Can you feel your toes?

I generally hate Mondays – the relaxed state of the weekend usually hasn’t shifted sufficiently overnight to compensate for the chaos of a new week and I inevitably find myself feeling a bit “jet-lagged” on a Monday morning.  This has been expounded recently by the move to daylight savings’ time and my body clock is still having some difficulty adjusting to getting up an hour earlier.  As Mondays go, today was an eventful one.

I had a CT scan today and as I lay there in the very draughty fashionable hospital robe  with my arms raised above my head in a very small confined space, I tried to focus on everything but the fact that I felt like a pilchard in a tin “….breathe…. One….two…..three…. breathe….four…. breathe….let me out of here…. Five…. Breathe….@#$% …. Six…. Breathe… #$@!... Seven…. Take me out of here…. Eight…. Breathe… @#$%!!!

Isn’t the human mind amazing?  We filter out so much of what our senses take in and it isn’t until you focus on something like how the very fashionable Chanel hospital robe feels on your skin, that you become aware of it.  So I lay there in this horrible tube trying not to panic – yes, I am claustrophobic.  I thought about everything else but what was happening to me in that moment.  Focus on your breathing, focus on whether you can feel your toes, how your hair feels in the nape of your neck, whether or not the bow at the back of the gown had somehow worked its way loose and someone had got a glimpse of your butt, the glow of the red light on the awful humming machine which I prayed was not an incinerator or that I would hear "Beam her up, Scotty!"… and eventually I tried to just breathe.

Rewind a few minutes prior to that – a rather unfriendly nurse poked and prodded me for a vein while I tried very hard to think of… well anything but the large needle that was searching for the vein… after three attempts we were in business and my mascara was on my chin.  I’m such a baby when it comes to needles.  Yes, I bawled. Then the IV was opened and an ice cold stream of saline solution coursed up my arm… until  the dye was injected.  Suddenly, I didn’t have to worry about whether I still had toes or not – it felt like hot lava coursing through my body and like I had been sucking on some screws and bolts – an awful metallic taste in the mouth…. Very nice… especially since I had been fasting for 5 hours prior to the scan.  Note to self, suck a Lindt ball before you go in next time.

So while I was being wheeled backwards and forwards into this tunnel, I became very aware of my breathing… How it sounds, how it feels and how I my inner child was protesting against being put in a small space.  She was pounding on the walls wailing to be let out.  Isn’t it incredible that dye injected into your vein can illuminate every important organ in your body and highlight causes for concern or problems? 

Wouldn’t it be useful if we had something similar for matters of the heart and mind?  Wouldn’t it be useful if we could inject a magic dye to diagnose exactly what is wrong, exactly which part of your heart is broken and then just cut out the offensive bits like you remove a mole? Life would be so much simpler if we could “set a broken heart” like you “set a broken arm”, take a couple of aspirin and tomorrow you will be fine…” Keep it still in the sling, and you should be able to function.”

Then it dawned on me -  the solution to all this confusion, stress and tension – is perhaps to focus on the things I have filtered out.  Like we suddenly become aware of the shirt on our backs when someone asks how it feels, perhaps that is what is required.  A period of stillness – of taking time out – breathe,  feel, breathe, feel all the little things,  and be grateful that you can feel your toes even if they are red hot.

Today, also brought its share of blessings.  One of the biggest blessings came in the form of a wonderful friend who offered to come with me to the hospital today, not because I needed someone to hold my hand (except for the assistant whose hand I bruised while I was being prodded with a needle) but because she didn’t want me to be alone.  How does one begin to place a value on that?  A friend who is there to just sit with you and share your fear and just be with you because you don’t want to be alone is a true friend and this one is a keeper.  The second was that there is no sign of tumour or anything significant – that is if my powers of deduction and translation of medicalese is anything to go by.  The pictures are rather odd and after one glance, I figured I prefer the outside to the inside.  It is disturbing to know what you look like on the inside. 

I wonder what it would be like if we could scan someone’s soul – the inner person -  as we do the body? Wouldn’t that be bloody marvellous??  Imagine subjecting any new potential partner to a soul scan to see if you should keep them or throw them back!  It would be great if we could X-ray people to see how broken they really are inside and whether or not you should even attempt to get involved.  It would certainly save a lot of heartache.

