Northern Mississippi through a Child's Eyes

1978, Picking Cotton near the farm my father grew-up on

1983, this is a photo I took of Grandmother Moss when I was 8 years-old.

1983, Grandmother Moss, Christmas

Chaos of Sound and Sound of Mind

crispy, dry leaves

Over a year and half later, and my mind often revolves around the events of late 2012:  strange feelings of unwell, couple of days in and out of daymares, hand-balances and arm balances and my near-enlightenment, imprisonment and the Alliance Health Center.

I returned home with a lot of hope.  I came home to a world that was changed and chaotic.  

My parents argued over placing Christmas tree lights on the tree.  So, in the hope of silencing them, I volunteered to untangle and place Christmas lights on a Christmas tree for the first time in my life.  I was thin and unsteady, but decided it did not matter.  I could not explain how hard it is to dangle upon a ladder with an aorta pulse swaying your whole body off balance.  I wanted to make the world better.  I wanted to be better.  I knew I could not explain how unstable my body was; it might be mistook for my brain.

This was to be the first Christmas with the first grandchild for my parents.  But, my youngest sister and her family had become estranged from our piece of the family.

Christmas Tree 2012

Baking Christmas treats to try to prove my cognitive function and to regain my patience and composure.  The whole world is more frustrating;  I'm absolutely overwhelmed by everything.  Sound is the most disturbing.  It is all amplified beyond my belief.  I just want to hear the natural world as it was.  I cry that I am lost in this loud place.  The subtlety of tree leaves moving in the wind, of crickets, of cats trudging gingerly through fallen dry leaves, are lost when all of them become exaggerated.  I hear electricity for the first time in my life.  I must be crazy, but I test my reality.  I plug the portable DVD player in, and I unplug the portable DVD player.  I hear the static, the charge.  I do this again.  I confirm it.  I am overwhelmed.  I jump at a sound that's too loud.  It is truly terrifying.  It is nearly impossible to tell where sound is coming from when it is all louder.  Is there someone in the garden or across the street?  I don't know what is wrong with me, but this is not something anyone should ever have to manage.  You can learn coping skills, but you cannot manage or control the modern or natural worlds.  

To see is not to hear, but we know what sound belongs with what image.

When you live in survival mode for weeks as I did, it is a great challenge to be patient and understanding with other people.  I just can't put up with squabbling over little things.  I can't deal with people who catastrophize everyday events.   I hold myself to a higher standard. I want to embody la petite yogini, who honors the yamas and niyamas. I struggle with my own bitterness and wonder what went wrong with my karma. Discovering and experiencing a darker side of humanity and a new level of ignorance is very difficult to come to terms with as my reality/our reality.

paradoxical defects

circa December 2012
 

pushed and tugged and shoved

It wasn't a dream

starring at dawn every morning the only beautiful colors to be seen

beige, upon beige, upon beige, upon beige

I give it a name, as anyone who enjoys reading paint chip swatches and nail polish tops would:  "Desert Storm Beige."

So, how do you feel being a beige person with an off-pallor from poor health or nutrition in your beige world?  Perhaps, if it wasn't winter, it wouldn't be so sad.

I read the schedule posted outside of the nurses station:  "Outside Time."

I really could use some time communing with nature.

So, it's like you're in the clinker, you ask, and a psychopathic nurse named Shannon explains.  You must ask permission to smoke, at a health center, in order to be allowed to go enjoy "Outside Time."  I'm not into being ridiculous normally, but figure let's give this a try, after all the schedule reads, "Outside Time," not "Smoking Time."  I ask permission from the psychiatrist, feeling ill and ridiculous.  Dressed in all my many layers including my socks with shower shoes, I line up at the secure elevator which requires key access in order to escape.  We are taken down to the basement level in what, of course, is the most disturbing concourse of a hallway from the 1960s with little slits of windows to an exterior door.  All of this building is in disrepair, but I like terrazzo floor.

"John Waters, please jump out from somewhere with Ashton Krutcher," I think.  It would be better to be the target of some unreality reality television program, than for this to actually be my reality.  The stocky redhead next to me introduces herself: "Leviton."  I respond, "like levitate or Louis Vuitton or Megatron?"  She's amused. 

Her name is actually Carrie.  Yeah, I see an image of Sissy Spacek when I learn this, too.

At a later point in time she introduces herself as "4 of 6."  I don miss a beat, "I'm 3 of 5."  This woman is not unintelligent.  A good Voyager fan is not hard to diagnose.  Also, I, the middle child, just knew birth order and the number of children in your family really does affect who we become.

So, back to "Outside Time."  You go outside in a courtyard bounded by the 6 story hospital, the bizarre concourse, the fascinating stain glass chapel, and a tall chain link fence part covered in black material.  Yes, of course, I am looking for an escape route.  

So as you exit the door, the nurse stands holding the door open; a volunteer inmate is given the task of handing out clove cigarettes, and the second employee lights the cigarettes.  I say I don't smoke.  I try to find a bit of life in the courtyard, but it's winter and this poor garden just doesn't like that much milling about and smoking.  The one sign of hope is the gigantic camilla bush.  I'll spend what seems like a lifetime starring out of the window from room 618 to see the bit of color in the blooms.  I never attend "Outside Time," again; it's far too depressing and unhealthy to receive so much second hand smoke.

I miss walking into the sky on trees that fell during Katrina, but struggled to survive at odd angles.  The cats mapped them as a super highway and would quickly make their way around the woods at the back of the property.  Life, breath, color, air, sky, breeze, nothing stagnant when you truly step outside and commune with nature.

©2014 D. Moss

Post from April 13, 2013 - Spring Tree Leaves