mercuryfern

Madness Running

I don’t do moderation.  Knowing this, I generally err on the side of under- rather than overindulgence.  Many people who share my brand of insanity struggle with substance abuse problems.  This has not been the case for me.  My experiments with recreational stupor were early and short lived.  Until recently I didn’t drink alcohol at all, ever.  I’ve been a vegetarian of varying levels of strictness for ten years. You could argue that I take abstinence to unhealthy extremes; perhaps in my long ago past this has been true.  I eat eggs and cheese now.  I no longer let myself skip meals.  In the last year I have begun to enjoy sipping a beer or two over the course of a night.

My affinity for obsession has advantages.  I excel at much of what I attempt.  Not that my achievements come consistently; no, it’s a torrent of writing, a fever of ideas and execution, and then nothing, nothing at all for days, weeks or months while I wonder if it all was ever real in the first place, while the people who depend on my initially demonstrated competence lose faith and expel me permanently from their esteem.

Recently, my intensity has been channeled into exercise.  Probably narcissism is not entirely absent from the equation, but mostly I do it because keeping a decent amount of adrenaline coursing through my veins is a good way to maintain my emotional ballast.  This summer I spent 150 weekly miles on the designated bike path at a pace that left me limping and queazy when I dismounted.  Unlike many other sports, running, for instance, on a bike you’ve got a piece of equipment between you and the task at hand, and as such, you really can buy speed.  I don’t ride anything fancy, but it thrills me to unsubtly pass the many people who do, to defy the money equation with my straight bars and cheap derailuer, my own private class warfare victory. 

This autumn, I go to the gym instead; everyday, for at least an hour.

Yesterday, I quit a job after only one day, a record even for my demanding self.  One thirty in the afternoon found me doubting my worth for all the old reasons and a few new ones, too.  I got on a machine and went for an hour.  Then I sped up and gave it everything I had for another ten, twenty, thirty minutes.  No matter how I tried to exhaust myself, there was still more to pull up from under my many failures, like a scarf of near infinite length from a cheap magician’s hat.  I kept expecting to find myself spent, holding an unattached corner, but instead the yellow just gave way to red then green and blue.  However low I fall, I hit bottom with the rock of my willpower as companion, and there it was again, giving birth in my unmoving motion to a small euphoria that grew until it was about to dwarf guilt and shame.  Before it could, though, before I reached that moment where everything is so clear, at three o'clock I stopped to cook dinner, to try and make amends.  I will be better to the people who care about me.

I guess the other thing about channeling my energy into tasks which are perhaps not particularly prestigious is that I want desperately to excel at something.  I squander talent and opportunity with stunning efficiency.  When I can exicute a simple task with dignity, I remember what it was like to feel that golden touch emanating in more useful directions.  How can it be wrong to want to be reminded of what it feels like to accomplish?

She came home while I was mixing up the batter for the frittata, veggies in the pan, parsnips sliced and roasting in the oven.  I was so exited about my ninety minutes.  I am not a runner, after all. 

“An hour and a half?  That is not okay.  That is not reasonable.”

“I think it’s fine.  People who run marathons or whatever go way longer than that.”

“Fern, it’s a kind of eating disorder to exsersize all the time.  90 minutes, I’m sorry, no, that is not reasonable at all.”

Later last night, I was doing something on the computer, and I had occasion to exclaim under my breath, “argh, I said submit, motherfucker.”

“Fern, you are manic, settle down.”

“No, I’m not.  I’m annoyed.  Not everything I do is a pathology.”

“Yes it is.”

Why I Love Abigail, or, Nothing is More Hilarious Than Mental Illness

My camera has been broken now for a couple of weeks.  There is nothing I can do about it, the warranty is in a storage unit in Ohio.  I can’t afford to replace the stupid thing for a few months at least.  Meanwhile, the most luscious light I have seen in ages comes pouring through the leaves, setting all this green aglow.  The trees take a deep breath and prepare to change into their formalwear.  Back from window shopping with Abby, I fell into a deep funk, precipitated mostly by realizing the camera I want to buy doesn’t exist, but then my sadness bled into other ideas.  If I can make a record of the beauty that has been, I can take it with me, I can get my bearing.  When I can’t take pictures, everything good seems to be slipping through my fingers.  The sun sets off the wood grain on that log just so for only a half an hour today, I watch it dance across and then slip off.  Tomorrow the sun will have sunk a bit lower, everything will be different, it is gone.  Explaining this to Abby, I began to cry.