It was also a humbling experience.  We all look equally frail in our designer hospital robes and all feel vulnerable and exposed.  Today I realised again what a gift health is and how important it is to take care of this body – it’s the only one I have.  Lying there with my arms above my head in the tunnel, I felt really vulnerable and afraid.  Suddenly, I realised that I’m not as invincible as I imagined, that a change in my  health, could radically change my entire life.  So perhaps it is time to focus on the important life functions like breathing and then the rest will follow.  As long as I have a breath and I can hold it in and breathe it out again, I can cope, even if my toes are on fire, my mouth tastes like I’m sucking on nails and I’m clinging desperately to my sense of dignity in an awful hospital robe.  So I lay there like a pilchard and remembered the song my daughter used to love as a  toddler… “I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes ….” 

Switches flicked?  Gratitude, inner peace, silence and all the faith buttons I could find.  I closed my eyes and I heard my daughter sing, I felt my toes, I felt the robe, I felt my breathing and I felt alive.  

That is enough for now.

The Full Moon and the Erotic Synapse

What an eventful week or three this has been.  I saw a spectacular moon close to the equinox, learnt about Macaque monkeys and mirror neurons, explored various options in night-and-day flu medication, and relished sizzling boerewors on the coals in Garigal Reserve with 70 fellow South Africans. Each of these elements relate to healing and recovery on some level which I will relate in the next few days.

I was unfortunate enough to develop the usual flu symptoms and fever which coincided with the equinox and glorious full moon.  For some reason I always notice the full moon. In my feverish state, I spent many hours staring at the glowing moon outside my window. If you are into astrology, you will say it is because I am a Cancerian and my ruling planet is the Moon.  But in truth, I love watching a full moon in the night sky.  There is something very tranquil and comforting about the full moon.  As a child I always believed that the moon was God’s way of keeping an eye on us – as if it was some magical lens that he opened from time to time to see what we are up to.  The bigger the moon – the more he had opened the lens to have a good look at what we are doing here.  So today, I still look up at the full moon each time and I wonder what He sees if indeed He is looking back at me. And the child in me feels safer during a full moon because he is keeping watch.

The phases of the moon are not unlike the phases of life – it changes from a small slice of magic moonlight to a glowing orb to the blackness of new moon.  In the phases of the moon I discovered a metaphor for life and healing.  There are lean times, times of darkness but it will be followed by a bright glowing full moon which illuminates the sky with its silver irredescence.  I guess it depends how you look at it and what you are looking at.   

I watched a beautiful curly haired toddler at the shopping mall today – a gorgeous little boy who was keen to explore the world around him and discover the hidden wonders of the coffee shop but he kept looking back to see if he could see his mom.  He needed security to go out into the world and needed a safe base to return to.  I thought about how this manifests in adults – perhaps periods of boldness and risk taking punctuated by periods of seeking grounding, safety and consolidation.  Like the phases of the moon – alternating phases of growth and equilibrium.

Like the bright eyed toddler looking back to see his mom, we all seek a steady reliable anchor in our partner but crave to pursue what is exciting, inspiring and mysterious.  Call me an idealist but I believe love and desire are not mutually exclusive.  I just think that they don’t necessarily take place at the same time.  Isn’t it perhaps that security and passion are two separate fundamental human needs that spring from different motives and end up pulling us in different directions?

Rationally, I expect men, when they see a younger woman walking down the street in a short skirt, bustier and come-and-get-me boots, to get turned on but I wonder how many of them are able to distintuish between erotic desire and real love.  We always hope that they are mature enough to distinguish between the two – but sadly many don’t. This is where many men get lost in the abyss of a male midlife crisis. I have come to realize that the excitement of such attractions lies in the absence of psychological complexity.

This tension between security and adventure is a paradox to manage not a problem to solve.  It’s like a puzzle – we need each at different times but you can’t have both simultaneously.  I have come to the conclusion that love and desire are an ebb and flow – two clashing forces in a permanent state of flux always in search of the critical balance point. This is where commitment becomes an issue.  

When we become a monogamous couple we immediately set boundaries and delineate zones and this is when people start experimenting with how far they can push the boundaries before trip-wiring sensitivities.  We define zones of togetherness and zones of privacy and the mother of all boundaries is fidelity and the sacred cow of the pasture is monogamy.  That more than anything confirms our specialness to each other – conversely when you no longer feel special – the tingle starts and your eyes wander.  

