The next day, it was time for me to leave Susan’s. I’d planned to spend the weekend with R. again before flying home for Thanksgiving. I stopped at the little local mall, wrote for a bit in the coffee shop, visited the consignment store, picked up snacks at the grocery – normal tasks, further steps outside the white-clad purity of S.’ home, on my way back to reality. Then I headed to Albuquerque. I’d found the local music station and NPR, so the hour’s drive went quickly. I was looking forward to seeing R., but I didn’t know how grateful I’d be for the company of healthy people until I arrived. Once again, I felt my head become clear and solid as I headed down in altitude.
But being back in normal-world was a shock. I had adjusted more than I thought to the chemical-free landscape. I went with R. to run some errands and felt a little besieged: Kinko's emitted a powerful stench of ink and new carpet; the BBQ place we went for lunch served fatty meat, high fructose BBQ sauce, nutrient-free white bread and pickles that glowed with an artificial green. I’d been eating what S. ate, all organic, no flour or sugar, and it agreed with me, although it left me a little hungry. The BBQ place itself was relatively chemical-free, but its noise and light and loud talking shook me up a bit. Albuquerque’s not pretty or charming – the streets are wide, the exhaust is present, the sun was too bright. I didn’t realize how much I’d quieted down out there at the edge of Santa Fe with little company and not a trace of hustle-bustle.
Their energy, just being normal healthy people, telling stories and jokes, walking into a place without mention of its smells, living without fear of encountering bad air, was a huge relief. It lifted my spirits and I, too, was able to behave like a normal person. In Santa Fe, I'd been acutely aware of the smallest "exposure," the scented candles on the Plaza, a whiff of woodsmoke, a friend's undusted home set off my chemical-antennae and I wanted to flee. Here, I was quickly back to my usual coping: ignoring small exposures, and trying to focus on conversation and being in the world. It's complicated -- how much is "masking," that is, pretending these chemicals are NOT affecting your body systems, and how much is surviving, insisting on being a person despite some symptoms.
From BBQ, we headed for Sandia Peak, one of the mountains that ring the city of Albuquerque, where we rode a cablecar up to the top, traveling 5000 feet up again. It was bone-chillingly cold up there, and the inside observatory was carpeted with something too toxic to ignore. I was happy to pick our way along a trail at the edge of the mountain face, looking down at boulders and across at pines. It was beautiful up there, and the sudden altitude change was my excuse for seeming so discombobulated. We stopped for hot chocolate in a wonderful wood-paneled old-school restaurant on top of the mountain, a ski lodge kind of place with a clock on the wall notifying us of the next cable-car down. I became fixated on the sprinkles on the cocoa, bright red & green, in the shape of Christmas trees.
It was hard not to be shocked at the kinds of things normal people put in their body. Fatty meat raised on a factory farm. Sauce that was mostly corn syrup. Sugary hot water and artificial chocolate. Red & green dyes. It didn’t take long, it looked like, to develop a worldview, where the EI life was “pure” and the real world was corrupt—metaphorically as well as literally polluted.
When I told R & P that I was going to sleep outside in their yard with the camping mat & sleeping bag I always carry, they took it completely in stride. P. even made me up a hot water bottle, which was a nice hot-steam addition before I went to sleep. They are on a busy street, and the car exhaust did make it through the fence, but I woke up refreshed in the morning, having tangled a little with their big black cats in the night. Their acceptance was ideal – that I could be ill, and quirky, but not confined to the company of only those in the same situation. Both of them knew medical crises – R. had had a stroke and P. a horrendous bout of kidney infection. Both of them now lived with chronic conditions, and P. especially, knew there were things you did to take care of it, most of all, accepting your ‘new normal.’ She was inspiring and supportive in a way I had never expected to find in a person who did not have this particular illness. We talked about the psychological legacy of having suffered an illness, or living with a chronic condition; in her case, of coming close to death, and how it makes you different, and how you just have to cope.
I wonder sometimes, not having come close to death, can I really see that? I am constantly switching back, second-guessing my ability to continue on in the normal world. Looking for a reasonable middle path.
There was a piece in the Times today about regret and resilience and how people develop psychological "complexity" in the wake of a lost future that can never materialize the way one planned.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/01/health/research/01mind.html?8dpc=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1199203543-WCkuO7QyVl3O9wmoJWhIiA
How much have I traveled away from regret and towards acceptance? Sometimes it feels like quite a ways; other times, I can do nothing but grieve.
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1 comment:
I'm feeling verbally clumsy as I respond to your eloquent posts, but I still want to reply since so much of what you described stuck chords with me. I too have gone back and forth between being in a cleaner environment and noticing every little thing but feeling more peaceful and rested, and being in a more psychological normal environment with people who are not stressed about being ill while at the same time being less physically healthy due to experiencing more chemicals.
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