“My god, honey, I never really noticed your bipolarity so much before.  I would like to point out, for instance, that you are freaking out right now about The Idea Of Time.”

It’s all in the delivery, friends.  I nearly wet myself laughing.  My psyche is bizarre, it needs to be mocked.

“Fern, can I cook you something?  Fajitas?  Forbidden Chocolate Explosion topped with fennel seeds and Chocolate Lucky Charms without the marshmallows?  Anything, seriously, I’m all yours.”

“No, I can’t eat, food is gross.”  Wait wait wait, I’ve heard that before.  Nice try.  You haven't eaten all day, damnit, let her make you something.   “Ah, some hot chocolate would be nice.”

“I’m on it.

“Oh, check this out, we even have cream.  Oh, baby, get ready for some homemade whipped cream.  It’s weird that you are so sad now, when you were so happy this morning, I mean, you skipped into the shoe store, remember?”

“Uh huh.”

“And you were, like, trying on all those silly shoes, dancing around in stripper boots, getting me to try those red things on, you were exuberant, you glowed, I mean, this happened so fast.”

“I know, I am who I want to be when I'm manic.  It’s worth it, on balance, to cry about The Idea Of Time every now and again, if that's the cost of being on top of the world occasionally. I feel like I’ve made that choice, I’m okay with it.  Frankly, I feel sorry for people who aren’t me.”

“Huh.  I can see that.  Although, I’ve got to say, I, for one, am grateful for the passage of time.  Seriously, if the sun never moved, I would cry.”

“True.”

“And you know, you can think about it as an infinite stream of moments passing by, but it's also an infinite stream of moments coming towards you.”

“Yeah, I know, but look at what the light is doing right now.  I should be taking pictures of that.  Early fall is the best time of year for photography. The sun is so low, making wonderful contrasty shadows everywhere, but everything is still verdant and it all just shines, just screams out to be immortalized.  By the time I have a camera again-  Wow, this is so rich.”

“I whipped the hell out of the cream.”

Perfect

Some days, too much joy wells up in you, and it seems so impossible but inevitable that everything you’ve ever seen, everything you see or don’t see now, is quivering with secrets to give you.  All the places you’ve been makes sense.  There is nothing for it but to skip and run, singing tunelessly under your breath all the while.  You could not stop bouncing if you wanted to.  Who would?  You don’t. 

It is the best afternoon to drive long miles over mountains lush with trees about to turn, a dancing fool even with your ass in the seat.  You are paying less attention to the road than is generally suggested, but you are invincible, after all.  It is contagious, you will do something insane tonight.  Why not make a spectacle of yourself, show them how exquisite it can all be if they will just let it.

She is too wise for you, keeps you tethered in.  The pace she sets is subtle, so you refrain from embarrassing her.

Driving back is good.  The thin winding ribbons of road become anonymous in the dark, you could be anywhere.  You are everywhere.  The bike path was like this at night, your light so weak.  If you hit a deer it will kill you, no question.  Slow down.  You don’t slow down.  When the bugs come thick you pedal faster through their gritty fog, striving, baptized in phosphorescent blood.  You want the whole world, you want it now.

Arrive, talk, they say you are glowing, then everyone else goes to bed.  A few steps out the door and you are away among trees.  The moon is so white it burns through the canopy and cuts sharp leafy shapes on the floor.

It is not enough.  Your soul itches, unsatiated.

Up

Lately, the weird things I do have been unnerving me. 

The other day, I was home alone writing when I stood up and ran a few dozen yards up the path just outside the back door.  After a period of time I cannot wrap my mind around (seconds? hours? weeks?), the ball of my bare foot hit a rock strangely, bruising it and making me stumble.  It was like I’d been jarred out of a dream.  Why the hell am I in the woods?  Running.  Without shoes.  I limped back, slightly alarmed that I hadn’t noticed the litter of sharp sticks on my way out.  I’d never smelled such delicious air, though, a perfect embodiment of early September; the promise of hot chocolate and bonfires implied at the cold edges of it’s gentle warmth.  Near bursting with excitement, I skipped up the kitchen steps two at a time.

My mania has historically been constrained to the charmingly eccentric sort.  In college I frequently went nighttime skinny dipping even long after the Berkshire County leaves had fallen.  I was and am wont to dance with singing clumsy abandon if I hear a good song.  Sometimes, if the synapses are firing at full power and the moon is just right, I will even do so for a tune which otherwise doesn’t resonate.  In New York, a subway musician was playing Pretty Woman and my ass would not hold still.  By the time I realized what I was doing, others on the platform were a bit freaked out.  From what I understand, ruffling the feathers of subway passengers is no small feat. 

