Imbolc Anniversary Moon
Black Mountain has emerged from the night. The rising sun has chased the dark away and its lodgepole pine, granite outcroppings and private ski runs are in clear relief. Since I get up here at 5 am or so, I witness this unveiling each morning.
Inner conflict continues, pushing me toward something, something undefined. Anxiety is an attempt to manage fear, to consider options to too many things. It reaches out tentatively to a world not yet born, scanning for threats, anticipating. In a long ago day I imagine the anxious folks lived longer (aka, passed down more of their genes), always seeking out the predator that might be behind the next curve in the path, wanting to get to the berries just as they ripened so they wouldn’t be gone, obsessively keeping tabs on water. In this world of grocery stores and police, water from the tap? Not so necessary.
I would prefer not to live like this. I don’t like it. But right now I don’t see the path out. Not sure if my take on causes are right, either. How you define is how you solve and my definition of the problem doesn’t seem to be alleviating my angst.
I’ve had times in my life when anxiety crippled me, leading to depression, not there now, at least not yet. Do you see the insidiousness here? I know where anxiety can lead, so I begin to worry about the trajectory of my current bout. That, in turn, creates more anxiety. Not a virtuous cycle.
Been experiencing an unusual phenomenon, at least unusual for this period of my life. I’m getting all kinds of anxiety signals from my body. My feet rest on their balls when I sit down, not flat on the floor. My gut has this hollowed out and tense feeling. My jaw has small aches as my teeth grind unconsciously. This also makes facial muscles twitch. When lying in bed, I’ll notice that my legs are tight, again an unconscious contraction.
When we had our couple’s escape at Tall Grass Spa, I first noticed these physical manifestations. It was during the relaxing, 80-minute massage. As certain parts of my body felt calmer, others, like my legs and my gut, began to call out to me.
A follower of gestalt therapy in my younger days, I learned to pay attention to and interrogate a jumpy stomach, a twitchy foot. These are not disconnected from my psyche, to the contrary they reveal things occurring in that inner world hidden from view to my Self.
Zero K examines, in a minimalist world, our obsessions with death, immortality and technology while recounting a strained father-son relationship. It’s stark and strange, featuring, for example, a compound somewhere in the ‘stans. At this compound, mostly underground, is the center for a cryogenics movement funded by wealthy folk hoping to live forever, or at least until there’s a cure for whatever they have right now.
Underground Railroad imagines a real railroad, with tunnels and station masters, which carries escaped slaves. It is not so much the railroad though that commends this novel, but the story of the slaves who escape. This novel puts you inside the minds of slaves on the plantation and as they decide to flee and the ambiguous world that faces them even in relative freedom. Claustrophobic, scary, uncertain life on the run sometimes contrasted favorably with enslavement, sometimes furnished prisons and punishments that did not. I appreciated the chance to live in this world for the time it took to read this novel.
The Nix uses massive online video gaming, the Chicago protests of 1968, and the life of a disappointed assistant professor of English and his estranged mother to reflect on what it means to be human.
If the Donald wins, I’m not leaving for Canada. That would just leave the country to him and his kind. Not acceptable. But I will build a transparent dome around our house. The dome will have a semi-permeable membrane for its skin. Only healthy, clean, non-stupid ideas will be able to come onto our property whether delivered by newspaper, internet, or television. I haven’t figured out what to do when we leave our dome home, a work in progress.
Since 9/11 our politics have become polarized, mean, unbending. The Donald has only ridden that cresting wave; he did not create it. Like any demagogue he has an instinctive feel for the anguish of ordinary citizens and an ability to say things that seem to give it voice. As a representative democracy, we rely on politicians for taking the pulse of their constituents. Yes, that’s true.