Curatives
Thursday, March 27, 2008
I'm not going to bore you with the facts, but I've been beaten down by panic these past several week—that ridiculous tsunami of adrenaline surges and a badly behaving heart, nights spent praying for an hour of sleep on a downstairs couch. It is what it is. This, too, shall pass, and is a minor inconvenience in the worldly scheme of things.
I speak of it only to celebrate its antidote, which is laughter and the friends who step in to induce it. I speak of it to celebrate, in this one instant of many instances, a particular Jan Suzanne, who walked the city streets with me last evening. Jan Suzanne, glamorous through and through, a little Madison Avenue in my own beloved Philly, more than a little adorable with her queenly absurd absorbing stories, more than willing to take a bolero strut as we turned up Market, nothing but our shadows behind us. Nothing but the night, always young, when she is in it.
4 comments:
Those bold and contagiously jubilant friends are fabulous. You're wise to keep her near!
You are SO right, Melissa!
b
Dear Beth -
May I guess, that you as a great image maker, also invent strong mages that leave behind traces of panic? Is this the sorry side effect of being a “seer”, of being able to visualize events of the mind, stories created as parallels to the real world? (And I might add, what is the real world anyway? Perhaps even what we perceive as real, is no more that an illusion? Ask two people about a single, specific event, and you get two separate realities...) Is it possible for the mind to separate what makes for a happy, healthy heart, and what is merely the shadow thinking (those thoughts that produce anxiety)? Is it possible to disclose those thoughts that produce “that ridiculous tsunami of adrenaline” and then to “discipline” the mind to go for the healthy ones?
These are questions I am intimately familiar with myself. It is a curious travel, to trace thought patterns, see where they come from, and where they would like to go. To stop them in the middle, chose the healthy route. And to fail. Then to succeed. One step back, two forwards. You wrote about hope for easter. Well here’s my prayer of hope: that the direction will always be that forwards route.
To “celebrate its antidote” is really to go for the love instead of the fear. For when you boil it down, there are really just the two; thoughts originated from love and thoughts originated from fear. Not always easy to separate the two, it is so easy to believe that the fear based thought is the “realistic” one. The world is seeped in fear based thinking, “War on terror” being the Prime Example. Another hope, an aftertaste of easter: To change that sentence to “Peace on terror”, “Love on terror”, “Mercy on terror”, “Forgiveness on terror”.....
Sorry for all these rambling thoughts. Your blog sparks, as always, deep chords within me. Again thank you. For writing the panic. As well as the antidote. May you laugh and walk those beloved city streets forever.......
Love. Grete.
My beautiful Grete:
Yes. Go for the love and not the fear. I may just p in that to my wall today, or pin it to my heart.
You are a blessing. Today's blog was inspired a bit by you. The realization (relearned endlessly through life) that wallowing destroys. Hoping gives birth.
Love
b
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