Sad But Untrue

Suffering School Summer Vacation

Photo by Christian Lambert on Unsplash

This year for my Suffering School summer break my problems and I will be taking separate vacations. You can do this when your problems primarily exist, as mine do, in the non-physical plane. Although mostly invisible, these problems are real. I know them and they know me, they are in my thoughts constantly. The bulk of them owe their existence to me, from my past mistakes, while a few come from outside sources, but it doesn’t really matter since they breed with each other anyway to create new problems for me to worry about. Not content to remain solely in my thoughts they travel throughout the body via the Vagus Nerve, which tells every joint, bone, organ and cell all about this or that problem and warns the body to brace itself for the next big one that is right around the corner. The body responds accordingly to each particular message—depending on what it is--the stomach may feel the gut punch, or the heart the thud, or the joints may freeze. These are a few of the myriad of responses a normal body makes.

Maybe the worst of it is that nobody on the outside can actually see the problems and wouldn’t know what I have lived through because of them—the famines, the storms, the years spent wandering the desert, or when I had a pox on my house. It is even tempting to compare my problems to the problems of others, but we learn early on in Suffering School not to do that. There are many reasons for this, from basic etiquette to not wanting to complicate life, but the main reason is that the comparing our problems to the problems of others involves bad math-- the math that measures each problem, calculates the weight and size and then adds it all up to arrive at the final equation in which a person is reduced to the sum total of their problems. The final answer to this tortured logic is always the same: Problems=Person

But we know, mathematically speaking, that we are irreducible and therefore cannot be reduced to the sum total of our problems. That is why this math is a problem. Because, at its root, a problem is a problem because it is a problem—meaning, it doesn’t respond to normal stimuli. So you can’t apply a technique, or reduce it to a formula. And turns out, you can’t do that to people either.

The better way, the only way, using math that actually works, is poetry, like this from Laura Gilpin:

The Two-Headed Calf

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this

freak of nature, they will wrap his body

in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north

field with his mother. It is a perfect

summer evening: the moon rising over

the orchard, the wind in the grass.

And as he stares into the sky, there

are twice as many stars as usual.

One day, we say to ourselves in Suffering School, we will be able to read this poem and not feel so sad for the calf, because he is alive, and in the north field with his mother, but that has not happened yet.

One of the main problems with problems is they make it hard to enjoy the present because they present themselves inside the body, and as we know, the body keeps the score. Right now the score is pretty high which is why I am taking the summer off. How is this done? It is both easy and hard. The problems must be sent away—away from the thoughts and away from the body. This is hard.

But we go everywhere together! they cried.

And I wanted to cry too, but instead I booked them on a cruise. That was the easy part.

I have never been on a cruise myself but I have heard they are horrible, so that is where I am sending all my problems. Not only will they be going to be out at sea, but their cruise will be a seminar, so they will spend the entire time in windowless, overly air-conditioned conference rooms learning about multi-level marketing opportunities, or MLM’s. This should keep them busy and out of my hair.

The night I booked the cruise I had the anxiety dream that everyone has at least once in their life. I dreamt that I showed in up back at Suffering School just in time for final exams. The exam was on The Lord of the Rings and the answers had to be written in Elvish, which I did not know because I had never read Lord of the Rings, even though I allowed people to think that I had—which is, of course, a problem.

Immediately I panicked, especially with everyone else in the class feverishly writing away because, not only had they read TLOTR multiple times, but they were also fluent in Elvish and could sing all the songs.

I decided to fake it and make up my own words that sounded vaguely Elvish. I’ve done this before when I’ve had to communicate with people who only know Spanish—taking whatever high school Latin I remember to make up some Spanish sounding words. It kind of works.

But I didn’t need to do that because in this dream, unlike normal anxiety dreams, right before the feeling of failure could overwhelm me, I looked down at my desk and saw that I had, without even knowing it, written a lovely poem. When I turned it in to Hopkins, the teacher, I could see the approval in his eyes as he handed it back with a large A+ and a smiley face sticker. He loved it. Which is not surprising because it was exactly like a poem he had written over a hundred years earlier when he had been alive. Blatant plagiarism like this in real life may be cause for alarm, but not according to the laws of my dream. This was not plagiarism at all! It was the highest form of flattery.

When I woke up, the poem didn’t disappear like the other works of art I had created in past dreams, instead it came with me, fully intact, right into the waking hours.

Then I realized that this was not merely a poem, this was an itinerary for my dream vacation which had started the very moment I had booked my problems on the cruise.

My own heart let me more have pity on; let

Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,

Charitable; not live this tormented mind

With this tormented mind tormenting yet.

I cast for comfort I can no more get

By groping round my comfortless, than blind

Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find

Thirst's all-in-all in all a world of wet.

Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise

You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile

Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size

At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile

's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather — as skies

Betweenpie mountains — lights a lovely mile.

While my problems are busy on their vacation casting for comfort in their dark, comfortless, overly-airconditioned conference rooms, freezing their butts off while learning how to ABC, or always-be-closing in a world of wet, I will be, among other activities, calling off thoughts awhile, leaving comfort root-room and letting joy size. Or better yet, letting joy size up, like an order from the MacDonald’s drive through.

Without my Problems around I will finally be able to do something that I always wanted to do but never could: I will spend the day in the present-- smelling roses, drinking sangria in the park, and when it gets dark, chasing lightening bugs or whatever it is that people do in the present. My Vagus nerve can have a quiet day too—traveling around the body— this time with a different message—one that speaks of peace, so that my organs, knowing that there is no imminent threat will be free to relax and tend to their own needs. And the body—well, the body will have the best day of all—once it is finally given freedom to do other things rather than just keeping the score.

Then the day will arrive when my problems will return from their cruise and, with their new marketing skills may even try to recruit a fresh set of difficulties for me. In some way I look forward to their return only so I can resume the ongoing argument I have with them. It keeps me sharp. I, rested and ready, will remind my problems that they are not the boss of me, and that I can—if I want, send them away again, and in doing so return my thoughts to a more innocent state when I was ignorant of them. You can do this too when you understand the true nature of problems—that they may be real but not all of them are true. I learned this on my summer vacation when I was asleep. It’s called infused knowledge and I got it from my anxiety dream:

Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?

A great Shadow has departed, said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count.

I still haven’t read The Lord of the Rings, but I don’t have to to believe that someday all that is sad will become untrue.

Photo by Evgeni Tcherkasski on Unsplash