Ballast
3/09/06
The above said, I have to comment on another feeling I have. Today snow was on the ground and the schools delayed their opening for 2 hours. There wasn’t any problem getting Scott down the hill, there was only rain down there. This wasn’t forecast, for there to be this much accumulated snow, and for it to continue to snow through the day. Enough accumulated that I felt the need to get the van out of the driveway for fear of not being able to when it’s time to go get Scott. And, sure enough, I had to make a couple tries to be able to claw my way out.
Anyway, the feeling is one of a sense of not enough. I just have not been able to have enough time to myself, and I feel the need like something palpable. There is this feeling in me of “too much”, and it goes like this: I have the interior feeling that one would have if one were trying to squeeze too much into their time. Where someone else may have quite a lot of ballast to absorb before having that kind of inner sensation of stress and disorganization that is telling them they’re doing too much, I have very little of that ballast. It takes me very little to feel that I’ve taken on too much.
It scares me a bit to have that feeling, because I wonder how long it will last. And I’m aware that to most outside observers, that I seem like I have a TON of time, and have no justification for feeling as I do. I feel vulnerable to people’s demands, since I look perfectly well on the outside but feel so incapable on the inside.
Reading books lately has been a revelation, or source of them. I read a phrase, or a passage that reminds me of some aspect of my present or past experience that has some illumination. For example, in reading “Returning Lose Loves”, and reading from the point of view of a character who has had a stroke and expressive aphasia—I have a realization about something I haven’t noticed, much, because it’s always inside me and ever-present—and that’s the experience of myself of being—experiencing my emotions from a step removed…weird, and very difficult to explain. But it had the sense of being a tone, a certain note that was a backdrop to my experiences. Reading of the experience of this man who’s had a stroke I pick up HIS background hum, tone, and that reminded me of mine. Unfortunately, his is quite bleak, and that reminded me that my default inside wasn’t very happy, either. It was a sort of one of sorrow, though that’s not quite it. Perhaps it was just the awareness of being very alone, ultimately. That’s part of what I read in this story—and had a flash of wondering what my tone might be when I am elderly.
It seems like it could be of value, to be aware of this deeply intimate sense of self.
Anyway, it’s days like today, that had the interruption of my alone time (and it’s going to carve something out of it this afternoon, too, since I’ll have to leave early to pick up Scott) and weeks like this (where I’ve lost a day of my alone time, and won’t get to recoup some of it tomorrow, since they can’t keep him in the afternoon like I’d hoped), and months like this (where it’s been ages since I’ve had a week, let alone 2 consecutive weeks where there HASN’T been some disruption) that make me realize that I’m feeling a weight pressing on me. It’s a feeling of having not gotten enough to sustain me, and feeling uneasy about my ability to keep on meeting my obligations—and feeling nervous that there might be other demands. I feel afraid that I can’t do it—what it takes to get through a day. And this has been the tone that’s been preoccupying me a bit—because it’s rather uncomfortable and I don’t know what I can do about it, given that my situation is not that sympathetic to Gary. And what does “not being able to do it” mean, anyway?
03/10/06
A little further on the above note; it’s about obligation, I think. I have little tolerance for obligation, and even its shadow causes me to feel anxiety. I can hardly keep up with my basic obligations, and adding anything to that—even inviting a friend over for dinner, feels like obligation and feels depleting. I know I’m going to have to expand my level of obligation, too, to be part of this community and to support the kids’ schools, but I don’t feel up to it. I fear having to fend off pressure to assume more obligations. And I feel like it might be a long time before I am. Longer than most people would consider acceptable. I guess I do feel this weight of “other people”.
I’ve been reflecting a bit on human tendencies and realize there is a sort of given in human nature that gives rise to some fearsome and irrational behavior(s). And it seems to be so interwoven into our humanity that I can’t see it as changing—the danger from it.
Reading Mary Doria Russell’s book, “Thread of Grace” really awakened me to some aspects of human brutality. For one thing, it’s a pattern that repeats. There was an especially horrifying description of an interrogation with the Gestapo that haunts me to this day—because of the capacity of the human body to feel pain and how some humans exploit that. We have bodies that can experience such exquisite pleasure and the other side of that coin is the vulnerability that capacity engenders. Another aspect of human brutality was its irrationality—how reason stands powerless before an onslaught—of what?
Examples:
The violence against Muslims in this country following the bombing of the two towers. And not just Muslims, but anyone with an appearance that can associate them in some way with Muslims, like skin color, or facial features, or dress, like the Sikhs. The way that the bombing of the shrine in Samarra meant that Shiites who lived in primarily Sunni areas, and vice versa had to move, for fear that there would be violence against them, even though they’d lived peacefully with their neighbors for generations: “Our neighbors cannot protect us” said one Sunni family as they departed their home in a Shiite neighborhood.
It’s very irrational that wars be fought over religious differences, even sects within the SAME religion, but history is full of this. And there’s a kind of tension that pressures the particular conflict with terrorists into a frame of a “clash of civilizations”—the West vs Islam. I think that’s a false, or at least very misleading characterization, but so many seem to be succumbing to the pressure to view it that way.
And to consider that irrational ideas can gain currency among millions so that they’re willing to do unspeakable things, or die is so frightening. Or send their children to die, and call it “sacrificing for our way of life”, or “for freedom”, or “for our country”.
I feel fear of the potential in humans to do unspeakable things for irrational reasons. I feel fear that it wouldn’t take more than scarcity of necessities, like oil, to create a disruption where people would do such. And, on a basic level, I feel fear because by looks, language, and residence, my family and I are associated with an entity that has moved unilaterally and belligerently in the world—has supported regimes that have been responsible for killing and torturing thousands, and has engaged in some grave insults to the Muslim world, as in Abu Ghraib, in Iraq.
Later:
I was listening to my voice and tone as I spoke with the kids this evening, particularly Scott. My whole tone says, “Get the fuck out of my way!” and it accurately reflects my feeling at the time. He is soooooo slow; I am constantly saying, “Quickly, Scott”, or “come on, Scott”, or ordering him to do something (that I’ve already asked him to do) in very clipped tones. I get so impatient with him it is nearly unbearable, and I feel so badly afterwards. I worry about schools treating his dreaminess like misbehavior; I’m the biggest culprit.
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