All in all, It’s harmless crazy girl stock character stuff.  People worth associating with find it as endearing as I find it fun.  There are, of course, always others in my life; people, frequently authority figures, who see such acts as symbols of worse to come, of reasons for concern.  I am shocked to find myself sympathetic of their view in the last weeks, to feel shame creeping into my perception of what I usually treasure about myself.

I didn’t sleep but four hours Thursday night, up writing feverishly.  When I woke I hit the keyboard running.  Not just entries to this blog, but unnecessarily long comment on others, inappropriate emails to people I don’t know well enough.  Sometimes the fever hits and a morsel of truth is birthed in a fire of fast words, planets collide, insight cascades off of every piece of existence, like water from a spring, it only remains to put the cup under and catch what you can; no no, like an ocean, like waves, it will carry you.

But then there is the coming to. 

On the good days, you pick the thing up and hold it up to the sun.  It is solid; it might even shine.  But the others: mornings where you take a direct hit to the gut knowing you have been presumptuous, arrogant, or, worst of all, the thing to most dread on opening what seemed so profound upon writing; it pulls aside the curtain on your precious hard wrought profundities, reveals the sweet eureka to be an illusion: the words are nonsensical. 

Early: Up All Night

c: So are you going to the coffee thing or the sweatshop thing tomorrow?

m: I don't know, I guess the sweatshop thing. It all seems so dumb all of a sudden. I guess that's asinine with how much organizing we’ve been doing to get people to come, plus driving from Barrington and everything.

c: No, I hear you. We’re so isolated here. I mean, dude, I already drink fair-trade coffee, why do I need to go to a workshop on why I should drink fair trade coffee?

m: I know right? I hate these people. It’s a clique, a posturing thing. Everybody's whoring their socially conscious lifestyle choices. We are all just trying to impress each other with how goddamn pure we are. Nothing is going to change because of what happens here.

c: Fuck this ineffectual pretentious bullshit..

m: Ok, so what about tonight?

c: Let’s go to New Jersey.

m: What?

c: Yeah, I just thought of that now. Let’s go skinny-dipping in the ocean. I bet we’re only three or four hours away. Its September- the air is only gonna get colder. If we’re gonna get naked in a large body of water, we’d better do it now.

m: You, sir, are pure evil. Becca and Weasel are down no doubt, we’d better find ‘'em.

----------------

m: Dude, wasn’t your birthday over the summer?

c: Yeah.

m: So we’re both eighteen. We’re real people instead of chattel now, how cool is that? I bet Becca and Weasel are jealous of our sophistication and maturity.

c: And our legal access to porn. Look, it only took them four hours to fall asleep. Lazy fuckers.

m: Slacking in the pursuit of adventure, bad form. Don’t forget our legal right to coat our lungs in tar.

c: Thinks of all the new perfectly legal opportunities to get permanent etching in our skin.

m: And to change the course of civilization with our ever so effectual voting rights.

c: Oh, of course. Plus we can get married.

m: True. But we’ve been able to do that in the Deep South for a few years.

c: How much like Las Vegas is Atlantic City?

m: I don't know, I've never been. I always picture it as kind of a mini Las Vegas, only seedier.

c: Seedy enough to have twenty-four hour Elvis wedding chapels?

m: God I hope so. Can the world ever have enough twenty-four hour Elvis wedding chapels?

c: Will you marry me?

m: Not if you ask me like that. C’mon now, you’ve got to get down on your knees and really grovel. Plus I want a ring.

c: Woman, we have to get married. It will be hilarious.

m: You realize we must both be in drag.

c: Of course. Becca and Weasel, as our best man and woman, must both wear tutus and fairy wings.

m: Hmmm, that's pretty good, except we don't have any tutus or fairy wings. I vote for them in drag as well.

c: Well, I bet we can buy some similarly campy shit in ac.

m: Hey, look, you got nothin' until I get a rock.

c: Anything for you, my sweet. Let’s see what they've got here.

m: A gas station vending machine ring? I just love it when you get all ironic like that. Oh you really are getting on your knees, mother of god, you are the craziest person I have ever known..

c: Fern Mercury, light of my life, fire of my loins, will you do me the honor of becoming my lawfully wedding wife, tonight, in Atlantic City, in front of our friends and allot of very drunk gambling addicts?

m: You know it baby. This will be the best piece of performance art ever. A fag and a quasidyke, sticking it to the man, showing the institution for the ridiculous joke that it is. Hah! Atlantic City won’t know what hit it!

