So, I'm finally starting to get back out here and back to the work. I had a huge seizure at the end of March and ended up out of commission for about three weeks. It was scary and difficult, but also very illuminating in so many ways. I feel and broke some bones, but the most important part was what happened to my mind. I had a pretty serious concussion, which, along with the seizure, caused some confusion, memory loss, and trouble with depth perception, spelling, math computation, etc. It was sooo strange. I think everything is mostly back now. But what was so amazing was this process of coming back, and of realizing what was valuable and what was not so valuable about what I lost. I have been thinking of this Elizabeth Bishop poem I love, "The Art of Losing." I think it's actually about attachment and how the narrator is trying to deny her attachments. But there is something about losing it that makes it so much more valuable, in a more tolerable way than if you cling to it.
I was so afraid of losing my mind. Literally. So much of my identity is tied up with my ideas about my intellect. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to teach, and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to make my work any more. But I also had this realization that I still would, regardless, and that there is something else that motivates me. I was very afraid I wouldn't be valuable to anyone anymore. My friends and boyfriend were so amazing in that respect. Actually, I was probably easier to get along with when I didn't have the energy or focus to be telling it to everyone all the time.
So it was pretty educational, I guess, to go through all this in the midst of this piece. I think I've started to understand a little more about what it means to be trapped inside your body or your mind, and how the two are very fluid. And also how lucky I am to be able to make my own schedules, to have my ambitions, to be able to try to be productive. Strange to see that as a luxury, but when you lose it, you appreciate it.
So I missed opening weekend out here because I was recovering from surgery. I missed the NYT, the press preview, open studios, everything. I was lying in bed in Manhattan watching the news show images of Governors Island, and feeling so trapped and frustrated. But it was sort of funny -- a total inversion of what I had planned. And I thought, ah ... I go through all this elaborate trouble to see what it might be like to be sick and confined and then this happens.
It's not the illness that was so bad, it was the possibility of not recovering. When you know you are healing, when you know you can make progress, it's ok. And the resting and separation was important, but isolation would have been the worst. I woke up from the seizure deeply, deeply lonely. It was a real feeling of desolation. I was scared for my body, but I also needed people around me for other reasons. So that made me think about how really awful it must be to be expelled because of illness, to be neglected or just without any people.
I guess in a way my brain is sort of self-taming. It gets pretty hyperactive and then shuts off, which isn't a great process. But it quieted me down enough to realize that I could do a lot more if I really were open to collaboration and exchange. Like, really open, not just from a theoretical relational aesthetics perspective. I think if I could do that, somehow this piece would have something to give.
I'm not totally sure what's next, but I think visiting and talking are the most important things for now. So, that's what I'm going to try to do.
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