Catapult Down
On friendship and the evolution of learning to love myself
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My current bedtime read is Broken (In the best possible way) by Jenny Lawson. Jenny is an author with an uncanny knack for using humor to describe her experience of living with multiple disabilities and chronic illnesses in a way that allows most people to identify with some part of what she shares no matter how trivial, and enjoy the healing release of connection and laughter that it brings.
One review I came across online described Jenny as being the unofficial den mother of misfits. Fitting. For myself, I find relief in knowing I’m not alone in my quirks and hangups. In the way that I often find life lessons in metaphor while buttering a slice of toast or watching an injured cricket crawl across the kitchen floor. And the enlightening feeling of self-revelation when reading someone else’s words on a page.
In Broken, Jenny shares about her struggles with Agoraphobia when she’s in the midst of debilitating depression. Describing in one essay how her success as an author has brought opportunities to travel all over the world on promotional book tours, yet she’s not been able to explore much during her travels. How she often feels trapped in her hotel room by the irrational fears brought on by the depressive agoraphobia.
During one such trip to New York, Jenny describes standing in the open door of her hotel room, dressed and longing to go explore the sights, but she can’t get her feet to cross that threshold. Standing in her room in the midst of that internal battle, she looks out the window imagining all of the exciting things she is missing when she notices a fountain in the park below. The spray of the water resembles the fullest puff ball of a dandelion ready to release its seed and in that exact moment the light shifts and she is treated to the most spectacular rainbow light show, a moving cascading fire of color that takes her breath away.
As I read, I feel a niggling tugging at my memory, like deja vu, I know I’d heard this before. I flash back to a podcast where she shared the same story, and then suddenly I flash back again, this time it is me at one teaching location or another, stressed out with anxiety over my desire to go out and explore, and the irrational fear keeping me grounded to my room.
I never understood it and found myself glossing over these experiences when asked what I thought of whatever location I had just come back from, being too ashamed to admit that I never left the hotel other than for the days teaching, even bringing dinner back with me to eat alone in the privacy of my room.
Reflecting on this, I remembered there were times when I did manage to go out and do fun things. Those times I was simply not feeling bound up, and let myself be adventurous and explore. There was the time I was alone in Seattle for three days and walked for miles exploring shops and restaurants at my leisure. And the other time, I walked down the road to a hidden cove on the shores of Bainbridge Island when I had a week to kill between workshops and then later let myself wander through the shops and museums in the quaint downtown area while I was there.
But those times were the exception for me, the rare times when I was not in the grip of chronic anxiety. Indeed, I’m in the midst of this kind of crippling anxiety season right now and can’t even bring myself to sit outside on my own deck some days, opting instead to gaze longingly through the kitchen slider as if it is an impenetrable wall with no way to through.
Jenny closes her essay with a tone of deep appreciation for the way her limitations have helped her to see from a vantage point that most people will never experience. And I’m once again taken on a journey to the past in my mind.
Now I’m standing in the doorway of my hotel room looking at the expanse of red rocks at daybreak in Sedona the day after a workshop ended, getting ready to head out on an early morning excursion for a hot air balloon ride. Remembering the day spent in Jerome exploring shops and galleries, and the gentle afternoon hike through one of the National Forests.
Suddenly memories are coming in a flash, catching glimpses as if a sliding door opening on a train. I’m lying in the sand on the beach in Honolulu. I’m buying sunflowers in Pikes Market. I’m wandering through a series of antique markets in abandoned warehouses in Kansas City. I’m getting a massage at a resort, and again in a small health boutique. I’m dancing with abandon around a bon fire. I’m laughing so hard at the silliest of things that my sides feel as if they’ll split wide open. I’m breathing in deep after holding my breath for so long.
Jen Hatmaker once wrote about how female elephants form a circle around one of their own at the moment it’s about to give birth. These fierce and magnificent creatures stamp their hooves and kick up the dirt and make noise, closing ranks around the vulnerable one in order to protect her from predators. When she is done giving birth, they all throw up their heads trumpeting in celebration.
Yesterday as I stood in the living room gazing out at my back deck once again with longing, my eyes shifted to see the tiny elephant toy I’d recently placed in the windowsill. I chuckle as my memory is once again jogged. This time of playing a treasure hunting game with my other granddaughter, Violet. I pulled the elephant card and we searched high and low and didn’t find any in the playroom, so we both agreed to pull another card. Later when the game was done I noticed a fat floppy stuffed elephant sitting in a chair at the play table, and then I found another one stamped on a block, and another plastic one laying on the floor. Suddenly my eyes were opened to the wide variety of elephant toys and books right there under my nose.
In the same way, my eyes are opened to the number of friends who have walked beside me over the years and the number of times I did something outside of my comfort zone simply by being in their presence.
That cascade of sliding door memories of the experiences I would not have, if not for the company of a friend. Another woman standing by my side, not judging my tendency to be a recluse, or scoffing at the myriad of health restrictions to consider. Not trying to fix my defects or exhaust themselves treating me as a special project to bolster their own need to be a savior in somebody else’s story. They simply walked along side me, enjoying the experience too. Reveling in the freedom of it with me. Laughing at the weirdness and quirks of our age, and our brains, and our unique collection of traumas and illnesses, without a hint of pity, even when I was at my worst. Even if it meant they had to catapult down to reach me.
As I wrap up this post and try to think of the exact right words to say about these friendships, I come across an essay making the rounds on social media by a woman named Keri Grote, written before she passed from cancer:
“Single and childless when I was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, I looked around my life and came up sputtering and sobbing from the wave of grief washed over me. I thought I’d be doing this alone… no husband, no kids, no “great love.”
How wrong I was. At the first appointment with my neuro oncologists, one of the nurses diligently hauled in chair after chair for the great loves of my life who came with me that horrible day and many days after that.
I sat and listened while the doctor explained the 12-month treatment plan, focusing on my breathing, then looked around the room…. filled with great loves of my life: incredible women friends whom I had met at various stages of my life.
Surround yourself with people who contradict that unkind voice, people who see your light, and remind you who you are: an amazing soul.
Learn how to receive these reflections from your people. Because they are speaking the Truth.
Love yourself, no matter how weird and silly it might feel. Every morning, give yourself a hug before your feet hit the floor. Look deeply into your eyes in a mirror.
Say to yourself, out loud, “I trust you.” That voice in your head might say you’re a dork. Ignore it.”
I once again find myself in a place of vulnerable need. Being in transition from how life was as a traveling teaching artist, to what I had planned to do to manage my career in the face of ongoing chronic illness and the Autistic diagnosis that came as a result of being in the midst of Autistic Burnout, to coming to the end of my own ability to push through after living in survival mode for much of the past three years. It is with no small amount of trepidation that I share this with you, but I am bolstered by the image of stamping of those elephant feet and the metaphorical cloud of dust that surrounds me as those who have walked along side me through much of it are now have created a fundraiser to assist me. Closing ranks at my most vulnerable moments, trumpets ready to celebrate at the moment of new birth.
This is not a typical donation only based fundraiser, but includes some outstanding art and opportunities that have been donated by a tribe of internationally recognized artists for raffle and sale. With no pressure or expectation to respond, if you should feel so led, go to this link for more information.
With so much love and gratitude,
Crystal Marie
i love your story of the elephants gathering in a circle to protect the mother and baby. While reading a book about wagon trains crossing into Oregon, the author describes how the women would form a circle with their backs facing the center, skirts spread wide to form a privacy screen for women, who one by one, entered to void their bladders. Women tending to women! so powerful!