowing midsummer drive from Aptos, California to our chosen destination of Atlanta; we drove two cats and a heroic, dying dog in an unairconditioned Honda Accord and a 20-foot Ryder truck.  The truck was throttled at 55 mph, fully laden with all our earthly possessions, and the Kansas segment of the trip alone was horrific — slow, gritty, dusty, endless, and I had to keep the steering wheel steadily at the 10 o’clock position to fight the much steadier north winds — but the pain continued once we arrived in Atlanta.  We were broke; unable to find jobs or a place to rent, we relegated ourselves to a Motel 6 in Gwinnett County for five weeks (the dying dog and the cats gave up and spent most of those weeks under the beds); unable to provide proof of permanent residency, we could not establish a bank account, or a mailing address; we were reduced to begging for cash from friends and relatives to pay the daily cost of the Motel 6 rooms.  We dreamt of finding ourselves dirty, homeless, giving up the animals to the local pound.

When we finally found a rented condo in Midtown Atlanta, when Mary had landed gigs as a leave-replacement assistant professor in the music department at Georgia State and as a choir director at a nearby Methodist church, when I was hired at Emory University as a part-time department secretary, when the weather had barely cooled to a damp 75 or so, and we thought we were finally safe, mortality struck.

My nephew found himself in the end stages of AIDS, and was forced to find refuge at the home of his estranged parents in Eastern Kentucky. 

• Note: His case was not unusual at that time in history: many, many gay men who had been driven out of conservative Southern communities to live rootless and dangerous lives, finally wandered home in their last hours, reconciling (or not) with those who had raised them in shame and rejection.  These sickly, desperate men had to have some kind of palliative treatment, and had no other place to go but "home".  (See “My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story” by Abraham Verghese, Vintage Books 1994.)

It was an opportunity for all to come to terms with life, real and earnest, and I think my sister and brother-in-law did so; they welcomed home the prodigal son and buried him two months later.  Now living within a few hours’ drive from their place, I was a small part of that process; I went up to Kentucky as often as I could on weekends, to try to help ease the burdens.  I don’t know if I succeeded; the whole saga was just dreadful.

At the same time, back in Atlanta, we finally had to put our dog down.  A typically task-oriented German Shepherd, Bette had pulled herself back from the brink of death to accompany us on this journey.  She had stayed the course through the toughest parts of it, and when we had finally come to ground, achieved our basic requirements of shelter and sustenance, she in effect told us she really needed to go on her way.  We honored her by helping her die.  Euthanizing such a companion, such a source of comfort and distraction, over so many trials was, as most of you know, agony.  Mary and I know in the depths of our hearts and souls that nothing dies, that we will see her, will see all of those we love and miss, again.  And again.  And yet….

Mary’s brother Marco, of all who knew her, loved Bette the most.  He sent his deepest sympathy, along with a beautiful photograph of her taken at her happiest: under a Christmas tree in Marco’s apartment, merrily shredding the careful, beautiful wrapping of her very own present, a brand new tennis ball.  She was looking up at his camera and smiling in gratitude, Christmas paper hanging out of her mouth; on the back of the picture, Marco wrote to us: The best always happens.

Thank God for Marco.  That aphorism has probably saved our lives and psyches a hundred times since then.  I didn’t believe it then, so heartsick I didn’t want to try, rejected the comfort over and over, but under the advice of my own heart, I acted as if it were true, and over time, comfort was given unto me.

The best always happens.  Always.

The Thai Boys' Rescue video