INTO THE WOODS

Last night I watched Netflix’s blockbuster Bird Box, the dystopian thriller starring Sandra Bullock as the hero, playing most of the role in a blindfold because whoever looks at “It” is driven to suicide.  She ends up in a cabin in the woods with two little kids, forced to travel downriver – blinded – to survive. 

This morning I arrived here:

This could be bad timing, huh?

I thought it might be “fun” to do a writer’s retreat after New Year’s, hunker down with my novel-in-progress, my journal, and sketchpad and just let that right brain go crazy.  A wild and romantic adventure that most women crave like a drug - 72 hours of uninterrupted peace and quiet in the middle of nowhere.  No hungry husband, angry teenager, or leaky toddler to tend to; no dog to walk or bills to pay. Nothing to do, nowhere to go and here I sit in my big woolen socks, an Eagles’ sweatshirt and flannel pj pants, wondering what the fuck I’ll do for the next three days.

It’s getting dark and the rain has started, tapping then slamming on the cabin’s tin roof.  Why do I do this shit to myself? Why do I keep putting myself on the razor’s edge one way or another, out on a limb, walking the gangplank blindfolded like Bullock’s pitiful character, too scared to open her eyes?  I should be on match.com, finding a male human to cling to, shopping some bogus “profile” to the sad sea of old mostly white guys who are now in my “dating pool,” or at least back home in the comfort of my 400-square foot studio in Seattle, where you can’t turn around without running into a cup of coffee. Comfort and safety, the evil twins of stifled growth and a stale life. 

My fears followed me to this remote cabin in the woods of Camano Island, obnoxious little gremlins that rejoice in making my insides quiver: what if the car breaks down? Really? Two nights and three days alone again? No wireless, nobody cares, nothing to do, a waste of time, what’s coming out of those woods anyway? And so on. People think I’m such a fearless broad but there’s no such thing.  Everybody is afraid of something, lots of things, and up until a few years ago I lived with low level anxiety thrumming like a noisy old heater in my soul, all the damn time.  So, I went down to the basement of my terrified little kid psyche and just blew that sucker up.  Fear just sort of pisses me off now, so I keep throwing myself into it because Philly bravado is good for something.  It’s not all about hurling snowballs at Santa and burning cars during the Super Bowl parade. Sure, that stuff’s fun, but it’s truly just preparation for the Big Show.

One summer my boys and I went to The Grand Tetons – a majestic mountain range whose name loosely translates (as they reminded me constantly) into “Big Breasts.”  We went whitewater rafting on the Snake River in Wyoming, which rages up to Class Five rapids; this loosely translates into “worthy of a pants poop.”  At one point, our relaxed and affable guide, a dude named Jim, sort of leaned back, and stuck in his oars in the water as he squinted into the distance.

“Hey folks,” he said casually, “We’re about to have a character-building experience.”

And up ahead we saw massive dark clouds, pummeling towards us like cosmic bowling balls.  There was nothing to do but enter into it, paddling like our lives depended on it which they did. We slammed into a biblical hailstorm the likes of which I’d never seen in Jersey, of course, with hail the size of rocks coming at us and we, hapless Jedi warriors with oars, exposed on a rubber boat.  It was character-building, alright.  I guess that which doesn’t kill you may not make you stronger but it sure makes you grateful to just survive it.  I like living.

But to be honest, lately I’ve been thinking about gearing down you know? Like what the hell, man, when can I just kick back and enjoy?  One: when I’m completely financially secure, period, which is going to be a while; and Two: maybe never.  I worry/fear that once you sort of fold up your tent and call it a life, decrepitude is waiting to escort you to your wheelchair.  Do I fold up my tent or, like the dying guy in the fabulous parable, just get out of my damn sick self, take up my bed and walk? Yeah, that one.

Another book is percolating in me; it’s called Something for the Pain and it’s set in an ER where people are always crying out for relief from pain. Of course, there’s humor and tragedy in the story but the moral is you can’t escape pain, period.  Drugs, alcohol, meds, sex, Netflix, food…. No escape. I continue to voluntarily place myself in places of “no escape” – like the northeast corner of Glacier National Park or the San Juan Wilderness or a cabin in the woods – so I can practice going through pain rather than running from it.  We try so hard to build our physical muscles while neglecting our psychic ones; I want to keep doing psychic bicep curls and squats, pushing my inner self so that when the shit hits the fan again (spoiler alert: it will), I won’t freeze and panic but stand there on my own two feet and find a way through, like the hailstorm on the Snake. Otherwise I’ll just live in anticipation of bad stuff, watching my life go by, just a passenger on a Greyhound, banishing fears to the basement of my mind where, as mushrooms in the dark, they just get bigger.

This evening I ended up knocking back a glass of red (which is my limit because I’m a tiny lightweight) and singing Tambourine Man with Bob Dylan, full volume.  Whose voice is worse, mine or his? A close call, but I was really just telling that boogieman outside in the hollow wind to go fuck himself or better yet, come on in you rat bastard, and listen to me sing.  That oughta kill ya.  I belt out my favorite part, and wait for fear to dissipate:

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free

Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sand

With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves

Let me forget about today until tomorrow

Guess what? As it turns out, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Shaking loose the right brain, and taking my blindfold off now.