Fire in the sky

For the past few weeks, I've been engaged in an epic battle within myself. It is far too complicated to explain on this here blog, and a great deal of it is none of your business anyway.

But I'm writing about it, so let's just put it this way:

The trauma of my childhood, regrets about my adult relationships, annoyance with the unnecessarily heterosexist bias in my Couples Therapy class and a deluge of reading about Attachment Theory combined with a physical ailment that wore me down from its duration (nearly three weeks now), ruined my exercise habits, disrupted my dietary stability and left me feeling, for two days, too sick to take care of myself. Then, on Tuesday night after class, an unexpected interpersonal explosion added the last bit of psychological stress necessary to create what, in my experience, became The Perfect Storm.

A dream I had early Wednesday morning is telling:

I am at home in my loft and it's empty. No furniture. No clothing. No dog. I'm sitting on the floor in the kitchen, knees to my chest, crying. XGF comes in and asks what's the matter. I'm sad, I reply. I'm just very, very sad.

She says she's going on a business trip and is just here waiting for a taxi. She stands in the bay window and watches the street below. We are talking, but I can't remember what's being said.

The taxi arrives, and I walk downstairs with her. She walks across the street and gets into the taxi, and I am surprised by the fact that she doesn't seem to notice the wind. It is howling. It is pushing against the door so hard that I have to lean my whole weight into the door to close it. It won't stay closed. The wind keeps pushing it, the force so violent that it's knocking me off balance. I see bricks nearby and think I can pile them in the doorway to keep it shut.

My plan is useless. Before I can build a sufficient barrier, the door has broken and is swinging outward, slamming itself open and shut in the gale. I abandon my plan and head back up to my loft.

I enter my home only to find the wind is in here, too. All the windows and doors are shut, but there is a massive, frightening hurricane in my home. Invisible. Unstoppable. Pushing me around. Keeping me off balance. Sending me to the floor. It isn't safe anywhere.

... So that was the dream. Frightening, disturbing and filled for me, the dreamer, with tremendous despair. It was (and still is) a clear and accurate metaphor for the disturbance of my psyche.

The wind is highly symbolic. It is something I can see only by inference -- the door banging, trees bending, trash blowing in the streets -- but it is undeniably and powerfully present. It disrupts everything, knocks me off my feet, throws my entire world into chaos. It is also a force over which I have no control, and yet it surrounds me, flows past and through me, pushes itself against me without being something I can grab onto and wrestle properly and directly. There's no defense against it, and there's also no way to attack it. The wind, simply, is not fair.

Although this "perfect storm" was a few weeks in developing its strength, the wind finally blew at such strength on Tuesday night that it knocked me over and pinned me to the ground. It felt to me like there would be no getting up, and I totally succumed to the experience.

To my credit, however, I took some important steps to protect myself, told a few friends what was happening and managed, somehow, to go through a few important paces, such as going to class. There was also, in the middle of it, a rather peculiar attempt at "retail therapy" that resulted in me owning some "magic" locking cooking tongs. (I wish I could explain, but you've got to experience them for yourself.)

In any case, I was until this evening unquestionably lingering right at the event horizon of a psychological black hole. I spent two hours trying to persuade myself to get out of bed and go walk my dog. This included attempts at disputing my cognitive distortions, diaphragmatic breathing (yes, it was so bad, I went the Crosby route) and reminding myself of the importance of every single self-care tactic I could remember.

Finally, though, it was probably the phone call from YogaGirl, who told me, "Take your dog for a walk," that prompted me to sit up. And when I sat up, the dog came over and began to pester me with the type of imploring whine that made it clear he was not going to be one of those quiet, retiring dogs you see in the Cymbalta ("Who does depression hurt?") commercials. So I got up and walked him.

Although I'm not out of my psychological gutter just yet, something happened on that walk that shifted my state of mind a bit. I experienced a staggering insight: Something I have been secretly ruminating on for several months now came sharply into focus, and I gave words to it. I spoke them out loud and faced my own foolishness. I was devastated and worn out and fed up and crying.

I took a moment to compose myself. And then I turned the corner. (Literally, not figuratively.)

Walking up the street, I saw something curious about two blocks away. Bright lights were circling there in the darkness. Without my glasses, it took me a few moments of walking closer to understand what I was seeing. Someone was juggling fire.

Even in the haze of sleepy, tearful, grief-inspired depression, this spinning fire called out to me like a beacon. I was drawn to explore it, to know what was happening there down the street. I walked up to a scene of which, for a few minutes, I was the only observer. There, in the street, scantily clad in the cold night air, a woman engaged in a sensual dance to erotic-sounding trance music, spinning orbs of fire on the end of two chains. It was decidedly Cirque du Soleil-like in its spectacle.

I hadn't eaten but a Luna Bar all day, and as I watched the amber glow of the fire illuminate this woman's bare stomach, I considered the possibility that I was hallucinating. But I observed two things: My dog clearly saw the same thing I did, and cars began to slow as they drove down a nearby street, some stopping in the intersection to watch this curious performance.

As the woman's firey chains began to burn out, another woman in even less clothing approached with two handfuls of Freddy Kruger-like fingertips topped with balls that burst into flames when she touched them to the other woman's burning chains. She began to dance in the street to a different song.

I was captivated.

Especially when, with the start of a third song, the first woman returned to the street with a firey hula hoop and turned herself into an illuminated version of a whirling dervish. It was phenomenal. As I stood there, a woman rode up on her bike. Some other people walked up and stood near me. Collectively, we composed a mystified and appreciative group.

Perhaps it was the boldness of fire contrasting the dark night, perhaps it was the trance-like music, perhaps it was the delightful color of warmth reflecting on young flesh in the chilly fog, but as I watched this performance, my mood began to change. It was nothing more than serendipitous, but it felt in the moment as if this performance were being put on specifically for me.

I found myself contemplating a world in which such things happen, in which the most powerful grief can be challenged by the mystery of fire in the night sky, in which unexpected performance art and utter frivolity can find their expression without question.

I enjoy such a world. Like the wind that blows across its surface, it's unpredictable. Sometimes, it disturbs me and unhinges me and pins me to the floor. It devastates me and nearly destroys me. Yet it has such mystery that it keeps me curious. It holds the promise of something new, some possibility not yet considered.

And somehow -- somehow -- just when I've think I've had enough, it keeps me coming back for more.