The Cow
When the Eastern block first opened up, beautiful hand crafted items showed up in the street markets here at criminally low prices. Amazingly beautiful pieces of work that had taken hours of work and a lot of skill to create sold at such low prices, that you had to wonder how the artisans managed to eat. There was a beautiful Ukrainian doll that I coveted. I visited her often at the market, but couldn’t give myself permission to buy her. And then one day, without knowing why, I let myself buy her. I took her home and hid her immediately, without even opening the wrapping to take a peek. She remained hidden for months, maybe a year or longer. I forgot that she was hidden. And then one day I remembered her, and looked for that package, found it, opened it up and I put the doll on my shelf, where I could see her, astonished by her beauty. Now you may well think that’s wierd. shortly after I’d put the doll out, during a phone conversation, I mentioned it to my sister and she said she does the same thing too. Why are we like this? Why do we let men treat us like shit? Why do we hide gifts to ourselves? We don’t feel that we deserve to be treated better? We don’t feel that we deserve gifts?
In the beginning of the month I went on a compulsive and manic spending spree on eBay. I spent money that I didn’t have yet on things that I really wanted. I tried really hard to get myself to focus on what I needed to spend that money on--new glasses, and computer repair for example, important things. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop myself. I searched methodically all night long, night after night. When it became daylight, the light nagged at me, reminded me that I needed to sleep. It nagged at me and nagged at me until I went to bed. By then of course I had to sleep all day. And when I got up, I’d try to do something else but I couldn’t. I searched for things that I’d loved when I was in Japan, that I’d thought I would be able to save up and buy, or that I’d simply enjoyed going to look at. Objects that I loved. The craftsmanship in Japan is amazing. Just standing and looking at those objects was a form of meditation. The time I spent in Japan was one of the happiest times in my life. I couldn’t have imagined that it would be ripped away from me so abruptly, so cruelly. Life’s like that, you can only be in the moment, without knowing what will happen next. You can choose to live in the moment, or you can try to deny it, run away from it. Anesthetize yourself with alcohol, watch TV reruns and movies compulsively, play checkers compulsively, avoid leaving your room because you’re terrified to even walk out the door and up the street to buy groceries even when you’re really hungry. You can avoid life. There have been moments in my life when I have been in the now, but mostly I hide. I hide myself from life like I hid that Ukrainian doll.
So anyway, I searched on eBay for handcrafted items, folk toys mostly, folk toys, pottery, bamboo flower arrangement baskets, dolls, lacquer ware and so on. I even searched by every material I could think of: wood, fabric, ceramic, bronze, paper maché.... I looked and looked and looked, until I found something I really wanted, and then I bid on it, with the money I didn’t have. This isn’t the first time I’ve gone on a manic spending spree on eBay. The last time I did it, it got me into a lot of debt and created a mess that I spent years cleaning up. I swore never again. For years I wouldn’t even let myself look at eBay, just like I don’t let myself go into shops, and even avoid window shopping. Manic spending sprees are a typical precursor symptom to an upcoming manic phase, and I do my best not to tempt my fate. But bipolar is a disease, and no matter how hard you try to manage it, sooner or later it’s going to kick you down to the ground.
I’ve spent the last month busting my ass to work to pay for those eBay items. Made myself ill by pushing myself to work even though I’m not well enough to work. I’ve spent years fighting to work, and failing again and again because my health wouldn’t permit it. I was given full disability for a reason. And it certainly wasn’t because I didn’t want to work. After six years on a waiting list for job retraining, I went through eight months of exams, interviews, and tests, for it. The French government told me that I couldn’t work, that I’m an artist, and I should do my art, that society needs artists. That it’s okay just to be me. And for this they give me just enough money to survive on each month. But I fight to work, thenI accept that I can’t, and then go back into the ring for one more round. I thought that I was done fighting, that I could accept my life as it was. I thought that at last I could keep out the voices of people who can’t see my invisible disability, who say: “You look great, you’re doing fine, you talentad and competent, you should be working.” “You’re normal, so stop slacking.”