------------

c: Oh, hey, look, a building that kind of looks like a fake French Quarter.

m: And some sort of pyramid thing. Doesn't Donald Trump own that or something?

c: Yeah, I think so. Um, I‘m becoming concerned about the dearth of wedding chapels, though.

m: Let’s go into one of the casinos and ask. They'll know where everything is.

c: Oh right, we’re allowed to gamble now, too, huh?

m: Almost forgot about that one, didn’t you?

c: God, this is kind of depressing.

m: And the carpet is really ugly.

c: Not in a gloriously tacky way, either. In a boring airport terminal way.

m: Seriously, they’ve failed to embrace their seediness here. You are Atlantic City, you can only fail at achieving class, why try?

c: And look at how empty this place is. Are they even open?

m: Well, we got in. Besides, why bother gambling if it isn’t four am. Excuse me, ma’am? Where are the Elvis wedding chapels?

lady: The what?

m: Well, we want to get married, you know, on a whim, and we can’t find the wedding chapels.

lady: You want to get married on a whim? Do you think that's a good idea?

m: Oh, no, we think it’s a very bad idea. That's why we want to do it. Preferably with Elvis. Y’know, gambling, heavy drug use, an ill-advised marriage. Doesn't it sound romantic?

lady: We don't allow drugs here.

m: Oh that's good, because actually we’re in love.

c: -and we need to get married tonight. We can’t stand to wait another second.  We drove all the way from New Haven, that’s how in love we are.

lady: We don’t do that business here.

c: I thought you were like Las Vegas only smaller.

m: Nah, dude, Las Vegas is like Atlantic City only bigger, where’s your East Coast pride?

lady: Look, if you kids want to get married in New Jersey, you have to go to the justice of the peace and get a marriage license under a New Jersey address. The office opens in three hours, but since I'm guessing neither of you is a New Jersey resident, you probably can’t do it anyway. Better just get married in your home state.

m: Um, thanks.

c: That sucks.

m: I feel like such a dumbass. Do I even have a home state?

c: Not one with 24-hour instawedding Elvis chapels. It was worth a try. Wanna play the slots?

m: Not remotely. It looks tedious. Let’s go to the beach, watch the sunrise or something. We’ll have to make pretty good time coming back. I’ve got class in six hours.

------------------

Weasel: *yawn* where are we?

c: I95 north.

Becca: North?  argh.  Whadwe miss?

m: You nearly missed the adventure of the century, but the universe is giving you a chance to make it up to us. When we get back to school, we need to start working on fairy wings and tutus for both of you.

c: And the four of us are driving to Las Vegas over winter break. Have you met my fiancé?

On Madness

I am officially insane. Seriously, people with degrees in this sort of thing, people who really should know, tell me that I am a nutjob. Well, that would be unprofessional. What they actually say is that I am bipolar. At first, when I was a kid, I was a bit unnerved by this eagerness to label.  I got all indignant: How can you put human behavior in a box like that, I am a single being whose problems are unique. And besides, I’m thirteen; it’s my job to be emotionally erratic.

Well, it turn out my problems aren’t so unique. And I didn’t quite grow out of the emotional erraticism. Those PhD's, they know a thing or two.

Still, on balance, I’m grateful for who I am.

I am supposed to feel burdened by this roller coaster, to want to be rid of it.

But I don’t.

Most bipoles feel this way to a certain extent. Its the mania, you see, we fear losing it. We protect our highs against efforts by others to dull the edges.  It’s beyond feeling great.  One is great.  For me anyway.  Some people spiral out into belligerence and debauchery, but my wildness is gentle with me.  I am full to bursting with love and inspiration; my touch is effortlessly brilliant.  Inevitably, it abandons me, I am left to plummet from the peaks, to limp along in a self hating trench for an eternity, wondering if that last time was really the very last time.

My idea about how to manage this insanity is one I came up with on my own. This strategy doesn’t actually have the approval of anyone who knows what they are talking about.  It's been years since anyone told me to swallow this every twelve hours if I ever want to see the light of day again. It’s even been awhile since anyone said that I really should be on Lithium. Now, if they mention such things at all, they can only say sheepishly, you know, you might want to consider that you would likely benefit from medication.