That is why affairs are in essence a search for validation – a quest for someone to confirm our significance or desirability. (I use the term loosely here – the same applies to ridiculous flings which men have with women young enough to be their children in fulcrum of a midlife crisis.)  Such relationships by their very nature lend themselves to passion – they are risky, exciting, dangerous and secluded from the disapproving eyes of the world.  This means they are also luxuriously free of the realities and mundane practicalities of everyday life and the domesticity of a committed relationship.  It may represent the missing piece of the puzzle but sadly many people realize too late that it is just one miserable piece and the rest of the puzzle – the big picture – lies with the “more boring” spouse/partner.

This shadow of the other person is lurking at the boundary of all relationships.  She can be the sexy young Brazilian who flirts with you on a cruise, a waitress, an attractive cashier in the supermarket, the smiling stranger on the bus.  She is the forbidden fruit  - the manifestation of men’s desire for what lies beyond the boundary.  This is the strange corollary of a relationship – a couple implies resistance to this third party – but in order for the relationship to survive – it must have enemies. 

Isn’t it odd that when we believe someone to be incapable of infidelity, when the realization dawns that they are capable – even if only in fantasy – we feel betrayed.  What can be more unnerving than your partner’s freedom –which could include the freedom not to love you or to become a different person from the one who pledged undying love for you?  Such fantasies are embodiments of their freedom and separateness and it is scary.  So what do we do?  We set boundaries and rules and hope to keep our partners faithful – does it not then become enforced monogamy? 

I am beginning to wonder if we have not become so conditioned about the traditional notions of relationships that we have preconceived ideas and rules about what constitutes intimacy and too few for autonomy.  Are we perhaps too focused on establishing closeness that we have forgotten how to sustain individuality? Our ideology of love often leaves us uncomfortable and unsettled in the face of pursuing autonomy.

I have come to the conclusion that while we crave closeness it is often the space between us – the distance – that creates the seemingly elusive erotic synapse.  Perhaps that is what erotic intelligence is – creating distance and then knowing how to bring that space to life.  The analogy of the cat and the piece of string comes to mind again.  I think therefore that love rests on two pillars – surrender and autonomy.  Like the toddler in the shop, the need for separateness is inextricably linked to the need for closeness. 

Perhaps our greatest mistake is that we expect our relationships to act as a buttress against the arrows and slings of life but isn’t it ironic that love by its very nature is unstable?  We try to shore it up, batten down the hatches and attempt to create a sense of predictability to foster a sense of security.  But I am beginning to think that these very mechanisms we use to protect ourselves, place us at even greater risk and set us up for more heartache. (And no,  I am not condoning infidelity or proposing the debased immoral notion of the so-called “open” relationship – quite the contrary.)

Perhaps the real voyage of discovery is not about finding new landscapes but in seeing the landscape with new eyes.  A perceptual shift – and my recent circumstances have been a catalyst for a few shifts.  Perhaps we need to hurt ourselves into this paradigm shift.  Perhaps we need a sense of the unknown in a familiar space and perhaps we need to recognize  inherent mystery and separateness in each other.  Do we subconsciously neutralize each other’s complexity and see only the image of our partner which conforms with a creation based on our own set of needs?  Do we select partners whose proclivities match our vulnerabilities?

From all of  this, which switches have been flicked?  I have learnt that I don’t need to abdicate my person to merit love and that your need for freedom does not necessarily constitute a rejection of me a person.  The autonomy pilot light is spluttering to life next to the shattered dial of security.  Note to self – get a new glass for the  dial – armour plated and shatterproof.  Switched off the insecurity switch and pressed the letting-go button.  Still hoping the fear-of-the-unknown light will blow out soon and that the doubt fuse will go soon.  It needs to be replaced with a brighter one – perhaps optimism or faith would help.  Cranked up the stillness and acceptance to maximum capacity and pushed the strength lever as far as it could go. 

Now, we need to look up from the dashboard and see where we are going.  Time to look at the landscape with new eyes.  Perhaps the dark lines are not dongas but rivers which the moonlight hasn’t caught up with yet.  Perhaps it will look different in the glow of the full moon in a month or so.  Time will tell.