From my journal for September 11, 1995<\/p>\n
I want to write about my odd feeling yesterday and today.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m sure it\u2019s at least partly the cold that makes me feel thick-headed and dazed, partly Dana being away that makes me feel lost and precarious, the bottom dropped out.\u00a0 <\/span>Then there was the frustration of seeing the beautiful day and not being really part of it (except for a short while while dancing outdoors \u2014 when a flock of birds flew over us and I had that sense of oneness of all things) and the fear of the airplanes.\u00a0 <\/span>I suppose all of that could account for my sense of being in some bizarre place, a collage whose pieces don\u2019t fit \u2014 perhaps the walls are breaking down between the worlds: the world of beauty and the world of horror.\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps I should say: the world of natural beauty and the world of human horror.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n
This reminds me a little of the spring feeling of being \u201crent and torn,\u201d but it\u2019s different now.\u00a0 <\/span>That, I think, felt more like being torn in half, or down the middle, there seemed to be two parts or two layers, and they were contrasting: cold and warm, bright and dark.\u00a0 <\/span>This feels more complex, there are still the tearing contrasts, but there seem to be more layers.\u00a0 <\/span>I have a sense of death being ready to pounce.\u00a0 <\/span>I think this is how I might feel if I had a fatal illness, the familiar world seems very strange and fleeting, as though I had never seen it before and will never see it again.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>And I recognize, as I write, that in the equation are human beauty and love, human loss and pain: there\u2019s the joy of our dancing, of preserving these dances (I told them of the joy of the peasant women as they emerged from the tunnel), there\u2019s my love for Dana, and my failure to give it sexual expression, and my sense of loss that he\u2019s so far away.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve been reading The White Witch, which describes the non-sexual love between Froniga and Yoben, and makes it clear how strong their love is that is capable of flourishing even though that powerful instinct is denied.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
My failure to be sexual with my husband was because of the early trauma. When I get excited \u2014 or angry or afraid \u2014 my system starts to rouse to be sexual, or fight or run away, and then goes into freeze. At this point I have no idea that this is what’s happening.<\/p>\n
I showed a video of peasant women doing a folk dance. They form two lines, hold hands across and raise their arms to make a tunnel, and then each comes through the tunnel, opening her arms to the sky with joy as she comes out.<\/p>\n
The White Witch<\/a> is a novel by Elizabeth Goudge. Froniga is the witch, she is half Gypsy and uses herbs and psychic powers for healing. Yoben is a Catholic priest who was tortured and became a Gypsy as a disguise.<\/p>\n
Here I’m talking about the airplanes whose noise gives me a very hard time:<\/p>\n
There\u2019s nothing I can do to make it stop.\u00a0 <\/span>It just hurts so much, and it doesn\u2019t quit and there\u2019s nothing I can do, and no one who really understands.\u00a0 <\/span>I was typing at the computer when the last one came over and I just put my head down on my arms and started crying.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve been sobbing hysterically while writing this and praying to god to please help me, but of course nothing changes.\u00a0 <\/span>Actually I guess such prayer is really re-stimulating because it\u2019s too much like asking Mom & Dad to stop hurting me.\u00a0 <\/span>I have a bunch of things to write about the parallels between the planes & my alcoholic parents, but I feel too hopeless to bother.\u00a0 <\/span>It would be very much easier to be dead.<\/p>\n
Feeling completely broken.\u00a0 <\/span>I did manage to walk the dog, using the walkman to listen to Maki\u2019s Russian tape.\u00a0 <\/span>I didn\u2019t enjoy the walk, just did it for the dog.\u00a0 <\/span>I was reading the print out of July but it sounds like someone else\u2019s life, the life of someone who\u2019s dead.\u00a0 <\/span>All those creative projects, never to be finished now.\u00a0 <\/span>Nothing means anything.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m cooking beans and almonds \u2014 I had a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich earlier in a spirit of angry rebellion \u2014 I\u2019ve worked so goddam hard, years in therapy, all my discipline around diet, and nothing to show for it, I still can\u2019t deal with the airplanes, can\u2019t begin to describe the pain they cause me, can\u2019t understand why I fall apart so badly, don\u2019t see any point in going on \u2014 all this work and I still don\u2019t have any life.<\/p>\n
O yes, something about seeing how much attachment I have to getting something done, \u201ckeeping it together,\u201d going on with my life, \u201ctaking care of myself,\u201d refusing to break down \u2014 in this respect I am my mother\u2019s daughter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From my journal for September 11, 1995 I want to write about my odd feeling yesterday and today.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure it\u2019s at least partly the cold that makes me feel thick-headed and dazed, partly Dana being away that makes me … Continue reading