Anxious?

Whether I'm writing about a river or a young woman confounded by corporate America, about a marginal high school poet or a girl trying to survive the loss of her mother, I am, with my books, writing what I know, what I have felt. The Heart is Not a Size is no exception. Georgia, the narrator that Ed Goldberg describes so well in his review, is very much like I was and am—plain and responsible, known for taking care, and, at times, debilitated by anxiety and panic attacks. Georgia worries about most everything. She lives her life on high alert.

It was with tremendous interest, then, that I read "Understanding the Anxious Mind," this week's New York Times Magazine cover story by Robin Marantz Henig. It's a story that looks at the hard-wiring of prone-to-anxiety folks like me and at the longitudinal studies now under way to detangle questions about the actual physiological brain state, the words subjects use to describe their anxiety, and the behavioral aftermath.

There's much to recommend the story. There is also, on its final page, some hope, or, perhaps, a reason for those afflicted with this condition to come down a little less hard on themselves. I quote from the piece:

"People with a high-reactive temperament—as long as it doesn't show itself as a clinical disorder—are generally conscientious and almost obsessively well-prepared. Worriers are likely to be the most thorough workers and the most attentive friends. Someone who worries about being late will plan to get to places early. Someone anxious about giving a public lecture will work harder to prepare for it. Test-taking anxiety can lead to better studying; fear of traveling can lead to careful mapping of transit routes."

That's not all bad, from where I sit. Or at least, I'm going to try not to worry that it is.