The Itch

The funny thing about stepping outside of your “regular” life for a while, even a period as short as a few days, is that it feels like stepping outside of your regular life. I’ve felt a little schitzoid since getting back from Colorado – all mixed up inside with these different views – sort of a “life on the mountain top” view, and a “life at gound-level” view.

It felt, for a while…these two views, like the life I’ve got…and the life I want to have. But it is all one piece now that I’ve settled a little. This life here – sitting in my cabin – getting my quiet hours in before I go out to the old church where my dad was an altar boy as a kid and where I touched his stiff hair for the last time (and regretted it), and before I go to the cemetery where just three years ago I ran like a crazy woman and cried out my grief, and where the year before that Dad led the Memorial Day ceremony as he had for forty years – this life here, and that life there – they’re the same life.

And I was thinking – maybe in life you can treat everyone like you’re in the emergency room together (an Anne Lamott idea that I like), but in writing you’ve got to treat yourself like the patient who is there to get some relief – and let yourself scream or cry, rant or bellow. You describe your symptoms – whatever they are. “Hey, is there anyone out there? I’ve got this itch I can’t reach. Haven’t you got some cream I can put on? Could you scratch my back? Could you listen to me complain?”

After a while, the itch that was making you feel like pulling your hair out feels adequately attended to. You didn’t ignore it and pretend it wasn’t there and you didn’t scratch till you bled. It’s been relieved to the point where you can sit with it, attend to it, and still be present in your day, feeling the cool morning starting to warm to full day.

And you wouldn’t rather be anywhere else at all.