one day, this brain

This morning, I woke up and laughed out loud (very special indeed!!) when it occurred to me how one particular memory is a poignant example for what living in this mind was like for very, very long (in case anybody ever asks). So, follow me for a nice little outing that took place almost a year ago.

~

The one day that I am able to put on clothes, walk down the stairs, out of the house, and onto a bus; the one day I'm able to do that after another half year of 90% bedboundness, infections and fear of dying (a familiar comrade by now) — what do I do?

I'm taking the train to Kiel. Okay, not the single most ugly place possible; after all, there is still Neumünster. Even so, there are other options, honey... anyway. I'm taking the train to Kiel where a friend lives who might be free that evening, and I'm taking my chances.

There are about two and a half pretty spots in Kiel, and one of those, I choose.

I'm sitting there, in the early summer early afternoon, miraculously kissed by the sun and caressed by light breezes, on a bench only marginally covered in bird poop, facing this gorgeous little pond, all glimmery and gracious, sharing her splendor with all of us around. Trees swaying, moving me deeply (for the seconds that my eyes can bear to rest on them). On the two benches to my sides, two people are reading books. Yes, books !! ... just like me!

What am I reading, you wonder?

Well, something that's adequate for the occasion, of course. Something honoring the majesty of this moment, this potential once-(more-)in-a-lifetime (who knows??) being outdoors and sitting upright (kinda) and reading a book and hearing the swans' charming heckle.

Something festive, and joyful, and nice. The sort of thing I yearned for while being jailed in my little room, wincing in pain at each tiniest sound, the window covered with cardboard.

Something colorful, uplifting.

What am I reading about? — Sure thing: Life, or the lack thereof, in concentration camps.

... If you ever need an illustration of what this brain made me do throughout my entire life, it is this:

Me — on that one glorious afternoon, in those glorious surroundings, with that otherwise existentially debilitating (and so profoundly confusing!) condition (like, what had allowed for this spontaneous one-day-aliveness?? What in heaven is happening??? How bad, how excruciating will the repercussions for this madness of a trip be, come tomorrow???? Am I Actively Killing Myself Here?????) ... well, and also no perspective whatsoever — choosing to read that.

Yes, this brain did make properly sure I never felt like I was permitted (maybe able?) to be okay, even alright, or, God forbid, happy. To actually rest. She always made sure I was working on some way to save someone or something—no, let's be honest: everyone and everything.

Not one second could be lost in our perpetual fighting the whole world's inequities! (Which we were obviously doing by only reading; learning more and more and more we would forget in the matter of minutes, stuffing this heart with more grief and more fear and more stress and overwhelm.)

No way we were letting ourself get swooped up in this gift of the fresh air's tender embrace! No way we were actually taking in any of the beauty and the truth right here, this truth that was equally true to all the truths of suffering and violence. ... Well, I was forever used to pain, I guess.

— Now, I just switched to past tense when describing this wondersome brain's remarkable "tenacity" (she was a rather iron lady), quite fitting for the very Tense Past that it was.

Why? Because: Eureka, It Is No Longer Like That. (Well, at least not that intense.)

The iron fist has started to melt under steady beams of warm and kind and present, curious compassion.

... a million coincidings leading me to the hundredth type of meditation that I tried, and this one finally working; nourishing, sustaining, and actually transforming.

A Language of Life, patiently growing a garden in the maze that is this mind.

An anchor each day, a place — and such beautiful faces — to turn to.

A healing, holding community of capacious mind-mazes and hearts and souls and bodies, located in other countries, yet so close in spirit and in impact.

The relief of recognition when, after a decade of searching, reading or hearing about stories remotely like mine, finding words for what was formerly unspeakable, ungraspable — unacknowledgeable.

A growing web of friends I'm growing more and more able to trust; to tentatively, slowly, gradually let in.

Lastly, later today I am about to embark on a journey called the Mind Body Reconnect, guided by the wise and wonderful Keelin who (and which) I already sense is going to have an immeasurable effect on my existence from here on. Like, on the entire rest of my life (and thus on all the lives that my life touches — slightly smaller an impact, but just as immeasurable).

And while I sometimes still am occupied with the hells and the horrors of concentration camps and the like (no shortage of those realities, after all), I do know more deeply now that my suffering by "proxy"* does not eliviate the source pains and problems. * (mentally, I mean, and only extremely approximately, from a ridiculously privileged distance.)

In order to actually live out of Love (as opposed to reactivity and shame), to one day connect and bring about even the most minuscule kind of change anywhere; in order to pour from this cute lil pale china cup that I am, I need to begin by filling it with something to pour in the first place.

So, that's what I am doing these days.

I'm sitting in the sun, and letting her kiss me as hard as she likes (okay, that is a cheap metaphor; I'm still lying in bed all day, every day, food delivered by generous room mate™. Buuut the curtains are often drawn halfway already!) ... Nevertheless: nowadays

I am kissed by light more often than not, and, when the capacities allow, watching Sky Cinema, reading poetry or middle grade novels (oh, Kate DiCamillo), writing stuff like this, and playing the concertina.

That's a pretty cup of tea, if you ask me.

PS: I am actually really fond of Kiel and apologize for my rough speech.