My apologies for not posting this week... frankly, my thoughts and experiences have been too fragmentary, and too dark, bitter, repetitive, to be worth putting into even this miniature form of public presentation.
Continued rage over promotions, or lack thereof. Anger at students, who are being incredibly dilatory and irresponsible, in a way that feels utterly disrespectful. And every conversation, every contact, seems to include casual comments that glaringly emphasize the pointless and unsuccessful character of my career and activities; even this blog – and I unfortunately notice and remember them all.
Plus a peaking despair over the diffuse stasis of my life: in contrast to the exploding spring (really, up here, it is alternately explosive – green and sunny, plants impatiently pushing out new growth – and grayed out by the too-frequent dull skies, like non-functioning buttons in a computer program), I remain too passive and inert. And, sadly, most of my support systems have vanished – Vanessa is dead, Catherine on an island in the Pacific, and even P. is away living his own life, without any need of me.
I became desperate enough to meet on Friday with Melinda, the psychologist at the HIV clinic, for the first time in a year and a half. She is a remarkable, kind, intelligent and supportive person; as a therapist she tends towards the practical, which makes her input very different from the mystical Jungianisms I enjoyed with Mitch, fifteen years ago. I don't see her often because her schedule is heavily overburdened, and I know she has many more needy patients; and unfortunately, for a long time, our meetings were constantly deflected from my problems to managerial concerns with the HIV patient group (as the group was established under her aegis), so our meetings became more and more businesslike, but less and less what I needed for myself. But it was good to see her again, and without the distraction of group matters; and it was even better that she took my current concerns seriously, making another appointment in two weeks time – and with her schedule that is practically triage.
The past couple of days were also characterized by symptoms, annoying illnesses that came seemingly out of nowhere – twice I burst into sweats, without a temperature; aches in various joints, like my winter arthritis made worse; and fatigue, weakness, even strange bursts of panic that seemed as much neurochemical as psychological. This all had me very nervous until I realized that on Friday the doctor had given me a new medication – a minor one which he said had "no side effects" (hah! – well, lawyers who work for pharmaceutical companies always list every possible side effect, to forestall lawsuits; but doctors pretend there are no side effects, because they're afraid you will imagine that you have them. An old story, and one which often leads to unexpected illness/panic of just this sort). So that's all fading away rapidly; it means this three-day weekend has included no work and no exercise, but at least I know why, and I know it won't get worse.
And also in these two days, several long chains of multi-part dreams: characterized by going back to earlier parts of my life (one the University of Virginia, where I went to college in the mid-1970s, and which I've only revisited once; the other my beloved San Francisco, especially of course the Castro area), as well as by finding and losing precious things, and by landscapes that seem strangely distorted and blasted by time and disaster, yet which open out into spaces that show new life.
However, above all, these dreams are full of friendly people: even in the parts of these dreams that are full of broken objects and dead foliage, everyone in them seems happy to see me, wanting to be helpful, kind and caring.
Strange, and suggestive: that in the midst of death, absence, loss, disintegration; and in contrast to a real world that seems empty of connection or support; that these dream figures are so, well, 'there' for me....
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