third floor window

i was on my way home tonight in a snowstorm, coming home from a day out with friends. when you come up route 62 out of barre you look right up at the east end of central vermont hospital and you don't notice it so much since the construction but there used to be one window at the end of that third floor hall, looking out over the worcester range.

sometimes you can see someone sitting looking out the window, sometimes not. i used to sit there and look out a lot; it's quiet at the end of the hall, and if you go there with a book, nobody bothers you, even on nights when they should bother you because despite your placid appearance, you're so knotted up inside that you don't think you'll ever be all right again.

it is the window at the end of 3 east, part of the psychiatric unit. i've been up there more than one christmas, more than one new year's eve. thre are few places as desolate as a psychiatric unit on christmas; everyone who can be discharged is, and of those that may not be discharged, every effort is made to send the rest out on pass.

families come to pick up even a lot of the dubious ones.

not me, not then. my family loves me. i was not seen to be a good enough risk to be released, not even for christmas.



i was out today with friends of mine. not out on pass. i haven't been on the inside for a very long time, but it's always possible that my illness will catch me by surprise and i will break apart.

after i had to stop taking that one medication last wednesday, i felt even by thursday that i was losing ability to modulate my moods. it was subtle, but i know the signs. by friday i was significantly more labile, and by saturday i was having full-blown cycles every forty minutes or so.

i am moving freely through the house, happily doing laundry, sliding in my socks on the kitchen floor, on my way to the dishwasher. i am singing and i am getting done what needs to be done.

i am crushed and collapsed, with nothing to do but howl and sob, cry and curse. pray to God for abatement of pain, just get me through until i can stand on my own.

and then in the next hour i am both of these things again.

i have degenerated quickly and if i continue in this fashion, there will be no choice for me.

but it's christmas eve and i have to get showered and dressed and down to the church. i have to remain on my feet long enough to be at that service. it's important.

late in the afternoon i wrote this letter but did not send it:


~~~~~~

friends:

maybe i can tell you this myself, and maybe i can’t; if i try to tell it to you there’s a chance i’ll cry and not be able to stop.

what you need to know is that this is my first christmas since i recognized the presence of God in the universe last July. it means more to me than anything.

i’m going to need your prayers, though. i have suddenly and unexpectedly been put into a time of great difficulty.

i have a very severe form of manic depression; through good mangement and good medication i’m able to live a mostly regular life. wednesday night i had to suddenly stop taking a very powerful and effective drug because i have developed a potentially deadly allergy to it.

it’s a drug that i’ve needed, and it’s the kind of drug you’re supposed to taper off of slowly.

i don’t think i need to tell you that this is bad.

already i know i’m degenerating seriously and i don’t know what’s in store for me. what i do know is that ths time around i’m armed with the sure knowledge that the Love of God will lift me up and give me a solid place to stand.

this time i know i am not alone.

but as surely as i know anything, i know i could use your prayers. i am counting on Faith and God’s Steady Hand to hold me at the center while i face the full fury of the illness.

it’s going to be an interesting position from which to contemplate the Grace of that one small Child, and of Promise and Peace.


promise me that if things go poorly for me that you’ll come and spring me out for church on sunday and for choir practice.


~~~~~

cycling like that takes a lot out of me; it's physically very draining. but i'm also still cycling: i move quickly, nervously. i shift my weight from foot to foot. i talk too fast. and when i'm under great stress, i have a bad stutter.

people who know me but have never seen me under very great stress often laugh the first time they see it; they think it's a joke.

but i know when we begin to sing that i will be able to stand. i will not stutter. somewhere in the song i am still at the center of myself. so i know that where i really belong is in that choir.

the pastor comes to pray with the choir before services; tonight because the house is filling, we are downstairs. she knows immediately what has happened to me, what is happening to me.

she is speaking to the choir, but her hand is on my back. i very much feel that while she is praying with us as a group about our song and this service and this night and its Promise she is also asking for healing for me, to ease my pain, to make me whole.


later on i will have this to say to her:

"at around seven o'clock i was headed very firmly down. i get a good feel for what's coming; living with it all these years has taught me much. it was not going to be an easy, gentle downswing. it was going to be soul-ripping, but i was going to withstand it, maybe even to transcend it because the one conclusion i have come to in these past several months is not that God's healing is the last best hope, the thing on which to fall back; it is the ONLY thing."

but for the moment i have no words; i am barely able to stand. and she looks at me and says almost casually that i should come with her to her office before we go out for the service.

almost casually. when she says it she has almost the look of someone saying "stop by my office and we'll go to lunch", but there is a quiet gravity to it. i would not think to question it; i have felt her hand on me during that prayer with the choir.

