Today began with a whole hoard of chest constriction and ended in an emotional deluge, per se, an outpouring.
It was a beautiful, insanely beautiful day today. The light filtering through massive, soft cottonball clouds was so clean, soft, delicate and ethereal that it felt like a soothing embrace; sweet to the touch and warm to the taste. Walking through the hallowed streets of this neighborhood, quieted by Sunday church services and washed clean by dew and nostalgia, I felt the desert wind stirring deep within me. The breeze and my steps chimed to a rhythm that calmed my constricting chest and synced to my heartbeat. I dropped Refuge off at the Anderson-Foothill Library, painfully overdue, with an equally painful weight of symbolism.
I'm glad I can still appreciate, with chills that start in my loins and move up to the passion pit beneath my heart, that little constricting chill in my gut, the soul-wrenching beauty of the world - of Salt Lake City, and of Utah.
What is this city, or any other, without good people to enjoy it with? I enjoyed the foothills with Kajal, with Caitlin, with Dave, and with myself; Terry Tempest Williams and I, we find pain in our isolation, but serenity in our solitude. I have enjoyed the deserts of Southern Utah this summer with new friends, a new lover, and then next with Annie and all sorts of the best old friends, and Paul, a new and good one. And then next with my family, in a wash of sunsets and muffled rain on soft red clay mixing beneath our bared toes and hearts. I loved nothing more than chasing my little Kajal in a meander through the dunes, climbing everything remotely climbable and assigning categorical human beauty to the grotesque forms embodied in the goblins of the valley.
Terry Tempest Williams learned, over the course of Refuge, to embrace death, and thereby to find refuge in change. I have not embraced the death of my two-year relationship. I have acknowledged, perhaps even embraced, the death of my sense of comfort existing and interacting with other people. I am ready to reverse this situation. I will take the medication I need, and I will take care of myself, and I will get therapy at UVA, and I will resolve and heal from my internal conflicts; with resilience, I will find myself less of a weather vane, and more of a stolid rock against the rough external currents of reality and life.
Taking care of myself will involve running almost every day; I expect it of myself, no matter how difficult it may feel sometimes, the serotonin buildup will likely reach maximum efficacy for running at the same six-week interval proscribed by the doctor for the SSRI.
I think that I am appreciating a lot of things about my parents now; the courage and resilience with which they faced moving to an entirely new, cold, lonely country where they knew absolutely nobody, and where they aren't necessarily the two most outgoing people to be thrown into such a situation. My father is a bit more so, and it was also primarily his decision to come here. My mother, I really can begin to feel bad for; though I feel like there are a whole host of steps she could have taken to remediate her situation and I do not think it has ever been fair to me or Kajal to have to grow up in a house festering with her mental malaise, I can begin to understand and reconcile some of the pain of my past with the pain of her past.
Breathing exercises and yoga actually do help me deal with the chest constriction that is, in all reality, my main problem with anxiety in the first place. I feel like half the time it is my physical responses driving my emotional hell, and not vice-versa. So I'm curious to see the effect of the SSRI on this, because I don't know that serotonin will immediately calm me in the way the doctor anticipates, in terms of relaxing my chest and releasing my words. I almost think that marijuana would have a great healing effect, at least in terms of interfering in the feedback loop between my physical responses and my mental state. Although I am pretty optimistic about its medical capablities, I don't think I'm brave enough to make myself the guinea pig in this situation.
One thing that Dave has taught me: that growing and aging is about creating your own stability wherever you can; it does not necessarily come with any sort of ease. He's taught me how important it is to embrace new experiences, to relax and enjoy the moment, and to embrace and love new people before placing any sort of judgement on them. His confidence is quiet and unassuming, and his finesse with people, his social aptitude, is nonpareil. I like it. It has intimidated me for the majority of the summer because I had my own insecurities and anxiety that I grappled with and because I hadn't gotten to know him that well, but now, I'm learning to embrace that too.
I was sad to drop off Refuge today because I think that it had become a bible of sorts for me, this summer. There is an ageless resonant beauty, an inherent spirituality that rushes through Williams' words like a haunting, desolate desert wind. Terry Tempest Williams overcame pain by embracing the earth, by embracing those parts of nature that resonate with our inner selves and help us escape and, at the same time, that help us understand what we grapple with in people, in ourselves, and in the external world.
