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I got onto my yoga mat with a relieved sigh. Ten years ago my body crashed and burned, and I had no idea why. I was as unfamiliar then with my emotional landscape as I was with my body itself. I spinned in sickness for months, gradually becoming anxious and unhappy, until I found myself thrown a life preserver marked "zoloft." I became more able to bear the illness, but I remained a stranger on my own lands, spinning out the same patterns, feeding the same disease. Eventually, the search for my recovery led us to alternative medicine--to exercise, fruits and vegetables, water, flowers, sunshine, yoga, breath. And I since have followed clue after clue, building strength and courage, unravelling fears and pain. Putting together pieces of wellness and health. All things come in cycles, I suppose, for an even 10 years later I find myself again very ill. But this time I'm more familiar with serenity and with nonreactive living. But still no expert, mind you. Mostly, I'm just more familiar with myself. With hands and feet, I've dug into soil ages deep in my soul and I've made rough maps of the expanse of territory I've found there. Because of that, I generally can enjoy my days here, despite the fatigue, fevers, pain, and headaches. In fact, I've learned things and enjoyed people's goodness in ways I never could have if I had been well. Sometimes, however, I bubble up with emotion and ask what I'm to learn from all this. Today the movie "The Piano" sparked my outburst. Despite the brilliant ending, where the pianist chooses to live and is born again, the movie reminded me of many of my Sylvia-Plath-type fears. The brilliant woman muted and tortured. The prospective watery resting place for her music and her voice, for our music and our voices, for MY music and my voice. I lingered in the aftertaste of the film, sensing the gray walls around me and the fatigue in my body, and felt again the sense of powerlessness and fear that gripped me 10 years ago with this disease. Fear and powerlessness that I had since 1993 deconstructed by my strides toward mental and physical health and strength. Knowing it would take just a few words and tears, I asked Scott's listening ear (new step for us, ps) for 5 minutes to sort some of this stuff out. What am I to learn from all this again? Just more patience? Perhaps. More practice at living with perspective? Probably. More opportunity to live with courage, faith, and hope? Most likely. I was easily satisfied by these answers and felt that Scott was right on this point as well: that I'm still learning to trust myself, to trust that I create my future, that I'm not just a bundle of results of what happens to me. I pattered over the heated dirty-gray floor to my dirty, worn pale blue mat next to the dark window. I was resolved to keep taking care of myself in the ways I know best. Scott's words were still in my mind, "You'll be able to write a book, my love, about all the constructive ways to handle perceived frustrations, disappointments, impediments in our lives." I smiled and stretched up my arms in a sun-salute. "You're great, Phersty," I thought. "Look at this, you still keeping hope and faith and not spinning in the fear of the moment." Immediately, my mind spewed out, "Scott should write a book about me. About his amazing wife who overcame all obstacles and found health and peace in her life." ... yeah ... Just as soon as I thought it, I saw the thought, saw it for what it was, and countered with "Girl, you write your own book." That's the point. I'll write my own book. She found her own voice and will to live and chose to speak. So will I. I won't sit around and wait for somebody else to praise or criticize me, or to notice the guts or the brilliance or the beauty. I decided then that if I did write a book, I'd dedicate it to Leroy, thanking him for encouraging me, loving me, seeing me--but especially for refusing to write my books for me. My voice, ck [2003-04-20]
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