i can't tell you exactly what happened there; i don't know. maybe what happened there simply does not fall under the domain of That Which Can Be Explained With Words and therefore is not in any part of my memory that relies on them.

it's possible that i just can't remember. and it's also possible that if i could remember it clearly enough to tell you that maybe i wouldn't, because there are some things that are held so close to the center of me that i won't tell you, not even when i have promised to tell the truth.

i will tell you that i remember looking into her eyes. i remember seeing light. i felt her hand on my head; i can feel the trace of that pattern even now. my whole body felt warm and light and it was alomst as if my pain was lifted while my body settled down, to be closer to Earth.

and i went out to where the choir was waiting. did she bring me out and put me in their hands? maybe.

i wanted to tell them the truth: yes, i am very ill. yes, i'm going to be fine for the service. no, not the kind of illness for which i should stay home; the kind of illness that will be helped and healed through my presence among you, in this place, in this night. no, i don't know what will happen to me.

but i can ask for your prayers. and i can hope.

it's hard for people to understand that most of the time. most people who do understand are unusually gifted with empathy and compassion or unusually burdened with sure knowledge.

i was wiped out after the service. i'd have been fine, but someone gave me a hug when i wasn't expecting it and i lost my balance. i didn't have the equilibrium to recover and i went right down to the floor. and for a moment i didn't have the strength to get up.

how do you explain a thing like that? and i felt fine, too. but then i noticed that if i tried to stand i was awful shaky. i have something of an intentional tremor in my hands; my hands don't shake when they're at rest. but just let me try to eat soup...

and it was kind of like that, only on a larger scale. my body gets weird on me sometimes. i think it just gets tired from all the having to exert control when my mood disorder tries to take over the proceedings.

so i let them get my things and take me home. they were very kind to do it.

i'm still very tired. i still cry easily. but the really astounding thing is that the crash that was coming when Barbara took me to her office never came. i'm fragile and a little depressed, but whole. and holding stable.

i can't quite explain to people what happened. i haven't found a way to tell even those who might understand.

so today i went out with friends. i didn't really want to go. i was unprepared. my gear wasn't organized and packed the way it usually is. i tried to come up with every excuse not to go, but i knew that truthfully the only right thing to do was to go be with friends doing what i love.

i didn't have any of the coordinates entered. i hadn't read any of the descriptions. i was slow on the trail, and fell over more than usual. i was ineffective searching and worse navigating.

my friends did not care. they love me.

all day long my one refrain was "i don't care, as long as i get my eggnog." i love the stratford dairy eggnog, which can only be gotten, as far as i know, and the dairy and at the co-ops in hanover and lebanon.

so everybody had to go with me to the lebanon co-op. lebanon, not hanover, because at lebanon they have the chocolate bar the kind of which i bought one for crashco as a present but then ate it before i had a chance to give it to him, and i wanted to make it up to him.

but they were OUT OF EGGNOG! we asked at the front desk if they could maybe call over to hanover and ask if there was any there. one of the guys opined that since they'd run out at the dairy there was little chance of there being any in hanover.

but they had FIVE HALF GALLONS LEFT!

great! we're coming right over! and i run back to tell everybody we have to leave NOW so we can change venue and get the eggnog.

we come screaming up to the service desk where i announce that we are the eggnog fruitcakes and the nice lady calls for the dairy department to brign out all but the last bottle.

i am happy. everyone tells me the eggnog had better be as good as i say it is.

i can't guarantee anything, but it is eggnog i will drive down from my house to get. i do not live nearby. eighty miles is a long way to go for a bottle of eggnog.

tharagleb and i stop at the Flyingfisher's on our way home; we need a place to change into dry socks and such. i am so very happy to see them and i run right over to Mr. Flyingfisher and throw my arms around him and i think for a moment i'm never going to let go.



and in the car i had a long talk with tharagleb about why i originally didn't want to join choir, and about some other things i don't want to do. i don't think i'm ready to tell you, though. maybe someday. not now.


i slept some on the way, even though the weather was bad and maybe tharagleb could have used the company, but i had more of a drive after we got to his house, and maybe he wanted to let me sleep, hoping i'd be awake for my drive.

and i came up route 62 and there was someone sitting very still in the window on the third floor.

i see you; you are not alone. may your sorrows be lifted. sleep well. i hope you get a respite from your pain. i am thinking of you and i will remember you in my prayers, hold you up in God's light, hope that you will leave there soon and never return. be whole, be well. may God's blessing be upon you. goodnight.