Crud Meridian

In these times of strangeness and crisis you are going to receive a wealth of pronouncements from distant sources. Lists of suggestions for self-care, bullet points beginning “It’s okay to…” You are going to be told how to act, how to consider others, how to keep a cool head and act for your community. Thank god for this. This is wonderful. I am not here to denounce this environment, because I celebrate a world with so much opportunity to think about how I should act as a citizen, as a member of a community, as a body that needs care. So I want to only add a small bullet point, one with some caveats, but one that I feel is a necessity for any trying time:

-It’s okay to completely lose your fucking mind.

Don’t stop reading. There are some conditions. Now is not the time to give up completely. We are in a community. We owe ourselves to the people around us in some significant measure. Our commitment must not waver. But we have to be honest with ourselves. I have to be honest with myself. I am scared. The world is bigger than me, and while I continue to grow, it outpaces me. It always will. And whereas I was once a child and unafraid of expressing this, the distress in fear and awe, I have grown up and become unaccustomed to it. I have become resolute, courageous in a limited way, but at a cost – I deny the scared animal, the one that needs to rage or scream or cry or fight. Obviously this has its uses – there is scarcely utility in a society for constant breakdown, for a person who cannot process as a person but only react as an animal. But nonetheless I am an animal. There is no cliche in being tissue. I am not better than muscle. And there is no hope in pretending that mind can outmuscle muscle. My body, the animal of me, will win. This is not a cause for despair, just re-evaluation. Cartesian dualism is a philosophy for nerds who’ve never ridden a bike down a hill. I am a body. I move in space in the world. I draw breath. The world moves me and I move the world, I pinball against other bodies with varying care and force. When I am at my best it is only because I have made my peace with this. And right now my body is uneasy, and if I do not listen I will fail not only myself but those around me, other animals who need me as I need them. And so, yes, in this time of crisis, sleep well, eat well, go slow, listen to yourself and others. But don’t pretend that the scared animal disappears because you light some candles and listen to Enya. If we are good parents we do not admonish a child for crying, or try to make them feel as if they are better than their fear. We let them listen to their body, and we make a space for them while they do. Find a way to do this. Meet your fear in your home. Be the animal you are. Find space in your closed doors to fall apart with yourself, even if only briefly. This is not self-destruction, this is not sabotage, this is connection. The phrase “lose your mind” is not an accident. Let it step outside for a cigarette and use the time to live in your body, your strange, scared, animal body. 

Rock climbers on belay shout “Falling” when they know they are losing their grip. Their partner, hearing it, squares themselves against the coming weight, ready to catch. The climber falls, the rope goes taught, and we are caught. There is no shame in this – climbers fall, learning more each time about where their body can be. And it is only in giving up that they are able to understand that they can push further. That they are free to fall, they will be caught. Of course it must be acknowledged that it is a privilege to be on belay, to know you will be caught. We are not all so lucky. But this, in fact, is only further reason to fall, if you can, if you are on belay. Give up, let your hands go, fall. All the better that they will be rested and ready to catch someone else, maybe someone who is not so lucky to be on harness. Fall. We need you once you get back up.