These Foolish Things
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. ~ Viktor Frankl
In amongst the medley of bizarre sights and sounds that my brain offered up to me last night, while I slept, was this little bit of magic:
I was walking through a cavernous space, not unlike a mall, but a really dazzlingly beautiful one. Or like a gigantic upscale hotel. I don't recall what I was wearing, but I felt really lovely and just perfectly turned out, and it had been so long. Suddenly, there was Bryan Ferry, in one of his trademark suits and a thin grey scarf, walking and turning and singing little snippets of songs. A man with a camera followed, making images for a story that I somehow knew would be in Vogue. It was ridiculously delightful, and I followed him for a bit, singing along, dancing along. He noticed me doing that, and gestured to me with both hands as he finished the chorus of a song that doesn't exist in this timeline. The photographer got a great shot of that. Everyone was smiling and just enjoying this tiny little moment. It was like being a kid and watching the most perfect Christmas movie. And then I kept walking.
Sometimes my brain provides its own balm when I need it most, and I am grateful.
Life has been extraordinarily difficult these last couple of months. My sweet nephew remains in the hospital, now going on four months, following his bone marrow transplant. For a few weeks running, he was told at the start of the week that he’d probably get to go home that Friday. Each time, a new combination of horrific symptoms befell him, necessitating more tests—new ones, old ones, invasive ones, painful ones. He’s spent a week in peds ICU, most recently. He hasn’t eaten in nearly three weeks now. He’s had blood transfusion after blood transfusion.
It’s a special kind of torture. To be clear: most of it is his to bear. The rest of us are tortured by proxy, by the knowledge that there’s so very little we can do to help him. By the game-running I’m certain each of us does, secretly, when it’s dark and we are alone. We do what we can to bolster him in different ways. We try to bolster each other. We let others bolster us when we can. It’s a seemingly endless triage. And there’s another complication: I’m estranged from his sole living parent, my brother.
Estrangement brings with it a brew of shame and secrecy. One is forever wrong-footed, unsure of how to handle conversations and various scenarios. How much to omit? How much to admit? What kind of plans need to be made in the event that the other person is present? In the event that the other person loses their shit because there you are, breathing? How about if someone starts asking what happened? They’re questions of etiquette, and they are also drills to run with yourself. If X, then Y. If this, then that. Now change that one detail. Change the setting. Change the audience. Now what? Repeat ad nauseam.
And then there’s Helene. And Milton. And Gaza. Oh, and the election. (As with the previous one, I would like the option of being in a coma until it’s over.) I look at people around me who seem to just carry on blithely, unaffected, and the mixture of disgust and envy I feel is potently bitter. No, there’s not a lot I can do to help any of those broad-scale emergencies. Yes, I know I’m overly sensitive. It’s mostly a blessing, and it is often a curse. If I believe that none of us are free until all of us are free—and I do—then how do I live now? How do I focus on doing what I love because I love it, when I could be (theoretically, like if I had a million dollars or didn’t have complicated health issues and devices on my person, and so on, and so on) helping others? What use am I, then, to my fellow humans? Social conditioning is a real fucker, and yet it’s nothing compared to illness and catastrophe and war and greed.
I wish that I weren’t still having these arguments with myself. Every now and then I begin to see the shore and begin to feel that whatever gifts I have, however meager they may be, my responsibility is to use them and hone them and put them out into the world. To do that, rather than to divert my energy and resources toward something more seemingly useful, at which I’ll be second-rate at best. But the moment passes and the shoreline disappears.
Anyone needs me, I’ll be right here, pushing this same boulder up that same hill.
(And another shout-out to my brain, which occasionally gives me a break.)
Love,
Emma