Inevitably, bipolar kicked me to the ground again, I had a manic rip again, on eBay, using promises of payment instead of money. And the day that manic rip stopped and the morning I awoke to see what I’d done, I felt lke I was inspecting hurricane wreckage. I had to begin working to clean up the mess. It’s taking everything from me. It takes up so much of my time and energy, that I haven’t been able to deal with simple daily tasks or activities. I haven’t been able to go to my alcohol support group meetings. I’ve become increasingly disconnected from reality. Some days I can see that it’s there, I try to grasp at it, but it’s just beyond the tips of my fingers.
Now, I’ve almost finished paying my bills. I can almost get back into daily life. It’s there, I can see it. Yesterday I managed to get myself out of my room to go to a meeting. Every step and every minute outdoors was terrifying. It was a beautiful day that I could have been part of. Other people were out there, out in the streets, being part of life, and I felt like I was looking through a window. It was terrifying, it was difficult. I had dressed well and put on my favorite perfume. I saw people that I knew, and I said that , “Yes, everything’s going great.” I struggled to focus, to listen carefully to what people were saying, to be present for others. Yes, it was hard, but I did it, I took those first steps out, back into the world, once again returning from some other place. Terrified that I was just days away from having to go back to the psych ward, I asked my psychologist for help. She introduced me to the psych nurses, so I can go in and talk as often as I need to, without having to go back to the psych ward. And she gave me suggestions of other ways I can ask people to be supportive. This way I can take baby steps out into the world, while learning not to be so self-destructive, which will do me a lot more good than lying around in a hospital bed bored out of my mind.
And then there is the cow. The eBay purchases started arriving, and I could had a pretty good guess from the size and shape of the package, and the location of the sender, what was in it. I’ve been stacking the boxes up, without opening them. It would be difficult well nigh impossible to hide them here in this room, but I can ignore them, by staying compulsively in front of my computer. I’ve been hiding the gift of life from myself. In many ways, the most insidious way being through alcohol. Alcoholism hides life from you. People often think that drinking is your fault, after all, you’re the one who choose to drink and you should just choose to stop drinking. “Just use some self-control, like other people do.” Well some most folks can do that, but for alcoholics it doesn’t work that way. Alcoholism is a disease, and not just any disease, it wants you dead with a vengeance. Sure, lots of diseases kill, but not this way. Alcohol turns you into the living dead, it wants you dead before you get to your grave. It robs life from the living. Methodically, it robs you of your dignity, your self-worth, your self-control, it takes your job, your spouse, your children, it robs you of everything. It kills your soul. It’s Evil. Oh, you may not believe in God, or you may accept that there God exists, even if you have no clue of what God is, there is some benevolent force out there that gives our lives meaning and purpose. But a force out there that wants to destroy meaning and purpose? Oh no, we don’t want to believe in that. But I am a witness, as are countless others, that Evil is out there, and alcohol is one of the seductive ways that it introduces itself into our lives.
Anyone, I stacked up the packages, all but one, because it surprised me. It was smaller than anything I was expecting. What had I ordered that would come in such a small box? I opened it out of curiosity. Inside was a small Japanese kokeshi paper maché cow with a head that bobbles. That particular shade of red which is so common in Japan, with abstract designs on it. I put the cow on my shelf in a spot where I see it often. I gaze at it, and it brings me joy. Real joy. It’s been a very very long time since I’ve felt such joy. It keeps catching my attention. Sometimes I feel that it has answers to questions that I haven’t asked yet. Sometimes I just observe it. Sometimes I am in awe that a craftsman or craftswoman made this cow in Japan, with love and attention without knowing where that cow would go or who would love that cow. And now it is with me in Paris, on the other side of the world, a link between myself and someone about whom I know nothing. Our lives are mainly made up of links between ourselves and people we don’t know. We just tend to think that it’s the links we’re aware of that are the important ones.
There is a zen teaching that the best way to control a bull is to give it a very large field and just observe it. I think this is the teaching that I should be paying attention to now. I’m the bull who needs a very large field. The best way for me to control this bull is just to observe it. I’ve been fighting and struggling for years to control my alcoholism, to control my bipolar disorder, to control my life, and the harder I try to control these things, the worse they get. I’m going to give myself a very large field now, and just observe.