Because I am not hurting anyone else, I think I should be allowed to risk pain as the cost of occasional brilliance. Not hurting anyone, that’s an important caveat. My grandfather who pulled a gun on his second youngest son three months ago, whose falls from grace tend to include angrily pulling his children into the muck with him, I guess I am willing to concede that he really should be sedated. I’m a hypocrite like that.

It’s not that I don’t want to get better. There is this cliche equine metaphor: It’s quite a ride, the fastest, the highest jumping out there, but you’ve got to be in charge of it. Throw a saddle on there and keep the reins in tight. I want to learn to do that. There is a certain amount of listening that goes into it; avoiding environments that are likely to spook your mount, noticing and responding to her ear positions and the tension in her muscles. Firm but attentive, I am hoping to ride her wild this way. I’m willing to get thrown sometimes. I expect to. It seems to get easier. I’ve learned how to land with less and less injury; I get back on. Don’t shoot the horse, for god’s sake.

This month, I find myself up again after six of those trudging years. I’ll be damned if I let it get away from me without a good long run. I will keep it reined in at exuberant competence; I will not peak into delusions of grandeur only to skid off the road in a dramatic show of noise and fire. To that end, I’m carrying this list of instructions around in my head.

Tips for Mania Maintenance:

1. Sleep, or at least pretend to.  Lay down in the bed at some point, say, maybe two or three am, and then get up when you’re sick of laying there, say, at five or six am. It really doesn’t matter if you don’t actually hit REM, just try to enjoy the lying there, the lack of responsibility, the stillness for awhile. No reason to get anxious about the fact that you are not slipping from wakefullness.

2. Eat.  I don’t care if you’re not hungry. If your blood sugar crashes you will lose everything.  No vending machine crap, either. I’m talking yogurt and fruit and graham crackers and almonds and look, basically, if a child could conceivably be admonished to eat more of it, you should be having some. Yes, your not hungry, you mentioned that, just nibble if you want to stay feeling good.

3. Exercise.   You want to increase the chances of falling asleep while you are laying in bed.  To that end, please, god, don’t go hitting the bike trail at 8pm.  You will not come down for hours.  You’re up with the sun anyway- ride then.  Go fast and hard, but don’t close your eyes, the flat misty landscape will give its secrets to you steadily, you should be there, wide eyed, to savor them.  One of the gifts this exuberance brings is an ability to perceive the hidden truths pulsing from every piece of existence. Abandon yourself to that.  Move your body intensely in tandem with the beauty around you.  The bugs tearing at your face chest arms legs, like sand in a windy desert, the kamikaze chipmunks, the alternating areas of wet tree shade and hot light, these things are dancing with you, let them lead.

You are also trying to take the edge off your energy, to burn away the compulsion to tap pencils and sing tunelessly and dance and vibrate and think of eight brilliant things at once. If you are slightly physically exhausted for most of the day, you may actually be able to focus that energy productively.

4. No caffeine.  It’s a sleep thing; it’s an energy thing.  When you’ve gone three or four days without any significant amount of sleep, you will start to get dizzy and tired in the afternoon. You will be tempted to bring it back up again.  Don’t. Find a sofa and lay down. You only need an hour, trust me.  If you have that latte, that sickly green soda when your body wants to rest for once, you are not going to hold still tonight at all.  Then you will crash tomorrow.  Or the next day.  Sooner than you want to.  Your stomach will do awful things.  There will be no eating, blood sugar will fail you, everything will shatter to the ground.  Caffeine is trouble; it’s best to stay away.

5. Stay Busy. Nourish all the parts of your brain.  Let your brilliance be unleashed.  This is a fine line, though, because nothing will bring you down harder than failure.  Take too many courses, but don’t charm your way into three hundred level biology classes for which you lack the prerequisites.  Don’t decide to run the school newspaper and chair every leftist group on campus, but by all means, do keep a weblog.

6. Wear four-inch heels for no reason.  Combined with unflinching eye contact they are a license to jaywalk, use them thus.  It’s important to be celebratory.  You are a rock star, you inspire others to discover their own bravery; do not shy away from this role. Embrace your joy.  Dance on the sidewalk, flirt with strangers of both genders in front of your husband, immerse yourself in the exquisite sensory pleasures of every moment.  When a long legged women in red shoes as unsensible as your own offers you a tiger lily she has picked from the wild stand at the side of the road, take it from her fingers with your teeth.  Taste her laugher.