My recliner is comfortable enough, in an institutional vinyl kind of way. Under the nurses’ counter hang some colored pencil madala designs, made, I suppose, by other patients. PJ Harvey on the headphones makes it easier to forget about the needle in my arm and the chems it’s dripping into me.
I remember a few decades ago, Mike and I talking about Chrissy Hynde being intriguingly frightening-yet-sexy. That’s PJ now. Unlike Mike and I, Chrissy got old. PJ though, “…till somebody told me run on in honey, before somebody blows your god-damn brains out…” Sexysexyscary. Believe it or not, We’ll Float is really a quite beautiful song, in a sexyscary kinda way.
A friend (I’m constantly amazed and thankful) alongside her thoughts, prayers, and cards also left on my door step 3 CDs and a plate of cookies. The cookies she left were delicious. I ate her cookies but haven’t heard the CDs yet. I read the labels and judged the books by their covers. They are apparently beautiful, calming, healing sounds. If she reads this… well, now I really feel bad.
I’m sorry. Why does sexyscary PJ Harvey heal me more than Mandalas and New Age medicine music?
Left to my own devices, I think I probably gravitate toward the recliner of least resistance. Like, when I was a depressed, lethargic teen, and, dammit, Travis the Wonder Dog would bring up a ball or frisbee and ask why we weren’t outside sweating right now? Calmly sitting, introspecting, is something I don’t need encouragement to do. But I love punk rock. I’m lucky enough fall in love with influences that counter my tendencies. Like Maryanna’s tendency to look both ways, while I tend to believe that oncoming traffic will see me and know what to do.
What makes me feel most alive is the edgy, the exciting, the meant-to-be-played-loud. Ethereal and calming is all good and necessary. I need Mark Rothko. I need a celtic ballad I can’t even understand. But what I really need to feel alive is a Songye dance mask, rhythm, movement, Iggy Pop (no, not sexy, but definitely scary). I want my heart to know it’s beating. I believe in meditation. I practice it. I believe all teachers of children should be proficient in relaxation techniques. But I also believe in the sound of the shofar.
The shofar, blown on Rosh Hashannah, is not a celebratory blast. It is an alarm clock.
If you and I have talked for more than an hour, you know my current motto. You know I got it from a bumper sticker I used to see every morning on my way to work. It’s for teachers, it’s for hearers of the shofar, it’s for anyone and everyone who would rather recline: “Comfort the disturbed – Disturb the comfortable”.
A task is noticing which side of that equation you are on.
So, this vinyl chair, the mandalas, the needle, the discomfort I anticipate to feel through the coming week, PJ, Jolie Holland (Amen is one of the most quietly uplifting, affirming, simply beautiful songs I know), cancer, a briar-encrusted bushwack to the top of a steep hill to check out a rock that looks fun to climb (yesterday afternoon with Rob. Why did all those thorns bother me less than this needle prick?) They all have a necessary place on this sliding balance scale by which we can affirm……everything.
peace, love,
d