When the Eastern block first opened up, beautiful hand crafted items showed up in the street markets here at criminally low prices. Amazingly beautiful pieces of work that had taken hours of work and a lot of skill to create sold at such low prices, that you had to wonder how the artisans managed to eat. There was a beautiful Ukrainian doll that I coveted. I visited her often at the market, but couldn’t give myself permission to buy her. And then one day, without knowing why, I let myself buy her. I took her home and hid her immediately, without even opening the wrapping to take a peek. She remained hidden for months, maybe a year or longer. I forgot that she was hidden. And then one day I remembered her, and looked for that package, found it, opened it up and I put the doll on my shelf, where I could see her, astonished by her beauty. Now you may well think that’s wierd. shortly after I’d put the doll out, during a phone conversation, I mentioned it to my sister and she said she does the same thing too. Why are we like this? Why do we let men treat us like shit? Why do we hide gifts to ourselves? We don’t feel that we deserve to be treated better? We don’t feel that we deserve gifts?
In the beginning of the month I went on a compulsive and manic spending spree on eBay. I spent money that I didn’t have yet on things that I really wanted. I tried really hard to get myself to focus on what I needed to spend that money on--new glasses, and computer repair for example, important things. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop myself. I searched methodically all night long, night after night. When it became daylight, the light nagged at me, reminded me that I needed to sleep. It nagged at me and nagged at me until I went to bed. By then of course I had to sleep all day. And when I got up, I’d try to do something else but I couldn’t. I searched for things that I’d loved when I was in Japan, that I’d thought I would be able to save up and buy, or that I’d simply enjoyed going to look at. Objects that I loved. The craftsmanship in Japan is amazing. Just standing and looking at those objects was a form of meditation. The time I spent in Japan was one of the happiest times in my life. I couldn’t have imagined that it would be ripped away from me so abruptly, so cruelly. Life’s like that, you can only be in the moment, without knowing what will happen next. You can choose to live in the moment, or you can try to deny it, run away from it. Anesthetize yourself with alcohol, watch TV reruns and movies compulsively, play checkers compulsively, avoid leaving your room because you’re terrified to even walk out the door and up the street to buy groceries even when you’re really hungry. You can avoid life. There have been moments in my life when I have been in the now, but mostly I hide. I hide myself from life like I hid that Ukrainian doll.
So anyway, I searched on eBay for handcrafted items, folk toys mostly, folk toys, pottery, bamboo flower arrangement baskets, dolls, lacquer ware and so on. I even searched by every material I could think of: wood, fabric, ceramic, bronze, paper maché.... I looked and looked and looked, until I found something I really wanted, and then I bid on it, with the money I didn’t have. This isn’t the first time I’ve gone on a manic spending spree on eBay. The last time I did it, it got me into a lot of debt and created a mess that I spent years cleaning up. I swore never again. For years I wouldn’t even let myself look at eBay, just like I don’t let myself go into shops, and even avoid window shopping. Manic spending sprees are a typical precursor symptom to an upcoming manic phase, and I do my best not to tempt my fate. But bipolar is a disease, and no matter how hard you try to manage it, sooner or later it’s going to kick you down to the ground.
I’ve spent the last month busting my ass to work to pay for those eBay items. Made myself ill by pushing myself to work even though I’m not well enough to work. I’ve spent years fighting to work, and failing again and again because my health wouldn’t permit it. I was given full disability for a reason. And it certainly wasn’t because I didn’t want to work. After six years on a waiting list for job retraining, I went through eight months of exams, interviews, and tests, for it. The French government told me that I couldn’t work, that I’m an artist, and I should do my art, that society needs artists. That it’s okay just to be me. And for this they give me just enough money to survive on each month. But I fight to work, thenI accept that I can’t, and then go back into the ring for one more round. I thought that I was done fighting, that I could accept my life as it was. I thought that at last I could keep out the voices of people who can’t see my invisible disability, who say: “You look great, you’re doing fine, you talentad and competent, you should be working.” “You’re normal, so stop slacking.”
