Shrieking

Shrieking, It's all I can seem to think about these days. All I can think about writing, anyway. Stop being so melodramatic, won't you? Yes, paying the rent is hard, and finding housemates is stressful, and working is tiring and not working is exhausting, and getting out of bed is nearly-impossible and seeing those who've lost full facilities of their legs makes half your brain shriek at the other half “GET UP! YOU'VE ONLY GOT YOUR ONE LIFETIME! USE THAT BODY, FOR GODNESS SAKE! BREATHE INTO IT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!” while the other half of your brain yawns and kicks lazily at its skull-mate who, not wanting to think about anything, wills itself into a deeper sleep.

So, when I think about it, it makes sense that shrieking is on the brain. What else do we really ever do? Does anything ever do? We see things that scare us, causing us to shriek and run the other direction. We see things we love and we run towards them, also shrieking. And so often, those things are one in the same and we shriek with the confusion and pain of trying to run in two directions at once. Cats shriek silently at the injustice of being too well-loved in their homes, and rats shriek with glee at gnawing through yet another new bag of all-purpose flower. We shriek with surprise at actually having caught the ball (finally) and then with pain as we realize that our finger's been good and sprained. We shriek with our ineptitude and our genius, and with our accidental and meticulously planned luck or success or ending up in precisely the wrong place and finding it to be so much better than the place we'd wanted to go. Flowers shriek into bloom and leaves shriek gently as they drift to the ground and are snatched up by squirrels and birds who shriek at their luck.

Oh, yes, forest animals and shrieking, very original. I'm off to drink a beer, but you continue on with your woodland shrieking.

++++++

A winter full of heartbreak and soaring victories. A dear friend loses a child; life stops, and we pretend it resumes. It doesn't. The no-pressure co-ed basketball team I've joined suddenly becomes...no-pressure. For real. Like, I didn't spend each day leading up to the game in an increasingly excruciating amount of anxiety. Of what? Well, of playing basketball. Of not being perfect? Of not being good? I'm not sure.

And summer approaches. The prospect of a summer spent in tipis and phosphorescence and preteens and the ridiculous application of makeup before heading to the lodge for breakfast when it's really time to GO and the I knows with the rolling of eyes. The memory sends shivers down my spine and I wonder, do I really want to do this again? It's hard to say. But then I look at my whirring mind through the worried eyes halting and fluttering in the mirror and I realize that even if I don't want it, I certainly need it. And I do want it, really. 

What's True

A tricky balance must be struck between self-care and self harm; go too far in one direction, either really, and you may end up on the I'll-never-drink-again end of a Sunday morning. There's the dangerous capacity to get it very wrong, and I think that the only way to get it right is to get it wrong enough times that you end up trained like one of those poor mice who veer away from the red button whenever they get too close because the memory of the shock it gives them sends them into apoplectic anxiety.

And then we're there, we're the lab rats, and all our rationalizations for why the testing is unavoidable go out the window. Or maybe the feelings on rats' rights remain the same, but there's a horror in finding that we've treated and trained ourselves with the same maniacal habituation. When did this become a good idea? When did we come this point of self-manipulation? Maybe it's irrelevant; the trick is to find an illusion of semi-stability so that we may continue on in our lives "taking care" of ourselves, loving and hating ourselves alternately and simultaneously, occasionally taking responsibility for the agency we have in our own lives, occasionally throwing our hands up in the air and asking God what the f*#@ he's thinking.

Things that are Good for You:
Soft Light
Playing with Children
Laughing
Tickling
Crying
Doing Scary Things
Dressing Up and Wearing Costumes
Singing
Dancing
Tea
Eggnog (non-dairy version does not apply, sorry vegans)
Cashmere
Wool (especially the soft kind)
Hugs
Kisses (butterfly, bunny, etc.)

******

The end of an era has come upon myself and my immediate family- our second and final cat, born and adopted 17 years ago, was put to sleep in what feels like the death of something soft and safe and constant. Which it was.

There's a moment when an animal is put to sleep- it happens so fast. There's life, and then there's not. And once it's gone, everything looks exactly the same, but totally different. How is that so? And what is it that we lose? Where does it go? And without the answers to these questions, I can't help but think, what do we think we are doing?

And I know- a cat is a cat. He was no more or less than himself, and tempers may flare at the audacity of lamenting the death of so feline a friend. Still though, everything I wrote is true. I think. And in my estimation, to compare one loss to another is unproductive.

And I keep seeing him out of the corner of my eye.


******


Out of the quiet and hollowness comes, from time to time, a billowing cloud of steam and sound which reminds you that you're not alone. You are filled, as if you're under the rainbow parachute, and it's also inside you, and the warm noise of music and conversation wafting over your everything reminds you that it's safe to be.