trust
Like many clinically anxious people, I've been unnerved by how the realities of "all of this" (I believe that's what we're calling the state of the world these days?) mimics my delusions when I'm at my sickest. My throat insists it can't function, and I struggle to breathe; around me, the world reduces itself to vectors of contagion, people and objects and experiences that might make me sick. I have spent so many hours lying flat on my back talking myself through this scenarios like this one, except all those times I was right when I told myself it's not real, and you're gonna be fine.
Which you would think would make this harder, but weirdly, for me, at least, has made it slightly easier. I have been negotiating between my rational brain and my anxious one for years now, and the anxious one has become more and more pliant, accustomed to accepting that it is not in charge. (This is thanks in large part to the guidance of a therapist and a regular dose of an SSRI.) I know how to decide: these are reasonable precautions, and these are unreasonable ones. This is how you tune in to your body's actual experience, instead of your brain's panicked yelling.
I know how to try, anyway.
Anyway I was thinking about all of this already when I read Jenna Wortham writing, in Vanity Fair, of her isolation rituals, "I’ve been indulging in all my favorite bath products right now—it seems so necessary. I feel at war with my body, and that’s not right. I have to be intentional in how I counteract all the fear of contamination."
You don't have to do it with bath products, but I do think that sentiment is important as we're all trying to stay healthy. It's easy for me to atomize myself-- see how I did it in the paragraphs above, separating myself into two brains and a physical experience, a rowdy crew of sensation that some fourth thing is in charge of wrangling?
And now, in addition to that, we're encouraged now to think of ourselves essentially as contagion vectors: hands, wrists and forearms to be cleaned, and eyes, noses and mouths we can't touch. Whole deal off-limits for almost all outside human contact. My roommate said to me the other day, "I keep taking these long showers, and I realized it's because it's the only place I'm not constantly worried about what I'm touching."
I'm not suggesting we stop taking reasonable precautions, obviously. Maybe even a few unreasonable ones, if they shut your brain the hell up and don't intrude on those around you. But I just-- I don't know. I was walking in the hills the other day and it was a little cold and windy, and I felt my blood warm in my veins, my breath strong in my lungs. I was like, oh, right. Here I am! I described it to T in a text as the sensation of something being knocked back into place.
So many forces in our culture encourage us to alienate ourselves from our bodies: to see them as machines to be fed optimized inputs, or else as pack animals to be put through their paces. I have worked so hard to just, like, live here, and to like it.
In the last few weeks, I feel like I've let too much of that wash away. So that's what I'm working on, in addition to staying healthy, in addition to staying sane. Reminding myself that I'm allowed to live in my body, and not just monitor it. That I can enjoy it, even. That my pleasure is good for me. More than that, that it's just good.
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Related: I wrote something for Healthyish about writing Look and having a body that changes on you, whether you like it or not.
You can also see me talking about the book as part of Belletrist's Virtual Book Tour!
The next few days are thick with virtual events:
Quarantine Book Club, Friday, April 10, 2:00 pm PDT
BookCon's Read-a-Thon, Saturday, April 11, 11:45 am PDT
& I'm doing a panel with Robin Talley and Lindsay Robertson about writing historical and contemporary queer YA as part of Triangle House's Homebound series on Monday, April 13 at 5pm PDT! Watch my socials for a link ;)
I wrote about someone else's book: Emma Hansen's memoir Still. (I also wrote about my friend Allison's experience of stillbirth in 2016, if you're wondering why this was of personal interest to me.)
& the last thing I'll leave you with is something I didn't write. My dear friend Amanda Chicago Lewis talked to Curbed about how a traumatic brain injury has forced her to essentially self-isolate for the last few years, and I loved her thoughtful, practical advice about taking your space seriously. And then, of course, this: 