I know what she's about to say. I shush her before she says it.
Ssssh. Don't say it.
But...
I know what you're going to say. Just. Don't.
Vitamin pills and a return to logging all of the food I eat, a return to the gym after almost a week of being away, and the fire is back. Not all the way, but it's there.
The body is such a strange thing. It seems to do what it wants to; the brain directs it but does not control it.
If you are in the right frame of mind, you can feel the sizzle of chemical-induced electricity streaking down your nerves, jerking your hands into motion like a puppet. You grimace at the screen and continue to flail, getting the right keys most of the time.
In a way, it is an art project that will, at the end, have taken me a year and more effort than i've put into anything else in my life.
Discipline is the hardest part. It takes discipline to work out when you have things you'd really rather be doing, discipline of mind to remember to take the meds that make this all possible. Discipline to not let the voices of all the failures come back to ring out at you every day. Discipline to keep away the memories and believe hungrily—voraciously—in a clean slate, in forgiveness for both you and the body you carry, wrapped in mind and moved by will and discipline.
I am achieving coconciousness with my body. It goes slowly, but the more i move the more i beleive that this body may in fact belong to me, might be a friend, an ally, might cooperate with me in whatever it and i choose to do. It is a daily struggle, a daily task, a neverending one. I must listen to my body, and heed what it tells me. And i must respect my body, and give it what it needs.
This is an odd journey, for me. I have been all about nurturing my soul; the body has fallen by the wayside, discarded as an inconvenient carrier that hurts and grumbles and requires regular care. But i've learned that when taken care of, my body does not hurt; given what it needs to function well, it does. An amazing organic machine, something I am able to appreciate even more now that it is real rather than diagrams on a page and words in a book. It is not enough to know intellectually that my heart beats between 50 and 150 times a minute to drive blood through lungs and to cells, carrying the oxygen and glucose that enables life and action. I have to feel my heart pumping as I go over a hill on my bicycle, as I bench-press 100 pounds, as I run for a bus.
I can feel the wind on my face and the sun on my hands, and none of it torments me. My senses haven't dulled, but I have a higher tolerance for the sharpness of the world against my body. And I've learned to enjoy what i would avoided before, to like the ache of a well-used muscle and the burn of a hot Thai dish.
For me, this is what growing up has been: to come to terms with a world too hot, too bright, too sharp against me. And i'm getting there, and remaking myself as I do.
It's 81 degrees in the office. (It's about 74 outside.) The fire alarm goes off at random intervals, with extremely loud screeching and flashing strobe lights. It's very, very distracting. Every time i think it's stopped for good, it goes off again. Headphones are helping, but...
[I left the building for a half hour and when i came back, no more fire alarm. Glory hallelujah.]
help me baby, talk to him
I question your innocence
help this blackbird, there's a stone around my neck
Ah! Damn you mortal!
What say you good people? [Guilty guilty guilty]
help this blackbird
ah! inexcuseable!
All right, then.
Wake the witch.Wake the Witch by Kate Bush
outside: cooling off
doing: airing out the upstairs
to do: call the driving place
words: Cryptonomicon
link: You need this game. Really.
energy level (out of ten): 6
