The Mountain Summer Moon
Tuesday gratefuls: High Summer. Faery. Boggarts. Nixies. Pixies. Nyads. Dryads. Leprechauns. Banshees. Druids. The Greenman. The Hooded Man. Herme. Lugh. Ceriwden. King Arthur. Lancelot. Guinevere. Percival. The Green Knight. The Decameron. Canterbury Tales. The Middle Ages. Castles. Holy Wells. The Otherworld. Heaven and Hell.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Otherworld
One brief shining: Interesting, I thought, as I stepped away from the form with all the boxes and the e-mail explaining how to obtain and/or use other forms, all to transfer money from one college fund account to another, and my heart rate went up, a pressure to the temples, and I felt silly and repulsed; where, for the first time I wondered, did this-what I would have to call hyperanxious attitude toward forms and bureaucratic complexity-originate?
Kavanah (intention): Loving kindness (toward myself and others )
Face your fears they say. A trope in tales of derring-do from Thelma and Louise and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to the Green Knight and excursions into faery. I have lots of fears. How I got diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder long ago. Let me count the ways. Claustrophobia. Being so concerned about having to prove my identity that I refused to go to stores when writing checks was still a thing. Diving off the high board. Large crowds. Having real conversations about sex. Asking women out on dates. Well, girls, too, at an earlier point. Singing or chanting in public. Carrying the Torah. On occasion things that go bump in the night. And, yes, filling out forms and the precision necessary to satisfy bureaucrats of any sort.
This last one has crippled my life. I failed to fill out the application form for a Danforth Scholarship. Which I would have gotten. Money for graduate school. How I filled out applications for graduate school, I don’t know. Brandeis and Rice University. Accepted with no money. Sooo. Have an account with Vanguard that Kate wanted me to add her, too. I tried, but I could never get the forms done. Would never be able to do my taxes if not for the accountant who takes my information and puts it in the right boxes.
My teeth clenched and my breath came a little faster as I wrote this. Geez. Guess my version of hell would be having to fill out endless entry forms when I got there. Yes, I see the humor in all this. Makes it worse, somehow. Silly. Sure. And, yet…
Over the years I’ve gotten more adept at navigating my life around paper shoals and form rapids. More adept. Not adept. When looking at all the stuff they want to transfer this money to my name from Kate’s. How rigid and rule bound the process is. Yes, protective. Sure. Also obstructive.
Where did this come from? Not sure. Has something to do, I imagine, with my anti-authoritarian impulses. Which come largely from my way of taking in Dad’s presence in my life. Not Dad himself. No, I’m old enough and honest enough now to know who’s responsible for how they take another’s actions towards them. Don’t think this explains very well the formophobia that I have. But it’s real. Still kickin’ at 77. Gosh, Gee whillikers. Shuffles feet and looks side to side.
BTW: Still no good at asking women out. Probably stalled around junior high. Check writing now ok. Claustrophobia. Active. Singing and/or chanting in public. Active. Things that go bump in the night. Only rarely.
Dying, on the other hand. Long ago accepted.
I was trying to write my way to some insights here. Didn’t succeed. Why they’re still around, I’m sure.
After reading for editing: I see a fear of ridicule, of not being seen and therefore of not being real. Of vanishing before power I have no control over. Of giving over validation of my Self to someone or something else. Maybe polio? Maybe reinforced by Mom’s death? By the iron lung?
Feeling a burst of empathy for the fearful guy within me. Need to rock him, sing him a lullaby. Tell him everything will be all right. Has been all right. Is all right.