Inevitably, bipolar kicked me to the ground again, I had a manic rip again, on eBay, using promises of payment instead of money. And the day that manic rip stopped and the morning I awoke to see what I’d done, I felt lke I was inspecting hurricane wreckage. I had to begin working to clean up the mess. It’s taking everything from me. It takes up so much of my time and energy, that I haven’t been able to deal with simple daily tasks or activities. I haven’t been able to go to my alcohol support group meetings. I’ve become increasingly disconnected from reality. Some days I can see that it’s there, I try to grasp at it, but it’s just beyond the tips of my fingers.
Now, I’ve almost finished paying my bills. I can almost get back into daily life. It’s there, I can see it. Yesterday I managed to get myself out of my room to go to a meeting. Every step and every minute outdoors was terrifying. It was a beautiful day that I could have been part of. Other people were out there, out in the streets, being part of life, and I felt like I was looking through a window. It was terrifying, it was difficult. I had dressed well and put on my favorite perfume. I saw people that I knew, and I said that , “Yes, everything’s going great.” I struggled to focus, to listen carefully to what people were saying, to be present for others. Yes, it was hard, but I did it, I took those first steps out, back into the world, once again returning from some other place. Terrified that I was just days away from having to go back to the psych ward, I asked my psychologist for help. She introduced me to the psych nurses, so I can go in and talk as often as I need to, without having to go back to the psych ward. And she gave me suggestions of other ways I can ask people to be supportive. This way I can take baby steps out into the world, while learning not to be so self-destructive, which will do me a lot more good than lying around in a hospital bed bored out of my mind.
And then there is the cow. The eBay purchases started arriving, and I could had a pretty good guess from the size and shape of the package, and the location of the sender, what was in it. I’ve been stacking the boxes up, without opening them. It would be difficult well nigh impossible to hide them here in this room, but I can ignore them, by staying compulsively in front of my computer. I’ve been hiding the gift of life from myself. In many ways, the most insidious way being through alcohol. Alcoholism hides life from you. People often think that drinking is your fault, after all, you’re the one who choose to drink and you should just choose to stop drinking. “Just use some self-control, like other people do.” Well some most folks can do that, but for alcoholics it doesn’t work that way. Alcoholism is a disease, and not just any disease, it wants you dead with a vengeance. Sure, lots of diseases kill, but not this way. Alcohol turns you into the living dead, it wants you dead before you get to your grave. It robs life from the living. Methodically, it robs you of your dignity, your self-worth, your self-control, it takes your job, your spouse, your children, it robs you of everything. It kills your soul. It’s Evil. Oh, you may not believe in God, or you may accept that there God exists, even if you have no clue of what God is, there is some benevolent force out there that gives our lives meaning and purpose. But a force out there that wants to destroy meaning and purpose? Oh no, we don’t want to believe in that. But I am a witness, as are countless others, that Evil is out there, and alcohol is one of the seductive ways that it introduces itself into our lives.
Anyone, I stacked up the packages, all but one, because it surprised me. It was smaller than anything I was expecting. What had I ordered that would come in such a small box? I opened it out of curiosity. Inside was a small Japanese kokeshi paper maché cow with a head that bobbles. That particular shade of red which is so common in Japan, with abstract designs on it. I put the cow on my shelf in a spot where I see it often. I gaze at it, and it brings me joy. Real joy. It’s been a very very long time since I’ve felt such joy. It keeps catching my attention. Sometimes I feel that it has answers to questions that I haven’t asked yet. Sometimes I just observe it. Sometimes I am in awe that a craftsman or craftswoman made this cow in Japan, with love and attention without knowing where that cow would go or who would love that cow. And now it is with me in Paris, on the other side of the world, a link between myself and someone about whom I know nothing. Our lives are mainly made up of links between ourselves and people we don’t know. We just tend to think that it’s the links we’re aware of that are the important ones.
There is a zen teaching that the best way to control a bull is to give it a very large field and just observe it. I think this is the teaching that I should be paying attention to now. I’m the bull who needs a very large field. The best way for me to control this bull is just to observe it. I’ve been fighting and struggling for years to control my alcoholism, to control my bipolar disorder, to control my life, and the harder I try to control these things, the worse they get. I’m going to give myself a very large field now, and just observe.
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