Enter label: hanging out under tension

corn maze, car crash, changing mottos

Dear Companions,

Last Sunday, after a couple of not-so-great days (thanks to swimming or something), I made it out to Hanks Pumpkintown in Water Mill with family visiting from Israel. I organized the outing, serving as lead coordinator for three adults and three kids, in three different languages: Russian, Hebrew, and English. Unimaginable a year ago, certainly. Sure, my cousin jabbed at me—claimed my illness was because I don’t like people—but he still made the trek to LI after a long flight. All that matters. And anyway, maybe he’s right. How can I not help but smirk when someone says something like that to me. They are trying to describe an entire stain glassed window by just one shard. I could hardly explain it to them, unless they were in these

Away Messages

. I smiled, and we began hanging out under tension.

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Corn Maze

After apple picking a bag full and talking politics in a line of little trees, we casually wandered into the corn maze, unaware it stretched two miles in both directions. I had no idea that these things existed, except to the extent that occasionally, online, I’d see a kid get lost and found in one by drone and wonder how that could happen. Now I understand.

We didn’t notice the utter lack of signs or directions inside; one doesn’t expect that in American culture where exit signs light up bathrooms and movie theaters. We did not know that you could load a map on your phone (though, as it turned out, even those with maps were just as lost). We used our gut, sense of sound, to find the right direction, only to be thrown off by a twist or turn that made us return to the same spot. Then, as though by immaculate conception, everyone realized—we were lost.

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My cousin, a former tank commander, assured us that this was no different from his military training, where he had to navigate with only a glance at a map. He took the lead, and we shuffled behind him, trying to make sense of the endless corn. The kids got frantic, but they didn’t cry. I have a picture of them hugging each other, and I thought: If you're going to have family visit once every five years, and you want the kids to bond despite not speaking the same language, this was the way to do it. As L put it, we were "hanging out under tension” which for him was preferred over meeting for lunch.

I, on the other hand, struggled. After another 30 minutes passed, the maze felt like it was closing in on me. I’d slump down to catch my breath, feeling claustrophobic and dizzy. I half considered calling for help, but then my phone died. My neck flared up with pain as I carried my daughter when she was scared. The more we tried, the more we seemed to get deeper, until eventually we could hardly hear the sounds from Hanks at all.

After over an hour out there, we dropped ego, stopped other groups, took photos of their maps, and pieced together a thread of logic that led us out. Another 30 minutes later of dead ends and circles, we figured it out. We laughed having to admit to other people that we were genuinely lost. Back at the entrance, we jokingly warned to others not to go in. One man immediately turned around.

Car crashing into house fence

The next day, a loud boom shook my house just as I was preparing to leave. I ran outside to find a car lodged in my front yard gate, having ripped out several large trees. Two people stumbled out, unharmed but visibly shaken. They muttered that I call 911. As I dealt with the police and the aftermath, I noticed my neck pain didn’t worsen as it normally would—it dissolved. While my instant reaction could have had more empathy, I took down the police report, spoke with the son of the victim to make sure everyone was OK, and afterward baked my first disaster of an apple pie with the 30 apples from Hanks. I went to bed with only two Tylenols. Just two! A couple days later I was hit with the aftermath, but what matter most to me was that I made it through, reliably (sort of), and still attended my water aerobics at the Y two days later!

Healingvrse milestone

#655 I can not only go into a maze but get lost in it.

#656 I can witness a crash without becoming the crash.

Here’s what I took away from these events:

I had lost the feel for just how unpredictable the outside world is. Sickness is scary but it has its routines, its cycles. To avoid madness, I recommend solace in a sea of writing. Inspiration tore open the walls, as they had done for so many others before me—Frida Kahlo, Nietzche, Renoir and Proust. Even with the best of intentions, a protracted illness makes the outside world larger than life—not simply because it can induce symptoms or fear, but because of its sheer indifference.

Getting lost in a maze, followed by a car crash at my gate in quick succession, reminded me how suddenly things can change as soon as you step out. Right at your door, lies the world. The outside world has its own rules, its own pacing—indifferent to us. Had I always lived with this exposure? How many thousand times had events like these happened in my life? How many times had I ignored or failed to respect the utter power of existence? It’s not just nature we must be in awe of, nor the seductive qualities of flow, but existence.

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To those who are in a weaker frame, trying to remerge, here is what I would offer:

The best way to bring some control to the chaos is by connecting it to the inner world you’ve been cultivating. This is where all that Healingvrse work comes in handy.

In a way, I brought my inner "Observer" out with me—like a cat on a leash. All these events were happening, but I experienced them at a slight distance. Not enough to be unaffected, certainly, but enough to keep my nervous system in check, my glucose stable, my heart rate steady. I was writing the events, recording them in my mind, and guiding myself, as they happened. My autonomic system isn’t perfect yet, but empowered by the Observer, it seems more resilient. In the words of Aldous Huxley:

It’s dark because you are trying too hard.

Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.

Of course, this merely reflects the strength I’ve been accruing. Why my body can do one thing, but not the other, and how it sorts out what is over the line and what is acceptable, still remains a mystery to me. Actually, the body operates at times, with its own indifference. But you gain confidence slowly.

I’ve come to understand that in the Healingvrse, strength is the first and primary milestone—something to respect, something to fight for, something that takes enormous effort to regain, before striving to win the lottery of getting symptom-free.

In the early days, my motto was from Shakespeare's Macbeth:

Come what come may,

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Now, I can find myself repeating something new—something from my own mind, something I say every time I act, even if it reverberates through my body and leaves me facing a wall. It’s more of a feeling than a motto. I use it to drive expansion of territory, in a war of attrition.

Strength before fortune.

I guess I wish that to everyone.

With much love from the Healingvrse,

Rebecca

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Look back: